Practical Technology

for practical people.

February 14, 2011
by sjvn01
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MPEG-LA targets Google’s VP8 Video Codec

First, Google opened up its VP8 video codec. Then, Google removed built-in support for the MPEG-LA patent encumbered H.264 video codec from its Chrome Web-browser in favor of VP8. After that it was only a matter of time before the MPEG-LA patent consortium came gunning for Google VP8.

As a MPEG-LA representative told ZDNet’s Ed Bott, “Yes, as we have said in the past, we believe VP8 uses many patents owned by different parties. To the extent VP8 includes technology owned by others, then a pool license which removes uncertainties regarding patent rights and royalties by making that technology widely available on the same terms to everyone would be beneficial to the market.”

In a statement, Google said that “MPEG-LA has alluded to a VP8 pool since WebM launched–this is nothing new. The Web succeeds with open, community-developed innovation, and the WebM Project brings the same principles to web video.”

So what’s really going on here? I asked Andrew “Andy” Updegrove a founding partner of Gesmer Updegrove, a top technology law firm, and a leading expert on patent law for his take on the situation and this is what he told me.

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February 13, 2011
by sjvn01
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How to crash the Internet

We know you can take down Web sites with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. We know that a country, like Egypt, can knock down a country’s entire Internet infrastructure. And, we thought we knew that you couldn’t take down the entire Internet. It turns out we could be wrong.

In a report from New Scientist, Max Schuchard a computer science graduate student and his buddies claim they’ve found a way to launch DDoS attacks on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) network routers that could crash the Internet.

BGP is an essential Internet protocol. It’s the routing protocol used to exchange routing information across the Internet. Without it ISPs couldn’t connect to each other and you couldn’t connect Web sites and services outside of your local intranet. Because network connections and routers are constantly changing, BGP routers and switches are constantly working to keep current route maps of the Internet. In short, you don’t want to mess it.

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February 11, 2011
by sjvn01
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What Nokia’s Windows move means for Open Source

When Nokia announced that it was going to use Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 for its smartphones some people saw this is a great move. Other folks, like yours truly, saw Nokia and Microsoft partnering being as dumb as betting that the Pittsburgh Pirates will win the 2011 World Series. But, what do Nokia’s open-source partners think of this move? I asked, and as you might guess, they’re not happy.

Jim Zemlin, head of The Linux Foundation tried to make the best of it, “The Linux Foundation is disappointed in Nokia’s decision today to choose Microsoft as the primary platform for its mobile phones. Tough times give birth to difficult decisions that we don’t always agree with, but open source is–at its core–about choice. We believe that open source software is more than a sum of its parts, and the market is currently bearing that out. The Linux Foundation is here to enable collaboration among its members and the Linux community, and we invite participation in MeeGo [an embedded Linux for smartphones and other devices that was supported by Intel and Nokia] and any of our other many projects and programs.”

I might add that Nokia is a gold member of the Linux Foundation. Nokia’s been a member of the Foundation since 2007. The Linux Foundation itself had been, and I presume will continue to be a big MeeGo supporter. Nokia’s move to Windows Phone 7 could not have made the Foundation nor its members happy.

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February 11, 2011
by sjvn01
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Nokia jumps from one burning platform to another with Windows Phone 7

Well, I guess you can take the Microsoft executive out of Microsoft but you can’t take the Microsoft out of the executive. In what will prove Nokia’s final strategic blunder, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft senior executive, announced, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer grinning over his shoulder, that Nokia would be using Windows Phone 7 (WP7) for its smartphones.

If you looked closely, you could almost say Ballmer’s lips moving as Elop mouthed, “The game has changed from a war of devices to a war of ecosystems. We have an opportunity to disrupt the trajectory in the mobile ecosystem. Together we will deliver great mobile products.”

Yeah. Right. Sure. Once upon a time Nokia delivered great products. In technology years that’s decades ago. Since then, first RIM’s BlackBerries, then Apple’s iPhones, and now a variety of Google’s Android phones have left Nokia eating their dust.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has always been a mobile operating system failure. Unable to squeeze out its enemies on phones with the strong-arm tactics that proved so successful on the desktop, it was forced to compete on features and quality on phones and Microsoft failed, and then failed again, and it’s still failing today with Windows Phone 7.

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February 10, 2011
by sjvn01
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Internet TV still isn’t ready for prime-time

I’ve been watching TV over the Internet since its very early days. Today, I own, and use, an Apple TV, a network capable Sony BDP-S570 Blu-ray Disc Player, and a Roku KDS. I also subscribe to Hulu Plus and Netflix. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I know, like and watch TV over the Internet all the time

That’s why I’m not happy to report that for many people, TV over the Internet still isn’t good enough. Oh, it’s not the video quality. With a high-speed connection, like my own Charter cable 25Mbps (Megabits per second) connection, 720p HD video comes in just fine. Oh, in the future, it may be another story. There’s not enough Internet to go around for everyone to watch TV over the net. Even now, Netflix alone is taking up an insane amount of available Internet bandwidth, but that’s not the problem I see most people having with the currently generation of video streaming services.

No, the real problem is in content. As most of you know, most sports aren’t available over the Internet. There are some exceptions, such as ESPN3, which I see is now showing—I’m not making this up—high school field hockey. And, as a baseball fan, I like that I can watch baseball both on my PC and on my Roku via MLB.TV. Past that though, the pickings get scarce.

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February 10, 2011
by sjvn01
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Lies, damned lies and search engines

Bad Microsoft! Bad! No biscuit for you!

If Microsoft were a dog, I’d be scolding it for its latest foolishness. It turns out that rather than searching the Internet on its own, it’s been riding the coattails of Google. This isn’t just a theory. Google set up a clever trap, and Microsoft’s search engineers fell right into it.

It’s an interesting little story, and I’ll get into the juicy details in a minute. But the affair also leads me to ask the general public whether they have ever recognized that the results that search engines supply are inherently prone to bias and incompleteness. The extent to which that is true is something that every Web user should grapple with.

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