Device-spanning Ubuntu Touch OS gets October 17 launch date

The audacious Ubuntu Edge smartphone crowdfunding experience may be dead, but the dream of merging phone and PC lives on. Ubuntu Touch, the form factor-spanning mobile operating system intended to power the Edge, finally has a release date: October 17, alongside Ubuntu Linux 13.10.

The news comes courtesy of a Ubuntu Phone team mailing list message by Canonical technical architect Loïc Minier, as well as a blog post by QA community coordinator Nicholas Skaggs.

“We are exactly one month away from the release of [Ubuntu 13.10] Saucy Salamander,” Skaggs wrote on the 17th. “As part of that release, Ubuntu is committed to delivering an image of Ubuntu-Touch, ready to install on supported devices.”

“Only four and a half weeks to go, and phone 1.0 will be a reality!” Minier excitedly exclaimed.

Canonical

The developer version of Ubuntu Touch was released in February and works on Samsung Galaxy Nexus and (now discontinued) Nexus 4 smartphones, as well as the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets.

Ubuntu Touch is basically a slick mobile interface for Ubuntu. Beyond smartphones and tablets, Ubuntu Touch can launch the full-blown desktop version of Ubuntu when docked with a desktop monitor. The idea: One device to rule them all, if by “them all” you mean “smartphones, tablets, and PCs.”

Don’t expect Ubuntu Touch devices to flood store shelves anytime soon, however. While the version 1.0 image will be available to download next month, Canonical says the first discrete devices running the OS aren’t expected until late 2013 or early 2014.

The company said it received numerous manufacturer queries in the wake of the Edge smartphone campaign, which raised nearly $12 million from would-be buyers in $600-ish chunks.

In the meantime, adventurous (and technically minded) souls can help out the cause by downloading the developer preview of Ubuntu Touch and reporting any bugs you stumble across. As with any Linux distribution, the development of Ubuntu Touch takes a group effort.

Brad Chacos spends the days jamming to Spotify, digging through desktop PCs and covering everything from BYOD tablets to DIY tesla coils.
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NASA Lunar Orbiter Solves Snag After Successful Launch

The LADEE spacecraft, which began its trip to the moon last night in a launch from Virginia's coast, has run into some mechanical problems, NASA says. Officials say the robotic orbiter remains on track, however, and its problems can be resolved before it reaches the moon next month.

"Team members are analyzing a situation with LADEE's reaction wheels, but say the spacecraft is communicating and working as designed, with plenty of time to resolve the issue before reaching lunar orbit," NASA says.

Update at 12:30 p.m. ET: Issue Is Resolved, NASA Says

In an update posted to Twitter, S. Peter Worden, director of NASA's Ames Center, says that the problem has been fixed.

"It appears the @NASALADEE start up issues have been resolved. Guess we just had to burp the baby"

Thank you to our readers for pointing the update out in the comments section.

Our original post continues:

Carried by a Minotaur V rocket, the craft burst into the night sky from the Wallops Flight Facility shortly before midnight Friday, leaving a bright trailing flame that was visible for hundreds of miles along the Eastern seaboard.

The launch inspired many amateur photographers to post their images of the craft's arcing path. NASA has compiled those photos in a Flickr group.

LADEE stands for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. The craft "will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about its atmosphere and the role of dust in the lunar sky," NASA says.

The AP has more on the technical issues facing the mission:

"S. Peter Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in California, which developed the spacecraft, told reporters he's confident everything will be working properly in the next few days.

"LADEE's reaction wheels were turned on to orient and stabilize the spacecraft, which was spinning too fast after it separated from the final rocket stage, Worden said. But the computer automatically shut the wheels down, apparently because of excess current. He speculated the wheels may have been running a little fast."

The craft's reaction wheels are used "to position and stabilize the spacecraft," NASA says. Worden also said that the snag doesn't represent "an unusual event in spacecraft" and that there is no need to rush to fix the problem. LADEE is expected to reach the moon in 30 days.

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Lawmakers question security of health insurance hub days from launch

Less than three weeks before a massive U.S. government health information database is scheduled to go live, some lawmakers have significant concerns about the ability of the system to protect personal health records and other private information.

