Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 14th Aug 2012 21:16 UTC
This week, Samsung started its defence in the big Apple vs. Samsung thing. First, Samsung pointed towards several cases of prior art, trying to invalidate Apple patents, surely something that's going to be the theme to Samsung's case. Later, Samsung pulled its own software patents out of its a... Neck, claiming Apple infringed them. The patents are just as ridiculous as Apple's, but alas, they have to do something in the face of Apple's anti-competitive aggression. Here is Shepard under a unicorn rainbow.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.More Features »
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"I'll choose and recommend to others to buy alternative, open hardware and low cost phones with custom linux OS. Screw you Apple, screw you Samsung. You're all about the money, patents and not the end users."
Untill some patent troll (including Apple and MS) comes and starts demanding royalties (or an ITC sale ban) from said open hardware. Is said open device capable of playing or recording H.264? Oh, you are using WebM. In that case, I see a feature that allows sending a photo the user just took via email, a slide to unlock feature and a rounded corner. Please pay us royalties/halt sales in the US, because you are violating or so non-obvious, non-overly broad "inventions".
So, the company that makes said open hardware will either have to comply and start cutting features 'till all is left is a CLI interface, or do what Samsung does: Defend the device any way they can. Aka fnding prior act, trying to prove patents are overly broad or countersue with own patents (of similar validity). Sure the latter is patent-trollish by itself, but as long as the patents are not used offensively, it's fair game.
Some FOSS people think FOSS is magically invulnerable to patent trolling, just because software like VLC and Handbrake is distributed from proper countries like France where soft patents don't apply. Unfortunately, if you want to sell things in the US (and UK and Germany), things are different. Soft patents apply to FOSS too.
As regards the trial, the best case scenario is a precendent where crap soft patents can be invalidated easily, and the USPTO being more carefull about what soft patents it accepts (hoping for abolishing soft patents in the US is unrealistic, since soft patents are now a business by itself among venture capitalist firms)
Edited 2012-08-15 15:57 UTC