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The ubiquitous CD/DVD platter may be on its way to Legacyville, one town away from the FloppyTown and the once-popular ZipDisk City. Large-capacity USB and micro disk storage media go where the CD/DVD cannot go -- small mobile gadgets. But for laptop and desktop storage and bulk transfer needs, CD/D...

Linux aficionados gained a new option Monday, thanks to the release of Peppermint OS. Checking in at under 512 MB, Peppermint is a Linux-based operating system that's designed to be cloud/Web-centric, ready to use and "insanely fast," its makers said. As a fork of Lubuntu, the system is based on --...

Users of Google Goggles can now put the technology to work translating text from other languages, Google announced Thursday. Whereas a prototype demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year could recognize only German text, Goggles version v1.1 can read English, French, I...

Some technology-company sparring comes in the form of public wars of words, as has been the case with Apple and Adobe in recent weeks. However, as it turns out, some maneuvers can be perfectly silent -- deafeningly so. Such is the case with Adobe's latest slap at Apple in the form of a booth at the ...

Rhythmbox, an integrated music management application, was originally inspired by Apple's iTunes. This open source app works on the Gnome Desktop and is based on the powerful GStreamer media framework. If you have read recent Linux Picks columns, you know that the Linux world of apps gives you sever...

A newly rechristened Cloud.com on Tuesday unveiled its CloudStack Platform, an integrated software solution that lets enterprises and service providers quickly and easily build, manage and deploy Infrastructure as a Service cloud computing solutions. Formerly known as "VMOps," Cloud.com focuses on h...

Less than a month after Sony dropped Linux support from its PlayStation 3 gaming console, a disgruntled customer has filed a lawsuit, charging that the move was a deceptive business practice. He's seeking class-action status. Sony Computer Entertainment America's disablement of the "Install Other OS...

Canonical on Thursday released Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Desktop and Server Editions, the latest in its string of popular Linux distributions. Both are available for free download. The desktop version will be preinstalled on a range of computers from a number of manufacturers this summer. Canonical wants Luc...

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has signed a patent agreement with HTC covering the phone maker's Android-based devices, and it's talking with other phone vendors as well about its "concerns" regarding Google's mobile operating platform. The deal with HTC provides broad coverage under Microso...

Gnome Commander, an advanced twin-panel graphical file manager for the Linux OS, brings back memories of my pre-Windows days. That is an era when graphical shell programs were popular before the Microsoft DOS desktop gave way to the Windows 95 GUI. If that sounds like a put-down for Gnome Commander,...

Targeting a market already replete with numerous contenders, a consortium of six Japanese firms announced plans to build a new mobile operating system that will be compatible at least with Linux and Symbian -- and possibly with Android too. NTT Docomo, Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Mo...

Taking its relationship with Drupal to the next level, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it has released to the public some of the custom code it's developed for the Whitehouse.gov website. "This code is available for anyone to review, use, or modify," wrote Dave Cole, senior advi...

The Garmin-Asus partnership Wednesday announced the new Garminfone, an Android-based smartphone that will be available on the T-Mobile USA network. This 3G device has a 3.5-inch screen and will be available later this year. The Garminfone follows last year's release of the Nuvifone G60, which was no...

Linux provides more than one way to listen to music collections. The bare-bones solution is to click on a music file from within a file manager app. The high-end approach is to playback music with Amarok. Amarok is a sound-system-independent audio player with a flexible interface that uses a browser...

Garrett Heaton can't speak highly enough of his bank. "USAA is a FANTASTIC bank, and their services and customer service are top-notch," he says -- especially its Deposit@Home feature, which lets users scan checks for immediate deposit into their account. There's just one problem: Heaton, a N.Y.-bas...