...will he ever win?
The Document Foundation (TDF) announced plans last year to create mobile and cloud versions of LibreOffice. A preliminary iOS porting effort that was undertaken earlier in 2011 demonstrated the viability of the project and showed that the open source office suite could have a future beyond the desktop.
In a presentation this week at the FOSDEM conference, SUSE developer Michael Meeks shed some light on the current status of the porting project. The presentation slides, which he published on his blog, offer insight into some of the underlying technical details and the rationale for some of the high-level design decisions.
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February 07, 2012 01:30 AM
Jonathan Riddell, the lead developer of the Kubuntu project, announced today that his work on the KDE-based Ubuntu variant will no longer be funded by Canonical after the upcoming 12.04 release. Kubuntu will be developed entirely by volunteers, much like other community-maintained variants of Ubuntu.
Riddell will continue to be employed by Canonical, but working on Kubuntu will be confined to his free time. In order for the Kubuntu project to continue operating, Riddell says that community members will have to take a more active role in doing unpopular tasks such as ISO testing.
"The practical changes are I won't be able to work on KDE bits in my work time after 12.04 and there won't be paid support for versions after 12.04," he wrote. "This is a rational business decision, Kubuntu has not been a business success after 7 years of trying, and it is unrealistic to expect it to continue to have financial resources put into it."
Riddell and the Kubuntu team have done extraordinary work over the years to make Kubuntu a competitive Linux distribution. The quality and maturity of the distro have risen sharply over the past few years—it now rivals the best KDE distributions and has displaced openSUSE as our preferred environment for KDE testing. Although Kubuntu has managed to attract an audience, it has never been a commercially successful product for Canonical.
KDE's underlying Qt toolkit was recently added to the default Ubuntu installation. There are a lot of areas where Qt's integration with the rest of the Ubuntu environment could potentially be improved. It makes sense for Canonical to work on making Qt a first-class citizen in Ubuntu rather than funding a KDE variant of the distribution.
Kubuntu users who want to join the development effort and participate in testing and maintaining the distribution can learn more about how to get involved at the project's website.
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February 07, 2012 01:18 AM
Every three years, the Copyright Office reviews requests for exemptions to the "anti-circumvention" rules in the DMCA. EFF has successfully lobbied for a number of exemptions in the past, and we're working to renew and expand those exemptions now. You can get behind our efforts by signing on today to letters of support: the filmmaker Kirby Ferguson is telling the Copyright Office why video ripping is so important to filmmakers and video artists, and the game system hacker bunnie Huang is addressing why we need to keep jailbreaking legal for all devices.
If you still aren't sure why jailbreaking is important, one prime example of the problem is the Sony PlayStation 3. That game system initially shipped with the ability to install Linux and other Unix derivatives. As a result, not only did hobbyists use PS3s as homebrew computers, but Unix-based PS3s were also linked in labs to make affordable supercomputers.
However, in April 2010, Sony’s mandatory firmware update -- version 3.21 -- removed the ability to install "Other OS" -- meaning no more Linux on your PlayStation. To add legal muscle to its firmware, Sony sued several security researchers for publishing information about security holes that would allow users to run Linux on their machines again. Claiming that the research violated the DMCA, Sony asked the court to impound all "circumvention devices" -- which it defines to include not only the defendants' computers, but also all "instructions," i.e., their research and findings.
This means you can set your PlayStation on fire, but you can’t run Linux on hardware you own. To illustrate how ludicrous this is, we made a video illustrating what an owner can do with a PlayStation -- and what Sony contends they can’t.
Help us legalize Linux on the PS3, and protect innovative uses of personal devices by signing on to bunnie's letter to the Copyright Office or by submitting your own comment today.
February 07, 2012 12:49 AM
February 06, 2012
There’s one thing that everyone should have on their person when they venture off on solo outdoor activities – their I.D. That way, should they end up injured and unable to communicate, first responders will know who they are, and who to contact. While the various cards kept in one’s wallet are a good form of identification, a lot of people don’t want to lug a bulky wallet around in their pocket while doing things like running or rock-climbing. That’s where the VITAband comes in. Not only does the waterproof bracelet provide a link to its wearer’s full Emergency Response Profile, but it also allows them to make cash-free purchases...
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VITAband is a cash/I.D. combo you wear on your wristSection: OutdoorsTags: Bracelet,
Credit Card,
Emergencies,
Identification,
Payment Technology,
Visa
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February 06, 2012 11:33 PM
A Miami journalist has recovered video of police officers arresting him after it was deleted from his camera. The man was covering a police effort to evict Occupy Miami protestors. He plans to file a complaint with the police department and with the United States Department of Justice.
On January 31, Miami police evicted Occupy Miami protesters from their downtown campsite. On hand to cover the action was photojournalist Carlos Miller. Along with protestors and other journalists, he was pushed down the street by a line of police in riot gear. He tried to circle around the block to return to his car, but he found his path blocked by a second line of police officers.
