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A bit of a fluff piece, as these articles tend to be, but still a fun and great read."No. 1, the importance and value of great hardware has not diminished in any way," he said. "Across the board, our goal is to make the best in the categories we choose to compete in. It's what we're doing and it's reflected in customers choosing our products over anyone else's. So I do think people are showing with their choice that they do value quality and beauty of the hardware and that is not diminishing.""I have never heard anyone say, 'Because I like to keep my stuff in the cloud, I will take a cheap piece of hardware and I want it to be ugly.' All things being equal, of course, nobody wants that," Schiller said.While I personally believe Apple's software leaves a lot to be desired, and even though Apple sometimes makes absolutely ridiculous hardware choices (5400RPM? Seriously?), there's no denying that when it comes to the sheer feel of Apple's hardware - such as my iPhone 6S, or retina MacBook Pro - they really are in a league of their own. They say the latest Galaxy phones and the new Nexus 6P come close, but I haven't used them yet.In any event, especially compared to other PC OEMs, Apple is so far ahead it's not even a contest anymore, really. Let's hope Microsoft's hardware efforts finally - finally - lights a few fires.

The European Parliament has passed the flawed compromise text on net neutrality without including any of the amendments that would have closed serious loopholes. The vote, with 500 in favour, and 163 against, took place in a plenary session a few hours after a rather lacklustre debate this morning, which was attended by only 50 MEPs out of the European Parliament's total of 751, indicating little interest in this key topic among most European politicians.And thus, with one fell swoop, the progress several countries had made - including my own - is undone, by a bunch of incompetent, spineless toads in Brussels. We had full net neutrality in The Netherlands, but such rules are now effectively illegal.And then people wonder why the EU is so incredibly unpopular.

There are various Commodore 80286 PCs. The ones I know: the PC30-III, PC35-III, PC40-III and PC45-III. All these systems use the PC40-III motherboard. [...]What they have in common is the fact that all these PCs only support HDDs up to 512 MB. This was a quite normal limit for those days and only servers were equipped with HDDs larger than 100 MB. The problem however is that HDDs smaller than 512 MB hardly can be found and HDDs larger than 512 MB won't be recognised.The solution is a piece of software to enable the PC to handle these larger HDDs: XTIDE Universal BIOS. It was originally meant to enable XTs to handle 16-bits IDE HDDs on their 8-bits ISA bus. But is has been expanded in such a way that ATs and larger PCs could benefit from its features as well.Obscure solution for an obscure problem. I love it.

Asteroid is a free and open-source community-centered smartwatch platform based on Qt5, OpenEmbedded and libhybris. Qt5 is used to create a rock-solid user experience, OpenEmbedded provides the build system and core components of the distribution and libhybris allows Asteroid to be run on top of Android Wear devices. It shares a lot of technological and philosophical choices with smartphones projects such as SailfishOS, NemoMobile, WebOS-Ports, SHR or Ubuntu Touch but adapted to the needs of smartwatches. For now the project is still in early stages and is in need of contributors.libhybris is the gift that just keeps on giving.

This project started as a simple experiment to see if I could create a "modern" looking graphical user interface for the commodore 64.Once I got the basic user interface working, I decided to add an optional touch screen. It pretty much works! Of course cOS can still be operated by a standard joystick or the cursor keys.These people are gods.

For all of the strengths of OS X, two of the complaints recycled year after year are the aged filesystem, HFS+, with its lack of file integrity, and the file manager, the Finder. While replacing HFS+ remains out of our reach, an alternative to the Finder for day-to-day tasks has been achievable for some time. Enter "Commander One," a dual-pane file manager that seeks to fill in the holes that the Finder has famously left. Let's dig in and see what Commander One has to offer. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

Apple is currently embroiled in a legal tussle with the US Department of Justice over a defendant's iPhone. The DoJ wants to force Apple to unlock the phone, but Apple argues that first, it technically cannot do so, and second, that it doesn't have to. It's that second point the DoJ is trying to address in a very interesting way.Effectively, the DoJ is arguing that because Apple only licenses iOS to its users, and because Apple specifically states it retains ownership of iOS, Apple can be forced to unlock the phone. It is, namely, the DoJ argues, iOS which is thwarting law enforcement's ability to do its job, and the copy of iOS on the phone in question is, as Apple itself clearly states, Apple's property. Or, in the DoJ's legalese:Apple designed, manufactured, and sold the Target Phone that is the subject of the search warrant. But that is only the beginning of Apple's relationship to the phone and to this matter. Apple wrote and owns the software that runs the phone, and this software is thwarting the execution of the warrant. Apple's software licensing agreement specifies that iOS 7 software is "licensed, not sold" and that users are merely granted "a limited non-exclusive license to use the iOS Software." [...] Apple cannot reap the legal benefits of licensing its software in this manner and then later disclaim any ownership or obligation to assist law enforcement when that same software plays a critical role in thwarting execution of a search warrant.This is a remarkable argument, and it fascinates me to no end - if the DoJ actually manages to pull this one off, it will not only be a glorious case of the insane anti-consumer implications of commercial software licensing coming to bite a large corporation in the ass, but it will also have far-reaching consequences for the power the US government has - in a very, very bad way, as Cory Doctorow explains:To my knowledge, this is an entirely novel argument, but as I say, it has far-reaching consequences. Virtually every commercial software vendor licenses its products, rather than selling them. If the DoJ establishes the precedent that a product's continued ownership interest in a product after it is sold obliges the company to act as agents of the state, this could ripple out to cars and pacemakers, voting machines and tea-kettles, thermostats and CCTVs and door locks and every other device with embedded software.Commercial software licensing is a shady practice that should've come under intense scrutiny decades ago, but this is not the manner in which I want it to be done.

