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Report: Microsoft to randomize Europe's browser screen choices
The fact that "A" is for "Apple" was apparently at the heart of browser vendor objections to Microsoft's alternative to listing IE first.
Acer eclipses Dell for #2 spot in global PC shipments, says iSuppli data
It literally does look like a 360-degree turnaround in Dell's fortunes, as the bells of bad tidings now toll solely for Dell.
Microsoft, don't hang up on Windows Mobile, but do call for help
Only a Manhattan Project can save Microsoft's phone strategy now.
See ya later, WinMo: Microsoft's mobile strategy needs a reboot
Carmi Levy | Wide Angle Zoom: Hands up if you're considering upgrading to a Windows phone for the holidays...Anybody?
Playing catch-up in 2010: Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian
Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia are each working on improved mobile operating systems. But could these efforts add up to too little, too late?
Will Nokia's plans further alienate American consumers?
A look at Nokia's plans for the coming years does little to shine up the company's increasingly dull image.
Bing bonked by service outage Thursday, Microsoft configured the wrong server
It's always nice to have a backup, but it's even nicer to remember which one is the backup. That's the lesson Bing's admins learned yesterday evening.
Survey reveals there are more women then men, including on social networks
If you think you can market your products and services online as though you're selling car batteries in the middle of halftime, think again. And again.
Android team updates 'Donut' and 'Eclair' SDKs
The Android SDK includes components which optimize app development for each version of the mobile operating system. Today, the 1.6 and 2.0 components got updates.
The Black Screen Syndrome, or, Tech news in search of the apocalypse
Scott Fulton On Point: This is a story about something that should not have been a story, about something that at one time was a story.
Online advertising evolves away from display, toward interactive software
Marketing departments and agencies are increasingly establishing positions for "creative technologists" who can steer designers and developers toward platforms that enable direct connections with consumers.
Report: Microsoft to randomize Europe's browser screen choices
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 4, 2009, 4:57 PM
37 Comments
The New York Times has cited an unidentified source said to have knowledge of Microsoft's ongoing negotiations with the European Commission, as saying that the company will comply with a suggestion made by three of its chief rivals in the Web browser business -- Mozilla, Google, and Opera. Specifically, the report says, future editions of Windows 7 for European customers will randomize the order in which users' choices for default Web browsers will appear during setup.
You'll notice that Apple was not listed among those making the suggestion, and that may be because Microsoft's revised plan in order that Internet Explorer would not be listed first, would have alphabetized the list by manufacturer's name, placing Apple Safari first instead.
Continue reading Report: Microsoft to randomize Europe's browser screen choices...
Bing bonked by service outage Thursday, Microsoft configured the wrong server
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 4, 2009, 1:16 PM
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For about 40 minutes starting at approximately 9:30 pm EST Thursday evening, by Betanews estimates, the main page of Microsoft's Bing Web site was inaccessible to users. In its place was a message filled with hexadecimal code, leading off with the message, "This isn't the page you wanted!"
No kidding. But was Bing being hijacked? As Microsoft acknowledged this morning, its own administrators were responsible for the outage.
Continue reading Bing bonked by service outage Thursday, Microsoft configured the wrong server...
Acer eclipses Dell for #2 spot in global PC shipments, says iSuppli data
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 4, 2009, 12:12 PM
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At the rate at which Acer (which now also includes Gateway, Packard Bell, and e-Machines) was catching up with Dell, analysts predicted at this time last year that it could conceivably top Dell in units shipped worldwide by the third quarter of 2009. For once in this wacky economy, the analysts' predictions turned out to be correct: Acer is now the world's #2 PC producer in terms of units shipped, according to iSuppli.
But Acer is not catching up to Hewlett-Packard too fast, in any other regard besides placement on the list. HP's market share continues its strong rise, as the entire PC market enjoyed a nice recovery last month...and Dell shared in absolutely none of it.
