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Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Alpha 2 Released

From the Release Early dept.:
Pre-releases of Precise Pangolin are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Alpha 2 is the second in a series of milestone images that will be released throughout the Precise development cycle.

This is the first Ubuntu milestone release to include images for the armhf architecture, for the ARM CPUs using the hard-float ABI.

New packages showing up for the first time include:
* Linux Kernel 3.2.2 (3.2.0-12.21)
* Upstart 1.4
* Unity 5.0
* LibreOffice 3.5 beta 2

EU regulators: Google should ‘pause’ privacy changes

From the Whoah dept.:
In a letter to Google’s chief executive Larry Page, Europe’s ‘Data Protection Working Party’ wrote that “we call for a pause in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google's commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis”.

The committee gave no indication of how long it would like the pause to be.

A senior source at Google expressed surprise at the move, but noted that there was a month for the committee to examine its concerns. The source also said that while the committee had no legal authority to require any delay, the tone of its letter was significantly less aggressive than those Google has received in the past.

Google Starts Scanning Android Apps for Malware

From the Taking it Seriously dept.:
Today we’re revealing a service we’ve developed, codenamed Bouncer, which provides automated scanning of Android Market for potentially malicious software without disrupting the user experience of Android Market or requiring developers to go through an application approval process.

The service performs a set of analyses on new applications, applications already in Android Market, and developer accounts. Here’s how it works: once an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analyzing it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags. We actually run every application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulate how it will run on an Android device to look for hidden, malicious behavior. We also analyze new developer accounts to help prevent malicious and repeat-offending developers from coming back.

Red Hat extends Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle to ten years

From the Makes Sense On a Server dept.:
...Red Hat. The company has just announced that it is extending the production lifecycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and 6 from seven to 10 years in response to enterprise customer demand and Red Hat’s hardware original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners.

For any company, upgrading to a new version of an operating system requires detailed advance planning. Red Hat has extended the Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle so customers can remain on their current version longer. With the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle, customers will benefit from continued feature enhancements while Red Hat’s application binary interface (ABI) and application programming interface (API) compatibility for their existing application.

UK Report Calls for Free Access to UK Research

From the Paid For dept.:
The UK Government has published a report that calls for all publicly funded research to be made freely available. The report says: "Government will work with partners, including the publishing industry, to achieve free access to publicly-funded research as soon as possible and will set an example itself," Research councils will be required to ensure compliance with existing mandates to "deposit published articles or conference proceedings in an open access repository at or around the time of publication" and will investing £2 million (€2.4 million) to develop a 'Gateway to Research' website that could also include non-publicly funded research.

Android Reaches 39% Tablet OS Market Share (Standing On Amazon’s Shoulders)

From the Army of Many dept.:
Apple’s iPad reigns supreme from whatever angle you choose to look at the tablet market (profits, apps, quality, market share, mindshare, you name it), but research firm Strategy Analytics this morning said Android did manage to capture a record 39 percent tablet OS market share in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Twitter Announces It Can Block Tweets Per Country

From the Hard Realities dept.:
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.

EU ACTA Chief Resigns

From the ShamNow dept.:
The EU ACTA chief has resigned, saying, 'This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.'

Ireland SOPA Set To Be Enacted Without Vote

From the Backdoor dept.:
Ireland is soon to have a law similar to SOPA passed that would give music and movie companies the power to force Irish ISPs to block access to sites suspected of having copyright infringing material on them.

Irish citizens won’t have a chance to lobby their democratic representatives because there won’t be a vote on the law — snappily named “S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011″ — in the Irish Parliament. Instead the law is being enacted by ministerial order because it is being prepared in the form of a Statutory Instrument.

HP: Open webOS 1.0 arriving in September, Enyo 2.0 framework free to developers today

From the webOS dept.:
...HP says it expects the software will be fully open-sourced by September, at which point its official name will be Open webOS 1.0. The first piece of the puzzle is arriving today in the form of the second-gen Enyo framework, a free tool that lets developers write webOS apps for tablets, phones and desktop browsers.