GPLv3 Set to Release Friday
The Free Software Foundation will release GPLv3 at 9am Pacific on Friday, the group said this week. The event will include a live stream of the announcement via the groups website, and marks the end of a contentious 18-month process that included four drafts, and very public disagreements over its contents.
Chief among the changes are policies that would prevent future patent agreements like the one struck between Novell and Microsoft, which many in the open-source community have taken issue with. "With the release of GPLv3, we will see new defenses extended to free software," FSF executive director Peter Brown wrote in an e-mail. "These defenses will continue the long history of fighting all efforts to make free software proprietary." The newest version of the GPL is the first in 16 years.
End of Vista Family Discount Upsets Some
Even though Microsoft had already warned users that its Family Discount Program would be ending on June 30, it still hasn't stopped some from taking issue with the move.
Windows Vista team member Nick White reminded consumers of the program's imminent demise in a blog post to the Windows Vista web log Wednesday afternoon. When it was announced, the company also added a sunset clause as well.
MPAA Sues YouTVpc, Peekvid for Copyright Infringement
Two more distributors of allegedly -- if not obviously -- unlicensed content are facing civil prosecution by the Motion Picture Association of America this afternoon. YouTVpc and Peekvid are the subjects of civil suits in US District Court in Los Angeles, not only for hosting unlicensed content but linking to other sources for unlicensed content as well.
It's that second part of the claim which could be the most telling of the MPAA's current strategy: We had never seen these two sites for ourselves before today. In pulling up YouTVpc for the first time, we found links to movies and TV shows, some of which were actually being hosted on YouTube. Some of those links - including, most notably, the one marked "Spiderman 3" - were inoperative today, perhaps on account of this lawsuit.
Apple, Microsoft, Intel Urge Patent Reform Act Passage, IBM Stays on the Fence
Tomorrow morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a new round of hearings continuing the debate over language in S. 1145, the Patent Reform Act of 2007. While outside support for the bill appears to be evenly balanced with opposition when you take the technology industry as a whole into account, computer and software firms largely favor the bill, with Texas Instruments one prominent exception.
But this morning, a coalition of firms ranging in stature from the Guymon, Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce to Apple, Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft urged Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D - Vt.) to pass the bill and get the debate portion over with.
Windows Live Strategy Inches Forward, Slowly
Microsoft is continuing to flesh out its Windows Live strategy, on Wednesday releasing beta versions of Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Folders. The additions will join Windows Live Mail Desktop, Windows Live Writer, and a number of other applications as part of the Windows Live Suite.
Although the company has arguably done a poor job of branding and marketing Windows Live up to this point (at one time there were over 40 products in development under that banner, while some have retained the MSN moniker), Microsoft is hoping to simplify things with a single, downloadable package it can offer to Vista users.
After 'Day of Silence,' Was Webcasters' Message Heard?
On the day that most American webcasters fell silent in protest of scheduled performance royalties rate increases to be imposed by the US Copyright Royalty Board, the key sponsor of House legislation to override those fees finally got one minute of floor time, to speak on behalf of his bill.
"Mr. Speaker, many of the 70 million Americans who enjoy music over the Internet woke up and their music was silent today," stated Rep. Jay Inslee (D - Wash.). "And the reason [is] because of an outrageous decision by a federal agency that caused outrageous increases of 300 to 1200% of the copyright fees that Internet Web broadcasters have to pay.
Google Adds Image View to News
Google on Tuesday took the wraps off a new approach to viewing events going on around the world. Instead of clicking on a headline to read articles, Google News Image Version displays photos related to the day's top stories. When a photo is moused over, a bar on the right displays the headline and first paragraph.
"In looking at how people use Google News and based on feedback we've received, we've found that many people prefer to read the news in a more visual way," explained Google software engineer Lieping Tang. "Even if you prefer a standard headlines page, viewing News through Images can be very useful. One classic example is sports."
T-Mobile Rolls Out UMA Phone Nationwide, Blending WiFi with EDGE
After an apparently successful initial test run in parts of Washington State, T-Mobile USA today is ready to roll out its first hybrid WiFi/EDGE phone service: its UMA-based Hot Spot @ Home. The idea is to enable customers to drop their land lines altogether, without picking up someone else's bundled service that would usurp those savings.
We first started hearing word of Unlicensed Mobile Access technology two years ago when Nokia first introduced it to the US, and we wondered whether it would be cellular carriers who would first leverage it to offer combination cellular/Internet packages, or ISPs who would use it as a way to resell phone service from smaller carriers. As it turned out, neither was the case: In T-Mobile's nationwide rollout of what it's calling "Hot Spot @ Home," it's practically giving customers a WiFi router, but letting them choose their own ISP.
