The ambitious volunteer-based OpenStreetMap has now mapped more than 120,000 km of South African roads. It's ambitious and time-consuming work to produce free maps of the whole of South Africa, but that is exactly what the OpenStreetMap (OSM) team is doing.
Read more »OpenStreetMap project gains ground
Google: good or evil?
It's been a difficult week for Google, which has been at the centre of antitrust investigations and a controversial Italian court case. Is the search giant's halo slipping, or does the 'Don't be evil' mantra still hold true?
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Why GNU/Linux for academics and why Debian in particular?
This is an attempt to explain my position as to why I use GNU/Linux and Debian GNU/Linux, in particular, and why you as a reader, surfer, or couch academic, should want to run GNU/Linux and Debian.
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Ogg Theora vs. H.264: head to head comparisons
Streaming video websites like YouTube face growing pressure from consumers to provide support for native standards-based Web video playback. The HTML5 video element provides the necessary functionality to build robust Web media players without having to depend on proprietary plugins, but the browser vendors have not been able to build a consensus around a video codec.
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Arduino - the hardware revolution
As we watched for signs of hope in netbook sales, Drupal sites and partly-FOSS Android phones, a revolution was taking place all around, in the physical world but not entirely away from the internet.
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Free GSM stack in development
The OsmocomBB project is developing a free software GSM stack for mobile phones
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Microsoft vs. Google: The empire strikes back
It can't be easy being Ray Ozzie. Microsoft's chief software architect is just 18 months into the job as Bill Gates' handpicked successor, yet depending on whom you ask, his tenure will either signal a bold new era for the company or mark the beginning of its terminal decline.
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If you're going to do good science, release the computer code too
Programs do more and more scientific work - but you need to be able to check them as well as the original data, as the recent row over climate change documentation shows
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Has the Irresistible Rise of OpenOffice.org Begun?
New figures from webmasterpro.de show surprisingly high market share for OpenOffice.org around the world - peaking at 22% in Poland and Germany. Has the rise of OpenOffice.org to become a true rival to Microsoft Office begun?
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Ubuntu Now Calls Google Docs the Standard
Ever used OpenOffice? I remember submitting a document once using the open format, only to find that the person I sent it to could not open it in Microsoft Word.
Read more »ARM will fly without Windows? Then bring it on!
He goes on about how ARM will succeed with or without Windows (not ME) supporting it once it starts being pumped into markets in the shape of a new architecture for netbooks.
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HTML vs. Flash: Can a turf war be avoided?
After years of HTML standardization disarray, browser makers Apple, Opera, Mozilla, and most recently Google now are hammering out new directions for Web standards.
Read more »ARM: Our netbooks will fly with or without Windows
What’s holding it back is people’s love of the Microsoft operating system and that fact that it’s familiar and so on. But actually the trajectory of progress in the Linux world is very, very impressive. I think it’s only a matter of time for ARM to gain market share with or without Microsoft.
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UK museums open up to Wikimedia
The Britain Loves Wikipedia scheme will see UK museums and galleries opening up to the free online encyclopaedia. Throughout February, volunteer authors can take part in special tours to document artworks and natural treasures at a total of 20 institutions.
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The Famous Symbian OS Goes Open Source
Symbian is the famous operating system that power up most Nokia mobile handsets. This OS was originally developed by Symbian Ltd. but then Nokia claimed it, next to an independent non-profit organization called Symbian Foundation, and implemented it on its devices.
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