Chief scribe
Honda’s Asimo, the world’s most advanced humanoid robot, is apparently programmed using Ubuntu Linux, according a report on IT news website Softpedia. A sharp-eyed Softpedia reader pointed out that the Ubuntu OS has been spotted in a YouTube video on recent advances in robotics. The Linux terminal and the characteristic Ubuntu Gnome terminal maximise, minimise […]
After years testing, the French state railway operator SNCF is going to launch an invitation to tender to equip its TGV (high-speed train) rolling stock with WiFi, Le Monde Informatique reports. There’s light at the end of the tunnel for the French travelling public. On Friday’s France Inter breakfast programme, Axelle Lemaire, the French Secretary […]
Passengers on board Train No. T809 from Guangzhou, China’s third largest city, to Hong Kong enjoyed free wireless network access today (Friday), according to ChinaDaily Europe, marking the inauguration of the first WiFi access service on the Chinese railway network. The other 23 trains serving the route will also be fitted with the equipment to […]
The licensing practices of proprietary software companies such as Microsoft have been questioned this week in the lower house (Tweede Kamer) of the Dutch parliament. The questions were triggered by the case of the Municipality of Arnhem, which wanted to switch from the ubiquitous MS Office suite to a free and open source alternative such […]
Cyber security experts from the University of Bristol have advised the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) on how to protect the personal data of millions of citizens.
Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph reports that Ofcom is to make more frequencies available for mobile broadband. This will result in faster and cheaper mobile data services and will benefit those in rural areas in particular. The 700 MHz frequency band that is currently used by digital terrestrial TV services and wireless microphones will be opened up […]
Since the free and open source operating systems field tends to be dominated by GNU/Linux in its various forms and distributions, it’s easy to forget that others are available. One of these – FreeBSD – is having a newsworthy week at present. FreeBSD is one of the most popular Unix derivatives based upon the 4.4BSDLite2 […]
Yesterday we reported on the threat to the GNOME Foundation’s GNOME trademark from Gnome trademark applications made by Groupon (news passim). Groupon has now withdrawn its Gnome trademark applications and issued the following statement. Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number […]
A group of developers has developed a DIY laptop kit, heise reports. All components can be assembled in a way that’s friendly for beginners and without soldering. With the Pi-Top you’ll be learning DIY both for hardware and software. Jesse Lonzano and Ryan Dunwoody had the idea of developing the Raspberry Pi-based Pi-Top DIY laptop […]
The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organisation promoting the goals of the GNOME Project, helping it to create a free software computing platform for the general public that is designed to be elegant, efficient and easy to use. The Foundation is currently facing a threat to its GNOME trademark from global deal-of-the-day website merchants Groupon, […]
Whilst the present government’s record may be regarded by some as controversial, to say the least, there’s one area where some real progress has been made; and that’s the adoption of open standards by central government. In July this year, there was the adoption of Open Document Format (ODF), PDF and PDF/A and HTML (news […]
Our friends at Omnis Systems in Brighton are organising an event – Open Source, the Cloud and your Business – at Sussex County Cricket Club, Hove, BN3 3AN (map) on Tuesday 18th November. Many organisations in the private, public, voluntary and community sectors are now starting to look seriously or are in part using “the […]
The current hard copy of Networking magazine (to which Bristol Wireless subscribes. Ed.) reports on its front page that on account of poor take-up of the broadband connection voucher scheme (of which we’re part. Ed.), the government is revamping its offer of £3,000 to get businesses on high-speed broadband connections in 22 cities. Apparently fewer […]
Hamburg’s Green want to wean the city off its Microsoft dependency and are pointing to Munich’s use of Linux, German IT news website heise reports. On the occasion of the impending 2014 Open IT Summit Hamburg’s Greens demanded the liberation of the city council from dependency on Microsoft. For Green Party Hamburg Parliament member Farid […]
Ada Lovelace Day, that annual celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and medicine, may be gone for another year (news passim), but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. Earlier today local news site Bristol 24/7 carried a comment piece by Ujima Radio presenter Cheryl Morgan entitled “Women deserve to be part of the IT crowd“. […]
On Tuesday, Munich’s first mayor finally responded to an inquiry by the Green Party (PDF, German) about rumours regarding a possible reversion to a Windows-based desktop environment from its current Linux-based LiMux system (news passim). The response shows that there is no factual basis for the claims made by first mayor and second mayor. An […]
Opensource.com reports that Linux purveyor Red Hat is now accepting nominations for the Women in Open Source Award. Created to highlight the achievements women making major contributions to an open source project, to the open source community or through the use of open source methodology, this award is the first of its kind. The award […]
Crowdfunding site Kickstarter has announced that August Germar is currently raising funds for anonabox, a Tor hardware router that will re-route data through the Tor network for security and anonymity. The anonabox is an open source internet networking device designed to run alongside a current home router or modem. Small enough to fit in a […]
Tomorrow, 14th October, is Ada Lovelace Day, an annual an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. As part of the celebrations, Bristol University is organising a free public lecture focussing on Ada Lovelace’s life and pioneering work. Ada Lovelace – the first programmer’ by Professor Philipp Welch from […]
The Open Knowledge Foundation is doing marvellous work in the fields of open data and open content. The Foundation has just published version 2 of its Open Definition. This definition is released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence and is reproduced verbatim below (complete with US spellings and punctuation throughout. Ed.). Open Definition Version 2.0 […]