Windows 8 ARM tablets suffering pricing problems due to Microsoft fees, report claims
According to Digitimes, original equipment manufacturers are having a hard time meeting price targets for tablets that will run Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 RT operating system, which is coded for touch input.
This is no small matter. TNW has written on topic a host of times, fretting publicly that Windows 8 devices may be too expensive, and thus price themselves out of contention for mass market consumer dollars.
However, Digitimes has some encouraging figures, and some that sting. From its report [Edited and condensed by TNW]:
“[The tablets], based on estimated general BOM costs of US$300-350 for 10-inch tablet PCs and US$150-200 for 7-inch models, are struggling to meet vendors’ price targets [...] because of the additional US$90-100 fee for Windows 8.” Read more...
Verizon fumbles on “kill unlimited data plans” damage control
Yesterday, at the J.P. Morgan 40th Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, Verizon EVP and CFO Frank Shammo mentioned that his company would be forcing customers away from their grandfathered unlimited data plans. The decision is purely financial: "A lot of our 3G base is unlimited. As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan. And that is beneficial for us for many reasons, obviously. So as you pick what tier you want to be and we think that there will be some price up in those tiers." Read more...
Mozilla product director says Firefox on Window RT ‘probably not worth it’
A Mozilla product director yesterday said that unless Microsoft allows other browser makers to call important APIs in Windows RT, it is "probably not worth it to even bother" building a version of Firefox for the new operating system.
In a Wednesday post to his personal blog, Asa Dotzler, product director of Firefox, again slammed Microsoft for not allowing third-party browsers access to Win32 APIs, or application programming interfaces, in the upcoming Windows RT.
Windows RT, once called Windows on ARM, or WOA, is the operating system Microsoft is developing for devices -- tablets primarily, but also lightweight laptops -- that rely on processors designed for the ARM architecture. Read more...
Apache details OpenOffice 3.4 security fixes
Following the release of Apache OpenOffice 3.4.0 last week, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has now detailed the security fixes included in the new version of the open source productivity suite. According to the ASF, the first stable release of OpenOffice under its governance addresses a total of three security vulnerabilities, all of which are rated as "important". Read more...
Red Hat preps RHEL 7 for second half of 2013
The next major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), version 7, is targeted for release in the second half of 2013, Red Hat said on Tuesday, as it also celebrated the 10th anniversary of its enterprise OS.
Red Hat aims to release a major new version of its OS every three years and updates about every six months, according to Jim Totten, vice president and general manager at Red Hat's Platform business unit.
"While we are not at a place where we are making announcements ... our general target is the second half of 2013 to see RHEL 7 enter the marketplace," Totten said in a webcast.
Red Hat is keeping details of the release close to its chest, but Totten said the OS will have improvements across its more than 2,000 packages and that key focus areas are supporting new hardware, file systems, security and performance, he said. Read more...
Firefox’s four release channels explained
By now, it should be easy to pick a browser. Most of you probably settled on a favorite ages ago, and it’s going to take some seriously cool new features — or a whole lot of crashing — to make you switch at this point. But even if you’re in love with your default you might be wondering if you’re running the right channel.
Opera offers up Opera Next to its users. Google Chrome and Firefox both have four versions being worked on at any given time. Fortunately for Firefox users, Mozilla’s got a handy new graphic that clearly shows what you can expect from each build — Stable, Beta, Aurora, and Nightly. To seasoned veterans of the web it’s a no brainer, but the image and a little explanation is handy for more casual users who want to know if the grass is greener on the other side. Read more...
Mozilla and Google blast IE-only Windows on ARM
Mozilla and Google are crying foul over Microsoft restrictions blocking rivals from Windows 8 on ARM, due later this year.
Firefox-shop Mozilla has branded Microsoft's restrictions a return to the digital dark ages "where users and developers didn't have browser choices".
Harvey Anderson, Mozilla general counsel, accused Microsoft of restricting user choice, reducing competition and chilling innovation by only allowing Internet Explorer to run on Windows RT – unveiled last month by Microsoft as the new name for Windows on ARM (WOA). He said:
Only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability, and security to which users have grown accustomed. Given that IE can run in Windows on ARM, there is no technical reason to conclude other browsers can't do the same. Read more...
