Archive for the ‘news & announcements’ category

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Gemalto Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Over Android

Gemalto N.V., a digital security outfit based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, just announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the United States against Google, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung for use of Gemalto’s security products in the Android operating system, Dalvik virtual machine and associated development tools and products. According to the Gemalto, the [...]

Published by on October 25, 2010 12:11 pm
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Voice Phishing: System to Trace Telephone Call Paths Across Multiple Networks Developed

Phishing scams are making the leap from email to the world’s voice systems, and a team of researchers in the Georgia Tech College of Computing has found a way to tag fraudulent calls with a digital “fingerprint” that will help separate legitimate calls from phone scams. Voice phishing (or “vishing”) has become much more prevalent [...]

Published by on October 9, 2010 6:59 pm
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Blind Inventors Develop Free Software to Enable the Blind to Use Computers

For many blind people, computers are inaccessible. It can cost upwards of $1000 to purchase “screen reader” software, but two blind computer programmers have solved this problem. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) graduate James Teh and business partner Michael Curran developed a free, open-source program, called NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access), which provides a synthetic voice [...]

Published by on October 9, 2010 6:54 pm
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Over a hundred schools using open source

More than a hundred schools across Finland are using open source for all of their desktop PCs, according to Opinsys, an open source services provider. The company assists ninety schools in 28 municipalities with the maintenance of PCs and laptops running Ubuntu Linux. Tens of other schools are managing similar PCs themselves, according to Mikko [...]

Published by on May 13, 2010 11:39 am
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Italy to begin an open source competence centre

Italian public administrations considering to use open source can turn to a competence centre specialised in this type of software. The centre, which will be opened tomorrow, aims to foster the development and adoption of open source software. “The Italian Competence Center is a no-profit no-loss consortium, operating on a national scale and addressed to [...]

Published by on April 21, 2010 12:09 pm
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Children hospitals saving money by using open source

Italian children hospitals are saving money by using the ‘Smart Inclusion project’ using open source technology and offering access to for instance medical data and e-learning applications. According to a statement from the Ministry for Public Administration and Innovation, hospitals can save about 1000 Euro per PC and about 500 per thin client. The project [...]

Published by on April 21, 2010 12:05 pm
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Citizens ask e-government project to use open source and standards

Two hundred Romanians have signed a petition urging Gabriel Sandu, the Minister for Communications and Information Society, to support open source software on e-government projects. They also ask him to use open standards and to make government data public electronically. The petition was organised by APTI, a Romanian Association for Technology and Internet. It was [...]

Published by on April 19, 2010 10:59 am
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Government procurement agency approves use of open source

The Portuguese government agency for public procurement has published a list of open source applications it deems suitable for use by public administrations. The selected open source applications are now part of the official software catalogue published by Portugal’s procurement authority, the Agência Nacional de Compras Públicas, ANCP. Included on ANCP’s list are the database [...]

Published by on April 19, 2010 10:54 am
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Open source desktops manage shared office space ministries

Twenty desktop PCs running the Ubuntu Linux distribution are used to manage the services at a shared office building in the Hague for all Dutch ministries, since the beginning of this month. The shared office building, called Rijkskantoor Beatrixpark, facilitates ministries working together on temporary projects, and offers the ministries extra office space when needed.

Published by on April 19, 2010 10:49 am
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EFF Asks Illinois Appellate Court to Block Unmasking of Anonymous Online Critic

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Media Freedom and Information Access Practicum (MFIA) at Yale Law School filed a friend-of-the-court brief today urging the Illinois Court of Appeals to block the unmasking of an anonymous online critic of a local political candidate. The critic, commenting on a story on the website of a suburban [...]

Published by on March 15, 2010 3:59 pm
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New System Makes Household Communication Networks More Versatile

Household network communications is developing so quickly that it is necessary to adapt and change in order to take advantage of the new services and meet the broadband needs that they require. With this objective, a group of UC3M researchers have presented a new proposal for architecture for Residential Gateway or RGW, which is a [...]

Published by on March 15, 2010 11:45 am
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Galician government launches a promotion campaign on open source

The government of Galicia, one of Spain’s autonomous regions, wants to boost the use of free and open source software by its public administrations and citizens. The regional ministry for Modernisation and Innovation aims to bring together its previous initiatives on open source, it explains in a statement published on 27 January. Previous initiatives on [...]

