Category: Computers, Science & Technology

More good news for Linux! NVIDIA is pledging to help the Open Source community with NVIDIA driver help! Awesome!

Nvidia pledge to help Linux’s open source driver community

“This week, it seems, everything is coming up Linux. First Valve announce their own Linux-based OS, and now, Nvidia are making moves to get more involved with the open source community. Nvidia’s Andy Ritger contacted the developers of Nouveau – an open source, reverse-engineered version of Nvidia’s proprietary drivers – offering information on the workings of their GPUs.

‘NVIDIA is releasing public documentation on certain aspects of our GPUs,’ wrote Ritger, ‘with the intent to address areas that impact the out-of-the-box usability of NVIDIA GPUs with Nouveau. We intend to provide more documentation over time, and guidance in additional areas as we are able.’

In the first instance, that means releasing info on Nvidia’s Device Control Block layout, which I’m not going to attempt to explain because I’m not a tech journalist. Ritger admits that ‘much of the information in that document is not news for the Nouveau community,’ but that the official explanation should help strengthen Nouveau’s implementation.

Speaking to Ars Technica, Ritger outlined Nvidia’s future plan, saying, ‘more BIOS-related information is in the pipeline.’

‘Our goal is for the Nouveau driver to give NVIDIA users a reasonable out-of-the-box experience,’ he continued, ‘This entails things like successful GPU initialization, display configuration, and basic 2D and 3D rendering. The DCB and other BIOS-related information will hopefully help improve some scenarios where Nouveau had initialization problems, or display enumeration sorts of challenges.’

Nvidia has had an interesting relationship with Linux in the past. While its proprietary drivers are reasonable – by Linux proprietary driver standards – their reluctance to help the community prompted Linux creator Linus Torvalds to call them the ‘single worst company’ that developers could work with.”

Step one in our attempt at world domination… well, OS domination, anyway! For a LONG time, I have heard, “Well, Linux is nice, and all, but you can’t play games, so it won’t catch on for personal PCs, for most folks.” Oh yeah? Check this out!

Why SteamOS will challenge Windows for PC gaming supremacy

From PC World – “You have to give it to PC gamers. Throughout all the trials and tribulations of the past few years—plummeting PC sales, the mainstream shift to mobile, Windows RT, et cetera—gamers were one of the few bedrocks Microsoft could rely upon. Virtually all major PC games run on Windows, and many run only on Windows.

That’s a big deal. In August, Jon Peddie Research predicted that Bohemia’s ARMA III would drive more than $800 million in PC hardware sales all by itself, and JPR estimates the total market for PC gaming hardware to hit nearly $18 billion in 2013. That’s a lot of quarters, and it’s all funneled toward Windows machines.

But suddenly that domination seems imperiled.

On Monday, Valve launched an assault on one of Windows’ strongest bastions with the announcement of SteamOS, a free, Linux-based operating system built around Steam, the most popular PC-game service in the land. And if any company has the brawn to shift PC gaming to Linux, it’s Valve.

The good news for Microsoft: Windows is going to be the featured destination for PC gamers for a while yet.

SteamOS was built to power so-called Steam Boxes—small, living-room-friendly PCs designed to challenge the gaming consoles’ death grip on the big screen. They’re not fire-breathing enthusiast gaming computers. SteamOS was built around gamepads and Steam’s Big Picture mode rather than keyboards and mice, and perhaps more importantly, it removes the cost of a Windows license—a big expense in the price-competitive living room.

‘I think it is important to understand that the vast majority of gamers consider ‘PC gaming’ to be a situation where the display is a few feet away from the gamer,’ says Ted Pollak, the senior game industry analyst at Jon Peddie Research. ‘…Couch-based gaming is ‘console gaming’ and that is what Valve is making a play toward with Steam Box.’

What’s more, native Linux gaming is still in its infancy and mostly involves using WINE to run Windows games on your machine. Steam for Linux itself only supports around 200 games currently. Most are Valve titles or indie games, and even fewer offer the full gamepad support SteamOS begs for. In fact, SteamOS will rely on a proprietary Wi-Fi technology to stream the nearly 3,000 games available for Steam for Windows to your Steam Box.

‘I think Valve’s challenge will be to get the games ported to its OS,’ says Jon Peddie himself. ‘They can start of course with their own games, and as interesting as they are, that’s a small library.’ (Beyond Steam, Valve has created legendary PC-game series such as Portal, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, and Left 4 Dead.)

