In the News Archive

So, there's a bit of a hubbub going on at Engadget, Daring Fireball, and other Apple blogs, about a Galaxy Tab case made by Anymode, a company with ties to Samsung (the story came from 9to5mac). It is claimed the case is a copy of Apple's Smart Cover. Of course, those of us without any special affinity for one single company remember full-well that Apple itself took the idea for the Smart Cover from InCase, while InCase's design was a massive improvement over Apple's original iPad case. Lo and behold, Anymode's case resembles the InCase design much more closely than it resembles the Apple design (no magnets). Weird that Engadget would leave InCase out of the picture (no surprise when it comes to Daring Fireball, of course, even though I pointed it out to Gruber), even though they reported on it when the Smart Cover was announced. Anywho, Samsung already denied that this product received the 'Designed for Samsung Mobile'-logo, and Anymode has removed it from sales. None have been sold.

"I write a trivia column for a newspaper called The Austin Chronicle. Someone has asked me the origin of the word daemon as it applies to computing. Best I can tell based on my research, the word was first used by people on your team at Project MAC using the IBM 7094 in 1963. The first daemon (an abbreviation for Disk And Executive MONitor) was a program that automatically made tape backups of the file system. Does this sound about right? Any corrections or additions? Thank you for your time!"

"Representatives from Apple and Google faced hard questions about their location and privacy policies when testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law on Tuesday. Apple VP of Software Technology Guy 'Bud' Tribble and Google Director of Public Policy Alan Davidson both stood behind their companies' policies at the hearing, however, while continuing to insist that they take consumer privacy seriously."

"Research In Motion Ltd. is considering a bid for Nortel Networks Corp.'s portfolio of wireless technology patents that would top Google Inc.'s $900 million offer, two people familiar with the plans said. RIM, maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is weighing an offer that would keep Google from gaining control of about 6,000 Nortel patents and patent applications, said the people, who couldn't be identified because the plans aren't public. A group of technology companies, including mobile-phone makers, may also bid on the patents to stop Google, two people said. RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is considering joining the group, one person said. Nortel's patents would allow buyers to control and license technology used in BlackBerrys, Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and devices that run on Google's Android operating system."

"So why do all these American reporters, who know quite well that they get praise and money for doing what Assange has done, stand in a silence that can only be called cowardly, while a fellow publisher faces threats of extradition, banning, prosecution for spying - which can incur the death penalty - and calls for his assassination? U.S. journalism's business model is collapsing; the people who should be out in front defending Assange are facing cut salaries or unemployment because of the medium that Assange represents. These journalists are not willing to concede that Assange is, of course, a publisher, rather than some sort of hybrid terrorist blogger, because of their self-interested prejudices against a medium in which they are not the gatekeepers." Great article - focussing on the US, but just as applicable in the rest of the world (except the great nation of Iceland, obviously). The internet could very well become the single most important 'invention' in human history. We must stand guard against our governments getting their filthy, inefficient, censoring, controlling, and damaging hands on it.

InfoWorld has released its list of the top 20 IT tools of 2010, based on extensive testing from its Test Center analysts. From IDEs, to virtualized desktop infrastructure kits, to parallel-processing CPUs, to mobile platforms, and workstations, 2010's best hardware and software products belie a distinctive shift in IT, one in which conflicting pulls on computing platforms are "drawing them to the far ends of the spectrum: more applications and services being delivered from virtual servers and large clouds, while on the other end, ever-smaller client endpoints taking a larger role in business and in the daily lives of consumers. Systems near the midpoint - workstations, desktops, and laptops - are becoming page two news, whereas they used to represent the key cradles of innovation."