Published by on February 15, 2010 1:04 pm
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Open source to fix mandatory e-government’s service

At least three open source projects in the Czech Republic are working to allow platform independent access to the government’s electronic message service. The mandatory service, called ‘Datove schranky’ (Data boxes) is currently only accessible on computers running Microsoft’s proprietary operating system. The open source development projects started following an appeal by a group of [...]

Published by on February 14, 2010 4:49 pm
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Valencia migrates three open source GIS tools to OSOR

The ministry of infrastructure and transport in Valencia, one of Spain’s autonomous regions, last week began migration of three of its open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications and projects to the European Union’s Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR). The applications, gvSIG Carreteras, gvSIG Sandbox and gsSIG Mobile, are currently hosted on the gvSIG [...]

Published by on February 11, 2010 8:00 am
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Intel Lifts the Hood on its “Single-Chip Cloud Computer”

Chips that can simulate a supernova or predict a hurricane are yesterday’s goal, if Intel’s recently unveiled 48-core research chip is any indication. Today’s goal is squeezing all the simple but extensive work of a data center onto a single chip. Big IT firms have huge, sophisticated networks of servers, says Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief [...]

Published by on February 9, 2010 9:42 pm
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Patent Office Grants EFF Request for Reexamination of Dangerous VOIP Patent

Another Big Win for EFF’s Patent Busting Project San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has won reexamination of an illegitimate patent on voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) that could cripple the adoption of new VoIP technologies. A company named Acceris Communications Technologies, now C2 Communications Technologies, was awarded the bogus patent for hardware, software, and [...]

Published by on February 7, 2010 2:07 am
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Administrations sponsor extension of open source network monitoring tool

Several public administrations in Spain are sponsoring the development of Zorb, an open source extension to Nagios, an open source network monitoring tool. Zorb allows users to fine-tune the processing of events generated from the monitored instances, hosts and services. Zorb has just been published on the OSOR Forge. The development of Zorb is made [...]

Published by on February 1, 2010 10:12 am
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Danish state administrations to use ODF

The Danish parliament and the Danish minister for Science this morning agreed that the Danish state administrations should use open standards, including the Open Document Format (ODF), starting on 1 April 2011. A formal vote on the agreement is planned for next Tuesday. Talking to the Danish parliament this morning, Science minister Helge Sander said [...]

Published by on January 29, 2010 12:27 pm
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Open Source GIS systems to be used by Spanish Wine makers

Wine makers in Spain will soon be able to use the gvSIG open source geographic information services developed in a large part with the help of several of Spain’s public administrations. The gvSIG association announced on 18 January to start working together with a Spanish provider of commercial GIS services. The two will develop and [...]

Published by on January 27, 2010 8:03 pm
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Police considers moving to open source

The Polish Police force wants to increase its use of free and open source software in order to cut costs, announces Andrzej Trela, Deputy Chief of Police and responsible for logistics, in an interview in the Police force’s monthly newsletter, published on 15 January. The Deputy Chief expects moving to open source will not be [...]

Published by on January 27, 2010 7:49 pm
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MPAA and RIAA Seek Net Neutrality Copyright Loophole

Last week the MPAA and RIAA submitted their comments in the FCC’s net neutrality proceeding. As anticipated in EFF’s comments, the big media companies are pushing for a copyright loophole to net neutrality. They want to be able to pressure ISPs to block, interfere with, or otherwise discriminate against your perfectly lawful activities in the [...]

Published by on January 20, 2010 6:46 pm
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Public sector should use open standards

The Commissioner-designate Neelie Kroes wants the public sector to increase its use of open standards, she said in her appearance before a European Parliament committee on 14 January. “Digital society depends on open standards and interoperability, and with this in mind, public organisations must practise what they promote. If they don’t use open standards, why [...]

Published by on January 20, 2010 12:57 am
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Open standards made mandatory for public administrations

Open standards have been made mandatory for the IT systems of Hungary’s public administrations. The Hungarian parliament voted in favour of amendments prescribing open standards, to a law on electronic government services, on 14 December. The changes received 197 votes in favour, one against and 146 abstentions, according to the Open Standard Alliance, a Hungarian [...]