Apple is currently embroiled in a legal tussle with the US Department of Justice over a defendant's iPhone. The DoJ wants to force Apple to unlock the phone, but Apple argues that first, it technically cannot do so, and second, that it doesn't have to. It's that second point the DoJ is trying to address in a very interesting way.Effectively, the DoJ is arguing that because Apple only licenses iOS to its users, and because Apple specifically states it retains ownership of iOS, Apple can be forced to unlock the phone. It is, namely, the DoJ argues, iOS which is thwarting law enforcement's ability to do its job, and the copy of iOS on the phone in question is, as Apple itself clearly states, Apple's property. Or, in the DoJ's legalese:Apple designed, manufactured, and sold the Target Phone that is the subject of the search warrant. But that is only the beginning of Apple's relationship to the phone and to this matter. Apple wrote and owns the software that runs the phone, and this software is thwarting the execution of the warrant. Apple's software licensing agreement specifies that iOS 7 software is "licensed, not sold" and that users are merely granted "a limited non-exclusive license to use the iOS Software." [...] Apple cannot reap the legal benefits of licensing its software in this manner and then later disclaim any ownership or obligation to assist law enforcement when that same software plays a critical role in thwarting execution of a search warrant.This is a remarkable argument, and it fascinates me to no end - if the DoJ actually manages to pull this one off, it will not only be a glorious case of the insane anti-consumer implications of software licensing coming to bite a a large corporation in the ass, but it will also have far-reaching consequences for the power the US government has - in a very,very bad way, as Cory Doctorow explains:To my knowledge, this is an entirely novel argument, but as I say, it has far-reaching consequences. Virtually every commercial software vendor licenses its products, rather than selling them. If the DoJ establishes the precedent that a product's continued ownership interest in a product after it is sold obliges the company to act as agents of the state, this could ripple out to cars and pacemakers, voting machines and tea-kettles, thermostats and CCTVs and door locks and every other device with embedded software.Commercial software licensing is a shady practice that should've come under intense scrutiny decades ago, but this is not the manner in which I want it to be done.

OZ V4.6, a continuation of the actual operating system of the Z88, has been released.This web space has been created by and for the 'die-hard' users of the Cambridge Z88, the iPad of the 80's, launched in September 1987 at the PCW computer show in London. The company behind it was Cambridge Computer, a spring-off company of Sinclair Research, founded by Clive Sinclair. The object of this project is to streamline the operating system, OZ and to build new applications by replacing the built-in ROM with a larger device. All the software and documents here, is provided for free, ready to be downloaded in source code, or as ready-made binaries - all GPL V2 licensed.Incredibly impressive project.

There's a worrying new trend in the Windows Phone world - applications are disappearing.American Airlines, Chase Bank, Bank of America, NBC, Pinterest, and Kabam have all discontinued their Windows Phone apps in the past year. These huge apps have simply disappeared or will no longer be updated. Some companies have cited a lack of Windows Phone users, and others have remained silent, but each removal has put Microsoft another step behind in the mobile race.It's not just third-party apps disappearing, either. Microsoft has removed several MSN apps and its popular Photosynth app, and the software maker has also killed off a number of special Lumia camera apps. Windows Phone users still don't have great Skype or Office apps like Microsoft produces for the iPhone. It's stunning that, after five years, the best experience of using Skype or Office on a phone isn't on one powered by Windows. This will change in Windows 10 Mobile, but it's not available yet.Considering Microsoft's broken promises, abysmal messaging, glacial development pace, endless resets, and confusing strategies, it's entirely and 100% understandable that developers are giving Windows Phone the boot. I'm sure we'll get comments about "just you wait until Windows Phone 10!", but nobody is falling for those empty promises anymore.Windows Phone could've been great, if only it hadn't been managed by utter incompetency.

A very in-depth presentation concerning Virtualization Based Security (VBS) in Windows 10/Server 2016, something Microsoft seems to be investing heavily in. It's from Alex Ionescu, of ReactOS fame, delivered at Blackhat 2015.

