Oracle

Google already ate Oracle's lunch. Oracle sued and Google won. Have you been asleep for a decade?

Really?

Cross platform compiler tech is high art. That's why we revere Dennis Ritchie so: not only did he do it, he made it look easy. 40 years later we can't simplify his work because he reduced it to least principles before publishing. Every derivation of his art we try to advance the field leads to self-defeating complexity. He is the Einstein of code.

You are about to get your wish

Next time be more careful how you phrase your wish, as the result may not be what you wanted.

I am also not finding the Intel connection

Intel's care of Dr. Hawking is compassionate, not political. And not compassionate for Dr. Hawking, but for the future generations he might yet inform. Also, it is a goldmine of research into care for others of this sort.

Not seeing the Intel connection to the politicized situation here.

Executive orders are policy of all executive branch agencies

This is not some Congressional "Sonny Bono day" suggestive recognition. This is The Boss telling his crew that this is how we do business. Likewise the whole prior pubic access to research thing. Good stuff this.

I'm torn about this. On one hand the Prez is dishing the open digital bits, on the other he's appointing people to head Justice and the FDC directly from Hollywood and the BSA. It's like he's Schizo or something. The left hand is not cooperating with the right hand.

Re: Must try harder?

The other developers who already had youtube apps in the Windows Phone store must be feeling warm and fuzzy about their commitment to Microsoft's platform about now.

Re: That horse is dead.

Precisely. The reason why Microsoft is not doing well in mobile as mobile takes over the world is very simple: We don't like them any more. We have seen them head progress off at the pass for 15 years, and we are ready to escape from that.

Aside, all this fluffing isn't going to get ElReg invites to their launch events, nor emails returned. They don't like you either.

Re: How strange

This joint venture is the Nook.

We were already scheduled for an extinction event

It's called the "end Holocene", a return to the predominant glacial conditions of the Quaternary age. We might not have totally escaped it yet, but it's looking increasingly likely.

Re: The underlying trend is cooling

The joke was about desperately hoping to end the Holocene and have everybody freeze to death. That last bit wasn't part of the joke.

That's just an observation: there is money to be made, and there are regions like Russia and Canada that would wholeheartedly embrace a world that's 8C warmer. Have a look at a globe sometime. There are other places that just don't care as long as they can boil their water today. Since reducing global CO2 output requires the simultaneous cooperation and discipline of everybody on the planet - many against their own immediate self interests - it will not happen short of a global unified totalitarian government that is not to be wished.

Take coal for example. What with the US now has oil and gas coming out their ears there is not as much need to burn coal for power generation. Are the mines shutting down? No. Oil is powering trains that take the coal to ports, where it's loaded on ships that burn the worst sort of oil as they steam for foreign ports.

Re: innovation

They did fixed resolution to speed development time and improve responsiveness. It's just easier for the programmers to do that. For the OEM it's a dog's breakfast, but...

Not really

Looks more like a bunch more product to gather dust in the warehouse to me.

The RT version isn't going to get much developer support with Microsoft falling down on recruiting buyers for ad-driven revenues.

50 Euros is about right for a kid's tablet

I bought three of them. The kids are happy and they see more use than an XBox would. They can watch Netflix and Hulu, play games - even Minecraft, command their Roku. The upside is I don't have to share my $700 Android tab any more. Not everybody needs a cutting-edge tab.

Heck, HP's Android slate is only £129 with Beats audio, and printing! You can be sure they'll move a grip of those.

Re: Good news

The Stacker business was shamefully one of the first warnings that this was a company that rolled others' innovations into their products without paying. We all knew it was happening at the time. It's insane that it has taken the courts so long to find fault, lay blame and assess damages. "Bleak House" comes to mind. It is also proof that Microsoft's own protestations of infringement can be held at bay indefinitely with an adequately funded legal team.

Good luck to you but I suspect that after the damages are calculated they will be appealed for another 20 years.

BTW: You really need to get a press agent. I'm on your side and had thought this was settled in 1994, 19 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit .

"Microsoft still hasn't paid for stealing STAC Electronic's Stacker disk compression technology for DOS, stands to pay for every copy of Windows ever shipped" is headline news. A little more light on the subject would hasten them to the settlement table.

Or maybe there is something more going on here. Would you care to flush out some details? In what way was the 1994 $84m settlement unsatisfactory? Did they forget to touch second base?

Re: Google Fiber: coming to a city near YOU

1,100 cities have already petitioned Google to bring them fiber in their official government capacity. If Google wants to bring us fiber and the law prevents it, the law will be changed.

Re: Storm clouds

IBM is a deeply conservative 102 year old company. They have survived many technology transitions including the end of the typewriter. They look far ahead. They did a flub on the PC software thing, contracting their direct OS competitor to help them build their next-gen OS (OS/2 2.0) and it almost killed them, but they survived that too and won't make that mistake again. I have no idea what was going through that guy's head when he signed that deal. They turned into total jerks for a while, trying to take control of the language with that "planar board" and "fixed disk" nonsense. I think we're past that now. The attempt to jiujitsu yourself to dominance by taking control of the symbolset and thereby inspiring mass hatred should, though, be remembered as an object lesson. We never did find out who was responsible for that incredibly stupid idea. I'm fine with waiting until his estate publishes his memoirs; the pace of the PC being what it is the poor sap has probably still got mouths to feed.

They wisely got out of the client PC market as it was turning even more unprofitable than it had been for them that far on the eve of the Vista launch.

Now their market cap is more than Intel, AMD and the top-5 PC OEMs put together. They're dancing with passing Microsoft. I haven't been a big fan of their products since the early '80's but I have a deep abiding respect for their ability to run a business. They don't bob and weave with the fads, but they get 'er done.

I wouldn't want to work there though no matter how well it paid. Their whole motion makes me think their corporate structure could use more fiber.

Re: Huh?

Not only can they be removed - they often are, and then some. For a while there Verizon was actually replacing the integrated search functions of their Android phones with Bing search in a way that could not be changed. They stopped that nonsense not because Google told them to, but because returns were horrific.

Re: Space elevator

We have the launch capacity to get the rope out there. Once we start getting the water returned and manufacturing it into fuel on orbit, we won't have to launch stuff quite so high as tugs can fish it out of LEO and take it the rest of the way.

/finally got my badge.

Re: Space elevator

This is all well and good if you want to return a few tons a few times. If you want to return five tons a day for several years running you want infrastructure. Ideally what you do with that water is turn it into rocket fuel to move men and material quickly and cheaply about the solar system, so you will want quite a lot of it.

Even with a steam cannon you are unlikely to get better results for less cost.

Space elevator

You know where a space elevator would make sense? Ceres. 0.028 g surface gravity, 9 hour rotation period means the stresses would be manageable with normal materials (ordinary wire rope, probably with embedded heating elements and/or power), and the Clarke orbit would be a mere 782 km above the equator. Solar power lifts work well at 0.03g. And what needs lifted up off Ceres? Water. Gigatons of water. And of course any other material you might find on an asteroid, or manufactured goods made of that stuff. But mostly, water.

Of course that's at least 120 tons of 1/4" wire rope - more likely 140. Getting it there would be a bit of a challenge as the whole Dawn spacecraft less fuel is only 800kg. But it's doable, and could lift loads of 5 tons per trip.