Why Nokia Didn’t Choose Android to Replace Symbian?
A perennial question that revolves around Nokia is: why didn't it choose to go with Android to replace Symbian when it decided to kill that as its smartphone operating system in late 2010?
David Adams Archive
Results of OSCON Pass Giveaway
It took some back-and forth, since the original winner couldn't attend, but we finally selected a confirmed winner of a three-day pass to OSCON, July 22-26 in Portland, Oregon. It's Gregory Eric Sanderson. Congratulations, Gregory! If you didn't win but you still want to attend, you've got two options: represent OSNews as a writer, as described here, or buy a ticket using the code "OSN" to get 20% off. Update: Free Expo Hall Only pass to OSCON with code MPEXPO. Includes all parties, 5K, expo hall, sponsored sessions + more.
Would You Like To Attend OSCON?
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Help Me Fight Injustice. Vote for My Museum Exhibit
I need everybody's help. I was selected as a finalist for the local science museum's contest to identify the innovation that I would most like to see invented and create a small exhibit about it. I put in a huge amount of effort to make a very well researched and prepared presentation, and even built a kid-friendly museum exhibit and presentation to illustrate my idea. The winner gets a trip to Italy. But get this: it turns out the winner is going to be determined by an easy-to-game online poll. So I feel like an idiot for spending so much effort, because the person with the most Facebook friends is going to win. Please help me fight for justice for voting for my project. (It's project #1). Update: Somebody was stuffing the ballot box, so they enabled some fig-leaf anti-cheating protections and reset the vote.
Nokia Seeks to Block Sale of Some RIM Products
Submitted by
Another patent fight is taking shape, this time between the two struggling smartphone makers RIM and Nokia. "Nokia has asked a California court to enforce an arbitration award that would prevent Research In Motion from selling products with wireless LAN capabilities until the companies can agree on patent royalty rates."
Microsoft Will Crush Google, Apple in Mobile
Financial analyst Charles Sizemore predicts that over time, a persistent Microsoft will come to not only thrive but dominate in the mobile computing space, because Apple has no "moats" to prevent customer attrition and its insistence at heavily controlling the ecosystem will drive customers away, while Google's offerings are too "shoddy." It's a bold prediction, but I suppose betting on Microsoft to be persistent and build on its strengths is a safe bet. But will persistence and flexibility be enough?
A Software Guy’s Look at Electric Bicycles
I had the chance to attend the bike industry’s annual DealerCamp in my hometown of Park City, Utah last week. It’s an event where dealers and manufacturers can meet up, and everyone can try the latest bicycle technology on the roads and trails. While there, I took a particular interest in electric bicycles, which were represented by several vendors. Electric bicycle tech has made some major strides in the past few years, but still has a long way to go, in particular on the software side.
How technology companies are forced to become politically connected
"If you want to get involved in business," Sen. Orrin Hatch warned technology companies at a conference in 2000, "you should get involved in politics." Hatch was referring to the shortcomings of then-software king Microsoft, which he had spent most of the previous decade harassing from his perch as Judiciary Committee chairman. The message was clear: If you become successful, you must hire lobbyists, you must start a political action committee, and you must donate to politicians. Otherwise Washington will make your life very difficult.
Did Alan Turing really commit suicide?
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The BBC reports on a Turing scholar's recent claims that by today's standard of evidence, there's reason to doubt the commonly-held belief that the famed computing pioneer committed suicide in response to government persecution over his homosexuality. To be clear, he does not claim to have disproved the suicide theory -- only that the cyanide poisoning that killed Turing could well have been an accident caused by his careless at-home experimentation with dangerous chemicals.
Sorry about the outage
OSNews' server had a RAID controller go kaput earlier today. It's fixed and we're back up. Thanks to Jon Jensen and the guys at Endpoint for taking care of us.
Register for the HP Discover Conference
OSNews sponsor Hewlett-Packard is extending an offer to OSNews readers who register for the upcoming HP Discover conference: "This is HP's largest global conference for customers and partners attracting 10,000 IT executives, managers, architects, engineers, and solution experts from around the world. Join them to network and explore pivotal technology developments, best practices, and strategies." Readers can get a $300 discount on registration by using this link and using the discount code: "BLOG."
Free security e-books
OSNews sponsor Tradepub has a special offer for our readers: Normally $9.95, the "Scrappy Information Security Kit", containing: "Scrappy Information Security", "Best Practices and Applications of TLS/SSL," "A Window into Mobile Device Security", and "The Cloud: Promises and Realities" (registration required).
