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TechEd 2009 already gave us details on Windows 7 and Office 2010 this week, and now it’s Windows Mobile 6.5′s turn. After the first day of the conference, a panel was put together and asked to talk about developing applications for Windows Mobile 6.5. I could not find the video uploaded on YouTube, so I’ve uploaded it on Vimeo and embedded it below (warning: it’s 42 minutes and 45 seconds long):
Although the Obama administration is indicating that it will be more aggressive about enforcing antitrust regulations, the European Union has been pursuing high-profile cases for years, having levied a large fine against Microsoft back in 2004, and hitting the software giant again last year. The latest target of the EU’s Competition group is the chipmaker Intel and, this morning, the EU announced that it too would face a hefty fine: slightly over €1 billion, which comes in just shy of $1.5 billion. Intel is already promising to appeal but, in the meantime, it’s going to have to drop over half a year of its current profits into a bank account in case its appeal fails.
The full decision, which is over 500 pages long, hasn’t yet been released to the public, but a summary of the EU’s case is available. It focuses primarily on the company’s pricing practices during the years 2002-2005, when Intel was facing growing competition from AMD in the desktop and server space. The EU authorities also cite an instance of similar practices in the notebook space in 2007, a time when that market was rising in prominence.
The Commission has concluded that Intel paid one manufacturer to delay the release of AMD business desktops, keep them from being sold through distributors, and block their sales to enterprise customers.
Again to sum up, TechEd 2009 has brought us fresh headlines for Windows 7, Office 2010, and Windows Mobile 6.5. So, what else is worth talking about? How about the Microsoft Surface. The company quietly (sans press release) announced that Service Pack 1 for the super-duper coffee table has been released. Apparently the service pack is the result of feedback from more than 180 partners in 11 countries who are developing on the Microsoft Surface. SP1 is meant to make development on the platform faster and easier: the SDK supports development on any .NET framework and is optimized for WPF and XNA.
Surface can run multiple applications simultaneously, but only with SP1 is it easy to tell if an application in the background needs your attention, thanks to a small notification on the side. Surface is also now easier to set up since you can calibrate without needing to plug in an external display. SP1 gives users more visual feedback about where they’ve touched and where they should have touched to select a specific item. Also, where applicable, Surface will let the user know that he or she cannot zoom into a specific object by showing lines leading away from the object. Below is a quick list of features that have been added; I think the Microsoft Update one is the most important one (and it probably should have been there from the start):
Intel’s Linux-based Moblin platform, which is designed to run on Atom-based netbook devices, has gained the backing of numerous Linux distributors. Novell jumped on the Moblin bandwagon last year and has participated in the development effort. In an announcement on Thursday, Novell revealed that it has signed an agreement with Intel and plans to boost its involvement with the project.
In an effort to make the project more inclusive and transparent, Intel recently invited the Linux Foundation to host ongoing Moblin development. Novell was a vocal supporter of this move and expressed enthusiasm for Moblin and the project’s potential capacity to accelerate the advancement of Linux in the mobile space. As part of the company’s new agreement with Intel, Novell has committed to build its own Moblin-based distro to offer to hardware makers.
Novell will also establish its own Linux labs in Taiwan to collaborate with a Moblin development facility that Intel launched in the country last year as part of a partnership with Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. Intel is building a very strong presence in Taiwan, where the company is investing in both Moblin development and a major WiMAX rollout.
Apple today released the first public beta of Safari 4, which sports a redesigned interface that resembles Google’s Chrome, as well as support for all of the major Internet standards, and a large range of new and enhanced features. Among these new features are a reimagined start page with a speed-dial interface similar to what Opera and Chrome are currently offering, a Cover Flow-like interface for browsing your bookmarks and history, and the ability to perform a full-text history search of your bookmarks.
Overall, Safari 4 feels a lot like the love child of iTunes and Google Chrome. It takes some of the best UI elements of both and mashes them up in a browser that can now easily compete with Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – though, of course, it does lack the third-party developer ecosystem that has sprung up around Firefox.
Granted, most of the new features in Safari 4 are not exactly new, but, as Apple does so often, it exceeds at putting all of these features together in a very attractive package.
had about 3 story options on my plate to write about tonight. But I found myself constantly returning to the iTunes store and searching for Skype, over and over again. Finally, there it was: As promised by no less a personage than Om Malik himself, the official Skype iPhone client has arrived. Although video streaming is a no-show, both full IM and voice communication is supported directly over wireless networks. Plus there are a few additional touches specific to this client that make it really great.
Tim O’Reilly, co-founder of the Web 2.0 Conference, gave a short address on the 5th anniversary of that event at tonight’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and offered some thoughts on what’s going to come next. He discussed five applications that he believes point the way.
Two themes stood out: sensors will surpass humans in front of their keyboards as the primary data source on the web and Moore’s Law will need to be applied to humanity’s greatest problems.
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