Videos Purchased from Google to Self-Destruct Wednesday
In a move that may have some wondering whether the proverbial left hand knows what the other left hand is doing, Google issued a notice to its Google Video customers last week informing them that it is discontinuing its video sales business on Wednesday. But that wasn't all: The notice explicitly says that videos purchased or rented, and then downloaded to customers' PCs will no longer be viewable on or after August 15.
In other words, if you were to use this page to search for a video within a specific price range today, regardless of what you pay for it, due to DRM restrictions it will not play after Wednesday.
Open XML Still Likely to Be Certified
Last Friday's news that Microsoft's Office Open XML failed to pass a letter ballot for recommendation by the Executive Board of INCITS to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) without comments, was interpreted yet again by press sources as an outright failure of the standard, and the end of the road for global acceptance. But a check of comments posted by voting members, and a re-read of what rules the INCITS group has posted, says otherwise.
The test which OOXML failed last week was whether it could be recommended by the Board without any concerns being raised by members, regardless of whether they approve or disapprove. BetaNews has been told conflicting accounts of how the rules of INCITS actually work.
Court to Award Broadcom $39.3 Million in Qualcomm Dispute
The long-term effects of last week's scathing redress of Qualcomm's conduct by a federal court judge, have yet to be fathomed. In the short term, Qualcomm will probably have to pay rival Broadcom $39.3 million in damages and costs, which is not the treble damages it had been seeking, though it is double.
This tentative award comes late Friday as a result of a jury trial in US District Court in Santa Ana last May, which awarded Broadcom $19.64 million plus costs. There, the jury found Qualcomm guilty of nine counts of infringement on three Broadcom patents under dispute. The jury award entitled Judge James Selna to as much as triple that amount if he found Qualcomm acted with malice.
Not Enough INCITS Voters Recommend Microsoft OOXML to ISO
With the ballot having closed among members of Technical Committee V1 of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) advisory board over whether to recommend Microsoft's Office Open XML format to the International Standards Organization as a standard, although more members voted aye than nay, an abstention by the IEEE forced the committee not to recommend it without comments.
The 8-7-1 vote deals a setback to Microsoft's hopes to be able to fast-track OOXML's approval by the ISO without being encumbrance. Due to the Committee's unorthodox rules, a 9-7 vote would have meant passage. But the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers' abstention actually dealt a more serious blow than if it had voted no, by kicking in a provision whereby a two-thirds majority of the remaining votes would have been required for the measure to pass: meaning, the vote would have to have been 10-5-1.
Judge: Novell, Not SCO, Owns UNIX Copyrights
As the technology law blog Groklaw broke late this afternoon, Utah District Court Judge Dale Kimball has handed Novell a partial, but still sizable, chunk of victory in its very, very long-running dispute brought on by SCO Group: Even after an asset purchase agreement between Novell and the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO's predecessor company), it is Novell that owns the copyrights to the UNIX operating system and to UnixWare.
The ruling effectively dismisses two of SCO's claims against Novell in full, along with substantive parts of two other claims, leaving its remaining premises for its multitude of complaints hanging by a tangle of questionable procedural threads, which may not hold up for very long.
AT&T Cuts Anti-Bush Lyrics from Webcast
AT&T is trying to quell criticism after monitors it hired cut two lines of anti-Bush lyrics from its webcast of a Pearl Jam concert in Chicago earlier this week.
The company said in a statement Thursday that the lyrics should not have been censored. The rock band was singing a cover of the Pink Floyd track "Another Brick in the Wall." Instead of the line "teacher, leave those kids alone," lead singer Eddie Vedder replaced it with his own lyrics.
Fujitsu's 'Nanohole' Tech Could Triple Hard Drive Capacity
Last November, we reported on Fujitsu's efforts to overcome a curious problem with the physics of hard disk drives: storing magnetic data at densities that are smaller than the grains of the underlying ferromagnetic medium should physically allow. The company's solution involved a combination of lasers to locate precise locations on the drive, and also to pre-heat data spots to make them more conducive to holding data at precise locations.
But all that assumes that the precise locations in question...already exist. Yesterday, we learned from Fujitsu how they intend to accomplish that, and we also got a peek at some areal density goals.
Can the RAZR 2 Bring Motorola Back?
