Light bulbs used in Times Square New Year’s Eve ball to be listed on Ebay to benefit the Red Cross

Still on the Times Square New Year's ball...

Marking the switch from traditional lighting to advanced, environmentally responsible solid-state lighting (SSL), Royal Philips Electronic will usher in 2006 by sponsoring a charity auction of the light bulbs used to illuminate the New Year’s Eve Ball above Times Square. All proceeds will benefit the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. The charity auction, part of the company’s “Next Year is brought to you by Philips” advertising campaign, will take place from Dec. 30, 2005 to Jan. 6, 2006. Consumers can place bids at www.philips.com/newyears.

For the past five years, Philips has been supplying the light bulbs for the Waterford Crystal Ball. Philips Halogena Brilliant Crystal light bulbs, exclusively engineered for the New Year’s Eve Ball, illuminate the exterior. The interior of the ball is lit by several colors of Philips bulbs, including clear, red, blue, green and yellow, along with high-intensity strobe lights. All listed bulbs will be authenticated with a production number etched in the bulb and will be shipped to the winning bidders with an accompanying letter of certification. [Philips]

Times Square ball to switch to LED

Beginning in December 2006, Philips will light the Times Square New Year’s Ball with solid-state or LEDs.

For the New Year Eve 2006/07 celebration, lighting giant Philips Electronics will outfit the ball with an interior of more efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs). By 2007/08, the entire sphere will be redesigned and completely illuminated by LEDs, making it an even brighter and sparklier beacon for the throngs in Times Square and the millions of TV viewers around the globe.

"We think it is fitting to bring the best and brightest technology to the New Year's ball," said Govi Rao, vice president and general manager of solid-state lighting at Philips North America. [MSNBC]

GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest Winner Announced

The winner of the GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest is Dialed In, a submission by ix. You can check the splash screen here. You can view all the submissions here. The splash screen will be the the splash screen of the 2.2.10 anniversary release:

Opera Software chooses Google as search partner

Norwegian Opera Software has agreed that Google Inc. will be the default partner for its mobile Internet browsers, Opera said on Thursday.

"Google will be the default search partner for the mobile browsers: Opera Mobile and Opera Mini," Opera Software ASA said in a statement. "Under the one-year contract, Opera will make Google Search a major part of the browsers home screen."

Oslo-based Opera Software is a tiny competitor of Microsoft in the Internet browser market, but the fast-growing part of its business is in browsers for mobile phones and other mobile electronic devices. [Reuters]

SRS Labs Intros WOW HD at CES 2006

Analog Devices' SigmaDSP is the First WOW HD Television and Consumer Electronics Audio Processor

SRS Labs, Inc. a leading provider of audio technology solutions, announced today that the new SRS WOW(TM) HD audio enhancement technology for televisions and consumer electronics products will debut at the International Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") from January 5-8th at the Las Vegas Convention Center in room N-218. SRS WOW HD provides consumers, for the first time, the ability to adjust the mix of the phantom center image relative to the background audio. Consumers can now easily position the dialog and vocals to their taste and playback environment. It also features high definition audio enhancement for added clarity of high frequency content along with advanced bass processing for superior low frequency sound quality. SRS Labs will be
demonstrating WOW HD on Analog Devices' SigmaDSP(R) audio processors at CES. [prnewswire]

Pioneer To Release Blu-ray Disc Computer Drive

Another Blu-ray news...

Pioneer Electronics plans to ship in the first quarter of next year a Blu-ray Disc computer drive for storing high-definition video content.

The Pioneer BDR-101A is the company's first optical disc drive launched in the midst of an industry split over future standards for high-definition storage discs. Dell, Apple Computer and Pioneer are the heavyweights supporting Blu-ray, while Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba and NEC back the HD DVD standard.

The BDR-101A will read standard DVDs, as well as Blu-ray discs. [Techweb]

BluRay Region Coding Announced

Japanese IT Media has announced some details on the Blu-Ray region coding and it holds a nice surprise. Japan, North America, and East Asia will all be sharing one region code.

This potentially means that American gamers will be able to import Japanese PS3 Blu-Ray games, and will definately be able to import Japanese Blu-Ray Anime/Movie titles without any hassle. Europe unfortunately will be sharing a region code with Africa.

The new region codes are:
* Region 1: North America, South America, East Asia except for China (India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia etc.)
* Region 2: Europe and Africa
* Region 3: China, Russia and other countries

[cdrinfo]

GALILEO - European Satellite Navigation System

The first experimental satellite, part of the so-called Galileo System Test Bed (GSTB) will be launched on 28 December, a second platform will follow in the New Year.

Galileo will be Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. It will be inter-operable with GPS and GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems.

The fully deployed Galileo system consists of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares), positioned in three circular Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) planes in 23616 km altitude above the Earth, and at an inclination of the orbital planes of 56 degrees with reference to the equatorial plane. [ESA]

'Mother of All Bombs' Designer Dies at 67

Albert L. Weimorts Jr., a civilian engineer for the Air Force whose designs included a satellite-guided weapon known as the "mother of all bombs," has died.

The Air Force Research Laboratory honored Weimorts after he retired in 2003 for his role in developing two powerful bombs as chief engineer for the lab's Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base.

One was the 5,000-pound GBU-28 "Bunker Buster," created and deployed in a record-setting 28 days to target fortified bunkers during the first Gulf War.

The other was the 21,500-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast, the largest satellite-guided, air-delivered weapon in history and nicknamed the "mother of all bombs." It was developed for the second Iraq war, but never used. [Yahoo]

Grapefruit 'may cut gum disease'

Lately, grapefruit is emerging as a health food where from a study says that it can help loss weight, heal stomach ulcers and the latest 'may cut gum disease'.

Eating grapefruit could help fight gum disease, a study suggests.

Researchers found people with gum disease who ate two grapefruits a day for a fortnight showed significantly less bleeding from the gums.

They believe this is due to an increase in blood levels of vitamin C, known to promote wound healing and cut damage by unstable free radical molecules. [BBC]

NORAD marks 50 years of tracking Santa

Web site had 912 million hits last year

For half a century, the military agency dedicated to detecting threats against the United States and Canada has reported Santa's sleigh ride to curious youngsters around the world.

According to NORAD lore, the tradition began in 1955 when Sears-Roebuck placed an ad in The Gazette in Colorado Springs telling kids to dial a number if they wanted to talk to Santa.

But the number was one digit off. When the first call came to NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command, Col. Harry Shoup told an eager child he would check the radars for Santa. [CNN]

U.S. Naval Observatory to Add Leap Second to Clocks

On December 31, 2005 a “leap second” will be added to the world’s clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This corresponds to 6:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time, when the extra second will be inserted at the U.S. Naval Observatory. This marks the 23rd leap second to be added to UTC, a uniform time-scale kept by atomic clocks around the world. Although you normally don’t think about it, for most conventional uses the “civil” time you use is based on UTC. At the U.S. Naval Observatory, time is determined by averaging the time signals from cesium beam atomic clocks and hydrogen masers (the last being an improvement over the tried and true cesium clocks for short periods of time). [USNO]

The future of OS/2 - Open source or not?

I have tried installing OS/2 on my computer when I was trying and discovering the different operating system available and it was a success..but it did not last long and I replace it with linux.

Yesterday saw IBM cease the sale of the OS/2 Operating system. Come the 31st of December, standard support for the OS will end also. However, a significant number of companies and people continue to use it, and they are finding ways for OS/2 to live on.

Back in April of this year, OS/2 website OS2 World started a petition. It's aim was to get IBM to release OS/2 as an open source piece of software, so that existing users could continue to use and develop it, should they wish. In November, after nearly twelve thousand signatures had been collected, the petition was sent to IBM's CEO, Sam Palmisano. As of yet there has been no response from IBM. [HEXUS.net]

Pooh celebrates his 80th birthday

Winnie the Pooh, one of my favorite cartoon character is turning 80..

Winnie the Pooh, one of the world's best loved characters, is celebrating his 80th birthday.

Pooh - based on the bedtime stories by Alan Alexander (AA) Milne - first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve 1925 in a story called The Wrong Sort of Bees.

