August 15th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Last night New York City startup Bug Labs hosted an introductory meetup at Punch Restaurant‘s upstairs Wined Up bar.
Bug Labs founder Peter Semmelhack describes the company thus: “Bug Labs is developing BUG, an open, modular, consumer electronics web services + hardware platform. Designed for the general audience, not just the technically inclined, Bug seeks to bring to the world of hardware gadgets what the Internet, open source, XML and web services have brought to the world of software and media.”
Most of the online action is on the company blog, but last night Bug Labs showed its hardware publicly for the first time. Its product is a modular, Lego-like collection of hardware components and software infrastructure that you can attach together to dynamically build specialty devices to service the long tail of product users’ needs.
Marketing chief Jeremy showed off three circuit boards plugged together, in size and shape totaling about the same as a video iPod. The base board contained the primary Bug device, while the other two, each half the length of the first, were an accelerometer/motion detector and a camera, respectively. Plugged together in this configuration, Jeremy held in his hand a security monitoring system.
When product launch occurs in the fall, many other modules will be available, including GPS, cell phone, LCD screens, keyboard and more. Bug Labs will target hackers and hobbyists first, and then when a collection of third-party applications have added consumer value to the product ecosystem, they’ll be able to make sales to normal consumers too.
With a few other organizations making moves into the world of open source or modular hardware, including OpenMoko, the OLPC, Drobo, and (sort of) the Nokia Maemo platform, it looks like a new, dynamic and fascinating market segment could be on its way to emergence. Let’s hope it brings the enormous benefits of open source communities to the hardware world that FOSS has brought to software already!
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Maemo, OLPC, Open Source, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 13th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
On Friday, Philipp Lohmann reported on the progress being made in moving the Mac port of OpenOffice.org to the Cocoa framework.
Sun has moved aggressively in its efforts to support OOo on the Mac, and we’re already seeing great progress after just a few months.
Lohmann agrees, but also cautions that this is still a small step: “So the Mac port continues to thrive, but even with all we have already there is much yet to do. Any developer willing and able to help OpenOffice.org is welcome (please find build instructions here), Sun even offers a job in this area for people willing to work in Hamburg.”
Posted in Mac, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
August 10th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Ubuntu train keeps gaining speed as it starts to gain riders from the world of mainstream computing.
We all know about Dell selling Ubuntu systems, and recently expanding that offer to European customers. We’ve seen the emergence of small PC shops that specialize in selling pure Ubuntu systems (ZaReason and System76), and we have been aware of the good press Ubuntu continues to receive from sources all around the world.
On that front, one of the most recent comes from Maximum PC magazine, writing “Why (almost) Everyone Should Try Ubuntu.”
It’s a good piece, and summarizes some of the major reasons why using Ubuntu is a good idea: “The arguments for choosing Ubuntu fall into two categories: immediate practicality and long-term viability. For sheer practicality, Ubuntu is a no-brainer. It installs in minutes, recognizes most hardware immediately, hides root from those who have no business messing with it, and comes pre-configured to let you get to work right away. For long-term viability, Ubuntu offers a well established coalition of developers, rapid growth among OEM vendors, and – most importantly – a massive base of users around the world.”
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on Maximum PC Suggests You Try Ubuntu
August 8th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
At LinuxWorld on August 7, OpenProj was officially unveiled.
Projity introduces the new app to the world: “OpenProj is ideal for desktop project management and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows, even opening existing Microsoft or Primavera files. OpenProj shares the industry’s most advanced scheduling engine with Project-ON-Demand and has Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more. There is literally no time or effort involved in switching to OpenProj and your teams can manage projects in Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows for free.”
Adding detail to my earlier post on OpenProj, Computerworld announces LinuxWorld: SaaS rival to Microsoft Project goes open source.
“Called OpenProj, the still-in-beta software will be bundled with several leading flavors of the Linux operating system, according to an interview last week with Projity CEO Marc O’Brien. Confirmed distributions so far include Mandriva, Mint and the Gentoo-derived Sabayon… O’Brien hopes these moves will help OpenProj eventually win between 7 million and 11 million users — making it a true rival to Microsoft Corp.’s market-dominating Project software, which currently claims 20 million users.”
Posted in Open Source | Comments Off on OpenProj Officially Unveiled
August 3rd, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Thanks to Tamil Nadu’s ongoing rollout of 40,000 desktop Linux boxes, Linux is “becoming visible on desktops” in the country, writes the Business Standard.
It’s already half complete, but it is not nearly the largest rollout in India:
“Novell along with the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) is installing Suse Linux in around 40,000 desktops in the entire state. Over 50 per cent of the estimated Rs 200 crore project has already been completed, according to C Umashankar, managing director, ELCOT.
“This is the second largest implementation of Linux on the desktop – the biggest one being that of around 60,000 desktops in LIC of India by Red Hat, which is estimated to have implemented over 200,000 desktop OS installations. Canara Bank too has around 10,000 Linux OS desktops.”
A chart in the above article lists 7 different Linux migrations totaling 140,000 PCs across India. I’ve covered a number of these before.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on FOSS “Becoming Visible” on Desktops in India
August 2nd, 2007 Benjamin Horst
It’s been a long time coming. For years, I’ve been looking on and off for an open source project management application. Now I’ve got something of a scoop, because of an email I received this morning from Marc O’Brien, CEO of Projity.
