...consisting of people who still want to grab a copy of Windows 7 before it's too late.

If rumors are an indication, the last Windows 7 license will be sold on December 21, 2012.

“@BlackBerry: Fill in the blank: BlackBerry helps me ________.” realize how thankful I am for my #iPhone

Ouch.

Probably looks like the Black Angry Bird, and probably behaves like one, too...

That might very well be the case. Publicly point to Apple and towards more innovation, but then instead do their dirty litigation through Nokia, MOSAID and Rockstar.

IMO MSFT always was quite happy with being #2 in popularity, splitting the cake with only Apple. The whole Apple-vs-Microsoft was more playful than serious and consisted of nothing more than some soft air-punches thrown back and forth between their rabid fans, earning them both more money.

But I guess being bested by Android probably caused a whole office furniture set to become airborne.

Good to know the author contacted you with all the necessary information about the infringing patents and details concerning exactly how (and if) the Nexus 7 infringed them, why not share your superior knowledge with us poor peons? There's no need for an M$ rant. They're far behind any other player in the mobile market and they have a lot of polishing to do with the turd that is Windows 8. So it's only logical that they compensate their inability to innovate with an increased drive to litigate. Nokia is their zombie, a sockpuppet if you will, which abides by Microsoft orders. The big phone powerhouse is no more. I would call it stating the abundantly obvious that they would not sue each other, but at least you got that right.

Nice cheap jab at the judicial process btw, why not become a lawyer and do something about it? But then again, it nicely ties together your theme of aggressive, yet devoid of information type of posts, adorned with one or more per rectum theories.

Microsoft missed the boat, remember how a certain Microsoft exec laughed at Apple's attempt at creating a mobile phone and how much more features Microsoft packed in theirs? Remember what happened to Courier? Have you any recollection of how the mobile landscape evolved since then? Do you see much influence by Microsoft?

That's what I would dare to call "missed the boat".

Now they (Microsoft) have to play catch-up, but instead of accelerating their own R&D, they're falling back on harassing the competition. And they're (ab)using Nokia to do their dirty work for them. Nokia is a mere husk of what it used to be, it has been relagated to being Microsoft's IP bulldog. It was a formidable company, but it has been plucked of anything valuable and has someone at the helm with more allegiance to that other company than to Nokia itself. It's a sinking ship, but it might be able to broadside some others before the waves pull it under completely.

The rest of your reaction does not merit further explanation and is a pretty baseless ad hominem.

Even their legal strategies are taking a chapter or two from the Apple playbook... They sat on their asses and missed the mobile boat, but instead of pursuing original ideas and providing competition, they'll just try to slow Android down with frivolous patent lawsuits with the ultimate target to create a void where their outdated and locked-down toy OS can compete on a tilted playing field. I'm pretty sure they'll move in to try and land some free punches once Apple starts going after Android again. Evidently Apple won't even peep about Microsofts' tablet products, as they both want to split up the market among themselves, after eliminating Google by using every dirty trick in the book.

Such cowardice of Microsoft, having a once deeply-respected company like Nokia do its dirty work. But it's not surprising in the current climate.

Enjoy your walled gardens, as an unlimited stream of frivolous software patent suits (and the USPTO will make sure there are enough to go around) will make sure only those survive.

who thought about Outpost 2 and its Thor's Hammer tank? Man those dual turreted Tiger chassis Thor's Hammer could dish it out.

If they meant easier for them to snoop in your mails and make money of the contents. Their IPO put great pressure on the company to find new revenue streams, so they're exploring every nook and cranny to fleece their userbase for extra content to sell to corporations.

While I'm a user of the site, this brazen disregard for a user's preferences was a big red flag for me. They didn't even bother to ask! I know a user has no rights on Facebook, but at least they pretended not to predate their users outright. This action crossed that line. It's not your profile, it's Facebook's permanent register of your persona.

Perhaps it's time to seek greener pastures, the posts are mostly vapid nonsense and Reddit/9gag regurgitations anyway.

If it's not completely obvious by now, Microsoft is imitating Apple to a T, from the verticalization of their platform (in-house hardware + software) to the hip dictator face of their new product line (Sinofski). Their complete reversal on user freedom and customization is also a sign of the changes in Redmond.

If you view it from a corporate perspective, why should they pass on making extra dollars on App Market subscriptions, cashing 30% of each downloaded app and be able to reject apps that could compete with their own in-house variants? Why would they let you use VLC if they could pocket $5 for an upgrade to your Windows Media Player?

Although I deem it unlikely that free/OSS software won't be available at all to the platform, I do expect that these programs will be limited to the less-than-ideal sandbox mode, without access to the system APIs, all under the guise of (revenue) security. In which case the in-house variants will always (miraculously!) outperform any third-party options, creating a tilted playing field.

Pay for something that would barely qualify as a Service Pack for Windows 7 (sans crippling Start Menu, without Ribbon Explorer and a lack of Fisher Price styling, IDE gutting and the *ZOMG* dual-tasking/fullscreen weather apps)

No thanks.

