Linux Solutions

Search engine number two’s Yahoo! has officially introduced its “open strategy” platform to the world – Y!OS. The Yahoo! Open Strategy platform is made up of three development components; the Yahoo! Social platform, the Yahoo! Application platform, and the Yahoo! Query Language.

Yahoo! want developers to begin working with these tools, with the promise of releasing some of the newly created applications within Yahoo!’s pages.

The Yahoo! Social platform is a group of social API’s that give developers the chance to use Yahoo! Tools and data to build application for use on Yahoo! as well as on their own websites.

Yahoo! Query Language is an API that gives developers access to information across sites and web services in a way that is not to dissimilar than using SQL commands than its typical “programming” language.

Yahoo! Application platform (YAP) is the method of delivering applications, in a similar way that Google’s Code pages do. The YAP supports developer hosted app’s that work with the Yahoo! Social and Query Language APIs, as well as the OpenSocial JavaScript API. The App platform also has spam protection built in, and gives users the chance to disable the sharing of information with any connecting applications.

According to Yahoo! this is just the beginning. Over the rest of this year and next will focus on bringing more open features as well as developed applications. Yahoo! Is one of the founders of the OpenSocial Foundation, and this is its first formal implementation of Open Social support. Yahoo! plans to do more to open its platform, from developer tools to portable contacts.

Alongside a group of human rights and public interest organisations, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are planning to introduce a global code of conduct that they say will offer better protection for online freedom of speech and privacy against government intrusion.

The Global Network Initiative (GNI) commits the companies to “avoid or minimise the impact of government restrictions on freedom of expression,” according to the final draft of documents that the New York Times have obtained.

The document states that privacy is not only a human right, but a “guarantor of human dignity”. The initiative aims to commit the companies to try and resist demands for restricting freedom of speech and overly broad demands that could compromise the privacy of their users.

The initiative was set up after human rights groups and Congress criticised the companies for cooperating with the Chinese government’s censorship laws for its citizens. As well as setting out a code of conduct, the initiative will act as a non-governmental forum for companies and human rights groups to join together in the fight against censorship. The GNI will also establish a system of independent authors to rate the companies’ conduct.

Michael Posner, president of Human Rights First, said, “This is an important first step in providing standards for free expression and privacy that obligate companies to do more to challenge government restrictions.”

“It sets up an accountability mechanism that will allow each of the companies to be evaluated over time.”

As well as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo - Vodafone and France Telecom are also considering getting involved, with more companies expected to be involved in the near future.

The GNI has the backing of many large scale human rights organisations including; Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in China, and The Committee to Protect Journalists. Also involved are the Business for Social Responsibility and the Center for Democracy and technology, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and the Calvert Group.

Although things are moving along, its not enough for some human rights activists. Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organisation for Human Rights USA feels that “after two years of effort, they have ended up with so little.”

He feels that, “It is really very little more than a broad statement of support for a general principle without any concrete backup mechanism to ensure that the guidelines will be followed.”

Currently Google, Yahoo China, and Microsoft MSN search are all cooperating with the Chinese government to filter search results, and more recently the Chinese version of Skype had been modified to save users conversations on to servers run buy Tom, Skype’s Chinese partner.

The T-Mobile G1 smartphone has only been around for a short while, but its been long enough for a group of security researchers to pick apart, and find what they say is a “serious flaw” in the Android operating system.

One of the group’s researchers, Charles A. Miller, told Google about the flaw last week, and has taken the step of publicising it because he feels that mobile users are not generally aware of the risks of using smartphones, and the threats they face.

Miller, a former National Security Agency computer security specialist, said the flaw could e exploited to trick a user into visiting an infectious website.

Google acknowledged the issue, but said that the phones security features would limit the extent of the damage that could be done by an intruder, compared to computers and other mobiles these days.

Unlike today’s modern computers and advanced handsets such as iPhone, the G1 phone creates a series of software compartments that limit the access of an intruder to a single application.

“We wanted to sandbox every single application because you can’t trust any of them,” said Rich Cannings, a Google security engineer.

He said that the company had already fixed an open-source version of the software and was working with T-Mobile and HTC to offer a patch for its current customers.

Generally, modern computer operating systems try to limit access by creating a partition between a single user’s control of the machine and complete access to programs and data, often referred to as administrative access.

The risk in the Google design, according to Miller, lies within the web browser partition in the phone. He believes that it would be possible for an intruder to install software that would capture keystrokes entered by the user when surfing to other web sites, making it entirely possible to steal passwords and other security information.

