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Windows

Little Demand Yet For Silverlight Developers 314

Posted by kdawson from the they-can-afford-to-wait dept.
ericatcw writes "At its Mix08 Web development conference, Microsoft said that its Silverlight rich Internet application platform is downloaded and installed an average of 1.5 million times every day; Microsoft has a goal of 200 million installs by midyear. But Silverlight is at the beginning of a long slog towards gaining traction. Computerworld did a quick analysis of job listings at nine popular career sites and found that an average of 41 times more ads mentioned Adobe's Flash than mentioned Silverlight. As expected only 6 months after Silverlight's introduction, the number of programming books carried on Amazon.com was also heavily skewed in favor of Flash."
Google

Google Pulls Map Images At Pentagon's Request 217

Posted by kdawson from the limits-to-openness dept.
Stony Stevenson alerts us to a little mixup in which a Google Street View crew requested and was granted access to a US military base. Images from inside the base (which was not identified in press reports) showed up online, and the Pentagon requested that they be pulled. Google complied within 24 hours. The military has now issued a blanket order to deny such photography requests in the future; for its part Google says the filming crew should never have asked.
GNU is Not Unix

OpenOffice.Org Now Under LGPLv3 107

Posted by kdawson from the not-just-lip-service dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Sun has moved OpenOffice.org to the LGPLv3 license. In his blog Sun's Simon Phipps cites worry over software patents as being one of their main reasons for this move: 'Upgrading to the LGPLv3 brings important new protections to the OpenOffice.org community, most notably through the new language concerning software patents. You may know that I am personally an opponent of software patents, and that Sun has already taken steps in this area with a patent non-assert covenant for ODF. But the most important protection for developers comes from creating mutual patent grants between developers. LGPLv3 does this.'"
Cellphones

Apple Targeting Business World for the iPhone 338

Posted by Soulskill from the we-will-add-your-technological-distinctiveness-to-our-own dept.
The New York Times is running a couple of stories about the future of the iPhone in the business world and Apple's plan to maintain control of application development. Now that the iPhone SDK has been released and the "App store" has been demonstrated, Steve Jobs is pushing for the adoption of the iPhone as a standard business tool. In addition, a venture capitalist named John Doerr has launched a $100 million "iFund" to spur development of applications for the iPhone. From the NYTimes: "Mr. Jobs was upfront that there are limitations on what applications can do. He talked about bans on pornography and malicious programs. He also said Apple will not allow any application to be installed on the machine other than through the iTunes store. Nor will applications be permitted that enable an end run around Apple's deals with wireless carriers. Many questions remain unanswered. How much streaming video will Apple allow, because the iPhone is such an interesting video device? Mr. Jobs did say that the application development environment will have a lot of capabilities for video playback. Will Apple allow a service like Last.FM to offer streaming music on the iPhone?"
Businesses

Submission + - EA boss admits "We're boring people to death&# (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: EA's new chief executive John Riccitiello has spoken out against the industry's reliance on sequels and rehashes of existing genres. "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play," he says, and adds that videogame are "at risk of being a little less interesting than Facebook and iPods and the next cool cellphone".

The question is — will he demand that EA Games and EA Sports cease all sequels and updates? Or will pigs develop large wings and scorch across the sky like jet planes?

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/07 /09/were_boring_people_to_death_admits_ea_boss.htm l
Editorial

Submission + - EA Exec says games "boring and hard" (wsj.com)

Submitted by
GamerJar
GamerJar writes: "The WSJ Online reports:

In his first in-depth comments since taking the job in April, John Riccitiello says he worries that the Redwood City, Calif., company and others in the industry make too many games that lack innovation. He says EA and others need both to push more aggressively beyond traditional audiences to court "casual" consumers and to experiment more with new sales approaches — outside the norm of selling $50 to $60 discs with 40-hour games that he says few players ever finish.

"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play," Mr. Riccitiello said in an interview.
"
The Courts

Louisiana to Pay $92,000 After Game Law Fight 32

Posted by Zonk from the courteous-hosts dept.
After Louisiana's unsuccessful anti-games legislation bid last year, the judge ordered the state to pay the court costs for the ESA and EMA. This week, Judge Brady ordered the state to shell out some $92,000 to the organizations in compensation for wasted time. "Within the ruling, Judge Brady also said he was "dumbfounded" that the state was in the position of having to shell out taxpayer money over this, noting that the law had to pass through legal review at every step. Given that similar statutes were declared unconstitutional in a number of jurisdictions, "the Court wonders why nobody objected to the enactment of this statute. In this court's view, the taxpayers deserve more from their elected officials.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft admits benefitting from Windows piracy

Submitted by
Clever7Devil
Clever7Devil writes: "An article from Information Week here covers an interesting speech given by Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes:

From the article:

"If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else," Raikes said. ...
"We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products," Raikes said. "What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software."

Not that we haven't known this all along, but it's nice to hear it from the horse's mouth."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Reliving the technology during the 1980s

Submitted by
RFrancis
RFrancis writes: "If you grew up watching the 1980s variety show Solid Gold, and you remember clearly the birth of MTV, there's a strong chance you also had a phone that was connected to the wall. With the Internet, Xbox and iPods still years away from mainstream, here's a look at what the 1980s had to offer technology buffs during a time when the average salary was $15,757 and a BMW cost $12,000. Follow along and cast a vote below to find out at the end how much of a techie you really were by seeing what technology you did or didn't use...or still use (don't worry we won't tell)."
Google

Submission + - Google Earth highlights Darfur

Submitted by jc42
jc42 writes: NPR, PCworld, and some 400 other news sources (according to Google News) are reporting on a new Google feature: Google Earth, in cooperation with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum now presents details of the growing disaster in Darfur. They give a virtual tour of the area, with details of events in many villages in the words of local residents. So in addition to their "Do no evil" motto, they apparently now have a policy of exposing evil. Needless to say, the Sudan government didn't exactly cooperate with this project.

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