Lib-Ray video standard: using Google/On2’s VP8 video codec
Submitted by
"When I started working on a no-DRM, open-standards-based solution for distributing high-definition video on fixed media ('Lib-Ray'), I naturally thought of Theora, because it was developed as a free software project. Several people have suggested, though, that the VP8 codec would be a better fit for my application. This month, I've finally gotten the necessary vpxtools and mkvtoolnix packages installed on my Debian system, and so I'm having a first-look at VP8. The results are very promising, though the tools are somewhat finicky."
Intel’s first smartphone arrives… In India
Submitted by
"Intel announced that Lava International, a cell phone company in India, has launched the XOLO X900. The device will launch on April 23 in India and will be sold through Croma, a big retail chain in India. XOLO X900 features a 1.6GHz Atom Z2460 (a.k.a. Medfield) with Intel Hyper Threading Technology, 400 MHz graphics, a 4-inch 1024x600 display, full 1080p HD video encoding and playback, a 1-megapixel camera up front, an 8-megapixel camera in the back, and support for HSPA+ 3G connectivity. The phone will ship with Android Gingerbread but Intel is already promising an OTA update to Ice Cream Sandwich. The phone is priced around INR 22000 (around USD 425)."
Samsung releases Galaxy S II ICS source code
Submitted by
"Good news, open source enthusiasts: as they've done with pretty much every one of the Android phones and updates, Samsung has posted the open source code for the Ice Cream Sandwich version of the Galaxy S II's operating system. While the update itself is only available in Europe and South Korea, any international version of the i9100 can apply it, and with the open source code ROM builders and other modders will be able to do more advanced ports and advanced ROMs."
Seagate breaks 1 terabit barrier, 60TB hard drives possible
Submitted by
"In the world of hard drives storage, density is king and Seagate has just achieved a major breakthrough that guarantees major storage gains for the next decade. That breakthrough is managing to squeeze 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) of data into a square inch or space, effectively opening the way for larger hard drives over the coming years beyond the 3TB maximum we currently enjoy. How much of an improvement does this storage milestone offer? Current hard drives max out at around 620 gigabits per square inch, meaning Seagate has improved upon that by over 50%. However, that's just the beginning."
Linux 3.3 released
Submitted by
Linux 3.3 has been released. The changes include the merge of kernel code from the Android project. There is also support for a new architecture (TI C6X), much improved balancing and the ability to restripe between different RAID profiles in Btrfs, and several network improvements: a virtual switch implementation (Open vSwitch) designed for virtualization scenarios, a faster and more scalable alternative to the "bonding" driver, a configurable limit to the transmission queue of the network devices to fight bufferbloat, a network priority control group and per-cgroup TCP buffer limits. There are also many small features and new drivers and fixes are also available. Here's the full changelog.
Microsoft asks EU to look into Motorola’s patent licence behavior
Submitted by 
Notorious competition law offender Microsoft has asked the EU's competition department to look into Motorola's behavior regarding patent licences vital for h.264 video. Microsoft complains that Motorola doesn't play by the usual rules and wants to decide by itself how much they want to charge for patents it owns. According to Microsoft, acceptable behavior for patent owners is to licence patens vital for industry standards at rates of single-digits-cents per device and ask for double-digits-cent amounts only for patents not necessary for implementing such standards. Since according to Microsoft's complaints at least some of the patents abused that way are related to h.264 video encoding/decoding, one has to wonder how much MPEG LA's ensurance of patent safety is now worth.
ARM announces 32bit 1mm x 1mm CPU
The Cortex -M0+ architecture is designed to provide chip-makers with the means to build microcontrollers that require "ultra low power" but are capable of 32-bit processing. Arm says it went back to the drawing board to create the new processor cores which measure 1mm by 1mm in size. It says the microcontrollers should draw around a third less energy than their predecessors, which only offered 8 and 16-bit capabilities.
Top LulzSec hackers arrested, group leader reportedly working for FBI
The laughs are reportedly over for five top members of the hacker group LulzSec who were arrested on Tuesday and charged as part of a conspiracy case filed in New York federal court. FoxNews.com reports that the arrests were part of a multinational sting across the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States on Tuesday morning, and LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur, who operated online under the alias “Sabu,†provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation with information leading to the arrests.