It’s unclear if security measures are in place at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ health exchange data hub, a huge IT system that will process uninsured U.S. residents’ applications for health insurance, said Representative Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican.

“I have grave concerns from a cybersecurity standpoint,” Meehan said on Wednesday during a hearing of the cybersecurity subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.

The data hub, scheduled to go live Oct. 1, will process names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health conditions, and several other pieces of personal information, Meehan said.

Other lawmakers raised similar fears about the hub, a key piece of the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, passed by Congress in 2010. “The issue is not if but when we’re going to have a breach of the data hub,” said Representative Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican.

But subcommittee Democrats noted that earlier this month the HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) completed testing of the hub and received security authorization for the system. The security testing was established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to CMS.

Representative Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, praised CMS for focusing on U.S. residents’ privacy. State-operated health care exchanges, allowing uninsured people to shop for insurance, “will function only if people are certain that their private information—medical and financial—will be protected,” she said.

Meehan questioned how CMS completed its security assessment nearly a month ahead of schedule after the agency had “for three years failed to meet a single deadline.”

Critics have long raised concerns that the hub will collect large amounts of health and other personal information, and a breach could cause significant problems for users. Officials with President Barack Obama’s administration have said the hub will store little information, instead accessing information in other databases as needed.

Data breaches at the hub would do “irreparable harm” to users, said Stephen Parente, director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute at University of Minnesota. There hasn’t been enough security testing on the hub, which is a “massive IT project with literally no technical precedent,” he added.

Meehan on Wednesday repeated his concerns that the hub would make an attractive target for hackers. “We face a time in which we have very sophisticated adversaries ... who may wish to do us harm,” he said.

But Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said directors of state Medicaid programs have been working to ensure that the hub will be secure as their systems exchange data with it.

Salo predicted the hub—which he called the Travelocity of health care insurance—will likely have a “turbulent” launch because of its size, but most of the problems will be related to its interface, not security. “The consumer experience will not be a smooth and seamless Travelocity,” he said. “We do not think security is going to be a primary concern on day one.”

Lawmakers should give the hub time to “work out the kinks,” Clarke added.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service.
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Windows 8 surpasses Vista's uptake rate -- 10 months after launch

Microsoft got some good news Sunday as metrics company Net Applications said Windows 8's user share in August is now larger than Vista's at the same point in the latter's post-launch timeline.

Windows 8's user share of all PCs running Windows, a tally that included Windows 8.1, the update slated to ship next month, jumped to 8.4 percent in August, Net Applications said Sunday. The 2.5-point gain was a single-month record for the struggling OS, and more than double the previous record set in June.

[ A first, jaundiced look at Windows 8.1 RTM. | Windows 8 left you blue? Then check out Windows Red, InfoWorld's plan to fix Microsoft's contested OS. | Microsoft's new direction, the touch interface for tablet and desktop apps, the transition from Windows 7 -- InfoWorld covers all this and more in the Windows 8 Deep Dive PDF special report. ]

Ten months after its January 2007 retail debut, Windows Vista -- the operating system widely dubbed a flub and a flop -- accounted for 7.3 percent of all Windows PCs.

November 2007, the 10th month after Vista's debut, was the first month that Net Applications used a new methodology that weighted data by countries, an attempt to come up with more accurate estimates for markets, such as China, for which it had relatively little data.

Net Applications measures operating system user share by counting unique visitors to some 40,000 websites run by its customers.

In May, Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' head of marketing, argued that it was futile to compare Windows 8's uptake with Vista's prior to the latter's November 2007 numbers because of the methodology change.

Computerworld had been comparing Windows 8 and Vista adoption using pre-November 2007 data for Vista -- comparisons that regularly put Windows 8 at the short end of the stick -- and offered its last update using Net Applications' figures on May 1.

Although Windows 8's 10-month user share is larger than Vista's, it remains far behind Windows 7's at the same point in the latter's roll-out. Ten months after Windows 7's October 2009 launch, the OS had accumulated a 17.3 percent share of all Windows PCs -- more than double Windows 8's.