Continue reading Acer eclipses Dell for #2 spot in global PC shipments, says iSuppli data...
The Black Screen Syndrome, or, Tech news in search of the apocalypse
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 3, 2009, 4:29 PM
23 Comments
Was the "Black Screen of Death" issue (KSoD) covered by Betanews earlier this week a real story? This is a serious question, especially in the wake of security firm Prevx's admission that it was very premature in its conclusions that KSoD incidents had been triggered by last month's round of Patch Tuesday updates.
Let's discuss this rationally. Although it does not appear to be an exploitable security problem by malicious users, and we have reason to believe it cannot become one, the KSoD problem (differentiated from BSoD, the "Blue Screen of Death," something else entirely) is a strange symptom that has cropped up on some machines over the years -- in our experience, some Vista-based systems. Some. It is a significant enough problem that when Betanews encountered it first-hand last June, and I discovered a way for users to fish themselves out from being stuck with it (without installing any new software), I wrote about it and presented a solution that, at least, worked for me.
Continue reading The Black Screen Syndrome, or, Tech news in search of the apocalypse...
Comcast deal for NBC Universal is about content, not broadband
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 3, 2009, 11:20 AM
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After this morning, there should be no question in anyone's minds whatsoever as to what Comcast's deal with General Electric for control of NBC Universal is about: NBCU is a huge producer of cable TV content, and Comcast would like to be the parent company of that producer. The deal isn't so much about Hulu, or new media, or creating some walled garden around content distribution, as many would have believed and expected.
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts made this fact pretty clear during Comcast's investor earnings call this morning: This is not a technology deal. Comcast, the pipeline company, is already making deals in the technology side, including providing 10% of the operating capital of Clearwire. The pipeline company is going ahead with its plans to produce its own Web-based on-demand distribution network, which Broadcasting & Cable has learned will be called Xfinity. (Comcast must have used the same consultant Sprint used to come up with "Xohm.") And in response to direct questions today as to whether Comcast's indirect acquisition of NBCU's stake in video service Hulu would change Comcast's plans for deploying "TV Everywhere," Comcast COO Stephen Burke responded that he believed NBC's restraint in releasing its own content to Hulu was "smart," and that Comcast would let NBC continue in that regard.
Continue reading Comcast deal for NBC Universal is about content, not broadband...
Mark Russinovich on MinWin, the new core of Windows
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 2, 2009, 5:27 PM
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Since the first public news of Windows 7's development back on October 2007, we've heard about a component of the operating system called MinWin -- a tantalizingly titled element that sounds like some kind of portable Windows kernel. Now Windows 7 is actually residing on paying consumers' desktops, and inside of it -- and inside of Windows Server 2008 R2 -- is the MinWin kernel architecture...and yet few have been made clear as to what it actually is.
A few weeks ago in Los Angeles, Microsoft technical fellow Mark Russinovich -- absolutely the world's leading authority on Windows performance and architecture -- took time to explain to developers attending PDC 2009 in Los Angeles exactly what this is. In summary, it's a way to graft onto Windows some semblance of the architectural layering it should have had, if its architects in the 1980s had any foresight into how Windows would be used thirty years later. It enables current and future Microsoft developers to evolve new configurations of the operating system, without having to rewrite core services or worry about breaking dependencies between those services and upper-level APIs.
Continue reading Mark Russinovich on MinWin, the new core of Windows...
Google begrudgingly adjusts news crawling for paid publishers
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 2, 2009, 12:27 PM
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With a group of blog posts this morning, one of which literally said paid content was probably not a good idea anyway, Google announced it was making an adjustment to its First Click Free aggregation scheme for news publishers. The adjustment to the service, first rolled out in 2007, will now enable readers to sample more content before subscribing through the publisher's own portal.
"While we're happy to see that a number of publishers are already using First Click Free, we've found that some who might try it are worried about people abusing the spirit of First Click Free to access almost all of their content," reads this morning's post to Google's Webmaster Central blog. "As most users are generally happy to be able to access just a few pages from these premium content providers, we've decided to allow publishers to limit the number of accesses under the First Click Free policy to five free accesses per user each day."