Red Hat, Dell announce OEM partnership
The announcement Tuesday of a new partnership between Dell and Red Hat could mark a further expansion of open-source software use in the enterprise.
OEM customers looking to Dell for custom products will now have additional open-source options. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss join SUSE as standard choices for Dell OEM.
Red Hat's recently acquired status as the first billion-dollar open-source business underlines the importance of open technologies and their growing appeal to a wide variety of firms. Read more...
Half of all Macs will lack access to security updates by summer
Unless Apple changes its security update practice, nearly half of all Mac users will be adrift without patches sometime this summer.
Apple will launch OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion, in the next few months, and then will -- baring a change in a decade-old habit -- stop serving patches to OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard.
Although Apple has never spelled out its support policy for older operating systems, it has always dropped an edition around the time it has two newer versions in play. If the current OS X is dubbed "n," then "n-2" support ends at the debut of "n." Read more...
Apple updates iOS, mum on Wi-Fi, battery fixes
Apple has released an update to its iOS mobile operating system, version 5.1.1, which it claims remove some bugs and improves reliability of some options, but which does not address the wireless connectivity problems – well, at least not overtly – that have had some fanbois fuming.
The update, released Monday, is for the iPhone 3GS and later, the third and fourth-generation iPod touch, and the iPad and iPad 2 – presumably by "iPad", Apple means both the original iPad and the third-generation iPad, aka "The new iPad". Read more...
Mac OS X leaking passwords of FileVault users
Users of older Mac OS X versions who upgraded to the current Mac OS X 10.7.3, "Lion" and opted to stick with the older version of the FileVault encryption system, may have a problem. It appears that Apple developers enabled a debug option in 10.7.3 which makes the user's password appear, in clear text in a log file, whenever the user mounts the encrypted folder. The problem was identified by security expert David I. Emery who reported the issue on a security mailing list.
The problem appears to only affects users who upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion and did not activate the new FileVault encryption on Lion which switches to encrypting the whole hard disk rather than just the user's home directory. New users and new installations of Mac OS X Lion are not believed to be exposed to this risk. Read more...
Adobe preps silent Flash updates for Macs
Adobe last week released a new beta of Flash Player that includes silent updates for Macs.
Adobe first included silent updates for OS X in the Flash Player beta a month ago; the version shipped Friday was tagged as "Beta 3."
Adobe introduced silent updates for Flash Player on Windows in late March. At the time, the company committed to creating the same feature on OS X, but did not set a timetable. Read more...
Microsoft boots Chinese firm for leaking Windows exploit
Microsoft on Thursday identified a Chinese security partner as the source of a leak last March in its highly restricted vulnerability information-sharing program.
The company, Hangzhou DPTech Technologies, was tossed out of the Microsoft Active Protection Program (MAPP) for leaking the proof-of-concept exploit.
"During our investigation into the disclosure of confidential data shared with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) partners, we determined that a member ... Hangzhou DPTech Technologies Co., Ltd., had breached our non-disclosure agreement (NDA)," Yunsun Wee, director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, wrote in a post to a company blog. "Microsoft takes breaches of our NDAs very seriously and has removed this partner from the MAPP Program." Read more...
IE ‘silent’ upgrade helps put newest browser on Windows
Microsoft's decision late last year to switch on "silent" upgrades for Internet Explorer (IE) has moved some Windows users to newer versions, but has had little, if any, impact on the oldest editions, IE6 and IE7, according to usage statistics.
In December 2011, Microsoft announced it would start automatically upgrading IE so that users ran the newest version suitable for their copy of Windows.
Under the plan, Windows XP users still on IE6 or IE7 would be updated to IE8, while Windows Vista or Windows 7 users running IE7 or IE8 would be pushed to IE9. Read more...
Graphene helps create artificial muscle that acts like the real thing
One of the problems facing the development of more realistic/natural acting robots is the ability to create artificial muscles that mimic all aspects of the real thing. Research currently being carried out at Nankai University has just taken a big step closer to achieving that. Read more...