No Copyrights on APIs: Judge Defends Interoperability and Innovation
Innovation for the win: A federal judge ruled today that Java's APIs are not copyrightable. The federal district judge in the widely reported Oracle v. Google case ruled in favor of innovation and interoperability, allowing software to use Application Programming Interfaces without paying a license fee. Judge Alsup's opinion is important news for software developers and entrepreneurs.
To recap: Oracle, the current owner of Java, sued Google for, among other things, using Java APIs in its Android OS. Oracle claimed that Google infringed both its patents and copyrights. The Court disagreed, and Judge Alsup ruled that “Google and the public were and remain free to write their own implementations to carry out exactly the same functions of all methods in question.” Read more...
Tiny banking trojan can do a lot of damage
Security experts at CSIS say that they have discovered the smallest online banking trojan yet. Called Tiny Banker (Tinba), the malware is just barely 20KB in size, including its configuration files.
Like Zeus, Tinba uses man-in-the-browser techniques and easily extendable configuration files to manipulate bank web sites via webinjects. Webinjects can be used, for example, to create additional fields for numerical single-use passwords that the attackers can then leverage to authorise fraudulent payments. Tinba can also uncover standard passwords and monitor network traffic. Read more...
Scientific Fact: Young people smell worse than old people
Despite the jaw-dropping accomplishments of impressive senior citizens, our amazing elders suffer under the malodorous stigma that they somehow stink. Plenty of jokes can be found throughout pop culture suggesting the existence of a notorious Old Person Smell. Thankfully, science is here to save the day and prove that unfounded stigma is false. It turns out that the spice scent from the Old Spice Guy is actually old after all! Read more...
First available 4K movie would look great on the world’s first home 4K projector
Move over, HD: 4K is the new hotness in townWhen one says high-definition display, you probably still think 720p or 1080p. But there's another contender that delivers even crisper, clearer, and more life-like images: 4K displays, which have four times the resolution of 1080p screens. This fairly new technology hasn't yet caught on, and 4K hardware and content are only barely starting to pop up. Take for example Sony's first 4K home theater projector — announced last year and showcased at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), it's now available for purchase by anyone willing to plunk down $26,000 for it. Read more...
Merging Facebook With Search, Microsoft Rolls Out “New Bing” To All Of U.S.
Earlier this month, Bing, the other white meat search engine, revealed its big redesign, which put a heavy emphasis on social search. Today, Microsoft announced the new version of Bing.com is now available to all U.S. users. Nothing has changed between then and now, but if you regularly visit Bing.com to perform searches (ha, right?) then you’ll definitely notice a big difference. The new search interface opts for cleaner search results, a three-column design, and deeper Facebook integration. Read more...
SeatGeek Signs Its First Big Music Partners, Including AOL Music
Ticket search engine SeatGeek is best known as the place to find good deals on sports tickets, but it’s working to dominate ticketing for any live events, including concerts. It just announced its first partnership deals on the music side, with AOL Music (which is, yes, owned by the same parent company as TechCrunch), Pollstar, and Emusic. Read more...
Apple CEO Tim Cooks knocks Windows 8 ‘baggage’
Apple CEO Tim Cook this week again slammed rival Microsoft's Windows 8 and its promise to be an operating system for all devices, whether tablets, desktops, laptops or hybrids that combine elements of all.
"In my view, the tablet and the PC are different," said Cook during an on-stage interview at the All Things D conference on Tuesday. "Products are about trade-offs. And you have to make tough decisions, you have to choose. The fact is, the more you look at a tablet as a PC, the more the baggage from the past affects the product."
Cook, who took the CEO reins last August after Steve Jobs stepped down just weeks before his death, was asked his take on Windows 8 by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. Mossberg characterized Microsoft's philosophy with Windows 8 as viewing "a tablet and a PC as a kind of continuum that can run on one operating system."
That has been Microsoft's incessant pitch for Windows 8, which it has called a "no-compromise" operating system suitable for a slew of hardware, including iPad competitors, traditional PCs and everything in between.
Cook did not agree.
"In my view, the tablet and the PC are different. You can do things with the tablet if you are not encumbered by the legacy of the PC," Cook said. "I just think you wind up not building the best product when you try to converge those."
Microsoft's OEM (original equipment manufacturers) partners are working on just such devices, amalgams that can be used as a touch-based tablet but also sport a keyboard for PC-style chores.
Apple has taken a different path, Cook said both this week and previously, such as in April during an earnings call with Wall Street analysts, when he mockingly said companies could blend anything, even a toaster and a refrigerator, but in the end please no one.
The Cupertino, Calif. company will not blend its iPad and Mac hardware platforms, or apparently, its iOS and OS X operating systems, at least any time soon. Read more...
Update: Metric firm changes numbers, Chrome still behind Firefox
Web analytics company Net Applications today changed its May numbers from those posted overnight, and now has Google's Chrome still in third place, albeit barely behind Mozilla's Firefox.
Earlier today, the California-based firm had published data that showed Chrome had passed Firefox for the first time, fueled by an increase of 1.3 percentage points to 20.2%. Meanwhile, Net Applications' preliminary numbers had Firefox falling six-tenths of a point to 19.6%.
The spot swapping came as a surprise: Earlier projections by Computerworld had pointed to a delay in Chrome's capture of second place, perhaps to as late as August.
Later Friday, Net Applications revised its numbers. Read more...
Google to head Apple off at the pass by holding 3D Maps event on June 6th, just before WWDC
We just got an invite in our inbox to an interesting Google event centered around Google Maps. The invite says we’re invited to an event that will show off The Next Dimension of Google Maps, so we’re betting its related to 3D.
The timing is interesting, considering that WWDC begins on June 11th, and Apple is expected to introduce its own Google-free Maps solution including ‘mind blowing’ 3D.
The invite goes on to say that Google is out to show off some ‘behind-the-scenes’ (whatever that means) stuff about Google Maps and some upcoming features.
At this invitation-only press gathering, Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Google Earth, will give you a behind-the-scenes look at Google Maps and share our vision. We’ll also demo some of the newest technology and provide a sneak peek at upcoming features that will help people get where they want to go – both physically and virtually. We hope to see you there. Read more...
Windows Server 2012′s release candidate is now available
Hot on the heels of the big Windows 8 news, the Windows Server team was not to be outdone, and today put out the release candidate of Windows Server 2012. According to Microsoft, the beta of the product attracted nearly 300,000 downloads.
You can snag the code here. Known before as Windows Server 8, Windows Server 2012 has quite a bit to it. From our previous coverage, here’s what’s in the product: Read more...