Their joint research and development body, CableLabs, has written specifications for an operating system and chosen a number of software languages in which applications software for the boxes may be written.
Windows Phone 7 actually had a fair amount going for it as an operating system, and 8 builds on its advantages.
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An operating system to manage batteries would work much like an operating system for your computer or cell phone: it coordinates the communications between the hardware and the apps to make sure the various programs, such as those for taking photos and browsing the Internet in the case of cell phones, are running well and do not interfere with each other.
For example, when IBM first asked Gates to write an operating system for its first PC, Gates possessed neither the experience nor the resources to put one together.
Microsoft is widely criticized as being behind the curve on developing an operating system for tablets.
Ubuntu Touch is an operating system for mobiles and tablets coming in October.
Google's longtime competitor, Yahoo, makes an operating system for the big screen.
Yet for the vision to become reality, something is still missing: a set of tools to manage all these computing resources an operating system for the data centre, if you will.
Google announced, in a blog post, that it would launch an operating system for personal computers, thus opening a direct assault on Microsoft, which has dominated the market for years.
For example, when IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ) first asked Gates to write an operating system for its first PC, Gates possessed neither the experience nor the resources to put one together.
In the early smartphone years, the big telecommunications companies, Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Seimens and others, formed a consortium to develop an operating system for smartphones called Symbian, to address convergence of telecommunications and technology albeit with the telecommunications bias.
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We'll admit: we would have preferred to just tap the home button instead of click on it, especially when we were ready to switch apps, but nonetheless, Android makes for an intuitive-enough desktop operating system, what with the home screen full of shortcuts.
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If you consider SharePoint as an operating system for the enterprise and allow business people to exploit the platform, embrace the ideals of the App Store, using hybrid deployments with integration to cloud solutions (Office365 I think is a killer app here) then it is possible to have the best of both worlds.
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He also praised Google's Android operating system as an example of the sort of open operating system that would allow for the full potential of wireless devices.
While Honeycomb represented an operating system just for tablets, Google doesn't believe that apps should follow suit.
After delays of almost a year, an upgraded operating system for the Blackberry Playbook tablet has been released.
Samsung is committed to providing customers with the best mobile experience by continuously offering an operating system upgrade for its devices.
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Fixated upon putting out an updated operating system for personal computers (Vista then later Windows 7) it let its 45% market share in smart phones circa 2007 disappear.
As Windows 8 has been developed to work well with portable devices such as tablets, Microsoft has been working to create an ecosystem of apps for the operating system.
In the summer of 1975 a Harvard junior, Bill Gates, drove to Albuquerque and with his friend Paul Allen started a company, Micro-Soft, to write an operating system called BASIC for the Altair 8800.
In April 2010, when HP acquired Palm, webOS developers were relieved the company had been saved, but wary about the changes the computing giant was likely to make to an operating system originally built for cellphones.
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For its part, Google's kicking in not just the operating system, but also an Internet browser designed for mobility (adapted from Apple's Webkit), a calendar, an address book, maps, e-mail and access to Google's online payments system, which can be used to buy things via phones.
In vowing to keep selling Symbian phones for the next two years, while turning MeeGo into an open source project and continuing to develop phones for that operating system as well, the company has created added complication, rather than a clear path forward.
Control of the drones and the assignment of packages for delivery would eventually be handled by an automated operating system.
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China is working with software firm Canonical on an open-source operating system customised for Chinese users.
In May, Microsoft announced that it had a new research program under way, aimed at developing an operating system and software development tools for robots.
By contrast the legion of unco-ordinated contributions to Linux, made in the bazaar, has created an operating system that gets top marks for reliability and performance.
When a company of 50, 000 employees has several thousand applications, trying to create versions of all of those apps for each computer and mobile device operating system is an enormous unfunded mandate.
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In May, Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) announced that it had a new research program under way, aimed at developing an operating system and software development tools for robots.
On Wednesday, Apple released an update to its iOS operating system for iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches that closes two vulnerabilities used by JailbreakMe, a site that surfaced less than two weeks ago with a clever method of breaking the safeguards on iPhones to allow unauthorized apps to be installed.
FORBES: Apple Patches JailbreakMe: Will iPhone Jailbirds Sacrifice Liberty For Security?
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