Software Blog » Drivers

Will the Spark Tablet Ignite a FOSS Fire?

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Now that webOS is making its merry way along the open road, there’s no telling what tablets or other mobile devices it may inspire over the upcoming months. In the meantime, the Linux world is all abuzz over what promises to be the very first fully open tablet out there: the Spark, a device slated to ship in May from none other than the KDE Plasma Active community itself. The details have been coming fast and furious; preorder signup begins this week. Will FOSS fans jump at the chance?

AMD: Shift Happens

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Last week was the coming-out party for AMD’s new CEO, and his core message was that the market was undergoing a shift — and when markets shift, leadership changes. His point was that Intel’s leadership was at risk and that AMD was poised to take over that leadership. The nature of this change is massive, and I doubt we — I mean any of us — are fully aware of how much is changing. Nor are we sure which companies or technologies will exit this change. Everyone is at risk — from Apple to Microsoft, from Google to Facebook, from Oracle to HP, and from AMD to Intel.

All Eyes on Ubuntu as CES Draws Near

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious,” a very wise man once said, and that’s surely as true in the tech world as it is in the rest of life. Maybe that’s why so many have been so intrigued by Canonical’s cryptic announcement last week about its plans for this week’s CES event. “Canonical will have a presence at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,” wrote Canonical blogger John Bernard. “On display will be the latest in Desktop, Cloud and demonstrations on Ubuntu One, plus an exclusive Ubuntu concept design which will be announced during the show.”

Texting While Driving a Growing Scourge

admin — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:48:52 +0000

There is good news and bad news for driver safety in the U.S.: The good news is that highway deaths fell to 32,885 in 2010, the lowest level since 1949, according to the NHTSA. The bad news, however, is delivered in the same report. The NHTSA unveiled a new measure of fatalities related to distracted driving, which it calls “distraction-affected crashes.” There were an estimated 3,092 fatalities in this category last year — despite the plethora of local laws passed to ban such behavior, and despite the numerous public safety and education campaigns to discourage it.

Open Source and the Open Road, Part 2

admin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

The connected car is on the verge of going where no vehicle has ever gone before. Presently, many cars enable drivers to pair their mobile music and phone devices with their vehicles’ sound systems. But cars with telemetry that will connect to cloud-based navigation and entertainment services could soon be common. Developers on the cutting edge see car makers keeping a lock on third-party apps pushed from cloud sources. But competition among automotive OEMs may push the envelope in regard to what types of apps the connected car might access.

Why Do People Keep Using Windows?

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone for another year here in the U.S., and that means the holiday season is thick upon us once again. We *could* buckle down and get working on all those holiday shopping lists, but it’s not difficult to think of countless ideas that would be a whole lot more fun. Take a good, old-fashioned debate, for example — about operating systems, no less! Thank goodness for the team over at Slashdot, because that’s just the conversation that’s been raging there recently, to the tune of almost 2,000 comments.

All Eyes on HTML5 as Mobile Flash Fades to Black

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

If ever there was an announcement to get tongues wagging in the Linux blogosphere and beyond, it was the news that Adobe will stop developing Flash for mobile devices. That, of course, is just what was announced last week, and the wagging hasn’t stopped ever since. Dubbed “Story of the Week” on the Financial Times Tech Hub blog, the topic has been the focus of conversation on forums far and wide, not to mention the dominant topic of discussion in the Linux blogosphere’s own Mealy Apple cafe.

HTC Sparks OS Envy With Ice Cream Sandwich Upgrades

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Users of eight HTC smartphones will be among the first to receive an upgrade to Google’s new Android Ice Cream Sandwich. The company described the set of devices named as “the first wave” of HTC phones that will receive upgrades, adding that “we’re continuing to assess our product portfolio, so stay tuned for more updates on device upgrades, timing and other details about HTC and Ice Cream Sandwich.” The announcement may have been sweet news for users of the eight phones in question, but plenty of others were left with a bitter taste in their mouths.

That Tired Old Computer Could Be a Neat Media Streamer

admin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:00:00 +0000

One antidote to escalating household budgets is to cut utility services. However, dropping trash pickup and dumping your garbage in neighbors’ receptacles in the middle of the night probably wouldn’t go down too well in the community. Likewise, terminating your electricity supply won’t play too well with the family after the novelty wears off — possibly less than an hour if there’s something good on TV, or it’s cold. One cost that can be cut, though, is your media bill — and it’s possible to do it, with little sacrifice, by moving to an a la carte, Internet-delivered model.

Can an Anti-Child Porn Bill Go Too Far?

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:00:00 +0000

H.R. 1981, a U.S. federal bill which apparently seeks to combat child pornography, has stirred up opposition from various lawmakers as well as civil rights groups. The proposed law, introduced in May and now under consideration in Congress, is the joint creation of Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chairs the Democratic National Committee. It has 24 sponsors. The bill seeks to make it a federal crime to fund the sale, distribution and purchase of child pornography.

