North Korea Has Developed Its Own Computer Operating System

A North Korean operating system is seen in this screen shot taken in Seoul December 23, 2015. REUTERS/JAMES PEARSON

Reuters: Paranoid: North Korea's computer operating system mirrors its political one

North Korea's homegrown computer operating system mirrors its political one, according to two German researchers who have delved into the code: a go-it-alone approach, a high degree of paranoia and invasive snooping on users.

Their research, the deepest yet into the secretive state's Red Star OS, illustrates the challenges Pyongyang faces in trying to embrace the benefits of computing and the internet while keeping a tight grip on ideas and culture.

The researchers, Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess of German IT security company ERNW GmbH, spoke to Reuters before presenting their findings to the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg on Sunday, a gathering of hackers and security researchers.

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CSN Editor: I have experienced the major Russian and Chinese operating systems .... "groan" is the only word that comes to my mind. Software is a decidedly Western advantage ... and will probably be the case for the foreseeable future.

Update #1: Russian Operating System to Launch in Next Decade (Moscow Times)
Update #2: A first look at the Chinese operating system the government wants to replace Windows (Quartz)

The Apple - Google War

Why Apple Is Going “Containment” Not “Thermonuclear” Against Google In iOS 6 -- Search Engine Land

I keep hearing people talking about Apple finally going “thermonuclear” on Google with the forthcoming iOS 6 mobile operating system. No, it hasn’t. In fact, there are good reasons why it can’t, though Apple is certainly exercising a much more subtle and smart containment strategy.

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My Comment: Steve Jobs is gone .... and Apple is a different company that is not looking for conflict .... but something else.

Infected XP Owners Left Unpatched

From The BBC:

Some of the latest security updates for Windows XP will not be installed on machines infected with a rootkit virus.

A rootkit is sneaky malware that buries itself deep inside the Windows operating system to avoid detection.

Microsoft said it had taken the action because similar updates issued in February made machines infected with the Alureon rootkit crash endlessly.

The latest updates can spot if a system is compromised by the Alureon rootkit and halt installation.

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Apple's Snow Leopard Reviewed

A detail of the Snow Leopard desktop. Photograph: Apple

From The Guardian:

The Guardian's comprehensive review of Apple's new Snow Leopard OS.

Mac OS X 10.6 – aka Snow Leopard – will be released tomorrow. The truth is that it doesn't contain hundreds of big new features to entice you into upgrading – but it does have one that everyone will appreciate: speed.

Snow Leopard is, in fact, blisteringly fast. Booting is quicker, waking from sleep is quicker, and, of course, launching applications is quicker than if you're using Leopard.

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Could Robots Unite Under One Operating System?

Robots Unite: Patch my operating system to 3.0 now, human! Warner Bros.

From Popular Science:

A common robot operating system could lead to a robotics revolution -- scientifically speaking, of course.

Today's robots represent islands unto themselves that don't share either software or hardware with each other. But researchers have begun developing a common operating system that could revolutionize robotics and permit easier collaboration with less reinvention of the proverbial wheel. The change could rival that which rippled through the PC industry when Microsoft's Disk Operating System (DOS), and later Windows, burst onto the scene and became standard.

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An Operating System For The Cloud

Credit: Brian Stauffer

From Technology Review:

Google is developing a new computing platform equal to the Internet era. Should Microsoft be worried?

From early in their company's history, Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wanted to develop a computer operating system and browser.

They believed it would help make personal computing less expensive, because Google would give away the software free of charge. They wanted to shrug off 20 years of accumulated software history (what the information technology industry calls the "legacy") by building an OS and browser from scratch. Finally, they hoped the combined technology would be an alternative to Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, providing a new platform for developers to write Web applications and unleashing the creativity of programmers for the benefit of the masses.

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Why New Chrome OS Won't Turn Google Into a Monopoly: Analysis

From Popular Mechanics:

As Google announces its intention to create a full Web-based operating system, senior technology editor Glenn Derene has a flashback to the late '90s—when the Justice Department brought an antitrust action against Microsoft. Could Google's new browser-as-operating system kill competition?

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) brought an antitrust action against Microsoft for a variety of anti-competitive practices in the software industry—chief among them the bundling of the company's Internet Explorer browser into its dominant Windows operating system. The trial revealed plenty of bare-knuckled tactics and market manipulation on behalf of Microsoft, and stained the company's brand for years (perhaps forever, frankly) as a corporate bully. But the central argument from Microsoft was that, with the ascent of the Internet, the browser had become an integral part of the OS, and that competing stand-alone browsers such as Netscape and Opera were moribund products from a transition era. Microsoft contended that it needed to evolve the OS to adapt to the Internet-based era just to stay competitive as a company—a claim that seemed ludicrous back in the '90s, when the software giant seemed to have indomitable market power.

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Google Announces PC Operating System To Compete With Windows

From Epicenter/Wired:

Google is releasing a lightweight, open-source PC-operating system later this year, the company announced Tuesday night, a move that threatens the very heart of Microsoft, long seen as Google’s biggest rival.

Chrome OS is intended to be a very lightweight, quick-starting operating system whose central focus is supporting Google’s Chrome browser. Applications will run mostly inside the browser, making the web — not the desktop — into the computer’s default operating system.

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