The honey-loving bear's many adventures - along with his friends Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore - have since been translated into more than 40 languages. [BBC]

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Holidays, and for those that celebrate tomorrow as I do, a very

Merry Christmas!

NetBSD 3.0 released

NetBSD 3.0 the eleventh major release of the NetBSD operating system, has been released with binary distributions for 53 architectures.

NetBSD 3.0 continues our long tradition with major improvements in file system and memory management performance, major security enhancements, and support for new platforms and peripherals.

NetBSD 3.0 now features PAM (OpenPAM), TCP SACK, TCP MD5, pf(4), IPsec ESP/IKE over NAT, IPv4 PIM, tap(4) and much more hardware support than before.

Detailed info about the release here:

Real-time texting for deaf people

Software has been developed which enables deaf people to have real-time text conversations using a mobile phone.

But the charity that has created the service says some mobile operators have yet to fulfil a legal obligation to make their services accessible.

The Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) says only Vodafone has a relay service that uses the technology. [BBC]

Google’s founders named Men of the Year - FT

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are on Friday named as Men of the Year by the Financial Times, harbour hopes that reach well beyond their search engine business to “make the world a better place”, a promise made at the time of Google’s initial public offering last year.

The Men of the Year recognition reflects the effect the company created by Mr Brin and Mr Page only seven years ago has had on internet users, as well as the worlds of business and technology, in the past 12 months.[FT]

X11R6.9 and X11R7.0 Officially Released

Landmark version X11R7.0 released today with X11R6.9 by the X.Org Foundation

The first major version release of the X Window System in more than a decade, X11R7.0 is the first release of the complete modularized and autotooled source code base for the X Window System. X11R6.9, its companion release, contains identical features, and uses the exact same source code as X11R7.0, but with the traditional imake build system.

Announcement here:

Singapore introduces two-dollar plastic notes

More Singapore money is going plastic.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the central bank, said that two-dollar polymer, or plastic, notes will be issued from January 12.

Their introduction comes after the first batch of 10-dollar plastic notes began circulating in May last year.

Since the introduction of polymer notes last year, Singapore has joined countries including Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia which already use plastic money.
[Yahoo News]

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 RC2 Available

Scott McGregor writes: "The second release candidate of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 is now available for download. Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 RC2 is intended to allow testers to ensure that there are no last-minute problems with the Thunderbird 1.5 code. "

"RC2 contains several key bug fixes that were identified during the RC1 testing cycle. There are no new features or enchancements from RC1. Users of Thunderbird 1.5 RC1 will be offered RC 2 through the software update system."

Release notes here:
Download here:

Canada adopts cell-number portability

Canadian regulators this week determined that wireless companies must implement number portability by March of 2007.

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission said March 14, 2007, was the earliest feasible date for wide-scale portability that allows wireless customers to keep their cell-phone numbers when they change providers.[UPI]

DTS to Demo DTS-HD Master Audio At CES 2006

First Public Demonstration Of High Definition Video Content Played With 7.1 Channels Of High Definition Audio

At the 2006 CES (Consumer Electronics Show), DTS, Inc. will premiere DTS-HD Master Audio, the company’s high definition surround sound solution for next generation high definition media. This marks the first public demonstration of high definition video content shown in conjunction with 7.1 discrete channels of surround sound that is bit-for-bit identical to the master soundtrack. Previously announced as DTS-HD, DTS-HD Master Audio has been selected as an option in the standards for the upcoming Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD media formats. The company will be holding demonstrations of DTS-HD Master Audio throughout CES, January 5-8, 2006 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall Room #N242.[DTS Press]

OpenOffice.org 2.0.1 Available

Eight weeks after 2.0, our first update remedies minor bugs and brings new features. For example, it is now possible to disable and hide particular application settings, which comes in handy for central administration in networks. Plus, a new keyboard shortcut permits the user to return to a saved cursor position. The bullets and numbering feature has been expanded, and a new mail merge feature is available.

Release notes here.
Download here.

Siemens Somatom Definition -Most Advanced Scanner

A new generation of CT scanner is about to revolutionise medical diagnoses. World’s most advanced CT scanner illuminates the body’s hidden structures.

The Siemens Somatom Definition, the most advanced scanner of its kind in the world, scans faster than a human heartbeat. This means patients can be scanned without the need for beta blockers to slow their hearts, and with up to 50% less radiation than a traditional scan.[Siemens]

PC, CE companies develop next-gen display standard

A replacement to an aging VGA analog standard!

Leading PC and consumer electronics companies announced Tuesday they are developing a specification, the unified display interface (UDI), that would serve as the next-generation PC digital display interface standard and be compatible with consumer electronics devices.

UDI is expected to replace the aging VGA analog standard and provide guidelines to ensure compatibility with today's DVI standard. Further, as planned, the UDI specification will be fully compatible with HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), the standard digital interface for High Definition TVs (HDTVs) and advanced CE displays.[EETimes]

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (Sarge) updated (r1)

This is the first update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (codename ‘sarge’) which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with some corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

Please note that this update does not produce a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 but only updates a few packages in it. There is no need to throw away 3.1 CDs but only to update against ftp.debian.org after an installation, in order to incorporate those late changes.[Debian News]

Wreckage of Beagle 2 found on Mars

Two years after it was last seen shooting towards Mars, the British-built Beagle 2 lander may have been spotted in images taken from a NASA orbiter. They suggest the lander crashed on the wall of a small crater and now lies broken at its centre, with its air bags splayed open around it.[New Scientist]

Detailed analysis and photos here.

Qt 4.1 Now Available

Trolltech has released Qt 4.1. The first feature release since Qt 4.0 includes new features which will make it into KDE 4 such as integrated support for rendering scalable vector graphics (SVG) drawings and animations, a PDF backend to the Qt printing system and a lightweight unit testing framework.

Qt is a complete C++ application framework, including a class library and tools for cross-platform development.

SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta Released!

Today, the SeaMonkey Council announces a new developer release, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta. Compared to the Alpha version released in September, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta enhances the product with new features like tab drag and drop, but also is the first release branded with the new SeaMonkey logo, which was unveiled earlier this month. While much of the core code is shared with the popular Firefox 1.5 browser, SeaMonkey comes with the the look and feel familiar to users of its ancestors, the Mozilla Application Suite and Netscape Communicator packages.

SeaMonkey consists of a state-of-the-art web browser, a powerful mail and news client, a WYSIWYG HTML editor, and an IRC chat application. It also includes tools for web developers, such as the DOM Inspector and the JavaScript Debugger.

Fedora Core 5 Test 2 Delayed 1 month

Attention Fedora Core users and testers!

Ok, it won't be a full month, but due to the recent upgrade of gcc and the subsequent full rebuild of everything that does (and doesn't, whoops!) get built with gcc, including java stuff with gcj, and the need to further test package selection windows in Anaconda, system-config-packages for upgrades, and the development tree in general once we settle down the rebuilds, we have decided to delay test2.

Announcement here:

Filipina wins "First Time Mobile Filmmakers Award"

This year's "First Time Mobile Filmmakers Award" organized by Discovery Networks Asia, and mobile phone manufacturer Nokia announced the winners of the award-winning mobifilms. Filipina Janice Yu won the grand prize for her personal travelogue of one of the country's top dive sites. Another Filipino Noel Osting, won the "Best Editing" award for a short documentary on Filipino farm life. Thai Ndol Lerkwsirisuk won the Best Visualization award.

Nokia's World Wide Wish site

Do you have a wish to share this holiday season? Then go to Nokia's World Wide Wish site for people that share Holiday Wishes around the world.

Note: It's in Flash!

Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0.1 (aka Konfabulator) Released

Yahoo! released a new version of their Widget Engine 3.0.1 (aka Konfabulator) with some bug fixes (Windows, Macintosh and Widgets) and changes in the Engines.

Download Yahoo! Widget Engine today and enhance your desktop!

'Porn On The Go' for the iPod Video and Sony PSP Launched

iPod Video and Sony PSP owners rejoice! Sorry, for adults only..

Adult DVD Empire, two-time winner of the AVN Award for Best Retail Website, is proud to announce the launch of "Porn On The Go" - the ability to download XXX adult scenes for the iPod(R) Video and Sony PSP with exclusive rights to scenes from industry heavyweights Digital Playground.