Continue reading Google begrudgingly adjusts news crawling for paid publishers...
Fee or free? Murdoch, Huffington square off over the cost of Internet news
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 2, 2009, 11:13 AM
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The problem remains: How can a business be profitable at producing news for the Internet audience when the principal method for ensuring that the news is visible to that audience, is a free system? The US Federal Trade Commission could not have chosen two more appropriate representatives of the opposite poles of this issue than News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch and mega-blog editor Arianna Huffington, to head its public workshop in Washington yesterday on the subject of the future of the online news industry.
In one corner stood the world's largest producer of financial news, currently afflicted with the problem of its core product becoming publicly disseminated in a manner that bypasses its mechanism for charging for it. In the other corner is arguably the Web's most successful blog publisher, who argues that the free Web is merely the new, permanent reality, and that the long-term solution to the profitability problem is to empower "citizen journalists" with the impetus to produce original journalism for little or no compensation.
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Security firm: Windows patches not responsible for 'Black Screen of Death'
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 1, 2009, 9:49 PM
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When Betanews reported last June about occurrences of the infamous "Black Screen of Death" (KSoD) in Windows Vista, a reader wrote to suggest to us that we might have only considered the matter so important this late in the game because suddenly it happened to us. A similar opinion may be appropriate for British security firm Prevx, which now says it has "exonerated" last month's set of Patch Tuesday updates from Microsoft as the cause of what it called last night a "crop" of KSoD incidents.
Early Tuesday evening, Prevx director of malware research Jacques Erasmus reported on his company's blog that he and his team have made "significant progress in determining specific triggers of the black screen event." Specifically, it determined that a side-effect accidentally discovered over three years ago by none other than SysInternals' Mark Russinovich (now with Microsoft), led to instances where Windows' product activation inadvertently triggered the black screen. When a System Registry entry of String type is supposed to be terminated by a null character (0) but isn't, the result is that the entry itself may disappear from REGEDIT, Windows' well-known Registry Editor. Such an entry may also trigger KSoD conditions.
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Apple settles with Psystar except for 'circumvention devices'
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 1, 2009, 1:47 PM
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It would appear that Apple Inc. and Mac clone maker Psystar were on the way to a complete settlement that would have been announced today, but for one small hitch: Psystar wants to continue selling a $49.99 software package called Rebel EFI, which claims to enable the installation of "every operating system" on an Intel-based computer. However, it's clear from the product's Snow Leopard skin exactly which OS it's really referring to.
Just when this whole conflict might have ended, Apple referred to this piece of software in its request for a permanent injunction against Psystar last week, calling it a "circumvention device." In fact, the company came dangerously close to suggesting that it was this device, not the Psystar Open computer itself, that was the infringing element -- a suggestion that, if the judge had agreed with it, might have ended up endangering a big money award for Apple.
Continue reading Apple settles with Psystar except for 'circumvention devices'...
Microsoft denies latest 'Black Screen of Death' claims
By Scott M. Fulton, III on December 1, 2009, 12:34 PM
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A spokesperson for Microsoft told Betanews early this afternoon that it has officially investigated claims that its latest security updates are the cause of an alleged "crop" of "Black Screen of Death" incidents, for which British security firm Prevx hurriedly released something billed as a possible fix. The claims, the company says, are unfounded.
"Microsoft has investigated reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers due to changes made by the security updates to the registry," the spokesperson told us. "Our comprehensive investigation has shown that the November security updates, the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool, and the non-security updates we released through Windows Update in November do not make any changes to the registry as claimed. We do not believe Microsoft Updates are related to the behavior described in these reports."
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Latest Firefox 3.6 beta fixes 133 bugs, promises faster page load times
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 30, 2009, 7:39 PM
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Download Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Beta 4 for Windows from Fileforum now.
