- Followup to jwz’s Palm App Store Fiasco — redux: still nothing concrete from Palm, but they’re saying they’ll create a second-rate app store into which open source apps will go (along with apps that Palm hasn’t reviewed).
- Schmidt on YouTube — the interesting bit for me was Every minute, more than 10 hours of video is uploaded to the site.
- Company that won $585M from Microsoft sues Apple, Google – The infamous ‘906 patent granted to Eolas and the University of California was one of the first patents to get the young online tech scene going in 1998. The patent addresses third-party browser plug-ins to run various forms of media as an “embedded program object”—essentially a program that runs within another program. Eolas promptly sued Microsoft for its implementation of ActiveX in Internet Explorer, which set in motion a years-long legal battle between the two companies. and won $585M, now they’re suing many large Internet companies. (via Hacker News)
- IBM Uses Mussels as Sensor Network — Concerned with the environmental and revenue impacts of leaks during oil drilling, StatOil sought an innovative and automated way to detect leaks. They wanted to replace a manual process that included deep sea drivers. StatOil’s innovation, they attached RFID tags to the shells of blue mussels. When the blue mussels sense an oil leak, they close which prompts the RFID tags to emit closure events. In response to the events, the drilling line is automatically stopped. And, in case you are wondering, this is of no harm to the blue mussels. (via monkchips on Twitter)
"palm" entries
Four short links: 7 October 2009
Ongoing Palm Fail, YouTube Numbers, Plugin Patent Pain, Bivalve-Oriented Architecture
Four short links: 29 September 2009
Bletchley Park No Longer Blech, Contest Mania, Palm Process Fails For Free Software, Open Source Web Analytics
- Bletchley Park May Have a Future — the UK birthplace of modern computing, where Alan Turing worked during WW II breaking German codes, is dilapidated and in need of major repair. They appear to have a supporter in the UK National Lottery, who have given them a grant to begin work and prepare for further grants. It should be secured for the future as a place of significant historical merit in the development of computing. (See also The Geek Atlas)
- Google Opens Voting on Ideas to Change the World — there are a lot of contests at the moment: Project 10^100, Apps for Democracy, Apps for America, a plethora of X Prizes, the Netflix prize, and more. I wonder whether contests are like communities: you need a manager to cultivate and boost interest, or else your contest withers on the vine.
- My ongoing Kafka-esque nightmare of dealing with Palm and their App Catalog submission process (jwz) — This is my story about attempting to simply distribute this free software that I have written, and how Palm has so far completely prevented me from doing so. Epic Palm fail. (via Hacker News)
- Piwik — Piwik aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics. GPL-licensed.
App Growth, PalmOS vs iPhoneOS
There's a chart I've been meaning to put together for a while to explain why I'm expecting the iPhoneOS to be the dominant mobile platform for at least the next decade. I've been thinking of the role third-party applications played in helping Palm maintain its mobile platform dominance for about that same period, from 1996 to 2006. If you believe…
Palm's webOS Represents Major Shift for Syncing and Data
In an article covering the Palm Pre mobile device, Ars Technica makes a very important point about how devices utilize network connectivity, and what the assumptions are underlying their models of data storage and access: Users just make changes to their data (contacts, calendar, mail, etc.), and Palm's webOS handles committing those changes to whatever canonical data source it…
Palm's Third Act
2009 marks another year when Macworld and CES are scheduled for the same week. It'll be a great week for product announcements, but it'll also be a week of information overload. RSS feeds will overflow with gadget coverage. For those of us covering technology, it presents some logistical challenges, too. Which conference to attend? I'll be at Macworld again this…