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LinuxInsiderLinuxInsider -- "Linux News & Information from Around the World"
I've got fond memories of physical keyboards embedded in smartphones. My Palm Treos -- I had three -- were superb at composing email and SMS text responses. I even made notes for a book I was writing on one Treo. I speculate that the hardware keyboard is the principal differentiator keeping BlackBerry's brand alive, along with its super-secure, cheapo messaging system that was used to organize riots in the UK last year, of course.
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It can sometimes feel like there's a surprise around every corner here in the Linux blogosphere, but it's not often we get to see a company the size of Google make a dramatic shift. That, however, is just what last week afforded when reports emerged that Google would take a markedly different approach to the launch this fall of Android 5.0, or "Jelly Bean."
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Whether you are writing code or creating editorial content, a noisy computing environment often can silence your productivity. The Pyroom Text Editor gives you a quiet environment where computing noise cannot distract you from your creativity. Computing noise -- that is, computing distractions from the task at hand -- comes from all the media outlets your computer provides.
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China's antitrust authorities have approved Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, on the condition that the Android operating system remain open source and its code be made freely available to original equipment manufacturers. Android devices had nearly 74 percent of the Chinese market in Q4, 2011, and that means Android is in a dominant position, China's Commerce Department said.
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If there's anything important in this competitive world, it's the ability to tell one's friends from one's enemies. We here in the Linux blogosphere tend to be pretty good at that, but recently a surprising turn of events left us befuddled. Namely: Mozilla's decision to leave Linux support out of the initial release of its upcoming Web Apps marketplace.
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Have you ever found yourself scrolling endlessly around your phone's chronologically arranged photograph album -- called "Gallery" in Android -- looking for a photograph you've captured? If you can remember the specific place but not the date, then Scalado Album may be for you. I say "may be" because there are some downsides to using it over the stock "Gallery" app, which I'll get to.
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There are nearly 4,000 different types of devices running Android, OpenSignalMaps has found. More than 1,300 of them have custom ROMs that tweak the android.build model. Android brands are almost as diverse as the models, OpenSignalMaps discovered. Further, the application programming interface level, meaning the Android version, has also become more fragmented over time.
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Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Or would it, perhaps, end up sweeter? That, essentially, is the question at the heart of the forking process, which in turn is at the heart of a key situation today. Namely: Now that we have LibreOffice, do we still need OpenOffice as well? In the wake of Apache OpenOffice's new update, that's been the question du jour down at the Linux blogosphere's Punchy Penguin Cafe.
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Two years after its initial attempt to sell Nexus smartphones directly to consumers flopped, Google is apparently trying to revive the strategy. This time, though, it's added a few new touches. It's going to work with up to five device manufacturers at a time to create a portfolio of Nexus-line devices that include smartphones and tablets.
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SugarCon, the SugarCRM user meeting held in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, did some important things for Sugar. It was a coming out party of sorts for a company with a distinct business model and strategy, namely open source. It was also validation of that strategy and, for many, a new realization of what open source means.
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The Internet is a hub for acquiring music, video and a just about any other form of content. Miro is one of the most capable player apps that I have seen for all of this media. Keeping up with the various forms of content the Web has to offer can be a daunting task.
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Murmurs about Google's supposed plans to launch its own tablet soon are growing to a roar. Source code from Google and Samsung indicate that a Nexus tablet is in the works, Slashgear reported. "It seems logical that it will be a Google Nexus device consistent with the Nexus smartphone, but the problem is there's nothing unique about the Nexus smartphone," suggested Andrew Eisner, director of community and content at Retrevo.
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Life is never dull here in the world of technology, but some weeks it's hard to remember that this is actually the real world, and not some epic tale of the battle between good and evil. We've seen plenty of examples of good pulling ahead in the struggle in recent weeks, of course -- but there's never any shortage of dastardly deeds being committed, either.
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Keep Everything. Share Anything. When a company like Google uses a tagline that includes the words "share anything" for a Dropbox-like cloud file storage system, my immediate reaction is "with whom?" Google, after-all, is a company that's made its money delivering ads based on what it learns about our habits. There's been debate about this very question since Drive launched.
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There's no denying the incendiary nature of the topic of desktop Linux, which tends to gets rehashed in heated detail every so often both on these pages and beyond. What some may not remember, however, is that there's another recurring Linux subject that can be equally controversial. It hasn't appeared in some time, but apparently some slow fires have been burning all along, because they just flared up anew.
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The latest edition of Canonical's Ubuntu 12.04 desktop operating system shows considerable maturity. Precise Pangolin is built around the default Unity interface with an optional Heads Up Display designed to keep hands on the keys rather than constantly interrupting the work flow by grabbing the mouse.
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Recent news that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to partner on the Nook e-reader line rather than keep fighting suggests the prospect of fewer IP suits in the industry. However, the deal further obscures the blurry IP and patent landscape currently impacting both enterprise IT and consumer technology. It is good to see settlement. However, this settlment comes from the one conflict in this ongoing war that was actually shedding some light on the matter.
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It's been a cheerily good spring for FOSS fans here in the Linux blogosphere, so we may perhaps be forgiven for our utter shock and disbelief at the affront recently committed against us by a certain brick-and-mortar purveyor of books and magazines. Barnes & Noble yanked the very excellent Linux Format magazine from its U.S. shelves -- apparently because of a cover story on the topic of "hacking."
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Samsung launched the Galaxy S III smartphone in London on Thursday. The device will run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, version 4.0 of the mobile OS. The Galaxy S III's features include facial and voice recognition, voice command capability and eye tracking.
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I think I may have asked Shazam Encore to do the impossible. I had downloaded the app just before a planned lunch that included a sojourn to my neighborhood car wash -- which conveniently features a simple Mexican eatery. Sitting on the bench in the shade after the nosh, I detected the faint yet unmistakable tinkling sound of elevator music above the roar of the blowing drier. "Aha," I thought, wits about me, "Shazam reckons it can identify songs instantly?"
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Well there's a new kid in town here in the Linux blogosphere, and it's already caused quite a stir. It's one of the Ubuntu clan, as its nickname makes clear, but that's as far as the foolin' goes. With five years of support and a scaly, tough hide, this one's here to stay. With time on its side and its eye on the prize, it may just blaze a new trail. Can freedom take hold in a world that's been dominated for so long?
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Music lovers have numerous strong choices for organizing and playing their collections of songs on the Linux desktop. But music creators have far fewer professional-strength options among Linux applications. With Linux MultiMedia Studio, or LMMS, though, one option may be all you really need. LMMS does it all and does it all well.
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Microsoft on Monday said it will pay $300 million to get a piece of Barnes & Noble's Nook tablet action for the Windows 8 platform. The two companies will partner in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary which will push further into the education market. Barnes & Noble will initially create a Nook app for Windows 8.
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"It has taken longer than most anyone would have anticipated, but the fact remains that Valve is in fact creating a native Linux port of their Steam game distribution client and of the Source Engine to run natively on Linux," read the announcement on Phoronix on Wednesday. Think gaming is trivial? Think again: In a matter of seconds, the topic was on fire on Slashdot and throughout the Linux blogosphere.
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SugarCRM has just debuted a controlled release of version 6.5 of its flagship open source CRM offering. In many ways, the release is an iterative change -- it does not represent the same major shift in functionality and user interface as version 6 did, when it was launched in 2010. In one key way, however, the new version is significantly different: The user interface is much more oriented to search technology.
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