Ed Oswald

Under the Free Software Foundation's previous roadmap, a so-called "last call" draft of the third GPL revision was due by now, with final release set for March. However, recent comments in the tech press indicate that is no longer the case.

Executive Director Peter Brown has indicated that the FSF is still working on release of the final draft of the specification, and would no longer hold itself to the March deadline. However, the organization's Web site has not been updated to indicate a new date.

Continue reading →

The proposed merger of Nokia and Siemens' communications units appears to be back on track, as officials announced the company's portfolio, while saying the merger would close sometime this quarter.

Nokia Siemens Networks will be divided into six units, including Radio Access, Service Core and Applications, Operation Support Systems, Broadband Access, IP/Transport, and Services.

Continue reading →

Research in Motion unveiled the highly-anticipated BlackBerry 8800 device at 3GSM World Congress Monday, saying it would be available on AT&T in the US and Rogers in Canada.

The 8800 features a full QWERTY keyboard with trackball navigation. In addition, the phone includes built-in GPS, multimedia functionality, and expandable memory through a microSD slot.

Continue reading →

Motorola introduced several new phones on Monday at the 3GSM Conference in Barcelona, including a new line aimed at emerging markets, and a slider that opens in a curve to match the contour of the user's face.

The Motomobile line, to debut over the first half of this year, will include functionality such as a megapixel camera with video capabilities, music player functionality, and CrystalTalk, a technology aimed at assisting the user in placing calls in noisy environments.

Continue reading →

Viacom is wasting no time in moving on from dealing with YouTube, as the company is planning to aggressively promote new functionality on ComedyCentral.com in the coming months, and others in the future.

Functionality will be provided directly from the site itself that allows users to embed and share videos much like the popular social video site. Users will be permitted to show the video for a period of one month after it is posted.

Continue reading →

Cisco said Friday that it had acquired Five Across, a small San-Francisco company that specializes in creating applications that allow companies to easily add social-networking functionality to their Web sites.

The software enables IT administrators to easily add sections to sites that allow for the sharing of content, as well as enable users to post profiles and blogs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Cisco says it expects the acquisition to close by the end of April.

Continue reading →

Just one day before Valentine's Day, Microsoft plans to release twelve patches fixing a variety of issues in Windows, Office, Visual Studio, and several other applications. At least five of these patches will be rated "critical."

There could be an easy explanation for the unusually large size of Patch Tuesday this month. Four patches slated for release last month were dropped at the last hour, including a Windows-Visual Studio update that appeared in the advanced notification but never appeared.

Continue reading →

Nokia is making a foray into the mobile applications market, saying Thursday it plans to make its smart2go navigation platform available at no charge to select Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile devices.

Eventually, application support would be expanded to other S60 and Windows Mobile phones, as well as additional phone platforms including Nokia's Series 40, Microsoft's Pocket PC and Linux operating systems.

Continue reading →

Microsoft plans to release Windows Mobile 6 on Monday at the 3GSM Conference in Barcelona. The upgrade features integration with Windows Live services, better search, and tighter security.

Code-named "Crossbow," the new version is said to be more of an incremental upgrade to Microsoft's mobile operating system. Since the last release of Windows Mobile 5 in May 2005, the company has embarked on a massive net services initative, called "Live," and security threats to mobile devices have increased markedly.

Continue reading →

With pressure increasing on the country to remedy its rampant piracy problems, China said Thursday it had shuttered 205 Web sites in an effort to begin to take control of the problem.

Between the months of September and January, China had opened 436 investigations, with at least 130 of them requested by trade associations outside the country. 361 of them had been ordered to stop, it said.

Continue reading →

As promised, ESPN will re-launch its mobile brand through a major carrier, signing a multi-year exclusive agreement with Verizon Wireless. The feature will be available to subscribers of the company's V CAST service.

ESPN shuttered its mobile operation in September of last year after less than nine months in operation. It leased cellular spectrum off of Sprint Nextel and operated as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). However, the service never got off the ground, and reportedly only had 30,000 subscribers.

Continue reading →

Casual game developers will soon be able to share in some of the revenue from MSN Games thanks to a new system developed by Microsoft. The new option is available immediately, and could mean as much as $250,000 in shared revenue for the five most popular titles.

Two levels of participation would be provided. The first level would require little or no change in the development process and would share ten percent of generated ad revenues. The second option would share 20 percent, but would require the developer to add more functionality to their games.

Continue reading →

Social networking site Facebook is partnering with Comcast's user generated video site Ziddio to produce a program that would give Facebook users the opportunity to have their user-generated videos appear on television.

Called "Facebook Diaries," the program would air both online, and on television through Comcast's On Demand service. R.J. Cutler, who is best known for his work on "American High" and "30 Days", would produce ten half-hour episodes.

Continue reading →

TiVo and Amazon have entered into an agreement that would bring the online retailer's "Unbox" movie download service to the set-top boxes of TiVo customers in the near future.

Both the rental and purchase functions will be available to broadband-enabled TiVo boxes. Amazon is no doubt banking on Unbox on TiVo as a way to jumpstart its download business, which has seen a rocky start.

Continue reading →

Samsung and a US subsidiary have agreed to pay $90 million to settle charges that it colluded to keep the price of DRAM memory artificially high.

Money will be used to reimburse consumers as well as the legal costs of state and local governments nationwide. The action settles cases brought by 41 states, and several private class-action suits.

Continue reading →