Latest Technology News

Nearly a year after Sun Microsystems first announced it would be releasing a build of Java to the open source community, Red Hat has apparently signed on. In an announcement this morning, the company said it has licensed Sun's Java SE Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK), with the objective to produce an optimized Java for its Enterprise Linux that will drive JBoss applications.

"Red Hat customers will benefit from a highly optimized, accelerated runtime for JBoss Enterprise Middleware in a Linux environment," reads a Red Hat statement this morning.

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Hollywood writers went on strike at midnight Monday, at odds with the producers over several issues which included several disagreements on compensation for so-called "new media" royalties.

The disagreement and strike essentially brings to a halt production on nearly every current television show on the air. Depending on the length of the walkout, it could put network's fall schedules in jeopardy, especially for those which the full season has not yet been written.

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A few hours after Google's dramatic announcement which some sources had still been anticipating as a mobile phone bearing the Google brand, we actually know less about Android than we did -- or thought we did -- at 11:00 this morning when it was announced. During a midday press conference featuring key Google executives including CEO Eric Schmidt, reporters called into question most of the principal facts surrounding the new Open Handset Alliance - most importantly, the ingredients of the Android platform.

"One of the key differences in what we're developing is the reality of it," responded Google's Director of Mobile Platforms, Andy Rubin, to a question Om Malik asked about how handset manufacturers who joined the Alliance will be expected to distinguish their Android-based products from one another. "Within one week's time, this software will be in the hands of developers, and developers will be able to create applications, and those applications will be able to be included in handsets that are available in the second half of 2008."

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Yahoo! has launched Kickstart, a social networking site dedicated to the collegiate and professional world, and also announced FireEagle, a tentatively-named geospatial platform.

Kickstart's social network leans more heavily on the "network" than the "social." Upon initial perusal, one notices Kickstart's almost-identical-to-Facebook signup criteria. But the key difference is how user profiles are presented.

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Although it is out of the jurisdiction of the United States Government, a Canadian ISP's admission that it is using similar tactics as Comcast is likely to keep the debate on net neutrality going.

The admission by Bell Sympatico came through its online forums after a user complained that he was noticing problems with his connection when using peer-to-peer downloading programs.

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Microsoft seems set to debut its newest addition to the Windows Live family, a calendaring application, and is also preparing to bring several Live services out of beta, sources report.

LiveSide.net is reporting that Windows Live Calendar briefly made an appearance on Microsoft's servers, apparently for testing. It's appearance led the site to believe that a release is imminent.

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ESPN said Monday that it had signed a deal with Microsoft to bring some of its programming to Xbox Live, including games and television shows. Some of the content has already appeared on the offering, including several past NCAA college sporting events, the Summer X Games, and hit shows such as the World Series of Poker and Madden Nation.

The move expands ESPN's video distribution beyond iTunes, the only other non-ESPN owned property to sell the network's videos for almost the past two years. Pricing of the TV shows will be roughly the same as iTunes at $2, while HD versions will cost 40 cents more. Sporting events will carry a $1 premium, while HD downloads will cost $4.50, ESPN said.

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In a somewhat successful marketing ploy that shows Google has indeed learned something from Steve Jobs after all, the company lifted the veil on what was anticipated to be a cell phone with Google's logo on it. Instead, it's a software platform, which should not have been a surprise from a company that's in the business of making software platforms. What's more, it's an open source Linux kernel for cross-branded third-party apps...that omits the Google brand.

"Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices," stated Google's director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin, in a blog post this morning. "It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications - all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation."

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MySpace and Facebook have both been devising new advertising platforms, and MySpace's platform, SelfServe, will be officially announced just one day ahead of the rumored announcement of Facebook's SocialAds.

Similar to Google AdWords but geared toward display ads, SelfServe allows advertisers to analyze ad performance throughout the MySpace network and then create ads accordingly. Advertisers may buy space for as little as $10 USD, and payment is made when someone clicks on the advertiser's profile. There will be a fixed cost per click based on the category, but will eventually, like Google Adwords, become auction based.

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At the TechEd conference in Barcelona earlier this morning European time, Microsoft developer division corporate vice president S. Somasegar told attendees to expect the final Visual Studio 2008 to be shipped sometime in late November 2007. Since it is now early November 2007, that gives the company a pretty narrow RTM window.

But the "marketing launch" for the product is described as being set for February 2008, which means all the big parties will be delayed until after the holidays. Microsoft may have chosen to follow a Vista-like rollout model, making the next edition of its development suite available to volume license customers and MSDN subscribers first. The company had already slated a rollout party for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 for February, and VS 2008's contribution to the champagne will apparently wait until then.

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Microsoft said Monday that the first product under the Windows Home Server line, HP's MediaSmart Server, is now available for pre-order and will be released later this month.

Pre-orders will be taken on the Web sites: Amazon, Best Buy, Buy.com. Circuit City and CompUSA. Shipping and availability through other retailers occurs later this month.

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Nintendo has reportedly decided to stop all repairs of the original Nintendo after 24 years of support, Agence France Presse reported on Friday. A spokesperson said that the company has decided to end support due to increasingly short supplies of replacement parts. The iconic game system was sold as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US and Europe, and as the Famicom in Japan.

Nintendo's Ken Toyoda said that while the company is sad to turn its back on the NES, the company wanted its legions of loyal fans to focus on the Wii, currently the best selling next-generation console worldwide. Nexgenwars.com, a tracker of game console sales, says the Wii has shipped 12.26 million consoles, compared to 12.2 million for the Xbox 360 and nearly 5.08 million for the PS3.

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Mozilla and Microsoft are in the midst of a squabble over the future of JavaScript, with each side accusing the other of actions which could end up "breaking the Web."

The two companies each have their own respective versions of the common programming language that is used across the web: Mozilla backs ECMAScript, while Microsoft pushes its own JScript.

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In a sign that peer-to-peer file sharing is still thriving in a post-Kazaa world, popular BitTorrent site Mininova has reached a milestone 3 billion downloads. With a reported 3 million daily visitors and almost 10 million torrents downloaded a day, the site has shown tremendous growth over the almost three years it has existed.

The site's blog says there were hopes of reaching 4 billion downloads this year, but that goal will take another few months to reach. Due to the loopholes that .torrent files fit through, sites like Mininova can thrive and actually become desirable locations for advertisers. Ask.com, eHarmony, and Howard Johnson hotels all currently have ads running on Mininova despite the obvious illegal filesharing that takes place around the site.

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In a gamble that is certain to receive stiff opposition from both sides of the aisle, Reps. Gene Green (D - Texas) and Mike Conaway (R - Texas) offered to the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday a draft resolution opposing the imposition of royalties on terrestrial radio broadcasters for the use of sound recordings.

"For more than 80 years, Congress has rejected repeated calls by the recording industry to impose a performance fee on local radio stations for simply playing music on the radio and upsetting the mutually beneficial relationship between local radio and the recording industry," reads one clause of the draft for House Concurrent Resolution 244, which thus far has garnered 50 co-sponsors.

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