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Kindle for Mac released: Is Amazon's e-reader moving away from hardware?
Today, Amazon announced Kindle for Mac, the latest addition to the family of free Kindle software.
Microsoft cuts and pastes an egg
Carmi Levy | Wide Angle Zoom: We've listened to our mobile customers, said Microsoft, and cut-and-paste isn't what they want? Uh-huh. Right.
Google improves Maps for Android, rolls in bonus features
The search provider has improved page listings in Maps 4.1, adding a Latitude widget and live wallpaper.
Preliminary results: IE9 tech preview performs 7.8 times better than IE8
There are indeed significant improvements made to the efficiency and processing power of Microsoft's next browser, though they're not across the board.
A tale of two "red alerts:" Which Windows warnings should you heed?
A pair of malware warnings are circulating worldwide, but after reading so many, they all seem alike. Sophos tells us to read them all more carefully.
Palm posts third quarter results: disappointing sales, more net loss
Palm may be doing better this year than it did last year, but with only 42% sellthrough for the quarter, there's plenty of room for improvement.
Nvidia admits GeForce drivers responsible for fan problems, issues updates
It's the type of driver error you see less and less frequently, but after a few video cards were smoked, Nvidia has issued what it hopes will be a fix.
Netflix axes 'friends' feature due to unpopularity
After mysteriously disappearing from the Movie Detail page on Netflix, the Friends feature is in the process of being removed.
Unboxing: TiVo Premiere
Today, Betanews is fortunate enough to have received a new TiVo Premiere, the first TiVo DVR with an HD interface.
Sprint assures that it's getting the Nexus One, too
Today, Sprint is letting everyone know that it is getting the Nexus One, but not when it will arrive or how much plans will cost.
Things to look for at CTIA: America's first 4G smartphone
According to reports, Sprint and HTC will be unveiling America's first WiMAX-capable smartphone on the Sprint 4G network next week.
China denies it's in any talks with Google, wonders why
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 8, 2010, 11:31 AM
2 Comments
After a Reuters report on Friday cited China's Industry and Information Minister, Li Yizhong, as having told an indeterminate parliamentary body that the government was in talks with Google over its claims of having been hacked in early February by a Chinese malicious source, a vice minister for the same government agency issued a statement through China's Xinhua news agency denying any negotiations have taken place at all.
The denial was covered by Reuters as a request by the ministry for more information, so that China could prosecute Google's complaint. The Xinhua report itself (not a Google English-language translation of the report) states the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's position that Google never filed a complaint in the first place.
Continue reading China denies it's in any talks with Google, wonders why...
'Hero' goes down: Microsoft cutbacks spell the end of Essential Business Server
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 5, 2010, 1:43 PM
6 Comments
Two years ago, during a private premiere event entitled "Heroes Happen Here" held at the same Nokia Theater in Los Angeles where the Emmy Awards are now staged, and introduced by none other than Tom Brokaw, Microsoft rolled out a truckload of new server software product lines to help cement the company's new prominence in businesses and enterprises. One of the "heroes" that day, as Microsoft phrased it, was Essential Business Server, an effort to market a ready-from-the-get-go three- or four-server database and mail management package for businesses that have a few dozen employees, but may not yet be enterprises.
It was a solid idea. But today it was left to EBS' own product managers to announce on their team blog this morning that Microsoft has made a decision to cancel the product. The excuse they gave was especially disheartening, as it essentially caved in to the arguments naysayers used against EBS' viability from the beginning.
Continue reading 'Hero' goes down: Microsoft cutbacks spell the end of Essential Business Server...
Did a Microsoft VP really suggest an Internet tax for cybersecurity?
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 4, 2010, 5:59 PM
11 Comments
In a keynote speech to the RSA security convention in San Francisco on Tuesday, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Trustworthy Computing Scott Charney, spoke to the issue of whether a global organization on the order of the World Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control -- a public/private cooperative -- should be established to help secure the Internet and its billions of users worldwide. During that speech, Charney tossed out a number of ideas as to how such an organization could conceivably be funded.
A transcript of Charney's comments verified by Microsoft for Betanews this afternoon indicates that he suggested such an organization could conceivably be charged with the task of empowering government regulators in member countries to impose restrictions on the behaviors of enterprises and Internet users whose policies endanger global Internet users at large.
Continue reading Did a Microsoft VP really suggest an Internet tax for cybersecurity?...
The road back to par: Radical reconstructive surgery planned for Firefox 4.0
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 4, 2010, 5:08 PM
14 Comments
In the early 2000s, Web browsers were considered by software architects to be launching platforms for other types of program interpreters, such as Java and .NET. The HTML in the Web page simply got the code going, and the network of pages a business would use to launch Web apps was considered the "intranet." But as browsers have matured (rapidly in recent months), they have become the interpreter for Web applications -- not a launching point for Java, but a proving ground for a highly evolved JavaScript.