Miller is an accomplished security expert. He recently won a contest that gained him $10,000 and a free laptop when he found a vulnerability in Apple’s Safari browser.

However, Google are not so happy with him, as they believe that he has violated an unwritten code between companies and researchers that is intended to allow time for vulnerabilities to be fixed, before they are publicised. Miller said he would withhold technical specific, but said that consumers have a right to know when a product has shortcomings.

Good OS have announced their relationship with MiTAC International to deliver its gOS Gadgets Linux operating system on a Intel Moblin 2.0 Netbook.

gOS chief executive, David Liu, said that the machine planned with MiTAC will be among the first to be released on the currently incomplete Moblin 2.0.

The device will be the first netbook from Taiwan’s MiTAC, who are best known for their Global Satellite Positioning (GPS) systems through its Mio Technology partner.

Back in July, Intel told the O’Reilly Open-Source Conference (OSCON) that Mobline 2.0 would be ready in three weeks. Of course, that never happened, and Intel now says that it will see the light of day in 2009.

Ram Peddibhotla, Intel’s software and services group open-source business director, said that Moblin 2.0 will become available in the first half of 2009 to run on Intel’s Atom processors and Intel’s next-gen processors in the second half of the year.

Some vendors have been working with Moblin 1.0 and “Moblin optimizations”, which are portions of Moblin spec that has been integrated into hardware of software design. Asus for example added changes with Moblin that offers a 25 percent improvement in battery life.

Moblin was “getting more and more ready for mainstream use,” said Liu.

Liu however warned that earlier this year Linux risked getting pushed out of the netbook market by Microsoft as OEMs adopted Windows instead. However he said this could be avoided by Linux companies such as gOS working closely with OEMs building netbooks.

Liu said that although Moblin had some bugs in the past, these are being ironed out, and that Moblin is adding “key optimizations that are getting our OEM partners super excited and that are encouraging”.

He believes Moblin is a sign that the Linux community is fighting back against Windows in the netbook market.

The new netbook will feature an 8.9-inch screen, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor along with options for either a solid state drive or a hard disk, Bluetooth capability and an on-board GPS system.

Linux had a good week last week with the announcement of Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux, and Wikimedia Foundation’s move to Ubuntu from the Ubuntu/Red Hat combination of the past.

Undoubtedly the more exciting of the two was the release of Adobe Flash Player 10 – now available in variety of packaging formats for Linux.

“It is great to see Adobe taking this step, which should make it easier on new Linux users,” wrote Thomas Teisberg on the Linux Loop.

“This is Adobe’s concession and nod to Linux - Linux is important and worth porting commercial applications to,” Slashdot blogger yagu said. “Many open source and Linux advocates - I’ll refrain from calling them zealots - shudder at the prospect of proprietary products like Flash in their universe, but it’s mainstream products like these that are just as important to Linux’s success as Linux itself. I thank Adobe for their contribution, late or not. Good for them.”

The other big story was that Wikimedia decided to move their 400 web servers over from and Ubuntu/Red Hat selection of products to Ubuntu 8.04 exclusively.

“We still have a tiny technical staff, and re-organization of things that got thrown together in a hurry long ago is an ongoing task,” wrote Wikimedia staff member Brion Vibber on Slashdot.

Linus has been gaining publicity each and every week and it invariably led to the question: What can Linux do to help the world? Blog Action day’s theme this year was how can Linux reduce poverty?

It has been noted that advances made in Brazil, Russia and India – among others – is working towards ending the global problem. But some people don’t know if an operating system has the power to change the world.

“I don’t think there’s anything Linux, or technology in general, can do to reduce poverty,” said one blogger – Mhall119. “Certainly the poor are not poor because of the cost of proprietary software. That said, while Linux can’t reduce poverty, it can still help those who are in poverty.”

OpenOffice.org is an example, he added. “If someone is trying to improve their lot by getting an education, and they don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on MS Office to do their school work, that’s a bonus for them,” he explained.

“The response I got back on that, from the teachers and the toddlers, has been amazing — so amazing, in fact, that I’ve started a charitable organization that takes donated hardware, puts Linux and Linux games on them, and donates them to kids in need,” Mhall119 added.

“We’re just getting it started, but already we’ve had almost 50 computers donated to us,” he said. “We couldn’t do this with proprietary software - the licensing costs of the software would make it impossible. But because of the GPL, BSD, MIT and other open source licenses, I can.”

Well I doff my hat to Google, they lived up to their promise of releasing the source code for their new Google Android platform. The release comes just one day from the general release (in America) of the new G1 handset, available exclusively through T-Mobile.