So, Medium tried a new thing on their website in which they render the site in system fonts - San Francisco, Roboto, Segoe - but soon they started getting bug reports from people about Medium showing blocky, pixellated fonts.I looked again at all the system fonts and none seemed to match any of the descriptions. What was going on? I started asking for screenshots, and eventually a few trickled in.And, suddenly, I realized I know this font. It was a font I saw on my first PC.I love this story.

If the ads pointing to a Friday pre-order date for the Priv didn't have you salivating already, things are starting to heat up. BlackBerry is now listing the Priv on ShopBlackBerry, and although you can't pre-order just yet, we now have a good look at pricing. For those of us in the U.S., it looks like the BlackBerry Priv is running a cool $750 unlocked. In Canada, on the other hand, it'll set you back $949 - definitely a pricey little beast. In addition, we're looking at a ship date of November 16 after pre-orders begin.I like the Priv - finally a modern phone with a proper keyboard - but that is one hefty price tag. I think this kills a lot of the possible, albeit modest, success.

Earlier this year, Fairphone announced the Fairphone 2, which has been designed by the company from scratch and has a unique feature: the users can (and are encouraged to) easily disassemble the phone themselves, swap or upgrade parts, and keep using the device longer than any other similar smartphone. In a word, it is modular.Interesting, and a very different approach than Google's Ara.

Apple's released both OS X 10.11.1...Apple today released OS X 10.11.1, which is the first update to the new El Capitan operating system that was launched to the public on September 30. In testing since mid-September, OS X 10.11.1 is a minor performance update that focuses on fixing bugs found in the first version of El Capitan....and iOS 9.1.iOS 9.1 has a limited number of outward facing changes. It includes support for Unicode 7 and 8, introducing a range of new emoji like taco, burrito, cheese wedge, middle finger, champagne bottle, unicorn head, and more.iOS 9.1 includes an update for Live Photos, which now sense when the iPhone is raised or lowered to refrain from recording unnecessary movements. The update also introduces a new Messages option in the Settings app that is designed to allow users to disable photos for contacts, and it brings Apple News to the UK for the first time.Apple also released an update for the iPhone Mini, but nobody cares.

The new option is called YouTube Red. It costs $9.99 per month and will be available for purchase on October 28th, starting in the US, then rolling out worldwide. Along with removing ads, subscribers will be able to save videos for offline viewing, and keep videos running in the background on mobile. That means you can listen to a music video or a TED Talk while checking email or surfing Instagram. That monthly fee also gives you access to Google Play Music, meaning you get two streaming services for the same price Spotify or Apple Music charge for one without video. As a final enticement, YouTube will also begin putting new, exclusive content behind a paywall.I use YouTube a lot - several hours of let's plays a day - but the number of YouTube ads I get is so small - maybe once every ten videos, and always skippable - that I don't really see the need to pay â¬10 a month to get rid of them.

The first reviews of Microsoft's new Surface Book are in - and it's kind of a mixed bag.Is the Surface really the ultimate laptop that Microsoft claims it is? Nearly. I say that because sometimes Iâm using the Surface Book and I just wish Microsoft had made a pure laptop. The display wobble can be irritating, and the weird gap when itâs closed means I have to clean the Surface Book every day. If Microsoft can fix the hinge in future versions and make it a lot less bulky then this could be great. It has a beautiful display, amazing battery life, and the keyboard and trackpad feel great. But even though thatâs everything I want in a laptop, the accommodations Microsoft made to enable the tablet end up making the laptop experience less than ideal.I had hoped for a pure laptop too - while I appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do, the compromises seem rather serious here, for something not a whole lot of people are going to use anyway. Joanna Stern agrees:The design has some real flaws, though. The 3.3-pound, 0.9-inch-thick computer is chunkier than Iâd like. And getting into it is like trying to crack a safe. The magnets that keep the system closed require you to throw too much back into it. Once youâre in, thereâs a slight but unfortunate wobble in the display. This is related to that high-tech hinge that releases the screen when you press an eject key.As for the Surface Pro 4? Well, it's exactly the same as the Pro 3, but with some minor enhancements. If you didn't like the idea of the Surface before, the Pro 4 won't change your mind.

