... you may not use the APIs for any activities ...

"Except as specifically licensed by Google, you may not use the APIs for any activities ..."

Errr, didn't Google recently win a minor court case (*subject to appeals) in the USA where the plaintiff (Oracle) was claiming that APIs are copyrightable.

If APIs are not copyrightable, as the court found, then on what basis can Google license use of an API?

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/31/no_copyright_java_api/

Monitoring for 24 hours...

"We will continue monitoring the health of the Storage service and SSL traffic for the next 24 hours," the company wrote.

And then?

That statement makes it sound like they don't monitor the systems routinely unless something fails; explains alot!

Channel Bonding

This seems to offer potential for use to enable much easier channel bonding, for example, for ISP <> CPE situations where aggregating several slower DSL links is required - especially where VDSL is not available or can't achieve high speeds (anyone 1km from the cabinet, for example!). Currently, getting an ISP to channel bond is a challenge in futility and cost.

ISP equipment supporting 1905.1 would make the process easy and transparent and not require any IP-level configuration with round-robin or other techniques in the CPE.

Bring up multiple PPPoE connections on the same account, and provided the ISP account enables it, you've got multi-DSL channel bonding sorted.

Lord of the Rings, Ent Moot

I think, of anyone, J.R.R. Tolkien has the distinction of being associated with the word "moot" in the general public consciousness, and would be the the primary beneficiary of any recognition, having been working on the Lord of the Rings stories since around 1938.

The statement seems to imply the drivers were previously hobbled

Trying to understand what Nvidia mean here. Performance gains are usually incremental when gained through driver optimisation. Do they mean they found some hitherto unknown bottlenecks in the Linux drivers or have they simply removed an artificial cap in the drivers that prevented the Windows drivers looking bad on the same hardware?

"According to the chip maker, the drivers “double the performance and dramatically reduce game loading times” of Linux games - at least if a test comparing the new code with version 304.51 while running Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2 beta is anything to go by."

Enabled date slipping by 3 months every 3 months?

If you currently have FTTC, what speed are you getting and what speed did you get on ADSL? It'd be useful for many of us to know if 50% of ADSL theoretical maximum can be translated to approximately 50% of VDSL theoretical maximum.

Like many others I see today that the line-enabled date that was 30th September is now 31st December. That's the 5th time its changed:

30/09/2011

31/12/2011 (changed 20/12/2011)

31/03/2012 (changed 26/03/2012)

30/06/2012 (changed 26/06/2012)

30/09/2012 (changed 25/09/2012)

31/12/2012

The ADSL Max speed is 5.5 ~ 6 Mbps with an SNR of 8~12 db. On that basis I figured we could expect at least 40Mbps on VDSL (shorter length of copper, 50% of theoretical maximum).

I emailed nga.enquiries@openreach.co.uk to ask about the line last week and today got this reply:

"Thank you for your interest in our Fibre Broadband deployment. We are deploying one of the fastest and largest commercial deployments in the world. Our commercial deployment will have extended to 66% of the UK by the end of December 2014. We aim extend this to 90% of the UK, in partnership with other sources of funding, e.g. local and National government.

Unfortunately, we are technically unable to provide fibre broadband to your premise because of the excessive length of line between your premise and the fibre broadband cabinet"

So when the local exchange is enabled but the line-enabled date keeps slipping it could be because O.R. have decided the line won't handle VDSL at a sufficient speed.

TCO

The implications of the lock-in to IE5/6/7 applications are that Microsoft's claims over that last decade or so that Window's total cost of ownership is less than its competitors need revising - upwards.

In the interests of balance and accuracy, of course!

That's the BBC Android iPlayer fixed then!

I wonder if Adobe have given advance notice to the likes of the BBC because this announcement doesn't have much lead-time before the Flash libraries are withdrawn from the Play store for new devices.

For the BBC iPlayer it could be a great thing - it was hobbled by not being able to play in the background or usable for radio streaming since when the screen goes off so does anything Flash-based.

Good day for Google... so far

The jury were not "deliberating over the weekend" - they were sent home Friday and told not to discuss. They continued deliberating Monday and reached a partial verdict.

The judge had earlier reserved to himself the decision on whether the "'structure sequence and organization" (SSO - in other words, the APIs of the disputed 37 packages) are copyrightable. For the purposes of question #1 he instructed the jury to assume SSO is copyrightable therefore the jury could hardly do anything else but find for Oracle.

Q1. As to the compilable code for the 37 Java API packages in question taken as a group:

Q1 (a) Has Oracle proven that Google infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works. YES.

Q1(b). The jury could not decide if Google's use of the SSOs constituted fair-use or not.

