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It wasn't too long ago that RIM managed to crawl out of a hole by filing frivolous lawsuits for patent infringement. Remember when they filed suit against Handspring over the elliptical shape of the buttons on the keyboard? They justified it by saying they 'invested substantial research and development and marketing effort' into the design and it wasn't fair that Handspring should be able to reap the rewards of their hard work. A fucking keyboard. I hate to see another stupid patent lawsuit, but I have a hard time being sympathetic to their cause. As far as I'm concerned this is poetic justice.

You may want to use a "controlled" browser. Ie, one with "parental" protections built in so the teens don't go porning up the church atmosphere too much.

Apple: You are SOOOO close on this.

However, I don't *want* to stream iTunes (AirTunes ... whatever). I want to stream whatever would be coming out of my audio port. I want to sit on my couch, put in a DVD, and watch and hear a movie without wires everywhere.

Can *any* device do this without a TV? I found this DVD player, but it's not what I'm looking for, either.

WinKey.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5227102.html:

In addition to the NX work, Intel this year released prototype wireless network support--albeit nearly a year after full-fledged support was available in Windows.

Don't they mean that Linux had new wireless network support this year? Or was Intel the wireless support contributor for Linux? Either way I think the sentence is in error. Though I'm probably just being pendantic for raising it.

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VPS Hosting

ZDNet has had a nice video interview for the past few days. Check it out.

The movie studios have been in search of a new DVD encryption scheme since the industry standard, known as CSS, was cracked by Linux programmers in 1999. The recording industry, meanwhile, was stymied last year in its bid to create a music copy protection system when academic researchers defeated a proposed watermarking standard.

here. Not about Linux per se but I'm suprised ADTI hasn't picked up on it and tried to use it to bolster their case.

Damn those Linux programmers, if we just had Windows virus/worm writers to worry about, the world would be a much safer place.

See Intel's Personal Server concept for more information. The bottom line is that we'll all likely being carrying around a replica of our data and operating environment and, like in Soviet Russia, a "dumb terminal" will LOG ONTO YOU. It won't matter what PC you are sitting at - it will look and feel just like your own.

"Despite urging from competitors and open source advocates, Sun Microsystems Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., will not open the source to its Java programming language anytime soon, said Sun CEO Scott McNealy during a news conference at the 2004 FOSE conference. "We're trying to understand what problem does it solve that is not already solved," McNealy said."

If I didn't know better, it would seem that Sun is flailing pretty badly at this point.

In this article in which they promise opening up Solaris, They say:

"Look, you only need to look at what we've done with Java to understand how Sun views the value of incorporating community feedback," he said. "Java could not exist if only Sun is supporting it. It exists because there are hundreds and thousands of partners. We need to now take the model with Java and bring it to Solaris."

The uninformed on-lookers will only see the statement "Sun warms to open-source for Solaris" which gives them more points.

Next concerning Java, a few months ago they said,

"Schwartz also noted that people who stick to Sun's licensing terms and maintain compatibility with Sun standards can have access to the Java source code. Changing the licensing to an open-source model would encourage different implementations, he said."

Now they are saying:

"We haven't worked out how to open-source Java -- but at some point it will happen," Srinivas said. However, he noted "it might be today, tomorrow or two years down the road".

Again, the uninformed on-lookers will only see the statement "Sun to open-source Java" which gives them more points.
Summary: They promised to make Solaris become like Java, meanwhile they don't know if at all Java will be open-sourced in this lifetime.

This is what is called hybrid-source: A vapor version of open-source meant only to gain favor with the open-source community and the business world without any active steps or concrete plans to put it in effect.

In this article in which they promise opening up Solaris, They say:

"Look, you only need to look at what we've done with Java to understand how Sun views the value of incorporating community feedback," he said. "Java could not exist if only Sun is supporting it. It exists because there are hundreds and thousands of partners. We need to now take the model with Java and bring it to Solaris."

The uninformed on-lookers will only see the statement "Sun warms to open-source for Solaris" which gives them more points.

Next concerning Java, a few months ago they said,

"Schwartz also noted that people who stick to Sun's licensing terms and maintain compatibility with Sun standards can have access to the Java source code. Changing the licensing to an open-source model would encourage different implementations, he said."

