Direct from Google headquarters, and liveblogged by John Paczkowski, Google’s Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director for Google Chrome OS, explain some of the advantages of the operating system: Speed, simplicity and security.
Speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this past July, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS, “Who knows what this thing is?” Today, he found out. The operating system, a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, was on display at a media gathering at the company’s HQ this morning, and in the words of Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, it is intended to make computing a “delightful” experience.
Cisco’s fall acquisition binge continues unabated. Late Monday, the company announced plans to buy the set-top box business of China’s DVN Holdings for up to $44.5 million. This after spending $3 billion on videoconferencing system maker Tandberg, wireless infrastructure outfit Starent Networks and software-as-a-service security vendor ScanSafe–all in quick succession.
If you can’t beat ’em, sue ’em. That seems to be the thinking at Nokia. Today, the Finnish cellphone giant, which has been struggling to develop a worthy competitor to the iPhone, filed suit against Apple, claiming the popular smart phone infringes upon a number of Nokia patents.
As launch dates go, the timing could not be better. Less than a week after Google’s Gmail suffered its fourth service disruption this year, IBM announced a competing Web mail service intended to undercut it. Called LotusLive iNotes, it’s an email, calendaring, and contact management system aimed squarely at the enterprise space Google has been so diligently courting.
Evidently, Google’s efforts to create a new CAPTCHA system that requires people to rotate images until they’re upright aren’t moving as quickly as the company would like. Because this morning, the search giant said it had acquired reCAPTCHA, developer of the Web’s preeminent CAPTCHA technology.
Apple on Wednesday released OS X 10.5.8, the latest point release to Mac OS X Leopard, even as Amazon takes pre-orders for its next iteration–Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6). 10.5.8 is largely a maintenance update, though it does patch a number of security vulnerabilities (18 to be exact), some of them fairly old.
Once again, the iPhone is safe for text messaging. Apple on Friday distributed iPhone OS 3.0.1, a point release to the operating system that addresses a security vulnerability that could have allowed a malicious hacker to seize control of an iPhone with an unusual SMS text message.
Between 2006 and 2011, IBM expects the number of mobile phone users to increase by 191 percent to approximately one billion. Little wonder then that the company is dedicating more resources to mobile services-related R&D.
How slow are government agencies at adopting new technologies? So slow that the U.S. Army is planning a major upgrade of its information systems–to Microsoft’s Windows Vista OS. Though Windows 7 is expected at market by the end of the year, the United States military has set that as a deadline for its migration from Windows XP to Windows Vista and from Office 2003 to Office 2007.
2009 is proving to be a year of dubious distinction for Microsoft in patent litigation. On Wednesday the company was ordered to pay $200 million to Toronto-based i4i for willfully infringing its patents.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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