Archive

The power of community is grossly underestimated in this country. Current collaborative trends on the Internet, from Web 2.0 to Wikipedia models, are seen as merely social or arguably informative in nature. That's a bit like saying the U.S. Constitution, another collaborative work, is a fetching fli...

Chipmaker Via Technologies took the wrapper of its OpenBook Mini-Note reference design Tuesday, making the blueprint for its latest ultra mobile PC available to anyone who wants to manufacture low-cost computers based on Via's line of low-power processors. The open source, computer-assisted design f...

Technology moves at a lightning-fast pace. A brand new desktop computer has an average lifespan of two to five years, after which both its hardware and its software have become obsolete. For businesses and other organizations, this poses a significant challenge as they attempt to keep their IT purch...

Facebook has come up with a new plan to fight off its competitors: open sourcing its application platform. Citing multiple sources, TechCrunch reports that Facebook is planning to form an open source community around its API, which it launched just a year ago. We can expect that the four pillars of ...

As the 2008 elections approach, political mudslinging on the campaign trail has become an all-too-familiar sight. No less muddy, however -- and no less central to the democratic process -- is the battle that's currently being waged over the ballot box. How Americans cast their votes has become a sub...

It didn't take long for the European Union to react to Microsoft's Wednesday announcement that it would provide support for additional document formats in its market-dominating Microsoft Office productivity suite. Shortly after Microsoft announced that it would support the Open Document Format v1.1 ...

Open source mobile messaging software developer Funambol has created a new open source software forge as a central collaboration site for mobile OSS developers around the world. The Web site pulls together some 50,000 global developers to a combination of wikis, blogs and forums in addition to discu...

One Laptop Per Child, the organization focused on bringing low-cost laptops to children in developing nations, announced it intends to release a newly redesigned version of the XO notebook, the XO-2, in 2010. The second generation of the XO will include new technology to meet OLPC's goal of advancin...

Looking to remodel your own little castle in Spain? Perhaps just design a modest little country cottage or addition to your current abode? As in many areas, software tools and expertise up until relatively recently accessible only to professionals are now available to just about anyone that cares to...

Mozilla is creeping ever closer to dropping the final version of the much-anticipated Firefox 3 Web browser. The latest build is the first Release Candidate for Firefox 3, which means it's gone beyond the beta stage and is picking up a couple of last-minute polishes before it's offered up live to th...

The One Laptop Per Child project and Microsoft have come together to make the software company's Windows XP operating system available on the OLPC's low-cost laptops, the XO. Sugar, a Linux-based user interface, will also be offered on XO computers. Although OLPC had hoped to ship millions of the lo...

Virtualization is one of the most significant hot-button topics in enterprise today. Linux server virtualization has allowed enterprises to leverage resources more efficiently. It also is giving CIOs and IT managers a tool to address growing corporate concerns over environmental issues and rising en...

The Open Handset Alliance may have the power of Google behind it, but a surge of new members has just swelled the ranks of the competing LiMo Foundation to 40, the group announced Wednesday. Verizon Wireless, Mozilla, Infineon Technologies, Kvaleberg, Red Bend Software, Sagem Mobiles, SFR and SK Tel...

Increasingly, managers find themselves leading teams that are scattered in different cities or even continents, working on projects which have to be flexible enough to rapidly evolve to meet changing business needs. In this environment, business managers are starting to learn what software developer...

Taking on the likes of Adobe and Microsoft, Sun Microsystems on Tuesday unveiled its new JavaFX family of products for building rich Internet applications. Based on Sun's longstanding Java platform, JavaFX includes a runtime and a tools suite that Web scripters, designers and developers can use to q...