Monthly Archive:: January 2010

The ReactOS project aims to be an open source Windows NT-compatible operating system which can run Windows applications and utilise Windows drivers. Obviously, this is quite a daunting task, and as such, progress has been relatively slow. As a result, project coordinator and kernel developer Aleksey Bragin has proposed a rather drastic solution.

The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security. The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems. Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers' increased security setting would prevent any serious risk.

The Mac Observer has found out that Psystar has indeed decided to appeal the case it lost against Apple. "Psystar has officially filed its Notice of Appeal in the copyright suit it lost against Apple Inc., according to a court document obtained by The Mac Observer. The step was a formality in the appeals process, but until it was filed, it was unclear if the company would actually mount an appeal."

A few days ago, Google opened up a YouTube area on its product ideas website, so that people could submit their ideas about how to improve the ubiquitous video website. It turned out it was a bit of a can of worms Google opened there: everything focussed on HTML5 video support.

The United States will issue a formal diplomatic note to China expressing concern about cyber attacks that hit Google and dozens of other companies, and that researchers say originated in that country. "We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early next week," US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday. "It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it."

Intel has responded to the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust investigation, unsurprisingly challenging the FTC's allegations as well as criticizing the agency for what the company calls an attempt "to turn Intel into a public utility".

In an article about the supposed upcoming Apple tablet, Paul Thorrot made a jab at the hype that has developed, arguing that Microsoft was first with its tablet PC initiative in the early 2000s. Daring Fireball's John Gruber disagrees with Thurrot, and claims that Apple's Newton was the first tablet. In rushing to defend their pet companies, I say both are wrong. Apple nor Microsoft have anything to do with the conceptualisation or realisation of the tablet computer.

Microsoft has no plans to pull out of China, its chief executive said on Thursday, playing down concerns about recent cyber-attacks and censorship raised by rival Google Inc. "There are attacks every day. I don't think there was anything unusual, so I don't understand," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Reuters after a meeting on modernizing government services at the White House.

"Microsoft has named the date for the (delayed) next installment of Visual Studio and its .NET Framework. Developer division marketing and communications manager Rob Caron blogged Thursday that the new date for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 is April 12 - three weeks later than the company originally planned."

Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions how open is too open when it comes to mobile app markets, especially in light of the recent discovery of suspected malware in the Android Market. "Open platforms are attractive to developers, but as we have now seen, developers come in all flavors," McAllister writes, "If smartphone vendors aren't careful, they risk repeating the mistakes of the PC software industry, with mobile platforms becoming the new Wild West of computing." As McAllister sees it, strong governance is the only solution, and this includes the ability to act swiftly when exploits arise - "something only centralized oversight can provide." Sure, Apple's App Store approval policies are somewhat 'draconian', "but by ensuring that each and every app in the App Store has met its rigorous standards, Apple has forged a bond of trust with iPhone users that no other smartphone vendor can match."

"Eastman Kodak has issued lawsuits against both Apple and Blackberry maker Research in Motion, claiming neither of them has licensed its patents despite using the technology described therein and having been warned about it by Kodak. The photography pioneer said the alleged infringement centred on intellectual property protecting a method for previewing colour images and the processing of images of different resolutions. It filed complaints against both Apple and RIM with the US District Court for Western New York."

Two days ago, Google dropped a bomb by announcing its intentions to cease censoring its search engine results in China, partly because the search giant claimed that attempts were made to crack the GMial accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The Chinese government has officially replied to these allegations. Update: More on the infrastructure of the attack.

Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard today announced a three-year $250 million partnership to simplify IT environments through a wide range of converged hardware, software, and professional services solutions. This is a broad agreement with many components, building on the 25-year Microsoft-HP partnership, which works toward new models for application delivery, hardware architecture, and IT operations. The goal is to deliver the "next generation computing platform" by leading the adoption of cloud computing.

Over at the osdev.org forums, they're hosting a brand new Bootsector Competition. Entries are limited to 512 bytes, and must be able to work with both FAT12 and FAT16 file systems. Each entry must be capable of locating a 32-bit ELF file in the filesystem, parsing the ELF headers, and executing the ELF binary. All entries are ISC licensed, and two prizes (in the form of Amazon.com gift certificates or donations to the PDPC/Freenode) are at stake, in addition to bragging rights. For the full contest rules, and how to enter, check out the forum post.