Adult DVD Empire and Digital Playground have partnered on the project that will launch with 12 scenes, each up to 20 minutes in length, to download for the iPod(R) 30 GB and 60 GB video models as well as for the Sony PSP.

Read the rest here.

HP to Support HD-DVD High-definition DVD Format

To join HD-DVD Promotions Group but it will maintain neutrality in Disc Format Debate

In order to provide consumers with the best possible high-definition experience, HP today announced it will support the HD-DVD high-definition DVD format, in addition to the Blu-ray Disc format, and join the HD-DVD Promotions Group.

Previously, HP supported the Blu-ray Disc format exclusively. The company had requested the Blu-ray Disc Association adopt two customer-friendly technologies, Mandatory Managed Copy and iHD, which are already included in the HD-DVD format.

Read the rest here.

Gmail Mobile - Gmail for Cell Phones

Get Gmail on the go! Google has launched a mobile version of Gmail. You can now access Gmail messages from the web browser on your mobile phone or handheld.

Read and reply to your Gmail messages any time, anywhere.

* It's free. (But your wireless plan might still charge, so you might want to check with your provider first.)
* It's smart. It can handle attachments like photos and .pdf files.

Gmail Mobile

Computer finds Mona Lisa 'Happy'

How about the picture on the right.

A computer has been used to decipher the enigmatic smile of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, concluding that she was mainly happy.

The painting was analysed by a University of Amsterdam computer using "emotion recognition" software.

It concluded that the subject was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry, New Scientist magazine was told.

Source: BBC

Plasma Display Coalition Launched

Top Consumer Electronics Companies Launch Plasma Display Coalition. To promotes Plasma TV's Outstanding Image Quality and Consumer Benefits

Five leading plasma TV panel manufacturers have formed the Plasma Display Coalition to further promote the growth of plasma TV in the U.S., encourage understanding of the benefits and future potential of plasma TV and dispel lingering misconceptions about plasma TV. The Coalition's founders are Hitachi Home Electronics, LG Electronics USA, Panasonic Corporation of North America, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. and Samsung Electronics USA. Membership is open to enterprises that manufacture,
market and sell plasma TV panels.

Source: PRNewswire
`

Internet Explorer 7 to use Firefox's RSS Icon

According to a Microsoft Team Blog:

I’m excited to announce that we’re adopting the icon used in Firefox. John Lilly and Chris Beard from Mozilla were very enthusiastic about allowing us (and anyone in the community) to use their icon. This isn’t the first time that we’ve worked with the Mozilla team to exchange ideas and encourage consistency between browsers, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.

GNOME 2.13.3 Development Release

GNOME 2.13.3 has been released. This is our third development release on
our road towards GNOME 2.14.0, which will be released in March 2006.

To compile it, you can use the jhbuild modulesets available here:

[Gnomedesktop]

High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA) Launched

Industry Leaders Announce High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance

Charter Communications, JVC, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc., NBC Universal, Samsung and Sun Microsystems today announced the formation of HANA, the High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance. HANA members are working together to create a design guideline for secure high definition audio visual networks that will speed the creation of new, higher quality, easier to use HD products.

In addition to the founding members, ARM, Freescale Semiconductor and Pulse~LINK have joined HANA as contributing members.

Press release here.

Novell Secures Major Enterprise Linux Agreement with Swiss Government

More than 3,000 servers across Switzerland to run Novell's SUSE Linux

Novell today announced a breakthrough agreement with the Swiss Federal Government that will see the introduction of Novell's enterprise Linux* technology across Switzerland's public sector IT infrastructure . Novell was selected following a formal tender process during which the company conclusively demonstrated it can provide the strongest Linux solution for public sector environments. As a result, more than 3,000 servers operated by the Swiss Federal Government will now run on Novell's SUSE® Linux platform.

Announcement here.

Honda Debuts New ASIMO

Office workers and receptionists, time to think of your career, a replacement is coming..

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. debuted a new ASIMO humanoid robot which features the ability to pursue key tasks in a real-life environment such as an office and an advanced level of physical capabilities. Compared to the previous model, the new ASIMO achieves the enhanced ability to act in sync with people – for example, walking with a person while holding hands. A new function to carry objects using a cart was also added. Further, the development of a “total control system” enables ASIMO to automatically perform the tasks of a receptionist or information guide and carry out delivery service. In addition, the running capability is dramatically improved, with ASIMO now capable of running at a speed of 6km/hour and of running in a circular pattern.

Press release here.

TDK commences shipments of "bare" type (cartridge-less) Blu-ray Disc

The enthusiasm for Blu-ray disc and players is building up..

TDK Corporation has commenced shipments of mass-production samples of so-called bare-type (i.e., cartridge-less) versions of its BD-R (write-once type) and BD-RE (rewritable type) Blu-ray Discs. The four new products include the BD-R25 (single-side, single-layer, 25GB) and BD-R50 (single-side, dual-layer, 50GB) write-once types and BD-RE25 (single-side, single-layer, 25GB) and BD-RE50 (single-side, dual-layer, 50GB) rewritable types.

Read the press release with full description here.

Toshiba to delay HD DVD player launch

Another setback to the HD DVD supporters..

Japan's Toshiba Corp. said on Tuesday it will delay the year-end Japan launch of its next-generation HD DVD players to address copy protection issues, potentially undermining its advantage as the first supplier to put such machines on the market.

The Japanese company had said in September the domestic launch might be postponed until after December. A spokesman for Toshiba said it would continue to push for a U.S. launch in the first quarter of 2006, most likely some time between February and March.

Toshiba said in a statement it would not launch the products until the last details on copy protection management systems, called AACS, or advanced access content system, were finalized.

Full story here.

Architects plan kilometre-high skyscraper

The urged to go higher never stop. Another mega structure in the drawing board..

Blueprints for a kilometre-tall skyscraper have been drawn up by UK architects, who hope to see the record-breaking structure commissioned in Kuwait.

At 1001 metres, the enormous tower would be almost twice the height of the world's tallest building today, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which stands at 509 metres. The new building would also dwarf the Burj Dubai, a building under construction in Dubai that is expected to stand 700-800 metres tall once completed in 2008.

Architecture firm Eric Kuhne and Associates, based in London, UK, has drawn up plans for the skyscraper. Although the designs have yet to be made public, the company is reported to be in talks with the Kuwaiti government about construction.

Full story here.

Stereophile 2005 Product of the Year Awards

The latest to come out with the list of this year's award in the world of audio and hi-fi is Stereophile. The Stereophile 2005 Product of the Year Award, check it out.

These winners, then—these "Products of the Year" for 2005—are the components that we think will have a lasting influence on the world of high-end hi-fi, not simply because each has set a new standard of performance within its category, but because they remind us of the basis of our enthusiasm. That is, they give us beautiful music.

TIME'S - 50 Coolest Website 2005

TIME Online has the list of the 50 Coolest Website for 2005.

First, a caveat. This is not a directory of the 50 greatest website. Rather, it's a tally of the best sites that launched - piqued our interest in some way - since last year's list. Think of it as our round-up of 50 nifty links we think you should check out. So get clicking!

Complete list.

Foresight Desktop Linux 0.9.2 is out !

Foresight Desktop Linux is a GNOME based Linux distribution that showcases some of the latest bells and whistles. It currently sports GNOME 2.12 as the preferred desktop environment.

It has been a long hard road, but 0.9.2 ISOs are now posted. I will say they aren’t perfect, but a huge jump from the previous ISOs released. What has changed?

* The gtk theme has been hacked to use colors that match our look better.
* Default icon set is tango.
* Stripped out stuff that folks won’t even miss, which shaved 120MB off the 2nd CD
* Added laptop-tools, which includes some nice wireless drivers, NetworkManager, GNOME Power, and ndisgtk (GUI for configuring windows wireless drivers)
* Convert back to using GNOME Systems Tools
* Package selection in the installer
[Link]

Go download it !

RollingStone - 500 Greatest Albums of All time

Want to know the Greatest Albums of All time, RollingStone has the list the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It is presented in Flash.

Denon's AVR-4306: 7.1 CH Home Theater/MultiMedia A/V Receiver

I want one. He he, just joking. This A/V Receiver is a CES Innovations 2006 Awards Honorees in Home Theater.

