Hasta La Gadget!

Not even a fortnight after we saw Android 2.0.1 slapped onto Sony Ericsson’s all-but-forgotten Xperia X1, along comes a port that makes the other look like child’s play. A dedicated coder over at XDA Developers has managed to stuff Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 onto an X1, and while the functionality is limited (as you’d expect), the amount of fun to be had is restrained only by your imagination (and available vacation time). Go on and peek that source link to join the discussion — but be warned, you’ll be sucking down over a gigabyte worth of data before the first installation process.

[Thanks, Jules]

Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 gets ported onto Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  XDA Developers  | Email this | Comments

Nokia may talk the talk, but LG walks the walk. A day after Intel and Nokia announced they were merging their Maemo and Moblin Linux platforms to become MeeGo, a presenter at LG’s press breakfast today confirmed that the LG GW990, the first phone based on Intel’s Moorestown platform, will “transition” to MeeGo.

The presenter’s English was extremely limited, so it was hard to get more details. But the GW990 currently runs on Moblin, so it makes sense that it would become one of the first MeeGo phones.

Whether it’s actually first depends on several things, like whether Nokia transitions their N900 Maemo device over to MeeGo, and what all the mysterious other gadgets that Intel and Nokia were promising turn out to be. The GW990 is scheduled to come out in Korea during the second half of this year, but LG has no plans to bring it to the US.

Now that Apple has chosen the famously awkward name “iPad” for its tablet, the most obvious candidate “iTablet” is up for grabs. Sure enough, a UK company is leaping at the opportunity.

X2 is happy to announce it’s “hot on the heels of Apple’s latest product launch” with the iTablet, which will run Windows 7 and Linux. The iTablet will ship April in two screen sizes — 10.2 inches and 10.7 inches — with a 1,024-by-768 resolution TFT touchscreen (multitouch optional).

Other specs sound like the guts of a netbook: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, up to 250GB hard drive capacity, built-in stereo speakers, three USB ports, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI output, a 1.3-megapixel webcam and 3G connectivity.

It’s good to see competition for the iPad (I did, after all, predict 2010 would be the year of the tablet), but it’s hard to draw positive impressions from a company whose website is practically impossible to navigate. No details on price have been announced.

See Also:

• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet
• What the iPad Means for the Future of Computing
• Hands-On With the Apple iPad

X2 via [Pocket Lint]

This article was written on May 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

Some of the best software available originates from open source projects (i.e. Linux, and Firefox) where peers contribute and review the software in development. These projects give programmers the opportunity to change programs to suit their needs which also opens the door for a lot of customization.

One way that you can keep up-to-date with Open Source software is a website called SWiK.  SWiK is a project of Sourcelabs, and they’re a community driven resource for Open Source software.  Users come and document the open-source software that they’re familiar with, and then everybody benefits from their knowledge.  SWiK relies heavily on the community, and without the users, SWiK wouldn’t exist.

It’s like Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, and Digg all mixed into one, but it’s just for anything related with Open Source projects. The great thing about SWiK is that it showcases all of the hard work that people have put into their Open Source projects. If you’re unfamiliar with Open Source projects and you’d like to find and discover new ones, this is the perfect place to start.

Features:

• Tags are a big part of SWiK. All of their content is organized using Tags, so it’s a key element.
• Digg-like element where people can submit stories regarding open-source software.
• RSS: Subscribe to your favorite projects.
• Feeds can be s

There’s not a lot of content that makes it to this site on a daily basis, maybe one or two new items per day. However this is nice because then you’re not over-whelmed with new content- it’s just enough.

Get involved:

Getting involved at SWiK is really easy. One way is by adding an open-source project that hasn’t been added yet.  Another option is by editing already added projects with new/updated information. If you know something that hasn’t been added, add it (much like Wikipedia)!

Another important feature is the search.  If you’re looking for new projects, you can use the tag feature to search. You can also search by Tags in a cloud-view, or just use the search box.

Wrapping it up:

While SWiK is not the most active community out there, it serves its purpose – to allow people to share information about open source projects. If you’ve come across a great project that you weren’t quite sure how to make the most of, visit SWiK and see if there’s a page for it that might give you more details.

Pages of Interest:

• Linux on SWiK
• Ajax on SWiK
• Mozilla on SWiK

Visit SWiK: http://swik.net

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryLinspire Plans To Release Freespire In AugustOpen Source Alternatives to Software You UseMicrosoft Shows Compassion to Open Source CommunityGoogle Sponsors Photoshop Compatibility on Linux

We’ve come so very far in the way computer operating systems treat us, and in the way we treat those computer operating systems. They multitask, they animate, they reach into the internet and pull down our favorite parts, they rarely crash and they’re always on. It’s a far cry from a decade ago, but I think we could go so much further. The advent of the cheap, ubiquitous touchscreen, always-available internet and continually cheaper and more powerful hardware has revolutionized the phone industry, and I think it can also help the desktops and laptops we know and love do more for us. But a laptop isn’t a phone: we’re supposed to get a lot done on it, under some unrealistic deadlines, and some random company with big ideas can’t come along and reinvent the desktop OS in one fell swoop — that simply isn’t practical when we have things to do.

So what’s an OS to do? I think there are serious opportunities for evolution available to the Microsofts, Apples and Ubuntus of the world, but they involve embracing new technologies in new ways. And stealing a ton of ideas from phones. A finger on a screen is not a mouse on a pad, an internet browser is not the end-all be-all of the internet, and playing Crysis in a quad HD resolution at 60 fps is not the ultimate expression of gaming for 95% of the population. Join me as I explore a few bits of legacy cruft that need to be addressed before the desktop OS can become as important to this decade as it was to the last one.

Continue reading Editorial: 10 outdated elements of desktop operating systems

Editorial: 10 outdated elements of desktop operating systems originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments