OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing - Page 622

An Explosion of Mobile Patent Lawsuits

Submitted by darwinOS 2010-03-04 Legal 5 Comments

"At first glance, it looks as if we're in the middle of a patent lawsuit Super Bowl party. Nearly every large mobile phone player - with the exception of Microsoft, Palm and, so far, Google - has recently been involved in some sort of patent litigation regarding mobile technologies."

Apple Stepping up Pressure on Music Labels to Snub Amazon

Submitted by Laurence 2010-03-04 Apple 15 Comments

"Apple has allegedly been pressuring music labels to ditch Amazon MP3's 'Daily Deal' promotions, lest they be excluded from being promoted through the iTunes machine. According to anonymous executives speaking to Billboard, Apple has always been uncomfortable with the labels double dipping with both iTunes and Amazon, but the company has ramped up its complaints lately in an attempt to retain its lead in the online music market. Though Apple still remains in the number one spot among all music retailers, the move is indicative that Apple takes competition from Amazon very seriously." Apparently iTunes has a 70% market share... Doesn't that make this kind of, well, monopoly abuse? Reminds me of Intel's rebates for OEMs to not use AMD.

North Korea Develops Its Own Linux Distribution

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-04 Linux 44 Comments

Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk, here in the west more commonly known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or North Korea, is a country you usually read about in the foreign affairs section of the newspaper. As a logical consequence of its Juche ideology, North Korea has developed its own Linux distribution.

Microsoft Launches Its First Android App

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-04 Microsoft 4 Comments

"In December 2008, Microsoft surprised a lot of people by releasing an iPhone app - Seadragon Mobile. A month later, they ensured the move wasn't taken as a joke or gimmick by launching another app, Tag, into Apple's App Store. Now, they have a few, including an app for Bing. And starting today, they're doing the same for Android."

NetPositive Gets Successor: WebPositive Emerges

Submitted by Infamy 2010-03-04 Haiku 33 Comments

BeOS came with a relatively straightforward browser called NetPositive, or Net+ in shorthand. Especially by today's standards, it can hardly do anything more complicated than rendering basic HTML, so it isn't of much use. Luckily, Haiku has a successor now, born out of the HaikuLauncher conceptbrowser we talked about earlier: WebPositive.

Microsoft Open-Sources Clever U-Prove Identity Framework

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-03-03 Microsoft 11 Comments

"Ultimately, we want to be able to securely make transactions without giving third parties the ability to masquerade as us; we want to be able to visit websites and make purchases without those sites being able to track us or combine different pieces of information to draw a more complete picture of us; we want to be able to be able to disclose some information about ourselves, but not everything. The U-Prove framework, released as a CTP today by Microsoft, aims to solve these problems."

Viacom’s Departure From Hulu Comes with a Bite

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-03 Multimedia, AV 8 Comments

"Hulu on Tuesday announced on its blog that partner Viacom would be pulling its content from the service, and noted that shows like 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report' would only be available through the beginning of next week. Though an inconvenience for Hulu users who had relied on the service's subscription tools and new episode notifications, Hulu noted that most of the content that's being pulled will still be available back on ComedyCentral.com."

Canonical Unveils New Ubuntu Design, Themes, Logos

Submitted by kragil 2010-03-03 Ubuntu 107 Comments

Canonical has unveiled a complete branding overhaul, redesigning everything from the Ubuntu website to its logos and marketing material. However, what interests me more are the new Gtk+ themes, and even then, I'm not interested in the colour choices and the like. No - what stood out to me right away was not the theme itself - but the placement of the titlebar widgets.

Microsoft To Double Down on HTML5 with Internet Explorer 9

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-03-03 Internet Explorer 27 Comments

"With the latest releases of Opera, Google Chrome and Firefox continuing to push the boundaries of the web, the once-dominant Internet Explorer is looking less and less relevant every day. But we should expect Microsoft to go on the offensive at its upcoming MIX 2010 developer conference in Las Vegas, where, it has been speculated, the company will demonstrate the first beta builds of Internet Explorer 9 and possibly offer a preview release of the browser to developers. Several clues point to the possibility that the next version of IE will include broad support for HTML5 elements, vector graphics and emerging CSS standards. If Microsoft plays its cards right in Vegas, IE 9 could be the release that helps IE get its groove back in the web browser game."

