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Torvalds frustrated at missing simultaneous release
Linus Torvalds has issued release candidate five for Linux 3.11, but is a little upset with the fact the final release missed a serendipitous anniversary.
The date in question is August 11th, 1993, as it was on that day that Windows 3.11 emerged blinking and howling into the world.
Torvalds liked the idea that Linux 3.11 would …
Waiting for a Windows Phone update? Let's talk again next year
Windows Phone owners must wait until next spring for a major platform update, latest reports appear to confirm.
The platform has shown strong growth in 2013, almost entirely thanks to a concerted campaign by Nokia and almost entirely at the expense of BlackBerry.
But the upsurge in momentum hasn't obliged Microsoft to break a …
'Hand of Thief' banking Trojan reaches for Linux – for only $2K
Cybercrooks have created a banking Trojan that targets Linux users, which is been touted for sale on underground cybercrime forums for just $2,000 a pop.
The "Hand of Thief" malware is a rare example of malicious code written especially to target the open-source operating system. The digital nasty includes form-grabbers for HTTP …
Google patents swish, swosh, swoosh pattern unlock app swipe
Google has a new, freshly approved patent up its sleeve that should get rid of a few of the gestures involved when you launch your favourite app on your locked phone.
Google's unlock to app patent
The Chocolate Factory has won a patent for "alternative unlocking patterns", which would let fandroids get into apps like the …
Win XP alive and kicking despite 2014 kill switch (Don't ask about Win 8)
Uptake of Windows 8 for desktop computers – which was never particularly fast – has slowed, according to stats for July from web traffic pollsters Net Applications.
Microsoft's latest operating system held a 5.4 per cent of the global desktop OS market last month, up 0.3 points on June which was up 0.83 points on May. A glance …
Happy 20th birthday, Windows NT 3.1: Microsoft's server outrider
It started on the server, became the desktop, it's still there in Windows 8 today, and it just turned 20 years old: Happy birthday, Windows NT.
Windows NT 3.1 was released to computer manufacturers on 26 July, 1993, and initial sales of Microsoft’s debut server operating system were modest – fewer than 500,000 units sold in the …
Microsoft lobs second Windows 8.1 preview at enterprise IT admins
Having already teased some of the consumer and small business features of Windows 8.1 with a preview release in June, Microsoft on Tuesday announced a second preview, this one with new features targeting larger IT departments.
"Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview builds on the Window 8.1 Preview which is currently available, adding …
Microsoft haters: You gotta lop off a lot of legs to slay Ballmer's monster
Comment Contrary to increasingly popular belief, Microsoft is not a “dead” company, nor at immediate risk of collapse.
I do, however, believe that Microsoft’s “Windows on the endpoint” monopoly days have passed, that Microsoft’s senior management are aware of this and are actively taking steps to compensate. Similarly, I believe that …
FSF passes collection plate for free Android clone Replicant
Updated The Free Software Foundation has launched a new fundraising program aimed at getting Replicant, the free software version of Google's Android smartphone OS, running on more devices.
Replicant – named after the androids in Ridley Scott's movie Blade Runner (but not the Philip K. Dick story upon which the film is based) – is a …
New in Android 4.3: At last we get a grip on privacy-invading crApps
The latest version of Google's Android, 4.3, has a panel controlling access permissions on an app-by-app basis - but only for those users ready to experiment with untested functionality.
The App Ops control was found by Android Police and initially required a hack to bring it to life. Now there's an app in the Google Play store …
Google kicks off Android 4.3 updates for Nexus devices
Google's revamped Nexus 7 fondleslab is the first device to ship with Android 4.3, but other devices will be receiving the update over the air soon and owners of Google's flagship Nexus kit can already download system images.
The new OS release is an incremental update to the Android 4.x line and it retains the "Jelly Bean" code …
Ubuntu boss: I want to make a Linux hybrid mobe SO GIVE ME $32m
Canonical wants $32m (£20.8m) in donations to launch Ubuntu Edge - its own hybrid Ubuntu-Android smartphone first unveiled a year and a half ago.
The maker of open-source Linux distro Ubuntu announced on Monday it is seeking crowd-sourced cash through Indiegogo in the next 30 days to fund development of the homegrown RAM-packed …
SkyDrive on par with C: Drive in Windows 8.1
Microsoft has detailed, in a blog post just how SkyDrive will behave under Windows 8.1.
Not everything in the post is new: we've known about offline storage and using SkyDrive as the default drive since the Windows 8.1 preview.
Among the newly-revealed features is the ability for Windows Store apps to save to or load from …
Top Mozillans dream of quarterly Firefox OS updates ... and users, too
Mozilla hopes to pump out a new version of its smartphone Firefox OS every three months - and wants to lock mobile networks to this roadmap of updates.
