Digital Trends
Open ID is meant to eliminate the headaches of remembering different passwords and user names for different services and websites. At its heart, if you have an Open ID identifier, you simply sign into that, and it can be used to log into all member sites and services.
The service has now received a major boost as both Microsoft and Google have released plans to sign in their users to Open ID, joining Yahoo and AOL, the BBC reports.
You could say that the new version of the open-source productivity suite, Open Office 3.0, is a hit. Released at 10 am British time yesterday, the demand was so great that it very quickly crashed the servers, according to ZDNet.
OpenOffice.org’s marketing lead, John McCreesh, noted that while most downloads are from mirror sites, "the fact that our central site can’t even run the bouncer [to divert requests to those local mirrors] must mean it’s… our biggest-ever download."
When Psystar offered a Mac clone, it found itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit from Apple. Now another company is planning to offer machines that emulate Macs, but with a difference – if you wants to fun OS X you have to buy and install the software yourself, ZDNet reports. However, as that involves hardware running specialized firmware called the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), it’s not easy.
In a statement later removed from its website, Open Tech said that "OS X Leopard will not be pre-installed or included. You can purchase an Open Tech compatible install disc from a third-party vendor or install it yourself using our do-it-yourself kit."
MySpace has given a boost to the open-source Open ID by supporting it, in a move that began yesterday. Open ID is open source technology that allows users to eliminate the need for different user names and passwords for different sites.
In fact, this has been quite a big week for MySpace, according to Information Week. The social network has added Flixster and Eventful to its Data Availability initiative, meaning MySpace members can share personal date with members of those sites.
The company has also loosened its developer restrictions, now letting developers store some elements of user profiles for 24 hours.
Although the news may not mean much to North American consumers, IBM is apparently re-introducing itself to the personal computer business after selling off its ThinkPad and ThinkCentre lines to China’s Lenovo. According to Reuters, the company is partnering with Red Hat, Austrian software distributor VDEL, and Poland’s LX Polska, so offer Microsoft-free PCs to the easten European and Russian business markets.
The systems—to be dubbed “Open Referent”—will be made by partners of VDEL and LX Polska, rather than by IBM itself, but will feature Red Hat Linux and IBM’s Lotus Symphony software, a Microsoft Office competitor which uses the Open Document Format (ODF) for easier interchange with other productivity applications.
Everyone wants to be an insider, and you can be one too! Choose your poison: sign-up for our Newsletter, join us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter. Do all three and you'll be swimming in the the latest news, reviews, videos and more gadget goodness!
Become a DT soldier! Join us on Facebook and share the best news, guides, videos and other cool information directly with all your friends. Some might even thank you for it!
Join the thousands and follow the best of us on Facebook.
Do you like information in small snippets? Then our Twitter feed is just for you. Follow Digital Trends and you'll be able to catch up daily on our latest content, or even interact directly with our team. Tweet Tweet!
Join the thousands and follow the best of us on Twitter.
That’s Right, Sign-up For Our Monthly Random Prize Drawings and You Could Be That Winner.
