Change can stoke conflicted emotions in a computer user. There's the thrill of the new. Then there's the dread of problems that may erupt when the old meets the new. Admittedly, I felt those qualms when I prepared to upgrade my iPad to the latest version of its operating system, iOS 4.2. As it turns out, my fears were unnecessary. At first I was hesitant to upgrade on the first day the new version was available. Typically, the pent-up demand for something that's received the volume of ink and electrons that this edition of iOS has garnered swamps a company's servers.
Well, it's that time of year again here in the land of stars and stripes -- the time when all good geeks turn their thoughts toward all they have to be thankful for. Yes, it's been a time of gratitude and reflection here in the Linux blogosphere, even as countless outside forces have conspired to distract us. "I'm thankful for an OS that lets me tinker with its insides and leaves me with all sorts of hobby projects when I'm bored but yet somehow requires no hackery to get it working in the first place," Montreal consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack offered, for example.
3. Novell acquired by Attachmate, sells some patents to Microsoft
When Novell turned down an offer to be acquired by hedge fund Elliot Associates earlier this year, it seemed like the Linux vendor was looking for a better deal. The company announced today that it has accepted an offer to be acquired for $2.2 billion by software company Attachmate. Parallel to the acquisition, Novell has sold over 800 patents for $450 million to a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft.
Novell entered the Linux market in 2003 by acquiring Ximian and SuSE, commercial Linux vendors that were rising to prominence at the time. Novell used the technology obtained through those acquisitions to build enterprise Linux desktop and server platforms that the company brought to market under a unified SUSE brand. Novell opened the source code of some core SUSE features, such as the YaST configuration system, and attempted to foster an independent open source development community around its software.
4. New Exoplanet Discovery Hints at Earth's End
Until now, planets known to humans have never wandered into the Milky Way galaxy. However, Friday's announcement that planet HIP 13044b entered our galaxy hitched to a giant star called HIP 13044 has astronomers rethinking how -- and where -- planets form. "This is an exciting discovery," said Max Planck Institute for Astronomy researcher Rainer Klement, who selected HIP 13044 for the study. "For the first time, astronomers have detected a planetary system of extragalactic origin."
When Novell turned down an offer to be acquired by hedge fund Elliot Associates earlier this year, it seemed like the Linux vendor was looking for a better deal. The company announced today that it has accepted an offer to be acquired for $2.2 billion by software company Attachmate. Parallel to the acquisition, Novell has sold over 800 patents for $450 million to a consortium of technology companies organized by Microsoft.
Novell entered the Linux market in 2003 by acquiring Ximian and SuSE, commercial Linux vendors that were rising to prominence at the time. Novell used the technology obtained through those acquisitions to build enterprise Linux desktop and server platforms that the company brought to market under a unified SUSE brand. Novell opened the source code of some core SUSE features, such as the YaST configuration system, and attempted to foster an independent open source development community around its software.
4. New Exoplanet Discovery Hints at Earth's End
Until now, planets known to humans have never wandered into the Milky Way galaxy. However, Friday's announcement that planet HIP 13044b entered our galaxy hitched to a giant star called HIP 13044 has astronomers rethinking how -- and where -- planets form. "This is an exciting discovery," said Max Planck Institute for Astronomy researcher Rainer Klement, who selected HIP 13044 for the study. "For the first time, astronomers have detected a planetary system of extragalactic origin."
Physicists at CERN have created the stuff of "Star Trek" for the first time ever: genuine antimatter. A 17-member team announced the production and preservation of 38 antihydrogen atoms. Physicists Emilio Segre and Owen Chamberlain of the University California, Berkeley, earned the 1959 Nobel Prize for producing part of an antihydrogen atom, antiprotons. "We've overcome the last important hurdle in the quest to do precision experiments on the antihydrogen atom, a goal for 20 years," CERN co-investigator Francis Robicheaux. "It was an incredibly difficult undertaking to trap antihydrogen."
It used to be that only hard-core film buffs carried video recording equipment on vacations. Unless your job required working with film, film editing software was not on most computer users' must-have list of tools. Maybe that is why until recently, few really useful film editing apps existed for the Linux platform. But today's Linux users are more savvy and more demanding. Mobile phones typically come with built-in filming capabilities. So more opportunity exists for editing and repackaging the film we shoot.
OnLive promises to bring PC gaming to any device with a fast Internet connection. Since the heavy lifting is done on the company's own computers and then streamed to you, the hardware doesn't need to be technically impressive. Starting on December 2, you'll be able to purchase a standalone console to access the service.
The microconsole comes with a single controller and one game download. Here's our first look at the hardware, with a full review of the service coming very soon. This may not be the future of gaming, but it's certainly an interesting experiment.
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