Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » octobre 27, 2009

BetaNews.Com (8 non lus)

Amazon lowers EC2 cloud service fees, adds MySQL relational instancing

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 11:07pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Come November 1, Amazon's Web Services division will be lowering the per-hour prices for all of its current five instance types (AMIs), while adding two new AMI types on the high-end, according to a multitude of announcements from Amazon today. At the new high end of the scale will be a "quadruple extra-large" AMI with 68.4 GB of dedicated RAM, and the virtual computing power of a 1 GHz, 26-core Intel Xeon processor (albeit a 2007 model).
The new high-end instances won't come cheap -- they'll carry a premium of $2.40 per instance-hour for Linux editions, and $2.88 per instance-hour for Windows Server 2003. The previous high-end AMI, still called "extra large," had been priced at nearly one-third that amount.
However, revenue from the new super-high-end will help drive down prices for everyone else, starting November 1. At that time, the per-hour price for the smallest and cheapest instance available, running generic Linux, will be reduced by 15% to $0.085 per hour. Windows Server instances will be trimmed a bit, but not by as much percentage-wise -- the "extra large" price, for instance, will drop only 4¢ to $0.96 per hour.
The price cuts come as Amazon looks to offer more competitive buildouts, for customers that continue to prefer to deploy entire machine instances -- rather than just applications, such as Salesforce.com and Microsoft offer -- in the cloud, administered using everyday software. Already Amazon has been offering pre-configured AMIs with Microsoft SQL Server (at about a 10% premium per-hour), and IBM DB2 (somewhat higher at $0.38 per hour). Now Amazon is committing to offering its own brand of database server, called Amazon RDS, in lower-priced instances that will compete with its SQL Server, Oracle, and DB2 instances, using MySQL as the underlying engine.
"For customers whose applications require relational storage, but want to reduce the time spent on database management, Amazon RDS automates common administrative tasks to reduce complexity and total cost of ownership," reads a statement from Amazon AWS to Betanews this afternoon. "Amazon RDS automatically backs up a customer's database and maintains the database software, allowing customers to spend more time on application development. With the native database access Amazon RDS provides, customers get the programmatic familiarity, tooling and application compatibility of a traditional RDBMS. Customers also benefit from the flexibility of being able to scale the compute resources or storage capacity associated with a Relational Database Instance via a single API call."
Customers will still be expected to maintain their own databases, Amazon's statement tells us, although instancing in the cloud will enable them to re-provision resources as necessary on a more granular basis. Multiple statements today managed to make mince meat of Amazon's quoted rates for transfer, but a blog post this afternoon managed to straighten the matter out: RDS customers will be charged 10¢ per gigabyte per month for storage, and another 10¢ per month for every one million I/O requests. Bandwidth charges should then be the same as for Amazon's existing, non-relational SimpleDB instances: The first gigabyte of data in or out is free, then fees rise to 10¢ per gigabyte in and 17¢ per gigabyte out, declining to 10¢ per gigabyte out after 150 TB.
This will not be the first appearance of MySQL on Amazon's cloud; the commercial MySQL Enterprise has been available under Sun Microsystems' branding since this time last year.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
US Chamber: Fake site by Yes Men not a parody but a fraud

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 8:31pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court for DC, the US Chamber of Commerce charged the company that manages the team of self-styled comedians and social activists known as the Yes Men with criminal fraud, including the creation of a fake Web site designed to resemble the real Chamber site, specifically to promote sales of their new film and paraphernalia surrounding that film. Along the way, the Chamber bypassed any allegation that might lead directly to the "parody defense" -- that appropriating the appearance of the target of parody is necessary in order to "bring to mind" the subject of that parody, as the law puts it.
Instead, the Chamber went straight for the heart, alleging that the creation of a Web site at www.chamber-of-commerce.us was done to dilute the value of the real Chamber trademark. "Defendants' use of Plaintiff's marks without the authorization or consent of the Chamber causes tarnishment by associating those marks with Defendants, whose positions and tactics are inconsistent with positions and conduct of the Chamber, its members, and prospective members."
Last week, the fake Chamber Web site issued what appeared to be the transcript of a speech purportedly by Chamber president Thomas J. Donohue, delivered that week at the National Press Club in Washington. In actuality, meanwhile, a real person was indeed delivering a speech there. However, it was another Yes Men member pretending to be a representative of Donohue, who brought fake reporters with him to ask fake questions, and whose antics attracted a few real reporters' attention.

