Open Source

After a gestation period of nine months, Google Chrome is about to have a baby. The father (Google) has announced that it is gearing up to launch a new open source, lightweight operating system. Aimed initially at the netbook sector, Google is working with the likes of Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo to bring the system to market in the second half of 2010. Read More

The Riversimple Urban Car, a hydrogen-powered two-seater capable of speeds up to 50mph and of traveling more than 200 miles without refueling, was unveiled in London this week. While the prototype car is itself a welcome development in sustainable travel, the aim of the company behind it is even more ambitious: to completely eliminate the environmental impact of personal transport. Read More

"Segway" slipped into the lexicon as the commonly used term for a self-balancing ride-on robot soon after the launch of Dean Kamen's famous invention in 2001. The Segway is certainly a unique way to get around and to the casual observer, the way the device operates might seem to defy gravity. There are quite a few DIY projects around the Internet including standard two-wheeled upright versions, unicycles and one wheeled skate boards that operate on the same self-balancing principle. Now a kind soul named Geoffrey Bennett has released an open source version of the firmware required to operate a ride on robot free, allowing anyone with basic mechanical ability and some electronics skills to build their very own self-balancing transport. Read More

While we've heard the term "mashup" apply to music and web services before, we think the hardware mashups that Bug Labs' BUG platform enables have far more to offer. Read More

While Linux erosion of Microsoft’s desktop dominance hasn’t really reached the mainstream yet, the popularity of the open source operating system has seen a steady increase as variations become more user friendly. Recognizing that rise in popularity IBM, along with its business partners, Virtual Bridges and Canonical has released a Linux-desktop solution that is designed to drive significant savings compared with Microsoft-desktop software by amplifying Lotus collaboration software and Ubuntu to a larger user base through virtualization. Read More

When Mitch Altman created the TV-B-Gone he envisioned a simple, keychain-mounted device that could surreptitiously switch off the annoyingly loud TVs in public places. But he was pleasantly surprised to find out that electronics enthusiasts had turned his invention into a hat, incorporated it into a mobile phone, modified it into a long-range “sniper” model, and tweaked it to provide more power output. These innovations led him to make the device open source, allowing anyone to build or hack their own model. Read More

The Apple iPhone has given us a tiny glimpse of the huge potential of multi-touch screens as a next-gen super-interactive computer interface. And while we wait for Microsoft Surface to get its act together as a consumer product, a cheap and simple kit has just been launched that allows open source developers to experiment and build applications in C++ using a full multi-touch screen interface. Read More