Denon's AVR-4306 is a multi-source, multi-zone IP addressable audio/video receiver, with a full complement of advanced audio and video processing capabilities, and includes connectivity to many digital music players.

Full specs here.

Siemens Joins Open Source Development Labs (OSDL)

Global electronics and engineering giant to contribute to initiatives of world’s leading Linux advocacy consortium.

Siemens, one of the world’s largest electrical engineering and electronics companies, today announced it has joined the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux&reg. Siemens will participate in the Lab’s Carrier Grade Linux (CGL), Mobile Linux Initiative (MLI) and Data Center Linux (DCL) working groups.

Press release here.

A/V Rev.com Top 100 A/VProducts of 2005

Audio/Video buffs, AVRev.com's Top 100 A/V Products are back for 2005 with the absolute best gear money can buy for home theater and beyond. Topping the list as no. #1 is Sonos Digital Music Server. Enjoy reading the reviews..

Full list here.

Mobile WiMAX Standard Approved

The WirelessMAN standard has gone mobile! The IEEE-SA Standards Board approves Mobile WiMAX 802.16e standard.

Announcement here.

Intel Announces Chip Technology Breakthrough Using New Materials

New Material Could Help Chips Run Cooler, Use Less Energy

Intel Corporation today announced development of a new, ultra-fast, yet very low power prototype transistor using new materials that could form the basis of its microprocessors and other logic products beginning in the second half of the next decade.

Intel and QinetiQ researchers have jointly demonstrated an enhancement-mode transistor using indium antimonide (chemical symbol: InSb) to conduct electrical current.

Read the rest here.

CES 2006 Innovations Honorees Chosen

The 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES®) today announced its Innovations 2006 Design and Engineering Awards Honorees. Sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®), the producer of the International CES, and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the International CES Innovations Awards highlight product advancements in technology design and engineering.

Full List here.

Panasonic Starts Pilot Production of 50-GIGABYTE Blu-ray Discs

Another + for the Blu-Ray Disc Supporters.. New Dual-Layer Spin Coat Technology Doubles Disc Capacity.

Panasonic has modified its existing pilot production line for single-layer Blu-ray Discs, called BD-ROM, so that it is able to replicate dual-layer BD-ROM discs with 50 gigabytes (GB) of storage capacity.

The doubling of BD-ROM disc storage capacity is enabled by spin coating technologies developed by Panasonic that create two recorded layers on a single side of a Blu-ray Disc. In the process, readily available inexpensive UV curable resins are used in the creation of the space layer, cover layer and hard-coat, resulting in a reduction in disc replication costs. Video and other data is then embedded in the layers for playback later using a blue laser-equipped Blu-ray Disc player, recorder or BD-ROM drive-equipped PC.

Press release here.

Nissan develops self-healing “Scratch Guard Coat” paint

Attention car owners...

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has developed the world’s first clear paint that repairs scratches on painted car surfaces, including scratches from car-washing machines, off-road driving and fingernails.

“Scratch Guard Coat” contains a newly developed high elastic resin that helps prevent scratches from affecting the inner layers of a car’s painted surface. With “Scratch Guard Coat” a car’s scratched surface will return to its original state anywhere from one day to a week, depending on temperature and the depth of the scratch.

Press release here.

"Podcast" named word of the year 2005

The word 'podcast' has been selected as Word of the Year by the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Podcast, defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," will be added to the next online update of the New Oxford American Dictionary, due in early 2006.

Runners-up include rootkit(made famous by Sony), bird flu, lifehack, IED (improvised explosive device, such as a car bomb).

Press release:

Code Name for Firefox 2.0: Bon Echo!

Firefox fans and users...

Continuing the tradition, Firefox 2 will use a pre-release code name taken from a public park. Bon Echo Provincial Park is located in Ontario, Canada. The name literally translates to "good echo", and reflects how it is our goal echoes that of Firefox 1, once again focusing on improving the browsing experience for our users, making it simple, effective, fast and useful. [Link]

Singapore to promote use of grid computing in schools

Singapore is unleashing the power of Grid Computing into its schools and industries.

It is believed to be among the world's first to offer such high-speed super-computing capabilities beyond research institutes.

And the first to benefit will be some 76 students and teachers at the launch of SG@Schools or the PC Grid Computing for Schools programme.

Full story here:

Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project

Welcome to the world of 64-bit computing, and 32 threads. Massive multithreading goes open source.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the OpenSPARC project.

Annoucement here:

Xen 3.0 released

Version 3.0 of the Xen hypervisor - an open source virtualisation system that allows you to run many 'virtual' OSes on one machine, has been released. New release of open source hypervisor supports 32-way SMP, 64-bit guests, and Intel® Virtualization Technology.

Announcement here:

Beagle 0.1.3 released

[Via mail.gnome.org]

Jon Trowbridge says:
I'm pleased to announce the release of Beagle 0.1.3.

Our focus continues to be on fixing bugs and reducing the Beagle daemon's memory usage. This release also contains our new Python bindings, courtesy of Raphael Slinckx. With them, you can easily access Beagle search results from any Python program. Let the hacking begin.

Remember, Beagle now requires Mono 1.1.10. But you are already running 1.1.10, because you are nobody's fool. You are also extremely well-dressed, and people enjoy your company.

Beagle is a search tool that ransacks your personal information space to find whatever you're looking for. Beagle can search in many different domains.

Macromedia website Update

The Macromedia name is fading slowly.. Check out its website.

The Volvo Ocean Race 1st Leg Result

ABN AMRO ONE sailed to victory in the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, while its sister boat ABN AMRO 2, sail second into Cape Town. Brasil 1 takes third and Ericsson Racing Team fourth. On overall points, ABN AMRO 1 is in first place with 11.5 points, Brasil 1 and Ericsson are equal third on 10.5 points, with ABN AMRO 2 fourth on 9.5 and Sunergy and Friends fifth on 4.5. 2nd leg will start on January 2, 2006 from Cape Town to Melbourne.

Website

The Second Annual Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards - for 2005 is OUT

Attention all audiophiles and audio geeks, The Second Annual Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards - for 2005 is now online. You can check it here. Check out the best in audio products, people, recordings, events, groups, etc.

New Logo For SeaMonkey

From the The SeaMonkey Project:

After months of submissions and selection processes, the SeaMonkey Council is announcing a new logo for its project and application.

The new artwork centers around an abstract figure resembling a "Sea Monkey", colored in a light, cyan/blue color, standing out from a dark blue circle with a wave pattern in the middle. This design, created by Alex Butin, not only looks professional and polished, but also fits perfectly as an icon on a modern computer desktop and is easily recognizable even in small sizes.
Read the rest here:

R.I.P Macromedia

Adobe's multi-billion dollar takeover of rival software developer Macromedia is final.

Adobe Systems Incorporated and Macromedia, Inc. today announced they have either received or been notified they will receive all regulatory clearances necessary to complete Adobe's pending acquisition of Macromedia. The companies expect to close the transaction on December 3, 2005.
[Link]

Will Fireworks and Freehand go also or they just fade away..

Apache 2.2.0 Released

From the Apache HTTP Server Project:

The Apache HTTP Server Project is proud to announce the release of version 2.2.0 of the Apache HTTP Server ("Apache").

This version of Apache is a major release and the start of a new stable branch. New features include Smart Filtering, Improved Caching, AJP Proxy, Proxy Load Balancing, Graceful Shutdown support, Large File Support, the Event MPM, and refactored Authentication/Authorization

Download here:
New Features here:
Changelog here:

Apache is the most popular web server on the Internet. The Apache HTTP Server is a project of the Apache Software Foundation.

Firefox 1.5 is HOT

According to Asa's blog:

Wow, in just one day, Firefox 1.5 has already been downloaded more than 1.5 million times. That smashes our 1.0 first day downloads by half a million.

So what are you waiting for.. Grab it while it's HOT..

GMail Adds Virus Protection

The popular web based email service by Google, Gmail has added virus protection.

Each time you send and receive attachments, Gmail automatically scans them for viruses.

If a virus is found in an attachment you've received, our system will attempt to remove it, or clean the file, so you can still access the information it contains. If the virus can't be removed from the file, you won't be able to download it.

If a virus is found in an attachment you're trying to send, you won't be able to send the message until you remove the attachment.