Rival analytics firm StatCounter did not mark the same dramatic increase in Windows 8's share as did Net Applications. The Irish company, which measures operating system usage by counting the total page views of a much larger number of websites than does Net Applications, said Windows 8 gained about four-tenths of a percentage point to end August with a 7 percent share of all personal computers.

It was unclear what drove the massive increase in Net Applications' accounting of Windows 8's user share, although a small portion of the gain, about one-tenth, was due to the counting of Windows 8.1. According to Net Applications, Windows 8.1's share of all machines running Windows was about 0.3 percent.

Windows 8's 2.5-point increase was the second-largest one-month gain by a Microsoft operating system since late 2006, when Computerworld began recording Net Applications' data. It was especially impressive after a slow-down in Windows 8's adoption during July.

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Windows 8 surpasses Vista's uptake rate -- 10 months after launch

Computerworld - Microsoft got some good news Sunday as metrics company Net Applications said Windows 8's user share in August is now larger than Vista's at the same point in the latter's post-launch timeline.

Windows 8's user share of all PCs running Windows, a tally that included Windows 8.1, the update slated to ship next month, jumped to 8.4% in August, Net Applications said Sunday. The 2.5-point gain was a single-month record for the struggling OS, and more than double the previous record set in June.

Ten months after its January 2007 retail debut, Windows Vista -- the operating system widely dubbed a flub and a flop -- accounted for 7.3% of all Windows PCs.

November 2007, the 10th month after Vista's debut, was the first month that Net Applications used a new methodology that weighted data by countries, an attempt to come up with more accurate estimates for markets, such as China, for which it had relatively little data.

Net Applications measures operating system user share by counting unique visitors to some 40,000 websites run by its customers.

In May, Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' head of marketing, argued that it was futile to compare Windows 8's uptake with Vista's prior to the latter's November 2007 numbers because of the methodology change.

Computerworld had been comparing Windows 8 and Vista adoption using pre-November 2007 data for Vista -- comparisons that regularly put Windows 8 at the short end of the stick -- and offered its last update using Net Applications' figures on May 1.

Although Windows 8's 10-month user share is larger than Vista's, it remains far behind Windows 7's at the same point in the latter's roll-out. Ten months after Windows 7's October 2009 launch, the OS had accumulated a 17.3% share of all Windows PCs -- more than double Windows 8's.

Rival analytics firm StatCounter did not mark the same dramatic increase in Windows 8's share as did Net Applications. The Irish company, which measures operating system usage by counting the total page views of a much larger number of websites than does Net Applications, said Windows 8 gained about four-tenths of a percentage point to end August with a 7% share of all personal computers.

It was unclear what drove the massive increase in Net Applications' accounting of Windows 8's user share, although a small portion of the gain, about one-tenth, was due to the counting of Windows 8.1. According to Net Applications, Windows 8.1's share of all machines running Windows was about 0.3%.

Windows 8's 2.5-point increase was the second-largest one-month gain by a Microsoft operating system since late 2006, when Computerworld began recording Net Applications' data. It was especially impressive after a slow-down in Windows 8's adoption during July.

Windows 8 faces a much different environment than did either Vista or Windows 7, as those predecessors were released as PC shipments were on the rise, not in a historic slump. Nor did they have to contend with tablets as rivals for consumer and corporate attention and spending.

Microsoft will release Windows 8.1 on Oct. 17 to current Windows 8 customers, then follow with a retail debut -- and with systems running the update -- on Oct. 18. Windows 8.1 is essentially a redo meant to answer customer complaints about the radical changes in Windows 8, which split workspaces between two wildly-different user interfaces.

Windows 8's user share of 8.4% was ahead of Vista's but far behind Windows 7's at the same point in their post-release adoption cycles. (Data: Net Applications.)

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at  @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

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Microsoft announces hefty list of AAA Xbox One launch titles

If great games make for a great console, Microsoft made its case for the Xbox One on Tuesday, releasing 23 launch-day titles that include several traditionally AAA franchises.