The fake conference was interrupted by a real Chamber member, whose credentials were immediately called into question by the fake reporters -- all of whom were being taped in conjunction with a promotion for the movie, The Yes Men Fix the World. The confrontation stopped short of violence; and in the end, a person proclaiming to be a real reporter provoked the speaker to finally state he was representing the position that the Chamber should ultimately take: specifically, that "clean coal...doesn't exist."
In the meantime, the Yes Men's antics may have ended up taking the spotlight away from the climate change and "clean coal" issues, and dragging it into the realm of domain names as trademarks. Currently, the law does not grant a trademark holder the rights to the counterpart of that trademark in the realm of domain names, although it does give a trademark holder redress should someone use a domain name that borrows a trademark in a fraudulent action against the trademark holder.
Should the Chamber prevail in this suit, it could set legal precedent with regard to anyone who registers a domain name similar to a trademark, and then uses the likeness or the graphics from the trademark holder, in the course of a criminal act. The Chamber is not accusing Yes Men of "criminal parody," but rather of misappropriating registered marks in the pursuit of financial gains -- in this case, promoting a movie.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
iPhone cannot win the smartphone wars

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 8:00pm CET par Joe Wilcox
By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

I'm going to make a bold prediction: Apple's iPhone will lose the mobile device wars. Such statement will send some iPhone fans howling -- perhaps appropriately so with the full moon days passed and Halloween days away. :)
Put another way: iPhone is to Android -- and somewhat Symbian OS -- handsets as Macintosh was to the DOS/Windows PC in the 1980s and 1990s. The Mac's rocky start in 1984-85 gave way to great success because of several killer applications, with desktop publishing being among the most important. But by the mid 1990s, Windows PCs pushed down Mac market share. The iPhone is poised to track similarly. Gartner predicts that Android OS shipments will exceed iPhone OS by 2012 (see chart). I'm a believer.
The question of how far iPhone can go is important, because a new computing platform is rapidly emerging. Mobile devices like cell phones are sure to replace PCs. PEW Internet claims by 2020. I'm on record as predicting much sooner.
Today, Gartner predicted that this year, worldwide smartphone shipments would grow by 29 percent year over year to 180 million units, exceeding laptop unit shipments. From this year, Gartner predicts that end users will spend more on smartphones than they will on notebooks. The analyst firm expects that most PC manufacturers will move into the smartphone market (where Apple already is with iPhone).
Chicken-and-Egg Thinking
The iPhone's staunchest defenders insist that applications will rule the market. Over the weekend, tech blogger Robert Scoble followed a Twitter debate with blog post: "85,000 reasons why iPhone isn't going to be disrupted." Like many other iPhone enthusiast bloggers or journalists, Scoble believes that iPhone must succeed because of the vast number of applications. In a somewhat terse Twitter exchange, I called him and other die-hard iPhone fans unreasonable. He blogged in response:
If you get me all those, and all the other 85,000 apps, but on a device that is sexier and more fun to use (and more productive) then I'll definitely be reasonable and switch...Until then I have 85,000 reasons to be unreasonable...Yes, I'm unreasonable. Let me know when I can stop being unreasonable! :)
The large number of applications does at first glance seem like a pretty good reason to claim iPhone's eventual domination of what arguably is the next, major computing platform. However, the number of applications is no surefire measure of iPhone's or any other platform's success. Applications are but one -- and not the most important -- platform characteristic. Successful platforms share five common traits:
- There are good development tools and APIs for easily making good applications
- There is at least one killer application people really want
- There is breadth of useful applications
- Third parties make lots of money
- There is a robust ecosystem
I usually only put the first four items on the list, but here extend the fifth from the fourth, which is the most important of all. To single out applications as the measure of success is to put the chicken before the egg. Related: The platform chicken-or-egg scenario, where there is question: Which comes first, the platform or the applications? The chicken-or-egg question presumes that many PC operating systems fail because there aren't enough applications; that many developers wait to develop applications because they want to see if the platform will gain momentum among consumer or business customers; that platforms cannot gain momentum if there are not applications.
But this reasoning is flawed. It ignores fundamental rules of economics. The chicken-or-egg theorists should ask why do developers wait at all -- or not? My answer: Because they want to make money. The fourth point in my list -- "third parties make lots of money" -- is more important than number of applications. It's the most fundamental reason why platforms succeed or fail. The fifth point --"there is a robust ecosystem" -- is intrinsically connected to the fourth and over the long term is as important, if not more.
The Ecosystem is Everything