The Verge on the Nexus 6P:The Nexus 6P effectively levels the playing field with other great phones by offering really beautiful hardware and a camera that can finally compete. And it does that while undercutting all of them on cost. The Nexus 6P starts at $499, and for that price there is not a single phone on the market that's better. Not one.If you compare it to the other "premium" phones like the iPhone 6S, Galaxy S6, or Note 5, you're going to end up finding yourself putting a different set of things on your decision scales than before. With the Note 5: is a slightly better camera and a stylus worth $240 more, or would you rather have a clean Android experience? And the iPhone 6S: is iOS's superior app ecosystem and 3D Touch worth $150 more, or do you live in Google's ecosystem and want Google Now on Tap?I find it remarkable that the Nexus 6P has managed to cram so much excellent, high-end phone - a great camera, even! - in such a small price tag. Except if you're European of course, where we're being hit with serious price hikes that really destroy the 6P's value proposition.Just as remarkable: the Nexus 5X.Still, if youâve been holding onto a Nexus 5 for two years just waiting for Google to do right by you, those points might not matter. Barring few exceptions, such as the lack of wireless charging, thereâs very little that a Nexus 5 lover will find to complain about with the 5X. Itâs compact, cheap, and performs well, even if itâs not the best-looking or best-feeling phone you can get. If youâve been eyeing Motorolaâs new Moto X or the plethora of other phones in the sub-$500 price range, the 5X is a really compelling option. In fact, among phones under $450, I donât think thereâs a better option, and itâs easily the one Iâd pick.As one of those fervent Nexus 5 lovers - I may have bought an iPhone 6S, but my bright orange-red Nexus 5 will remain in my heart for a long time to come - the 5X really does appeal to me. I'm not a fan of the camera bulge, and it definitely needs an orange-red option, but other than that, it looks exactly like I imagined a 2015-2016 Nexus 5 would look.These two phones are definitely the best Android phones you can buy right now bar none.

OpenBSD 5.8 has been released. As usual, the list of changes goes way beyond my comfort zone - I'm not exactly into the world of BSD - but I'm pretty sure that those that use OpenBSD aren't interested in oversimplified nonsense from people like me anyway.

The Uthernet II is an ethernet card solution for the Apple II computer series that has just arrived on the scene. It provides a built-in TCP/IP stack using the Wiznet W5100 chip making it easier to develop applications. Several programs have already been updated to take advantage of the new card, including Contiki. Order your own card at A2 Retro Systems.

Solu might look like a drinks coaster but don't put your coffee on it; this is a four-inch wide block of curved, wood-encased computer with an edge-to-edge touch screen. Inside is a powerful 2.3GHz processor, battery and Wi-Fi capability. It can be used on its own or paired with a keyboard and a display up to a resolution of 4K. When paired in this way, the Solu acts as an input device instead of a mouse.I'm obviously sceptical of this ever making any dent anywhere (see, sadly, that other Finnish mobile product), but at least they're trying, and I do wish them all the luck in the world. They'll need it.

I thought it'd be a "fun" project to see what the "El Capitan License" actually says. Cool idea, huh? Kind of like spelunking through a cave that everyone says theyâve been through, but maybe no one really has. What will I find wedged in a wall or lurking in the dark around the next turn?These software licences are always pretty much the same - and unlike what many people assume, they're really not targeted at us, the user, but more at limiting liability for the company that writes them. Clearly, as always, Apple is no different than all the others.

Yesterday, I linked to a story from Samantha Bielefeld, in which she respectfully and eloquently disagreed with Marco Arment concerning the viability of the patronage model for independent developers. I would've left it at that, but as it turns out, she's really been facing a considerable amount of abuse from Arment and his followers. Yesterday, John C. Welch published a (rather rantish) overview of some of the public tweets going back and forth, which were already pretty bad, but apparently, the private emails and messages Bielefeld received were way, way worse. I'm new to the idea of writing for an audience, and certainly inexperienced when it comes to receiving hundreds of hurtful emails in response. A word of wisdom to female writers out there; if you publish something negative about Marco, you will receive threats of rape, and physical harm.I hope Bielefeld doesn't quit writing - even though I would completely understand if she did - because this industry desperately needs people who aren't white, male, well-off, 20-40, and straight. Less people like myself, please.I'll let Bielefeld take it away.Marco, I've never argued that your success fell into your lap. You worked for years to get to where you are now, and you've earned your following. I do stand by my belief that your position gives you an immediate leg up, even when it isn't warranted. My article on Wednesday only came to be because of a statement I made when reviewing Overcast 2.0. I said that I was pleased to see your attempt at a patronage model, and this led to many developers reaching out to me, to inform me of the broader discussion, and their disgust that you would attempt to categorize yourself alongside them. So why don't you just do us all a favor, and start acknowledging yourself as the arrogant, privileged rich guy with a huge advantage that we all know you to be? After all, you did earn it.

Valve Software's Steam platform has become the go-to source for gamers focused on the PC. With a huge catalog, constant sales and a consumer-first attitude, the digital store for games has exploded. As of the beginning of 2014, it had topped 75 million users.But can that success translate into the living room and hardware, two arenas Valve has yet to conquer?Valve's first round of officially branded Steam Machines will roll out from several manufacturers beginning on Nov. 10. Before that happens, Polygon was able to go hands-on with Alienware's version of the Steam Machine, which comes packed with a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, a custom-built Nvidia GeForce GTX card and 8 GB of RAM. We also got to test out Steam's unique new controller.I ordered a Steam Link (without controller) which should arrive any day now. I've heard nothing but praise for Steam's streaming, so I'm excited to try it out.