Mozilla not only saw this trend coming, but frankly drove this trend in this direction some years ago, with the move to add just-in-time (JIT) compilation to its Firefox JavaScript interpreter. The JavaScript engine Mozilla introduced in version 3.5, dubbed TraceMonkey, borrows a concept from these language frameworks by tracing the direction of JS instructions ahead of time, catabolizing those instructions into loops, and generating a kind of intermediate code that can be very simply recompiled into machine code (assembly) at run time.
Continue reading The road back to par: Radical reconstructive surgery planned for Firefox 4.0...
Appeals court rules redesigned EchoStar box still infringes on TiVo's DVR
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 4, 2010, 1:04 PM
10 Comments
In a precedent-setting win for the company perceived as the originator of "time-shift" video recording, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has fully affirmed a lower court's judgment that satellite service provider EchoStar's software continued to infringe upon TiVo's patents even after making significant changes to address its complaints. This despite what EchoStar (whose DVR boxes are also used by former sister company Dish Network) had called "Herculean" efforts to steer clear of TiVo's intellectual property, and a preliminary US Patent Office rejection last August casting doubt on the validity of TiVo's patents.
At issue was whether EchoStar modified the software for two of its recorders, called the 50X and Broadcom series (the latter named after the supplier of its key hardware), in such a way that it didn't store video in a stream similar to TiVo's patented methodology. Last June, after a jury found in favor of TiVo on the infringement charge, a US district court slapped an injunction on EchoStar and Dish Network boxes. EchoStar did not appeal that injunction, and it may have thought it wasn't really enforced while courts jostled back and forth over possible penalties. That prompted TiVo to move the district court to find EchoStar in contempt. It did, and today the Appeals Court upheld that finding.
Continue reading Appeals court rules redesigned EchoStar box still infringes on TiVo's DVR...
$1 billion takeover bid may mean the end of Novell's makeover addiction
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 3, 2010, 5:42 PM
3 Comments
Yesterday's surprise $1 billion buyout offer for Novell from the New York-based private investment group Elliott Management came with a letter, made public yesterday, spelling out the investors' goal for the company. "Novell is a long-established company that we have followed closely for a considerable period of time," the firm wrote. "Over the past several years, the Company has attempted to diversify away from its legacy division with a series of acquisitions and changes in strategic focus that have largely been unsuccessful. As a result, we believe the Company's stock has meaningfully underperformed all relevant indices and peers."
If by "the past several years," Elliott meant "the dawn of time," it may very well have been accurate. Novell is a company that, in many people's minds, is defined by its propensity towards strategy shifts. Elliott Management's members collectively own 8.5% of Novell common stock. If their proposal ends up being approved, Novell's strategy could shift again -- this time, very dramatically. And if you can interpret their message as a signal of disappointment in Novell's inability to focus on its fundamentals, then you may see the possible result of all this: a divestiture of Novell's stake in SUSE Linux, the world's #2 Linux distribution.
Continue reading $1 billion takeover bid may mean the end of Novell's makeover addiction...
The latest European export: Who else wants a browser 'choice screen?'
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 3, 2010, 12:09 PM
24 Comments
It's only been a few days since Microsoft's rollout of the browser choice screen for European Internet Explorer users. But already, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS, not to be confused with the European Commission, a legislative body), which is credited with pressing the EC forward on the browser bundling issue, is claiming victory not just with regard to exposing users to the choice they have, but with helping to advance the developmental progress of the Web.
Now, ECIS legal counsel Thomas Vinje is calling upon other trade regulatory and legislative bodies worldwide to follow Europe's example, arguing in a statement yesterday (PDF available here) that everyone should be entitled to the same ballot.
Continue reading The latest European export: Who else wants a browser 'choice screen?'...
Apple aims to take down Android by court order
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 2, 2010, 4:07 PM
33 Comments
At the heart of Apple's very serious charges against HTC -- among the most prominent manufacturers of Android-based phones today -- is whether the methodology Android uses to run Java programs using a specialized derivative of the Java Virtual Machine, called Dalvik, actually borrowed (or stole) ideas directly from the NeXT operating system. NeXTSTEP, you may recall, included radical innovations to the system kernel enabling inter-application communication (IAC), on a level far beyond anything Macintosh had used at the time. It was Steve Jobs' revenge against the company that had spurned him, and as history has borne out, Jobs was the victor in that little skirmish.
One of the ten patents Apple is defending in its lawsuit against HTC, drafted yesterday and filed this morning in US District Court in Delaware, deals specifically with NeXT's methodology. Apple acquired NeXT at the end of 1996, which is how Jobs re-entered the universe of Apple -- many believe, to have saved the company. Earlier that year, NeXT received a patent on a framework for IAC designed to compete with COM/DCOM and CORBA, the two other leading object methodologies of the time.