Projity will announce its new, cross-platform desktop project management application at LinuxWorld next week.
In the meantime, Marc wrote me to introduce the application: “OpenProj is free and open source software that is a complete replacement for Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, opens native Microsoft Project files and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. Microsoft Project resides on 7% of all Office desktops and is part of the Office family of solutions (retail is $1,000 or to be precise $999.99). However, Project is not included in any Office Suites so it is not pre-installed on any computers which means even Windows users need to purchase very expensive software for their project needs. OpenProj is free and also cross platform.”
Projity is looking to work with the OpenOffice.org community, as a project management tool is a natural complement to the open source office suite. Working together should find strong synergies between the two projects.
August 7 will see a full release and updated websites to support the project, but you can download it now from here. I’m currently testing it out and very much looking forward to using OpenProj.
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 5 Comments »
August 1st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Mozilla Links publishes French National Assembly receives first open source laptops:
“Open source software-loaded laptops are now being delivered to members of the French National Assembly. The French government found that software license costs surpassed training and deployment investments so the decision to move to open source was taken and Linagora, a French company specialized in open source software projects, was hired for the transition. The laptops come loaded with a customized version of Ubuntu 7.04 and productivity applications that include Firefox 2.0, OpenOffice.org 2.1, Thunderbird 2.0, Lightning, VLC Media Player and Adobe Reader.”
I’ve mentioned the plans for this migration in French Parliament Moving Toward Ubuntu and French MPs Dump Windows for Linux. It’s great to see it come to fruition.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on French National Assembly Receives First Open Source Laptops
July 31st, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Hot Hardware reviews ASUS’s $199 Eee PC.
“Not only have we had the chance to actually use the ASUS Eee PC, we can also confirm some important new specifications of the notebook. The Eee PC is running a version of Intel’s 910 mobile chipset, it uses a 900MHz Intel Dothan based Pentium M CPU, it has 512MB of DDR2 memory, full 802.11g wireless capability, and a flash-based hard drive. There will be at least two different models of the Eee PC, with the $199 version using a 4GB flash hard drive and the $299 version using a 8GB drive.”
To keep costs low, the Eee PC runs Linux (I cannot tell which distro it’s based on, but it is running KDE). Complete with a wide selection of preinstalled open source applications, and built on top of a respectable hardware platform, this little device brings a lot of computing utility in a very small and inexpensive package. It could be the perfect tool for low-tech folks who need email, web access and other basic functions, and it might fit in well as a small, highly portable machine for geeks too.
Hot Hardware is very bullish on this laptop’s chances: “The ASUS Eee PC is expected to be available, worldwide, in full production quantities by this fall. It is rumored to have a street date of mid-August, and will likely be one of the hottest selling computers in recent history, come the holiday shopping season.”
(Go Linux markeshare!)
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | 1 Comment »
July 27th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The BBC summarizes the OLPC project and its now-finalized XO hardware.
Very unique constraints have led to unprecedented design ideas. However, I think many of these ideas will be proven by the XO and then adopted by more mainstream computing devices.
Among those ideas: “To ensure the laptop is robust and can be maintained as easily as possible it omits all moving parts. It has no hard drive, CD or DVD drive. As it also packs a low power processor it has no cooling fans… Instead of a large hard drive the laptop has 1GB of flash memory, similar to that used in some digital cameras.”
For energy efficiency, components can be shut off while other parts of the computer remain active: “The off-the-shelf processor is designed to be energy efficient. Unlike a standard chip, which remains active even when nothing changes on screen, the AMD processor is able to shut itself down, only waking when it is needed… To conserve as much battery power as possible the wi-fi adapter can operate even when the main processor is switched off or asleep.”
Other clever features include its custom Linux-based OS, screen that can switch to black-and-white mode for readability in daylight, human-generated power options, and replaceable keyboard to accommodate many language layouts.
Also take a look at some of the stress testing currently underway to ensure the XOs can withstand real-world conditions.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, OLPC, Open Source | Comments Off on BBC Overview of OLPC XO
July 25th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
OSAF has outlined the high level vision of its Chandler PIM on the new project website. (Built using TWiki, incidentally.)
One particular goal that stands out to me is described as “Peeling the Onion: Process information iteratively. Define what an item is over time.” This would work very well for me, so I am looking forward to the Preview Release scheduled for August. And that’s just one of a long list of new workflow ideas that OSAF has built into Chandler.
The deep thinking behind Chandler’s development has revealed a number of problems with the way things are done today. Among the most intractable, “There is a basic assumption that information management tasks are binary. Are you Done or Not Done? Most productivity software fail to accommodate the iterative way people work with information and provide poor support for keeping track of everything in between TO-DO and DONE.”
And the overarching goal of OSAF is to redefine the way PIM-like software is used in today’s multi-project, multi-team working environments. “Our hope is that by modeling the user experience around how people work today and the substance of that work, we can be more than just another software tool and instead aspire to be a system for information management: A smarter way to work. A better environment for collaboration. And an addictive habit that’s hard to break.”
Posted in Open Source, Uncategorized, Wiki | Comments Off on Chandler Project High Level Vision
