Posts with tag linux
Switched On: The Linux ultraportable opportunity
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.

The US smartphone market may continue to be dominated by mobile platforms from Apple, Microsoft, and RIM, but Linux has been creeping into ever more mobile devices in the last few years. Some Motorola RAZR 2 models have donned a Tux, Palm is looking to Linux to drive its next-generation consumer smartphones, and Android's backers hope to spread it to an even wider array of handsets. Linux is also driving many avant garde connected consumer electronics devices such as the Chumby, Nokia N810, Amazon Kindle, Dash Express, and whatever the fertile minds tinkering with Bug Labs' modules are envisioning,. Even the remote control that houses the user interface of Logitech's Squeezebox Duet is a Linux computer.
However, none of these products is intended for as flexible a range of uses as a notebook PC, where Linux is being tested as a tool to achieve lower price points on a new generation of low-cost but style-conscious ultraportables. ASUS set the pace with Xandros on the Eee PC, and HP has tapped Novell SuSE Linux for the 2133 Mini-Note, but whereas the Eee's positioning has been somewhat of a loose hybrid between an adult OLPC and the Nintendo Wii's culture of global inclusion, the HP Mini-Note has been strongly focused on reckless, immature students while acknowledging potential for senior executives that have been known to share their temperament.
Concordance enables Logitech Harmony programming in Linux
[Via Hack-A-Day]
Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 available for download
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, image courtesy of doninside]
OLPC head of software and content resigns, possibly over transition to XP
The recent shakeups at the top of the OLPC hierarchy have apparently claimed another victim, as OLPC News is reporting that Software and Content chief Walter Bender has just left the project. Rumor is that Nicholas Negroponte is going to transition the OLPC XO entirely to Windows XP to spur sales soon, and Bender is reportedly unhappy about that. What makes this all the more interesting is that when security director Ivan Krstić left the OLPC project last month, he specifically said he was unhappy that the restructuring no longer required him to work with Bender, and said that he could no longer "subscribe to the organization's new aims or structure in good faith." Looks like something's afoot at OLPC, and the old guard isn't happy about it. What say you, NickNeg?Red Hat says it has no plans for a consumer Linux product
We've never really thought of Red Hat as being a consumer-focused Linux provider, and it looks like the company is content to stay in the enterprise -- the company announced today that it has no plans to enter the consumer space. Red Hat says that as a for-profit public company, the focus on the bottom line precludes a risky bet on a consumer-oriented Linux desktop, and that it sees history as being "littered" with failures. Instead, the company is going to work on getting businesses to switch over to managed Linux desktops, which seems like a safe, if somewhat dull strategy. Still, that's a pretty big potential market to give up, especially as more and more UMPCs and MIDs hit the scene with Linux pre-loaded, and distros like gOS and Ubuntu (seven days till Hardy Heron, kids!) increase consumer awareness. Still, we can sort of see why Red Hat is willing to safely make money in the corporate game -- but we prefer our Linux a little more punk rock.[Via Mobile Tech Today]
Pandora dev board seen running applications, games
[Thanks, Ben]
Ubuntu Mobile and Moblin get investigated
[Via jkOnTheRun]
LiMo Platform Release 1 gets loosed, R2 to come later this year
[Via PhoneScoop]
Linux becomes only OS to escape PWN 2 OWN unscathed
[Image courtesy of TippingPoint]
PWN 2 OWN over: MacBook Air gets seized in 2 minutes flat
PWN 2 OWN contest lets hackers choose Vista, OS X or Linux
Last year's PWN 2 OWN contest at the CanSecWest security conference went over way better than expected (read: exploits were glorified), so this year, organizers have spiced things up by letting hackers have their way with three separate machines. The Linux, OS X and Vista-based rigs were all setup as similarly as possible in order to "make sure the attack surface was the same on all of them." For attendees in Vancouver, there sits a $20,000 top prize -- which dwindles with each passing day as restrictions on attacks ease up -- but it can only be acquired if an all new zero-day cyber roundhouse kick is used. Anyone here going to give it a go? You get to keep the freshly victimized laptop too, you know.ASUS releases Eee SDK, open source continues to be open
[Via Eee Site]
Shuttle's Linux-based KPC desktop gets reviewed
NorhTec prepping sub-$300 Linux-based laptop of its own
[Via Eee Site]




