The rotten system just got a tad more rotten. Rockstar is the king of all patent trolls, funded by the big two software IP honchos, known for their shakedown schemes and patenting the trivially obvious. The other partners are opportunists and a few badly ailing companies seeking a hail-mary pass to avoid utter extinction. It got its approval under the guise of playing by "reasonable terms", only to disobey said promise as "not applicable to the new construct" as soon as the deal went through. With a start like that, I don't have much hope left for any ethics to be involved in their way of thinking.

Rockstar has all the latest weaponry of an extremely litigious tech company, wealthy backers, plus the enormous advantage that it can't be countersued. It can start case after case without even batting an eye. The sheer amount of cases it can start can probably put a company out of business even before the first patent in play is reviewed.

If you thought Oracle vs Google was perfidious, wait until Rockstar here takes aim at Android. It's only a matter of time, and to me it seems like Android was the reason this abomination was formed. They've sealed up the LTE patents, so they'll surely squeeze them on that front, while trying keep on adding layer after layer of patent licenses, with the penultimate target of drowning it and scaring the manufacturers away.

Innovation is about to get its teeth kicked in.

I'm conflicted about getting Linux to live on the mainstream desktop. Let's for the sake of simplicity assume that Ubuntu is the platform willing to become mainstream.

Here are some of the key issues I see with the current Ubuntu distro:

Unification: Linux at the moment fills a void for people who find value in it that they don't already get from either OS X or Windows. It's very technical and bars noone from tinkering with whatever he likes. Sadly, Joe Citizen breaks more than he fixes by tinkering, and usually wants to use his device to do some predefined task. Say they want to adapt Ubuntu to get more market penetration, wouldn't that risk moving it so close towards Windows and OS X that the original benefits disappear? (e.g. losing the techie crows by dumbing it down). But at least for Unity they have taken a page out of the Apple playbook. No more sudo unless you root your computer or you get to at least click "I know what I'm doing, leave me alone!".

Attention to detail: Application quality control, either it's 100% finished and polished or it shouldn't appear in the 'main ppa'. If people want to experiment, let them hook into experimental ppa's but assure that Joe Citizen has access to applications that have been tested over and over, and provide him with what he needs.

No overcompensation: While GIMP is a wonderful tool and has a huge toolbox at its disposal, it offers too much to be efficient. So much even that it's not unlikely someone will not understand how to do something and look for something simpler with less options, but a clearer 'clicking-here-does-that' approach.

Agression: Linux isn't being marketed aggressively, at least not in the commercial sense of wooing people to leave their current OS for it. As I see it, it's something techies pick up by reading up on technology, and finally decide to give it a try. But there's no driving force to push for said aggressive market penetration and as it stands, there are still quite a lot of drawbacks that put Linux at a disadvantage vs OS X and Windows. But "more features" is not the answer to everything and doesn't ensure success. Ballmer was laughing at the iPhone when it yet had to be released, and said the WinMobile devices did everything the iPhone did and more. I don't think Ballmer's laughing now, though.

Litigation: While the perception of Linux on the desktop is seen as small and insignificant, litigation isn't likely to occur in the domain the user-oriented Linux distro's. But seeing what Android already had to endure and what kind of shitstorm only recently appeared on the horizon with the forming of Rockstar patent troll (Apple and Microsoft even joining forces!), I'd be very wary of any Linux project ever getting a substantial market share. It'd become the target of frivolous patent suits in no time, and while it may be hard to find something to attack it with, lawyers can get very creative (Exhibit A: the US patent system). Also, many corporations might pull their patents (Mono from Microsoft) once their own products are threatened.

As both Apple and Microsoft already have their own desktop OS, I could potentially see Android bringing in a breath of fresh air. If Google really wants to, they have the power to address the above points. While I don't see where they were going with Chrom OS, I could see Android OS becoming something viable, as the worlds of mobile and desktop seem to be headed on a collision course (seeing recent Windows 8 and IOS developments).

Too bad Slashdot had the will to blackout but not the permission. So much overlap with critical areas of SOPA/PIPA and all they're doing is acting Fair and Balanced. If even Fark of all sites can white-out, it's a sad day to see Slashdot isn't allowed to.

To me, that just nudged Slashdot into the "trustworthy if other sites confirm the story"-category. Parent-company bias is the last thing someone needs on a tech news reporting site. I was under the impression that Slashdot was fairly independent of this meddling behavior. To my dismay I notice that this is not the case.

While I'm trying to see a useful reason in Slashdot's stance, it just looks like they cannot truthfully represent their own best interests. And that's a red flag for me.

I've always been a big fan, and I'll probably still return, but I can't help but feel disappointed.

Big IP would be able to tell you when, where and how to consume their content on the internet. Watching something more than once? Start finding your wallet. Expect to sign in with your ID, birthname and GPS coordinates before you are allowed to have a single peek at the DRM-encumbered movie you want to see. Sharing content and fair use would probably be seen as criminal acts. What is now considered a gray area could then quickly become the subject of 'investigative' black-outs or other scare-tactics which fit their vague descriptions and their willful ignorance of how the internet functions, which could cause these very natural and social interactions to quickly disappear or fall prey to the usual overzealousness of the respective legal departments of Big IP.

This isn't a storm in a glass of water like so many internet debates, this one might truly sting if it gets signed into law.

Don't let that happen.