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Businesses

Submission + - Bill Gates Takes the Stand in WordPerfect Trial

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Remember WorldPerfect? Bill Gates took the witness stand to defend his company against a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit that claims Microsoft duped Novell into thinking he would include WordPerfect in the new Windows system, then backed out because he feared it was too good. Gates testified Monday that Microsoft was racing to put out Windows 95 when he dropped technical features that would no longer support the rival's word processor and that in making the decision about the code, he was concerned not about Novell but about one element of the program that could have caused computers to crash. That code, technically known as "name space extensions," had to do with the display of folders and files. Novell attorney Jeff Johnson concedes that Microsoft was under no legal obligation to provide advance access to Windows 95 so Novell could prepare a compatible version but contends that Microsoft enticed Novell to work on a version, only to withdraw support months before Windows 95 hit the market. "We got stabbed in the back.""
Java

JavaScript JVM Runs Java 234

Posted by timothy from the build-a-weirder-mousetrap dept.
mikejuk writes "The world of software is made slightly crazy because of the huge flexibility within any computer language. Once you have absorbed the idea of a compiler written in the language it compiles, what else is there left to gawp at? But... a Java Virtual Machine JVM written in JavaScript seems like another level of insanity. A lone coder, Artur Ventura, has implemented a large part of the standard JVM using JavaScript and you can check the code out on Github. Notice this isn't a Java to JavaScript translator but a real JVM that runs byte code. This means it could run any language that compiles to byte code." Bonus: on Ventura's website is a set of visual notes from a talk he gave titled "My Language Is Better Than Yours."
Cloud

Submission + - Facebook Hit By Coordinated Spam Attack

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Over the last few days, Facebook users have been experiencing a flood of very graphic images depicting pornography, acts of violence, self-mutilation, and bestiality. The company confirmed the reports this morning and then this afternoon revealed that this has been the result of a coordinated spam attack leveraging a browser vulnerability.
Earth

Climate Change Skeptic Results Released Today 776

Posted by samzenpus from the on-second-thought dept.
Irishman writes "A leading climate change skeptic, Richard Muller, will release results today showing that global warming is indeed happening. He has shown that two items skeptics look to, urban heat islands and unreliable weather stations, do not skew the data. The amazing part is that this research is funded by the Koch brothers, two investors who fund climate change skeptics whenever possible."
Crime

Weaponizable Police UAV Now Operational In Texas 416

Posted by Soulskill from the chasing-perps-is-hard-work dept.
crackspackle writes "The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office in suburban Houston, Texas is preparing to launch operations with a newly received Shadowhawk MK-III unmanned aerial vehicle, paid for by grant money received by the Department of Homeland Security. The MK-III is a product marketed for both military and law enforcement applications. Michael Buscher, chief executive officer of manufacturer Vanguard Defense Industries, said this is the first local law enforcement agency to buy one of his units. 'The aircraft has the capability to have a number of different systems on board. Mostly, for law enforcement, we focus on what we call less lethal systems,' he said, including Tazers that can send a jolt to a criminal on the ground or a gun that fires bean bags known as a 'stun baton.' 'You have a stun baton where you can actually engage somebody at altitude with the aircraft. A stun baton would essentially disable a suspect,' he said. The MK-III also has more lethal options available, capable of carrying either a 40mm or 37mm grenade launcher or 12 gauge shotgun with laser designator."
AMD

Submission + - Analyzing Bulldozer: Why AMD's chip is so disappoi

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AMD’s Bulldozer is finally here, after years of development — and its performance is significantly worse than anyone expected. The situation is ugly enough that it may explain why so many executives left AMD over the past twelve months, and why the company was so tight-lipped about their departure. Bulldozer’s general performance has been widely covered; our goal here is to drill into why the Bulldozer performs the way it does.
Security

Analysis of 250,000 Hacker Conversations 111

Posted by Soulskill from the strange-predilection-for-pancakes dept.
Orome1 writes "Imperva released a report (PDF) analyzing the content and activities of an online hacker forum with nearly 220,000 registered members, although many are dormant. The forum is used by hackers for training, communications, collaboration, recruitment, commerce and even social interaction. Commercially, this forum serves as a marketplace for selling of stolen data and attack software. The chat rooms are filled with technical subjects ranging from advice on attack planning to solicitations for help with specific campaigns."

Submission + - UN Bigwig: 'The web" should have been patented and (boingboing.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing has unearthed an amazing video where the head of WIPO, the UN agency responsible for "promoting" intellectual property, suggests that Tim Berners-Lee should have patented HTML and licensed it to all users. Amazingly this is done on camera and in front of the head of CERN and the Internet Society, who look on in disbelief.
Businesses

Groupon Loses COO, Drastically Cuts Reported Revenue 131

Posted by Soulskill from the how-not-to-prepare-for-an-ipo dept.
itwbennett writes "Groupon COO Margo Georgiadis has quit after just 5 months on the job and is returning to Google to be the company's president for the Americas. Groupon's founder, Andrew Mason, wrote in a blog post that the company has undergone a reorganization with Georgiadis' departure, and now sales, channels, international and marketing will report directly to him. In other bad Groupon news, the company revealed in an SEC filing Friday that it was reporting revenue before it paid fees to merchants using Groupon. 'The effect of the correction resulted in a reduction of previously reported revenues and corresponding reductions in cost of revenue in those periods,' according to the filing."
Microsoft

Microsoft's Hottest New Profit Center: Android 276

Posted by Soulskill from the follow-the-money dept.
jbrodkin writes "One of Microsoft's hottest new profit centers is a smartphone platform you've definitely heard of: Android. Google's Linux-based mobile operating system is a favorite target for Microsoft's patent attorneys, who are suing numerous Android vendors and just today announced that another manufacturer has agreed to write checks to Microsoft every time it ships an Android device. Vendors paying off Microsoft for the right to use Android now include HTC, Velocity Micro, General Dynamics, Onkyo Corp. and Wistron. Microsoft likely makes more money from Android than its own Windows phone platform, and its latest patent agreement announced Tuesday indicates Microsoft is also going after Google's Linux-based Chromebooks."
Android

Google Loses Bedrock Suit, All Linux May Infringe 347

Posted by timothy from the take-one-guess-which-district dept.
blair1q writes "CNet reports that Google has lost the lawsuit brought by Bedrock, for infringing on Patent 5,893,120, 'Methods and apparatus for information storage and retrieval using a hashing technique with external chaining and on-the-fly removal of expired data,' and has exposed the Linux kernel, in which the infringing code reportedly appears, to liability for patent-license fees. Red Hat also participated in the suit, arguing that the patent was invalid, but the court decided otherwise."
Android

Microsoft Continues Android Legal Assault 344

Posted by Soulskill from the business-as-usual dept.
shmlco writes "According to an article on AllThingsD, Microsoft is continuing its legal assault on Android. On Monday the company sued Barnes & Noble, Foxconn International and Inventec over the company's Nook e-reader, alleging patent infringement. To quote Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez, 'The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action.'"

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