Day: September 11, 2006

Ryan Stewart writes: “For a great many things, technologies like Flash, OpenLaszlo and Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E) will give you a rich, web based deskop-like experience. The ubiquity and ease of the web can finally be used to deliver powerful, compelling experiences. But there are other applications that need the extra tie to the desktop. They may need to synchronize data or even just make use of the file system. By leveraging Rich Internet Applications, we can use the same code base that power our web-based RIAs, and simply add some of the desktop features we need. Once people start to get that, there is a lot to be gained in productivity and cost savings. Thinking aboout webified desktop applicatons is thinking about the past. The future is going to be applications that mostly run on the web, but have mechanisims to take advantage of the desktop when needed.”

Adrian Holovaty writes:

First, the question of “How is this journalism?” is academic. Journalists should have less of a concern of what is and isn’t “journalism,” and more of a concern for important, focused information that is useful to people’s lives and helps them understand the world. A newspaper ought to be that: a fair look at current, important information for a readership.

Second, it’s important to note I’m not making an all-or-nothing proposition; I’m not saying newspapers should turn completely to vast collections of data, completely abandoning the format of a news article. News articles are great for telling stories, analyzing complex issues and all sorts of other things. An article — a “big blob of text” — is often the best way to explain concepts. The nuances of the English language do not map neatly to machine-manipulatable data sources. (This very entry, which you’re reading right now, is a prime example of something that could not be replaced with a database.) When I say “newspapers need to stop the story-centric worldview,” I don’t mean “newspapers need to abolish stories.” The two forms of information dissemination can coexist and complement each other.

Forbes writes:

[Mark] Shuttleworth wants to give back, by offering universal access to a free operating system to run PCs and servers. The world already has several free versions of the open-source Linux operating system, but Shuttleworths version, called Ubuntu, undercuts them all on price–and works better, according to many respected sources.

Support fees for Ubuntu (translation: humanity to others in a South African Bantu language) are comparable to Red Hats and Novells, but theyre completely voluntary. Some of Google’s (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people ) developers use Ubuntu, for instance, but the company doesn’t pay because it services its own machines. Other users might pay only to support those machines they deem crucial to operations.

Ubuntu now has 4 million users, half of which are governments, universities and a smattering of businesses. It adds new ones at a rate of 8% per month. After its public release in October 2004, Ubuntu quickly deposed Red Hat’s Fedora as the most popular version of Linux on DistroWatch, a Web site that caters to Linux users.

InfoWorld writes:

Texas Instruments is demonstrating PVR (personal video recording) capabilities for mobiles at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam this week. It is using its own Hollywood digital TV chip and OMAP 2 multimedia processor, along with software from partners PacketVideo and Software Systems (S3).

The technology allows people to record a TV program on their mobile phone and then watch it later, on the train on the way to work, for example. The TI package also provides “picture-in-picture” capabilities, allowing a person to watch a prerecorded program and also track a live sports event in a smaller, on-screen window.

The PVR technology should find its way into mobile phones in 2007, TI said.