News

Skyrack News and Announcements

• Easy-IP download version updated
• VOIP is everywhere, but not all VOIP is good VOIP
• Datacentre analysis favours hosted voice PBX
• Mobile handsets to get IPv6 in 2011
• Premier content sites getting serious about IPv6

Other Industry News

Telecoms.com

• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:27:08 +0000: LightSquared to cut costs by slashing jobs – telecoms.com – telecoms industry news, analysis and opinion » News & Analysis
  A double whammy of bad news for US wannabe carrier LightSquared this week, as reports come in that the firm plans to prune 45 per cent of its staff in order to save money. Earlier this week it emerged that satellite operator Inmarsat was claiming that it has not received a payment of $56.25m from the company.
• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:18:16 +0000: GSMA promises more details on MWC strike plan – telecoms.com – telecoms industry news, analysis and opinion » News & Analysis
  Under the threat of a strike from Barcelona’s transport workers’ union, the TMB, that could disrupt next week’s Mobile World Congress, GSMA has issued a statement promising to reveal its contingency plans on Saturday. With more than 60,000 visitors expected to attend this year’s event, many of whom will be relying on the city’s public transport network, the disturbance to the event could be significant.
• Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:24:53 +0000: Ericsson confirms BelAir acquisition – telecoms.com – telecoms industry news, analysis and opinion » News & Analysis
  Ericsson has confirmed that it has agreed to acquire Canadian wifi firm BelAir Networks for an undisclosed amount. The Swedish vendor heralded the deal as the “next step towards a truly integrated network”, following the launch of its network integrated wifi solution in September 2011, and claims the integration of the two firms’ technologies will improve the mobile broadband experience by managing the co-existence of mobile technologies and wifi.

Serverside.com

• Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:27:26 +0000: LiveRebel 2.0 – Down for maintenance? Never again. – Support Forums : Thread List – News
  Behind every ‘Down for Maintenance’ sign is frustrated operations staff, sleep-deprived developers, and angry managers letting everyone know how much money the company is losing with every minute of downtime. It is an awful experience for everyone involved.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:26:57 +0000: Docklets using Spring Framework – Support Forums : Thread List – News
  The DHTMLX Sprink Link is an Open Source class library that implements the docklet concept using Spring Framework and DHTMLX Widget Javascript component framework.
  The concept of the docklet, is a flexible approach where user interface widgets can have multiple behaviors depending on the client browser technology (personal computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.), based on security context and run time
  parameters.
  The scope of the project is to create a common, community driven, open source class, giving the
  opportunity to create cutting edge applications running in the cloud and making them available on both personal
  computers and mobile devices.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:28:31 +0000: Repetition is the mother of learning: why do memory leaks still happen in garbage-collected Java? – Support Forums : Thread List – News
  There have been several occasions over the last few weeks where I received expressions of surprise when we talked about memory leaks in Java applications. Perhaps it is time to review this topic again?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Freshmeat

• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:07:20 +0000: MirrorBrain 2.16.0 – Freecode Releases
  MirrorBrain is a framework to run a content delivery network using mirror servers. It solves a challenge that many popular open source projects face: a flood of download requests, often magnitudes more than a single site could practically handle. A central (and probably the most obvious) part is a "download redirector" that automatically redirects requests from Web browsers or download programs to a mirror server near them. Choosing a suitable mirror for a user’s request is the key, and MirrorBrain uses geolocation and global routing data to make a sensible choice and achieve load-balancing for the mirrors at the same time. The algorithm is both sophisticated and easy to control and tune. In addition, MirrorBrain monitors mirrors, scans them for files, generates mirror lists, and more.

  Release Notes: The most significant bugfix in this release is for a crash which could (only) occur when fallback mirrors were configured (hardcoded with the MirrorBrainFallback directive in the Apache configuration file). The other fixes are mostly to adjust for newer Python and build environments. The scanner is a little better. URL signing (introduced in 2.14.0) is now considered stable.

  

  Release Tags: Stable, Bugfixes, Feature Enhancements

  Tags: download, Mirroring, mirror, metalink

  Licenses: Apache 2.0, GPLv2

• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:18:59 +0000: Conquests 1.0 – Freecode Releases
  Conquests is a turn-based 4X Civilization-like 3D strategy game. You can discover new technologies from the stone age to the space age, explore the world, and wage war on your opponents. It supports both Direct3D and OpenGL graphics, and can run in both 2D and 3D modes.

  Release Notes: New game rules have been added, including "rebellions" and "Great Projects". Game winning conditions have been added. Improvements have been made to the user interface.