Among technology platforms, the Windows PC is classic example of a robust and vital ecosystem. The Google informational/search platform is another. Around either platform, there is a discernible ecosystem of third parties -- not just software developers -- making lots of money. The two ecosystems are broad and deep. By comparison, Apple's App Store/iPhone/iPod touch platform is narrower and shallower, despite the depth of applications, because the ecosystem depends on a closed, end-to-end technology platform. Apple controls everything.
By comparison, in the 1980s and 1990s, DOS/Windows was more open than Mac OS, because Microsoft only controlled the software and Chairman Bill Gates took the brilliant approach of licensing to third parties. (Commenters, please don't huff. I didn't write that DOS/Windows was open, but more open than Mac OS, because of licensing.) Through the licensing scheme, good luck (because of competitors' mistakes) and Microsoft efforts to establish standards around DOS/Windows and DOS/Windows PCs, a robust ecosystem of third-party profiteers emerged.
The ecosystem is everything. Windows Vista's market failure is good explanation why. Vista suffered from perception problems that were much larger than its performance problems; Vista isn't a bad operating system, it just wasn't good enough to displace Windows XP. Vista wasn't just competing against XP but a huge, supporting ecosystem of third parties making money from it -- PC, peripheral and component manufacturers; distributors, resellers and retailers; software and Web services developers; and consumer, enterprise and small business services providers, among many others. XP had five years in the market before Vista's release to build up this broad and deep ecosystem, which also included customers -- many of them large businesses -- dependent on the software to make (or save) money.
What's really interesting about the Gartner numbers (see chart): Windows Mobile declines, but not that dramatically, through 2012. Why? The ecosystem. Microsoft has established a viable Windows Mobile ecosystem that somewhat compensates for the weak mobile strategy. Ecosystem also is one major reason why Symbian OS will remain so dominant, despite steep market share declines. Another: Nokia plans to open source Symbian OS (process is underway). By comparison, Gartner predicts that BlackBerry and iPhone OSes will reach near identical market shares, and, not coincidentally, both are part of closed, end-to-end systems.
A History Lesson
Parallels between the past and present foreshadow iPhone's future. The IBM PC launched in mid-1981. About 18 months later, Compaq announced its 12.5 kg clone, nicknamed the "luggable." A year after Compaq started selling its IBM PC clone, Apple announced the Macintosh, in January 1984.
Desktop publishing was the Mac's first killer application, contributing to sales growth over the next five years. But Apple couldn't win the "Clone Wars" against DOS -- and later Windows -- PCs. The resulting clone attack, essentially every other PC manufacturer against Apple, was too much for Macintosh. The PC ecosystem overwhelmed Apple.
To reiterate: In the 2000s, like the 1980s, Apple successfully launched industry-changing platforms -- iPhone and Macintosh, respectively. Like Macintosh, iPhone's end-to-end licensing model is poised to limit the supporting ecosystem's growth. Meanwhile, Google, Microsoft and Nokia license their mobile operating systems to third parties.
Among the three, Google's Android is the one to most closely watch, followed by Symbian OS, assuming publication of source code under open source license is completed next year as planned. While DOS/Windows was more open than Mac OS during the 1990s, Windows Mobile is more closed because Microsoft has failed to establish standards around the software. By comparison, Android, which Google open-sourced, is to mobile devices more like DOS/Windows was to PCs in the 1980s and 1990s: A more open operating system around which third parties make money and an ecosystem thrives.
iPhone Against the World
In March 2009 Microsoft Watch blog post, "The iPhone Platform Comes of Age," I glowingly praised App Store/iPhone/iPod touch. But I tempered my enthusiasm:
Whether or not that platform succeeds depends on many factors. Among them:
- How Google, Microsoft and Nokia shape up their mobile platforms in 2009-10.
- How many market share-leading handset manufacturers adopt Android (HTC just announced three more Android handsets).
- How quickly Apple can expand its iPhone OS install base -- and that includes iPod touch.
Since I raised these reservations about Apple's platform, Microsoft and Nokia fumbled their mobile strategies. Meanwhile, Android is rapidly gaining momentum among handset manufacturers and developers. In a presentation given last week, Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney predicted that Android smartphone OS share would grow from 1.6 percent in first quarter 2009 to 18 percent in fourth quarter 2012 (see chart). By comparison, iPhone OS: 13.6 percent, up from 10.8 percent. Symbian OS will remain dominant, Gartner predicts.
That said, the mobile device market will be bigger than just handsets, which is where Android already is gaining adoption for use on other connected devices. Barnes & Noble's Nook ebook reader and Verizon's Droid phone are but recent examples of where Android is going, and where iPhone is not. Meanwhile, new information published this week shows how Android 2.0 emphasizes information interoperability -- openness that should grow the ecosystem, like DOS/Windows did for PCs decades ago.
Another "everyone else against Apple battle" is coming, with Android looking to be the better OS around which an ecosystem grows and thrives. There's a Star Wars metaphor here somewhere. Apple lost out to DOS/Windows because of the attack of the PC clones. Now the droids are coming for iPhone. Apple's power is the Force -- blogger and journalist enthusiasts like Robert Scoble. Can the Force win? I say no, but you tell me. That's what comments are for.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Nokia invokes a 'NATO defense' strategy against Apple's iPhone