Continue reading Apple aims to take down Android by court order...
The new champion: Opera's all-or-nothing bid to build the best browser
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 2, 2010, 1:18 PM
96 Comments
Download Opera 10.5 Release Version for Windows from Fileforum now.
Usually software companies have the luxury of picking their own deadlines, and typically -- especially in the case of open source or free programs -- those deadlines are allowed to slip or even lapse. But the European Commission gave Opera a solid opportunity to get back in the game, to be discussed once again in the same company as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari.
Continue reading The new champion: Opera's all-or-nothing bid to build the best browser...
Early word on EU 'choice screen:' May not be random, may not be obvious
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 1, 2010, 7:09 PM
14 Comments
As IE6 and IE7 users throughout Europe turn on their Windows Vista- and XP-based computers to notice, for the first time, the opportunity to switch Web browsers from Microsoft Internet Explorer to something they may have never heard of, their manufacturers are preparing for an influx of new customers.
But they may also be preparing to lower expectations just in case the market share numbers for Firefox or Chrome or Opera or Safari fail to swing wildly positive overnight. Last week, Mozilla launched its opentochoice.org blog, ostensibly to help spread the word about the impact the choice screen may make on European computing habits. On Friday, however, the blog posted the results of a six-country, 6,000 respondent consumer poll conducted by advertising research firm Ipsos MORI.
Continue reading Early word on EU 'choice screen:' May not be random, may not be obvious...
The mad rush to release Opera 10.5: Two months' work in one weekend?
By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 1, 2010, 1:24 PM
64 Comments
Download Opera 10.5 Release Candidate 4 for Windows from Fileforum now.
Just a handful of weeks ago, the developers of Opera 10.5 were calling their "pre-alpha" build dangerous if used to run a nuclear reactor facility. Over the weekend, in what appears to have been a round-the-clock effort to compress a few months' work into a few days' time, Opera Software ticked through four release candidates of its latest Windows-based Web browser.
Continue reading The mad rush to release Opera 10.5: Two months' work in one weekend?...
Microsoft's antitrust retort: Just what is it accusing Google of doing?
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 26, 2010, 10:36 PM
19 Comments
There may not be a real investigation of Google's business practices from the European Commission, at least not yet. But judging from the waves of hyperbole emanating from the usual suspects, along with a few new entrants, in the wake of the EC's admission that it forwarded Google some negative mail earlier this month, there may as well have been one. It appears that if enough people on the Internet share a topic with one another, it must be true.
The complaint among three of Google's competitors is that it leverages its hugely popular, all-purpose search engine as a platform for promoting its own exclusive shopping services. In a way, there's almost no contesting the complaint -- that's exactly what Google does. The question is whether that's wrong. As Betanews noted yesterday, the answers may differ depending on the continent they apply to. Depending on the country, the legal standards (and the suppositions behind them) vary.
Continue reading Microsoft's antitrust retort: Just what is it accusing Google of doing?...
Is Opera 10.5 ready for the March 1 'choice screen?'
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 26, 2010, 3:57 PM
89 Comments
Download Opera 10.5 Beta 2 for Windows from Fileforum now.
One of the more brilliant coups in the history of Web browsers, were it feasible, would be for Opera Software to seize Google's key argument -- that the best Web browser that European Windows users should switch to next month, is the fastest one -- and make it its own. Those users will get that opportunity starting March 1, when Microsoft's rollout of its browser "choice screen" through Windows Update, begins in earnest.
Continue reading Is Opera 10.5 ready for the March 1 'choice screen?'...
Baidu: Register.com replaced its DNS credentials for some guy in a chat room
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 25, 2010, 2:17 PM
6 Comments
Last month, Baidu, the leading search engine in China, filed suit against US-based Internet registrar Register.com, in a legal event that took place at the height of the debate over Google's continued business dealings with China. Baidu accused the registrar of changing its DNS records, so that customers were redirected to a completely different site purporting to represent the "Iranian Cyber Army." But that original suit was heavily redacted, so we didn't know the specifics of the alleged defacement. This week, US District Court in New York released the unredacted version of Baidu's complaint, and now, as the man once said, we know the rest of the story.
The basis for Baidu's allegation that Register.com knowingly and willfully damaged Baidu's property, and thereby its reputation, is that one of its customer support agents changed Baidu's DNS records literally on the request of a guy who showed up in Register.com's support chat room. Supposedly, he pretended to be Baidu ("Mr. Baidu," perhaps?). And although records show the support personnel asked him to verify his identity by sending back the security code that was just sent to the e-mail address on record as Baidu's authoritative address, the fellow instead responded with a made-up bunch of numbers...which the agent then accepted as valid.
Continue reading Baidu: Register.com replaced its DNS credentials for some guy in a chat room...