Although the list—which includes the Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield, Call of Duty, FIFA, Forza, and Madden franchises—is an impressive roster of games that Microsoft claims will be available at launch, the football-mad European market will receive EA Sports’ FIFA 14 as a bundled launch title, if Europeans pre-order the console. (Once supplies sell out, another “blockbuster game” will be made available.) And in addition to the top titles, Microsoft also announced a new program, known as ID@Xbox, designed to lure indie developers back to Microsoft’s console.

Microsoft made the announcements at the the Gamescom conference in Germany, the European equivalent of the E3 conference within the United States.

EAWith FIFA 14, gamers will be able to create an “Ultimate Team” of legendary players.

Microsoft’s Xbox console has been the top-selling console within the United States for 31 months straight, although Microosft only sold 107,000 Xbox 360 consoles in July, a low point as gamers begin putting their wallets away in preparation for the Xbox One. Microsoft’s list of titles are designed to lure them back:

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag (Ubisoft, Ubisoft)Battlefield 4 (DICE, Electronic Arts)Call of Duty: Ghosts (Infinity Ward, Activision)Crimson Dragon (Grounding/Land Ho!, Microsoft Studios)Dead Rising 3 (Capcom Vancouver, Microsoft)FIFA 14 (EA Sports, Electronic Arts)Fighter Within (AMA Ltd., Ubisoft)Forza Motorsport 5 (Turn 10 Studios, Microsoft Studios)Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft)Killer Instinct (Double Helix, Microsoft Studios)LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (TT Games, Warner Bros. Interactive)Lococycle (Twisted Pixel, Microsoft Studios)Madden NFL 25 (EA Sports, Electronic Arts)NBA 2K14 (Visual Concepts, 2K Sports)NBA LIVE 14 (EA Sports, Electronic Arts)Need for Speed: Rivals (Ghost Games, Electronic Arts)Peggle 2 (Popcap, Electronic Arts)Powerstar Golf (Zoe Mode, Microsoft Studios)Ryse: Son of Rome (Crytek, Microsoft Studios)Skylanders: Swap Force (Vicarious Visions, Activision)Watch Dogs (Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft)Zoo Tycoon (Frontier Developments Ltd., Microsoft Studios)Zumba Fitness: World Party (Zoë Mode, Majesco)

(PC gamers, checck out our list of the ten most anticipated PC games for this holiday season.)

ActivisionInfinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Ghosts

Microsoft also said that FIFA 14 Ultiimate Team will be available on the Xbox One and Xbox 360, allowing gamers to create a “dream team” of footballers that they can place alongside their current teams. Microsoft named Swedish footballer Freddie Ljungberg and Dutch star Ruud Gullit as the first two members, and said that more would be added later.

Microsoft also announced special bonus content for the Call of Duty: Ghosts and Tom Clancy’s The Division, with a new “Blitz” mode for COLD franchise, as well as exclusive content for The Division.

Following Microsoft’s launch of the Xbox One—and its subsequent backtrack on the issue of DRM and digital games—Microsoft set out to win back independent developers, which had been turned off by statements claiming that they would need to find a publisher before they could make content available on the Xbox One. The first step was making the Unity development engine free to developers.

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced Independent Developers @ Xbox (ID@Xbox), a program that will allow independent developers not only the ability to publish games for the Xbox One, but to take advantage of capabilities offered to larger developers, including Spotlight, which highlights games; as well as placing them within lists of Trending games and among Recommendations, plus giving them access to  social discovery with features like Game DVR and Upload.

”At the end of the day, when you turn on your TV, we want Xbox One to have the broadest and most diverse content possible,” Xbox vice president Phil Harrison said in a blog post. “Whether you’re in the mood for a big budget shooter, a contemplative side scroller, or something totally different that we can’t even imagine yet. The best way to deliver that experience is by doing what we’ve always done: making life easy for developers, as they do the hard work of creating fantastic game experiences for us all to enjoy.”

Sony left the E3 conference sitting comfortably in first place with its PlayStation 4, at least among gamer goodwill. But Microsoft’s strategy shifts, plus its impressive list of launch titles, certainly seems to indicate that Microsoft has both the clout and commitment to remain on top.

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