Citizens, worry no longer about how the US will accomplish ambitious renewable energy goals in a short span of time—Google is here to save the day. The company announced on Monday that it would cover a large portion of the funding for a new offshore wind energy system on the East coast that will generate 6,000 megawatts of power to an area that experiences high power congestion and has limited options for renewable sources.
The US has been working on many fronts towards renewable energy solutions, from wind to solar to hydroelectric, but policymakers often run into problems in areas like the Mid-Atlantic section of the East coast. There's not much room for space-intensive operations like photovoltaic cells or wind turbines on land, and that's to say nothing of complaints about noise and appearance.
The US has been working on many fronts towards renewable energy solutions, from wind to solar to hydroelectric, but policymakers often run into problems in areas like the Mid-Atlantic section of the East coast. There's not much room for space-intensive operations like photovoltaic cells or wind turbines on land, and that's to say nothing of complaints about noise and appearance.
2. Jailbreak! Greenpois0n and limera1n offer new options for iOS 4
Jailbreakers now have two options for getting through Apple's security restrictions on iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches running iOS 4.1. The Chronic Dev Team, set to launch its greenpois0n jailbreak tool on 10/10/10, was pre-empted a day early by iOS hacker "geohot." This prompted a delay in releasing greenpois0n, but the Chronic Dev Team announced Tuesday that their tool has been released for Windows, with Mac OS X and Linux versions promised "soon."
Chronic Dev Team member "ipod2g" had developed a boot ROM exploit known as "SHAtter," and had been working on a tool to use this exploit for an iOS 4.1 jailbreak on the latest iOS devices. Because the boot ROM is set at the factory, the only way Apple could prevent jailbreaks using the technique would be to change the boot ROM installed on newly built devices. Devices in the wild are effectively unpatchable.
Geohot developed his own boot ROM exploit and worked with iOS hacker "comex" to build it into an untethered jailbreak tool called limera1n. Geohot (aka George Hotz) is well known for his other hacks, including theblackra1n jailbreak tool and a PS3 firmware hack to re-enable the "OtherOS" option removed by Sony.
The Chronic Dev Team decided to modify greenpois0n to use geohot's exploit, preserving SHAtter in case Apple patches the geohot exploit on future devices.
Both greenpois0n and limera1n currently work on the following devices: iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, fourth- and third-gen iPod touches, and iPads. Limera1n reportedly works on the iOS-based Apple TV, but so far can't be used todo anything useful. Support for the Apple TV and second-gen iPod touch is promised for a future version of greenpois0n.
As always, if you're interested in jailbreaking your device, be sure you understand all the caveats before jumping in—issues with certain versions of firmware or baseband software can result in an expensive, if pretty, brick.
Canonical has announced the availability of Ubuntu 10.10, a major update of the popular Linux distribution. The new version introduces the Unity netbook environment, which offers a custom desktop shell that is optimized for ease of use on small displays and has a global menubar to conserve vertical screen space.
Ubuntu's installer got a major overhaul in this release, with substantial user interface improvements and new features. The new installer can start downloading updated packages during the early stages of the configuration process in order to save the user from having to run a full update immediately after installation. It also has a new option that lets users choose to automatically install closed-source components, such as multimedia codecs.
3. Google Dabbles in Robotics With Self-Driving Cars
Ubuntu's installer got a major overhaul in this release, with substantial user interface improvements and new features. The new installer can start downloading updated packages during the early stages of the configuration process in order to save the user from having to run a full update immediately after installation. It also has a new option that lets users choose to automatically install closed-source components, such as multimedia codecs.
3. Google Dabbles in Robotics With Self-Driving Cars
While it has been rumored for some time, Google announced Sunday is has been testing self-driving cars. The company equipped six Toyota Priuses and an Audi TT with technology that enabled a vehicle to drive from Google's Mountain View, Calif., campus to its Santa Monica office. It then moved on to Hollywood Boulevard. In all, Google has sent its auto-cars more than 140,000 miles -- including along the Pacific Coast Highway and across the Golden Gate Bridge.
6. Three Forks in the Road for FOSS
September was an unusually exciting month here in the Linux blogosphere, not least because we saw the launch of three -- count 'em, three! -- forks, meaning that we now have three new software projects to discuss and watch. First, of course, it was the creation of OpenIndiana to replace OpenSolaris. Next came Mageia, an alternative to Mandriva Linux. Then, just last week, it was the OpenOffice.org community's LibreOffice announcement. Special thanks to Oracle, in particular!
