Jury Finds Google Liable

A jury has found Google liable for copyright infringement in its use of Java in Android, but so far has not decided whether that infringement was protected by rules governing “fair use.”

The verdict, delivered Monday after a week of deliberations by the jury, is a partial victory for Oracle in its lawsuit against Google. But Oracle will have to wait longer — possibly for a retrial — to see whether Google will escape liability by claiming fair use.

Google’s attorney, Robert Van Nest, immediately told the judge that Google would file for a mistrial. Google’s argument will be that the same jury must decide both the copyright infringement and fair use issues.

The jury also decided that Sun’s public statements about Java might have suggested to Google that it did not need a license for Java.

But in another setback for Google, it decided there was insufficient evidence to show that Google relied on that information.

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Is Moore’s Law Dead?

Physicist Michio Kaku says that Moore’s law will be dead within about 10 years.

Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York told BigThink.com that we are already seeing a slowing down of Moore’s Law. He said that computing power simply cannot maintain this rapid, exponential rise using standard silicon technology.

Kaku said that the latest CPUs from Intel, which use a unique three-dimensional design, do continue roughly doubling processors. But he points out that the new design is nonetheless proof that the Law is winding down.
The two basic problems are heat and leakage and that is why the age of silicon will eventually come to a close.

By continuing to shrink the parts that go into processors, heat becomes concentrated. At a point in the near future, the heat generated will be so intense that the chip will melt. You can literally fry an egg on top of the chip, and the chip itself begins to disintegrate, he said.

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IBM Goes After Apache’s Tomcat

Java Developers looking for a mobile-friendly platform could be happy with the next release of IBM’s Websphere Application Server, which is aimed at offering a lighter, more dynamic version of the app middleware.

Shown off at the IBM Impact show in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Websphere Application Server 8.5, codenamed Liberty, has a footprint of just 50MB. This makes it small enough to run on machines such as the Raspberry Pi, according to Marie Wieck, GM for IBM Application and Infrastructure Middleware.

Updates and bug fixes can also be done on the fly with no need to take down the server, she added.

The Liberty release will be launched this quarter, and already has 6,000 beta users, according to Wieck.

John Rymer of Forrester said that the compact and dynamic nature of the new version of Websphere Application Server could make it a tempting proposition for Java developers.

“If you want to install version seven or eight, it’s a big piece of software requiring a lot of space and memory. The installation and configuration is also tricky,” he explained.

“Java developers working in the cloud and on mobile were moving towards something like Apache Tomcat. It’s very light, starts up quickly and you can add applications without having to take the system down. IBM didn’t have anything to respond to that, and that’s what Liberty is.”

For firms needing to update applications three times a year, for example, the dynamic capability of Liberty will make it a much easier process.

“If developers want to run Java on a mobile device, this is good,” Rymer added.

The new features are also backwards compatible, meaning current Websphere users will be able to take advantage of the improvements.

However, IBM could still have difficulty competing in the app server space on a standalone basis, according to Rymer.

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Is Internet Explorer Making A Comeback?

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) in April again managed to grab more user share, the third time in the year’s first four months, to stay well above the 50% mark and remain the world’s top browser, a Web analytics company said on Tuesday.

Google’s Chrome’s share also climbed in April, said Net Applications, ending that browser’s three-month decline.

IE boosted its share by about three-tenths of a percentage point last month to average 54.1% in April. That returns IE to a mark comparable to its September 2011 share.

Since Jan.1, IE has increased its usage share by 2.2 percentage points for a 4% gain since the end of 2011. The turnaround has been IE’s largest and longest since the browser began shedding share years ago to Firefox, then later, Chrome.

Microsoft has pinned its hopes almost entirely on IE9, the 2011 edition that runs only on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

On Tuesday, Microsoft again stayed on message, highlighting the gains made by IE9 on Windows 7 — the pairing the firm has said is the only metric it cares about — but ignoring the overall IE increases this year.

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Asus Stakes Claim In Tablets Market

Asus has won critical acclaim for its early tablets, including the quad-core Transformer Prime TF201 that was debuted last year and the new quad-core Transformer Pad TF300T that will be available in some U.S. retail stores next week.

And it continues to improve its place in the crowded market — jumping into the Top 5 list of suppliers for the first time in 2011, according to the latest research from IDC. Asus ranked fifth in tablet shipments in both the U.S. and world in 2011 with a 2.3% share of the U.S. tablet market and a 2.5% share of the worldwide market.

Apple’s iPad remained at the top of both lists.

Though Asus still lags somewhat behind the market leaders, its influence on the market is clearly on the rise and could move it further up the tablet list, analysts say.

For instance, along with launching an array of powerful higher-priced new tablets, Asus is reported to be Google’s choice to supply a low-priced $200 device said to be called Google Play. The Google tablet would run Ice Cream Sandwich and a Tegra 3 quad-core processor, reports say.

The reports suggest Google is looking to launch the new tablet at its Google I/O developer conference in late June.

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Intel’s Itanium Processor Available Until 2022

HP will have access to Intel’s Itanium processor until 2022, according to Intel’s Kirk Skaugen.

Skaugen, who used to be VP of Intel’s Datacentre and Connected Systems Group, testified under oath during the HP versus Oracle lawsuit that HP and Intel had an arrangement that “enabled HP to have access to the Itanium microprocessor through 2022, and that HP could extend even longer”. Skaugen’s testimony was submitted as part of court documents filed on 23 April and gives some indication of how long both HP and Intel were expecting to push Itanium.

Oracle, which has been involved in an increasingly bitter spat with HP over Itanium and the hiring of its current co-president and former HP CEO Mark Hurd, claims Intel’s Itanium was on its way out, alleging that HP mislead it and customers, leading to its decision to drop support for the IA64 architecture.

However, according to HP, “Oracle resorts to mischaracterising HP’s statements, taking them out of appropriate context, or misstating the relevant timeline.”

HP claims Skaugen’s comments show that when HP said Itanium had a long future it wasn’t lying. “By any measure, all of HP’s statements regarding the length of its roadmap and the future of the Itanium microprocessor were true,” HP said in documents filed with the court.

Skaugen’s comments are something of a surprise, not because they show an agreement between HP and Intel – HP already admitted that one existed – but the length of Intel’s commitment to HP on Itanium and the fact that HP could extend it.

HP’s language suggests that it, as the customer, had the upper hand in the contract with Intel, with the firm saying, “Intel was committed by contract to continue producing Itanium microprocessors”. Skaugen’s testimony in court supports HP’s claim.

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Is A Cyber Warfare On The Horizon?

F-secure’s chief security researcher, Mikko Hypponen, has warned that we are entering into a cyber warfare revolution, and that governments will soon attempt to outdo each other based on their computer weapons’ prowess.

The internet security expert said-any future crisis between technically advanced nations will involve cyber elements.

His comments came after hearing last week that China and the US have been engaging in “war games” simulations.

“I wasn’t expecting [war games] so soon,” Hypponen said.

“I’m surprised and I think it is a good move because everybody is worried about escalation. The way to fight unnecessary escalations is that you know more about how the perceived enemy would act if there would be an escalation. War games are exactly that.”

It was Hypponen’s observations on the war games which led him to remark that we must look at “the bigger picture”.

“We’ve seen a revolution in defence technology and in technology generally over the past 60 to 70 years and I believe we are right now seeing the beginning of the next revolution: a cyber warfare revolution, which is going to as big as the revolutions we’ve seen so far in technology becoming part of defence, and part of wars,” he added.

Hypponen also predicted that it won’t be long before the world sees its first cyber arms race, including cyber war rehearsals to prove how strong countries are and boasting about their cyber skills to make other countries pay attention.

“Like nuclear in the sixties, cyber attacks are a deterrent and deterrents only work if your perceived enemies know that you have it,” he said.

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Apple Faces Another Lawsuit

Apple devices using touch technology infringe on a patent owned by the Pennsylvanian company FlatWorld Interactives, the company stated in court documents filed on last Friday. FlatWorld asked for a permanent injunction that Apple stop infringing, and for sufficient compensation for the infringements, the company’s attorneys said.

