Innovative Monstrosity: Oracle Makes Tablet with Raspberry Pi and Java

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September 27, 2013

Pretty much every tech company makes its own tablet now, so why not Oracle, too?

The enterprise software and hardware company has unveiled the “DukePad,” a tablet powered by aRaspberry Pi and JavaSE Embedded 8. It’s not actually for sale, but Oracle described it a few days ago in a technical keynote at its JavaOne conference and posted all the details on the OpenJDKWiki. In addition to providing instructions, open source software, and pointers to the necessary hardware, Oracle said it is “working with suppliers to make available pre-made kits that can be more easily assembled.”

The tablet itself is bulky and doesn’t look like much fun to use, but that’s not really the point. Dukepad might appeal to do-it-yourselfers who view it as a learning experience or a fun project.

Object Storage for Dummies eBook

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insideHPC

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September 27, 2013

Object storage is not just about adding new storage functionality. It also fundamentally reduces the complexity of how applications interact with storage. A new eBook offers timely insight into this important new field.

Chromebooks Grab Share in Back-to-School Purchases

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OStatic

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September 27, 2013

All through this year, market research news has been very dreary for PCs and PC equipment makers. Tablets often grab headlines for cutting into PC marketshare, but, increasingly, Chromebooks–portable computers based on Google’s cloud-centric Chrome OS–are presenting a viable alternative to standard laptops.

Now, hard data is coming in on how various classes of computing hardware fared during the back-to-school period, and Chromebooks are one of the big bright spots. In fact, research from the NPD Group shows that Chromebooks, which didn’t exist in the back-to-school period for 2012, added almost 175,000 units to the market this year and provided all the growth in the challenged notebook market.

Qt 5.2 Alpha Release Expected Next Week

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Phoronix

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September 27, 2013

Digia is hoping to make available the first Qt 5.2 alpha build next Monday…

OpenKit, for Social, Mobile Gaming, Arrives in Version 1.0

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OStatic

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September 27, 2013

In the world of gaming, social features are taking on more and more importance, and many gamers are connecting with each other on mobile devices. OpenKit, which is positioned as an open source back-end platform for “truly social” cross-platform games, has announced that V1.0 of the back-end service is now live for iOS and Android and available to developers at http://openkit.io.

One of the founders, Peter Relan, had created the OpenFeint service that is now closed, and OpenKit was announced last December. It has been in beta since early this year.

AMD’s Mantle Graphics API For Linux?

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Phoronix

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September 27, 2013

This week at AMD’s Hawaii event where they announced their new high-end graphics processors, they also announced Mantle. AMD’s Mantle is a new graphics API that looks to take on OpenGL and Microsoft’s Direct3D as a new high-performance graphics rendering API…

Ubuntu 13.10 Final Beta Released

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Phoronix

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September 27, 2013

If you haven’t grabbed it yet, the final (and only official) beta of Ubuntu 13.10 is now available while derivatives like Kubuntu and Xubuntu are on their second and final beta releases ahead of the 13.10 “Saucy Salamander” release next month…

30 Years of GNU

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LWN

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September 27, 2013

Richard Stallman launched the GNU project on September 27, 1983 â€” thirty years ago. “GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical to Unix. We will make all improvements that are convenient, based on our experience with other operating systems. In particular, we plan to have longer filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen. Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages. We will have network software based on MIT’s chaosnet protocol, far superior to UUCP. We may also have something compatible with UUCP.” Some of the details may not have come out as envisioned, but the big idea has held up well.

Erich Strohmaier on the Challenges of Exascale

By

insideHPC

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September 27, 2013

According to Strohmaier, exascale will allow scientists to study the most challenging problems in much greater detail with much greater accuracy.

OpenSUSE Uncorks a Fine Ruby-Red Bottle: Beta 13.1 Didn’t Give Me a Hangover

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The Register

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September 27, 2013

New admin bling, yes, but no tacky desktop tricks

Review The beta preview of openSUSE 13.1, released this month, shows this distro is waddling in the footsteps of its Linux brethren.â€¦