7. Two Top Tools for Cracking the PDF Nut
One of the hallmarks of using the Linux operating system is the ability to choose. The choices do not end with opting not to use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X and instead choosing from among dozens of Linux distros. You also get the freedom to decide which individual software tools and applications are the best fit for your daily routine. All software is not the same. So do not assume that one PDF file viewer is no better than another. Two PDF viewing tools that deserve your consideration are Evince and Okular. Each offers features not found in more basic lightweight PDF viewing options.
4. WinPho 7 Shows Us What It's Got
Microsoft has announced a global rollout of Windows Phone 7 smartphones. Nine new WinPho 7 handsets will be available this holiday season from mobile operators in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The devices are being made by Dell, HTC, LG and Samsung. All of them will run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Microsoft said. In addition to offering standard Windows Phone enterprise capabilities such as support for Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, WinPho 7 includes consumer features such as a so-called people hub.
5. Mozilla releases Firefox 4 beta for Maemo and Android
Mozilla's efforts to scale down the Firefox browser and make it work on mobile devices took another step forward today with the release of Firefox 4 beta for Maemo and Android. On Android, the browser's performance is still not competitive with that of the platform's native WebKit-based browser, but the gap is starting to close.
Firefox's large disk footprint is also still problematic on Android, especially on devices like the Nexus One that have limited internal storage capacity. A fresh installation of Firefox on Android uses roughly 30MB of storage space. The first time it starts, it unpacks another 14MB, which takes about 15 seconds. Subsequent startups are faster, typically taking between 2 and 4 seconds.
The general responsiveness of the user interface is an area that has seen particularly dramatic improvements over previous versions. Sliding the screen back and forth to access the sidebars is much smoother and less jerky. Scrolling performance is also slightly better, but still lags when pages are loading. Text rendering is somewhat poor compared to the native browser, especially when text is zoomed. This negatively impacts readability in some cases.
A new welcome screen makes the browser's synchronization features and support for add-ons more discoverable. The synchronization integration is very good and largely validates Mozilla's mobile strategy. The ability to trivially access my remote bookmarks and tabs from my smartphone is very compelling. As we noted in our article about bookmark synchronization, this is an area where Google is still lagging.
The beta is available for download from Mozilla's website. For more details, you can refer to the official release announcement.
Microsoft has announced a global rollout of Windows Phone 7 smartphones. Nine new WinPho 7 handsets will be available this holiday season from mobile operators in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The devices are being made by Dell, HTC, LG and Samsung. All of them will run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Microsoft said. In addition to offering standard Windows Phone enterprise capabilities such as support for Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, WinPho 7 includes consumer features such as a so-called people hub.
5. Mozilla releases Firefox 4 beta for Maemo and Android
Mozilla's efforts to scale down the Firefox browser and make it work on mobile devices took another step forward today with the release of Firefox 4 beta for Maemo and Android. On Android, the browser's performance is still not competitive with that of the platform's native WebKit-based browser, but the gap is starting to close.
Firefox's large disk footprint is also still problematic on Android, especially on devices like the Nexus One that have limited internal storage capacity. A fresh installation of Firefox on Android uses roughly 30MB of storage space. The first time it starts, it unpacks another 14MB, which takes about 15 seconds. Subsequent startups are faster, typically taking between 2 and 4 seconds.
The general responsiveness of the user interface is an area that has seen particularly dramatic improvements over previous versions. Sliding the screen back and forth to access the sidebars is much smoother and less jerky. Scrolling performance is also slightly better, but still lags when pages are loading. Text rendering is somewhat poor compared to the native browser, especially when text is zoomed. This negatively impacts readability in some cases.
A new welcome screen makes the browser's synchronization features and support for add-ons more discoverable. The synchronization integration is very good and largely validates Mozilla's mobile strategy. The ability to trivially access my remote bookmarks and tabs from my smartphone is very compelling. As we noted in our article about bookmark synchronization, this is an area where Google is still lagging.
The beta is available for download from Mozilla's website. For more details, you can refer to the official release announcement.
6. Three Forks in the Road for FOSS
September was an unusually exciting month here in the Linux blogosphere, not least because we saw the launch of three -- count 'em, three! -- forks, meaning that we now have three new software projects to discuss and watch. First, of course, it was the creation of OpenIndiana to replace OpenSolaris. Next came Mageia, an alternative to Mandriva Linux. Then, just last week, it was the OpenOffice.org community's LibreOffice announcement. Special thanks to Oracle, in particular!
7. Two Top Tools for Cracking the PDF Nut
One of the hallmarks of using the Linux operating system is the ability to choose. The choices do not end with opting not to use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X and instead choosing from among dozens of Linux distros. You also get the freedom to decide which individual software tools and applications are the best fit for your daily routine. All software is not the same. So do not assume that one PDF file viewer is no better than another. Two PDF viewing tools that deserve your consideration are Evince and Okular. Each offers features not found in more basic lightweight PDF viewing options.
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