Research In Motion (RIM) has a lot riding on the release of BlackBerry 10, the upcoming mobile operating system that will power a new generation of devices. If all goes to plan, BB10 will thrust RIM back into relevance and save a company that's seen its share of struggles in recent times. More likely, however, BB10 will stand in the shadows of next-gen OSes from Google and Apple, and if that happens, Samsung's best bet is to acquire RIM, according to analysts with investment firm Jeffries.
Valve is forging ahead with plans to port its Steam distribution platform over to Linux and has even managed to tweak Left 4 Dead 2 to run faster on a 32-bit Ubuntu system than on a Windows 7 machine, but as far as John Carmack is concerned, the real challenge will be getting Linux users to open their wallets. Carmack, as you know, is the founder and technical director of id Software, and also an open source advocate. He's also a realist.
It would be silly to sit here and pretend that fragmentation doesn't exist in the Android ecosystem, or that Android 4.0.x (Ice Cream Sandwich) and 4.1.x (Jelly Bean) are going to reverse unify Android devices. Be that as it may, the latest Android builds are making headway, particularly Ice Cream Sandwich, which is now installed on 15.9 percent of all active Android devices.
Windows 7 is two months away from becoming the second newest consumer desktop operating system from Microsoft (it already is, if you count the Windows 8 Release to Manufacturing, or RTM), but will it surpass Windows XP in market share before Windows 8 is made generally available to the public? It's going to be a tight race, but it looks like Windows 7 will jump ahead by the end of August.
Microsoft today released its touch-friendly Windows 8 operating system to manufacturers (RTM, or Released to Manufacturing). The release signals a milestone that indicates the software juggernaut has completed product development and exterminated enough bugs to feel confident enough to hand out final code to OEM partners. Companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard can now begin prepping new Windows 8 PCs and tablets, which they'll introduce to the public next month.
The folks responsible for Raspberry Pi have already concocted a delicious, inexpensive recipe for micro-sized computing, but the project is about to get even tastier with the introduction of one more ingredient: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Raspberry Pi's developers are working on porting ICS to its $35 device and have "been making great progress" towards that end.
You may have heard that Valve is hard at work porting its Steam client to the Linux platform, but it's not because the company has developed a sudden affinity towards the open source space. The real reason is because Valve views Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 release as a "catastrophe" in the making for the PC industry at large, or at least that's the viewpoint held by Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director at Valve.
Well, it's official folks. Microsoft is shipping Windows 8 to the general public on October 26, just five days prior to Halloween and just over three years since the launch of Windows 7 on October 22, 2009. The Redmond outfit previously said Windows 8 would release to manufacturers (RTM) in August and to the general public sometime in late October, the latter of which is when customers will be able to buy new hardware with the touch-friendly OS pre-installed, or upgrade existing systems (or build new ones) using off-the-shelf (or downloadable) copies.
Microsoft is once again in hot water with European Union (EU) antitrust officials, this time for failing to fully comply with a 2009 settlement in which the Redmond software company agreed to give customers a choice of which Web browser to use when installing Windows. For the most part, Microsoft had been doing that, except in some instances where PCs shipped to European customers with Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 pre-installed.
Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system is receiving the lion's share of attention lately, but lest anyone forget, the Redmond outfit also builds server software, both for the home consumer and business clients. Windows Server 2012 is geared towards the latter, and according to Microsoft, one of the benefits is a "dramatically simplified licensing experience" with just three versions to choose from, plus an edition for OEM vendors.
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