Review: HTC Flyer

Short version: A promising aberration. The Flyer is barely a viable product, but it hints at potential that is almost surely being unlocked in the labs of HTC right now.

Features:

• 7″ touchscreen with active stylus input
• Custom Sense build of Android 2
• 1.5GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16-32GB internal storage (plus MicroSD)
• 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera
• MSRP: $600 (pen sold separately – $80)

Pros:

• Pen input is smooth and precise
• Form factor is attractive, though slightly weighty and fragile-feeling
• E-book app is nice

Cons:

• Virtually zero integration of pen input
• Clearly a beta product being improved on
• Writing on this screen feels weird

Full review:

When I first heard about the Flyer, I thought to myself “This thing is going to suck, but the next one is going to be awesome.” And I’m pleased to say that my pithy little judgment was more or less correct. The Flyer is a device almost no one will be happy with, but it’s clearly the precursor to something really, really awesome.

Venture Crapital Lets You Play The Tech Bubble As An HTML5 Game

Whether you’re on Team Andreessen, who held that we weren’t in a tech bubble at the AllThingsD conference, or the now revised (“All signs point to a real bubble, probably starting later this year when a lot more companies start to go public.”), there’s no denying post Groupon S-1 drop that we’re in a bubble of people talking about whether or not we’re in a tech bubble.

Forget Google, DoJ Fears Apple Gaining Nortel’s “Stockpile Of Nuclear Weapons” — Here’s Why

Two months ago, Google disclosed that they were bidding on bankrupt Nortel’s patent portfolio. Why?They claim it’s a defensive maneuver to protect the “relatively young” company from would-be patent predators. And Google is very serious about it. They put up the $900 million “stalking-horse bid” (the initial bid) for the over 6,000 patents. Given the stakes, it should be no surprise that the U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the bidding. But interestingly, it may not be Google they’re too concerned with.

Why Daily Deals Are Becoming A Raw Deal

We love daily deals for a simple reason: the deals have been outstanding. If revenue growth in the first Internet bubble was about selling a dollar for 50 cents, growth in the daily deals business has been about getting other people to sell their dollars for 50 cents and charging them 25 cents for the privilege.

Living through the worst recession in our lifetimes has made such deals even more appealing.

How Facebook Can Put Google Out of Business

I was surprised to hear former Google CEO Eric Schmidt publicly lament lost opportunities and missed chances to catch Facebook the other day.

I used to envy Google and the vast digital empire that Schmidt commanded.  Google had one of the most intricate monopolies of all time. It had the most impressive dataset the world had ever seen; the most sophisticated algorithm to make sense of it; an audience of a billion users expressing their interest; and more than a million advertisers bidding furiously to reach those consumers at just the right moment.

White-Hot Flickr Alternative 500px Raises $525K In Series A

As the complaints about Flickr continue to pile on, scrappy Toronto-based service 500px continues to grow, going from 1000 users in 2009 to over 85K (around 45K of which have joined in the last three months). And after two years of bootstrapping, the startup is today announcing its $525K Series A round with investment from High Line Venture Capital, Deep Creek Capital and ff Venture Capital.

Sony NGP soaks up the pre-E3 glitz in official demo videos

With E3 2011 just around the corner, expectations for Nintendo announcements are mighty high, but you can get a glimpse at the heat Sony's packing before another day goes by. The official PlayStation.Blog spat out some footage of the quad-core NGP in action, and it's not just playing last-gen games; rather, there's yet another glimpse at Uncharted, a brand new platformer called Sound Shapes where you build levels with a music sequencer (and which procedurally generates tunes as you play) and a taste of the cross-platform PS3 vs. NGP wireless racing you can expect in Wipeout HD. There's definitely a lot of dual-analog action here, but demonstrators are also taking advantage of that five-inch touchscreen, and Wipeout will apparently use the front-facing camera to beam taunt-filled pictures and video of the victor to the losers in each race.