Oracle made a point of shifting their accusations late-on to the Java API documentation - as most of us know this is generated by javadoc.

Q2. As to the documentation for the 37 Java API packages in question taken as a group:

Q2(a). The jury found Google did not infringe.

Q2(b) moot (no need to decide).

Q3 Google had already conceded it copied the following, the only issue to decide was if the use was de minimis (and therefore non-infringing).

Q3(a). Google DID infringed for the rangeCheck() method in TimSort.java and ComparableTimSort.java.

Q3(b). Google DID NOTinfringe for source code in 7 "Impl.java" files and onr "ACL" file.

Q3(c). Google DID NOT infringe for the English language comments in CodeSourceTest.java and CollectionCertStoreParametersTest.java.

Q4. An advisory for the judge. If Q1(a) is found for Oracle then...

Q4(a). Has Google proven that Sun and/or Oracle engaged in conduct Sun and/or Oracle knew or should have known would reasonably lead Google to believe that it would not need a license to use the structure, sequence and organization of the copyrighted compilable code. YES.

Q4(b) If so, has Google proven that it in fact reasonably relied on such conduct by Sun and/or Oracle in deciding to use the structure, sequence and organization of the copyrighted compilable code without obtaining a license. NO

Q4(b) is irrelevant if the judge finds that SSOs (APIs) are not copyrightable. If he finds they are copyrightable, well Google's loss is the least of your worries since it means that if upheld on appeal that the American software industry will implode as originators of APIs begin suing others using those APIs.

Google is putting forward a motion for mistrial based on Q1(b) not being answered. The basis of the appeal will likely be that it is established case law that all parts of a question should be answered.

If you thought the USA's software patent situation absurd, copyrightable APIs will have you retiring to a quiet cave with plenty of provisions whilst USA goes into meltdown.

Good news for BBC iPlayer users on smartphones?

Maybe this will push the BBC into finally abandoning Flash in the iPlayer on Android - meaning iPlayer may at last be able to do background playback of radio/audio streams and not turn off when the screen is blanked.

Does this apply to live TV helicopter coverage too?

The same argument being advanced by the police could be just as easily applied to the news channel live TV helicopter coverage often seen when incidents occur.

If the 'perp' is watching TV then the same result occurs - he gets fed information about what's going on outside beyond his own vision.

Sounds to me more like the police are just pissed off with his 'friends' and want to extract some 'revenge'.

Pixel Qi Transflective LCD like the Notion Ink Adam then?

So, almost as good a specification as the Notion Ink Adam that's been shipping for the last 6 months and cost ~ £370 then?

The daylight readable display is a revelation especially as it draws little or no power so the device will last all day. It's like reading a printed magazine rather than an electronic display.

The 10.1" Pixel Qi (pronounced Chee) Transflective LCD is the technology originally developed by Mary Lou Jepsen for the OLPC project. It is daylight readable and uses less than 1 watt:

Resolution R 3072x600 (reflective)

Resolution T 1024x600xRGB (transmissive)

My Adam has Android 2.3.3 on and is about to get 3.0 and later 3.1. It can also run a full Linux distro that supports the ARM processor (Debian/Ubuntu, Linaro, etc.). It also has:

3G modem, 802.11bg/n, Bluetooth 2.1, FM Receiver/Transmitter, A-GPS, Compass, Accelerometer, Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core. 1GB RAM, 8GB NAND Flash, microSD slot, SIM slot, HDMI 1080p output, 3 USB ports, stereo speakers, rotating front/rear video camera.

http://www.notionink.com/techspecs.php

To toughen it up I bought a carbon-fibre 'Skinomi' kit for £25 that has already fended off some serious knocks and abrasions - highly recommended to protect mobile devices.

StartSSL offline for several days!

Not a great inspirer of confidence in a 'free' provider:

"We apologize for the temporary inconvenience. The service will be offline until Monday, the 20th June 2011. Thank you for your understanding."

http://www.startssl.com/

Already accepted by Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, Microsoft, Apple

Mozilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=633546

Chome: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=48608

Opera: http://my.opera.com/rootstore/blog/2010/07/28/new-roots-new-ev-and-a-new-public-suffix-file

Microsoft: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/may-2010-root-update-new-cas-and-new-root-certificates.aspx

Apple (iOS 4.1+, OSX 10.6.4+): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4415

Already accepted by Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, Microsoft, Apple

(spullin mistax figxed)

Mozilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=633546

Chrome: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=48608

Opera: http://my.opera.com/rootstore/blog/2010/07/28/new-roots-new-ev-and-a-new-public-suffix-file

Microsoft: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/may-2010-root-update-new-cas-and-new-root-certificates.aspx

Apple (iOS 4.1+, OSX 10.6.4+): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4415