Google made the announcement to release the source code in November 2007, as part of an open source computing and software initiative headed up by the search engine giant.

Open software development is fast becoming the cool thing to do (if you are a g33k and proud of it) and is becoming more prevalent in the computer and software industry.

“In the last five years, Google has witnessed firsthand through social networking sites that the applications development community at large is stronger than any collective of corporate programmers,” Colin Gillis, an equity analyst with Canaccord Adams, said.

“The real potential will be when the developer community gets their hands on the source code. We want to see what the community does with a powerful code base like this,” he added

It’s fair to compare Google’s strategy with that of the Apple iPhone - The Apple App Store allows users to develop their own applications for sale or otherwise, but they have never opened the source code.

“When you open up your operating system to other developers, you never know where good ideas are going to come from,” Steve Weinstein, an equity analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said. “Apple’s iPhone App store is great. Time will tell if Google will be as successful.”

So far, there have been mixed reviews of the G! handset.

“In terms of its styling and design, G1 does not break new ground,” wrote Wired blogger Priya Ganapati. “It is thicker and heavier than the Apple’s iPhone and lacks some of the iPhone’s features, including video playback. Instead of standard headphone and USB ports, it has a proprietary combination port.”

PC Magazine blogger Sascha Segan called the G1 “an initial solid effort” that is, “missing a bunch of key features right now - like a decent media player and support for corporate e-mail, for instance. But the G1, manufactured by HTC, is a quality phone with few bugs, and given the open nature of Android, I’m confident that more features are on the way.”

Envizions Computer Entertainment Corp. has announced the release of its “open source hybrid Linux gaming system” which is aimed primarily at game developers.

The EVO Smart Console packs a decent punch under its rectangular black exterior, housing a 2.9GHz, 64-bit Athlon quad-core processor, an ATI HD 3200 graphics chipset, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 120GB or 250GB hard-drive, 1080p video resolution and its own Linux Distro called Mirrors Evolution.

The console claims to be the “System of Tomorrow” (you can practically smell the cheese from that tag-line), but it does have some good features to back it up, with Internet access, VoIP, remote access, voice recognition, DVR, Internet television, social networking, streaming content, and automatic backup storage, HD video playback, as well as “virtual unlimited online cloud storage.”.

The console will go on sale for a wallet friendly $250 (with a subsidised rebate plan) and offers “cloud” based computing applications Amiga-based games, and an Akimbo-based Video on Demand service that contains over 10,000 titles. Virtualization capability, the company claims, is said to support running an authorised copy of Windows alongside Linux, and for an extra $100 Envizions will install Windows for you.

Perhaps living up to the cheesy tag-line, the system features a customised liquid cooling system and a rather cool biometric security system that supports facial, voice and fingerprint recognition. The system also reportedly contains a voice activated Media Centre for playing music and controlling other media functions.

The company say that the initial release of the EVO Smart Console is primarily aimed at “game developers, open source users, and earlier adopters.” Full-on consumer rollout is expected next year.

Derrick Samuels, CEO and founder of Envizions said that the console will ship out with Fedora 8 or Envizions’s own Fedora-based Mirrors Evolution Linux distro “if the beta version is stable enough”.

“Mirrors Evolution is a modified version of Fedora 8,” said Samuels. “Over time, we’re going to keep making adjustments to it to make it into a robust Linux gaming platform.”

The company wants game companies to start developing “the first Linux HD games”, but they also want the community to get involved. Mirrors Evolution gives you access to the company’s EVO Network, which enables teams of developers to securely collaborate and implement projects, using a modified version of the open source Crystal Space Engine 3D.

Developers will be able to use the open source code to develop their own games, which the company hope to sell on “to give Linux game developers a chance to make some money,” said Samuels.

The EVO Smart Console will retail at $600, with a subsidised rebate plan that brings the price down to $250.

Late on Thursday evening the company that created the world’s second-favourite browser, Mozilla Corp. revealed its mobile version – code-named “Fennec” – taking the unusual step of offering it in version for desktop PCs and Macs, in order to collect feedback.

In-Keeping with the fox theme – a Fennec is a small fox that lives in the Sahara desert – the browser is built from the same Gecko code that drives the currently under-construction Firefox 3.1.

Mozilla announced the Fennec browser as “an early developer release” that was suitable for “resting purposes only” – they always say that for pre-betas, and according to Mark Finkle, the company wants as much feedback as possible.

To help reach the biggest amount of testers, the browser is available not only on the Nokia N810 Tablet, but is available for desktops and laptops running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Finkle made the announcement on his blog:

“We are also releasing desktop versions of Fennec. That’s right, you can install Fennec on your Windows, OS X or Linux desktop too! We want you to be able to experiment, provide feedback, write add-ons and generally get involved with the Mozilla Mobile project, even if you don’t have a device.”