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 7:42pm CET par Scott M. Fulton, III
By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The usual reason commonly given for the creation of technology standards is to enable a more open, seamless process for licensing and adoption. But in its lawsuit filed last week against iPhone maker Apple, Nokia is attempting a rather interesting spin on this definition, a spin which may very well reflect reality: It argues that standards are broadly licensed in order to increase the size of the market which those standards can address.
As a result, when a transgression against the standard comes about -- for instance, by way of failure to pay royalties -- the rights holders throughout the market enabled by that standard, have a duty to come to its defense. An attack against one, in other words, is an attack against the whole portfolio.
In its lawsuit filed last Thursday, Nokia alleges that it has been actively negotiating with Apple for fair and reasonable licensing terms ("F/RAND") for the use of GSM technologies in all of Apple's iPhones. Nokia is an acknowledged rights holder, not only for GSM but for HSPA (a.k.a. HSDPA), the 3G platform behind the iPhone 3G S. It claims, "Apple has rejected Nokia's offers for the F/RAND terms and conditions both on a portfolio and on a per-patent basis and thereby refused to compensate Nokia on F/RAND terms for the use of Nokia patented technology, including the [eleven] patents-in-suit."
Nokia did not specify dates, so conceivably Apple could have rejected Nokia as early as 2007; however, a good defense lawyer might argue that if Nokia didn't act on that refusal then, it lost its right to do so two years later. So the likeliest scenario is that Apple refused Nokia more recently.
But Nokia's theory of Apple's infringement is perhaps less important with regard to future legal precedent than its statement that it has a duty to the market at large to defend against that transgression, inevitably using the broadened size of that market as a factor in evaluating the scale of the infringement.
"Standards Setting Organizations ('SSOs') are formed to allow wide promulgation and utilization of commonly defined standards," begins Nokia's reasoning. Not to create the standards, not to develop the technology, but specifically and expressly to broaden the market. "These standards must be available and accessible in order to produce the intended efficiency gains and benefits and thereby for the standardization process itself to comply with competition law." In other words, it was antitrust law that forced companies to certify that standards were available for everyone to license in the first place, implying that it is therefore the duty of smaller competitors that wish to become competitive, to either play by the rules of the standard or build its own technology platform and try to compete that way.
"Intellectual Property Rights policies ('IPR Policies')," Nokia's suit continues, "provide essential IPR holders committing to license on F/RAND terms with the benefit of collecting F/RAND compensation from a far larger market than they would have enjoyed if the protected technology had not been incorporated in the standard. Because competing proprietary technologies and systems have been abandoned in favor of a single, universal, and standardized system and set of technologies, a holder of an essential IPR can collect royalties on a large volume of standards-compliant products from a wide variety of manufacturers worldwide. In contrast, if the IPR holder's protected technology was only used in one of a number of competing systems or proprietary technologies, the patent holder could only generate returns on its R&D investments through differentiation and -- if it chose to license -- only collect royalties from manufacturers who chose to market and sell products for the narrow proprietary technology. This is why committing to F/RAND licensing is advantageous and rarely refused by essential IPR holders."

