Digital Lifestyle

I owe Oracle something. They have a charging station in this goddamn outletless Frankfurt airport. I remember when I was here a decade ago, this seemed like such a glamorous place. Now it's a godawful wreck, as bad as anything in the states.

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Cloudscout
I don't think it's that. Google distributed the code in violation of the license. They didn't distribute it with the devices themselves but they did distribute it. That means they would, presumably, owe Oracle something. I think the idea is that Oracle is going to try and strong-arm Google into a settlement. Oracle will try to pain the settlement as something that relates to actual devices shipped in order to get a sort of psychological "win" over Google.

Google won't settle on this one, though. I bet they take it to trial to let a jury decide what actual "damages" there may have been. Given the fact that the code itself was released under the GPL, it's unlikely they will be able to claim any significant monetary damages. Without a settlement, the best Oracle could likely hope for would be a symoblic win in the form of some kind of restraining order. This would only be symbolic since Google has already pulled the code.

Copyright can be tricky, because in place of actual damages, a plaintiff who proves infringement may instead recover statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringement (or more, up to $150,000, if the violation is proved to be willful). "Infringement" here, however, is measured by the inclusion of copyrighted code, not by the number of times that code is distributed, so the possibility of statutory damages wouldn't give Oracle an incentive to sue. And I agree with Cloudscout that actual damages appear to be nominal. The Copyright Act does allow a prevailing party to recover attorneys' fees--which might give Oracle's lawyers an incentive to sue, I suppose. But really, unless I'm missing something, this all looks like posturing.

Anyone know which firm Oracle is using in this? Or is it all in-house so far? My ex used to work at the firm (but not on the suit) that handled Oracle's side in the Peoplesoft takeover. Yeah, it was an eeeeevil firm.

ddt

Wolfram & Hart?

Heh...

I picked up a Nook Color today. I'm prepping Honeycomb for it right now.

I couldn't get the Honeycomb ROM written to the SD card with my work computer so I'm trying Froyo right now. I will try Honeycomb again when I get home.

TPBD

I am now running Gingerbread. It'll likely be a little while before I have a real opinion about it, though.

Okay, it definitely has potential but I'm not going to declare it an iPad killer until I can use an official release on real hardware. This kludged-up version is cool to tinker with but it obviously lacks some polish.

And people still use this site?

Fragmentation? I got'cher fragmentation right here.

HP's new WebOS devices have been announced. Pre3, Veer, and Touchpad. Phones look competent, not terribly compelling if one already has a smart phone. Tablet looks good, but won't be out until summer. No price on it, as yet. Nice integration between WebOS devices. Also, they've announced plans to bring WebOS to PC's. Kind of the opposite of Apple's path of Desktop->Phone.

All I need to know is will WebOS 3 be compatible with existing Palm phones?
http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/index.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2011 01:06PM by El Jeffe.

Interestingly, the Palm name seems to have vanished completely as noted in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ZA8kgd_YY. Of course, the name looks a bit silly on a tablet device.

I must say, the demo of that tablet looks pretty cool. Some features of iOS (handling of open applications) look pretty crude compared to WebOS.

I think WebOS is pretty slick, but some people who handled the tablets today found them a little sluggish. Not enough to ruin the experience, but noticeable next to an iPad. I don't know why they announced them so far ahead of their planned ship date. Maybe trying to prevent people from rushing to the iPad 2?

Bill, here's your answer: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/09/original-pre-pre-plus-pixi-and-pixi-plus-wont-get-updated-to/

It's quite incredible how the whole digital lifestyle landscape has changed over the past 3 years. 5 years ago one could not have envisioned the phenomenal pace at which these gadgets have developed into devices that your mother finds easy and fun to use. At least my mum is completely hooked to her iPad.

Which makes me sad, as there's a real possibility that the general purpose personal computer (PC) might be seen as a relic in another few years, taking down with it the open and flexible nature of it. Trusted Computing here we come.

DPBD

So, is Nokia the next SGI? http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/02/nokia-adopts-windows-phone-7-as-primary-platform.ars

I like to believe this helps both companies in their fight against Google & Apple (hey, more competition is better for everyone), but I cannot help but think that combining two losers does not make a winner.

Nokia apparently used iMovie to put together their video announcing the partnership. I wonder why they didn't use MovieMaker?

I'll agree with Ballmer on this. I want my Bing, Office and Xbox.
Hey, I admit I use those things. So, he's right. Even if Bing is a thinly veiled aggregator of Google searches. I just don't like Google any longer.

I secretly want Windows Phone 7 to succeed... I just don't want it to happen until they give Ballmer the boot.

I almost believe it would make sense for Microsoft to really follow Apple's model to an extent. They need to give up on licensing their phone OS and just start selling their own devices. That is to say, they need to buy Nokia.

I don't want to see this race left to Apple vs. Google and I don't really believe RIM is going to be a significant player anymore. We need Microsoft in the game.

I was somewhat saddened by the images of the Nokia employees walking out after the announcement but I don't know how it could have gone any differently. I mean, really, how badly does a company have to screw up in order to find themselves with no other choice but to turn to Microsoft for innovation? Nokia made the decision to buy out their other partners and make Symbian completely their own. Then they did nothing with it.

The Symbian OS and Windows Mobile both have a lot in common. They were both powerful, useful and even innovative in their day. Microsoft eventually figured out that it was time to give up on Windows Mobile and start over with Windows Phone 7. Nokia just didn't see the writing on the wall until it was too late.

MeeGo showed some promise but that was mostly in recent days when it was announced that the Dalvik VM was being ported over. That would allow for a lot of cross-platform compatibility with Android. Even that wouldn't have been sufficient to keep it afloat, though. At best, they would have become a textbook example of an Also-Ran.