A common argument has always been that the only reason Android is as popular as it is in the US is because people are buying Android solely because they can't buy an iPhone (i.e., because they don't want AT&T, or because Verizon is their only carrier, and so on). This line of thinking would imply that now that the Verizon iPhone is here, Android would be in trouble. Well, it turns out that might not be true, exactly. For the first time,
more people desire Android for their next smartphone than iOS.
And the fight continues. Only a few months after the
desperate move by the MPEG-LA to get anyone -
anyone - to submit patents to a possible WebM patent pool,
Google and the WebM community have struck back. A whole slew of major companies have formed the
WebM Community Cross-License initiative, basically a sort-of Open Invention Network for WebM.
"We've been waiting for this day: our little reader
would finally become a big boy tablet - without having to resort to any sort of hackery. We knew it was coming and, as of now, owners of the Barnes & Noble Nook Color should be receiving notices that their devices are ready to drop those training wheels and run some proper apps. Flash web browsing, downloads, games, e-mail, it's all here."
Ah yes, this was pretty inevitable. Nintendo is facing
dropping sales and earnings for another year, and as such, it should come as no surprise that they have
just announced the Wii's successor. The Japanese gaming giant will unveil the machine during E3 in June, and the device is scheduled for release in 2012.
You know all that talk about net neutrality in the US? How for instance Verizon and Google
want net neutrality to apply only to something they call the 'wired' internet, which is apparently somehow different from the 'mobile' internet? Well, while you Americans are only talking about it, us Dutch are once again way ahead of the curve: the largest of the three main carriers
has announced its intention to start charging extra for services like VoIP, instant messaging, Facebook, and so on, with the other two carriers
contemplating similar moves. The dark future of the web, right here in my
glorified swamp.
A Texas jury
has ruled against Google in a suit that alleged some of its use of open-source Linux code amounted to patent infringement, something that could have big implications for other companies using Linux technology and other open-source systems. In the verdict, delivered last week, the jury decided that Google should pay $5 million for the infringement.
"VP8 is an open source video compression format supported by a consortium of technology companies.
This paper provides a technical overview of the format, with an emphasis on its unique features. The paper also discusses how these features benefit VP8 in achieving high compression efficiency and low decoding complexity at the same time."
"Intel has confirmed that it has received the Android 3.0 Honeycomb code from Google, and that it is 'actively' working on
porting the tablet-centric platform to run on x86 chips like its Atom processors."
"Mobile phone maker Nokia has posted
better-than-expected profits for the first three months of 2011, down 1% to 344m euros. But its market share fell 4% to 29% as cheaper rivals and the popularity of competitors' smartphones ate into Nokia's dominance. Nokia also said that it had struck a long-awaited deal to develop smartphone technology with Microsoft. Investors welcomed the news, sending Nokia shares up almost 3%."
Submitted by Martin
2011-04-21
Apple
There's a bit of a stink going on - even in major media - about
something iOS 4's been doing. Apparently, iOS 4 has been storing a list of locations and timestamps to a hidden, but readable file in a standard database format. The locations are triangulated using cell towers, and generally aren't as accurate as for instance GPS. Still, the file is stored without any form of protection on both your iPhone as well as your desktop.
"Apple today
announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 second quarter ended March 26, 2011. The Company posted record second quarter revenue of $24.67 billion and record second quarter net profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.4 percent compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter's revenue."
"Microsoft has released its free
Microsoft Safety Scanner. This scans for and removes malware from Windows systems without requiring prior installation. According to AV-Test's Andreas Marx, the on-demand anti-virus scanner appears to be based on the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), but with the addition of a complete signature database. MSRT used a mini database of widely distributed threats and is distributed monthly via the automatic update function."
"Facebook, HP, Rackspace, Juniper, Fujitsu and dozens of other organizations have joined a group building a defensive patent portfolio to protect Linux-using members from potential lawsuits. Seeking to boost membership, the patent group said Wednesday it has
added 74 new licensees in the first quarter of this year, bringing its total number of corporate supporters to 334."
The revolution has begun
! Web video will be freed from the shackles of the MPEG-LA and the dreaded claws of patents and incomprehensible licenses! Sorry, I got a little carried away there. Anywho, YouTube has announced
all new videos uploaded to the site will be transcoded into WebM, and that the most important part of the site's catalogue is already available in WebM.
"
US patent law will be put in the dock later today (18 April) when the highest court in the land considers a case brought by the world's biggest software company, Microsoft. But at stake is more than just the $290m judgement that a small Canadian firm, i4i, secured against Microsoft for patent infringement. Legal experts have said that the outcome of the US Supreme Court hearing will decide how patent laws protect exclusive technology and impact innovation."
InfoWorld's Peter Wayner takes a look at
13 open source development projects making waves in the enterprise. From Git to Hadoop to build management tools, "even in the deepest corners of proprietary stacks, open source tools can be found, often dominating. The reason is clear: Open source licenses are designed to allow users to revise, fix, and extend their code. The barber or cop may not be familiar enough with code to contribute, but programmers sure know how to fiddle with their tools. The result is a fertile ecology of ideas and source code, fed by the enthusiasm of application developers who know how to 'scratch an itch'."
FVWM 2.6
has been released. "It's been almost five years since the last stable release of FVWM (2006) and almost ten years since the development version of FVWM (2.5.X) which became this latest stable release was started! A lot of hard work from many talented individuals has made this release possible."
Well. Raise your hands if you didn't see this one coming. Nobody is safe from Apple's and Microsoft's legal crusade against Android, not even Samsung, which supplies a lot of chips to Apple.
Apple has sued Samsung for copying Cupertino's look and feel in various Samsung devices. This is about as surprising as the tides rolling in.
Update: And
Samsung's going to strike back. Hit 'm hard, Samsung. I don't like you anymore than any of these other patent trolls, but maybe we'll finally see it all crash and burn.
Over the weekend, Oracle basically announced its defeat in the competition with the community-created fork of OpenOffice, LibreOffice. Oracle will cease all commercial development of OpenOffice, and will
turn it into a purely community-based project.
Is it that we desire what is sold to us, or is it that OEMs will sell whatever it is they want and we'll buy it? Like it or not, we are being forced into a brave new world, which has no certainty that it will even last yet. I am of course talking about tablets. Come this holiday season (wait, isn't the whole year just a long string of commercial holidays?), you won't be able to browse an isle at a computer store without being assaulted by tablets. Big ones, small ones, Android ones, HP ones, RIM ones, Apple ones. Asides some discussion on GNOME3, we delve into this uncertain territory that has yet to play all its cards. Why is Google withholding the Honeycomb source, and what could be going on behind closed doors? What has Sony's recent actions have to do with "ownership", and what has this meant to GeoHot? Is RIM capable of delivering a product that will deliver their promises, and is Google between a rock and a hard place with Android and Chrome OS? Find it all, here, on the new* OSNews Podcast. (*not actually new)
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