  

  Release Tags: Major

  Tags: Games/Entertainment, Game, Strategy, Turn Based Strategy

  Licenses: GPL

• Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:51:08 +0000: Gnome Partition Editor 0.12.0 – Freecode Releases
  Gnome Partition Editor is a graphical frontend to
  libparted. It supports creating, resizing, moving,
  and copying of partitions.

  Release Notes: This release adds support for nilfs2, adds the ability to change UUIDs, adds read-only support for LVM PVs, enables GPT expansion when growing RAID, and includes bugfixes and language translation updates.

  

  Tags: Hardware

  Licenses: GPL

Open Source Initiative

• Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:53:35 +0000: Open Source CADNANO is unbelievably cool – Open Source Initiative blogs
  

  I just read this in Nature:

  The researchers designed the structure of the nanorobots using open-source software, called Cadnano, developed by one of the authors — Shawn Douglas, a biophysicist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. They then built the bots using DNA origami. The barrel-shaped devices, each about 35 nanometres in diameter, contain 12 sites on the inside for attaching payload molecules and two positions on the outside for attaching aptamers, short nucleotide strands with special sequences for recognizing molecules on the target cell. The aptamers act as clasps: once both have found their target, they spring open the device to release the payload.

  These robots may be able to identify and target cancer cells.

  read more

• Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:25:30 +0000: OSI Announces New Initiatives – Open Source Initiative blogs
  

  OSI is changing, and you can help!  I spoke at FOSDEM in Brussels on Saturday, on behalf of the Open Source Initiative
  (OSI) where I serve as a director. My noon keynote covered a little of
  the rationale behind OSI and a quick synopsis of its last decade from my own perspective and then
  announcements on OSI’s behalf about the work we’re doing to make OSI strong and relevant
  for a new decade.

  Time For Change

  For the last three years, the OSI Board has been aware of a need for
  change.

  read more

• Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:09:41 +0000: Help OSI – Complete Our Survey! – Open Source Initiative blogs
  

  The Open Source Initiative is switching to a member-led governance. For that, it will need members.

  The OSI Board would be very grateful if you would complete the totally anonymous survey which will help us understand what attributes you would like from OSI membership in the future. Thanks for your help!

Networks

• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:29:09 +0000: Microsoft blasts ‘web video killer’ Motorola Mobility in EU gripe – The Register – Networks
  
  

  Googorola patents complaint probe launched

  Updated  Microsoft filed a formal antitrust complaint against Motorola Mobility this morning in Brussels, following the European Commission’s decision to clear Google’s takeover of the mobile biz earlier this month.…

• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:43:03 +0000: Court claim slapped on bloke via Facebook in landmark case – The Register – Networks
  
  

  Solicitors’ messages – another reason for an unlike button

  Facebook messages will become a common way to serve court documents, reckons lawyer Jenni Jenkins, after a judge allowed a legal claim to be sent to a bloke via the social network.…

• Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:03:10 +0000: Freedom-crushing govts close to ruling our web, fears FCC boss – The Register – Networks
  
  

  Baffled ITC denies plotting internet land-grab

  Foreign governments are lining up to wrest control of the internet from freedom-loving hippies, thunders FCC commissioner Robert McDowell in a call to arms in the Wall Street Journal.…

W3C

• Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:50:56 +0000: How to Make Your Presentations Accessible to All is updated – W3C News
  

  The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) has updated How to Make Presentations Accessible to All. This WAI resource helps you make presentations, meetings, training, conferences, etc. accessible to all of your potential audience, including people with disabilities and others. It covers planning, preparing slides, considerations during your presentation, providing accessible material, and other topics for conference organizers and presenters. Learn more in the blog post Make Your Presentations Accessible to All updated – share the news and visit the WAI home page.

• Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:37:04 +0000: Last Call: Timing control for script-based animations – W3C News
  

  The Web Performance Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of Timing control for script-based animations. This document defines an API web page authors can use to write script-based animations where the user agent is in control of limiting the update rate of the animation. The user agent is in a better position to determine the ideal animation rate based on whether the page is currently in a foreground or background tab, what the current load on the CPU is, and so on. Using this API should therefore result in more appropriate utilization of the CPU by the browser. Comments are welcome through 20 March. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.

• Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:11:01 +0000: W3C Launches Privacy Interest Group – W3C News
  

  W3C launched today a new Privacy Interest Group, whose mission is to improve the support of privacy in Web standards by monitoring ongoing privacy issues that affect the Web, investigating potential areas for new privacy work, and providing guidelines and advice for addressing privacy in standards development. The group may consider issues such as online tracking; location, health and financial data; eGovernment initiatives; and online social networking and identity. Where appropriate, the Interest Group will recommend areas where W3C should begin recommendation-track standards work on privacy issues and may prototype or initiate such work within the group. Participation in the Privacy Interest Group is open to the public. Learn more about Privacy.