Qualcomm takes sci-fi one step closer to reality at Computex 2011 (video)

While flying cars are still a pipe dream, other technologies are quickly transitioning from the stuff of sci-fi movies into the very tangible realm of reality. This was definitely the case at the Qualcomm Booth here at Computexwhere we got to experience two interesting new technologies -- zero shutter lag and the ultrasonic pen. What if when you pressed the shutter button on your phone the camera captured 2 frames before, one frame during, and 2 frames after that instant? That's the idea behind Scalado's zero shutter lag, which speeds up the process of taking pictures on a phone by letting the camera continuously sample images and allowing the user to create a composite shot from the content available in up to 5 frames.

HTC Sensation review

A hotly anticipated smartphone with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a "Super" 4.3-inch screen, and a manufacturer-skinned version of Android 2.3 -- we must be talking about the Samsung Galaxy S II, right? Not on this occasion, squire. Today we're taking a gander at HTC's Sensation, a handset that's just begun shipping in Europe under a short-term Vodafone exclusive and which should be making its way to T-Mobile in the USA early next month. By beating its stablemate the EVO 3D and Moto's Droid X2 to the market, the Sensation becomes the world's first 4.3-inch smartphone with qHD resolution, while also serving as the debut phone for HTC's Watch movie streaming service and Sense 3.0 UI customizations. That leaves us with an abundance of newness to review, so what are we waiting for?

HTC EVO 3D walks its WiMAX by the FCC on its way to Sprint

It's looking like we're about three weeks away from our first dose of glasses-free 3D on a smartphone, and Sprint is going to be the one getting you all cross-eyed.

Micron RealSSD P320h can read 3GBps, write 2GBps, impress millions of geeks per second

Speed may be a relative thing, but whatever you choose to compare Micron's new RealSSD P320h series to, you'll probably find them pretty competitive. Coming in 350GB and 700GB capacities, these PCI Express solid state drives can process data at a rate of 3GB per second and write it at a no less impressive 2GBps. If you're more interested in input / output operations per second, the P320h clocks in at 750,000 IOPS when running Linux or 650,000 with Windows Server as the OS. You don't need us to tell you that both numbers represent screaming-fast performance. Such mighty feats are achieved with the use of 34nm SLC NAND flash memory and Micron's own controller chip. Samples of the P320h are trickling out now and mass production is coming in the third quarter of 2011, and while no pricing info has been offered yet, it's safe to say you'll be needing your company CFO's blessing before making any P320h purchases. Video and full PR after the break.

Ubuntu to hit Eee PCs, take on Microsoft

Think ASUS netbooks threw Linux out the window?

Still Think The Mouse Isn’t Dead?

We’ve been over this. But many of you felt the need to argue — passionately — about the fate of an input device we all use today: the mouse. I say it’s dead. Well not dead, dead — yet. But the wheels are clearly in motion. Many disagree. And I thought it was worth bringing up again upon seeingthe demo video that Microsoft put out there for Windows 8.

Sony Pictures hacked by Lulz Security, 1,000,000 passwords claimed stolen

Oh, Sony -- not again. We've just received numerous tips that Lulz Security has broken into SonyPictures.com, where it claims to have stolen the personal information of over 1,000,000 users -- all stored (disgracefully) in plain text format. Lulz claims the heist was performed with a simple SQL injection -- just like we saw the last time around.

Life-size Angry Birds comes with giant slingshot, more realistic explosive death (video)

Angry Birds was designed to be played on a device that fits in your pocket, so playing the game projected on a wall doesn't exactly feel natural. Throw a life-size slingshot into the mix, though, and things really get zany. The slingshot was on hand at the University of Queensland (Australia) last night, and had apparently been "months in the making." Details are scant, so we're not sure exactly how the slingshot communicates with the game, but however it works, it appears able to do its thing fairly well -- with only a brief delay after release. This slingshot appearance may be a one-time deal, so if you want to try flicking the bird on the big screen, Angry Birds for Chrome (and a mouse) may be your best option for now.