Open Source and the Democratization of IT

admin — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 07:00:00 +0000

The latest BriefingsDirect podcast discussion centers on how the role and impact of integration has shifted, and how a more comprehensive and managed approach to integration is required, thanks to such major trends as cloud, hybrid computing and managing massive datasets. Moreover, the tools that support enterprise integration need to be usable by more types of workers, those that are involved with business process activities and data analysis. The so-called democratization of IT effect is also progressing into the world of applications and data integration.

The WebGL Battle in the Great Browser Wars

admin — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Even on the sunniest, most peaceful days here in the Linux blogosphere, it’s a pretty safe bet that the Great Browser Wars are still being waged somewhere, whether or not we can actually overhear the particular skirmish of the moment. Last week, however, the din of the battle roared loud enough for all to hear as Microsoft and Mozilla come to blows.
There was Mozilla’s declaration that it doesn’t care about enterprise users, of course — which Microsoft seized with glee as an opportunity to promote Internet Explorer.

Keeping the Desktop Dream Alive: Q&A With Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin, Part 1

admin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 07:00:00 +0000

In 2007, Linux was heralded as the desktop of the future. However, the history of Linux on the desktop has been a story of strong support from a relatively small group of diehards but little real impact on the market as a whole. And by last year, there was even talk that the dream of the Linux desktop had been shattered. Why is Linux not doing so well on front-end desktops and on laptops? LinuxInsider sat down with Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin for an exclusive interview to get to the bottom of things.

Google Whips Out an E-Wallet

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:25:01 +0000

Google officially unveiled its e-wallet Thursday in a presentation with its partners at an event in New York. Google executives demonstrated making purchases and downloading e-coupons with the e-wallet through a Google Nexus S Android smartphone. They added that eventually consumers might even store their drivers’ licenses in it. The Google Wallet is secure, Google representatives said, and the NFC chip in the smartphone will only be turned on when the consumer wants to actually use the e-wallet. This is meant to prevent hackers from “sniffing” the card and stealing information.

Google and Ford to Guzzle Data So Cars Can Sip Gas

admin — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:47:40 +0000

You may think you know the shortest, quickest route to work, but wait till Google get its hands on your steering wheel. Smart technology may save you gas you didn’t even know you were wasting.
Ford is working with Google to harness the power of cloud computing and analytics in order to design technologies that will allow vehicles to independently attain optimal drivability and fuel efficiency. Ford researchers presented a conceptual case at the Google I/O developer conference, showing how the Google Prediction API, combined with Ford’s own predictive driver behavior data and analysis, could alter the performance of a plug-in hybrid.

Is the Shade Coming Down on the Windows Era?

admin — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 07:00:00 +0000

If the human brain can be compared to a search engine, it seems fair to say that most of us tend to scan the news each day for search terms and phrases that support our existing point of view.
That, indeed, could explain why a recent post over at the Linux Foundation has drawn so much attention on the Linux blogs. “HP to Put Linux in Printers and PCs: It’s the End of an Era for Windows” was the title of Executive Director Jim Zemlin’s post, and it was that last bit — “end of an era for Windows” — that fairly leapt off the virtual page for Linux Girl.

LG Puts 3D on Optimus Smartphone, World Waits to See Why

admin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:49:12 +0000

“Big screen, middle screen, little screen,” might be a fast way to describe the journey of 3D technology, the last leg of which LG unveiled Monday at the Mobile World Congress. The world’s first three-dimensional smartphone, LG’s Optimus 3D runs the Android operating system on a 4.3-inch LCD glasses-free screen. Images don’t jump out at users, but live on the screen with depth. The Optimus can convert files into its own format, access games and display YouTube 3D. Other unusual features include dual rear cameras that can record 3D video that will require glasses to be properly viewed during playback.

Firefox’s Linuxy Hardware Acceleration Problem

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Linux and Firefox have long been a winning combination, but recently a snag came up that threw their future into question. Firefox 4′s much-anticipated hardware acceleration features were evident in the ninth beta — but not on Linux. “We tried enabling OpenGL on Linux, and discovered that most Linux drivers are so disastrously buggy (think ‘crash the X server at the drop of a hat, and paint incorrectly the rest of the time’ buggy) that we had to disable it for now,” wrote Mozilla developer Boris Zbarsky recently in a comment on the Mozilla Hacks blog.

Broadcom Sees the Linuxy Light at Last

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Good things come to those who wait, as the saying goes, and recently the Linux community had occasion to observe a vivid illustration close to home. Specifically, after years of ill repute as one of the primary wireless chipmakers that didn’t support Linux, Broadcom on Monday showed the community some love. Following its release of a key compatible driver last fall, the company has now gone whole-hog and joined the Linux Foundation. Cause for celebration, if ever there was one!

Simple Scan Brings Much-Needed Sanity to SANE

admin — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 07:00:00 +0000

One key area of frustration for newcomers to the Linux OS is using document scanners. Most hardware makers do not provide Linux drivers on discs that accompany their scanner models. So Linux users have to struggle to find solutions on distro-specific help forums. Linux does not support the TWAIN-compatible drivers popular in the Windows world. So the trick in obtaining scanning success is to use a scanner device that is compatible with Xsane, a scanner interface that uses the Scanner Access Now Easy driver.