By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
There may not be a real investigation of Google’s business practices from the European Commission, at least not yet. But judging from the waves of hyperbole emanating from the usual suspects, along with a few new entrants, in the wake of the EC’s admission that it forwarded Google some negative mail earlier this month, there may as well have been one. It appears that if enough people on the Internet share a topic with one another, it must be true.
Read More...By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
One of the more brilliant coups in the history of Web browsers, were it feasible, would be for Opera Software to seize Google’s key argument — that the best Web browser that European Windows users should switch to next month, is the fastest one — and make it its own. Those users will get that opportunity starting March 1, when Microsoft’s rollout of its browser “choice screen” through Windows Update, begins in earnest.
Read More...By Joe Wilcox, Betanews
More software developers should follow the lead of Adobe and Skype, which have abandoned Windows Mobile — what Microsoft now calls Windows Mobile Classic. The mobile operating system already was brain dead, even with, according to Gartner, 15 million unit sales in 2009. The heart pumped out licenses, but there was no brain activity to keep the platform going. Windows Mobile flatlined, and it’s about time that some Microsoft developers admit it. Others should get over the denial and do the same. Microsoft doesn’t have the courage to pull the plug. But smart developers can.
Read More...In September, Japanese joint venture Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications (CHMC) announced it would be merging with NEC’s mobile division into an even bigger joint venture that will be called NEC Casio Mobile Communications Ltd.
The merger was to be completed in April 2010, but today the companies announced that getting regulatory approval is taking longer than anticipated (PDF available here). They hope the merger will only be delayed by about one month, but it remains in the hands of international antitrust regulators.
Read More...By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
There’s precedent throughout the European Union protecting the rights of ISPs when Web sites they host end up streaming defamatory, libelous, or injurious content. Despite that, a Milan judge today sentenced three of four Google executives convicted last November of violating the privacy of a boy victimized in a briefly-posted YouTube video, to six months’ suspension.
Read More...In late 2008, AMD spun off a major portion of its chip fabrication business into a new company called GlobalFoundries, a joint venture with Abu Dhabi investment firm ATIC. At the time, AMD said the new venture would “join the IBM joint development alliance for both silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and bulk silicon through the 22 nanometer generation. The alliance consists of a group of leading semiconductor companies collaborating on next generation silicon technologies.”
Read More...By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
For any other company besides Google, a week like this would be interpreted by some in the press as the beginning of the end, and it’s only Wednesday. However, an individual breakdown of every bad story, element by element, reveals the company may not be deluged so much by a hailstorm of controversy as a cavalcade of unfortunately simultaneous snowballs, none of which may end up leaving any lasting damage.
By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews
Two weeks ago, we warned the new leader in the Windows Web browser, Opera 10.5 Beta 1, that it would have to paddle fast to stay ahead of the ever-improving Google Chrome 5. Apparently only one side of that battle was listening: Opera did paddle fast, pulling nicely above 26 in our latest Windows 7 relative performance index tests. The newest Chrome 5, meanwhile, took a performance hit that sent it back the other direction.
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Arizona company Objecs announced today that it has developed “enhanced memorial products” that add Near Field Communications tags to cemetery markers, which allow text and photos to be “embedded” in a headstone and retrieved whenever a cell phone is touched against its surface.
It’s the same inductive coupling technology used in wallet phones that allows complex information sharing at the expense of practically no electrical energy.
Read More...By Jacqueline Emigh, Betanews
With its latest announced systems on Monday, Lenovo is following up on a series of PCs unveiled just over a month ago that included AMD-powered Edge notebooks for SMBs. The global #3 PC maker’s new entries include two ultraportable notebooks, a tablet PC, and two mobile workstations — one of them outfitted with Lenovo’s trademark secondary display — and a low-cost server aimed at the smallest of businesses.