The Pennsylvanian designer of touchscreen systems for use in museum displays alleged that Apple knowingly infringed on its patent, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said. The infringing products are said to include the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad.

FlatWorld said Apple’s infringement has been on a massive scale and has caused it irreparable harm. The company demanded a permanent injunction enjoining Apple from continued infringement plus an unspecified amount of damages to compensate for Apple’s infringement. The company is seeking a jury trial.

FlatWorld was founded in January 2007 by Slavko Milekic, a professor in cognitive science and digital design at the University of the Arts in Pennsylvania, in order to commercialize his touch screen patent, the filing said.

Milekic filed a provisional patent application on August 28, 1997, claiming priority from that date in his definitive patent application, according to the court documents. He applied for his patent on June 12, 1998 and was granted it as U.S. patent 6,920,619 on July 19 2005, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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Privacy Advocates & Lawmakers Push For Google Probe

Privacy groups and lawmakers are pushing for a new and more expansive investigation into Google and its privacy practices after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced that it found no evidence that the company violated eavesdropping laws.

Late last week, the FCC reported that there was no legal precedent to find fault with Google collecting unprotected home Wi-Fi data, such as personal email, passwords and search histories, with its roaming Street View cars between 2007 and 2010.

However, the FCC did fine Google $25,000 for obstructing its investigation.

A Google spokesperson took issue with the fine.

“We disagree with the FCC’s characterization of our cooperation in their investigation and will be filing a response,” said the spokesperson in an email to Computerworld. “It was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We have worked with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns.”

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a national privacy watchdog, disagreed with the FCC findings.

In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today, EPIC asked that the Department of Justice investigate Google’s surreptitious collecting of Wi-Fi data from residential networks.

“Given the inadequacy of the FCC’s investigation and the law enforcement responsibilities of the attorney general, EPIC urges the Department of Justice to investigate Google’s collection of Wi-Fi data from residential Wi-Fi networks,” wrote Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the advocacy group.

“By the [FCC’s] own admission, the investigation conducted was inadequate and did not address the applicability of federal wiretap law to Google’s interception of emails, usernames, passwords, browsing histories and other personal information,” Rotenberg added.

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Rackspace Goes Openstack

Rackspace has finally deployed an Openstack based cloud, playing down claims that it benefits the most from the alliance.

Rackspace is one of the leaders of the Openstack alliance, an open source cloud initiative that aims to break Amazon’s stranglehold on the industry by offering open application programmable interfaces (APIs). Until now Openstack has largely been all talk, but Rackspace has deployed a production Openstack cloud that the firm claims will help it sell Openstack to the enterprise.

Fabio Torlini, VP of cloud at Rackspace said the firm has been “going flat out to make the code production ready”. Torlini said Rackspace’s decision to deploy an Openstack based cloud could be a tipping point in deployment. “It’s going to be the catalyst for many other companies deploying Openstack,” said Torlini.

Rackspace has been the largest contributor to Openstack and the fact that it has the first major Openstack deployment support claims that Rackspace is getting the most out of Openstack.

However Torlini said, “For us, we’re able to be the first one to launch a large scale Openstack compute platform because, yes, we are one of the main providers of the original code and we are a founder of Openstack, so we have tried to develop Openstack as a neutral foundation and it is a foundation to provide a service to all its members. But we’re lucky enough to be one of the founder members, to be able to drive it, and get there [deployment] first.”

Torlini defended Rackspace’s role in the Openstack alliance, claiming the strong leadership shown by the firm is good for the community. Torlini said, “Openstack is beneficial to the product itself but that’s the whole point. The whole idea of many more providers going onto Openstack helping develop the Openstack cloud, helping advance the actual products and code is the whole point of Openstack. On the counter side of that argument is if it’s beneficial for us it is just as beneficial for any other member of Openstack because they have access to the same code and they are able to provide.”

Torlini admitted that Openstack and the community is an advantage for the firm but claimed it wasn’t possible for Rackspace to dominate. “You have companies in Openstack that are far larger than Rackspace enabled to put much more resources into Openstack as well, it’s impossible for us to dominate Openstack – it’s an independent foundation. Is it advantageous from a product perspective? I should damn well hope so,” said Torlini.

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