Now they are saying:

"We haven't worked out how to open-source Java -- but at some point it will happen," Srinivas said. However, he noted "it might be today, tomorrow or two years down the road".

Again, the uninformed on-lookers will only see the statement "Sun to open-source Java" which gives them more points.
Summary: They promised to make Solaris become like Java, meanwhile they don't know if at all Java will be open-sourced in this lifetime.

This is what is called hybrid-source: A vapor version of open-source meant only to gain favor with the open-source community and the business world without any active steps or concrete plans to put it in effect.

Survey says... people don't like DRM.

2002 Lawsuit againts SunnComm

Good discussion on DRM
The problem with trying to protect information with technology is that it has been shown repeatedly not to work. It only takes one person to crack the protection, and a million people can get a digital copy of the cracked work in days. During DEFCON, a digital security conference held in America last year, a Russian programmer called Dmitry Sklyarov illustrated this by showing how easy it was to circumvent the protection on Adobe's "E-Books". For this service to the public and to Adobe he was arrested and tried by the FBI, under the provision of the DMCA, the American version of the EUCD already part of US law since 1998.

Obviously, the same problem exists with the technology Macrovision & SunnComm are currently proposing. It just takes one person to create a DRM-less digital copy & post it on the latest P2P network...

More information is in a similar article over at News.com.

They mention that proprietary BIOS's is one of the key obstacles to implementing proper power management (ie hibernation) under Linux.

- Neil Wehneman

You might not know what you are talking about here. I personally own the NZ-90 -- I picked it up on a super sale, open box discount, rebate, etc. etc. I was going to buy a digital camera that day -- I was prepared to spend over $200 for just a camera but I picked up an NZ-90 for $199. GREAT 2 megapixel camera that takes some amazing pictures. Audio recorder. MP3 player. Brilliant 320x480 screen. The pivoting thing actually makes a lot of sense depending on if you are viewing data or using the PDA to take pictures and the mechanism is amazingly sturdy.

If I have a complaint about my NZ-90, it is how sturdy the thing is. It is a BRICK, weighing in at just over 10 oz. Sony managed to pack a TON of features into a very small space. But I love it. And FLIMSY it is not... I use it to read books, take pictures, play MP3s, record video journals, capture audio in meetings... Pocket Quicken and Datebk5 make me look like I am actually organized. Mapopolis is incredible for getting around Minneapolis (and the 320x480 resolution is VERY welcome with maps!). I can review any document file in its native (PDF, DOC, XLS) format. And, of course, the games....

Sorry but not everyone on Slashdot is too cool to let "Sony = bad" groupthink get in the way of appreciating a really great piece of hardware...

There was an interesting opinion on this issue at CNet news.com.com.com a while back here

The hardware guys say that all software will be free, and the software guys say that one day all hardware will be free.

That isn't surprising. Both sides probably trivalize the aspects of the other side's creation (firmware guys are probably just skitzo and telling themselves they are useless, period.)

Both sides need to realize that their counterparts create important, value-added things that are complicated. A software OS developer can't develop a good CPU (and needs one!) and a hardware designer can't code a great OS (but needs one for his chip!)

Both sides are needed. Intel's CEO had a great interview on ZDNet today, and he basically seems to "get it."

Maybe because the Audiovox Thera has had terrible reviews for its phone functionality. It's a standard PocketPC case with the microphone above the screen and the speaker in the corner below it. To speak on it you have to turn it upside down AND lower the speaker volume so you can hold it against your ear. I suppose if you wanted a connected PDA more than a PDA smartphone, it works for you. I thought about it for a minute when I saw them on sale at Compgeeks for $150, but I really need something that works better as a phone.

Well, if they hadn't removed the Bluetooth from the TH-55, I'd have bought one. *sigh*

Once again, people seem to be forgetting that Sony doesn't cater to the "one percenters" here on slashdot. The fact of the matter is that Sony probably put a lot of money into researching this decision. I bet that they've found that most of the market will be going into PDA phones and the like.