For now, Windows is still firmly entrenched. And yet…

Though Steam Boxes aren’t an immediate danger to Microsoft’s supremacy, the love PC gamers hold for Steam is fierce, and if SteamOS picks up popularity, Valve’s love for Linux could encroach upon Windows’ gaming stronghold.

‘Possibly more important than the ‘PC vs. console’ question is that Valve’s move toward Linux cuts Microsoft Windows out of the picture,’ Pollak says. ‘This then circles back to PC gaming in its traditional form. Will developers make—and people play—Linux-optimized games on the desktop?’

That prospect just got a big boost. On Wednesday, AMD announced ‘Mantle,’ a low-level, cross-platform programming interface driver (read: DirectX replacement) designed to eek superb hardware-optimized performance out of GPUs based on AMD’s GCN architecture across multiple platforms—including both next-gen consoles as well as Windows and SteamOS-based PCs using Radeon graphics.

That could reap immediate benefits for SteamOS if it becomes popular with developers, especially as Steam machines are a natural fit for console ports. EA is already on board with its Frostbite engine; Battlefield 4 will be the first major title to use Mantle.”

DEWD! I now have 30 meg symmetrical at my house! Zowie! Rock on Internets! As the banner there says, “Faster than 88% of anyone” in the good ol’ US of A! I now have Northstate Plex fiber optic run all the way to my house. There is nothing sweeter to a geek than tons o’ bandwidth. What else do ya need?!

To take advantage of it, I got a new, rocking wireless router as well. Ton’s of neat features with it, including NAS-like file sharing. What a geeky day I had yesterday getting all this set up! (By the way, the bandwidth DID test out to be 30.4 down and 30.2 up tested directly from the port after it was set up at my house.) I am still performance tweaking the router to get that through it… but, I am pretty dog gone close! I am a happy man!

Lot’s happening in the Roku world!

Introducing the all-new Roku family

“We’re excited to announce that streaming is about to get even better with our all-new family of Roku players. First, like all things Roku, we try to simplify everything about streaming, right down to our product names. The new family features the new Roku 1 and Roku 2 to go alongside the Roku 3 that we launched earlier this year. We have also updated our entry level product, the Roku LT, giving all current Roku players a fun, friendly design.

Second, just in time for fall TV viewing, we’ve added some great new features to give customers more enjoyment and value. For example, we’ve added a headphone jack for private listening and dual-band wireless to the Roku 2, and support for 1080p HD video to the Roku 1.

As always, every Roku player comes loaded with a broad selection of steaming entertainment – currently more than 1,000 channels in the U.S. and more than 450 channels each in Canada, the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland.

The new Roku 1 and Roku 2 models will be available in the US, Canada, the U.K, and the Republic of Ireland, and we are very pleased to now be offering our flagship Roku 3, the fastest and most powerful Roku player to date to users in all these countries as well.

Here’s the new Roku family lineup in more detail:

• The new Roku LT (model 2700) is the easiest and most affordable way to stream to virtually any TV with support for up to 720p HD video quality. (Expected to be available in the U.S. in October for $49.99).
• The Roku 1 takes streaming a step further than the Roku LT with support for up to 1080p HD video quality. (Expected to be available in the U.S./Canada/U.K.+Republic of Ireland in October for $59.99/CAD $69.99/£59.99).
• The Roku 2 offers the same great experience as the Roku 1 and features a remote with built-in headphone jack for private listening and dual-band wireless for better Internet connectivity. Both are popular features that were previously available only with the Roku 3. (Expected to be available in the U.S./Canada/U.K.+Republic of Ireland in October for $79.99/CAD $89.99/£79.99).
• Leading the family is the flagship Roku 3 which sets the bar for streaming with all the features of the Roku 2 plus Ethernet and USB ports and an enhanced remote with built-in headphone jack and motion-control for gaming. (Expected to be available in the U.S./Canada/U.K.+Republic of Ireland in October for $99.99/CAD $109.99/£99.99).

We’re also introducing the M-GO movie and TV store, integrated directly on our home screen menu in the U.S. for easy and instant access to their great selection of movies and TV shows including Hangover 3, The Croods, Breaking Bad, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Glee and even fall-premiering shows like Brooklyn 9-9 starring Andy Samberg. To make it even simpler, the M-GO service features direct billing with a Roku account so users can rent or buy through M-GO without any extra account setup.

The movie and TV show shortcuts powered by M-GO will be available in the U.S. on the new Roku LT, Roku 1 and Roku 2 players, and will automatically roll out as a free software update beginning in October to all current-generation Roku devices – the Roku LT (models 2400 and 2450), Roku HD (model 2500), Roku 2 HD, Roku 2 XD, Roku 2 XS and Roku 3 players as well as the Roku Streaming Stick.

Whether you’re looking to upgrade to a better TV experience for yourself or as a gift this holiday, the new Roku family has you covered!

Happy Streaming!”

Ya gotta admit, Ballmer has chutzpah… or something.

Ballmer calls Google a ‘monopoly’ that should come under antitrust scrutiny

BGR – “Microsoft has been flushing money down the drain trying to make Bing a legitimate threat to Google over the years but outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer says there’s a very good reason for it: If Microsoft doesn’t try to compete with Google in the search realm then no one will. The Verge reports that Ballmer on Thursday lashed out at Google and called its dominance over the search market a monopoly that should face some kind of antitrust regulations.

‘[Google has] this incredible, amazing, dare I say monopoly that we are the only person left on the planet trying to compete with,’ Ballmer explained. ‘I do believe that Google’s practices are worthy of discussion with competition authority, and we have certainly discussed them with competition authorities.’

Microsoft has tried to raise awareness about Google’s supposedly unethical business practices through its ‘Scroogled’ ad campaign but so far the company has had no luck in reducing Google’s share of the search realm. And although some of Google’s business practices are certainly worthy of regulatory scrutiny, it seems odd for Microsoft to press an antitrust case against the company since Microsoft itself was once the target of a government antitrust suit that revolved around the company’s virtual monopoly of the desktop OS market.”

Well, it’s about time for another personal observation. (Read that as “rant.”) I hate malware. You may say, “But, Dr. Bill, we all hate malware!” Yes, but it’s just plain annoying. Case in point, last night I was minding my own business doing research for the next netcast when I saw something I thought would be nice to install on my system. So, I downloaded it and proceeded to install it. I got the typical stupid questions like, “Do you want to install this additional option and let me take over your browser and put you on some search engine that you hate and mess up your computer from now on?”

No, wait, that’s not what it said. It said something like, “Do you want to do this wonderful thing that will help your computer from here on out run better and faster?” Well, of course, I know better than to believe what some malware infection install program tells me, so I always click the button for, “No, I don’t want your stupid, evil, ugly, nasty, malware cluttering up my system!” However, sometimes… when it’s very late at night and you’re very tired, you click the wrong button! And, have you ever noticed that a program that is benign, and possibly even helpful, will say something like are, “Are you sure you want to install me?” While malware, upon clicking the wrong button, doesn’t ask you, “Are you sure?” It just installs itself and messes up your computer! Now, keep in mind, what happened last night was not a virus infection. But, it was a browser hijack malware program and it hijacked my home screen and changed that home screen to “Yahoo!” It also changed my default browser to “Yahoo!”

Now, what does this tell you about “Yahoo!?” It means that they contracted with this evil, ugly, stupid, sociopath developer of this stinking malware to advertise their crumby web site. Again, what does this tell you about “Yahoo!?” It tells me that I don’t want have anything to do with “Yahoo!” It tells me I don’t want to use their sorry, third rate search engine. It tells me I don’t want have anything to do with them at all. And, it tells me that “Yahoo!” is plainly evil and will use any means necessary to get you to set up your system to go to their fourth rate web site. (I know, their rate is falling fast.) Now you know me… I’m just a big, harmless fuzzball. I’m kind, considerate, giving… I have even been called “sweet.” However, if I were ever to be tempted to extend my middle finger in the direction of a web search engine I would certainly have to give serious consideration to “Yahoo!” Just sayin’.