Nowhere Else University of Queensland

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Windows 8 Brings Entirely New Look And Feel, Unifies Touch And PC Interfaces

Microsoft has just given a demonstration of what they’re calling Windows 8. It appears to be a complete revamp of the Windows interface, designed around a tile system like that of Windows Phone 7, and focused on being equally accessible via touchscreen interface or mouse and keyboard.
Windows president Steven Sinofsky says that Microsoft has “colored outside the lines” on this release, and while they’re retaining support for all the major applications and enterprise features, the new interface is meant to be fresh, fast, and accessible.
There are multiple influences based on the interfaces we’ve seen, pulling from many of Microsoft’s newer projects. Zune and Metro show through prominently, as well as Live web interfaces and Media Center. Perhaps as a truly user-facing OS layer, these rich interfaces will prove more popular than they have as disparate apps and semi-isolated ecosystems.
Sinofsky suggested that even the iconic Start button would be left behind, though during the demo, launching Excel bounced the interface back into a more traditional Windows desktop environment, Start button and all. He most likely means that in the new interface, the Start-style UI metaphor is no longer necessary. However, the Explorer and file browsers appear to have been totally revamped to be far less “folder within a folder,” which has been the storage style for going on three decades now.

Applications will be of two types: traditional Windows apps built using existing APIs, and new apps built on Javascript and HTML5. APIs and guidelines for these will be released a little further down the line. There is a big focus on making applications friendly to both touch and mouse/keyboard. Not an easy task, but when you have only a single OS that must go on tablets, notebooks, and desktops, it’s an essential one. Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green insisted that it wasn’t “two shelves” but one single OS, when questioned about similarities to touch overlays like TouchSmart.
There’s also a new multitasking interface that’s more or less pane-based, allowing you to swipe in live apps from the side of the screen. It looks useful, though how the panes might interact (i.e. dragging a picture from the file browser to an image editor) wasn’t demonstrated.
System requirements weren’t discussed in specific, but Sinofsky said that “hundreds of millions” of PCs would run Windows 8, and that it wouldn’t require any more “oomph” than Windows 7. I assume that with ARM compatibility (and reduced power and clock speeds) comes a responsibility to slim down the OS, not relying on the huge computing overhead available in modern PCs. Hopefully this full-on Windows environment will be neither too stripped-down for power users, nor too clunky for people expecting a simple tablet interface.
You can watch a video of all this in action on YouTube (they’ve disabled embeds). I’ve put some screenshots below for those of you who don’t have time:

Release date is undetermined; Sinofsky said that traditionally OS releases are every two to three years, but it wouldn’t be coming out this fall (i.e. two years after Windows 7 was released). That says to me “Spring 2012″ for actually getting it into the hands of consumers. A more complete demonstration and rundown of features will be forthcoming, and they’re showing off devices and the OS at Computex later today, including ARM-based ones (presumably tablets), so there will be plenty more news breaking over the next few hours and days.
For a complete live blog of the announcement and Q&A session, head over to All Things D (the video is now up as well). Microsoft has a blog post and press release, as well.
Update: Microsoft has also held a “partner preview” showing off ARM and x86 hardware from Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Texas Instruments, though there didn’t appear to be anything new demonstrated. The devices are new (or prototypes) but nothing groundbreaking; it’s too early for Kal-El and using next-generation hardware to show off a system that ostensibly has low requirements would be cheating. Update 2: Nope, I was wrong, it’s Kal-El. Engadget has a hands-on with Nvidia’s tablet development platform.

Oracle gives OpenOffice to Apache - What a Terrible move.

Oracle announced this AM that it was giving the OpenOffice.org open source project to Apache. The effort has already been endorsed by IBM as well.

To me this move makes no sense at all.

Oracle and Sun before them, messed up the OpenOffice.org community which is what eventually led to the LibreOffice fork. Oracle earlier this year finally admitted that it was the right thing to do to give OpenOffice back to the community, and hey now they've decided that Apache is the right community.

If LibreOffice didn't exist, Apache would be a brilliant home for OpenOffice.

• Reality is that LibreOffice is a vibrant project that has put out the BEST VERSION of OpenOffice ever.
• Reality is that the heart and soul of what used to OpenOffice is now vested in the community of developers that work on LibreOffice.
• Reality is that EVERY MAJOR Linux distribution now includes LibreOffice

Oracle, Apache and IBM need to wake up and see reality for what it is. Continuing to perpetuate the myth that OpenOffice.org can somehow survive as a separate project without the support of LibreOffice and the Linux community is a fallacy.