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February 06, 2012 10:50 PM
The website of a law firm that represented a US Marine accused of leading a massacre that killed 24 Iraqi civilians remained inaccessible on Monday, three days after hackers with Anonymous took credit for an attack that compromised the site and exposed almost 3GB of confidential e-mails.
The breach of Puckett & Faraj came to light on Friday when Russian news site RT.com reported it was defaced to protest the firm's successful defense of Marine Sgt. Frank Wuterich. He was recently convicted on reduced charges of dereliction of duty in what was once a manslaughter case involving the death of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq.
"As part of our ongoing efforts to expose the corruption of the court systems and the brutality of US imperialism, we want to bring attention to USMC Sgt. Frank Wuterich who along with his squad murdered dozens of unarmed civilians during the Iraqi Occupation," a message left on the firm's vandalized homepage read. "Can you believe this scumbag had his charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter and got away with only a pay cut?"
Anonymous members claimed to have retrieved gigabytes worth of confidential e-mails sent by the firm's employees, and as proof, they posted messages online that purportedly came from employees responding to their discovery of the breach.
"This may completely destroy the Law Firm," an employee named Marcy Atwood wrote in an email.
It has been a busy few days for hackers affiliated with Anonymous. Recently, hundreds of law enforcement officers in Texas saw their names and addresses published. And websites for police in Salt Lake City and Boston have been defaced. A conference call between FBI agents and their counterparts in the UK was also leaked late last week.
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February 06, 2012 10:26 PM
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are definitely a handy way of
tracking shipments. Instead of simply crossing their fingers and hoping for the best, importers and exporters can check the location and condition of shipped items in real time, by remotely accessing the data being transmitted by RFID tags attached to those items. Unfortunately, many such tags don't work on metal objects such as shipping containers or oil drums, as the metal interferes with the functioning of the tags' antennas. A new tag developed at North Dakota State University gets around that limitation, however - it uses the metal object
as its antenna.
..
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Antenna-less RFID tags designed to work where others don't – on metal objectsSection: ElectronicsTags: North Dakota State University,
RFID,
Shipping,
Tracking
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February 06, 2012 10:13 PM
Apple continues to hold the title for some of the top-selling smartphone models, with the iPhone 4S being the best selling handset in the US last quarter, according to a new report by market research firm NPD. But while the iPhone has repeatedly made Apple the top smartphone vendor in the US, Android still appears to be attracting more new users.
Apple had three iPhone models available for sale in the fourth quarter of 2011: the just-released iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, which Apple continues to sell as a lower-cost entry-level model, and the nearly three-year-old iPhone 3GS, which AT&T still offers as essentially a $0 bargain smartphone. Collectively, all iPhones sold accounted for 43 percent of smartphone sales in the US for the quarter.
According to NPD analyst Ross Rubin, Apple sold nearly two iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 4 sold, and five iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 3GS sold. And despite the large disparity in numbers, the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS ended up being the top three smartphones sold in the US.
But even with the top Android smartphone (Samsung Galaxy SII) being outsold more than five to one in the US, Android handsets in aggregate still accounted for 48 percent of US smartphone sales last quarter, accord to NPD's data. Perhaps more alarming for Apple, users buying their first smartphones chose an Android device 57 percent of the time, and an iOS device just 34 percent of the time.
While Android has been criticized for its platform fragmentation and the complexity it presents to users, the platform's wide carrier support, growing app selection, and variety of models available from several vendors attracts a generally wider audience. Particularly in the US, Rubin noted, Android is the only choice for users who want to take advantage of LTE networks from Verizon and AT&T or Sprint's WiMAX network.
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February 06, 2012 10:05 PM
Around this time last year, [KopfKopfKopfAffe] was enlisted as a set designer and was told to build some sort of light effects for electronic music parties. The budget for the project wasn’t much at 200 Euros, but he did manage to build decent 5×5 RGB LED matrix that is fully controllable by a computer.
[KopfKopfKopfAffe] didn’t have the time or money to wait for manufactured PCBs, so a bunch of perfboard was placed in a CNC mill with a pen to act as a plotter. All the lines that needed soldered were drawn on by the mill, a feat that probably saved hours of looking at the design before committing solder to iron.
A total of five boards were constructed, each one capable of controlling five RGB LEDs. Each board can be dasiy-chained with an RS-232 serial connection for further expansion. The only thing that’s needed to control the matrix is 17 bits that includes an address and RGB color data for each LED. The system only cost about 10 Euros per node, but we think that could be significantly reduced by leaving out the Molex and DB-9 connectors. [Kopf] project turned out very nice, check it out after the break.
Filed under:
led hacks 
February 06, 2012 09:49 PM
While DRM schemes are designed to make sure only legitimate purchasers can play a game, the opposite will be true starting tomorrow for some Ubisoft titles. That's when a planned server migration will temporarily disable the DRM servers for some of the company's Mac and PC titles, making it so only pirates with cracked, DRM-free versions of the games will be able to play.
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February 06, 2012 09:22 PM
