22101312
submission
doperative writes:
Western companies including Cisco Systems Inc. are poised to help build an ambitious new surveillance project in China — a citywide network of as many as 500,000 cameras that officials say will prevent crime but that human-rights advocates warn could target political dissent ..
An examination of the Peaceful Chongqing project by The Wall Street Journal shows Cisco is expected to supply networking equipment that is essential to operating large and complicated surveillance systems, according to people familiar with the deal.Link to Original Source
21959570
submission
doperative writes:
Microsoft has nailed a second Android device maker to a patent licensing agreement.
The Redmond software giant announced on Monday that General Dynamics Itronix has signed a patent agreement that will provide "broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio".
In other words, General Dynamics Itronix has agreed to licensing certain, unnamed Microsoft patents for use with Android-powered portables.
20709104
submission
doperative writes:
"A lot of patents are pretty much not worth that much .. In other words, any fifth-grader could come up with the same approach .. And then we find out RCA has a patent on a character generator for any raster-scanned setup .. And they patented it at a time when nobody could have envisioned it really being used or anything ... and they got five bucks for each Apple II, based on this little idea that's not even an idea. Y'know: store the bits, store the bits, then pop in a character on your TV"
20469520
submission
doperative writes:
A lawsuit from a big company, even if doomed, still takes a lot of time, energy and money to fight off .. And now OEMs have to factor that cost into the decision to choose Android. And all of a sudden, Android has a price.
20267798
submission
doperative writes:
If you were as puzzled as I was by the blog fight, as Geekwire calls it, between Google and Microsoft over whether or not Google was FISMA certified, then you will be glad to know I gathered up some of the documents from the case, Google et al v. USA, and they cause the mists to clear. I'll show you what I found, but here's the funny part — it turns out it's Microsoft whose cloud services for government aren't FISMA certified. And yet, the Department of the Interior chose Microsoft for its email and messaging cloud solution, instead of Google's offering even though Google today explains that in actually its offering actually is. It calls Microsoft's FUD "irresponsible".
20193416
submission
doperative writes:
"Albert Gonzalez .. is asking a federal judge to throw out his earlier guilty pleas and lift his record-breaking 20-year prison sentence, on allegations that the government authorized his years-long crime spree" link
19673080
submission
doperative writes:
"We as an open source community, we don't seem to get our act together when it comes to understanding the needs of end users on the desktop.", Miguel de Icaza
19495712
submission
doperative writes:
A consultant hired by SCO in 2004 to compare UNIX and Linux, with the thought he could be used as an expert at trial, says that, after days and days, his comparison tool found "very little correlation". When he told that to SCO, it paid him and he never heard from SCO again.
18813692
submission
doperative writes:
"oeWe remain open to resolving this situation through an intellectual property licensing agreement, and we look forward to continued negotiations with TiVo"
18695600
submission
doperative writes:
"Much conventional wisdom about programs written by volunteers is wrong" ..
"the authors took money for research from Microsoft, long the arch- enemy of the open-source movement— although they assure readers that the funds came with no strings attached)" ..
"free programs are not always cheaper. To be sure, the upfront cost of proprietary software is higher (although open-source programs are not always free). But companies that use such programs spend more on such things as learning to use them and making them work with other software" ... link