In the past few weeks, Marco Arment, co-founder of Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, released version 2 of his podcast application for iOS, Overcast, for free. There's only one in-app purchase, which doesn't unlock any additional functionality, but just sends some money Arment's way. Call it patronage, if you will. Coinciding with the release, he published a blog post in which he states that any indie developer can just give away their full work for free, so his 'new' model should work for everyone.Obviously, this caused a bit of a ruckus, since it's easy for a multimillionaire like Arment to give away his work for free. His situation is clearly unique, and most independent application developers barely get by as it is. Or, as Samantha Bielefeld puts it:The issue isn't that Marco is successful, there are many app developers who would love to be in the same position. He has earned his time in the spotlight, and it's only natural for him to take advantage of it. Though to state that anyone can simply do the same thing and be successful, is just plain wrong. He has accelerated the race to the bottom for the podcast app category, and he comes bearing a huge following of people who will give him money for nothing in return except for the possibility of further development of Overcast. The average developer isn't being called out by name by Phil Schiller for something negative they have written about Apple. The only thing "indie" about Marco is that he works by himself. He is far removed from the typical experience of app creators, and even if it's deserved, it wouldn't hurt for him to be a little more humble, and realistic.And she's completely and utterly right, of course.This doesn't surprise me, though. Over three years ago, when the first Retina MacBook Pro came out, Arment and I had a Twitter exchange about something he said: he said that any web developer should immediately run out and buy this â¬2300 laptop because retina would be the future, and if they didn't, they weren't taking their work seriously.I pointed out to him that for the majority of people working on the web, â¬2300 is a lot of money, and most of us don't have that kind of money just lying around. It might be pocket change to a millionaire, but it's almost a full month's salary for me (now - not so much in 2012, when I earned much less than I do now), and in many places in the world with active web developers, it's probably several months' worth of salary.This exchange with Arment has always stuck with me, because I wanted to make sure that I would never turn out this way. I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination (i.e., Dutch standards!), but despite my income being decidedly middle-class, I still belong in the, uh, I don't know, top 5% or so of the world - just by virtue of being Dutch. I'm 'rich' enough to buy several new phones, tablets, and computers a year to make sure I remain familiar with as many platforms as possible for OSNews, but I realise damn well that I'm incredibly lucky I can do so, and would never just assume that everyone else can as well.So no, this kind of attitude doesn't surprise me at all. I call this the Donald Trump reasoning: everybody can be rich, if only they were Donald Trump. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...

This isn't a fully autonomous vehicle in the vein of a Google car, though - the primary feature is what Tesla calls Autosteer, which keeps the car in its current lane once you're already on the road and manages speed and distance from the car ahead. On the call, Elon Musk was careful to call out Autosteer as a "beta" feature - drivers are told to keep their hands on the wheel, even when the function is engaged. "We want people to be quite careful" at first, Musk said, while admitting that "some people" may take their hands off the wheel regardless. "We do not advise that," he added. An upcoming version 7.1 will add the ability to send the car off to a garage on its own and come back to pick you up, another feature teased when Musk first announced autopilot capabilities last year.Am I the only one who feels a little uncomfortable about a function like this being designated 'beta', but still sent to every Tesla driver? People - including myself, and yes, even Tesla drivers - are idiots, and I don't trust them to follow Musk's advice at all.

Intel and Microsoft are teaming with three leading PC makers on a new ad campaign designed to make potential computer buyers more aware of all the things a modern PC can do.The campaign, with the slogan "PC Does What?" is set to be announced Thursday at a Webcast featuring the companies' top marketing executives, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans. It will feature TV, print and online advertisements, sources said.I expect this to be really cringe-inducing. In other words, we'll get some entertainment out of it.

Apple's Swift has been available for over a year now, and Apple has promised it will be made available under an Open-Source license by the end of 2015.That's great, but could I run Swift code on an Android device today?

On October 12th, Microsoft began rolling out Windows 10 build 10565 to the Fast ring. The newly released build includes new changes and improvements on the Start menu, desktop environment, Cortana, brand new apps, including the Messaging, Phone, and Skype video apps. Also, there are new enhancements for the Microsoft Edge web browser and a lot more.Microsoft really seems to finally be putting some weight behind its own applications, updating them more often, and releasing impactful Windows updates more regularly.I'm far, far from complaining. Nice.

It's been over three years since the very first Mac went Retina, and we're still waiting for every model to get the upgrade. But this year, the scales started to tip in Retina's favor. We got an all-new Retina MacBook in the spring, and today Apple is killing the 27-inch non-Retina iMac and introducing a new 4K model at the top of the 21.5-inch lineup.The 4K iMac starts at $1,499 and does for the 21-inch iMac what the 5K version did for the 27-inch iMac a year ago: it gives it a Retina screen and leaves pretty much everything else alone. You do get a handful of nice internal upgrades, including Intel's Broadwell CPUs and GPUs, Thunderbolt 2 support, and faster storage and RAM (all also available on the refreshed non-Retina 21.5-inch iMacs). But for most intents and purposes, this thing is just a 2012-era iMac chassis with a nice sharp screen installed in place of the old 1080p display.Believe it or not, but that $1500 base model? It comes with a 5400RPM hard drive. Unacceptable.In any event, Apple also replaced its keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad. As a fan of Apple's current keyboard (I know I'm the only person who actually seems to really love it - it's the only keyboard I use, on my PC even), I'm excited about the new model because you can also use it wired. That said, it's a whopping â¬129 here, which is kind of insane.

So here's where we're at with the Gear S2: it's a well designed, easy to use smartwatch that makes a good complement to your Android smartphone. If checking notifications, tracking the basics of your physical activity, controlling music, and getting small bits of info are all you want from a smartwatch, the S2 fills all of those needs.But if you look at smartwatches as an entirely new medium for which developers have yet to fully exploit, the S2 should give you pause. It's entirely possible, likely even, that Samsung âwon't get the developer support it needs to strengthen the S2's platform. Pebble has been able to do that to a limited extent, but history tells us the odds of that happening again are arguably low.Harsh, but true. The Gear S2 looks like a decent smartwatch with an interesting and useful interaction model, but we all know the likelihood of any serious developer support for Tizen is small, at best.

Now that the phone is out and in the wild, I've had a chance to experiment a bit with making a basic MIDI controller. In the process, I've learned some interesting things about Apple's 3D Touch APIs that I'm sharing here in hopes that it will be helpful for other folks interested in developing on the platform.

Few people even remember that such a medium as vinyl movies existed, but for a brief, doomed period in the early 1980s, home video was available on CEDs. While CED players were not released to consumers until 1981, the development of the system dates back to the 1960s. The idea was that they could encode sound and video information to a vinyl disc if they could only get the grooves small enough.Fascinating. I had no idea they ever tried to do this. Better yet, that they succeeded.

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is a specification that purports to define the services and application-level ABIs that a Linux distribution will provide for use by third-party programs. But some in the Debian project are questioning the value of maintaining LSB compliance - it has become, they say, a considerable amount of work for little measurable benefit.It's too much work for little benefit, and nobody wants to do it, so what's the point - just drop it. At least, that seems to be the reasoning.But Debian's not throwing all of the LSB overboard: we're still firmly standing behind the FHS (version 2.3 through Debian Policy; although 3.0 was released in August this year) and our SysV init scripts mostly conform to LSB VIII.22.{2-8}. But don't get me wrong, this src:lsb upload is an explicit move away from the LSB.That's too bad - the FHS is an abomination, a useless, needlesly complex relic from a time we were still using punch cards, and it has no place in any modern computing platform. All operating systems have absolutely horrible and disastrous directory layouts, but the FHS is one of the absolute worst in history.

NetBSD 7.0 has been released. It's got kernel scripting with Lua now, and introduces support for a whole bunch of new ARM boards, as well as support for multiprocessor support for ARM. There's a whole lot more, so go check it out.

Elon Musk, in an interview over at Handelsblatt:Apple just hired some of Tesla's most important engineers. Do you have to worry about a new competitor?Important engineers? They have hired people we've fired. We always jokingly call Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding.Do you take Apple's ambitions seriously?Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch? (laughs) No, seriously: It's good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car. But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.He's not wrong. Should be interesting: Tesla and Apple are companies with some of the most.... Enthusiastic fans, and I'm sure there's quite some overlap.

Yesterday's Windows 10 hardware launch event was without question the best Microsoft in ages - and arguably the tech launch event of the year. Microsoft unveiled its first-ever laptop, showed off an updated Surface Pro 4, and announced a new lineup of phones, all while articulating a confident, aggressive strategy of turning Windows 10 into the underlying software service and platform for virtually everything in your life.That huge bet might not pay off - Apple and Google are still formidable competitors, and the road back to mobile relevance will be a long one - but it's more vision and purpose than we've seen from Redmond in years. So I sat down with new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at the soon-to-open Microsoft flagship store in Manhattan to ask him how he'd changed the entire vibe at Microsoft in the past 18 months, and what he hopes to accomplish in the next 18 months. We also talked about how he plans to keep his Windows OEM partners happy even as Microsoft's Surface Book laptop competes directly with their high-end products, and just how he plans to get back in the phone game.I like Nadella, and I like what Microsoft is doing right now. Even though I can't really put my finger on it, I have a fondness for the Surface line-up, and if it wasn't for Metro being useless, I would not have opted for a MacBook Pro. I've also always liked Windows Phone, and even though I don't believe it's going anywhere, and despite the many, many stumbles Microsoft has made along the way, I still think it's definitely the most unique of the three major mobile platforms.By letting go of 'Windows everywhere' and instead focussing on making great products for everyone - no matter your platform of choice - I think Microsoft has a real shot at getting back in the consumer game.