FOR MORE:
- Nokia lawyers up, chooses to fight Apple in court rather than the market by Carmi Levy
A rights holder such as Nokia, the suit goes on, by definition waives the right to exclude any other company in partaking in the standard. Thus Nokia can't exactly withhold licensing as a way of compelling, or extorting, a company such as Apple into compliance. Implementers have a duty to enter into a licensing arrangement, and rights holders in the standard have a duty to negotiate with them. If an implementer refuses, since the only other course of punitive action against that implementer is to seek a court injunction barring the sale of its products, then a rights holder has no other alternative but to defend the standard as a whole.
"Nokia has irrevocably undertaken the obligation to grand license(s) on F/RAND terms and conditions to its essential patents, including the patents-in-suit, and Apple has the corresponding right to claim licenses on F/RAND terms on the basis of Nokia's undertakings," the lawsuit complaint continues.
So to review: A kind of "globalization," if you will, has forced a situation where there must be one set of standards in order to level the playing field between competitors. Thus whenever a competitor transgresses against that set of standards (the unspoken word here being "platform"), the principal rights holder must come to the defense of those standards as a whole. It's as though Nokia has drawn a NATO-like boundary around all of GSM, saying that if you enter into that realm it's with the intention of leveraging GSM as a platform, and if you don't pay your respects to the superpower in the region, then you don't respect the platform.
On the other hand, there's the much simpler issue of Nokia apparently never being paid. Not knowing yet the nature of Apple's rejection of Nokia's terms, but knowing the extent to which Nokia is regarded as the principal rights holder to GSM technology, one does have to wonder just what Apple was thinking by withholding any kind of royalties whatsoever from Nokia. Anyone doubting Nokia's ability to defend GSM could have simply looked it up in Betanews, under "Nokia" and "Qualcomm." Perhaps Apple might have thought Nokia's terms unfair; in which case, it had ample opportunity to raise objections. Of course, doing so in a public court during the iPhone's formative period would have given away Apple's secrets; but it's had nearly three years now to make amends.
But if Nokia eventually succeeds in defending GSM, even through a settlement, the possibility exists that Nokia's arguments with respect to what is a standard may be perceived as setting legal precedent: a way to make markets bigger and more centralized, and to clearly establish the principal rights holders in those markets, so it's clearer to everyone involved where to send the checks.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Android 2.0 features revealed

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 6:27pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

It's undoubtedly been a huge quarter for Google's Android mobile operating system, and exciting developments are all falling into place.
Two weeks ago, the ceremonial giant foam pastry was planted on Google's front lawn. This time it was an eclair, and it signified the readiness of Android 2.0, codenamed "Eclair," which we get a first look at today.
Android SDK Tech lead Xavier Ducrohet announced support for Eclair in the Android SDK today, and unveiled some of the big capabilities in the latest version of Android, which is expected to hit the market soon on at least one of Verizon's upcoming "Droid" devices. In the developer video posted today, for instance, all the new features were shown off on a device connected to the Verizon network, and the release notes say it will be deployable in November.
The keyword with Eclair is interoperability.
Motorola recently launched its custom Android build with a UI called MotoBLUR, the central function of which is the ability to integrate with a user's many social Web services from a single interface. The new APIs included in Eclair give this communicative function to all developers.
So with the new Account Manager API, developers can centrally store account credentials on the device, the Contacts application can now sync and aggregate contact data from multiple accounts, and the sync adapters API provides full two-way contact sync with ANY back end.
To provide a single, unified face for this data, the Quick Contact function has been added. By clicking on a contact's picture, a user can pull up a menu of all the different ways to reach that contact...Gmail, e-mail, IM, Phone, and the various social networks. It's like the existent "live folder" concept for contacts, but brought together under the standard contact list, or in any app where a developer chooses to utilize it.
Android 2.0 also updates the Bluetooth API so apps can now access Bluetooth controls to discover, connect and share information with nearby devices, which unlocks the ability to make peer-to-peer and proximity-based applications.
The built-in Android browser has been updated with a refreshed UI with an actionable address bar, bookmarks sorted by thumbnail, and a double-tap zoom command. There's now also HTML5 support, which opens up the application cache, client-side SQL databases, geolocation API support, and fullscreen video tag support.
The camera app has again been tweaked, but this time it includes digital zoom (with macro mode), built-in color effects (posterize, solarize, etc.), and built-in flash support.
On, and there's a little matter of Exchange support and multi-touch thrown in there too. Check out the release notes for a comprehensive list.
Android 2.0 Release 1 SDK is available right now.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
All the right moves: Roku's Netflix streamer branches out