“So, Dr. Bill, did you get your system cleaned?” Why, yes… yes, I did. But only after much research, many operations using Malwarebytes Anti-malware… as well is some specialized tools that I found on-line. I now have a clean system, and my search engine is back to good ol’ Google… as well as my homepage. The moral of the story: “Don’t download and install any software while you’re very tired, and sleepy, and carefully read the warnings before you click on anything that is designed to infect your system, such as these stupid, ugly, their-mother-dresses-them-funny malware installation programs that they put an otherwise, possibly decent software; but… come to think of it, it makes you wonder about the people writing the “decent” software… as to why they would allow the malware infection option to even be in their program… just as a matter of principle. I would not want to have it in MY program, but that’s just me. Something to think about.

Check out this new release!

LibreOffice 4.1

This is the second release from the 4.1 branch of LibreOffice.

It is the first bugfix release in the LibreOffice 4.1.x line which contains many exciting new features, and is suitable for early adopters and private power users — for conservative requirements, we refer you to LibreOffice 4.0.5 from the previous series.

The following notes apply:

• This release is bit-for-bit identical to the 4.1.1 Release Candidate 2, so you don’t need to download or reinstall if you have that version already.
• The distribution for Windows is an international build, so you can choose the user interface language that you prefer. Help content is available via an online service, or alternatively as a separate install.
• Our Windows binaries are digitally signed by The Document Foundation.
• For Windows users that have OpenOffice.org installed, we advise uninstalling that beforehand, because it registers the same file type associations.
• If you run Linux, the GCJ Java variant has known issues with LibreOffice, we advise to e.g. use OpenJDK instead.
• LibreOffice 4.x drops a few long-deprecated features, including support for legacy binary StarOffice files, export to legacy Word and Excel (version 6.0/95), and legacy ODMA document management.

Cross-posted from the Hand Held Hack – Check out the incentive that adds 10 gig to your Google Drive just for getting it for free on your mobile device!

Freeing Quickoffice for everyone

From Google – “Everyone likes free stuff, which is why starting today we’re making Quickoffice available for free, for everyone. With Quickoffice, you can edit Microsoft® Office documents across your devices, giving you the freedom to work with anyone no matter what hardware or software they’re using. Quickoffice also integrates seamlessly with Google Drive storage so you can safely access your files from anywhere. And while the easiest thing to do is simply convert your old files to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, Quickoffice gives you another way to work with people who haven’t gone Google yet.

You can get the new, free Quickoffice app for Android and iOS phones and tablets on Google Play and in the App Store. Simply sign in with your Google Account to start editing Microsoft Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations on mobile. You’ll also notice a number of new features, including a refreshed icon, the ability to create .ZIP folders, and view charts in Excel® and PowerPoint® files. Plus, the new app works across devices so you don’t have to worry about installing separate versions anymore when you go from using your phone to editing on your tablet.

While we’re on the topic of free stuff, if you sign in to your Google Account from the new Quickoffice app for Android or iOS by September 26, 2013, an extra 10GB of Google Drive storage will be added to your account for two years (look for it in the next few weeks). So don’t let your hardware or software differences get in the way of true collaboration — download the new app and start working together today.

Note: Previous versions of Quickoffice have been removed from Google Play and the App Store. Learn more about how this affects customers currently using Quickoffice Pro, Quickoffice Pro HD. Users who have the Quickoffice for Google Apps for Business app will receive an update notification to upgrade to this new version.”

So, would YOU do this? Didn’t think so.

Microsoft launches iPad trade-in promotion

ZDnet – “Microsoft is kicking up a notch its competition with Apple’s iPad with a new, limited time trade-in offer.

‘Trade in your iPad, Get a min. $200 gift card,’ according to the deal, outlined on the Microsoft Online store site. The gift card may be used towards the purchase of a Microsoft Surface or other products available through the Microsoft Store.

The deal actually kicked off September 5 and runs until October 27, 2013. According to the fine print, the deal is available in ‘select Microsoft retail stores in US (including Puerto Rico) and Canada’ but isn’t available online.

The qualifying trade-in devices are ‘gently used’ iPad 2,3 or 4s.

Microsoft has been stepping up its focus on Apple as the main target for Windows 8-based devices, including its own Surfaces, as well as select OEM devices. Microsoft has been emphasizing the business-readiness of Windows 8 devices, as well as their lower prices vis-a-vis iPads with a series of recent ads. Microsoft launched a back-to-school-focused anti-iPad ad earlier this summer.

Best Buy ran its own $200-off iPad trade-in promotion earlier this summer.”

Here’s the tweet:

“We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.”

Wow! The “experts” say that Twitter will be worth $14 BILLION!