Facebook's got Instant Articles and Apple's got Apple News, and now Google has something called Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, together with a whole bunch of partners.AMP HTML is a new way to make web pages that are optimized to load instantly on users' mobile devices. It is designed to support smart caching, predictable performance, and modern, beautiful mobile content. Since AMP HTML is built on existing web technologies, and not a template based system, publishers continue to host their own content, innovate on their user experiences, and flexibly integrate their advertising and business models - all within a technical architecture optimized for speed and performance.The big difference between AMP and other initiatives: AMP is open source and available on Github, and anybody can use the code as they see fit.

League of Legends players collectively send millions of messages every day. They're asking friends to duo-queue, suggesting a team comp on the champ select screen, and thanking opponents for a good game. On July 21st of this year (I picked a day at random), players forged 1.7 million new friendships in the game - that's a lot of love! And each time players send a message they trigger a number of operations on the back-end technology that powers Riot chat.In the previous episode of this series on chat, I discussed the protocol we chose to communicate between client and server: XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). Today I'll dive into the mechanisms in place on the server-side and the architecture of the infrastructure, and Iâll discuss the work weâve done to ensure that our servers are scalable and robust. Like the last article, I hope itâll be interesting to anyone building out chat features to a distributed client base.

Microsoft announced a whole bunch of new products today - all from the devices team. We've got two new high-end Lumia phones, the 950 and 950XL. These phones have all the latest specifications, and peculiarly enough, they are water-cooled (I'm not joking). They obviously run Windows Phone 10, and support the Continuum feature, so you can hook them up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and you'll be greeted by something that looks a lot like a regular windows 10 desktop. Universal application swill automatically scale between the two different screen sizes. Pretty nifty.Microsoft also unveiled two new Surface devices: the Surface Pro 4 - a thinner, faster, and all-around better version of the Surface Pro 3 - but also the long-awaited Surface laptop, dubbed the Surface Book. The Surface Book is crazy powerful, has a beautiful display and full, regular keyboard, a crazy hinge that really sets it apart, and just like any other Surface, the screen can some off - but this time, using something Microsoft calls "Muscle Wire", electrified attachment points that keep the two parts firmly together - you can grab it by the screen and dangle it without any fear of the two parts disconnecting.The keyboard half contains a discrete graphics chip and some batteries, while the rest of the computery parts are housed within the display. Microsoft makes some crazy claims about performance, but we'll have to see some proper benchmarks first. In any case, it looks like the kind of laptop Microsoft wanted its partner to build - but we all know something like this is simply beyond the capabilities of the likes of Dell or HP.That being said, the Surface Book ain't cheap, and starts at $1500.

Last night, Google posted the Android 6.0 Marshmallow factory images online, for the Nexus 5, 6, 7 (2013), 9 (Wi-Fi), and Player. since these are factory images, you'll have to perform a wipe and install. If you don't want to go through the hassle of doing so, you'll have to wait for the OTA updates rolling out in the coming weeks.If you want to take the plunge, AndroidCentral has a great guide on how to do so.

Last night, Google posted the Android 6.0 Marshmallow factory images online, for the Nexus 5, 6, 7 (2013), 9 (Wi-Fi), and Player. since these are factory images, you'll have to perform a wipe and install. If you don't want to go through the hassle of doing so, you'll have to wait for the OTA updates rolling out in the coming weeks.If you want to take the plunge, AndroidCentral has a great guide on how to do so.

The European Court of Justice has just ruled that the transatlantic Safe Harbour agreement, which lets American companies use a single standard for consumer privacy and data storage in both the US and Europe, is invalid. The ruling came after Edward Snowden's NSA leaks showed that European data stored by US companies was not safe from surveillance that would be illegal in Europe.This could have far-reaching consequences for Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other US tech giants operating in Europe.

If we were to ask for any new feature from a new Android version, it would be some kind of scalable update solution. Right now a custom update still needs to be built for every single individual device model, and that's really not a workable solution when you have more than 24,000 models out there. The Stagefright vulnerability seemed to be a wakeup call for the Android ecosystem, but it came too late to affect anything in Marshmallow. Google instituted monthly updates for Nexus devices, and OEMs are pledging to bring the monthly update program to flagship devices. The majority of Android devices, though - the low-end devices - are being ignored. Monthly updates for Google, Samsung, and LG flagships only works out to a very small percentage of the Android install base.Android 6.0 could dispense gold nuggets and clean my bathroom for free, but as long as this update hell exists, it's all for naught.