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 5:06pm CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

One of the major attractions of the Netflix Instant streaming service is its low cost of entry. For $9 a month, subscribers have access to a substantial and ever-growing library of content on their PC, available whenever they have a connection and some time to spare. And if a subscriber wanted to view that content on his HDTV, he can do so through game consoles, DVRs, connected optical media players, and of course, through the branded Netflix player by Roku which debuted in spring 2008.
The $99 streaming device certainly proved to be a breakout hit for Roku, providing the simplest, cheapest, and most elegant way to access Netflix Instant in the living room.
However, time is running its course. As Netflix Instant streaming finds its way onto more devices, and the prices of components drops, Roku is facing stronger competition from other manufacturers in the sector. Just last week, for example, Best Buy announced the connected Blu-ray players from its budget electronics brand Insignia would be getting Neflix Instant streaming. For Roku to stay competitive, it has to get cheaper, or pile on some new features.
The company is doing both.
Today, Roku announced it is branching out its line of streaming media players to include a cheaper model that only has standard definition output (Roku SD -- $79) and a more expensive player that has dual-band 802.11n compatible wireless (Roku HD-XR -- $129.)
On the content side of things, Roku said it will be launching the "Roku Channel Store" later this fall, which will let users select new content channels for their device, from providers such as Revision3 (which its CEO Jim Louderback announced earlier this month), Mediafly, Pandora, and Flickr. At Blogworld earlier this month, Brian Jacquet of Roku said there were "about half a dozen" other Roku development partners which will be announced in the coming weeks.
There was discussion of YouTube integration before Amazon on Demand launched earlier this year, but it is not known whether there will be a YouTube channel available for installation when the Roku Channel arrives in the coming weeks.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Google flexes Twitter integration with Social Search Lab

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 12:28am CET par Tim Conneally

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Monday, a new experimental Google search feature called Social Search was made live in Google Labs, following up on last week's announcement that Google and Twitter had established a partnership.
But the implementation of this Twitter data is much more conservative than many were expecting. Following the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, a lot of talk in the search community revolved around "Realtime Search," (a buzzword formerly known as "conversational search") where chatter (articles, blog posts, comments, forum entries, status updates, tweets, videos, and podcasts) on a particular subject is indexed in real time, putting searchers more or less directly into the conversations as they occur.
This Lab does not go quite that far.
Instead, Google Social search is more an extension of a user's Google Profile, which can be linked to Twitter and FriendFeed in addition to the myriad Google-owned services like YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, and Reader. A user's contacts in Gmail and Google Talk, as well as friends/followers in all those other services serve as the basis for Social Search; making up what Google calls the Social Circle.
When you enter a query in Social Search, Google crawls content publicly posted by members your Social Circle; which includes not only your friends, but also friends of your friends.
For example, because a majority of the stuff that I follow has to do with Android, when I type in a query related to that subject, Social Search shows recent posts from the blogs I follow in Reader, the developers I follow on Twitter, and related content linked to my friends. Suppose a friend of a friend publicly posted and tagged pictures from a mobile developer's conference on Picasa; those pictures are likely to turn up in social search as well.
Google today emphasized the ability to opt out of any service. If you don't want all the pictures of your new house geotagged and posted for everyone with your name to case out, you can un-link your Picasa or Flickr account. Similarly, Google emphasizes the importance of the social graph for making your public content visible, like if you want your blog or your resume or your portfolio of artwork to be found more easily.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009
Nokia lawyers up, chooses to fight Apple in court rather than the market