As well as the quarterly upgrades, the non-profit software developer announced security updates to the two trailing versions of the operating system will be produced every six …
Google teases hush-hush Android event on July 24
Google on Wednesday began sending out somewhat cryptic email invites to a press event on July 24 that could herald big news for mobile device fans.
The plain, unassuming notices gave no indication as to what the event might be about. "Please join us for breakfast with Sundar Pichai" was all they said.
But Pichai, of course, is …
Dear Linus, STOP SHOUTING and play nice - says Linux kernel dev
A Linux developer has blasted the kernel's chief Linus Torvalds, taking him to task for his famous potty mouth and brutal putdowns of his lieutenants.
It's time for Torvalds to stop "verbally abusing" his programmers, Sarah Sharp told the fiery Finn, warning him she’s "not taking it any more". The USB 3.0 driver maintainer …
Linux 3.11 to be known as 'Linux for Workgroups'
The first release candidate of version 3.11 of the Linux kernel has arrived, and to commemorate the occasion, Linux creator Linus Torvalds has given the kernel a new codename and a new, Microsoft-inspired boot logo to match.
As of Sunday, Linux kernel 3.11 is officially named "Linux for Workgroups," borrowing the moniker …
Ubuntu 13.10 to ship with Mir instead of X
Canonical top man Mark Shuttleworth says that Mir, the company's ground-up replacement for the X Window System graphics stack, is almost complete, and that the technology will ship with the next version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution in October.
Canonical announced the Mir project in March to much controversy, particularly …
Jelly Bean finally overtakes Gingerbread in Android share
The latest stats released by Google show that Android 4.1 and 4.2, aka Jelly Bean, has finally overtaken the outdated version 2.3 Gingerbread release, thanks to a rash of new phones running the OS.
Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook took a swipe at Android's fragmented user base. He pointed out that iOS was actually the world's most …
SUSE Linux tunes up for latest iron with SP 3
SUSE Linux is juicing its Enterprise Server 11 variant of Linux with Service Pack 3. Among many nips and tucks, the SP3 update brings support for new and emerging hardware to the operating system.
The company, the open source operating system arm of the Attachmate conglomerate owned by the private equity trio of Francisco …
Microsoft to ship Windows 8.1 in 'late August'
WPC 2013 The Windows 8.1 Preview is barely two weeks old, but Microsoft's Windows boss Tami Reller says the final version of the update will be ready to ship to manufacturers in just a few more weeks' time.
Speaking at Redmond's annual Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Houston, Texas on Monday, Reller announced that the RTM version …
Godmother of Unix admins Evi Nemeth presumed lost at sea
Obit The New Zealand authorities have formally called off the search for the sailing cruiser Nina, and say its seven-person crew, which includes Evi Nemeth who for the last 30 years has written the system administration handbooks for Unix and Linux, is now presumed lost at sea.
Nemeth was sailing off the western coast of New Zealand …
Windows 8 apps pass 100K, Windows 8 passes Vista
Microsoft has received two pieces of good news concerning its not-exactly-barn-burning Windows 8: there are now over 100,000 apps in the Windows 8 app store, and the installed base of Windows 8 has passed that of the late and unlamented Windows Vista.
What's more, that 100,000-app milestore was reached in just eight months – …
Unix luminary among seven missing at sea
One of the shining lights of the world of Unix, retired CU professor Evi Nemeth, is among a group of sailors missing at sea near New Zealand.
The author of system administration tomes covering both Unix and Linux – and, incidentally a mathematician of sufficient quality to identify problems with Diffie-Helman encryption – has …
Windows 8.1: So it's, er, half-speed ahead for Microsoft's Plan A
Review Following approximately one year after the release to manufacturing of Windows 8.0, which incorporated some radical changes, based around a new tablet platform running alongside the traditional desktop environment, Windows 8.1 is a critical release.
Most Windows users have not warmed to the platform variously called Metro, …
Windows 8.1: 'It's good for enterprises, too,' says Redmond
Build 2013 Much of the hype around Windows 8 has focused on consumers so far, but Microsoft took the opportunity of its Windows 8.1 Preview launch to show off some of the ways it's been improving the OS for enterprise customers, too.
In a late session at the Build developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Microsoft senior program …
Microsoft talks up devices, Windows 8.1 at developer shindig
Build 2013 Everything is beautiful at Microsoft's Build developer conference this year. Beautiful, gorgeous, delightful, beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
These days, Redmond's mouthpieces seem to stammer out the word "beautiful" about as often as most speakers say "uh." But beyond all the disingenuous awe and self-congratulation, Wednesday …
When Apple needs speed and security in Mac OS X, it turns to Microsoft
Storagebod I was looking through the documentation for Mavericks - the next major Mac OS X release - to find out more about the tags and other extra metadata we'll soon be able to add to our files.
The feature was mentioned during the keynote at last week's Apple Worldwide Developer Conference in California. It made me wonder whether …
Nuke plants to rely on PDP-11 code UNTIL 2050!