HP today announced the launch of the OpenSwitch community and a new open source network operating system (NOS). HP and key supporters, Accton Technology Corporation, Arista, Broadcom, Intel, and VMware, are delivering a community-based platform that provides developers and users the ability to accelerate innovation, avoid vendor lock-in, and realize investment protection as they rapidly build data center networks customized for unique business applications.Here's the official OpenSwitch site - and I'll admit, this goes way over my head.

The Lumia 950 and its bigger sibling are intended not as a revolution, but as a solid foundation to a brighter and better future for Microsoft's mobile efforts. They should be judged on that basis, not on whether they're able to make a dent in the Apple and Google duopoly. To achieve that lofty goal, Microsoft will need multiple generations of devices as well as the collaboration of other service providers willing to bring their apps to its platform. Tomorrow's event will be indicative of how progress is going along that path, while also giving us a pair of interesting new devices to talk about.I have little to no hope for Windows Phone. It's done.One interesting note for tomorrow's Microsoft event: there's rumblings and rumours about Google unveiling official Google applications for Windows 10 tomorrow. It's nothing solid, and take it with some salt, but it wouldn't be that surprising - just as Microsoft needed Apple almost 20 years ago, Google may need Microsoft today.

September means the beginning of sweater weather, the return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and the launch of a new iPhone. Now that the highly anticipated iPhone 6s line has finally hit stores and is smashing sales records, the Pornhub statisticians have decided to dig through the data and found out what it is that separates iPhone-wielding Pornhub users from our Android-loyal visitors, in terms of how they interact with the site and what kinds of content they prefer. Currently, just over 60% of our traffic comes from mobile devices, so without any further ado, let's take a look at what makes each of these major subsets of Pornhub's viewership tick.I didn't put the link in the copied blurb itself. The following link is to the company blog, and not the Pornhub site itself, so it's completely safe for work, and contains no nudity or otherwise inappropriate content, so you can read it for the interesting mobile stats without any worries. It's still a link to the Pornhub domain, so you might want to skip this one if you're on a work computer or someone else's machine.Here's the link. And yes I find it totally hilarious the OSNews database now contains a link to the Pornhub domain.

I've spent the past couple of days desperately trying to puzzle out the purpose behind Google's newly announced Nexus 5X and 6P smartphones. Unlike predecessors such as the Nexus One and Nexus 5, these phones don't have a clear reason for being, and are not in themselves terribly unique. That's led me (and others) to question Google's overall aim with the Nexus line of pure Android smartphones, and I think I've finally arrived at an answer. The Nexus program is not so much about carrier independence or purity of Android design as it is about presenting Google in an overwhelmingly positive light. In other words, Google, the ultimate ad seller, sells Nexus phones as ads for itself.This article feels a bit like a trainwreck to me. It just doesn't make any sense. Of course Nexus devices are built specifically to put Android and Google's services on a pedestal - has anyone ever claimed otherwise? Has anyone ever seen them as anything but? The tone of the article also tries to somehow posit this as a negative thing, which I don't understand either. Some of the very best Android phones of all time have been Nexus phones, so aren't they a great thing for us consumers? What's the problem here?Making Android profitable for Android phone makers is one of the great challenges of our time. We're all better off when we buy things from sustainable companies that we know will still be around when we have an issue months or years down the line. I wish Google would recognize that and try to do more to support Android as a whole rather than just its own good name. Nexus devices have in the past and can still serve nobler purposes than just making Google look good.No, it's not. The goal of Android is to reach as many people as possible, and do so in a way that benefits us as consumers as much as possible. Expensive Android devices with 50% profit margins don't benefit us at all - they just allow major corporations to suck money out the economy and shadily funnel it to foreign tax havens. We benefit from access to high-quality phones at reasonable prices running Android-proper - and anything that pushes the Samsungs and HTCs of this world to do so is a huge win for consumers.

With El Capitan released, there's one 'feature' that really needs to be highlighted - for better or worse.System Integrity Protection (SIP, sometimes referred to as rootless) is a security feature of OS X El Capitan, the operating system by Apple Inc. It protects certain system processes, files and folders from being modified or tampered with by other processes even when executed by the root user or by a user with root privileges (sudo). Apple says that the root user can be a significant risk factor to the system's security, especially on systems with a single user account on which that user is also the administrator. System Integrity Protection is enabled by default, but can be disabled.Here's Apple's WWDC presentation about SIP, and here's the Ars review's section about it.

Google and Microsoft have agreed to end their long-running patent feud over smartphones and video game systems, dropping about 20 lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany.The two companies, which didn't disclose financial terms, have been litigating over technology innovations for five years. Google's former Motorola Mobility unit had been demanding royalties on the Xbox video-gaming system, and Microsoft had sought to block Motorola mobile phones from using certain features.If you've been paying attention, you know why this is taking place now.