Valve: The Linux Steam Engine That Could?
- Sep
- 30
Valve cofounder Gabe Newell has made no secret of his disdain for Windows 8 and his newfound love for Linux as a gaming platform over the past year or so. It seems fair to say, however, that few here in the Linux community expected the colossal bear hug of support Valve gave our favorite operating system last week. First, it announced SteamOS; then it was the hardware side.
MeteoEarth: Enjoy the Graphics, If Not the Weather
- Sep
- 27
You know those fancy, animated weather visualizations that you get on the local television news broadcasts — the ones with the 3D drill-down dynamic graphics that make it appear as if the meteorologist is directing the clouds? Well, you can now get something similar on your Android device. MeteoGroup is a European producer of weather-in-motion graphics that it supplies to broadcasters.
Valve Beta Boosts Linux Gaming Full Steam Ahead
- Sep
- 26
Valve Software will later this year beta test 300 hardware boxes running its Linux-based SteamOS, a standalone operating system for entertainment appliances in consumers’ living rooms. The prototype box for the Steam platform, which is optimized for gaming in the living room, is completely upgradable and open. Beta testers are encouraged to hack or mod the box.
Google Adds Remote Locking for MIA Androids
- Sep
- 25
Google on Tuesday rolled out a feature for its recently launched Android Device Manager that lets users lock down a stolen Android device from anywhere, via the Web. “This is something that should be built into the OS and the platform because it’s an inherent security feature,” said tech analyst Rob Enderle. Google is late to the game in rolling out its remote lock capability.
ZevenOS’ Neptune Distro: Linux the Way You Want It
- Sep
- 25
If you are looking for a really decent, snappy and lightweight KDE distro that installs easily onto a flash drive, check out ZevenOS’ Neptune. Our Picks and Pans column has been devoting considerable time lately to playing with countless Linux distros. Rarely have I found truly bad distros — after all, Linux is Linux.
ZevenOS’s Neptune Distro: Linux the Way You Want It
- Sep
- 25
If you are looking for a really decent, snappy and lightweight KDE distro that installs easily onto a flash drive, check out ZevenOS’s Neptune. Our Picks and Pans column has been devoting considerable time lately to playing with countless Linux distros. Rarely have I found truly bad distros — after all, Linux is Linux.
Valve’s SteamOS Arms Linux Gaming for Living Room Wars
- Sep
- 24
After bringing its Steam gaming service to Linux earlier this year, Valve on Tuesday unveiled SteamOS, a new, Linux-based operating system that is designed to deliver PC entertainment in the living room. The new OS will connect with the Steam gaming service, offering all of the features PC-based Steam users are accustomed to, and yet is designed with the big screen in mind, Valve said.
AlienVault’s Barmak Meftah: Time to Put Hackers on the Defensive
- Sep
- 24
As CEO of AlienVault, Barmak Meftah faces enemies every day who play out their attacks from faraway lands using seemingly unbeatable weapons. One of the weapons AlienVault uses with the support of the open source community is a global report called the Open Threat Exchange that tracks threats to computer networks. The results make it possible to identify trouble spots and take corrective action.
World With New Limits: The Coming End of Moore’s Law
- Sep
- 23
Here in the tech community, declaring the birth or death of an era is a tried-and-true path to social fame. For that reason, proclamations to that effect are pretty dang common. Those of us here in the Linux community are pretty accustomed to such announcements by now — just witness the never-ending “year of Linux desktop” and “death of desktop Linux” rotation that seems to besiege us year after year.
Google Keep: Note-Taking and Checklists, Done Well
- Sep
- 20
Some years ago I decided to eschew paper. It was part of an effort, with which I was obsessed at the time, to become more nomadic. I felt then, and still do to a certain extent, that accumulations of paper were restrictive, because they forced you to always return to the place where the paper was in order to refer to things — and live your life. One reason we have offices.