Now this is cool. Take a look at Microsoft Surface. When I first saw this site, I thought it was another cool concept like the iPod Packaging or, more recently, the oFone.

This isn’t a concept (well, not completely). It’s available to corporate customers, for restaurants and such. Some of the fancy features with Wi-Fi cameras are probably a future add on. Gates was on the Today Show this morning showing it off.

Pretty cool.

So, we all get that the next version of all operating systems will have some kind of 3D interface. Windows Vista, OSX, and Linux are all vying for that next level of usability.

But I’ve got to say that the demo put out by Novell for using XGL on a Linux desktop takes the cake. These guys have not just made it 3D (for the sake of it), but they have made it eye-poppingly beautiful, yet extremely usable.

Don’t underestimate this. Combined with Wine, it makes Linux a viable option on the desktop.

More videos:
Desktop Organization
Desktop Spin
Desktop Zoom
Desktop Transparancy

In a move to curb information overload, MSN Newsbot is set to use implicit customization to help users find news important to them. The idea is similar to Google News, which scans over 4000 news sources, and clusters similar articles together by topic.

Newsbot goes one step further, and considers which stories the user has chosen to read to present new stories as they appeal to the user. While Microsoft hasn’t revealed its technology, it’s likely a cross between Google News and Amazon.com.

Amazon analyses user preferences, and if it determines you have similar tastes to a certain group of people, then it recommends other books those people have liked.
Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft Research is putting the final touches on what I would call a “search-engine for your brain”. The concept is simple. If Google can index and make every web page in the world searchable, surely your mulit-gigahertz machine on your desk can make your memory searchable.

Their forthcoming program, called “Stuff I’ve Seen” or SIS, indexes every piece of information that shows up on your desktop. It will scan every email, Office document, and even web page, and store it into an index. Over time, this will grow quite large, but these days, even a 10Gb database is a small fraction of hard drive space on current machines.

Apparantly, it has been in use internally at Microsoft for over a year, and it works quite quickly (usually 1-2 seconds per query). If you remember seeing something about someone, sometime last year, type in a few keywords, and you’ll see a list of matches, sorted by relevance and date. It’s like Google for your desktop, that filters out anything you haven’t seen before.
Read the rest of this entry »

An LA woman was a victim of identity theft when a hacker got into her personal computer and used her name and social security number to access her bank accounts. She has launched a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft claiming that its Operating System is not secure enough.

That’s just silly. Let me just put a list of my credit cards in a file called “MyCreditCardNumbers.txt” in the “My Documents” folder. I’m sure it was no one at Microsoft that typed in her social security number into her PC. I’m also pretty sure Microsoft shouldn’t be liable for the actions of unrelated hackers.
Read the rest of this entry »

The 100 day deadline expired on Friday, and today, SCO has revoked IBM’s right to use their Unix Operating System, AIX. SCO claims that their action today prevents IBM from selling new licences of AIX, and that all existing customers using AIX must destroy their software.

IBM denies that claim, and is reassuring its customers that they need not worry, but SCO is seeking a court order to enforce their licence.

As the deadline for the SCO vs IBM resolution passed at midnight last night, many are watching to see what their next moves are. There is speculation that SCO could try to request a preliminary injuction against IBM, which would force IBM to immediately stop selling it’s AIX software. SCO claims that information it shared with IBM for use in its AIX product line has shown up in the open-source Linux OS Kernel.

Meanwhile, as investors around the world watch the unfolding events, SCO’s stock value jumped 24% on Friday, gaining $2.16 to close at $11.21. SCO has asserted that it will not back down from its claims against Big Blue, and initial looks at SCO’s evidence seem to indicate that they have a case.

When SCO launched it’s now infamous lawsuit against IBM on March 7, they gave IBM 100 days to resolve the matter. That 100 day mark puts the deadline at June 13. SCO has said that it has the right to cancel IBM’s rights to Unix System V if a deal isn’t reached.

SCO has allowed a handful of analysts to see the offending code, but they are all bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Of course, releasing blocks of code to the public without an NDA would be the same as what they claim IBM has already done.

With the 100 day deadline approaching, SCO will probably take some action in the coming days to show it wasn’t bluffing, but revoking IBM’s AIX licence might be going a bit far. Time will tell.

After months of pressure from the Linux Community, SCO has unveiled its evidence that is the basis of its legal battle with IBM. Analysts have been shown samples of the allegedly stolen code, and they say that the evidence is damaging.

At the heart of the case is the argument that portions of Unix System V code has been copied into Linux. SCO has shown analysts blocks of code, some containing as many as 80 lines of identical code that appear in both operating systems. It is possible (although unlikely) that two developers could come up with an identical set of code to accomplish a task, but they are completely identical including variable names and even developers’ comments. This combination is extremely unlikely to occur by chance.

If everything SCO claims is found to be true, this will have a huge effect on IBM, the Linux Community, and all users of open-source software. SCO has already sent letters to Fortune 1,000 companies and 500 other businesses advising them to seek legal counsel if they use Linux.

In the wake of the huge developments in the SCO / IBM / Linux world, the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds says that he is not sure about SCO’s claim that Linux contains unlicenced Intellectual Property. He is, of course, waiting for the revalation in court of SCO’s evidence before knowing for sure if there is a breach, but the fact that no evidence has been forthcoming prior to the case makes him skeptical of the claims.