1. Apple Cracks Ping's Door a Little
Apple has updated its social network for music, Ping, which it released at the beginning of the month to less than rave reviews. The changes address a major complaint from users upon its initial rollout -- the dearth of social features. To be sure, Apple hasn't addressed all the issues -- or even the main one -- with Ping. However, the enhancements it has made appear to be mollifying social networkers accustomed to greater control over how they use a platform. Ping's main perceived failing is that it is limited to the iTunes ecosystem.
2. Virtual Systems, Real Security Holes
As businesses seek new ways to cut costs, IT departments are often placed on the hot seat, and that has fueled interest in virtualization. For example, VMworld 2010, held in San Francisco recently, drew more than 17,000 attendees and saw more than 145,000 virtual machines deployed. However, as businesses rush to virtualize, they too often tend to sweep security under the carpet, figuring they'll deal with that problem later. A recent survey found that the cost-cutting mindset is pushing organizations toward virtualization at the expense of security and risk mitigation.
3. The best offerings from the Frankenstein of gaming hardware
With the launch of game console modder Ben Heck's new show, we thought now would be a good time to look back at some of his best creations. Whether it's turning a game console into a laptop or a portable device, or even building an arcade machine from scratch, Heck has a knack for taking technology that's already pretty great, and making it even better. Here are some of his coolest projects to date.
4. A Tale of Two Root Exploits, and Why We Shouldn't Panic
There's no denying Linux is more secure than perpetually-patching Windows, but the past month or so has not provided an ideal demonstration. In August, we saw the arrival of a long-overdue fix for a kernel bug that was six years old; now, in the last week or so, it's been not one but two root exploits causing a fuss. "Running 64-bit Linux? Haven't updated yet? You're probably being rooted as I type this," was the introduction on Slashdot to CVE-2010-3081, the second such vulnerability to come to light in recent days.
5. 5 Reasons to Wrap Your Enterprise in Python
By now, you should at least be passingly familiar with Python. One of the fastest-growing languages, Python has been gaining popularity for years and has reached a level of maturity that makes it a top choice for enterprise development. Companies from Microsoft to Google have embraced Python and are not only supporting its use, but also investing in its development. Google uses it to power some of the world's most scalable applications. Developers pick it up quickly and easily.
6. "WiFi on steroids" gets final rules, drops spectrum sensing
At its monthly meeting today, all five FCC Commissioners set disagreements (mostly) aside and unanimously supported the final rules that will open empty TV channels to unlicensed broadband use. If all goes according to plan, these "TV white spaces" will be the raw material that unleashes another WiFi revolution—but this time with longer range, better building penetration, and even more speed.
White space devices will still need to query a special geolocation database before transmitting, in order to avoid broadcasting over existing TV channels and wireless mic users, but the FCC has ditched the expensive "spectrum sensing" tech it initially required back in 2008. On a conference call yesterday, reps from Google, Dell, and Public Knowledge worried that a requirement to include both the database check andspectrum-sensing hardware would make the new white space devices too costly and too difficult to build, while broadcasters and microphone users have long argued both techniques are necessary to avoid any interference.
7. Should the Command Line Be Deep-Sixed?
In what's surely a testament to Linux's increasingly mainstream-ready graphical user interfaces, it seems to be par for the course that every once in a while someone will suggest that there's no longer any need for the command line. Last week, it happened again. TuxRadar was the one to ask the question this time, and it's been echoing around the blogosphere ever since. "Is it finally time to do away with the command line?" TuxRadar asked in a recent podcast.
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