Adobe claims 100 million AIR installs...Where's Silverlight?
Yesterday at a conference in Japan, Adobe announced it has received an independent assessment of the worldwide installed base for its Web platforms. A Millward Brown survey estimates that Flash has been installed on 99% of the world's Internet-enabled PCs, leading Adobe to estimate that Flash Player 10 by itself will break the 80% penetration mark by the end of Q2 2009.
Some 100 million PCs are believed to have successfully installed Adobe's AIR runtime platform -- and by "successfully," the company means, it's running and active and without trouble. That's based on the company's own statistics about downloads.
Intel backs first public alphas of Moblin Linux
Download the VMware image of Moblin Alpha 1 from Fileforum now.
Embedded Linux, with its smaller footprint and tighter code, is finding its way into smaller platforms where even a stripped down Windows XP couldn't possibly fit. Intel is fully aware of this, which is perhaps one reason why it's funding the development of an innovative new Linux distribution called Moblin. It uses the GNOME Mobile platform and features OpenGL support, and it's attracting the attention of companies such as netbook leader Acer.
AOL to let go of 700, even amid its recovery
Despite impressive traffic growth as high as 27% annually on its associated Web sites including new personal finance news service WalletPop, AOL is also faced with cutting back resources to survive the present economic situation.
This afternoon, a memo first obtained by The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher cites AOL CEO Randy Falco as telling his employees that even those who will be remaining with the company shouldn't expect much special this year.
Stimulus package contains broadband open access provisions
A legislative measure to fund broadband deployment in rural and underserved areas is one of the attachments to the hotly debated economic stimulus package.
A chunk of the economic stimulus package being debated on Capitol Hill, and whose initial votes are happening now, would empower the Commerce Dept. to direct its NTIA division to provide federal grants to businesses that build out broadband service in underserved regions of the country.
FCC's McDowell: Stay focused on February 17
In remarks this morning at a Media Institute Luncheon in Washington, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell told attendees that he believes the government should concentrate on the existing DTV transition date of February 17:
I think it is important for all of us to stay focused on February 17 regardless of what Congress does or does not do. Most broadcasters are prepared to shut off their analog signals on that date, and with good reason. Not only has the government been working with them for three years to realize this goal, but broadcasters have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new DTV equipment in the past few years.
Move to fast-track DTV delay fails in the House
A move to suspend the rules of the House in order that the DTV Delay Act would be brought to the floor immediately, was defeated minutes ago. Although a majority voted in favor -- 258-168 -- a two-thirds majority of aye voters is necessary in order to pass a suspension of house rules.
As a result, the bill will not be fast-tracked, though it has yet to face total defeat. Rather, it must now be processed in the usual manner by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Its ranking member, Rep. Joe Barton (R - Texas), led the fight against the rules suspension and is currently against the bill.
Cox experiments with an 'anti-throttling' alternative
While throttling is still being treated by some Internet users as an implicit form of discrimination, the nation's ISPs must find both a technologically and politically correct method of managing their traffic congestion problems.
The US' second largest ISP, by many estimates, remains the nation's second greatest blocker of Internet traffic believed to be related to BitTorrent protocol. This according to the most recent test data released yesterday by the Max Planck Institute.
House Republicans invoke bin Laden to expedite DTV transition
"Osama bin Laden isn't fictional, and he isn't waiting," stated Rep. Joe Barton (R - Texas), in a vehement defense of the February 17 hard date.
The postponement of the US' digital TV transition to June 12 hit its first serious legislative obstacle yesterday, when Republicans led by the former Energy and Commerce Committee chairman and current ranking member, Joe Barton, debated the DTV Delay bill for the first time on Capitol Hill. Yesterday, Barton and colleague Rep. Cliff Stearns (R - Fla.) began their counter-assault with a letter (PDF available here) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D - Calif.), urging her to reconsider even bringing the delay bill to the floor for a vote.
AMD's bid for server redemption: 45 nm high-perf, low-power Opterons
In the second phase of its effort to put the disappointment of Barcelona behind it, AMD yesterday launched its low-power and high-performance versions of its 45 nm server processors.
For a market that had already once declared "the death of frequency" in determining a processor's relative value, AMD suffered a huge psychological hit by not having 65 nm "Barcelona" architecture CPUs that performed to expectations. The embarrassment of the December 2007 erratum aside, the company ended up never having a model that it trusted to be clocked at 3.0 GHz.
Its European court petition denied, Intel has three days to defend itself
Since last July, Intel's defense against a Statement of Objections filed by the European Commission has been that it isn't privy to all the evidence. Now, a court has concluded that time to find what that evidence is, has run out.
A last-chance petition by Intel before the European Court of First Instance in Brussels last month, pleading for enough time to gather information it believes may be exculpatory in charges against its anti-competitive conduct against AMD, was turned down this afternoon.
To CTO or not to CTO?
Yesterday, Angela talked about one of the new Obama administration's few unresolved appointments: the new "Chief Technology Officer," and even made a nomination of her own (not a bad pick).
I know a lot of folks are looking forward to having someone who personally represents the nation's technology policy the way, say, Hillary Clinton will represent the nation's foreign policy, or Joe Biden will represent the nation's...foreign policy. But given the sorry state of technology in just the White House itself, as reported last week by the Washington Post's Ann Kornblut, I'm not entirely certain that's top priority right now. What Mr. Obama needs in a CTO today, in my opinion, is someone who can give the Executive Branch the bandwidth it needs to conduct its business in the transparent and auditable way that he promised during his campaign.
The DTV Delay Act might not delay DTV for some
While the DTV Delay Act, passed unanimously in the Senate yesterday and likely to be passed on the House floor today, moves the official DTV transition date for the nation from February 17 to June 12, it specifically allows US broadcasters to throw their own switches at any time they see fit in the interim.
"Nothing in this Act is intended to prevent a licensee of a television broadcast station from terminating the broadcasting of such station's analog television signal (and continuing to broadcast exclusively in the digital television service) prior to the date established by law," reads the text of S. 328 released this morning to the Library of Congress. Should broadcasters within a given region vacate the analog spectrum prior to June 12, the FCC may determine whether public safety officials may be granted access to the vacated frequencies...evidently in separate determinations per region.
Microsoft promises the return of its Vista promotional registration site
A representative for Microsoft told Betanews Monday evening that a site intended to enable recipients of promotional copies of Windows Vista Ultimate -- folks who are guests at Microsoft-hosted seminars and conferences, for instance -- to register and activate their copies, will be reinstated later this week.
Guests who received copies of Vista can still install them, for the meantime, though without the all-important product keys, they'll time out after 30 days. Promotional copies are sent with special promotional codes inside, which recipients are asked to enter on the company's promotional Web site. But that site was built to go offline on December 31, even though many folks received their copies after that date.
Senate votes to delay DTV transition, House may be next
A bipartisan compromise bill drawn up over the weekend by Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D - W.V.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R - Tex.), which would delay the US' transfer date for over-the-air TV broadcasts to digital to June 12, passed the Senate early Monday evening. A bill with similar language being debated in the House, could pass there as early as tomorrow.
The ink on the bill is so fresh that the Library of Congress' online reporting service does not yet have the text. So it is believed that the matter of how Congress would appropriate the money necessary to extend the deadline, was actually left up in the air. Prior to the other important transition that happened in Washington -- the change of administrations -- government accountants reported the coupon program was running dry of funds.
Microsoft accelerates in 2009 with RC1 of IE8
In the clearest sign to date that the company's roadmap really is being fast-forwarded, Release Candidate 1 of Internet Explorer 8 -- a critical component of Windows 7 -- was released this morning.
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