The bigger question is likely around whether or not LibreOffice will merge back with OpenOffice.org. I don't think that's likely to happen in the short term, but it could happen.

The best option for Oracle and for the broader community of OpenOffice.org users would have been for Oracle to come to terms with LibreOffice. The best solution would have been a resolution of the fork, rather than the perpetuation of it via Apache.

Don't get me wrong, Apache is likely the best home for OpenOffice.org. It's just not necessarily the right thing to do for the overall community of open source office users.

The Perfect Server - Fedora 15 x86_64 [ISPConfig 3]

This tutorial shows how to prepare a Fedora 15 server (x86_64) for the installation of ISPConfig 3, and how to install ISPConfig 3. ISPConfig 3 is a webhosting control panel that allows you to configure the following services through a web browser: Apache web server, Postfix mail server, MySQL, BIND nameserver, PureFTPd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV, and many more.
Please note that this setup does not work for ISPConfig 2! It is valid for ISPConfig 3 only!
I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

ISPConfig 3 Manual

In order to learn how to use ISPConfig 3, I strongly recommend to download the ISPConfig 3 Manual.
On about 300 pages, it covers the concept behind ISPConfig (admin, resellers, clients), explains how to install and update ISPConfig 3, includes a reference for all forms and form fields in ISPConfig together with examples of valid inputs, and provides tutorials for the most common tasks in ISPConfig 3. It also lines out how to make your server more secure and comes with a troubleshooting section at the end.

ISPConfig Monitor App For Android

With the ISPConfig Monitor App, you can check your server status and find out if all services are running as expected. You can check TCP and UDP ports and ping your servers. In addition to that you can use this app to request details from servers that have ISPConfig installed (please note that the minimum installed ISPConfig 3 version with support for the ISPConfig Monitor App is 3.0.3.3!); these details include everything you know from the Monitor module in the ISPConfig Control Panel (e.g. services, mail and system logs, mail queue, CPU and memory info, disk usage, quota, OS details, RKHunter log, etc.), and of course, as ISPConfig is multiserver-capable, you can check all servers that are controlled from your ISPConfig master server.
For download and usage instructions, please visit http://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig-3/ispconfig-monitor-app-for-android/.

1 Requirements

To install such a system you will need the following:

• Download the Fedora 15 DVD iso image from a mirror near you (the list of mirrors can be found here: http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/15/), e.g. http://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/fedora/linux/releases/15/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-15-x86_64-DVD.iso
• an Internet connection...

2 Preliminary Note

In this tutorial I use the hostname server1.example.com with the IP address 192.168.0.100 and the gateway 192.168.0.1. These settings might differ for you, so you have to replace them where appropriate.
Please make sure that the system that you want to upgrade has more than 600 MB of RAM - otherwise the system might hang when it tries to boot with the following message:

Trying to unpack rootfs image as initramfs...

 

3 Install The Base System

Boot from your Fedora 15 DVD. Select Install a new system or upgrade an existing system:

It can take a long time to test the installation media so we skip this test here:

Choose your language next:

Select your keyboard layout:

I assume that you use a locally attached hard drive, so you should select Basic Storage Devices here:

As we want a fresh Fedora installation, click on the Yes, discard any data button next:

Fill in the hostname of the server:

Choose your time zone:

Give root a password:

Next we do the partitioning. Select Replace Existing Linux System(s). This will give you a small /boot partition and a large / partition which is fine for our purposes:

Select Write Changes to Disk:

The hard drive is being formatted:

Now we select the software we want to install. Uncheck Graphical Desktop and check Web Server instead. Then check Customize now. Afterwards, select the additional repositories Fedora 15 - x86_64 and Fedora 15 - x86_64 - Updates (if you are on an i686 system, the names are probably Fedora 15 - i686 and Fedora 15 - i686 - Updates):

As the last two repositories need an Internet connection, a new window pops up where you have to configure your network card. Select your network card and click on OK: