Balmer Says What!

Ok Steve Balmer thumped his chest last week, demanding that the Open Source community to stop infringing on an alleged plethora of Microsoft patents. The funny thing I find with this is Microsoft doesn't warn people of patent infringments, they just sue!, so my next question is, is this the other side of the Microsoft/ Novell deal from November of last year. The one where Microsoft signed a deal with Novell in a channel partnering agreement where Microsoft will front Novells Suse linux and Novell will get help making Microsoft products to run on "Suse" linux.

All of this breast beating is to start a greenmail campaign to try and monetize a market that three years ago Microsoft was calling a marginal market space that wasn't worth their time. After all that was the logic of why they didn't port Office 2003 to linux in 2004.



As for if Microsoft will make a legal move on Linux, I think it's just posturing, designed to scare the technically marginally knowledgable, people who only know only enough to spell Microsoft. If you want to know the history of Microsoft and the Law look at these links from http://www.aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html

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MUX.am

Hey Are you a linux user like me or do you prefer to watch or listen to your favorite video cast in a different format, than is offered to you.



Then you need to check out MUX.AM and it really helps those of us in the linux world who need a different format. For instance it will convert any of the following formats to include, quicktime, mpeg4, divix, wmv, flash video, windows avi, and 3GP mobile into any other version on the list.



The native is 320x 240 but you can specify larger, I've done 640X480 successfully, just follow the instructions and it will convert the file at the specified URL you supply into the sites input box, then supply your email where the finished link can be sent.



Hit submit and 15 to 35 minutes later you'll receive an email with the link to your converted file awaiting download. This is a great solution, and it solves alot of headaches for the end user in its simplicity of use.

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LINUX DEAL SITS WELL WITH MICROSOFT or Boomerang in a bottle ?

With Novell tied up with Microsoft in an extraordinarily strange bed fellow situation, I have to ask is this really what Microsoft wants? And more importantly is this exactly what the Linux community wants?



What is being reported from several sources (www.sda-india.com techtarget.com) is that Microsoft is actually selling more Linux servers from Novell than was anticipated. This is a double edged sword as Walmart bought 17,000 licenses for its data centers in December. The end run is does Microsoft really want to be front man for its primary server opposition. My gut check is NO! and this alliance will run its course inside of 18 months with a quiet split, especially quiet if Linux starts to take its toll on Microsoft server sales. This should be interesting to watch.

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From LiveScience.com: Stealthy Iris Scanner in the Works

By Bill Christensen

A public iris scanning
device has been proposed in a patent from Samoff Labs in New Jersey. The device is able to
scan the iris of the eye without the knowledge or consent of the person being scanned. The device
uses multiple cameras, and then combines images to create a single
scan

(see diagram)

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Repost From Cnet; Posted to Slashdot! : ISP Tracking Legislation Hits the House

by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 07, @04:15PM

from the someone-is-always-watching-in-your-hotel dept.

Privacy The Internet

cnet-declan writes "CNET News.com reports that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives announced yesterday legislation to force ISPs to keep track of what their users are doing. It's part of the Republicans 'law and order agenda,' with other components devoted to the death penalty, gangs, and terrorists. Attorney General Gonzales would be permitted to force Internet providers to keep logs of Web browsing, instant message exchanges, and e-mail conversations indefinitely. The draft bill is available online, and it also includes mandatory Web labeling for sexually explicit pages. The idea enjoys bipartisan support: a Colorado Democrat has been the most ardent supporter in the entire Congress."

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Hell freezes over again! Steve Jobs wants to remediate the record industry

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4548

http://crunchgear.com/2007/02/07/steve-jobs-to-labels-set-your-music-free/

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12546/

This is one of those ideas whose time has finally come, and its not because Steve Jobs is a real nice guy either, I mean he may well be but this opening salvo from Jobs on DRM screams to me that the behind the scenes fire fights must have been horrendous, think about it, we're referring to our friend at "RIAA" the same wonderful pack who sue people who don't now or never have owned computers in their fight to defend the bottom line. Now here comes Steve, with this patently anti RIAA, anti Record Producer idea, the removal of DRM from the the music Itunes sells. Apparently sometime some one at apple must have informed the powers that be that Itunes sales were on a long term vertical move, with brick and mortar record stores like Tower records being boarded up by the bushel, it looked like the lights went on and apples view of the future finally gelled enough for Steve to make his case, one that many insiders are saying he wanted to say all along.
The case that DRM is bad for business and bad for consumers. While I applaud this opening salvo, I also know full well the reason Jobs wants to ditch DRM is so he can sell to all MP3 music players/listeners on the market, not just IPOD owners, who are hooked into using apples itune by design. If the trend holds and Itunes along with a dozen or more music sites hold to the trend of out selling traditional music venues, while the brick and mortar stores continue to slide into oblivion, soon the the record industry will have no choice, as they will have only one method to move the product, namely the internet and through the portals one of which Jobs owns.
As one of many who've watched this love hate relationship between apple and the record industry for a long time, I'm curious to see when the next phase in this war will start, that will be when jobs follows MP3.com or Cruxy.com models and starts signing up artists themselves.
For a few years now MP3.com has made a true niche market for small unsigned bands to promote themselves and sell their music. If Itunes were to open up a similar scheme, except offering a sales portal to established artists to market themselves, then the gloves will come off. But so will the record labels artists, off of itunes, that is, unless Jobs and his team at apple can offer a better contract for the performers, say like 90 cents out of a hundred, per down load.
Personally I can't wait to see the fur fly, and believe me, it's gonna fly. Personally I hope Jobs makes this play, as it would benefit the artists and the consumers. the trick is to build a marketing machine that will suport this idea and bring it to fruition. But 90 % of that Jobs already owns!

The other shoe drops!

The Geek.com story reads:
"Novell may lose access to new Linux versions The Free Software Foundation not happy over partnership with Microsoft."
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2007Feb/gee20070205002259.htm

The whole concept that FSF foundation could stop Novell from selling future distro's of Linux is while ludicrous, still troubling. Being the cynic I am , I can't help but wonder why did the Redmond mafia sell out and cut a deal with Novell. True it's a sweet deal for Novell 1/2 a billion isn't anything to sneeze at. But that doesn't explain what Microsoft was up to. I think this weekend we got the wake up call on what they were after. The Real idea is to cause a schism, a split, a parting of the ways.
Oh wait, like there isn't one already between the FSF(Free Software Foundation)and the Linux camp. The design is gifted, the Linux camp and the FSF are social organizations facing a techno Goliath in Microsoft. Yes this means the Linux and Free Software foundations FSF communities are being played off on each other. The tools of this is their own ego's and their own self denial. It also dawns on me that this plays into Microsoft's hand, personally I think the schism will work for Microsoft for a short time, as there are many like me, who understand that Microsoft only enters these deals like it did with Sun some years back, until it's apparent it won't help them anymore. Then Bill Gates or Steve Balmer will announce it was swell while it lasted but c'ya. I also think this will back fire in the long term. In short if you just ignore it, Microsoft will go away, but if the lawyers start in serving paper work then like a cagey fisherman Microsoft will know it's got a fish on the hook.

Also, I'll remind everyone Linux isn't under the FSF umbrella, so it won't be Richard Stallman or Eben Moglen who decides who can or can't sell Linux in a corporate environment. It'll be Linus Torvalds who wrote the original kernel and he's still holding the line, (last I heard) that Linux won't move to GPL-V#3 in fact he intends to stay with the GPL-V#2, this is where the schism was initiated and I believe that Microsoft's idea is to exploit this as far as it will go, tying up critical Linux cash assets from the major Linux players in legal activity they other wise wouldn't have to endure. Operations like Red hat, Novell & possibly Ubuntu will all eventually, become legally entwined one way or another, splitting the playing field with legal crossed swords and legal briefs all accusing each other of being the Linux sell outs that they all will become. This in the end is a divide and conquer strategy. And if this is Redmonds agenda then it is pretty easy to set the players on each other, after all, all they had to do is cut a deal.

Personally I'm waiting to see what happens next, If the Free software Foundation and the Linux Camp do not play their respective hand's close to their chests they may well be completely marginalized in what could be an end game for Linux and the free software foundation, if in fact Microsoft actually has this as an agenda. I truly hope that doesn't happen. I also hope this isn't a Microsoft machination but you have to be open to the possibility, after all its only, prudent.

So I guess the moral to the story is, for both camps, swallow your pride and stand together, or you most certainly will stand alone.