If you haven't worked in an enterprise environment, then you haven't witnessed the dominance of Blackberries as of late. This is the future. Combined with Intel's upcoming personal server, people will have a "local replica" of all of their data to take with them. As they say in Soviet Russia, "the PC will log onto YOU". It won't matter if it isn't your PC - as long as it is "digital briefcase" compliant, it will wirelessly recognize your personal server and give you the option to log into your data set.

Nice!

meanwhile, Windows PCs are shipping at the rate of 10 million a month with IE 6 as the default: Windows XP Sales on the Upswing.

is not going to be released until 2006. In the meantime any professional web designer worth her salt is developing with standards. People like Zeldman are doing a great job of spreading the word to the design community. Web designers and developers are on the front lines of this war - not the consumer. It doesn't matter how many of your moms are using FireFox, if her bank site only works with IE then she she will only use IE. It is up to the designer/developer, if we want a standards based infrastructure then we have to impress upon our clients how using standards will save them money and improve their ability to communicate with their clients. We then have to have the discipline and the knowledge to build our web based applications to conform to those standards and to avoid Microsoft only features. If we can accomplish this, then Microsoft will have no choice but to create a browser that conforms.

I don't understand this beta nonsense. Once it's launched, it's launched I'd say. It's fine that Google labels GMail as beta since it's relatively closed at the moment and hasn't had a "proper" launch yet.

Google News, on the other hand, might as well use a stupid animated "Under Construction" gif for their pages, since it seems to be in perpetual beta. The service launched (ie. left the Google Labs) all the way back in September, 2002 !

Funny you should mention that. IBM released the T-Rex main frame:
T-REX

Before you all continue talking about how winamp is great and all, I think you should know that the history is not so nice. Especially when Justin Frankel says "In 1997 I ported AMP (a free mp3 decoder at the time)". AMP code was free for non-commercial use, but...

Check out this and this and this.

What Frankel "forgot" to mention is that Nullsoft made money without even mentioning that they used AMP code, and only after they got sued, Nullsoft "admitted" that they used "a bit of AMP code" which just so happens that it's an important part of the decoder thingie...

So, all is well in corporate world... :|

ZDNet has an article on VoIP and Internet phones, and they review the providers as well.

If you just want another number with a different area code for receiving faxes and voicemail, consider EFax or J2/JFax you can get a free account not in your area code, and it will send all faxes and voicemails to your email address. If you pay extra, you can get the ability to send faxes over the Internet from that number, get a 1-800 number, change the number to a local one, etc.

Good luck!

ZDNet has an article on VoIP and Internet phones, and they review the providers as well.

If you just want another number with a different area code for receiving faxes and voicemail, consider EFax or J2/JFax you can get a free account not in your area code, and it will send all faxes and voicemails to your email address. If you pay extra, you can get the ability to send faxes over the Internet from that number, get a 1-800 number, change the number to a local one, etc.

Good luck!

Cheap ass $5k per box? Where you do piss you boss's money away? It's not 1998 anymore when HP could catch $50k for four times more power than a $2k PII with Linux.

With Linux, that $5k box can easily saturate your 10Gbit LAN backbone. Actually, per individual box $2k tops is probably 80% of the market. Even tungsten (see below) is built with boxes that go for around $2k, but they probably spent more than that per box on the interconnect.

On the big and powerful side, Linux's claim to fame is its significant and growing presence list of biggest irons in the world, note number four and five running Linux and Thunder's speed and estimated ranking as an indication of what the next list will look like. Now that is worth some fame.

I think he was referring to this.

Macromedia's Flash format, Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch said the company would begin soon by offering optimizations to allow Flash MX, its main set of tools for creating Flash content, to work smoothly with Wine, an emulation program that allows Windows programs to run on a Linux PC. Depending on developer interest, the next step would be to produce Linux-native versions of Flash MX and other applications

Wait a minute...with all the buzz about cables companies and DSL providers capping bandwidth and having open-ended ability to kick your butt off for basically any bandwidth using infraction (see 2.C in the terms) you don't think for a moment, do you, that these cable companies wouldn't kill this initiative? And that the RBOC's wouldn't eliminate this as an opportunity by limiting the use of their DSL lines?

Yes.
CNet and ZDnet among others.

Yes.
CNet and ZDnet among others.