GARNOME 2.12.2 Released

As, I said in my previous post, here it is GARNOME 2.12.2.

[Via Gnomedesktop]

The "walk a mile in another man's shoes" release.

We are pleased to announce the release of GARNOME 2.12.2. Incorporating the GNOME 2.12.2 Desktop and Developer Platform, together with a host of third-party GNOME packages, Bindings and the Mono(tm) Platform -- this release irons out yet-more bugs, hopefully adds yet-more stability and ships with the latest and greatest stable releases.

Tarball:
GARNOME 2.12.2
MD5: 6c7de7e62dc5e746fc91a0472f3b28a4

Website: Garnome

GNOME 2.12.2 Development platform is out

Via Gnome-announce-list:

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of The GNOME Desktop and Developers platform version 2.12.2

This is the second point release of the stable 2.12 series of GNOME and a lot of hard work has gone into making it more enjoyable for our users and developers. A list of news can be found below.

The tarballs can be found here:
Platform:
Desktop:
Bindings:

Expect Garnome and Freerock GNOME to follow..

Singapore to start trial service of HDTV by mid 2006

Via Channelnewsasia:

Singapore will begin a trial service to test high definition TV services or HDTV by the middle of next year.

The Media Development Authority will work with MediaCorp and industry players to start the test trials. The HDTV trials are expected to cost $20m to $30m.

PlayStation 2 tops 100 million units

The PlayStation 2 has set a new record, with more than 100 million units shipped since its launch in March 2000. Sony said 40.65 million units have been shipped to North America, 37.14 million to Europe and 22.22 million to Asia, including Japan.

The original PlayStation took nine and a half years to reach that number.

GRIN - Great Images in NASA

The Great Images in NASA (GRIN) system provides a database of photos documenting NASA. Photos include: aircraft structures, aircraft design, aircraft models, wind tunnel tests, materials research, space programs, astronaut training, robotic planetary exploration and images taken by NASA spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope and Mars Global Surveyor. GRIN contains many, but not all of the most popular images from NASA’s history. It also contains important historical images that you may not have seen before.

GRIN website.

Firefox 1.5 is OUT

The wait is over. Grab it while it's hot..


Download here.
Release notes here.

Update: Mozilla.com - New home of Firefox and Thunderbird. The primary end user site for Firefox, Thunderbird and the Mozilla Corporation.

KDE 3.5 Released

Fyi, this is my 100 post since I started this blog..

The KDE Project is happy to announce a new major release of the award-winning K Desktop Environment. Many features have been added or refined, making KDE 3.5 the most complete, stable and integrated free desktop environment available. For a quick look at some of the new features see the visual guide to KDE 3.5. Packages are available now for ArchLinux, Kubuntu, Slackware and SuSE or try Konstruct to build it yourself.

Free60 Project - Linux on your Xbox360

Xbox 360 hacking has started...

The Free60 Project aims to port open source operating systems like

* GNU/Linux and
* Darwin

to the Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming console.

DesktopBSD 1.0-RC3 released

A step toward BSD on the Desktop. DesktopBSD aims at being a stable and powerful operating system for desktop users.

DesktopBSD combines the stability of FreeBSD, the usability and functionality of KDE and the simplicity of specially developed software to provide a system that's easy to use and install.

DesktopBSD 1.0-RC3 is now available from our download mirrors.

Changes include:
- Many new translations
- Switch from 5.4 to FreeBSD 5-STABLE that contains many improvements from 6.0
- Upgrade to KDE 3.4.3
- Availability of an AMD64 version

Release notes:
Changelog:

I think, I have to make another partition when DesktopBSD 1.0 is released.

PHP 5.1.0 Released

The PHP development team is proud to announce the release of PHP 5.1.0. Some of the key features of PHP 5.1.0 include:

* A complete rewrite of date handling code, with improved timezone support.
* Significant performance improvements compared to PHP 5.0.X.
* PDO extension is now enabled by default.
* Over 30 new functions in various extensions and built-in functionality.
* Bundled libraries, PCRE and SQLite upgraded to latest versions.
* Over 400 various bug fixes.
* PEAR upgraded to version 1.4.5

Announcement here.
Changelog here.
Upgrading guide here.

I'm .exe

Fyi

Which File Extension are You?

Coconets(RP) tops BBC World Challenge 2005

It's a bit late but this is a great honor for the Philippines. Coconet, made from waste coconut husk is abundant in my hometown because copra is the primary source of income of the people there.

Agricultural engineer Justino Arboleda of the Philippines won the first prize in the First World Challenge contest sponsored by BBC World television in London on Nov. 17 for his soil erosion control net or coconet.

Coconet, made from waste coconut husk, was adjudged the best environmental grassroots project in the world. It was among 456 entries from 90 countries.

Malta, which introduced a biodiesel product, took the second prize, while Vanuatu was in third place for its rechargeable battery.[INQ7]

The World Challenge, brought to you by BBC World & Newsweek, in association with Shell, is a competition aimed at finding individuals or groups from around the world who have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots level. This competition is all about finding entrepreneurs whose projects are making a difference to communities.

Spirit Marks One Year on Mars

Spirit, the untiring robotic "wonder child" sent by NASA to explore the eerily earthlike fourth planet from the sun, has completed one martian year--that's almost two Earth years--on Mars. Designed to last only 90 martian days (sols), the six-wheeled marvel the size of a golf cart has pursued a steady course of solar-driven geologic fieldwork, bringing back some 70,000 images and a new understanding of Mars as a potential habitat.

Full story.

SETI@home Switching Off

Via SETI@home:

The old SETI@home Classic project will stop issuing work on December 15, 2005. Anyone still running SETI@home Classic should deactivate it and install SETI@home/BOINC(Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing).

About SETI@home:
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

GARNOME 2.13.2 Released

Via Gnomedesktop.org:

We are pleased to announce the release of GARNOME 2.13.2 Desktop and Developer Platform. A lot has changed since the last unstable release. This release includes all of GNOME 2.13.2 plus a few updates that were released after the freeze date for GNOME 2.13.2.

Tarball here.
Website.

GARNOME - A build utility for the GNOME Desktop.

Fedora Core 5 Test1 Now Available

The Fedora Project announces the first release of the Fedora Core 5 development cycle, available for the i386, x86_64, and PPC/PPC64 architectures. Notable Features of FC5 Test1 are modular Xorg, GNOME 2.12, KDE 3.4.92, a Xen 3.0 snapshot for i386, better open source Java support, GCC 4.0.2 and major installer changes to use yum for package handling.
Download torrent here.
Download iso's here.

Announcement here.

PCLinuxOS 0.92 Release (Labor of Love)

If you want bleeding edge linux distro, PCLinuxOS is the answer..

On behalf of the PCLinuxOS engineering team, I'm happy to announce that PCLinuxOS 0.92 is now available for download here:

PCLinuxOS 0.92 features an updated 2.6.12 kernel, hotplug has been moved to udev to provide faster boot times. The fabulous kde has been updated to version 3.4.3. Koffice replaces Openoffice on the livecd. Openoffice 2.0 can be installed after a hard drive install. xorg has been updated to xorg.cvs Approx 400 package update brings PCLinuxOS 0.92 up to date with the latest open source applications. PCLinuxOS is an rpm based distro utilizing apt-get with a Synaptic frontend to provide users with an easy to use update tool.

Announcement here.
Website.

Opera 8.51 Released

Download the latest maintenance, stability, and security release.

Opera's latest release addresses the security issue in the Flash Player (Secunia Advisory 17437). Opera 8.51 for Windows ships with Macromedia Flash version 7r61.

The release is a recommended security upgrade for Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris users, because it updates Opera's wrapper script to not run commands included with URLs passed from other applications (as suggested in Secunia Advisory 16907).

Users of Mac OS X with Japanese systems will experience improved stability on pages with Java.

Annoucement here.
Download here.

E=mc² - marks 100 years

No equation is anywhere near as recognisable as E=mc². It's my favorite equation.

Physicists are celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein's best known equation: E=mc².

Published in the fourth of a series of papers that shook the foundations of physics in 1905, E=mc² is now linked with the power of the atom bomb.

Full story.

GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

Barely in time for GIMP's tenth birthday is the 10th Anniversary GIMP Splash Contest. This new contest requires a tutorial with the submissions, so get out your favorite text editor and show us all of the beautiful things you can make your GIMP do. Submit those entries to the contest area of this web site and wait to see if there is a gimp-2.2.10 with your entry as the very special release splash.

Happy Birthday GIMP! (If I remember correctly, 10 was a great age to be....)

Annoucement here.

Mirrors to Banish Town's Winter Darkness

This is making night into day...

The sun has stopped shining in Rattenberg. But with the aid of a few mirrors, the winter darkness that grips this small town could soon be brightened up with pockets of sunshine.

That's because sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 3,000-foot hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year.

The solution: 30 heliostats, essentially rotating mirrors, mounted on a hillside to grab sunshine off reflectors from the neighboring village of Kramsach.

Bartenbach Lichtlabor GmbH, the Austrian company behind the idea, has already used mirrors for lighting projects around the world _ sunshine into European basements and railroad stations or nighttime illumination of a mosque in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Read the rest here:

EFF Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Sony BMG

Another, another suit, this time from EFF(Electronic Frontier Foundation)..

Via EFF:

Company Should Repair Damage to Customers Caused by CD software

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with two leading national class action law firms, today filed a lawsuit against Sony BMG, demanding that the company repair the damage done by the First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software it included on over 24 million music CDs.

Texas Sues Sony BMG for Spyware Violations

The Sony BMG malicious trojan-horse rootkit(DRM) fiasco never ends...

Via Yahoo news:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Sony BMG Music Entertainment for including "spyware" software on its media player designed to thwart music copying.

According to the lawsuit filed in Travis County, several of the company's music compact discs require customers to download Sony's media players if they want to listen to the CDs on a computer.

Software included with that media player "remains hidden and active" after installation, the Attorney General's office said in a statement, and makes users vulnerable to security risks and possible identity theft.

Texas is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 per violation of the state's Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, which was enacted earlier this year.

I feel Sory for Sony..

Piece of tape defeats any CD DRM:Gartner

Via Vnunet.com

The highly controversial XCP digital rights management (DRM) technology bundled by Sony BMG on 52 of its audio CD albums can be defeated by applying a small piece of tape to the discs, according to analyst firm Gartner.

Applying a piece of opaque tape to the outer edge of the disk renders the data track of the CD unreadable. A computer trying to play the CD will then skip to the music without accessing the bundled DRM technology.

The use of a piece of tape will defeat any future DRM system on audio CDs designed to be played on a stand-alone CD player, the analyst said.

Read the Gartnet research note here:

Gentoo Linux 2005.1-r1

The Gentoo Release Engineering team is proud to announce Gentoo Linux 2005.1-r1! The 2005.1-r1 release is simply a media refresh over the 2005.1 release. What this means is that it used the same base snapshot, and has very few changes. This is a bug-fix update to the current stable release.

Announcement here:

Birthday

It's my birthday today!

According to the Birthday calculator, my date of conception was on or about 29 February 1960 which was a Monday. I was born on a Monday under the astrological sign Scorpio.

Sony Pictures Completes First Full-Length Blu-ray Disc

[Via PRNewswire]

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) president Benjamin S. Feingold today announced that authoring has been completed on the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) to contain a full-length, high-definition feature filSom. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was compressed and authored in MPEG 2 full high-definition (1920 x 1080) by Sony Pictures' Digital Authoring Center (DAC) and is now being shipped to BD hardware companies for player testing.

Utilizing Blu-ray's unprecedented storage capacity, the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle disc features dynamic menus with full resolution graphics and animation, superior audio and unparalleled picture quality. "We are confident this achievement will help everyone understand that Blu-ray is real and poised to enter the marketplace," said Mr. Feingold. "Blu-ray will bring the highest quality HD experience possible to the home."

Freerock GNOME 2.12.1 released

Freerock GNOME is another version of the GNOME Desktop that has been tweaked for Slackware Linux systems, the other one is dropline GNOME.

Freerock GNOME is a complete GNOME Desktop distribution designed and packaged specifically for Slackware Linux. Freerock GNOME installs cleanly and non-intrusively by utilizing the standard Slackware software package format (".tgz"). Freerock GNOME integrates seamlessly and easily into Slackware Linux version 10.2.

We've released Freerock GNOME 2.12.1 for Slackware Linux 10.2. The ChangeLog can be perused here. ISOs for x86 platforms can be found here. Packages for x86 platforms can be retrieved from any one of our mirrors. Additionally, the x86_64 (64-bit) port of FRG can be found on our ports page.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC 3 Available

[Via MozillaZine]

The third release candidate of Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is now available for download. Like the earlier release candidates, Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 3 is intended to allow testers to ensure that there are no last-minute problems with the Firefox 1.5 code.

You can download here or here. As usual, users of Firefox 1.5 RC2 will be offered RC3 through the software update system.

$100-laptop unveiled

A hand-cranked laptop that will cost roughly $100 has been unveiled at a UN summit. The $100 laptop – nicknamed the "Green Machine" for its vivid green casing – was developed by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. It was demonstrated on Wednesday at the UN's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia, by chairman of MIT's media laboratory, Nicholas Negroponte.

The $100 Laptop will be a Linux-based, will run on 500 MHz CPU (Processor) by AMD, 1 GB of flash memory (no hard drive), 8" diagonal display (dual LCD Colour/Black & White mode for power conservation and outdoor reading), 128 MB of DRAM, WIFI support and 4 USB ports.

GNOME 2.13.2 Development Release!

Via Gnome-announce-list:
Grab it while it's hot: the latest GNOME release is out! Go download it. Go compile it. Go test it. And go hack on it, document it, translate it, fix it. This is our second development release on our road towards GNOME 2.14.0, which will be released in March 2006.

To compile it, you can use the jhbuild modulesets available here:

Warning:
This release is a snapshot of development code. Although it is buildable
and usable, it is primarily intended for testing and hacking purposes.
GNOME uses odd minor version numbers to indicate development status.

Oxygen Icons Website Launched

Before there is Tango Desktop Project by Gnome people, now its KDE turn, its Oxygen - a breath of fresh air, not just an icon theme.

David Vignoni, Kenneth Wimer and Nuno Pinheiro, 3 of KDE's finest artists, are very proud to present the Oxygen website, explaining what Oxygen is and the direction it is going in. Oxygen is the new icon theme being created for KDE4.
Oxygen aims to bring a modern, cool and very usable and consistent icon theme, in SVG format. In addition to high quality design, Oxygen also promotes technological innovation and increased usability by proposing new file interaction methods, animated effects and the intelligent use of SVGs.[Link]

There is still a long way before Linux desktop icons and themes will be unified and standardize..

CSSVista - Live CSS editing in IE and Firefox simultaneously!

Attention Web Developers and Designers introducing CSS Vista. It's a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.

Features
* Live CSS editing
* Live rendering in Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox
* Split pane view to see both browsers simultaneously
* Completely free!
Works in Windows XP only.

Boeing Launches New 747-8 Family

The battle between Boeing and Airbus is heating up. The Boeing 747, commonly nicknamed as the Jumbo Jet, is the most recognized of all modern airliners, with a total of 1382 aircraft built or ordered in various 747 configurations, comes another derivative, referred to as the 747-8 (referred to as the 747 Advanced prior to launch).

The Boeing Company today officially launched the new Boeing 747-8 program, which includes the 747-8 Intercontinental passenger airplane and the 747-8 Freighter airplane.

The 747-8 Intercontinental passenger airplane will be stretched 3.6 m (11.7 ft) compared to the 747-400 to accommodate 34 additional seats in a typical three-class configuration. The only jetliner in the 400- to 500-seat category, it will have a range of 14,815 km (8,000 nmi) and will feature the new Boeing Signature Interior.

The 747-8 Freighter will be 5.6 m (18.3 ft) longer than the 747-400 freighter. With a total payload capacity of 140 metric tonnes (154 tons), including tare weight, the 747-8F provides 16 percent more cargo revenue volume than the -400.
[Link]

TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers Released

There is a flurry of press releases about microprocessor today, here's another one, In what has become a closely watched event in the world of high-performance computing.