As Web users anticipate data from NetApplications and other services that could show Mozilla Firefox having eclipsed the 25% mark in global usage share for the month of November, the beta process for Firefox 3.6 has found an extra gear. Demonstrating that more user input can result in a faster turnover process for developers' builds, rather than the slower process some commercial software producers claim, the latest Beta 4 release addresses some 133 significant bugs, many uncovered by regular testers.
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Confirmed: Office 2010 to ship in June
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 30, 2009, 4:30 PM
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After several Web sites today claimed to having seen a possibly inadvertent notice from Microsoft claiming June as the release month for its forthcoming Office 2010 (we looked hard and couldn't find it ourselves), a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that June is indeed the ship month.
The news comes two weeks after the company's PDC 2009 conference in Los Angeles, where we had expected not only to see the final shipping date but to hear a lot more about Office and Office Web Apps. What was on many attendees minds even after leaving the last day of the show was, what will make Office 2010 worth the upgrade, and what will not be in Office Web Apps that will be in Office 2010? In an interview during the conference, company communications senior director Janice Kapner told Betanews that to some extent, the answers to those questions are still being determined by users.
New EU antitrust commissioner will oversee Microsoft, Oracle+Sun, Intel issues
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 30, 2009, 3:55 PM
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The final word over whether the European Commission has accepted, and is willing to oversee the deployment of, a new "ballot screen" that gives Microsoft Windows users the choice of Internet Explorer or a competitive browser, may not be given by Neelie Kroes after all. Despite her prominent role as the European Commissioner for Competition, often siding against the United States with respect to Microsoft and other issues, Comm. Kroes will be swapping roles with her fellow Commissioners next month, as her term in the antitrust oversight role expires in January.
To replace Kroes, EC President José Manuel Barroso has chosen Joachín Almunia, currently the continent's Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs -- essentially its finance minister. Almunia is well-known throughout Europe, and especially in his native Spain, where he distinguished himself as the Socialist party candidate for Prime Minister in 2000. He's perceived as a trusted associate of Barroso, although his executive authority will be ceded somewhat to a new executive branch of government, by virtue of the recent ratification of the new Lisbon Treaty.
Continue reading New EU antitrust commissioner will oversee Microsoft, Oracle+Sun, Intel issues...
Apple invokes DMCA, claims Psystar is 'trafficking in circumvention devices'
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 30, 2009, 12:22 PM
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One of the reasons Apple Inc. has been the most venerable opponent a courtroom defendant may face, is because of a significant trump card the US Supreme Court handed it in 1983. In a landmark case that rendered "Apple II clones" effectively illegal, the high court established a unique precedent for determining liability and damages in software copyright cases. It assumed that since any legitimate US company is capable of performing legitimate business, the possible damage a defendant might suffer from an injunction against possibly infringing software is outweighed by the simple declaration that such business is illegitimate.
So it was that, with amplification supplied by a citation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Apple invoked its own case law -- citing Apple v. Franklin -- in arguments in recently revealed court papers that Psystar should be permanently enjoined from selling "Mac OS X clones." The specific passage is this: "Where the only hardship that the defendant will suffer is lost profits from an activity which has been shown likely to be infringing, such an argument in defense merits little equitable consideration."
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Microsoft 'worked with Apple' for Silverlight on iPhone, says Goldfarb
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 25, 2009, 4:37 PM
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It was an impressive demonstration, once they got it working: H.264 video streaming wirelessly (and slowly, at least during the caching sequence) using Microsoft's Silverlight video streaming, to an Apple iPhone. It's all the more impressive when you realize that Flash video still has not made its way (permanently) to the iPhone, not for any technical reasons we know of...simply because Apple wants to control the video channel for streaming media to its devices.