Define 'monopoly:' Foundem's argument against Google linking to Google
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 25, 2010, 12:35 PM
25 Comments
Yesterday, after the European Commission announced it had sent Google earlier in the month copies of complaints it had received from three search providers that Google refused to rank their search results highly in its index, the company Google had the least to say about was Foundem. That's a British shopping site that aggregates the results from UK online retailers' catalogs. As the EC said yesterday, the inquiry has not yet triggered an investigation.
Although the EC keeps private the contents of complaints it forwards on to the subjects of inquiries, there's a very good chance that Foundem's complaint may echo the public comment it filed with the US Federal Communications Commission, ostensibly with respect to its request for ideas for "Preserving the Open Internet." In that document (PDF available here), Foundem alleges that Google threatens the desired state of the Internet -- something commissioners have referred to as "search neutrality" -- by giving prominent placement to Google services in search results, under the label, "Universal Search."
Continue reading Define 'monopoly:' Foundem's argument against Google linking to Google...
Google's bad news deluge: Execs held responsible for posting of hate video
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 24, 2010, 6:47 PM
18 Comments
There's precedent throughout the European Union protecting the rights of ISPs when Web sites they host end up streaming defamatory, libelous, or injurious content. Despite that, a Milan judge today sentenced three of four Google executives convicted last November of violating the privacy of a boy victimized in a briefly-posted YouTube video, to six months' suspension.
The sentencing came even though the original plaintiff in the lawsuit -- representatives of a boy with Down's Syndrome, who unwillingly appeared in a YouTube video showing classmates tormenting him -- reportedly withdrew from the case last week, as first reported by IDG's Philip Willan last Sunday. In an American court, this would normally lead to a dismissal; but Judge Oscar Magi took the not-unprecedented step of assuming the role of the plaintiff, effectively trying the case on behalf of state prosecutors.
Continue reading Google's bad news deluge: Execs held responsible for posting of hate video...
Google's bad news deluge: Xerox sues, claims it borrowed query methods
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 24, 2010, 4:12 PM
13 Comments
For any other company besides Google, a week like this would be interpreted by some in the press as the beginning of the end, and it's only Wednesday. However, an individual breakdown of every bad story, element by element, reveals the company may not be deluged so much by a hailstorm of controversy as a cavalcade of unfortunately simultaneous snowballs, none of which may end up leaving any lasting damage.
Last Friday, Xerox filed suit in US District Court in Delaware, claiming two counts of patent infringement against Google and Yahoo, and one count against Google's YouTube division. A scan of the complaint reveals an almost "boilerplate" document, making no arguments other than that its two patents cover types of functionality that the three named defendants willfully employed without negotiating with Xerox first.
Continue reading Google's bad news deluge: Xerox sues, claims it borrowed query methods...
EU denies Google is under investigation, early evidence appears weak
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 24, 2010, 1:03 PM
3 Comments
This morning, despite clearly and pointedly phrased headlines such as this one proclaiming that the European Commission had opened an antitrust investigation into Google, the Commission released a statement this morning saying no such investigation was launched.
"The Commission has not opened a formal investigation for the time being," reads this morning's EC statement. "As is usual when the Commission receives complaints, it informed Google earlier this month and asked the company to comment on the allegations." No further information is being provided to the press on this matter -- again, as per protocol, because no investigation has begun.
Continue reading EU denies Google is under investigation, early evidence appears weak...
Google Chrome 5 loses points, wins categories, against Opera 10.5 beta
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 23, 2010, 4:58 PM
27 Comments
Download Opera 10.5 Beta 1 Build 3271 for Windows from Fileforum now.
Two weeks ago, we warned the new leader in the Windows Web browser, Opera 10.5 Beta 1, that it would have to paddle fast to stay ahead of the ever-improving Google Chrome 5. Apparently only one side of that battle was listening: Opera did paddle fast, pulling nicely above 26 in our latest Windows 7 relative performance index tests. The newest Chrome 5, meanwhile, took a performance hit that sent it back the other direction.
Continue reading Google Chrome 5 loses points, wins categories, against Opera 10.5 beta...
Federal cybersecurity authority awaits break in Senate logjam
By Scott M. Fulton, III on February 23, 2010, 11:57 AM
1 Comment
One of President Obama's first priorities upon taking office was a comprehensive review, then considered urgent, of federal policies for maintaining Internet security. The report on that review, released last May, recommended further empowering the role of what was then being called the "cybersecurity czar," including the delegation of authority to lead emergency responses in case of an attack on Internet resources that threatened the national security.
Inactivity in enacting those recommendations was blamed for the resignation of Mr. Obama's first czar, Melissa Hathaway, last August. In December, a former security advisor to Pres. George W. Bush, Howard Schmidt, was confirmed to fill Hathaway's post.
Continue reading Federal cybersecurity authority awaits break in Senate logjam...