What "Open" Means to Google

This treatise was an email sent to Googlers about the meaning of "open" for Google. It's long, but if you use Google products (meaning they know a lot of stuff about you), you probably wanna know how they're thinking, right? The short version: open standards and open information, whatever that means. [Google]

Samsung Bada Details Fleshed Out, 3G Multitouch Handsets On Their Way Soon

In with the new, out with the old. Samsung's throwing out Symbian in exchange for its own platform, Bada, which was first announced last month with some extremely vague details. Today we learned a bit more, so do step inside. More »

Earth's Weather Like You Have Never Seen It Before

This video shows Earth's weather from August 17 to August 26, 2009. It also shows how beautiful this planet is, and how insignificant we are. It was created at a 7-kilometer resolution with NASA's GEOS-5 atmospheric general circulation model. More »

Internet Explorer, Now Powered by Google Chrome

Though Internet Explorer has been panned for lack of web-standard compliance, many are forced to use the browser because of stubborn IT departments. Fortunately, Google has issued its latest "up yours" to Microsoft with the Chrome Frame plug-in for IE. More »

Citizen Engineer Releases a Comic All About SIM Hacking (and Tosses in a SIM Reader for Good Measure)

Phil Torrone and Limor Freid of Adafruit Industries have a video project called Citizen Engineer, where they aim to educate and entertain when it comes to various aspects of open source hacking. Now they've released a comic to go with it. More »

OpenOffice 3.1 is Now Available

The Open Office guys have upgraded their already-comprehensive office suite. New features include improved screen appearance, further grammar checker integration, formula hints, improved sorting, and performance enhancements. Get it here. [OpenOffice via CrunchGear]

Microsoft Embracing Open Source Big Time with Kumo

Not only Microsoft is using open source technology for Kumo—their new search technology and Nth Google Killer—but they are giving back to the community: More »

Gamepark's GP2X Wiz Handheld to Get Open Source Gaming App Store

It's taken longer than expected, but Gamepark is on the brink of launching their Linux-based GP2X Wiz handheld gaming system—and they are planning to follow up with an open source app store this summer. More »

Obama's New CIO Is All About Net Neutrality and Open Source

Vivek Kundra, Obama's newly-appointed CIO, is the man in charge of developing and deploying IT to improve government operations. He's also a fan of building government intranets based around Google web apps. More »

A Look at DoubleTwist: DVD Jon’s File-Swapping Media Player

DoubleTwist is a new, open-source, universal media manager in beta for the Mac. It gathers music, videos and photos, supports tons of devices and has a P2P/social networking component. Will it be great? More »

Cuba Declares Windows an Oppressive Security Threat, Develops Their Own Version of Linux

Cuban officials this week announced they've launched their own variant of Linux. Dubbed Nova, it's an attempt to rid their computers of U.S. hegemony, a.k.a. Microsoft. Viva la (open source) revolucion, siempre! More »

Negroponte Open Sources OLPC Hardware Design, Invites Copy-Cats

The embattled OLPC program, already reeling from job cuts and salary decreases, is making one final attempt to stay afloat: Open source everything and hope enough companies copy the design to make it profitable. More »

Bug Labs QWERTY Module Prototype Deemed QWERTYy

We had a quick hands-on with a prototype of the upcoming Bug Labs QWERTY module. The keys were tiny, requiring fingernail presses, but overall it felt pretty solid with firm buttons resistant to mistypes. More »

Android-Powered OpenMoko FreeRunner Spotted

OpenMoko built the first 100% open-source smartphone—hardware and software both—when Android was but a glimmer in Larry and Sergey's eye. But now, the FreeRunner hardware is officially kissing its open-source cousin OS, Android.

Kogan Agora Pro is the Next Android Handset

The Kogan Agora Pro has popped up in Australia as the latest Android handset and is available for international pre-order. The phone has a 2.5-inch resistive touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard, 3G and GPS for $399. More »

Nokia's Down With Making A High-End Open Source Phone, Just Not With Android

When Nokia first showed me their Maemo Linux-powered N800 Internet Tablet, I told them it was cool but that, ideally, I wanted this exact product, smaller, and as a phone. Seems like two years later, this might finally be the way things are headed.

TV-B-Gone Inventor Makes it Open Source, Explains Why

Mitch Altman, inventor of TV-B-Gone has done something kinda alien to many inventors of successful gizmos: he's made it open source. Interesting, since when he first came up with the idea, Altman patented it, on the advice of his patent attorney brother. More »

OpenMoko GTA02 Handset Rumored to Join the Android Party

OpenMoko, stalwarts of the open source gadget movement, have announced their intentions to develop an Android-compatible handset for release as early as November. According to AndroidGuys, the alleged Android phone will operate under the project name "GTA02" and resemble something like the Neo FreeRunner. The phone is said to have a 2.8-inch, 640x480 screen, Wi-Fi, 3 axis accelerometer, 400-500 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 256 MB NAND Flash, A-GPS and a "laser pen." More »