Coby USD 85 Smartbook Feels Like a Hundred Bucks

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-03-03 Hardware 11 Comments

This is interesting: an 85 USD smartbook running Windows CE. "Inside the little guy packs a 624MHz Marvell PXA303 processor, 2GB of flash storage and runs Windows CE which all should be good enough for some light Web browsing and e-mail writing. There was actually a YouTube shortcut on the desktop, but the NBPC722 wasn't connected to try it out. Apparently this inexpensive laptop should be making its way stateside this spring."

Citing Underperformance, Hedge Fund Offers $2B for Novell

Submitted by SReilly 2010-03-03 Novell and Ximian 1 Comment

"Hedge fund Elliot Associates has made a bid to acquire software vendor Novell. In a public letter to the company's board of directors, the hedge fund offered $5.75 per share (a 49 percent premium), placing Novell's value at $2 billion dollars. Elliot Associates is already one of the largest institutional shareholders of Novell, with roughly 8.5 percent of the company's stock."

Google, HTC Respond to Apple Lawsuit

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-03 Legal 50 Comments

Today's "the day after". The day after Apple started a patent war with HTC and Google. Today, we have statements from both HTC and Google, and a number of other people have weighed in as well as to the possible ramifications of Apple's lawsuit.

KDE Software Compilation 4.4.1 Released

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-03-02 KDE 15 Comments

"This month's edition of KDE SC is a bugfix and translation update to KDE SC 4.4. KDE SC 4.4.1 is a recommended upgrade for everyone running KDE SC 4.4.0 or earlier versions. As the release only contains bugfixes and translation updates, it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone. Users around the world will appreciate that KDE SC 4.4.1 multi-language support is more complete. KDE SC 4 is already translated into more than 50 languages, with more to come."

Ballmer: One Day, Bing Will Actually Make Money

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-02 Microsoft 18 Comments

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has insisted that one day, the company's Google-battling Bing search engine will actually make money. "Search is going to be an ever-growing share of Microsoft's profits," the big man bellowed - literally bellowed - during a wide-ranging question and answer keynote this morning at the search-obsessed SMX West conference in Silicon Valley, "First, we've got to get to break even. And then we're got to get to profitability. And then we've got to grow share. That's how I do my math."

Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-02 Legal 92 Comments

In a statement released today, Apple announced it is suing HTC, claiming the Taiwanese phone maker infringed upon 20 of Cupertino's patents related to the iPhone. After Nokia and Apple suing one another a number of times over the past couple of months, this is the next high-profile patent lawsuit in the mobile phones business. Engadget has the filings, and it seems that Apple wants to avoid angering Microsoft, but has no qualms about taking on Google. Update: Engadget analyses every single patent in the claim.

Szeleney: “SkyOS Is Not Dead”

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-02 SkyOS 70 Comments

Over the past couple of months, I've been getting a number of emails asking me about SkyOS' status. Since I didn't know anything beyond what's on the SkyOS website, and because, well, I have no affiliation with SkyOS, I couldn't really reply to these emails. However, after yet another email sent to me late last week, I decided to simply... Email Robert Szeleney, the man behind the project.

Opera 10.50 for Windows Released

Submitted by Idefix 2010-03-02 Opera 35 Comments

After a number of alpha and beta releases, Opera Software has announced the final release of Opera 10.50 for Windows, which they call "the world's fastest browser for Windows". Apart from performance improvements, Opera 10.50 comes packed with other new features, as well as improved integration with Windows 7.

‘No, You Can’t Do That with H.264’

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-01 Multimedia, AV 53 Comments

"A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain't so."

Elements of Firefox Overhaul Arrive for Testing

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-01 Mozilla, Gecko 16 Comments

"Mozilla, faced with new competitive pressures, has begun work on three separate, significant changes to Firefox. First is a new JavaScript engine that - with a transfusion from the project behind Apple's Safari - should run Web-based programs at least 30 percent faster. Second is a new graphics engine for Windows that will take advantage of hardware acceleration for graphics and text. And third is a programming tool to help bring to fruition a new system for Firefox add-ons."

Microsoft Wins Windows XP Downgrade Lawsuit

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-01 Legal 4 Comments

"A federal judge has dismissed a year-old lawsuit against Microsoft over alleged antitrust violations for the 'downgrade' rules it set for Windows Vista and XP. The order issued Monday by US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman put an end to the lawsuit filed by Emma Alvarado in February 2009. In her original complaint, the Los Angeles resident accused Microsoft of coercing computer makers into forcing consumers who wanted to run Windows XP to first buy Windows Vista, or later, Windows 7, before they were allowed to downgrade to XP."