Archive for September, 2009
Report: Rivals eye Microsoft’s former Linux patents
September 8th, 2009 | 
Author: Microsoft has at times alleged patent infringement in its attempts to stifle certain Linux-based applications. But one group is hoping to fight back by using Microsoft’s own former patents.
The Open Invention Network (OIN), a group made up of Microsoft competitors and Linux advocates,said it’s close an agreement to buy 22 patents that Microsoft sold to another organization earlier this year. According to Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, the patents may relate to Linux.
The OIN believes that getting these patents is critical to protecting Linux developers from costly lawsuits, according to the Journal. The concern is that otherwise the patents could be grabbed by patent trolls, which will then try to make money from patent-infringement lawsuits.
The group that currently owns the patents, Allied Security Trust, buys them to protect its members from lawsuits. Composed of such companies as Google, Hewlett-Packard, Verizon Communications, and Cisco Systems, Allied Security Trust bought the patents in a private auction held by Microsoft. The Journal reports that Microsoft presented the patents to potential bidders as relating to Linux.
Microsoft has said that it holds more than 50,000 patents, according to the Journal, and that it believes 200 of those are violated by Linux applications.
Over the past few years, Microsoft has signed deals with several open-source companies in which they pay Microsoft money to protect themselves from intellectual property claims.
The OIN’s goal is to promote and protect Linux by using patents that allow for free and open collaboration. The group says its patents are available to any company or individual that agrees not to assert those patents against Linux. The idea is to help developers use Linux without having to worry about violating existing patents.
The OIN is trying to use such cases as the recent lawsuit between Microsoft and GPS-maker Tom Tom to prevent similar actions against Linux-based apps. Although Tom Tom settled with Microsoft, the OIN is concerned that the case may establish a precedent.
Started in 2005, the OIN counts among its members IBM, Sony, and Red Hat. Over the years, other powerhouses have joined, including Oracle, Google, and most recently Tom Tom.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10346439-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Google Android: Mobile open source has finally arrived
Open source, despite its community roots, often doesn’t become mainstream until corporations get involved. There are notable exceptions–Mozilla Firefox and the Apache Web server being just two–but often it is corporate self-interest that provides the mechanism to deliver the value of community-developed open source to a mainstream audience.
While the mobile market remains highly fragmented, therefore, I take it as a very encouraging sign that Google has thrown its considerable heft behind Android, its open-source mobile operating platform.
Sure, we’ve had mobile open-source companies for years. I was part of one of the first: Lineo, an embedded Linux vendor that distributed an optimized Linux distribution for PDAs like the Sharp Zaurus. More recently, Funambol has proved popular as a mobile application server, specializing in synchronization technology.
But just as Linux’s big moment on the server came with IBM’s $1 billion commitment to fund its development and marketing, so, too, will the mobile open-source market come into its own with Google Android.
Android has recently pulled ahead of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, according to data from AdMob, hitting a global 5 percent market share (in terms of access to mobile ads, not units shipped), while continuing to grow 25 percent month over month.
While Microsoft dominates on the desktop, with even its not-yet-released Windows 7 beating Linux, according to W3C data, Linux, and increasingly Google’s Android flavor of Linux, is making a big push on smartphones.
To fuel this, Google has been upping its commitment to developers, most recently with an upgrade to its Android Market, but also pushing its handsets into an ever-widening array of handset manufacturers and wireless carriers, most recently Sprint.
I’ve suggested that the only way to beat Apple’s iPhone is with a big commitment of resources. Google appears to be doing this, but in an intelligent way: it is trying to attract a wide community of developers to share the burden of beating the iPhone.
InfoWorld’s Neil McAllister thinks it’s not working, but I’m more sanguine. So long as Google invests marketing and development resources to Android, the open-source operating platform has a good chance.
And, importantly, so long as Google remains committed to mobile, there’s a very good opportunity for other mobile open-source players to draft on its momentum. An entire open-source industry has grown up in the shadow of IBM’s original $1 billion commitment to Linux.
The same can happen in mobile, and this time it will be Google’s turn to lead.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10346387-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in Android, Google, Open source | 
Tags: Android, Apache webserver, FireFox, Google, Linux, Open source, Windows Mobile | 
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Peripherals that changed gaming
This week marks the latest release in the Rock Band series (see our hands-on). It features one of the biggest names in music–The Beatles. It also features pack-in instruments that continue to look more and more like their real-life counterparts.
Rock Band was definitely not the first video game to necessitate special hardware, nor will it be the last. Below we’ve put together a list of some of the most innovative peripherals and hardware that have helped change the way we play games. Some went on to become big, while others failed or were martyrs to future incarnations that proved successful.
In creating this roundup, one thing became clear: Nintendo’s made great efforts to bring new ideas to the table every few years. And in that process, the Wii has proven to be one of the company’s great successes. But there were also failures along the way. Those, along with winners from Nintendo’s competitors and third parties, are all chronicled.
Disclaimer: This list is, of course, neither completely comprehensive nor as far reaching as it could be, but (we think) it does a pretty good job at painting a picture of how far gaming peripherals have come. Feel free to add your own favorites, or ones we missed in the comments.
To make better biofuels, researchers add hydrogen
Research on nuclear energy and hydrogen has yielded what backers say is a technology that could replace U.S. oil imports with biofuels made from agricultural by-products.
Scientists at Idaho National Laboratory have been working for the past year and a half on a process to convert biomass, such straw or crop residue, into liquid fuels at a far higher efficiency than existing cellulosic ethanol technologies.
A scarce resource for fuel?
(Credit: Idaho National Laboratory)
Rather than one single development, the technology–named bio-syntrolysis–ties together multiple processes, but it has electrolysis, or splitting water to make hydrogen, at is starting point. When combined with a carbon-free electricity source, the approach could deliver a carbon-neutral biofuel, according to models done at INL which has done research for decades in nuclear energy.
Bio-syntrolysis is one of a dizzying number of technologies being developed with the hopes of replacing gasoline, although none have successfully been done at scale. Researchers at INL recognize there remain technical barriers, but its recent computer models show that the technique has better potential than today’s biofuel processes.
The key advantage is that bio-syntrolysis would extract far more energy from available biomass than existing methods, said research engineer Grant Hawkes. Using traditional ethanol-making techniques, about 35 percent of the carbon from wood chips or agricultural residue ends up in the liquid fuel. By contrast, the bio-syntrolysis method would convert more than 90 percent of that carbon into a fuel, he said.
Full story :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10344817-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Intel’s new Core i7, Core i5 desktop chips bring faster CPUs to the maintream
Intel put itself far ahead of AMD technically last year with its Core i7 desktop CPUs, but the high-end prices for the Core i7 900-series made Intel’s most advanced chip architecture more of a luxury than an industry standard. Monday’s announcement of Intel’s new, more affordable Core i7 800-series chips, as well as an even cheaper Core i5 CPU, will likely lead to Intel’s most advanced chip penetrating the mainstream retail market.
Intel has three new chips to announce, as well as the new Intel P55 Express motherboard chipset to support them. The new Core i7’s include the $562 2.93GHz Core i7 870, the $284 Core i7 860 at 2.8GHz, as well as the $196 2.6GHz Core i5 750 chip. Each is essentially a stripped-down version of its counterpart from the Core i7 900-series, the most affordable of which, the 2.66GHz Core i7 920, starts at about $280.
Full story :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10345053-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20