Open Source GamePack Lets You Bake a Game Boy From Scratch

If you're possessed of some serious disposable income, electrical engineering chops, mountains of free time and a passion for open source and vintage gaming, you might be the kind of person who would want to buy the GamePack. For about $250, Liquidware will send you a full build kit for his open source Game Boy killer tribute. Unfortunately, the "Game" part will be up to you — the Arduino-based handheld has only been tested running very basic code. These points aside, the specs are impressive, with an OLED screen, Lithium Ion battery, and built-in rumble capability — not to mention that fact that it'll fill the gap in your nerdbelt between your NES buckle and your OpenMoko Neo Freerunner quite nicely. [Liquidware via Technabob]

Android Dream Will Cost $199, Get Low-Price Data Plan and Google Branding

Putting it firmly in a price point to compete with the iPhone, the Android-running HTC Dream will cost $199, according to the Wall Street Journal. The smartphone will also get an “aggressively priced” data plan from T-Mobile and receive some heavy Google branding. It'll be interesting to see whether Google's open source platform gives Apple's apps a run for their money on Sept. 23. [Wall Street Journal via Techland]

Neuros Hackable Open-Source Set-Top Box Updated: OSD2

Neuros has taken another stab at the open-source set-top box market, and created the "Open Source Device 2." The original OSD was aimed at developers, but ended up finding use as a DVR. The new OSD2 has a more conventional box, can encode video at 720p in MPEG-4 format, H.264 D1 resolution (that's DVD quallity) from an analog video source, upscale video to 1080i or transcode it for a PMP. It's got a serial port, IRBlaster port, connections for Wi-Fi antenna, USB, LAN, HDMI, composite video and stereo audio, and even packs an SD port. It's shipped with a Linux-based firmware stack, but is completely open to user OS hacking. Available now for $250. [Linuxdevices]

Unofficial Google Chromium Now Available for Mac OS X, Linux

If you have a Mac OS X or Linux machine and you are dying to try Google's Chrome, keep dying because it's not coming out yet. But if you want to just give it a try, you can grab this version of Chromium, the unofficial version of Chromium, the open-source Google web browser that is the basis of Chrome—and looks exactly like it down to the about box and its most fatal flaw. The Ubuntu flavor above looks nice. Unfortunately, the Mac version looks quite out of place: More »

HP Exploring Shift to Linux in Order to Bypass Vista, Compete With Apple

According to Businesweek, HP has been quietly working on two projects aimed at bypassing unpopular features in Vista and possibly competing with Apple down the line. The first involves developing software that modifies Vista to make it easier to use. That much has been confirmed. However, rumor has it that a second "Skunk Works" operation has been going on behind closed doors that has a much loftier goal—building a customized replacement OS based on the Linux platform. More »

TouchKit Brings Surface-Like Multitouch to the Nerdy Masses

Touchkit, an open source (software and hardware) multitouch kit designed by NOR_/D, has been announced at a $1580 price point, or roughly 1/8th the cost of Microsoft's Surface table. That's not to say that the TouchKit is equivalent or even necessarily a competitor to Microsoft's offering, but it is theoretically capable of many of the same flashy tricks. The system must be hooked up to a separate computer, and also requires an external projector. As you can see in the video, there's not exactly a whole lot it can do out of the box, but the open source platform can be tweaked by anyone with a little knowledge of C++. Check out the gallery of the hardware and potential installations are their site. [Gizmag]

OpenStomp Coyote 1 is Hackable Open Source Effects Pedal For Real Guitar Heroes

Anyone who is a fan of 1960s-era guitar idol mythology knows that crazy custom circuitry and effects pedals are nothing new. But the OpenStomp Coyote 1, the "world's first open-source guitar pedal" updates the trend for today's slightly more nerdy shredders, who can recreate the crazy circuit bending of yore in a custom software package that visually edits effects patches. On top of that, all aspects of the hardware—including the added LCD screen, 80MHz Propeller processor, microUSB and RJ11 interfaces—are documented, too, so feel free to open 'er up. It's shipping now for $350. [OpenStomp]

Dispute Over Model Train Control Software Just Became a Landmark Open-Source Copyright Case

Robert Jacobsen wrote a nice piece of software for everyone with a Lionel set in their garage and released it under an open-source license. Fine and dandy. But after a company jacked his code and released it as a commercial product, Jacobsen understandably got a little pissed and sued. After God knows how many hearings and evidence filings involving model trains, the whole thing has ended up in federal appeals court, where it's unexpectedly turned into a potentially landmark ruling for open-source software licenses everywhere, keeping things like Linux and Wikipedia a bit more secure, for the moment. More »

Open Source Switzerland Network Testing Tool Catches ISP Throttlers In the Act

As part of an effort to thwart future ISP infractions, á la Comcast, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released Switzerland, an open source software tool for "testing the integrity of data communications over networks, ISPs and firewalls." If you've been following Comcast for any amount of time over the past year or so, you know exactly what that means. More »