Publié: octobre 27, 2009, 12:16am CET par Carmi Levy

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

If timing is everything in business, Nokia apparently didn't get the memo. Apple's iPhone has been on sale for about 28 months now, but only last week did Nokia file a wide-ranging lawsuit in Delaware District Court that covers no fewer than ten alleged patent infringements.
This isn't anything new in the tech industry. In a business where intellectual property accounts for a disproportionately huge slice of any given product's value proposition -- and ultimately its market success -- fights over who came up with what idea first are common. For example, Research in Motion has paid out over a billion dollars over the last three years to settle two significant patent lawsuits that, if left unresolved, could have shuttered its popular BlackBerry devices for good.
Sue me -- it's the in thing to do
Of course, RIM isn't alone. Tech companies of all stripes are often forced to fight off lawsuits that may or may not have merit. For example, Apple, Belkin, Best Buy, Dell, HP, Intel, Netgear, and Sony are part of a group of 22 hardware vendors and retailers who were sued for patent infringement in 2007 by Wi-LAN.
The Ottawa-based Wi-LAN, which in 1994 was awarded patents for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology, claims 802.11-based solutions that have been brought to market since that time have inappropriately used Wi-LAN's IP. The company is targeting firms that incorporated 802.11a- and g-based technology into its products, which were then sold to customers, along with companies had anything to do with the supply chain. Wi-LAN, which last year added a few more plaintiffs to its lawsuit and has also claimed that its technology also forms the basis for 802.16a and WiMAX standards, is no stranger to the process: It's been suing various tech companies, including Cisco, since at least 2000.
While I support any company's right to actively defend its investments in developing new technologies and bringing them to market, there's a fine line between fighting for what you believe in and building a business case for organizational growth that's based largely on the pursuit of settlements and awards as a substitute for bringing actual products to market.
So as I look at Nokia's latest legal salvo, I'm left wondering if this marks the company's first tentative step toward a slippery slope where litigation -- not innovation -- defines its corporate culture.
A legal solution to sinking market share?
Nokia, like Wi-LAN, isn't exactly riding high in the market these days. Its US market share, which was once a healthy 35%, has shrunk to 7% and shows no sign of turning around. The company has also seen its global-leading market share slip thanks to a stodgy product lineup and a smartphone pricing model that seems to suit high-end PCs better than mobile devices. It missed the industry's transition from basic cell phones to smartphones and in doing so has ridden its budget devices down the one-way escalator to the basement while Apple, RIM, and a gaggle of Google Android-following vendors have captured the market's attention. Its mobile OS roadmap is all over the map, and its Ovi Store online app market is a lame duck afterthought that reinforces just how much Nokia still doesn't get it.
If Apple is the jock, RIM is the super-nerd, and Google is the cool new kid everyone's talking about, then Nokia is the doddering grandpa of the bunch.
From where I sit, Nokia's decline has sown the seeds for this latest lawsuit. Because if it had read the tea leaves correctly and recognized that data was the new voice for today's mobile market, it wouldn't have the time or the inclination to divert resources away from its core business. Nokia came to dominate its landscape because it delivered the right cell phones at the right price to a global market that a decade ago couldn't get enough of their newfound ability to talk on the go for cheap. But as voice-focused handsets evolved into data-centric, fashion-forward pocketable computers, Nokia kept pumping out the same old handsets. Sure, some of its N- and E-series smartphones looked great on paper, but scant carrier support and scandalous up-front purchase prices kept them from making much of an impact.
Not a troll. But reminiscent of one.
Which leaves Nokia in the sad position of suing the most obvious target in the hope of winning something in court that it couldn't win out in the real world. Forced to make up billions of dollars in lost revenue, it turns to lawsuits for what it apparently hopes will be a new form of revenue stream. I hesitate to call Nokia a patent troll, because it actually is in the business of designing and selling actual products. But this is the kind of lawsuit that gets real patent trolls kicked off of the invite list to the luxury box at the baseball stadium, and I suspect Nokia will soon find itself in similar straits. You don't make friends this way.
And even in a perverse universe where such behavior is applauded, lawsuits like this are a drain on corporate productivity, even for companies as large as Nokia. And even if Nokia itself manages to keep its employees focused on the task of building and marketing sellable stuff while this lawsuit plays out, the rest of the market -- including customers, members of the supply chain, and the media -- won't necessarily follow suit. While Nokia will try to get all of its stakeholders to focus on whatever great new offerings it has coming, everyone else will be wondering how the company's newest legal adventure is faring. This isn't how good buzz is created.
In the grand tradition of the American tech market, litigation will always loom large as a potentially viable business plan for companies that couldn't make things fly otherwise. Even as it struggles to keep pace globally, Nokia remains a potent force in mobility, and it's not like it'll disappear from our midst if this lawsuit fizzles. But Nokia's repeated failure to connect with American consumers has clearly reached a point where the mothership finds itself willing to lash out at its competitors in any way it can, in a belated effort to keep them in their sights.
This is not how leading companies behave. And it's not how wannabe-market-leaders convince the rest of us otherwise.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009