Latest Technology News

Skype blogger Peter Parkes posted a quick update today announcing that within two days of availability, Skype is now one of the fastest-downloaded apps of all time in the iTunes app store at around six downloads each second.

This in no way is a gauge of the usage the app will get, since it has been shown that most iPhone apps that are featured, free, and downloaded at least a million times do not get used at all after one month, and 80% don't even use the app after the first day.

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With only two official deployments in the United States and flagging interest from hardware providers such as Nokia, WiMAX needs a strategic deployment. Where better than Silicon Valley?

Clearwire is shooting for a 20 square mile area of coverage in the San Francisco Bay area, and giving 4G developers there free access to the network.

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It may have cooled its heels for over a year in preview limbo, but Microsoft's ASP.NET MVC made the open-source leap rather quickly -- rolled out as 1.0 last month at MIX'09 after a quick RC2 in early March, the code is now open-source as per the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural framework isn't in very common use yet, but the philosophy's good, allowing programmers to maintain separation between data, interface and applications logic aspects of their projects. (That can make coding faster -- and the results both more elegant and more reusable, leading to faster coding -- a non-vicious circle, if you like.) And if the MS-PL is also news to you, Microsoft's Scott Guthrie (corporate VP for .NET)-- who describes the new release as "a 'closer to the metal' web programming option for ASP.NET" -- has a fast summation on his blog: "contains no platform restrictions and provides broad rights to modify and redistribute the source code."

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It's not law yet, but the French Parliament has moved one step closer to adopting harsh penalties for those caught downloading pirated content more than twice. Lawmakers voted Thursday on a provision that would essentially give citizens of France three strikes before their Internet access is cut off entirely for up to one year.

Once the rest of the "Creation and Internet Law" is approved, it will go to the National Assembly for a final vote. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy came out in support of the bill, and it's likely no coincidence that his wife, Carla Bruni, released her third album last year.

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"If you go with virtualization, you could be paying more than you need to pay," said Librato CEO Fred van den Bosch, in a briefing for Betanews at Cloud Computing Expo in New York City.

Furthermore, the hypervisors typically used in virtualization can produce performance hits of their own, he contended.

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iPhone who?, Research in Motion's Q4 2009 earnings report seemed to say on Thursday, as the Canadian firm's forth-quarter earnings report showed that the time is now for sales of its BlackBerry smartphones. The 50 millionth BlackBerry handset, in fact, shipped during the 2009 fiscal year just ended.

Not just to the usual business suspects, either. Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said on Thursday's earnings call that 70% of the 3.9 million new BlackBerry subscriber accounts launched in Q4 were non-enterprise accounts, and that 50% of all accounts now are held by consumers. In turn, he said, the company is changing to offer the sort of things consumers find appealing: social networking, e-commerce, music and the like.

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Already supporting Amazon EC2, GoGrid, and FlexiScale clouds, RightScale is now working on integrating RackSpace and Eucalyptus into its environment for managing hybrid clouds, said Thorsten von Eicken, the company's founder and CTO, in a meeting with Betanews at Cloud Computing Expo in New York City.

Available in free as well as other versions, RightScale's platform is aimed at organizations looking to administer private and public cloud spaces at the same time, acording to von Eicken.

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Software company Opera announced that its Web browser will be included in the Sprint 3G-connected Ford Work Soutions in-vehicle computer systems, and as a download for the Nintendo DSi that will be released in Europe tomorrow, and in the U.S. this Sunday.

In announcing the company's placement in the first 3G in-dash computer, Opera Americas' Software's Senior Vice President, Rod Hamlin said, "Opera's vision has always been about giving people access to the full Web anytime, anywhere. No example showcases this better than delivering a fast, feature-rich Web browser to a vehicle."

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Would you find it more surprising to hear that even teens are spending less during the economic downturn, or to hear that even teens are kind of nonplussed by the current music scene?

A report out this week from The NPD Group says that the 13-to-17 crowd acquired 19% less music in 2008 than they did the previous year. That's acquisition by any means -- CD purchases (down 26%), digital downloads (down 13%), peer-to-peer sharing (down 6%), even borrowing (down 28%).

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In a slight modification to the old mantra, "If you promise to build it, they will come" seems to be the order of the day at Tesla Motors, which has become a darling of Silicon Valley with its $100,000 electric roadster built atop the Lotus Elise platform.

The company announced Wednesday that it has taken over 520 pre-orders for its recently-unveiled fully-electric Model S Sedan, which is expected to cost $50,000 after a $7,000 federal tax credit. Tesla doesn't actually take orders, since the vehicles won't enter production until late 2011 at the earliest, but is instead selling "reservations" for $5,000 each. And some buyers surely plopped down $40,000 to reserve the first editions of the car to roll off the line.

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Hulu is reportedly attempting to keep out the non-browser based watchers by implementing its own form of DRM with JavaScript, but the trick didn't work for long as media center applications have already been updated.

Because of the sudden popularity of solutions like Boxee and MCE, and the related displeasure they caused content providers, streaming television service Hulu has been cat-and-mousing with third parties in the way that typically ends in legal action.

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Rumors are flying at the moment that IBM and Sun are down to nickels and dimes in negotiations for the former to acquire the latter. And it really is pocket change -- the difference between $10-$11 per share and $9-$10 per share -- until you remember that it's still an eight-figure transaction.

Reports in the Wall Street Jornal, on which neither company is commenting at this time, indicate that the price-per-share reduction would come in exchange for assurances that IBM will endeavor to persevere even if the purchase gets a lot of unfriendly attention from regulators.

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At the Cloud Computing Expo in New York City this week, CA announced certification of its CA Advanced Systems Management (ASM) software as VMWare Ready Optimized. CA also teamed with VMWare and Empowered Networks to launch the CA Partner Communicty for Business Transformation Through Virtualization Management, a new community for resellers and technology partners focusing on integration, development, product, and joint marketing support.

Designed for centralized management of virtualized and clustered server environments, ASM employs user-defined business policies for dynamic resource brokering across virtualized server resources. In a demo at the expo, CA's Larry Chorowski illustrated how systems managers can use ASM's dashboard to manage policies, provisioning, and other administrative functions. A VMWare partner since 2003, CA also supports virtualization technologies from Microsoft, Red Hat, Sun and other vendors with ASM and additional systems management tools, including CA Access Control and CA Recovery Management.

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Applications that allowed Android-based phones to act as 3G modems were pulled from the Android Market earlier this week, only to be returned again to everywhere...except in the U.S. According to a report from a developer of one of the apps that was pulled earlier in the week, Google found that the applications were a violation of T-Mobile's terms of service.

But given the open nature of Android, and the operating system's availability on wireless networks other than T-Mobile, Google today brought back the tethering apps, with the proviso that T-Mobile USA users will not have access to them. Because (unlike with the iPhone) Android applications can be distributed outside of the Market, however, those users who want tethering can likely find the download elsewhere.

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In a move seen by many as a tactic to drive more sales, Sling Media has decided not to support older versions of its hardware in the forthcoming SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone. That means customers who own a classic Slingbox, Slingbox AV or Slingbox Tuner won't be able to take advantage of the company's most highly-anticipated software release.

SlingPlayer Mobile enables users to connect with their Slingbox and stream television to their phones. Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian and Palm OS based phones are currently supported, but the holy grail for the company has been the iPhone, with its large vibrant screen and powerful processing capabilities.

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