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Apple

Submission + - Jobs: Windows is Open, Android is Not (eweek.com)

Submitted by thodelu
thodelu writes: In his rant against the fragmented Android market, Steve Jobs remarked "The first thing most of us think about when we hear the word "open" is Windows". "Many Android OEMs, including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user's left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone, where every handset works the same." Ignoring the confusion in the rant between 'openness' and 'uniformity', are they necessarily mutually exclusive? If not, what is the cause of Android's lack of openness or rather its fragmented nature?
Google

Submission + - Debunking the Android fragmentation myth (infoworld.com)

Submitted by GMGruman
GMGruman writes: Critics of the Google Android mobile operating system claim that the open source nature has led to too many versions, which will stymie users and developers alike. InfoWorld's Martin Heller explains why that just ain't so. The Android OS has a consistent core that developers can write to, no matter what skins device makers choose to overlay, so the so-called fragmentation problem is just a myth.
Television

Submission + - Antenna Arrays Could Replace Satellite TV Dishes (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: There was a time not so very long ago when people who wanted satellite TV or radio required dishes several feet across. Those have since been replaced by today’s compact dishes, but now it looks like even those might be on the road to obsolescence. A recent PhD graduate from The Netherlands’ University of Twente has designed a microchip that allows for a grid array of almost-flat antennae to receive satellite signals.

Submission + - Oracle backs out of the MySQL Conference (oracle.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Along side its move to to scuttle OpenSolaris, remove itself from the Open Office foundation, sue Google over its use of Java, Oracle has now removed itself from the MySQL Conference and is now pushing MySQL users to attend its own user group conference that it funds that has been placed on the same week as the O'Reilly conference. Is there any evidence left that Oracle has nothing but hostile intentions toward open source at this point?
Google

Submission + - Microsoft Introduces Office 365 (tekgoblin.com)

Submitted by tekgoblin
tekgoblin writes: Today Microsoft has announced the launch of Office 365 which will serve as an online version of Microsoft Office. All of the features of Office will be available in the cloud. But the question is, will it be a better experience than that of Google Docs. Microsoft has been far behind Google for some time now when it comes to the cloud, but will Office 365 get them some traction on Google.
Firefox

Submission + - Firefox 4 to Drop All Processors Prior to P4 (conceivablytech.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There are some interesting notes from the Mozilla camp this morning. The Firefox team is thinking about dropping processors without SSE2 support. Mozilla’s Firefox guru Mike Beltzner specifically singled out 386 and early Athlon processors, but SSE2 requires at least a Pentium 4 or an Athlon 64 CPU (at least if Wikipedia is right.) I do see that both the Pentium III and the Athlon were processors that were built until 2003 and have been phased out a long time ago, but I would assume that there are still some Pentium III PCs around.
Windows

Submission + - Play Retro Games on Your Modern PC (extremetech.com)

Submitted by theravenmuse
theravenmuse writes: ExtremeTech has a story on playing vintage computer and console games on a Windows PC. It appears to hit many of the major emulators, for "vintage machines of all the major types: 8-bit and 16-bit home computers, 8-bit and 16-bit video game consoles, arcade games, and older DOS and Windows 95–compatible PC titles." Abandonware is still a problem, but some of the emulators have grown pretty sophisticated in recent years, and now work under Windows 7. GOG.com is also mentioned.
Businesses

Submission + - Google Adds Licensing Server DRM to Android Market (afterdawn.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: According to AfterDawn, Google has given app makers the option to use a license server as DRM to ensure the user has paid for an app before they can download it. The report is that the market app will communicate with a Google license server using RSA encryption. It is important to note this is only available for non-free apps (built with SDK 1.5 and later) and it is instituted to provide a better solution to the old and widely criticized copy protection scheme that was criticized as susceptible to Android app piracy (like sideloading). For better or for worse, Android's Marketplace appears to now have an optional phone-home form of DRM.

Submission + - 11 million downloads of wordpress 3.0 in 42 days (wordpress.org)

Submitted by orky7
orky7 writes: just click of a button and you get upgraded and upgrade almost never breaks any plugins. Previously upgrades were terrible with all those directories to the website, always a fear of breakdown, but now most easy to use web application.

Submission + - Windows 7 has lots of ‘GodModes’ (aviransplace.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Those intrigued by the “GodMode” in Windows 7 may be interested to know that there are many other similar shortcuts hidden within the operating system. teven Sinofsky, Windows division president, said several similar undocumented features provide direct access to all kinds of settings, from choosing a location to managing power settings to identifying biometric sensors.
Google

Submission + - Google’s Book Scanning Technology Revealed (scitedaily.com)

Submitted by blee37
blee37 writes: Google's patent for a rapid book scanning system was reported last March. This article describes and provides pictures of how the system works in practice. Google is secretive, but the system's inner workings were apparently divulged by University of Tokyo researchers who wrote a research article on essentially identical technology. There is also information about how Google wants to use music to help humans flip pages and videos of robotic page flippers.

Submission + - AT&T Moves Closer To Usage-Based Fees For Data (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: AT&T has moved closer to charging special usage fees to heavy data users, including those with iPhones and other smartphones. Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, came close on Wednesday to warning about some kind of use-based pricing while speaking at a UBS conference. "The first thing we need to do is educate customers about what represents a megabyte of data and...we're improving systems to give them real-time information about their data usage," he said. "Longer term, there's got to be some sort of pricing scheme that addresses the [heavy] users." AT&T has found that only 3% of its smartphone users — primarily iPhone owners — are responsible for 40% of total data usage, largely for video and audio, de la Vega said. Educating that group about how much they are using could change that, as AT&T has found by informing wired Internet customers of such patterns. De la Vega's comments on data use were previewed in a keynote he gave in October at the CTIA, but he went beyond those comments on Wednesday: "We are going to make sure incentives are in place to reduce or modify [data]uses so they don't crowd out others in the same cell sites." Focus groups have been formed at AT&T to figure out how to proceed.
Google

Submission + - Is Google Public DNS Faster than Your ISP? (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by WesternActor
WesternActor writes: When Google first announced its Public DNS two things come to mind, one that Google wanted to thwart some ISPs' common practice of intercepting mistyped URLs with a page of ads; and two that Google intended to gather still more data on the Internet habits of the world's users. However, it turns out that what Google Public DNS really provides is speed and security. According to one set of test results Google Public DNS is actually faster than ISP DNS. And, of course, like almost any DNS system, it's easy to configure.
Science

Central U.S. Earthquake Info 120

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rock-and-roll dept.
ronbo142 writes "The United States Geological Survey site has real time (or close to it) information on the now two significant events of the day. Check out their site to enter your experience and view other event specific information."
Music

Tenth Anniversary of First Commercial MP3 Player 166

Posted by Zonk from the now-they're-implanted-at-birth dept.
Pickens writes "The first commercially released personal music player capable of handling MP3 files was launched in March 1998 — the MPMan F10, manufactured by Korea's Saehan Information Systems with 32MB of Flash storage, enough for a handful of songs encoded at 128Kb/s. In the US, local supplier Eiger Labs wanted $250 for the F10, though the price fell to $200 the following year prompted by the release of the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300. The Rio was released in September 1998, but by 8 October had become the subject of a lawsuit from the RIAA which claimed the player violated the 1992 US Home Recordings Act. It was later ruled that the Rio had not infringed the Act because it was not responsible for the actions of its customers. Thanks to its lesser known name, the F10 avoided such legal entanglements, but at the cost of all the free publicity its rival gained from the lawsuit."

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