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Submission + - Microsoft: IBM limiting choice by blocking OOXML

Submitted by thefickler on Thursday February 15, 2007 @07:37PM

thefickler writes: In an open letter, Microsoft has lashed out at IBM for trying to derail the standardization of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

Submission + - Microsoft: "IBM has 'ulterior' standards age

Submitted by

twofish

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @02:36PM

twofish writes: "In a somewhat hysterical letter Microsoft has accused IBM of trying to block its attempts to fast-track approval of its XML Office file formats as an international standard. IBM's goal is to deny customers choice by only promoting OpenDocument Format (ODF) as an international standard while also advancing Lotus Notes, Microsoft claimed.

"This campaign to stop even the consideration of Open XML in ISO/IEC JTC1 is a blatant attempt to use the standards process to limit choice in the market place for ulterior commercial motives — without regard for the negative impact on consumer choice and technological innovation," Microsoft says."

Music Execs Think DRM Slows the Marketplace 224

Posted by kdawson on Thursday February 15, 2007 @11:22AM from the well-duh dept.

MacGod writes "From BBC News comes a story about a Jupiter Research survey conducted before Steve Jobs's anti-DRM essay, indicating that most music industry execs see DRM-free music as a way to expand sales on digital tracks. The survey covered large and small record labels, rights bodies, digital stores, and technology providers. To summarize: 54% of music execs think that current DRM is too restrictive and 62% think selling unencumbered music would be a way to boost sales. Even limiting the survey to the record labels themselves, 48% believe this. Yet, many also believe it's not going to happen without significant governmental intervention — even though most insiders think DRM is harmful, the labels are keen to stick with it. Is this yet another sign of the typical media industry 'head in the sand, refuse to change' approach, or might we be seeing the early stages or some actual change?"

Submission + - Microsoft Posts Open Letter on Open XML & ODF

Submitted by on Thursday February 15, 2007 @10:01AM

An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday, Microsoft posted an open letter entitled 'Interoperability, Choice and Open XML'. Although I could write a book as a reply to the letter, I think that there are /. members who are better qualified for this task. Among the contents of the letter are accusations of IBM for 'smoke and mirrors' as well as 'ODF being tied to OpenOffice' (but Open XML, at the same time, is apparently not tied to MS Office). The term 'customer' is also mentioned ten times, revealing the true root of their Open XML intentions: to keep everyone as a *paying* customer.

Submission + - AOL Supports OpenID

Submitted by Nurgled on Thursday February 15, 2007 @08:08AM

Nurgled writes: On Sunday John Panzer announced that AOL now has experimental OpenID server support. This means that every AOL user now has an OpenID identifier. OpenID is a decentralized cross-site authentication system which has been growing in popularity over the last few months. AOL is the first large provider to offer OpenID services, and though they do not currently accept logins to their services with OpenID identifiers from elsewhere, they are apparently working on it. The next big challenge for OpenID proponents is teaching AOL's userbase how to make use of this new technology.

Submission + - Why Computer RPGs Waste Your Time

Submitted by

spidweb

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @03:24AM

spidweb writes: "RPGVault has an editorial about two particularly noxious qualities of computer role-playing games: They make you work forever to earn the right to do anything exciting, and they make you have to prove yourself by expending tons of your time. From the article: "So now, thinking about playing an RPG just makes me tired. I'm tired of starting a new game and being a loser. I'm tired of running the same errands to prove myself. The next time I enter my fantasy world, I want it to not assume that I'm a jackass."

The article is at:

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/763/763050p2.html "

Submission + - Microsoft :ODF Inferior to OOXML, Bad for Industry

Submitted by

Eastender

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @02:03AM

Eastender writes: "Under its ongoing efforts to ensure OOXML emerges as the de-facto standard, Microsoft is accusing IBM of hampering its efforts to publish its standards and to get it ISO ratification, which would give Microsoft a leg up in its efforts to provide its standards respectability.

From the article:

In an open letter released Wednesday, Microsoft executives contend that IBM is trying to influence the standards process to limit choice. It also said that IBM is encouraging governments to mandate a document format that IBM favours.

Microsoft contends that IBM is trying "to force ODF on users through public procurement mandates," which would have a negative effect on customers and the marketplace...

"We see a level of hypocrisy in IBM's activities... They have long called on us to standardise formats, make the IP (intellectual property) freely available to the broader community, and we've done it. Now that that is done, they are putting a lot of resources to block standardisation" of OOXML, Robertson said. "IBM is fundamentally on the wrong side of the industry."

Elaborating the point, Microsoft states that IBM and other parties are banding together to foist the ODF standard on the industry and that this has negative implications on the customers and the industry as a whole.

The leading software company in the world justifies the submission of the letter by stating 'that Microsoft chose to publish the letter to "shine a light" on IBM's activities'.

This questions the entire rationale of ODF and all the efforts that have been made on it by stating we have genuinely made a better standard but we are not being allowed to publish it.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Microsof t_calls_IBM_hypocritical_on_document_standards/0,1 30061733,339273643,00.htm?feed=alert"

Submission + - Social networking sites opening up

Submitted by

prostoalex

on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @02:30PM

prostoalex writes: "Business Week magazine is looking at social networking sites opening their APIs to third-party developers to enable social applications not supported by the network itself. Facebook is setting an example by releasing their API from beta into 1.0, and many others are expected to follow the suit, since Facebook API now serves as a backbone to 100 or so applications: "Since Facebook, a network of 17 million college students, started a pilot program last summer, third-party developers have created some 100 new applications. Now a Facebook user name and password can be used to log in to content-sharing and chat site Mosoto, and to automatically import Facebook friends into Mosoto's buddy list for chat. Facebook itself does not offer a chat function""

Submission + - Apple Fights for Your Right to Playlists

Submitted by

theodp

on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @01:37PM

theodp writes: "This week's Official USPTO Gazette brings news that Apple has requested a reexamination of a patent granted to Premier International Investments LLC for a List Building System, which covers making, editing and displaying music and video playlists. Elsewhere in the same Gazette, the USPTO notes that it's ordered a reexamination of an Amazon patent for a Method and system for electronic commerce using multiple roles (i.e., providing multiple electronic shopping carts for each user) after determining that substantial new questions of patentability ('SNQ') had been raised."

Submission + - Value of notMac Challenge's Prize Passes $6,000.

Submitted by

J. Kent Pepper

on Tuesday February 13, 2007 @10:28AM

J. Kent Pepper writes: "A short time ago, I started the notMac Challenge to create an easy-to-use replacement for Apple's dotMac service. Since then, the value of the prize pool has grown to over $6,000 — the product of generous contributions from individuals all over the world and my own offer to match the first $10,000 dollar-for-dollar. I started the notMac Challenge to generate incentive for the developer community to make the tools for creating a dotMac substitute accessible to the vast majority of Mac users who are uncomfortable using Terminal and running Perl scripts. So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive, but I need help keeping the momentum going. Please check out my website, www.notmacchallenge.com . I'd really appreciate it if you'd mention it on your site. The more people who see the site, the more people will contribute and the quicker someone will come up with a solution that will save a lot of us $99 a year on dotMac membership. Thanks, KENT"

Submission + - iPhone Graphics, OS X, LLVM, ARM and Ruby?

Submitted by

charlie

on Thursday February 01, 2007 @01:14PM

charlie writes: "It seems that Apple's iPhone may make heavy use of LLVM. This article explains how LLVM is being used; how iPhone will run OS X on ARM architectures; and how this relates to Ruby (of all things), other high level languages, and graphics engines."

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