Already happening....recently, New York state classified Vonage as a phone company.

A couple of links from a Google search for "microsoft powerpc chip ibm"

Microsoft to use IBM chips in next Xbox

Microsoft Partners with IBM for Xbox2

The Flash file format is open. I don't understand your point. Just because something is proprietary doesn't make it not open, or bad for that matter. There are tools out there which output Flash and are not made by Macromedia themselves. There are even open source Flash production mechanisms. Yes, Macromedia could at some point change the file format to obfuscate it, yes they could make it non-backwards-compatible, they could even decide to abandon Flash completely. That doesn't put the genie back in the bottle, and its still not making Flash a bad thing in and of itself.

But hey, United States got the biggest attention in Amnesty International Report 2004, and US produces more than half of the world's spam. You are correct, people seem to focus on irrelevant things. But compared to US, China is not the biggest to blame after all.

They're working on a Flash authoring tool called Flex that runs on Linux. The plan is to run it with Wine though, but I guess it's better than nothing. Now we just need Adobe to get with the program.

There's a much more detailed summary of the Gartner report up at com.com. The overall numbers are thus:

Total WW Q1 server revenue: $11.81 billion, +9.3% quarter-on-quarter*

That breaks down into:
Windows: $4.13 billion, +19.5%
Proprietary Unix: $4.02 billion, -2%
Mainframe: $1.7 billion, +12%
Linux: $1.02 billion, +57.3%

That leaves $.94 billion unaccounted for; I was thinking this chunk could be VMS and NSK revenues, but that makes it difficult to fit HP's 32.5% share of x86 revenues into the $.94 billion left over when you subtract it plus HP's $1.17 billion in proprietary Unix sales from HP's $3.07 billion total sales. (And that's ignoring HP's Q1 IA64 sales, which were very substantial.)

Of course all these questions are surely answered in the report itself, but I'm not gonna pay 95 bucks to find out.

*How do I know the figures in the com.com article are QoQ and not YoY? Because the Gartner summary (linked above) puts overall YoY revenue growth at 24.1%, not the 9.3% reported in the article. Which makes both the 57.3% Linux growth and the 12.5% Sun decline even more stunning.

MS has said it WILL NOT equip its next Xbox with a hard drive. They have hired on M-Systems an Israeli flash mem maker to replace the HD. Supposedly with something like this, but this flies in the face of most of the things this system is supposed to be capable of. Can they afford to give it a large enough solid state HD to work as a DVR/Tivo? Or to install and run PC games? I think not. So I guess we shall wait and see.

There are two separate rulings (although only one was by a judge). Whether both of the rulings stand is still to be determined.

In December 2003, the Copyright Board of Canada issued a decision stating that downloading copyrighted music from peer-to-peer networks is legal. This is not a court decision and not surprisingly, the Canadian Recording Industry Association disputes the decision. The board also noted that it believed uploading copyrighted works online appeared to be prohibited by law.

Fast forward to April 2004. The CRIA is in court trying to force major Canadian Internet service providers to divulge the names of suspected copyright violators. Not only did federal judge Konrad von Finckenstein deny the request but went on to rule that placing copyrighted works in a shared directory is legal, akin to the photocopiers mentioned above. The CRIA does not agree with Finckenstein and has appealed his ruling.

To buy his argument you have to believe that placing a copyrighted work in shared directory doesn't amount to distribution. "Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying," Finckenstein wrote.

In response to the ruling, Helene Scherrer, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, has promised to fix copyright law as quickly as possible. This may also push the government to ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties. According to the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access, ratifying the treaties may double the levies already imposed on blank digital media.

WHat the heck!
I previewed this post and STILL the article link doesn't show up!
Area51 re-visited!
Oh well Here it is again. (reviews-zdnet BTW.)

Charles Cooper over at CNet disagrees with you regarding Carly. See http://news.com.com/Why+dis+Fiorina%3F/2010-1042_3 -5217314.html Also see http://news.com.com/Why+Carly's+been+dissed/2009-1 081_3-5217913.html where someone else comments (in regard to the Cooper article) that Carly is gaining respect in some circles for what she has done.

