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Once again playing coy with a major company announcement, Google engineering vice president and Android development director Andy Rubin tweeted Thursday that more than 300,000 Android phones are activated daily. It was only Rubin's second tweet, and followed his sneak-a-peek presentation of Android'...

Google released Android 2.3, or Gingerbread, on Monday -- a new version of its open source mobile platform. Gingerbread made its debut on the Samsung Nexus S smartphone. The new platform comes with enhancements such as a more refined touchscreen keyboard for faster typing and greater accuracy. There...

There is a great deal of commotion about the cloud, and rightfully so, but the noise can be overwhelming. The market is crowded with different products and platforms from the smallest of startups to industry behemoths, a condition that is not helped by cloudwashing and other tactics designed to take...

The advantages of open source software really become evident when it comes to using design applications. This category of software is one that not everyone needs -- that is, unless you need software to help you create illustrations for Web design or print publication projects. The Linux OS has a bev...

High-performance computing applications such as numerical simulation -- whether for forecasting, mechanical and structure simulation, or computational chemistry -- require a large number of CPUs for processing. To meet these needs, customers must buy a large-scale system that enables parallel proce...

New app choices have a habit of getting in the way of older favorites. Sometimes, a new approach or design can tempt you to give up one approach to solving a computing need by replacing it with another. That is the case with personal information manager apps. Open source software gives us Linux user...

The marketing stars appear to be coming into alignment for the vendors of open source offerings who are targeting the U.S. government. Significant barriers to adopting open source technology at the federal level are breaking down, and tight budgets provide an opportunity for vendors to emphasize the...

Saying the Android platform is fast is an understatement. Within one short year, it's erupted from claiming a mere sliver of market share to taking second spot worldwide for smartphone sales by operating system, according to Gartner's figures. Android had 25.5 percent of the worldwide smartphone mar...

Local, state, and federal government agencies across the U.S. share the common goal of serving the public. They also share another contemporary fact of life: They are running out of money. As a result, efficiency is becoming a major goal in government at all levels, and information technology appear...

Enterprises' need for storage is increasing exponentially as businesses use more and more rich media, such as audio and video, both within their networks and on customer-facing websites. That demand is going to continue growing, driven both by customer demand and demand from new hires who grew up wi...

The Linux platform has several really good financial applications that are more than capable of handling both personal and small-business accounting operations. GnuCash, HomeBank and Skrooge are among the best financial apps I've found for Linux. In terns of features and performance, all three are a...

Google on Wednesday released mod_pagespeed, a module for the Apache HTTP Server that will automatically perform various website speed optimization tasks. This includes 15 or so on-the-fly optimizations. Google claims mod_pagespeed reduces average page load times by up to 50 percent. However, mod_pag...

One of the lingering concerns potential Linux users have is the worry of leaving behind Windows software they have relied on for playing audio and video files. That used to be a valid concern. But it isn't something to worry about any more. Three relatively new Linux apps make it possible to convert...

The very same corporations that are making small fortunes with Linux servers give short shrift to Linux Desktop, I argued in a recent article, setting off a spirited discussion. Many of you responded with counterarguments, siding -- surprisingly -- with businesses. Perhaps not surprisingly, I contin...

Do you ever marvel at those step-by-step how-to product demos of software apps that end-users post on places like YouTube? It is often easy to spot these demo videos shot with cellphone cams or PC eye cams placed over the user's shoulder. But two cool Linux apps give you a the ability to record dire...

Belgian open source application vendor OpenERP has set up its first overseas business office in San Jose, Calif. Traditionally, the company has worked with reseller partners in the United States and 54 other countries worldwide. After four years, though, OpenERP has begun an aggressive expansion. It...

At the heart of the case is whether the Android operating system infringes patents on the Java technology Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems early this year.

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 ...

The smartphone industry has caught the sue-me, sue-you flu. Microsoft on Friday filed a patent infringement suit against Motorola related to Android technology. Microsoft claims Motorola has infringed on nine Microsoft patents with its Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a wide...

A study conducted jointly by Penn State University, Duke University and Intel Labs has found that some Android apps surreptitiously send user information to remote servers at ad networks and analytics firms. Some of the apps send users' geographic locations to remote ad networks; others send a uniqu...