Nintendo: Make Your Own Wii Games
Nintendo has announced WiiWare, a platform for developers small and large to create their own Wii games that can be downloaded to the company's enormously popular console. Home brew are an increasing trend; Microsoft has offered a similar tool called XNA Game Studio Express for its Xbox.
Developers can use WiiWare to develop low-cost titles that take advantage of the Wii's unique remote and nunchuk controllers. Because few people enjoy working for free, created games can be sold via the Wii Shop Channel. "Independent developers armed with small budgets and big ideas will be able to get their original games into the marketplace to see if we can find the next smash hit," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. WiiWare-built games are expected to begin arriving early next year.
Adobe Lightroom 1.1 Supports Vista
Adobe on Wednesday rolled out version 1.1 of its Photoshop Lightroom application, the company's image processing application for professional photographers. The update brings support for Windows Vista, a new image management system, improved noise reduction and sharpening, and additional RAW file support.
"Although the beta period has ended, we are happy to say that Photoshop Lightroom continues to incorporate user feedback with this latest update," remarked Lightroom product manager Tom Hogarty. Adobe's goal with Lightroom is to offer consumers the simplest such tool for managing RAW files, and the company says it has no plans to compete with Apple's Aperture feature-wise. The update, for Mac and Windows, is free to existing customers. Photoshop Lightroom is priced at $299 USD.
Blockbuster, Netflix Call Patent Truce
Two fierce rivals in the DVD rental business have called a truce - at least when it comes to patents. Blockbluster has agreed to settle with Netflix over charges that the brick and mortar retailer infringed on Netflix's online DVD rental patents when it launched Blockbuster Online.
In April 2006, Netflix asked a judge to bar Blockbuster from allowing online rentals, saying the company was infringing on two patents. The first was awarded in 2003 and covers the concept of the automatic queue, which customers add to from the company's library and then receive movies in a customizable order of preference.
80GB Second-Gen Zune on the Way?
Often forgotten amid all of the iPhone hype, Microsoft, too, makes a portable music player that is holding its own in the marketplace - at least for a first generation product. The company is now reportedly preparing a second revision called the "Scorpio" with an 80GB hard drive, which will join a new flash memory based Zune dubbed "Draco."
According to Web site ZuneScene, Scorpio will enter production at the end of July, which means consumers could see both new Zunes in time for the holidays. Although it remains fair behind the iPod in market share, Microsoft is happy with Zune sales and expects to sell 1 million devices by the end of the month. According to retail statistics, the pink Zune helped keep sales reasonably high during the spring season.
IBM Still Leads Top 500 Supercomputers
Yesterday, amid all the news emerging from the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, IBM claimed it had already developed a new BlueGene model that had surpassed the one petaflop barrier - one quadrillion sustained operations per second. But it may be another five months before that fact is verified by the University of Mannheim, which today recorded the 65,536 x2-core BlueGene/L as holding the lead in its Top 500 Supercomputers list, with an unchanged rating of 280,600 gigaflops per second.
During that time, others are seeking to beat IBM to the one petaflop milestone, including Sun as BetaNews reported yesterday. In the meantime, the pecking order among the world's fastest processing clusters hasn't changed much.
Can BizTalk Convert Ordinary EDI Apps Into Web Services?
If you were blinking during the keynote presentations earlier this month at TechEd in Orlando, you might have missed this - for some in the audience who weren't blinking any more than normally, it still appeared to go right over their heads: In one demonstration, Microsoft's technical group product manager Mike Woods demonstrating something his boss, Bob Muglia, referred to as "service-enabling an application."
It sounds like one of those false-existential things you find Microsoft claiming it can do all the time, a sort of service-empowerment that enables people wherever they are to extend their connectivity while simultaneously expanding productivity in efficient, participle-producing ways. Remove that thin veneer from the subject, and you would have seen a guy condensing three years' worth of IT department development time into about one minute, forty seconds of busy work.
WS2K8 Beta Adds IIS7 to Server Core
&Microsoft has released the June Community Technology Preview of Windows Server 2008, which serves as an interim release between Beta 3 and Release Candidate 1. The company says Beta 3 has already been downloaded over 200,000 times in the two months since its release.
While it may represent a minor update, the June CTP brings to the table a major new feature: the addition of IIS7 as part of the Server Core installation option. As previously reported by BetaNews, Microsoft disclosed at TechEd 2007 earlier this month that IIS would become the seventh ready-made "role" available for the operating system.
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