It's no secret that Motorola has been struggling in recent years since demand for its iconic RAZR phone has faded. The company posted a first quarter loss this year, and does not expect to be profitable in 2007. But Motorola is hoping to change its fortunes with the RAZR 2, which goes on sale this month.
The RAZR 2 V9 will be offered by AT&T while the CDMA V9m will be sold by Verizon, Sprint and Alltel. Because the V9 supports EVDO and HSDPA 3G networks, T-Mobile is not on the initial list of RAZR 2 carriers, but it could carry the V8 model that only supports EDGE networks.
Toshiba Issues Third Sony Battery Recall
As if consumers haven't heard enough on the subject, Toshiba on Friday issued its third recall related to malfunctioning Sony batteries that could overheat and potentially explode. This time around, only 1,400 batteries are affected for the company's Satellite A100, Satellite A105 and Terca A7 laptop models.
According to an advisory from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, "Consumers should stop using the recalled batteries and contact Toshiba to receive a free replacement battery." In the meantime, the laptops can be used safely without the battery when plugged in. More information is available from Toshiba's Web site.
MySQL to Distribute Commercial Source Code for Paying Customers Only
A move on Wednesday by the manufacturers of the open source MySQL database to shut off access to the source code of its commercial edition MySQL Enterprise Server, has led to a new round of debate in the open source community over whether the group is gradually abandoning its commitment to free software.
"Our intention is for MySQL Community Server to be very good, and for MySQL Enterprise Server to provide further value on top of that," stated MySQL AB's vice president for community relations, Kaj Arno, in a blog post on Wednesday.
Microsoft Tests New Live.com 'Dashboard'
Microsoft is testing out a new personalized homepage for Live.com that integrates separate Windows Live services into a single "dashboard." The site, located at home.live.com, displays new e-mails, blog postings from friends, and links to try out other Windows Live services like OneCare and SkyDrive.
The Redmond company hopes that by unifying its Windows Live services onto a single page, it may convince Hotmail or Spaces users to try other offerings they may not know about. Microsoft has struggled to draw consumers to its new services despite the new branding. Unified homepages are nothing new, as both Google and Yahoo offer similar sites, along with upstarts like Netvibes.
Google Offers Paid Storage Upgrades
On the same day that Microsoft rebranded its storage service to Windows Live SkyDrive, Google made some moves of its own in the space. The company unrolled "overflow" solutions for those users who exceed their 1GB of storage for Picasa Web Albums and 2.8GB for Gmail.
For $20 per year, customers can use up to 6GB of storage, $75 for 25GB, $250 for 100GB and $500 for 250GB. At the moment, the new storage applies only to Gmail and Picasa, but Google says the capacity will soon be expanded to cover Docs & Spreadsheets and other Google Apps. More information is available on Google's new Manage Storage page.
Nine Patches Due for Patch Tuesday
Microsoft plans to release nine patches as part of its August Patch Tuesday release, including six critical fixes for a host of code execution issues in several of its products. The patches will plug holes in XML Core Services, Windows, Internet Explorer, Office for both Windows and Mac, and Visual Basic.
In addition, three patches rated "important" will be released for two less severe code execution issues, and an elevation of privilege risk. The former patches are for Windows and Windows Vista, while the latter affects Virtual PC and Virtual Server. Microsoft said it planned to hold a webcast next Wednesday at 11:00am PT to discuss the releases.
Universal Goes DRM Free, But Not on iTunes
Universal said late Thursday that it planned to start selling music tracks from its artists in MP3 format for a limited time, however not through Apple's iTunes Music store. Also a surprise in the announcement: Google plans to begin selling MP3s directly from its search engine, BetaNews has learned.
The move from both Universal and Google is a clear shot across the bow of Apple, which has a near stranglehold on the digital music industry. It also seems to indicate that digital rights management may be on its way out with record executives.
The Petaflop Race is On: NSF Contract Goes to IBM and NCSA
There are a multitude of teams racing to build the world's fastest supercomputer, probably by 2011. Yesterday, the US government's star contract for a DARPA computer, complete with $208 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, went to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Local TV newscasts all over America (judging from their Web sites) ran with the story that IBM was awarded the US government contract to build "the world's fastest supercomputer" at the NCSA site (where, incidentally, the first Mosaic Web browsers were developed).
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