Category: Open Source

Got an iPad, but bored of iOS? Fancy trying out Android, even though it's not designed for tablets? Well you might be in luck, as the team that brought you Bootlace and OpeniBoot for the iPhone and iPhone 3G has released a teaser of their open source iOS boot ROM alternative running on an iPhone 4 and the iPad. With the tablet-optimized Gingerbread just around the corner, the jailbroken iPad ...

Camino, the Mac-only cousin of Firefox, has just been updated to 2.0.6, bringing with it outdated Flash plug-in version checking. Given that many security vulnerabilities revolve around Flash player exploits these days, having the browser check for Flash updates and taking the burden off the user is probably a very good thing. The update also brings with it the latest 1.9.0 version of Mozilla ...

Popular do-it-all media player VLC has updated to version 1.1.5, and there are a handful of noteworthy changes nestled amongst the bugfixes and security patches. For starters, VLC can now play live streaming video wrapped in Google's WebM video container. The second big addition can be found on VLC's playlist window. Click the arrow next to Internet in the Media Browser box, and you'll ...

VidCoder is a nice, little DVD ripper for Windows -- it provides a simple, streamlined interface, supports encoding presets, and uses Hanbrake's processing engine for the heavy lifting. One feature which was notably absent from the last version we covered was support for Blu-Ray discs. That has been added in version 0.7.0, and VidCoder is now better than ever. One other nice feature VidCoder ...

EditShare -- the company who acquired non-linear editing superapp Lightworks back in 2009 -- announced a while ago that they would be releasing Lightworks as open source software. That's pretty sweet, considering Lightworks has won both Academy and Emmy awards. If you've been waiting patiently to get your hands on a download, your wait is almost at an end. According to a letter sent from ...

Yes, that headline is no mistake! You can indeed install the latest version of Froyo, Android 2.2.1, on a jailbroken iPhone 2 or 3G, and you can do it all without a computer. Redmond Pie has put together a nice step-by-step guide to getting Android on your iPhone with Bootlace 2.1, but in short: it's as simple as installing Bootlace 2.1 from Cydia, running it, and firing up iDroid. The rest is ...

Ever since Google announced its 'open source' WebM video format, they've been slowly but surely transcoding the entire YouTube video library. According to an update from John Luther, the Product Manager for WebM, while speaking at the Streaming Media West conference, as it stands now, 80% of all video available through YouTube is in the WebM format -- a significant amount of video indeed. This ...

Adium isn't the only instant messaging app powered by libpurple which has seen a healthy spate of updates recently. Pidgin -- the cross-platform multi-network massaging app -- has been updated twice in the past fortnight, squashing numerous bugs and tweaking its interface. Among the lengthy changelogs for Pidgin 2.7.4 and 2.7.5 you'll find support from Chrome and Chromium on non-Windows ...

Rémi Denis-Courmont, one of the primary developers of open-source media player VLC (Videolan Client), has announced that Videolan has sent Apple a formal notification of copyright infringement regarding the terms under which its iOS app is being distributed in the iTunes App Store. The root of the issue is this: VLC is distributed under the GPL, while VLC's iOS app is distributed by ...

I couldn't make this up if I tried: The Linux Foundation is offering a platinum rewards Visa credit card. There is no annual fee, a low introductory APR -- in fact, it's a normal credit card with Tux on the front. Every purchase you make with the Linux credit card will kick back a percentage to the Linux Foundation. The Foundation also gets $50 for every activation! In the words of the ...

Looking for an inexpensive -- or better yet, free -- way to track your laptop or Android smartphone in the event it gets stolen? Check out Prey, an open source project that offers multi-OS tracking, reporting -- and countermeasures! Just download the Prey client software, install, and register an account -- you'll need one in order to be able to access the service's Web-based control panel. ...

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced that the Unity shell currently used in Ubuntu's netbook edition will become the default user interface for Ubuntu's main desktop edition as well, starting with the next version of the operating system. Unity became Ubuntu's netbook UI with the release of the current version of the OS, 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal is set to ...

Campfire is a slick way for teams to communicate, collaborate, and share via the Web -- but if you're searching for a simple, free alternative, a new project called Holla is worth a look. Holla is an open-source chat and file sharing Web app. While it lacks Campfire's more advanced features, like transcripts and voice calling, Holla still provides an elegantly simple way to assemble a group ...

Miro is an excellent do-it-all video program. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux and it can do just about everything video-related you could ask one program to do. Miro will download torrents, organize your movies, play them back (with subtitles), and as of the just-released version 3.5 it will even convert your videos for a variety of devices. Conversions are fast and painless, and everything ...

In a typographical and punchy masterpiece, Microsoft has published a video that boldly attacks OpenOffice. You can watch it after the break. The video is simple in its execution, using what seems to the spoken, damning testimonials of those that have used OpenOffice. Beautiful fonty goodness expands, diminishes, whooshes and slides as each and every one of OpenOffice's claimed benefits are ...