Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 6th Jul 2011 14:00 UTC
Well, paint me red and call me a girl scout, I totally did not see this one coming at all. This is so utterly surprising it made my brain explode. Hold on to your panties, because this will rock your world. After pressuring several smaller Android vendors into submission (and yes, HTC is still relatively small compared to other players), Microsoft is now moving on to the big one: Redmond is demanding $15 for every Samsung Android device sold. Samsung's choices are simple: pay up, or face another epic lawsuit.
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RE[7]: Well, excuse my ignorance, but
by Alfman on Mon 11th Jul 2011 18:05
in reply to "RE[6]: Well, excuse my ignorance, but"
Member since:2011-01-28
lemur2,
"Actually, a number of Linux distributions do in fact directly include mp3 players, and DVD players for that matter."
Yes it's possible. My guess is that they're flying under the radar.
Are there any commercial distros which distribute unlicensed mp3 players in the US? I doubt it. If they do, then they are probably licensed.
In any case, it looks like even some of the distros you've cited have mp3 software disabled for the US.
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=75161&p=436160&hil...
"The US & Japan edition doesn't include stuff like that by default for legal reasons, the regular one does. It is easy enough to install them afterwards, it just gives an install like Ubuntu, no mp3, no DVD playback etc"
RE[8]: Well, excuse my ignorance, but
by lemur2 on Mon 11th Jul 2011 23:13
in reply to "RE[7]: Well, excuse my ignorance, but"
Member since:2007-02-17
lemur2, "Actually, a number of Linux distributions do in fact directly include mp3 players, and DVD players for that matter." Yes it's possible. My guess is that they're flying under the radar. Are there any commercial distros which distribute unlicensed mp3 players in the US? I doubt it. If they do, then they are probably licensed. In any case, it looks like even some of the distros you've cited have mp3 software disabled for the US. http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=75161&p=436160&hil... "The US & Japan edition doesn't include stuff like that by default for legal reasons, the regular one does. It is easy enough to install them afterwards, it just gives an install like Ubuntu, no mp3, no DVD playback etc"
Risk reduction exercise. A lot of businesses are very, very risk averse. If you have designs for your distribution to be installed and distributed to businesses in a commercial context in the US, then you have to give those businesses a warm and fuzzy feeling that they won't be sued.
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&l=en...
Telling the businesses to say, in the event they get sued, "the mp3 patents don't apply as this machine is general purpose, it isn't specifically adapted to be an mp3 player" won't cut it. It is probably a perfectly legal defense, but the company has still been sued, which is what they wanted to avoid.
Better, from the Linux distribution's point of view, to leave out the multimedia codecs. US buisness can then install that distribution, and either also leave out the multimedia codecs, or they can purchase licensed codecs from Fluendo.
http://www.fluendo.com/
(Businesses almost everywhere else after purchase can just install the distributions multimedia support from extended repositories).
This is risk avoidance. It is not necessarily required by law, since the machines in question are general purpose machines, they are not explicitly mp3 players. The mp3 patents probably would not apply in this scenario, due to the fact that software alone (or as installed and running on a general purpose machine) fails the "machine or transformation" test. This has NOT been tested in court, and no one wants to be the one to test it. Hence the risk avoidance.
Edited 2011-07-11 23:22 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2007-02-17
Actually, a number of Linux distributions do in fact directly include mp3 players, and DVD players for that matter.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ultimate
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=sabayon
All of these distribute software only, none of them distribute a "specific machine". None of them have ever been challenged.
The owners of mp3 patents may or may not be able to sue any individual in the US who installed any of this software on a specific machine, but I can't see how doing that would be worth their while. Even then, the owner of the machine can simply point out that it is a general-purpose machine, it is not adapted or modified in any way to specifically function as an mp3 player.
AFAIK, this project has not been directly challenged either, and it still is active:
http://lame.sourceforge.net/about.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME
LAME is distributed by the project as source code only, but you will find binary executables of LAME on the Linux distributions listed above.
Edited 2011-07-11 09:47 UTC