Miscellaneous

In open source or in product development generally, one of the biggest mistakes is to take on a deeply entrenched incumbent on its own turf. Almost inevitably, if you play someone else's game, even if you're a little cheaper/faster/better, you're going to lose. Inertia favors the incumbent, and there's a whole lot of inertia involved in switching vendors.

For this reason, I agree wholeheartedly with Bill Weinberg's suggestion that Linux's opportunity in Netbooks is to focus on the mobile side of the market, rather than bringing a traditional, personal computer bent to … Read more

For months, Mozilla's mobile version of its Firefox browser has been in first alpha, then beta modes on two Maemo-run Nokia Internet Tablets that few possessed. On Friday, Fennec (as it's been code-named) has arrived on a platform that many more testers will be able to sink their fingers into: Windows Mobile 6.

As with Fennec beta 1 for the Nokia N810 and N800, Fennec Alpha 1 for Windows Mobile 6 (download the CAB file) has been tailor-made for the HTC Touch Pro, with an intention to expand to more handsets in future releases. The flashiest feature to … Read more

Correction, 10:27 a.m. PDT: This story incorrectly described Google as a private company. It is public.

As far as I know, nothing tragic happened as a result of Thursday's Google outage but it does remind us how important Google has become to many people's lives and livelihoods.

In addition to search, millions of people rely on Google for their e-mail, calendar, and other Web-based applications including word processing and spreadsheet. With its Google Health service, the company has also branched into health care record keeping, making me worry that someday an outage could literally be life … Read more

Intel was fined more than 1 billion euros by the European Commission for violating antitrust legislation, following a lengthy investigation prompted by complaints made by chipmaking rival Advanced Micro Devices.

The world's chip giant was fined 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) for engaging in illegal anticompetitive practices to exclude competitors from the market for computer chips called x86 central processing units (CPUs), the Commission said.

Between October 2002 and December 2007, Intel held more than 70 percent of the worldwide x86 CPU market. The Commission found that during the period in question, Intel engaged in two illegal … Read more

I'll say this for celebrity Twitter accounts: they sure can stir up some news.

Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor used it to good effect on Wednesday when he tweeted that a version of his band's iPhone application is in the works for BlackBerry. Reznor's camp hasn't yet let slip a release date, except the vague and taunting promise of "soon."

Presumably, Reznor and NIN fans won't have to worry about the delays to the software's release that dogged an update to the rock band's iPhone application initially deemed "… Read more

Update at 10:05 a.m. PDT: On Wednesday, France's Senate also passed the bill, according to the Associated Press.

The French National Assembly has passed an antipiracy bill that sets a very dangerous precedent.

The "Creation et Internet" bill which passed the lower house of France's parliament by a vote of 296 to 233, is a "three-strikes-you're-out" act that could suspend Internet access for up to a year to anyone caught three times downloading or sharing copyrighted files. The law would not need a trial or court order to be enforced.

The … Read more

Intel said Tuesday that it is investing $12 million in a visual-computing research center in Europe. This comes as Intel prepares to bring out its first graphics chip in more than a decade by early next year.

Opening Tuesday, the Intel Visual Computing Institute is located at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. The company says the center "will explore advanced graphics and visual computing technologies."

The investment, to be made over five years, represents Intel's largest European university collaboration, the company said.

"Intel's visual computing vision is to realize computer applications that look … Read more

What I'm about to say may make me seem like a Luddite or curmudgeon, but I'm disturbed by the news that an increasing number of Americans are reachable only by wireless phones.

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 20 percent of American homes have only cell phones and another 14.5 percent of homes received all or almost all calls via cell phones even though they had a landline. The CDC says that it's the largest six-month increase in reliance on cell phones since it started the survey … Read more

During peak hours, BBC iPlayer pumps out 12GB of data every second, and 7 petabytes of data every month. It is insanely popular on Apple's iPhone--but mostly after midnight--and the next version of iPlayer will land this year with some exciting new features.

These are just some of the fascinating facts revealed by iPlayer boss Anthony Rose, in an exclusive one-on-one interview with sister site CNET UK.

Rose's official job title is controller, vision and online media group, and he heads up many of the BBC's Internet activities, including the BBC home page and the site's … Read more