Even though it was a relatively easy-going week when it comes to the news, we still had some interesting items worth revisiting. A company called Vmedia is trying to push a video version of MiniDisc, Apple did an epic Java fail, Google released Chrome 2.0, and more.
We started off this week with a long story on Vmedia, a company who is trying to push a new MiniDisc-like format for portable video. Their little Vmedia discs, resembling miniature MiniDiscs, pack either 1GB or 2GB of data, and are aimed towards portable devices like phones, MIDs, and netbooks. The idea is that they become a universal standard for selling video for portable devices, but it’s going to be an uphill battle.
We also covered the rise of two Macintosh “clone” makers. Clone makers popped up in both Russia and the United Kingdom, and this has raised the question whether or not Apple can actually do anything about this matter. They can’t continue to rattle legal chains in every country that has its own clone maker, as that would be too costly. In addition, European laws aren’t as restrictive as America’s when it comes to these matters, making it more difficult for Apple to win such cases.
On a related note, it was discovered that Apple’s Mac OS X is the only operating system still vulnerable to a pretty severe Java bug that was fixed six months ago, and reported nine months ago. Apple bakes its own Java implementation, but has so far refused to fix the bug that also exists in their version, even though other non-Sun Java implementations have offered fixes ages ago.
Later in the week, Google officially “released Chrome 2.0” to the general public. It’s between quotation marks because Google doesn’t call the new release 2.0, and also because it’s not really “released” either – Chrome gets continuous silent updates, and all Google did was relabel a beta 2.0 release as stable. It offered several new features and performance improvements.
It was also a week in which Microsoft came to its senses and removed the three-application-maximum limitation on Windows 7 Starter Edition, the limited Windows 7 release slated for emerging markets. TechARP also unveiled the maximum hardware specifications for the lower editions of Windows 7 (in the same article as the application limit).
We also found out that the Palm Pre is going to be launched at June 6, and we ran two original articles: a review of the very cool MIPS-based Loongson 2 Linux netbook, and a review of Mirror’s Edge.
And also intel and the FSF revealed the UI of Moblin 2.0.
That was the most exiting news for me this week.
(It’s the Linux Foundation (with Intel) that does Moblin, not the FSF)
Now,I’m not a Java fan (or anything related) but how does it fail Java as a whole? Title implies that.But that’s just me.
Yeah, the title does sort of imply that. I think it could have been worded differently, such as “OS X Java fail,” or “A Java fail.” That way, it doesn’t sound like Java itself is a failure, since it obviously isn’t. Or perhaps “Apple Java fail,” seeing as how it is Apple’s fault?
Good catch. Fixed!
http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/sessions/#session=405
Java SE 6 on Snow Leopard
And this excuses their refusal to patch a nasty security issue how?
Ask this question in two weeks.