The venerable PDP-11 minicomputer is still spry to this day, powering GE nuclear power-plant robots - and will do so for another 37 years.
That's right: PDP-11 assembler coders are hard to find, but the nuclear industry is planning on keeping the 16-bit machines ticking over until 2050 – long enough for a couple of generations …
SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix
IBM's lawsuit with SCO over just who owns Unix has crawled out of the grave and seems set to shuffle back into US courts.
For the uninitiated, or those who've successfully tried to forget this turgid saga, a brief summary: SCO in 2003 sued IBM for doing something nasty to bits of Unix it owned. Or felt it owned. SCO also sued …
Array slinger X-IO jumps on Windows Storage Server filly, digs in heels
Array supplier X-IO will run Windows Storage Server 2012 inside its data vaults in hope of a Redmond-assisted sales boost.
The operating system software and X-IO's Integrated Storage Element (ISE) disk box have been brought together to power the new File Storage Controller (FSC) 2200: a sealed, five-year maintenance-free …
Ex-Palm CEO Rubinstein wishes HP sale never happened
Former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein is still proud of the work the ill-fated PDA maker did on its webOS smartphone platform, but when asked if he would have done anything differently there's still one thing that sticks in his craw.
"Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure," Rubinstein told industry …
Linus Torvalds threatens verbal assault on developers' pets
Linux Lord Linus Torvalds has made another colourful public statement, threatening developers' mothers and hamsters.
The infamously-but-regretfully-profane Torvalds has seldom been afraid of dropping the f-bomb or venturing into less-than-politically-correct territory.
His latest missive shows restraint, inasmuch as there's no …
Windows NT grandaddy OpenVMS taken out back, single gunshot heard
Digital Compaq HP has announced the end of support for various flavours of OpenVMS, the ancient but trustworthy server operating system whose creator went on to build Windows NT.
OpenVMS started out as VAX/VMS on Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX minicomputers, then later was ported to DEC's fast Alpha RISC chips – before the …
Live Reg TV: We tour Server 2012's Hyper-V 3 and high availability
Hands-on On 18 June at 10:00 BST we've got our Tim Phillips and QA’s Paul Gregory diving into another feature of Windows Server 2012: using Hyper-V 3.0 to increase the availability of virtual machines.
During the hour we will run through the improvements to system scalability, the failover cluster engine's ability to perform in-guest …
Microsoft video preview shows Windows 8.1 tablet UI options
Video Microsoft has had a lot to say about the forthcoming Windows 8.1 update, both in its blogs and at conferences like TechEd and Computex, and now it's gone ahead and posted a five-minute video tour so that we can see some of the new features in action.
The video, which we've embedded below, is hosted by Jensen Harris of Microsoft' …
Microsoft parades Windows 8.1, the version you may actually want
Computex 2013 Microsoft today demonstrated Windows 8.1 for the first time in public and showed off at least 60 compatible devices - including Haswell-powered gadgets.
Windows vice-president Antoine Leblond took the Computex crowd through a whistlestop tour of all the major new functionality in the OS formerly known as Windows Blue.
Key among …
Apple releases Mountain Lion, Safari updates
Apple has released an OS update that brings Mountain Lion up to version 10.8.4, fixes an array of bugs including Microsoft Exhange compatibility problems, and brings Safari up to version 6.0.5.
As listed by Apple, OS X 10.8.4 provides the following:
Compatibility improvements when connecting to certain enterprise Wi-Fi networks …
Microsoft touts business features of Windows 8.1
TechEd Much of Microsoft's marketing push for Windows 8 has focused on consumers, but Redmond took time at its annual TechEd conference in New Orleans to explain that its forthcoming Windows 8.1 update will include lots of new enhancements for enterprises, as well.
For the first time, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 8.1 will indeed …
PowerShell daddy on Windows Server 2012 R2: Cloudy cloud cloud
TechEd “We don’t spend much time on our virtualisation competitors any more. We’ve moved beyond that,” said Jeffrey Snover, Windows Server and System Center Lead Architect, at a press preview of Windows Server 2012 R2.
“How many of you ever paid for a sorting library? Memory managers? TCP stacks? Now you just get it in the operating …
Firefox OS: Go away fanbois, fandroids - you wouldn't understand
Hands-on The Western world's smartphone market has devolved into a duopoly of Apple's iOS and Google's Android. In the rest of the world, however, the mobile story has yet to be written... and this is where Mozilla hopes users will embrace its mobile operating system, Firefox OS.
The browser-maker wants Firefox OS to be the gateway drug …
Former Microsoft Windows chief: I was right to kill the Start button
Ex-Windows chief Steven Sinofsky is “happy” with the miserable sales record of tablets and PCs running his Windows 8 baby.
Speaking at the Wall St Journal’s D11 conference yesterday, Sinofsky pitched sales of Windows 8 licences as something to be proud of, saying the jury’s out on who will win - Apple, Android/Samsung... …
