Twitter for Android gets 'Top Tweet'
search update
Twitter, the social networking service, has
released a minor update for its official Android version. The update, dubbed as
3.8, is available for download via Google Play. It offers a new feature called
‘Top Tweets’, which shows popular past tweets in search format.
“We recently introduced the ability to see
older Tweets in search results. Now when you search for important Twitter
moments, you may see a Top Tweet separate from the rest of the results. This
Tweet is the best match for your query based on relevance and engagement. To
see additional Tweets from this time period, tap on ‘View more from this time’.
Try searching for ‘Four more years’ or ‘Deep challenge’ on your phone to see an
example”, Nick Takayama, software engineer, Twitter, was quoted as saying in a
blog post.
Linus Torvalds moves back to GNOME 3.x
Desktop
If you are a GNOME 3 lover, this news is
for you. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, has reported back to the GNOME
3.x desktop, of course, after making the desired changes he wanted in the
desktop. Torvalds has switched back to GNOME 3.x stating that the desktop's
shortcomings can be fixed via the use of extensions.
If
you are a GNOME 3 lover, this news is for you.
GNOME 3.x provides a graphical user
interface and a desktop environment, which can be used with various GNU/Linux
distros. Torvalds had abandoned the GNOME 3 desktop for Xfce in 2011 but
shifted to KDE only last year. He has criticized GNOME 3 heavily for its design
choices and for removing certain features from GNOME 2. He went on to term
GNOME 2.4 as a “…total UX (user experience design) failure”.
Though he has not stopped criticizing the
desktop, he has made the shift to GNOME 3.x as the issues can be fixed with the
use of extensions like Gnome Tweak Tool and Frippery.
Hadoop moves beyond Linux, onto Windows
too!
If you thought Hadoop was just confined to
Linux, think again! Hortonworks, the creators of the Apache Hadoop Linux
distribution, is now entering Windows territory. Shaun Connolly, vice president
of corporate strategy, Hortonworks, said in a report, “This is an
enterprise-ready, 100 per cent open source Apache Hadoop platform for the
broader Windows environment. We have been spending a lot of time integrating
with Microsoft's SQL Server franchise and its business intelligence tools”.
Hadoop
moves beyond Linux, onto Windows too!
Commenting on the move, Herain Oberoi,
director of product marketing, Microsoft said, “When we first set out on this
partnership about 18 months ago, our joint objective was to make Hadoop
available to the broadest set of users possible”. Oberoi further said that with
this joint effort, Microsoft did not want to make this a proprietary port.
“We're committed to putting our effort back into the community and the Apache
Hadoop project”, he said.
Two days before the launch of Windows 8,
Microsoft had announced its partnership with Hortonworks, which is one of the
companies playing a leading role in the open source Apache Hadoop project. In
addition, the company unveiled the latest previews of a cloud-based solution
and an on-premise solution for deploying and managing Hadoop. The previews
showed customers how they could use Excel, PowerPivot for Excel and Power View
for business intelligence (BI) and data visualization, on the data in Hadoop.
An open source tool to find the author
of any document!
Now authors will never feel lost, even if
they wish to because of an open source tool that can determine the author of any
document. A team of Adelaide researchers released this tool that compares
texts, to judge who the author of a text is.
The documents that the researchers used to
develop the software on Github were a series of US essays called The Federalist
Papers, and the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament. The report states,
“The Federalist Paper essays were written in the lead-up to the drafting of the
US Constitution, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. Of the 85
essays, the authorship of 12 is disputed and one has generally been attributed
to Jay.”
A Linux version for the visually
challenged
Now, even the visually challenged can enjoy
the benefits that Linux offers. A unique initiative by C-DAC, Mumbai, offers an
open source platform to the visually challenged in the country. It is called
Accessible Linux for the Visually Challenged (ALViC).
ALViC, an all-round desktop platform is a
GNU/Linux distribution that is based on Ubuntu 10.04 and uses the Orca 3.2.0
desktop screen reader that the visually challenged currently work with. The
platform comes enabled with features that aid blind users to read, by default.
This product has been released under the
project 'Enhancing Accessibility for FOSS Desktops' at C-DAC, Mumbai. It is
aimed at developing software-based assistive technology as well as solutions
for the differently-abled.
PHP 5.5 to include open source Zend
Optimizer+
If you wish to know what's doing the rounds
in the PHP circuit, here's some news for you. Zeev Suraski, CTO and co-founder
of Zend Technologies, announced that PHP logo Zend Optimizer+ will be
integrated into PHP 5.5. The opcode cache and code optimizer was recently open
sourced; previously it was only available as part of the proprietary Zend
Server. According to sources, it enhances the performance of the interpreter by
optimizing the bytecode generated from PHP source files. It also stores
pre-compiled byte code in shared memory, instead of reloading and recompiling
source code from the hard disk when needed.
PHP
5.5 to include open source Zend Optimizer+
When it was opening sourced, Suraski hoped
it would open the way for Zend Optimizer+ to be integrated into the core of PHP
5.5 and filed an RFC to propose that.
Drupal Commons 3.0 released
Developers who are in love with Drupal, the
open source content management system, should take note of this. In an effort
to boost digital communities and social applications, Acquia, the leading open
cloud platform for integrated digital experiences, has released Drupal Commons
3.0.
Most importantly, Drupal Commons is open at
its core. It can be easily integrated into every component of the digital
marketing ecosystem. Built on Drupal 7, Drupal Commons 3.0 enables digital
businesses to achieve breakthrough results with social applications for
customer communities, brand advocacy, social commerce and employee
collaboration.
Here comes the free desktop OS Trisquel
GNU/Linux 6.0
The most common perception about Linux is
that it is a free and open source operating system. However, most of the Linux
distributions are not completely free. One can use them for free, but the
proprietary firmware, drivers and other applications come at some cost.
However, out of some distros/flavors, some
are approved by the Free Software Foundation as fully free. One of these is
Trisquel, which has just had its first major update since last April.
Here
comes the free desktop OS Trisquel GNU/Linux 6.0
The official announcement reads, “Trisquel
6.0 LTS ‘Toutatis’ has arrived”. What makes it even more appealing is the fact
that it comes with Long Term Support (LTS), while also offering bug fixes and
security updates until 2017. The project team offered more details, “We have
decided to change our release schedule from this point on: we will no longer
publish short term support versions every six months, but focus on giving the
best possible support to the LTS release, providing back-ported improvements to
core packages like the kernel, the browser, and the X.org Server, among
others”. Trisquel 6.0 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) and GNOME
3.4, thereby offering a smooth desktop experience, which is a respite from the
mobile-inspired interfaces that are currently seen in the market.
