Latest Technology News

Prior to Google's announcement earlier today of its open sourcing the VP8 video codec, a spokesperson for MPEG LA -- the licensing agent that manages the patent portfolio for multimedia technologies relating to the H.264 codec, among others -- agreed to answer ten questions submitted to the agency in advance. Those questions regard how it licenses the codec that Microsoft and Apple consider the best solution for HTML 5, the next markup language for the Web.

Here, Betanews presents the questions and MPEG LA's responses without editorial comment.

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In a pair of blog posts released simultaneously this afternoon, Microsoft's Internet Explorer General Manager, Dean Hachamovitch, walked on eggshells in explaining why his group is staying the course with respect to its decision on the H.264 codec in IE9. This in the wake of Google's historic move today to release the VP8 video codec it acquired under a full open source license under the umbrella title WebM, even though it could mean legal action against Google down the road.

"The issue of potential patent liability is 'ultimately for the courts to decide,'" wrote Hachamovitch in one post, citing an Engadget article from earlier this month. Reaffirming his company's commitment to the ideals of HTML 5 -- whatever those may be today -- he stated at two points, "IE9 will support playback of H.264 video as well as VP8 video when the user has installed a VP8 codec on Windows."

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Google has announced the upcoming availability of the Chrome Web Store, an open marketplace similar to the Android Market or iTunes App Store that deals exclusively in Web Apps.

This store doesn't exist yet, but will open both to developers and to users "later this year."

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Google today began pushing its Wave collaboration tool again, hoping to attract both users and developers with new features.

Firstly, for users, Google is dropping the "invitation-only" velvet rope from the collaboration tool, and now anybody can sign up just by going to wave.google.com and logging in with their gmail or Google account.

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Today, Gartner released first quarter 2010 worldwide mobile phone sales data, and it's the set that matters. Unlike IDC or manufacturers like Apple, Gartner tracks actual sales to users rather than shipments to carriers or retailers. Shipment data is less accurate, because of unsold inventory in the channel. Based on sales, Apple ranked No. 7 in worldwide mobile handset sales, just behind sagging Motorola. That's for all phones, not just smartphones.

For smartphones, Android and iPhone OS made huge gains, with Gartner describing them as the "winners" for the quarter. Android rose from 575,300 unit sales to 5.2 million year over year, pushing Windows Mobile down into the fifth position. Because there already is a fair amount of misreporting, such as Apple pushing ahead of Motorola, I will continue the main portion of this post with some quick -- and in some instances -- corrective facts:

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Wednesday afternoon, Google opted for the most daring option available to it: It is making available both the technology and the source code for the VP8 codec it acquired, in its buyout of On2 Technologies, to a separate entity. That entity, the newly formed WebM Project, will then serve as a licensing agent on Google's behalf for the VP8 video codec, the Vorbis audio codec, and the Matroska multimedia container, for royalty-free use, apparently in both free and commercial video.

At least as extraordinary, if not more so, is the new WebM group's list of charter supporters, which could be unofficially dubbed the "Everyone Except H.264 Coalition." Browser makers Mozilla and Opera both appear on this list, along with Adobe, the maker of Flash -- the Web's most prevalent distribution system for streaming video. And on the hardware side, both AMD (parent of ATI) and Nvidia have signed on, along with all the principal players in handheld components: ARM, Freescale, Marvell, TI, and Qualcomm.

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Just over a week ago, NPD Group released its Wireless Market Research report for the United States, which showed BlackBerry devices leading the smartphone market with 36% penetration, then Android-based devices followed with 28%, and then Apple's iPhone came in third with 21%.

Today, IT research firm Gartner released its first quarter 2010 sales figures for the worldwide mobile device market, and we got a view of how the Smartphone OS market is changing.

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Customer relationship management (CRM) software has typically fallen outside the realm that Betanews has covered, at least in recent years. It falls outside the realm a lot of publications cover, not because it's the least bit obscure or unimportant or even a segment of the information industry around which billions of dollars in invested capital revolve, but because it isn't usually the stuff around which soap operas are based. If someone left a spare, unauthorized beta copy of Dynamics CRM at a bar, it's not something Gizmodo would be snapping photos of and TMZ would be scooping interviews about.

