Track laptops with open source

A team of University of Washington security researchers has released a free, open-source system for tracking lost or stolen laptops, arguing that the system's architecture is more reliable and ensures privacy to a greater extent than existing proprietary services, says ZDNet.co.uk.

The four researchers behind Adonea, named after the Roman goddess of safe returns, will publish the details of the foundations of their design and an analysis of its security and privacy properties in a research paper at the upcoming 2008 Usenix Security Symposium in San Jose, California.

The two main differences between Adonea and the various existing, proprietary laptop-tracking systems are that it allows the user to be independent of any third-party service and that it preserves the user's privacy, the researchers said.

The analyst firm Saugatuck says in a new research note that open source software is critical to the growth of both software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing, and cloud-based computing in turn is making it easier for open source vendors to lower costs, reports Network World.

SaaS providers are flocking to open source for the same reasons as enterprise IT shops - acquisition and licensing costs that are 80% lower than comparable proprietary offerings.

Open source vendors also are gaining strength from cloud computing models, such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, which make processing, storage and other IT services available over the Web on a pay-per-use basis.

Online filmmaking collective A Swarm of Angels has posted a crowd-sourced indie trailer teaser for The Unfold, its sci-fi movie-in-progress, says Wired.com.

Film buffs who join Swarm get a chance to create media elements for the movie. "Members can take part in making a large-scale feature film through simple voting through to more involved creative tasks," said Swarm's Matt Hanson.

Licensed under Creative Commons, the media elements are open sourced and available for remixing.