Malaysia to manufacture world's first Wi-Fi centric mobile phone

Malaysia's Comintel corporation Bhd signed an agreement with Gupp Technologies Incorporated to manufacture the world's first Linux-based dual mode Wi-Fi centric mobile phone on Wednesday.

The smart phone, which can be used over Voice Over Wi-Fi (VoWi- Fi) and GSM networks, will enable users to transfer calls between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, Comintel said in a statement.

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Venezuela launches open source PCs

Following up on their support for open source software and technological independence, the Venezuelan government launched the "Bolivarian Computer" earlier this month. Built locally, the computers come in four different models all of which run on Linux.

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More than half of all German companies use Open Source

German companies are world leaders in the use of Open Source software. In a survey of IT procurement officers from Germany, Great Britain, and the US/Canada, 59 percent of those in Germany said that they use OSS in their companies. The figures were far lower in Great Britain and the US/Canada at 48 and 38 percent, respectively.

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Virtual Open Source Center for Nordic Countries

Open source centers in five Nordic Countries, Finnish COSS, Swedish SKL, Norwegian IKT-Norge, Icelandic IS and Danish OSL, has decided to join forces and found a virtual open source center. The initiative was confirmed during the Norwegian IT-minister Heidi Grande Røys' visit in Finland.

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Open-Source Government

The Constitution is the operating system of America. The very reason America is great is because it has largely been free and open. It has, in effect, been an open-source government. And when it is transparent, as all good open source environments are, checks and balances work. The bad stuff is burned away, stopped dead in its tracks, or impeached.

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Red Hat Doffs its Open Source Cap to the Kerala Government

The Kerala government in India is going out of its way to demonstrate that open source software is a critical component to the future of democratic information. And toward that noble end, Red Hat has decided to help out.

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Open-source bites into Microsoft share in Bengal e-gov

Having tried out Microsoft for a few years, the West Bengal government’s information technology department is now opting for open-source operating systems in new purchases of PCs for its ambitious e-governance programme.

The state recently chose to install Lenovo PCs loaded with Red Hat Linux for an e-governance programme involving 277 panchayats in Burdwan district.

The state’s IT minister, Debesh Das, said he is not looking for a confrontation with Microsoft, but is clearing the purchase of open-source by any department that wants it. Dr Das, a professor of computer science, is himself a votary of open-source and the free software movement.

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Wireless energy promise powers up

US researchers have successfully tested an experimental system to deliver power to devices without the need for wires.

The setup, reported in the journal Science, made a 60W light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft).

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Photosynth and Collective Intelligence

Blaise Aguera y Arcas makes clear in his comments during the demo how photosynth is not just a graphics application but an application that gets better the more people use it, and in which the value of each contribution is enhanced by others. We're just at the beginning of understanding how collective intelligence can transform applications. We're going to see more and more breakthroughs like photosynth that don't look like web applications but nonetheless draw from the same deep trends.

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Meraki's Solar WiFi Repeater

Later this summer Meraki is releasing an outdoor WiFI repeater. They are also releasing a solar accessory kit that will enable to the repeater to hum along without being hooked up to an electric outlet. Cool.

The repeater will send out WiFi signals 700 ft. The repeater and solar kit combo will cost just under $150.

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World tidal energy first for NI

The world's first turbine to create commercial amounts of electricity from tidal energy is to be installed in Northern Ireland.

Marine Current Turbines (MCT) said the installation of its SeaGen commercial energy system at the mouth of Strangford Lough would begin in August.

The lough has one of the fastest tidal flows in the world.

SeaGen will produce electricity for about 1,000 homes. It is the biggest turbine of its kind in the world.

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BMW and Audi Are Using Linux

BMW and Audi car makers rely on Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Edition Server (SLED) for maintaining their data center. BMW Group combined SuSE's Linux with the Xen virtualisation software on its servers equipped with Intel x86 dual-core processors.

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Department of the Navy releases OSS Policy

"The objective of the Department of Defense (DoD) goal of achieving an interoperable net-centric environment is to improve the warfighter’s effectiveness through seamless access to critical information. A key piece in supporting the DoD goal is the ability to utilize OSS as part of the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Information Technology (IT) portfolio.”

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For Business Critical Applications, It's Got To Be Open Source

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting revealed that customers use open source for mission-critical applications, but showed concern about the availability of services to unlock the full value of open source solutions.

More than half of the respondents—58 percent in North America and 51 percent in the UK and Continental Europe—stated that they use open source software for mission-critical applications.

More than 79 percent report using open source in the application infrastructure—in databases, Web servers and application servers. In fact, 77 percent of the study respondents called open source important or very important for improving IT efficiency and delivering more with less.

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IDC: Open source revenues to reach US$5.8 billion by 2011

The market for standalone open source software (OSS) is in a significant growth stage, according to the IDC. Adoption of OSS will accelerate over the period of 2007 through 2011 as barriers to adoption get knocked down. Growth in revenues, however, will lag behind the growth in distribution of open source software.

According to IDC, worldwide revenues from standalone open source software reached US$1.8 billion in 2006. The revenues will reach US$5.8 billion in 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26% from 2006 to 2011.

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