I’ve dabbled around with Linux in the past (including infamously self hosting GizBuzz on an old laptop, only to see it succumb to the Digg Effect when I wrote a post about how to set up your own web server). I am, however, a long way from being a Linux expert and have never considered installing and using it as a desktop operating system. Until now.
Continue reading Ubuntu: Linux Comes Of Age
Category: Open Source
Linutop: Tiny Linux Computer On Sale
Get ready for a bonkers-ly small Linux machine, called Linutop, as it comes on sale.
For us the cool features of the Linutop are its silent operation, small size (9.3 x 2.7 x 15 cm) and low energy consumption – less than 6 watts.
Linutop comes with xubuntu, a shrunk-down version of the hugely popular Ubuntu Linux, including Firefox providing Web access and Gaim for instant messaging in its build.
Continue reading Linutop: Tiny Linux Computer On Sale
Google Developer Day Announced
All of you budding code-aholics take note, Google is hosting ten Google Developer Days in their various offices around the world on 31 May.
They’re going to have workshops, keynotes and breakout discussions on Google’s APIs and developer tools.
Google have been running a few of these already with much smaller capacity. A few have happened in Silicon Valley and a couple in London that we’re aware of, but this is on a much bigger scale.
The program is being headed up by code-fan pin-up girl Marissa Mayer, who’s Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. She was one of the first 20 people to join Google (just imagine her stock options!) and the first female engineer hired by them.
They’re rolling out some of their top talent to get the code-kids hot under the collar. Get ready for this …
Guido Van Rossum, Google software engineer and creator of the Python programming language (Beijing); Chris DiBona, Google open source programs manager (London); Mark Stahl, Google data APIs tech lead (Madrid); Bruce Johnson and Joel Webber, co-creators of the Google Web Toolkit (Mountain View); Bret Taylor, group product manager for Google developer products (Mountain View); Lars Rasmussen, Google Maps senior engineer (Sydney); and Greg Stein, Google engineering manager and chairman of the Apache Software Foundation (Tokyo).
The subjects they’ll be covering also sound pretty enticing. Here’s a cross section, “Developing with Geo: Google Maps, Google Earth and SketchUp,” “Tools for Better Web Development: The Google Web Toolkit, Open Source and Other Developer Initiatives” and “Mashups and More: AJAX, Google Gadgets and the Google Data APIs.”
What does Google get out of this?
Google’s going to be lashing all of their cash, time and resources on this, so what’s driving them?
Well, people become more familiar with how to write programs to use their applications via the published API’s, which means the potential for extra advertising income for Google.
That’s all well a good but more importantly, Google get to spot the hottest programming talent around the world and can in turn try to persuade that talent to join the Google gang. Meaning Google ends up with the best programmers, not their competition.
Smart, eh?
Locations
- Mountain View, California
- São Paulo, Brasil
- London, United Kingdom
- Paris, France
- Madrid, España
- Hamburg, Deutschland
- Москва, Россия (That’s Russia to you)
- Tokyo – Japan
- Sydney, Australia
- Beijing,China
Those who can’t make it don’t need to be left out, Google will offer live streaming webcasts from its Mountain View office and provide a YouTube™ channel with videos of Google Developer Day sessions around the world.
Mobile Linux Use Set To Soar
Linux may be associated with sunlight-avoiding, beardy computer ‘enthusiasts’ pottering in sheds, but the popularity of its mobile phone version is predicted to soar.
Although Linux take-up has traditionally trailed miles behind Symbian – currently the head honchos of mobile OS platforms hogging around 60 per cent of the market share – research firm ABI thinks things are about to change.
They reckon that the number of mobile phones purring along on Linux is about to skyrocket from the current tally of 8.1 million phones to more than 200 million by 2012.
ABI also predicts that handsets incorporating the open source Linux as a real-time operating system (RTOS) replacement will also grow massively, leaping up from a base of just about zero today to 76 million units in 2012.
Stuart Carlaw, research director at ABI reckoned that Linux’s growth will be down to a number of factors; the breaking down of barriers for adoption, more industry bodies working to promote the OS (including Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung) and the ease in which phone makers and mobile operators can customise their handsets.
The new report by ABI Research, “Mobile Linux: Bringing License-Free Operating Systems to Smartphones and Mid-Tier Devices”, concludes that “Linux in the cellular phone is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’.”
Elsewhere, The Linux Foundation has announced an update of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and the release of a new testing toolkit, which can be found here: www.linux-foundation.org/en/LSB
Novell Linux Mocks “I’m a Mac” TV Adverts
Novell have done a great collection of spoof ads of Apple’s “I’m a Mac” series, you know, the ones that had a UK launch in January this year.
While playing to the same music and video style, it mocks the self congratulatory styles and adds a third character … Linux. Rather than the obvious blokes, it uses a woman to represent Linux.
Continue reading Novell Linux Mocks “I’m a Mac” TV Adverts
Wikipedia Goes Top Ten In The US
Wikimedia Foundation’s popular Wikipedia online encyclopedia has now become one of the most popular websites in the US.
According to analysts comScore Networks, Wikipedia elbowed itself into a top ten place for the first time in January, with its 42.9 million unique visitors earning it a ninth place ranking.
This puts the site ahead of web big-hitters like The New York Times, Apple and Viacom, who ranked 10th, 11th and 12th in January 2007 by comScore’s figures.
Although Wikipedia has hit the top ten spot in other countries, its rise in the US has been dramatic, with the site only managing a 33rd spot with 18.3 million unique visitors in January last year.
By July 2006 it has soared up to the 18th spot with 28.1 million unique visitors and by November it was hovering outside the hallowed top ten slot with 39.1 million unique visitors giving it a 12th place ranking.
ComScore explained that the Wikipedia total also includes other Wikimedia sites, like Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks and Wikinews, but said that the vast majority of the traffic comes from the Wikipedia encyclopedias.
Although it seems like it’s been around for ages, Wikipedia only started in January 2001 but can now boast 1.6 million articles on its English-language site, and over 5 million articles in other language sites.
Wikipedia sites also perform well globally, with comScore ranking them sixth overall in December 2005, ratcheting up a total of almost 165 million unique visitors.
Wikipedia To Run Out Of Money?
Last week at the LIFT07 conference in Geneva, Florence Devouard, chairwoman of Wikimedia, the organisation behind the ubiquitous, editable-by-all online encyclopedia warned that Wikipedia was facing a serious financial crisis if it did not receive more funding soon.
Whilst there have been sensationalist reports that Wikipedia would be forced to close in three to four months if the current financial situation continued, this has shown not to be the case by an interview of Devouard. She does stress, however, that Wikipedia cannot continue growing at the current pace if it does not find ways to raise money.
Currently Wikimedia (which is a non-profit organisation) is funded almost entirely from donations, with the occasional content license deal. There can be little doubt that if Wikipedia were to run advertising, it could instantly become self sufficient, as Jason Calacanis, web media entrepreneur, has been advocating. They point to the success of the Mozilla Foundation (the makers of Firefox), another non-profit organisation, who are in a very good financial position thanks to an advertising deal with Google.
However, Wikimedia has not been keen to accept such advertising, in part due to the fear that it would taint the non-commercial nature of Wikipedia, and in part due to opposition from some users.
It would seem that Wikimedia has two options for the future of its funding; continue with the current approach of soliciting donations as the main source of income or accept advertising, with all the negative consequences that may follow.
There may, however, be a third way. I would like to see Wikipedia commercialised; there can be little doubt that it would be of enormous commercial value to a purchaser, and that its status as a revenue generating business would help to guarantee its future. Wikipedia’s objectivity as an organisation is sacrosanct, but so are Google’s search results. Google recognised when it was founded that it would cease to be of any value to its users the day that it accepted money for placement within its search results. The result is clearly labeled advertising which in no way detracts from a useful product, and an emphatically revenue positive company.
I see no reason why Wikipedia cannot experience the same kind of success that Google has enjoyed; a rich Wikipedia could afford to pay experts to review its articles, improving style and accuracy (and thereby removing a major concern which is a barrier to its mass adoption as a trusted source of information). A rich Wikipedia would ensure that this resource which has become crucial to our information age will remain for as long as it is needed.
Don’t forget that you can support Wikipedia by sending donations to support Wikipedia. (Thanks Mikker)
Huw Leslie is editor of UK-based Web 2.0 and software blog Gizbuzz, and the co-founder of technology blog network Oratos Media. His personal blog is For Crying Out Loud!
Second Life Going Open Source
Wow. Linden Labs, the owner, creator of online gaming smash Second Life have announced that they’ll be placing their front end software, The Viewer, under an open-source GPL license.
We think it’s a pretty brave move, which Linden Labs will lead to innovation in the front end – highly likely, given the passionate and highly technical nature of a large number of their players, or Residents, as they call them.
The move marks Linden Lab’s continued commitment to building the Second Life Grid as an open, extensible platform for development, rather than a closed proprietary system.
Linden Labs are right to recognise that their income comes from the $9.95 subscription fee, not the software that is used to access the ‘world.’
Going open source was inevitable and vital in the view of Linden Labs, as CTO Cory Ondrejka explained, “Open sourcing is the most important decision we’ve made in seven years of Second Life development. While it is clearly a bold step for us to proactively decide to open source our code, it is entirely in keeping with the community-creation approach of Second Life.”
Firefox Use Up 50% In 2006
The open source Mozilla Firefox browser enjoyed a whopping increase of nearly 50% during 2006, according to Web measurement firm, Net Applications
Fuelled by the release of Version 2.0 in October, the freebie Firefox browser registered a massive rise in usage last year, bumping its market share to 14% of all computers online at the end of 2006.
This marks a 46% increase on its 9.6% share of the browser market at the beginning of 2006.
For every winner there has to be a loser or two, and in this case it was Microsoft, who saw their market share slump to 79.6% from 85.1% at the start of 2006, despite the release of an update to Internet Explorer last year.
AOL’s Netscape also ended up feeling like a chump, with their market share slipping from 1.24% down to a teensy weensy 0.9%.
Flying high on Apple’s increased sales throughout the year, the Mac Safari browser rose up to grab 4.2% of the market, up from 3.1% at the beginning of 2006.
Elsewhere, Opera grew its share to match Netscape, up from 0.6% at the beginning of the year.
Much of Opera’s growth has come through partnerships with mobile phone and game console makers (such as Nintendo), striking deals to bundle the browser with their devices.
[From Computerworld]
Firefox 2.0 Launches Today
The final version of the Firefox 2.0 browser is expected to be released into the wild today.
Our browser of choice for some time now, the update to the open source browser includes onboard anti-phishing controls, built-in RSS and XML feed-viewing capabilities, and a new inline spell checker.
Firefox is developed by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, and a spokeswoman commented that the final version was substantially the same as the final beta, with the program scheduled for free download sometime this afternoon.
The release comes days after Microsoft launched their catch-up Internet Explorer 7 upgrade, which saw the program finally introduce tabbed browsing – something that Firefox users have been enjoying for years.
Firefox 2.0 also features a new “close” button on its tabs – with links opening in tabs by default – and a handy Session Restore feature restoring windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and in-progress downloads from the last user session, with the ability to restore previous sessions after a system crash.
“If your browser needs a restart or the OS asks you to reboot, losing all of those web pages and content is pretty disruptive,” commented Mozilla VP of products Christopher Beard. Ain’t that the truth, Chris!
An enhanced search feature will offer search term suggestions for punters using the integrated text box to search Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com, with a new search engine manager making it easier to add, remove and re-order your fave engines.
Although Firefox has enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity and made a real impact on Microsoft’s near-monopoly of the browser market, recent figures from OneStat.com reveal that global usage of the browser slumped 1.44 per cent from July, and now stands at 11.49 per cent.
Internet Explorer still rules the global roost with 85.85 per cent of the market, increasing 2.8 per cent since July while, global usage of the Mac-only Safari browser is just 1.61 per cent, down 0.23 per cent from July.