Jobs: No Java for you

Developers hoping to create applications for the Apple iPhone are bound to be disappointed if information trickling out of Apple is to be believed, especially if they wanted to create those applications in the Java programming language. In an interview with German magazine MacWelt, Steve Jobs has this to say about Java:

Java’s not worth building in [to the phone]. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.
Other phone manufacturers would no doubt disagree on this point. For example, Motorola's new Linux-based MOTORIZR Z6 features a Java VM. It's hard to buy a phone these days without it. According to Java's creator Sun Microsystems, Java technology is used in over 4 billion devices worldwide.

Browser-based applications using Javascript and Flash are likely to work just fine on the Apple iPhone. But forget about anything that needs to be installed onto the handset. In an interview with the NY Times Jobs says:
We define everything that is on the phone. You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.

And in a Newsweek interview, he says:
You don’t want your phone to be an open platform. You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.
Perhaps someone should tell Steve about one of the advantages of supporting Java: managed applications in Java or .Net are inherently safer than unmanaged applications. Unmanaged applications, written in languages like C++ or Objective C (the standard OSX programming language), are closer to the hardware and can suffer from problems like wild pointers, buffer overruns, and incorrectly using deallocated memory. Managed applications don't have pointers and leave memory management to the virtual machine they run in.

They also have the advantage of being compiled once into a portable intermediate representation (bytecode) that can be run on any hardware architecture. C/C++ applications must be built separately for each and every architecture you want to support. Ironically, this flexibility doesn't necessarily come with a performance penalty; real world studies have shown that managed apps run as fast or faster than unmanaged apps in most cases.

It will be a few months before the Apple iPhone is available to customers, and a lot can change between now and then. Maybe a phone call from Sun CEO Johnathan Schwartz could start the ball rolling and change Jobs' mind. But for now, it looks like application development on the iPhone will all be done in-house and it won't be done in Java. That would be a real shame.

Intel files countersuit in Transmeta patent case

January 11, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Intel Corp. has filed a countersuit against Transmeta Corp. in an ongoing patent infringement disagreement between the two companies.

Transmeta first sued Intel in October, saying Intel's Pentium and Core PC processors violate 10 Transmeta patents. Intel, in a court document filed Tuesday, denied it had infringed any Transmeta patents, instead accusing Transmeta of infringing seven of its own patents.
Intel's claims cover a variety of patents on processor functionality, including power usage and packed data.

Transmeta's patents aren't legitimate, because Transmeta officials "withheld, concealed and/or mischaracterized" information about other patents and technologies in their patent applications, Intel lawyers wrote in the counterclaim, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware.
Instead, Transmeta infringed Intel patents that came before the Transmeta patents, Intel lawyers wrote.

Transmeta won't have a comment on the Intel countersuit until it can study it further, a Transmeta spokesman said.
Nine of the 10 Transmeta patents in the October lawsuit cover basic processor functions like scheduling and addressing instructions on the chip.
Transmeta, founded in 1995, targeted Intel's market dominance in the notebook PC market.

Transmeta developed software that reduced power consumption, allowing PCs to run longer, but its processors did not gain a large market share. Intel has recently focused on lowering power consumption as well.
In its first nine years of business, Transmeta, based like Intel in Santa Clara, Calif., posted $650 million in losses. In 2005, the company switched business models and now focuses on licensing its technology.

In November, Samsung Electronics Co. unveiled a converged computer and mobile phone that runs on a Transmeta processor.

$100 Laptop Goes to CES 2007

A standard modern laptop requires 40 watts of power, while XO reportedly uses just three watts to browse the Web, and less than even a single watt to display an electronic book. Its screen can operate either in color or black and white. In black-and-white mode, it can be viewed clearly even in the brightest sunlight. The laptop also features a video camera and built-in speakers.

However, the target of giving the laptop at $100 is not yet achieved. Meanwhile, the cost has surely come down to $130 so far, with the aim of reaching the $100 target by 2008.
According to OLPC officials, the goal price is less than $100 per unit, which the initiative hopes to achieve by 2008. By keeping the price low, the initiative hopes that governments in the developing world will be able to afford them.

Reportedly, OLPC expects to start delivering the machines this summer, with the aim of delivering around 5 million units in the first year. Libya and Nigeria may be among the first countries where these laptops will be rolled out.

In addition, there are reports saying that a yo-yo like device has been developed to recharge the XO. It can be used by attaching the yo-yo like-device to a fixed object such as a door or tree, and then pulling a string to recharge the battery. This is very much similar to a pulley system.
Interestingly, the device will be given to students who receive a $100 laptop, and will also be sold to consumers in developing countries to be used as a mobile phone charger with the claim that it will recharge a mobile phone in about five minutes.

Gadgets galore for 2007

IT'S the world's biggest gadgets and gizmos exhibition - packed full of the latest techology you'll be fiddling with this year and beyond.

The Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas each January, is a mecca for geeks from across the globe.

I've been trudging around as much of its staggering 1.8million net square feet of space and 2,700 exhibitors in a bid to track down the best and worst on show.

Like Sharp's 108-inch LCD telly, a beast of a TV that would grace the walls of any house, assuming you have a mansion to hang it in.

It's the world's largest, claim the firm, and measures a phenomenal EIGHT FEET high by just under FIVE FEET wide.

Only at the prototype stage, it's not even been priced up, it's that expensive!