The 26th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was released today (November 14, 2005) at the Supercomputing Conference (SC05) in Seattle, WA.
The No. 1 position was again claimed by the BlueGene/L System, a joint development of IBM and DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. BlueGene/L also occupied the No. 1 position on the last two TOP500 lists. However, the system was doubled in size during the last six months and reached a new record Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 TFlop/s (�teraflops� or trillions of calculations per second). No other system has yet exceeded the level of 100 TFlop/s and this system is expected to remain the No. 1 Supercomputer in the world for the next few editions of the TOP500 list.

Other trends of interest:

A total of 333 systems are now using Intel processors, with 81 one these are already using the new EM64T processors. The second most-commonly used processors are the IBM Power processors (73 systems), ahead of AMD Opteron processors (55).

There are 360 systems now labeled as clusters, making this the most common architecture in the TOP500. Of these, 249 cluster systems are connected using Gigabit Ethernet and 70 system using Myricom�s Myrinet.

IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list with 43.8 percent of systems and 52.8 percent of installed performance. HP is second with 33.8 percent of systems and 18.8 percent of performance.

The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 305 of the 500 systems installed there (up from 267 one year ago). The European (100 systems) and Asian share (66 systems) is slowly decreasing.

Press release here.
Website

Cray To Base Next-Generation Supercomputers On AMD Opteron™ Processor Platform

Another processor related news.

AMD and Cray Inc., today announced that they have signed an agreement that extends their successful relationship through the end of the decade. Cray will continue to use AMD Opteron(TM) processors for the microprocessor-based supercomputer products Cray develops during this period. In addition, the two firms will actively collaborate on Cray's mid-2006 proposal for Phase 3 of the federal government's DARPA HPCS (High Productivity Computing Systems) program.

AMD press release here.
Cray press release here.

Sun Microsystems unveils UltraSPARC T1 Processor

World's First Eco-Responsible Processor Uses Less than 70 Watts, Designed to Deliver Millions of Dollars in Energy Savings for Customers. Sun's UltraSparc T1 has eight processing 'cores' on a single piece of silicon.

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) today announced the introduction of the UltraSPARC(R) T1 - formerly known as "Niagara". The world's first high-performance, energy efficient processor will debut in a new line of breakthrough Sun Fire servers before the end of 2005. Using patented CoolThreads chip multi-threading technology that leverages the threaded nature of Solaris 10, the world's most advanced operating system, the breakthrough chip is the world's first Eco-responsible processor: research shows that UltraSPARC T1 processor performance could eliminate the number of Web servers in the world by half, slashing power requirements and having the same effect in reducing carbon dioxide emissions as planting one million acres of trees. (1) [Read the rest here].

It's coo says, that the chip gives the firm a five-year leap on IBM's Power and Intel's Xeon processors. Attention IBM and Intel..

KDE 3.5 RC1 Available

The KDE Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of KDE 3.5 release candidate 1. You can download the sources here. To compile them you can use the Konstruct build script .

Buoh - online comics reader for GNOME.

A GNOME application aims to help the comic lovers by providing an easy way of browsing and reading their favorites comic stripes.

Buoh has a number of features, including:

• Select your favorites comic through a list of more than 130 comics
• Easy, simple an eye-candy view of an online comic
• Browsing over the comic strip archives
• Saving a comic to disk
• Integration with GNOME (respecting the lockdowns and HIG compliance)

Home : Screenshot

I'm a komiks (Pilipino comics) addict during my college days..

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 2 Available

Firefox 1.5 RC2 has been released. You can download here or here.
Users of Firefox 1.5 RC1 will be offered RC2 through the software update system.

IBM, Sony, Philips form Linux alliance

Via CNN:

Three of the world's biggest electronics companies -- IBM, Sony and Philips -- have joined forces with the two largest Linux software distributors to create a company for sharing Linux patents, royalty-free.

The Open Invention Network (OIN), as the new firm unveiled Thursday is known, could mark a breakthrough in resolving how to protect vendors and customers from patent royalty disputes resulting from freely shared Linux code.

OIN is funded by the world's largest computer company, IBM, two consumer electronics giants -- Sony Corp. of Japan and Philips of the Netherlands -- and Linux distributors Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc.

Boeing 777-200LR Sets New World Record for Distance

A new Boeing plane has broken the record for the longest non-stop passenger airline flight, a 22-hour 42-minute, 12,500-mile trip from Hong Kong to London.

Boeing established a new world record for distance traveled nonstop by a commercial airplane when a Boeing 777-200LR Worldliner landed at London Heathrow Airport today. The 777-200LR (Longer Range) flew 11,664 nautical miles (21,601 km) during its 22-hour 42-minute flight that left Hong Kong flying eastbound the evening of Nov. 9. The distance set by the 777-200LR is farther than any previous commercial jetliner has flown and exceeds a distance of more than halfway around the world.

[Link]

Matrox DualHead2Go

Innovative Matrox product divides 1 monitor output into 2.

Matrox Graphics, Inc., the leading manufacturer of graphics solutions for professionals, today unveiled the revolutionary new Matrox DualHead2Go, the world's first external upgrade capable of adding multiple monitor support to compatible laptop and integrated graphics-based desktop PCs that were previously limited to single screen output. DualHead2Go is a palm-sized box that connects to the existing single monitor output (i.e. external VGA output) of a computer and appears to the system as a single ultra-widescreen monitor with native support for resolutions up to 2560 x 1024*, which are twice as wide as standard resolutions. Using Matrox patent-pending technology, DualHead2Go splits the 2560 x 1024 Microsoft® Windows® desktop into a right and left half, each of which is then sent to two separate analog monitors allowing users to easily upgrade their workspace setups to experience the productivity benefits of a DualHead® desktop.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is one year old

The Firefox Web browser is one year old today. Notable achievement during its year of existance are celebrating its 100 millionth download last October, achieving 10 percent market share and accumulating awards. Happy birthday Firefox..

MGM to support Blu-ray disc format

The battle for next generation DVD format is heating up.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. announced today its support of the new high definition Blu-ray Disc format. In cooperation with the Blu-ray Disc Association, MGM plans to begin releasing film and television titles from its world-renowned library when the new Blu- ray hardware launches in North America, Japan and Europe.

[Link]

Ubuntu certified for IBM's DB2

Ubuntu has successfully gone through the stringent process whereby IBM ensures that DB2 Universal Database for Linux operates in the Ubuntu environment.

Ubuntu is moving into Enterprise computing with IBM's certification of Ubuntu as “Ready for IBM DB2 Software for Linux”.

In addition to the core Ubuntu system, the certification includes the KDE-based Kubuntu and the education focused Edubuntu.

[Link]

amBX - ambient gaming experience

Philips has announced the development of a new technology that's designed to enhance the gaming experience with the use of light, colour, sound, heat and even blasts of air "into the real world".

The technology, amBX, incorporates a scripting language, software engine and architecture and provides a support framework for peripheral manufacturers to develop amBX-enabled products.

Due for release in May 2006.

[amBx]

Movies on Memory Cards

Beginning today, some of Hollywood's biggest names will be strutting their stuff on the small screen thanks to the "Movies on Memory Cards" initiative from Sony Pictures Digital. Several films, including Hitch, Ghostbusters, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Stuart Little are now available on memory cards to view on mobile phones.
The memory cards will work with a range of the latest Nokia handsets, including the N90, N70 and 6680.

[Link]

SCO Group asked IBM on Linux 2.7 kernel info

The supremely funny SCO Group has now topped even itself. They have asked IBM to turn over "all documents concerning IBM's contributions to the Linux 2.7 kernel," including "development work."

There is no Linux 2.7 kernel.

Linux 2.7 not only doesn't exist, there are no current plans to have one.

Groklaw

GNOME Foundation board size referendum preliminary results

The GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee is pleased to
announce the preliminary results for the Reducing Board Size Referendum.
"Should the board size be reduced from its current 11 directors to 7 directors?"

With 354 registered voters, 188 members voted for this referendum. The repartition of the votes is:
yes (117 votes)
no (70 votes)
blank votes: 1

The automatic result of this referendum is thus:
yes

Note: Any challenges to these results must be received by November 13th. The results should not be considered final until any such challenges have been resolved.