The Nokia N810 is not a mobile phone, but is actually more similar to an iPod touch. It runs the Maemo OS, which is based on the Debian Linux distro.

A Windows Mobile version of the Fennec browser is currently being built, but is not yet available for public testing.

Fennec offers touch-screen functionality, includes a pop-up blocker, a Firefox-style tab-browsing interface, a password manager, and the same address bar features that made Firefox 3 such a hit.

Mozilla is rather a latecomer to the mobile browser party. The Opera browser is certainly the best mobile browser out there at present and works on a range of handsets. Apples iPhone uses its own Safari browser.

However, this is not the first attempt by Mozilla to break the mobile browser market – the company’s Minimo was dropped back in November.

Check out Fennec Alpha 1 at Mozilla’s web site.

Google’s new open source mobile phone platform is to hit shelves next week, and a few lucky so and so’s have got their grubby little mitts on to the G1 handset from T-Mobile. So far the reaction from these insiders has been positive and the G1 shows a lot of potential, but there are reportedly a few flaws to.

The biggest bugbear to come from testers is the existence of a “kill-switch” – which allows Google to remotely disable any Android application on a phone at will. The discovery of a similar feature back in August drew comparable backlash from testers so have Google slipped up again?

Regardless, the G1 is receiving praise for its customisation options, full QWERTY keypad, and overall ease of use. The lack of a standard headphone socket, video camera, and Exchange synchronisation are among the biggest complaints so far, however, Google say the exchange issue will become available as a third-party app shortly.

“If you look at the iPhone, obviously the user interface is what really captivated people, coupled with the very strong industrial design,” Dan Hays, director of PRTM Management Consultants, said.

“In the case of Android, Google doesn’t have control over the industrial design of the devices — so it really needs to be focused on the quality of the user interface, the innovation that it can execute in that, and driving the ecosystem of applications that will ride on the operating system,” he said.

The Android’s TOS state that if Google finds a product that “violates the developer distribution agreement,” then “it retains the right to remotely remove it…at its sole discretion”.

Hays thinks Google will handle this fine.

“I think it’s less an issue of the existence and more an issue of how it might be used,” he pointed out. “To me, the question is, ‘Is it going to be used to shut down a rogue application that may be doing something on the network that’s inappropriate?’ If so, that’s probably a good thing.”

MAIDENHEAD, England, October 16/PRNewswire/ — The company that pioneered the mass merchandising of PC’s for all the family back in mid 90’s is reasserting its dominant position by supplying a new generation of netbooks.

Toys R Us, the giant entertainment retailer has teamed with Asus, one of the world’s biggest PC manufacturers and the world’s largest motherboard producer to offer a range of ultra light laptop PCs.

“Our Asus Eee PC range has become one of the hottest properties in the computing world and brings a whole new, highly mobile Internet experience for all the family,” said Mike Coogan, Marketing Director at Toys R Us.

“The Asus Eee PC’s are able to handle every task with ease. Bumps and shocks are no longer an issue, and with dependable solid-state disks on most models, customers will get unparalleled shock-protection and reliability. The battery life is also helped with state of the art technology with its super high tech power saving circuitry.”

“We’ve always had 100% Intel Powered PC’s with the best specifications. This was the case when we pioneered the mass selling of the revolutionary Asus super compact Intel powered laptops last December.”

The range has massively evolved since then and is now creeping into broader distribution as supermarkets and electrical stores jump on the band wagon.

“The difference is our advisors won’t try to sell expensive laptops beyond our customer’s needs. They simply offer advice designed to ensure customers get the Laptop PC that’s right for their family,” added Coogan.

Toys R Us have an Asus laptop to meet every individual needs with full Windows XP or the intuitive Linux Operating system both preinstalled, both perfect for Word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, wireless Internet and more.

The new 7″ Asus is set to be Toys R Us’ best selling laptop ever and a Christmas must have. Powered by an Intel processor and now with 8GB solid state storage, the petite netbook is less than GBP180.
Mike Coogan, Marketing Director said, “The Eee PC’s are virtually handbag sized and yet they are real PC’s, not just phones with browsing capability.”

Toys R Us has the full range Eee PC in-store ready for high demand this Christmas.

Eee PCs are available in all 73 Toys R Us stores in new Eee PC Centres. Advisors have been trained to assist parents and students on the best PC for their needs.

http://www.toysrus.co.uk
Source: Toys R Us