Like the look of these cute pandas?

UK cuts over 500 websites in effort to streamline

n an effort to streamline access to government, Tony Blair's government is shutting down hundreds of websites, streamlining the UK government's online operations into a handful of portals and major sites, reports the BBC.

The shutdown of hundreds of government websites is part of a plan to make it easier for users to access information. The Cabinet Office believes that people prefer to find what they need quickly and easily rather than choosing to surf across huge numbers of sites. What a concept.

The British government had 951 sites, only 26 of which are guaranteed to continue after the revamp. 551 sites will definitely be taken down. Citizens will be mainstreamed into the BBC website and two main portals, Directgov for individuals and Business Link for businesses.

Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said there had been a need to "deal decisively" with the proliferation of government websites.

About £9m a year was expected to be saved over three years by cutting back on "vanity" sites that do not serve a useful purpose. The need to to streamline the sites was made because there had been a serious proliferation of government websites. The government is expected to save about £9m a year on cutting superfluous sites.

Apples New Phone in the market SOON!!!!

In one of the worst-kept secrets in recent memory, Apple announced the iPhone -- its combination cellphone and music player -- at Macworld on Tuesday, to rapturous applause and adoring coverage from gadget lovers.

Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs did one of his trademark keynote speeches, filled with ultra-cool photos and an interactive demo with the new device, as well as celebrity walk-ons from Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

All of the gee-whiz adoration from Apple fans and gizmo-lovers aside, the key question is: Will the company's newest venture disrupt the cellphone industry in the same way the iPod disrupted the digital music market?

At first glance, the answer seems to be yes. The main differentiating factor for Apple is not necessarily the functionality of the new device, but the design and usability -- in other words, not so much what the iPhone does as how it does it.



 

Orb Brings All Digital Media on Gamer's TV, with the help of Wii

When Nintendo announced it had opened up Internet access on the new Wii recently, the people who bought the popular video game console got an unexpected holiday gift- a simple new way to enjoy all of the digital entertainment on their home PC directly on their living room TV screen using Orb Networks software as the bridge.

Orb's free software allows you to enjoy all digital media from your home PC as well as online videos from the growing source of Internet TV and content sites on any other networked device with an internet browser -- be it other PCs, lap tops, PDAs or mobile phones with streaming players- and now TV with the Wii.

"What Nintendo did -- offering Internet connectivity on its game console was so simple and easy -- yet it tears a big hole into the walled content garden erected by gaming manufacturers," said Joe Costello, Chairman and CEO of Orb Networks.

"Consumers want the freedom to surf the Web while sitting on their sofas but that really just scratches the surface of what is available. People can get any digital content on their home PC, be it videos, music, TV, photos, whatever they want, and watch it on their TV screen without limitations or additional fees, which is what Orb promises and the Wii helps deliver. Nintendo opened the door for millions of gamers to see the power of what the Internet can offer in terms of media freedom, choices and access: other gaming manufacturers should follow suit, and the content providers and programmers should notice."

SanDisk Unveils 32-Gigabyte Solid State Drive

SanDisk introduced a 32-gigabyte (GB)a, 1.8-inch solid state drive (SSD) as a drop-in replacement for the standard mechanical hard disk drive. Initially aimed at enterprise users as the first step toward mass consumer adoption, SanDisk SSD offers field-proven durability to keep mobile PCs working in the toughest of conditions and improves the overall user experience.
Previously, large capacity flash-based drives had been used primarily by the military, aerospace and telecom industries, which demanded high performance and reliability under challenging environmental conditions. But now the declining cost of NAND flash memory has made SSD a viable and economically attractive alternative to existing technologies in a wider variety of applications, including mobile PCs aimed at enterprise and consumer users.
Using NAND flash enhanced by SanDisk’s patented TrueFFS flash management technology, SanDisk SSD delivers two million hours mean time between failures (MTBF). With no moving parts, it does not need to spin into action or seek files in the way that conventional hard disk drives do. These characteristics, combined with SanDisk's advanced flash management technology, make it possible for SanDisk SSD to deliver excellent performance compared with hard disk drives and competing solid state drives.

Buying Crackdown or Playing Halo 2??

It is not a surprise that Microsoft’s beta-sign-ups for Halo 3 multiplayer are now sort of a “forbidden realm” for most of the fans. Well, Microsoft thought at giving those unfortunate fans another chance.
Halo 3, the third game in the best selling Xbox game franchise Halo, is a highly-anticipated first-person shooter video game under development by Bungie Studios for the Xbox 360. An official announcement on the developers' website states that Halo 3 will end the current story arc of the Halo trilogy. A public beta test will be available this spring, with the full game coming out sometime later in the year.
Since fans are eager to test themselves Halo 3’s pre-release slogan “finish the fight”, Microsoft came up with the idea to shoot two targets with a single bullet. For those who buy the Xbox 360 game Crackdown with a specially marked box, Microsoft will provide an invitation to participate in the coveted “Halo 3” multiplayer beta program when it becomes available.
According to the official press release, when the “Halo 3” multiplayer beta surfaces in autumn 2007, owners of “Crackdown” with access to an Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system, hard drive and a valid Xbox Live Gold subscription simply need to load their copy of “Crackdown” into their Xbox 360 console and use the disc as a key to download the beta from Xbox Live Marketplace and join the battle in “Halo 3” multiplayer.