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‘open source’ Stories

Qbo open-source robot wants to be Ford Model T of ‘bots

Chris Davies, Apr 28th 2010 Discuss [0]

Open-source and DIY robotics should be the ideal match, but the expense of robot hardware often puts it out of reach for all but the most deep-pocketed enthusiast. Five years ago Francisco Paz decided to produce not only his own robot, Qbo, but to open-source the project so that hopefully the cost of entry would be lower for anyone else wanting to follow in his footsteps. Read The Full Story

Pandora games console production models spied; Volcano interrupts shipping

Chris Davies, Apr 19th 2010 Discuss [0]

The open-source Pandora games handheld project continues, with the latest milestone on the way to actual, shipping products being two "mass production" units with painted cases. Posted by project member Craigix, while the first photo (there's another after the cut) might not make it completely clear, the Pandora on the left has been finished in black and the model on the right is in grey. Read The Full Story

Pandora gaming handheld enters production

Chris Davies, Feb 9th 2010 Discuss [0]

It's taken a while, but the Pandora open-source handheld has finally been given the production green-light. After many months of prototypes and design tinkering, according to the project forum the team have given the go-ahead to their Chinese production partners to begin the initial run. Read The Full Story

Symbian OS goes open source

Shane McGlaun, Feb 4th 2010 Discuss [0]

The smartphone market is very hot right now with smartphones selling very well and many different companies competing in the market. The open source Android OS is doing very well in the market against the proprietary iPhone OS and Windows Mobile. The most widely used smartphone OS in the world is Symbian and the Symbian Foundation announced today that its open source migration is complete. Read The Full Story

Symbian OS going free and open source for first time

Paul Fang, Feb 3rd 2010 Discuss [1]

Starting Thursday, the source code for Symbian’s operating system platform will become entirely open source and free (Symbian’s software currently powers most of the smartphones in the world, and is owned by Nokia). Tomorrow hence the day developers will be able to download, alter, and apply the software at no costs at all. Read The Full Story

Emblaze First ELSE struts new UI in video demo

Chris Davies, Nov 25th 2009 Discuss [1]

Still curious about the First ELSE smartphone and its nifty user-interface? Various videos of the handset in action have emerged, including a five minute UI demo from the ELSE's launch in London this week. The handset is based on the Access Linux Platform 3.0, onto the open-source underpinnings of which designers Emblaze Mobile built the sPlay menu system, which is intended to be navigated via the right-hand thumb. Rather than digging through numerous menus and pop-up boxes, sPlay aims to keep a consistent UI throughout the ELSE handset. We touched upon its more headline-grabbing functionality yesterday - the phone will record voice calls and store them along with records of when the call was made, and there are GPS-linked contextual reminders which flag up alerts whenever you’re near a preset position, for instance a shopping list while you’re near a supermarket - but Emblaze are planning an app store and building up to an SDK release for more functionality. Video demos after the cut Read The Full Story

Google Chrome OS benchmarked already: falls well short

Chris Davies, Nov 24th 2009 Discuss [0]

Benchmarking the very earliest publicly-available code for Google Chrome OS seems destined to only highlight the platform's early stage of development, especially when you throw rivals such as Moblin 2.1, Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10, Fedora 12 and openSUSE 11.2 into the mixture. Still, that's just what Phoronix have done, and unsurprisingly the new Google netbook OS came in last position. Read The Full Story

Google Chrome OS and Android “will likely converge” says Sergey Brin

Chris Davies, Nov 23rd 2009 Discuss [1]

Back in July, Google's execs were grudgingly agreeing that Google Chrome OS and Android have "a great deal of commonality" and "may merge even closer." Now co-founder Sergey Brin has further stoked that speculation, telling reporters after last week's Chrome OS reveal that "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time". Brin pointed to the common Linux and Webkit browser code as existing points of convergence in the two open-source platforms. Read The Full Story

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Google Chrome OS gets detailed [Video]

Chris Davies, Nov 19th 2009 Discuss [1]

As expected, Google have released launch details about the Google Chrome OS platform, though there is no beta release today nor any netbooks actually running the OS to announce. The company intend Chrome OS to boot almost instantaneously, similar to a TV experience, and in fact it currently loads in just seven seconds; system stability and security is also paramount, with an encrypted user-data section, self-healing OS and complete cloud storage for files. While there’s no beta available today, Google is making the source code available for developers to download, compile and install.

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Video overviews after the cut

Read The Full Story

Archos look to boost Android MID apps with €1 dev deal

Chris Davies, Nov 13th 2009 Discuss [0]

While we've been waiting for integrated 3G and carrier subsidies to bring the cost of the Archos 5 Android Internet Tablet down, if you've some developer skills and some time to kill there's another way to get a cheap deal. Archos have announced a deal whereby developers can - eventually - get an Archos 5 for just €1; all they need to do is whip up an app for the 5-inch touchscreen MID. Read The Full Story

Google Chrome OS release in next 7 days?

Chris Davies, Nov 13th 2009 Discuss [0]

Google Chrome OS, the search giant's web-centric platform for notebooks, netbooks and Smartbooks, is tipped to be arriving sometime within the next seven days. According to TechCrunch's sources, the release of the new OS - which was announced back in July - is imminent, though there's also talk of patchy driver support. Read The Full Story

Spotify for Nokia N900 [Video]

Chris Davies, Oct 26th 2009 Discuss [1]

Nokia's N900 is already enticing developers, but right now there's not the same compelling catalog of applications as you might find, say, in the iPhone's App Store. Happily that just leaves room for Maemo coders to fill with their own apps, such as a homebrew open-source Spotify application. Video demo after the cut Read The Full Story