Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 26th Jan 2009 11:56 UTC
Earlier this month, news got out that the European Commission is charging Microsoft with unlawful competition regarding its bundling of the Internet Explorer web bowser with Windows. At the time, information was scarce, but thanks to Microsoft's quarterly filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission. we now have a little more insight into what the EU might force Microsoft to do.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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- make public the windows OEM prices for the consumers and all computer makers and integrators, even if MS set prices varying with the units sold.
Why? What would it accomplish? Should the OEM contract pricing for intel processors, nvidia chipsets, Seagate hard drives, and every other manufacturer component possible, be made public as well?
Let's take it a step farther, and have the government regulate the price that OEMs should charge for systems, and see how well that works for the economy. Maybe they should control the software that users can use, as well.
There is certainly much to criticize about Microsoft's business practices, but targeting them for unreasonable government intervention simply opens the door for further unreasonable government intervention right across the board. No matter how much you dislike Microsoft, this isn't a road that you, as a consumer, wants to go down.
You can't demand a refund from Ford because they bundled an engine with your car when you'd prefer to install your own.
There is an argument to be made about Microsoft enforcing acceptance of an EULA, but that is completely separate from what you're discussing.
If a vendor won't sell a system without Windows pre-installed, then find another vendor. They are out there. It just means you, as the consumer, need to make a little more effort in your purchasing and be prepared to sacrifice some of the benefits that the "Windows" hardware manufacturers offer.
This isn't a Microsoft issue. It's a vendor issue. Again, this isn't something the gov't should be interfering in.
Forcing you to accept an EULA is different, and if MS wants to hide behind these then they need to accept the consequences that certain jurisdictions hold with regards to refunding etc., but it shouldn't be an enforced requirement on manufacturers.
- include at least 2 IE competitors included in every computer with windows OEM sold and installed.
Who decides which 2 competitors are included? What if HP chooses Safari and Firefox, will Opera then turn around an claim unfair business practice?
And who at HP, or any other manufacturer, is going to deal with the potential for increased customer support, from bundling additional software?
Remember that the reason people pay for name-brand software is the (sometimes unreasonable) expectation that the manufacturer will stand behind the system. Is Mozilla, Apple or Opera willing to invest in additional resources to help support customers that are "paying" for a browser since it is included with the system they purchased?
Of course, hardware manufacturers already bundle software, but those vendors generally pay a fee. Forcing hardware manufacturers to install software by mandate will simply result in incurred costs that will be happily passed on to consumers.
They already have.
Why? I understand the point you're trying to make, but you're not even addressing the core problem, simply encouraging wider spread adoption of proprietary standards.
If the gov't is going to intervene in this area, then they should ditch proprietary standards and utilize open ones. And refuse to utilize software that doesn't comply. That will do far more to impact Microsoft's behavior than any nuisance-type remedies will.