I'll also note this article regarding HP profits which is also on CNet: http://news.com.com/HP+reports+profit+growth%2C+ra ises+sales+forecast/2100-1003_3-5215328.html Nothing like record profits to help the old image.

I realize Carly comes across as a bitch to some, but as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out regarding what she has done.

Charles Cooper over at CNet disagrees with you regarding Carly. See http://news.com.com/Why+dis+Fiorina%3F/2010-1042_3 -5217314.html Also see http://news.com.com/Why+Carly's+been+dissed/2009-1 081_3-5217913.html where someone else comments (in regard to the Cooper article) that Carly is gaining respect in some circles for what she has done.

I'll also note this article regarding HP profits which is also on CNet: http://news.com.com/HP+reports+profit+growth%2C+ra ises+sales+forecast/2100-1003_3-5215328.html Nothing like record profits to help the old image.

I realize Carly comes across as a bitch to some, but as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out regarding what she has done.

Charles Cooper over at CNet disagrees with you regarding Carly. See http://news.com.com/Why+dis+Fiorina%3F/2010-1042_3 -5217314.html Also see http://news.com.com/Why+Carly's+been+dissed/2009-1 081_3-5217913.html where someone else comments (in regard to the Cooper article) that Carly is gaining respect in some circles for what she has done.

I'll also note this article regarding HP profits which is also on CNet: http://news.com.com/HP+reports+profit+growth%2C+ra ises+sales+forecast/2100-1003_3-5215328.html Nothing like record profits to help the old image.

I realize Carly comes across as a bitch to some, but as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out regarding what she has done.

(IBM) also was losing market share in a number of key areas. In 1994, for instance, Compaq Computer, the first company to successfully clone the IBM PC, dethroned Big Blue as the world's largest PC maker. Part of the problem lay in the corporate culture, according to various sources. IBM prided itself on innovation and had long allowed executives and employees fairly free rein. "Think," after all, was the company's motto. IBM employees strove for the new, and often disdained using technology from outside sources.

And, by the way, according to Gerstner, IBM's savior himself, the technology which saved IBM was nothing created inhouse.

I think you don't know much about IBM's recent history, let alone the last 50 years.

(...) and the copycats got caught in a mass extinction. It's evolution on a corporate scale, baby.

Poor copyc

Why is this such a huge issue in America?. You are supposed to be the land of the free. Sharing is freedom. In Canada this isn't even an issue. Unless you physically make copies and sell them the whole piracy issue becomes moot. Our government (us) sees it the same as going to the library and photocopying a book. Sharing is one thing and piracy is DEFFINITELY another. If you want to share something with some one why should that be illegal? Another equalizer, if you like, in Canada is a surcharge that is attached to all recordable media. These taxes go directly to copyright holders. Not everything has to be a battle. Compromises can be made to ensure everyones interests are addressed without squashing their freedoms.

Peace

more info here...

Off course IBM's making money from Linux. They made back their initial investment within the first year.

How can Microsoft deny anything, when the facts speak for themselves? Opera already has MS thoroughly exposed. Microsoft making Opera look bad, and lying about Opera to the press. I'd say Bob Visse's words in the press is evidence Microsoft can hardly deny.

As for "taking the easy way out", do you really think a tiny company like Opera stands a chance in hell of getting Microsoft convicted of anything? Microsoft has billions of dollars. Opera has a few million. Microsoft would just drag this out and make Opera go bankrupt. Not to mention the fact that Opera is a Norwegian company.

Oh yeah, and Opera has all but confirmed that it was Microsoft. But still, until MS or Opera actually states this officially, we can only speculate.

And you start speculating, drawing your own misguided conclusions, and start talking about Mozilla?! Geez.

"IBM's Linux pitch is either stupid or insincere. I think it's a little bit of both. It's not a sensible strategy for IBM in the long run," Zachmann says."

I am not so sure about that. In 2001 Thomas Schenk's article compared Linux with AIX and found it wanting in terms of enterprise support. Clearly Linux has come a long way since then.

In 2003, Steve Mills, senior vice president of IBM's Software Group said Linux is the logical successor to AIX

For the customers, it sure would be nice not to have to pay AIX licensing fees.