Nevertheless, CRM is a huge industry; and while Microsoft has been a big player in that market since its acquisition of Great Plains Software in 2001 and Navision the following year, it has never been the #1 player. PeopleSoft had a very competitive CRM offering for small businesses in the early part of the last decade, then Oracle acquired that company in 2004. Later, Siebel had the lead, and Oracle acquired that company in 2006. (You can see a pattern here.)

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Betanews has 500 of them. One could be yours.

The mSpot private beta opened today. The concept is simple: Your music available, anytime, anywhere on anything. The streaming service initially offers clients for Mac, PC and Android 2.1 phones, so mSpot is still working on the anywhere. Perhaps that's good reason for the private beta.

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Yesterday, Yahoo! Inc. announced it would be acquiring Associated Content Inc., and the transaction would cost the search company an estimated $100 million.

Associated Content calls itself the "People's Media Company," and is a media outlet consisting of more than 380,000 freelancers publishing news, photos, video, and other content on subjects chosen by the site.

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Three words sum up Microsoft's patent infringement suit against Salesforce.com: Competition by litigation. Microsoft knows plenty about competition by litigation, having been its victim through major antitrust cases on two continents. It's simply shameful action from a company which executies rightly wagged accusing fingers at litigating competitors over the years. Microsoft's "do unto them like they did unto us" approach cheapens the company. The proof is in the patents, which are hugely broad scope.

Qualifying that I am no patent attorney, I have applied layman's eyes to the patents that Microsoft alleges Salesforce.com violates. The nine patents read to me as being very broad in scope and potentially applicable to many forms of end user to computer or Web browser interactions -- or none at all. If any of these patents are enforceable, the US patent system really does need some reform.

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Thirty-two days ago, I purchased Apple's iPad, after proclaiming that I wouldn't. A gadget like this one should be tested if repeatedly blogged about. I would have used a for-reviews loaner, but I'm on the same fraked list as Gizmodo. I bought my own. A month-or-so usage later, I agree with Tumblr and Instapaper developer Marco Arment, who asked about iPad yesterday: "What's it for, really? Logically, it doesn't make a lot of sense for most computer owners...most people will have trouble justifying the $500 entry price."

My problem is similar to Arment's: I like the iPad, but can't find a use for it. The tablet is too big to replace a cell phone and it's not functional enough to displace my laptop (singletasking is one of the major reasons for that). I would never buy the butt-ugly Amazon Kindle or slow-as-cold-molasses Barnes and Noble Nook, yet I find iPad to be a so-so satisfactory substitute e-book reader. I managed to reread Orson Scott Card's excellent Ender's Game and am trudging through sequel Speaker for the Dead. But it's reading for convenience, not joy.

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Last Friday, Google announced that its Street View cars had accidentally collected private data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks while making their rounds, and the international response began in full force.

The same day, the Irish Data Protection Authority asked Google to delete all of that payload that was collected in Ireland. Yesterday, Google wrote, "We can confirm that all data identified as being from Ireland was deleted over the weekend in the presence of an independent third party. We are reaching out to Data Protection Authorities in the other relevant countries about how to dispose of the remaining data as quickly as possible."

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Kindle is, without a doubt, the highest profile e-reader platform running. With applications on iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Windows, and OS X as well as its own line of e-paper Kindle devices, Amazon had an estimated 90% share of the e-book sales market last year.

Today, Amazon announced that a Kindle app will be launched on the Android mobile operating system this summer.

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I'm constantly reminded how slow email actually is.

On the homescreen of one of my smartphones, I've got the official Twitter widget and the official Facebook widget which are pretty much constantly refreshing. Likewise, my email inbox is set to refresh just as frequently. Every day, when someone sends me a message in Facebook or replies to a Tweet, the widgets tell me first, and then five minutes later I get the email alerting me again. Because of this, I have an email account just for social network updates that is overflowing with unread messages.

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