And yet here it is, a Microsoft stream. You'd think Apple would have stood firm against Microsoft at least as aggressively as it has against Adobe, if not more so. How did this happen? We asked Microsoft User Experience Platform Manager Brian Goldfarb last week at PDC 2009, and the answer was a huge surprise...followed by some caveats. But it contained these four amazing words: "We worked with Apple."
Continue reading Microsoft 'worked with Apple' for Silverlight on iPhone, says Goldfarb...
Microsoft's Ray Ozzie: 'Nobody's going to be 100% open'
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 25, 2009, 2:52 PM
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Over the last five years, Microsoft has undergone a gradual, but significant, shift in its public image, a shift toward interoperability and a willingness to play more fairly in competitive markets. At the same time, it remains a commercial software producer committed to the protection of its proprietary intellectual property.
Openness, as CEO Steve Ballmer explained to his company's Worldwide Partner Conference in July 2008, should not imply free. "Open source also implies free -- free is inconsistent with paying for lunches at the partner conference," he told attendees at the time.
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A case study in improving software: What Office 2010 can learn from Notion 3
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 25, 2009, 12:08 PM
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Download a 14-day trial of Notion 3 music composer, plus 10-day trials of IK Multimedia plug-ins, from Fileforum now.
On the surface, this is a review of a music composition product entitled Notion 3, from Notion Software, priced at $249 suggested retail, born out of the original VirtuosoWorks product produced in 2005 by music professor Dr. Jack Jarrett, and which produces realistic orchestral sound from precisely notated sheet music on a standard Windows-based PC or Mac. But if you've never composed music before, and even if you don't plan on doing so in the future, I urge you to read on anyway, because this is about the business that we are all engaged in.
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Will Firefox beat IE9 to Direct2D rendering?
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 24, 2009, 12:47 PM
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It was a principal element of the Day 2 keynote at Microsoft's PDC 2009 conference last week in Los Angeles: an early demonstration of code being worked into Internet Explorer 9 that replaces the browser's outdated reliance upon the (very) old GDI rendering library, with new code utilizing Direct2D -- a library that borrows processing power from the GPU. But with the project only having begun last October, it could still be several months before Microsoft creates still more features to make IE9 worthy of a point-release.
By that time, Mozilla could very well have absorbed Direct2D capability into Firefox, if it accepts the contribution of engineer Bas Schouten. By modifying a recent daily build of the organization's "Minefield" track for Firefox 3.7 Alpha 1 for Windows, Shouten was able to graft Direct2D support onto the browser, which also usually relies on the old GDI library. The results were Web pages that were as instantaneous to the eyes as the demos we saw of Direct2D rendering on IE9 test code last week.
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Microsoft's Bob Muglia and Ray Ozzie on Silverlight vs. standards
By Scott M. Fulton, III on November 23, 2009, 4:43 PM
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Last week at Microsoft's Professional Developers' Conference, Betanews had the honor of being invited to join a small cadre of reporters -- including noted blogger Long Zheng; TechCrunch's Steve Gillmor; and our good friend from SD Times and Technologizer, David Worthington -- for a luncheon with Microsoft's President of Server and Tools, Bob Muglia; and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie. There, we discussed a handful of topics -- some of their comments were candid and off the record, and some were for the record.
The first issue on our plate Tuesday afternoon concerned Silverlight, and Microsoft's continuing efforts to entice developers to build Web sites around a platform that is not considered a "standard," and perhaps never will be. Some developers discount Adobe Flash as a "standard" for the same reason; while others suggest that Flash's ubiquity renders it a de facto standard. The questions for Web developers have centered around whether they can afford to evolve any portion of their forward-facing online assets around a proprietary standard (around Silverlight) and still have it be on "the Web," whose values are based around platform neutrality. Those questions do seem a bit more pronounced for Microsoft than for other platform developers. But how should Microsoft handle the delicate issue of developing for a platform that's "ours" versus one that is "yours?" (And what's the difference really?)
Continue reading Microsoft's Bob Muglia and Ray Ozzie on Silverlight vs. standards...