Published by on January 20, 2010 12:48 am
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European Parliament restart workgroup on open source software

A number of members of the European Parliament are about to start an informal cross party working group on ‘new media, free and open source software and open information society’. The intergroup is expected to begin in February, with the support of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (Alde) and [...]

Published by on January 20, 2010 12:40 am
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Will NIEHS Ever “Get” EMFs?

Most managers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) refuse to allow that the EMF­cancer playbook may be different from the one for chemicals. Even now, when there is ample evidence that power line EMFs can increase the risk of childhood leukemia and there is a growing suspicion that cell phone radiation is [...]

Published by on January 18, 2010 5:14 pm
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France warns against using Internet Explorer

France has echoed calls by the German government for web users to find an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) to protect security. Certa, a government agency that oversees cyber threats, warned against using all versions of the web browser. Germany warned users on Friday after malicious code – implicated in attacks on Google – [...]

Published by on January 18, 2010 10:26 am
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Open standards made mandatory for public administrations

Open standards have been made mandatory for the IT systems of Hungary’s public administrations. The Hungarian parliament voted in favour of amendments prescribing open standards, to a law on electronic government services, on 14 December. The changes received 197 votes in favour, one against and 146 abstentions, according to the Open Standard Alliance, a Hungarian [...]

Published by on January 15, 2010 9:54 am
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Cenatic campaign: ten reasons for using open source in education

Using open source software offers schools a unique opportunity to advance the information society that is fair and free, says Cenatic, Spain’s resource centre on open source and open standards. Cenatic on Friday published a brochure ‘Ten reasons for using open source in education’, meant to show the country’s autonomous regions the benefits of open [...]

Published by on December 16, 2009 2:16 am
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French Military contributes code to Mozilla Thunderbird

The latest release of the open source email client Mozilla Thunderbird contains code from the French Military. The involvement of the Ministry of Defence with the free software email client goes back to 2006 when it defined requirements for added security features to Mozilla Thunderbird . The primary modifications donated by the French military are [...]

Published by on December 16, 2009 1:21 am
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Move to innovation park benefited South Tyrol’s open source centre

Making the Italian South Tyrol Free Software Centre (FSC) part of the Digital Technologies Area in the innovation centre in the Italian city of Bolzano, has given it the strength to support public authorities as well as companies in the region, says Patrick Ohnewein, head of the centre. The FSC was made part of the [...]

Published by on December 11, 2009 1:07 pm
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Government to increase open source in key IT projects

The Dutch government wants to increase the use of open standards and source in some of its key IT projects, minister for Foreign Trade Frank Heemkskerk said yesterday. “There is not enough progress in the uptake of this type of software”, said Heemskerk. “We need more perseverance. Using this type of software should be a [...]

Published by on December 7, 2009 12:18 pm
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Ministry of Education approves open source software for schools

Open source can be used to teach computer science classes to secondary school pupils, Latvia’s ministry of Education announced on Tuesday. The ministry bases its conclusion on the work of a group of experts, industry association representatives, ministry officials and school representatives. The group in August started looking for open source applications that could be [...]

Published by on December 7, 2009 11:45 am
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Bologna achieves vendor independence for its office applications

The administration of the Italian city of Bologna has almost completed its move to OpenOffice. Most of the 3600 PCs now run this open source suite of office applications. The administration is planning to move more applications to open source, aiming to become less dependent on specific IT vendors. This municipality started its first open [...]

Published by on December 4, 2009 12:26 am
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Open source professorship at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

Germany’s first open source professorship was established at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. First professor of Open Source will be Dr. Dirk Riehle, MBA. The professorship and its research group will focus on the use of open source as a target for developers, and its application in enterprises. The group hopes to develop methods and business models [...]

Published by on December 4, 2009 12:13 am
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European ministers favour open specifications and open source

European ministers responsible for eGovernment policy of the European Union say the open source model could be promoted for use in eGovernment projects, they said in a statement last week in the Swedish city of Malmö. Addressing open specifications, the ministers state: “It is important to create a level playing field where open competition can [...]

Published by on November 26, 2009 9:55 pm
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Students line up for new free software master at open universities

Two of Europe’s open universities, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain and Open Universiteit in the Netherlands, are about to start the first courses of what will become a Master programme on free and open source software and open standards, The Free Technology Academy (FTA). The program could prove popular, the number of early [...]

Published by on November 26, 2009 9:45 pm
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