[Link]

The Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006 Begins

The Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race)begins in Galicia, Spain with British skipper Neal McDonald and his Ericsson crew winning the shortened first in-port race in the 2005-6 Volvo Ocean round-the-world race.

The premier round-the-world race for crewed monohulls features seven boats racing eastabout over nine legs.

The legs cover 10,000 miles of 40-knots-plus winds, 30-ft. waves and temperatures that rarely venture above 40°--enough to earn the Volvo Ocean Race the nickname "the Mount Everest of Sailing." The teams will race the fastest open-ocean single-hull class of sailboats ever built: the brand-new Volvo Open 70 (VO70). The new VO70s have sophisticated technologies such as canting keels, trim ballast tanks and greatly reduced weight.

[PM]

Mozilla Kicks Off "Extend Firefox" Competition

Calling all aspiring and current Firefox Extension Developers, Mozilla Corporation today announced the Extend Firefox Contest to encourage development of extensions to the award-winning Firefox Web browser.

Extensions are small add-ons that add new functionality to Firefox. They can be anything from a toolbar button to a completely new feature. The contest is expected to generate hundreds of new extensions for Firefox, allowing people to further personalize their Web browsing experience and to make surfing the Web even more fun and convenient.

The contest also coincides with the launch of Firefox 1.5 – expected later this year – and developers are encouraged to take advantage of Firefox 1.5's new features.
For complete details on the Extend Firefox contest and official rules, see extendfirefox.com

FreeBSD 6.0 Released

After a new logo was chosen The FreeBSD project has released FreeBSD 6.0.

Some of the many changes since 5.4 include:

• Significant performance improvements to the filesystem and direct disk access layers of the OS. The filesystem is now multithreaded and can take full advantage of multiple CPU systems.
• Expanded support for wireless networking adapters and new support for the WPA wireless security protocol.
• Experimental support for the PowerPC platform.

Release notes.
Errata.

Linux Standard Base Achieves ISO Approval as International Standard

The Free Standards Group, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards, and the Linux Standard Base (LSB) workgroup announced that the LSB has achieved unanimous official approval as an ISO standard – an important milestone signifying the maturity and scope of both the LSB and the Linux operating system.
The LSB was approved as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) by ISO/IEC (the International Standardization Organization and the International Electrotechnical Commission), pre-eminent international standard-setting organizations whose standards are frequently referenced by many governments and transnational organizations such as the WTO. The ISO standard will be published as International Standard 23360.

[Link]

OpenSource.nokia.com is launched

Nokia launched OpenSource.nokia.com today.

OpenSource.nokia.com is the first place to look for information concerning Nokia involvement in the Open Source community. The Projects link will take you to project descriptions and give you access to any Nokia developed downloadable code with an Open Source license.

Nokia supports a range of Open Source activities in research centers and development groups around the world.

International Space Station (ISS) is Five Years old

NASA is celebrating five years of human space flight on the International Space Station(ISS). Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will mark five years of continuous human presence on the international space station Nov. 2. They are the 12th station crew. The first station crew, Commander Bill Shepherd, Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, arrived at the complex on Nov. 2, 2000.

The first station crew arrived on the complex on Nov. 2, 2000. The station is the largest and most complex spacecraft ever built. The result of a 16-nation partnership led by the United States, it is the largest international space project in history. Twelve crews have lived on the station, conducting assembly and research work. Station crews have logged more time in space than all other U.S. spacecraft combined.

[Link]

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC1 Available

Firefox 1.5 RC1 has been released. You can download here or here.

Firefox 1.5 introduces several new features, including an improved software update system, faster Back and Forward navigation, a feature for clearing private browsing data, drag-and-drop reordering of browser tabs, a redesigned Options/Preferences window and better popup blocking. Web standards support is also improved, with support for Scalable Vector Graphics, JavaScript 1.6 and more CSS. Accessibility is also better (including new DHTML accessibility features), security has been enhanced and there's now greater support for Mac OS X.

New FreeBSD Logo

The new FreeBSD logo has finally been chosen, and the winner of the logo competition is Anton K. Gural. The result can be seen here.

FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium® and Athlon ™), amd64 compatible (including Opteron ™, Athlon 64, and EM64T), Alpha/AXP, IA-64, PC-98 and UltraSPARC® architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley.

CSS Reboot Fall 2005 is now live

Go over at CSS Reboot Fall 2005 and check the many designs submitted by rebooters around the world. Don't forget to cast your vote also.

Mozilla's Firefox global usage share is still growing

OneStat.com, the number one provider of real-time web analytics, today reported that Mozilla's browsers have a total global usage share of 11,51 percent, an increase of 2.82 percent since April 2005. In the USA 14.07%, and in Canada 16.98%. Only in the UK 4.94%, you know why? I know, but I keep it to myself..

Rebooted (CSS Reboot Fall 2005)

I have just rebooted my personal website OnyOZinE for the CSS Reboot Fall 2005. You can check it out.
So far, as of this time there are 966 reboooters more than double as the first Reboot.

CSS Reboot is a community event for web professionals. November 1st, 2005 at 12:00 GMT Rebooters from all over the world will launch their web standards-based redesigns (or designs) simultaneously, bringing traffic, interest and a little respect to their sites. There are no prizes or arbitrary winners, just great exposure and the knowledge that we all participated in something great.

Olive® "Musica™" Ultimate sound system component

Why ultimate? It can can record, tag and archive music CD, Its ultra-quiet hard drive holds up to 40,000 songs, allows users to burn and copy music CDs, update their Apple® iPod™, record music from analog sources such as tuners or tape decks, and access music stored on a networked Mac or PC1. Designed for the audiophile, like me the Musica™ features Olive®’s Digital Pure Audio™ technology, which has received wide press recognition for its superb audio fidelity.

The Musica™ in brief.
• Ultra-quiet 160GB hard drive stores up to 40,000 songs.
• Record analog media such as tape or vinyl directly to the hard drive.
• Listen to a wide variety of internet radio stations or add your own.
• Access music stored on networked Mac or PC1.
• Burn or copy music CDs.
• Update your Apple® iPod™.
• Built-in 4-port Ethernet hub and wireless access point (802.11g).
• Stream music to up to 20 rooms.
• Dynamic leveling of volume (lows and peaks) so music is always audible.
• Set maximum volume output to harmonize with atmosphere.
• IBM 32-bit PowerPC handles en-/decoding of multiple audio streams
without audio degradation.
• Store music in lossless quality (AIFF, WAV, FLAC) or lossy compression (MP3, up
to 320 kBit/s).

More specs in pdf.
Olive® website.

5.1 Surround Radio in Europe

A live 5.1 surround sound digital radio broadcast was successfully demonstrated in Europe recently via DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting).

Broadcasts of digital surround radio are being presented by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in partnership with Swedish Radio, Danish Radio, Rock Antenne Bayern, Panasonic, Audi, Bayern Digital Radio (BDR) and Bose during several events in autumn 2005. A classical music concert performed by the National Danish Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen was world’s first real-time surround broadcast of a live event via Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).
Surround reception was also demonstrated in a car moving in the city of Copenhagen. Even under poor reception conditions the DAB Surround decoder provided full service until the basic audio codec (MPEG Layer-2) could no longer support a valid audio signal.

Additional information on DAB Surround can be found here.

The Linux Kernel 2.6.14 is out

Over at LWN.

Linus has finally released the 2.6.14 kernel. It was delayed while various problems - some of which turned out not to be real - were chased down. "But hey, the delays - even when perhaps unnecessary - got us to look at the code and fix some other bugs instead. So it's all good." A very small number of patches went in since 2.6.14-rc5. Major changes in 2.6.14 include a new version of the wireless extensions, the HostAP system (which allows a Linux system to function as a wireless access point), relayfs, the DCCP network protocol, the filesystems in user space patch, v9fs, securityfs, and more.

Read the changelog or the full changelog.

Java Desktop System Released

The OpenSolaris desktop community are proud to announce the first release of the Java Desktop System.

The Sun Java Desktop System is the award winning secure and enterprise desktop software solution that combines the best of open source innovation.

This SOURCE ONLY release is based on the open source components that make up the Sun Java Desktop System.

This release contains the major new features
* GNOME 2.10
* Firefox 1.5b
* Thunderbird 1.5b

Download here.
Release note here.