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Is Microsoft Considering Windroid?

By Christine Hall on February 13, 2014 |

Business and Mobile

Is Microsoft Considering Windroid?HTC & Nokia Windows phones

Tom Warren reported on The Verge yesterday that he’s been hearing some skinny that Microsoft is considering making some changes to Windows Phone to allow it to run Android apps. The same plan didn’t worked very well for Blackberry, but that was a company already on the ropes and the marketplace had pretty much already turned its back on the once coveted “Crackberry.”

Microsoft also has a phone nobody wants, but it still has high hopes.

HTC & Nokia Windows phones

Continue readingIs Microsoft Considering Windroid?

5 Questions for Microsoft’s New CEO

By Christine Hall on February 11, 2014 |

Business and Patents

Right now it’s too soon to tell what kind of CEO Satya Nadella will be for Microsoft. He may be a good guy who understands just how much his company has erred ethically, almost since day one, and who has plans to realign the company he now guides to a position where it can become a positive force in the tech arena. I’m not expecting that. I’ve learned over the years to not expect anything sane or ethical from the Redmond company, no matter who’s in charge or doing the talking.

As a FOSS proponent, there are a few questions I’d like to ask Mr. Nadella if I had the chance. His answers would tell me much of what I’d like to know about the new boss at Microsoft and his plans for the company.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue reading5 Questions for Microsoft’s New CEO

Microsoft: The King Is Dead; Long Live the King

By Christine Hall on February 6, 2014 |

Business and News

Satya Nadella
Satya Nadella, new CEO of Microsoft
So we don’t have Steve Ballmer to kick around anymore. The buffoon is gone. He’s out the door, replaced by Satya Nadella, a 46 or 47 year old geek from India who spent 22 years rising through the ranks at Microsoft to capture Redmond’s top prize as CEO. His starting salary in his new position will be $1.2 million. Nice work if you can get it, eh?

The fact that we don’t know Mr. Nadella’s exact age is telling, revealing a man who has spent his career keeping a low profile and evidently keeping his private life private. We do know that he was born in 1967, the year of the “Summer of Love” to us aging hippies, the same year the Beatles released the Sgt.Pepper’s album. After earning a bachelor’s degree in India, he came to the U.S. where he earned an MS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He spent a brief period working for Sun before joining the staff at Microsoft in 1992.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingMicrosoft: The King Is Dead; Long Live the King
Results for Our ‘Red Hat & the NSA’ PollRed Hat logo

Results for Our ‘Red Hat & the NSA’ Poll

By Christine Hall on February 5, 2014 |

Business, Distros, Politics, Polls and Security

It looks as if Red Hat has some work cut out for them if they care what impression folks in the FOSS community have about them. If the results of our Red Hat &the NSA poll are any indication, some people aren’t convinced that the most commercially successful Linux distro on the planet has clean hands when it comes to the whole NSA mess.

A few weeks back, in response to what I thought (and still think) were unfounded allegations that Red Hat has been working with the NSA spying efforts by doing things like building back doors into RHEL, we ran a poll that asked the simple question, “Do you think Red Hat is cooperating with the NSA by building back doors into RHEL?” The poll went up on January 23rd and was ended this afternoon.

Red Hat logo

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingResults for Our ‘Red Hat & the NSA’ Poll
Google Beats Troll, Ellison’s Oracle ‘Unbreakable’ & More…Michael Copps

Google Beats Troll, Ellison’s Oracle ‘Unbreakable’ & More…

By FOSS Force on February 1, 2014 |

Business, Internet, Mobile, News, Patents and Politics

FOSS Week in Review

NSA involved in industrial espionage

Another big non-surprise this week in the continuing saga of the NSA. It appears that our beloved spy agency has been using their secret powers for the purpose of uncovering industrial secrets from foreign companies. So much for the separation of business and state. Reuters reported that in a television interview with a German TV network, Edward Snowden said the agency doesn’t confine its intelligence gathering to items of national security.

“‘If there’s information at Siemens that’s beneficial to U.S. national interests – even if it doesn’t have anything to do with national security – then they’ll take that information nevertheless,’ Snowden said…”

Even the Republicans are jumping on the stop-the-NSA bandwagon, which is rather surprising.

Continue readingGoogle Beats Troll, Ellison’s Oracle ‘Unbreakable’ & More…
Google Passes Motorola to LenovoMotorola Quasar TV ad

Google Passes Motorola to Lenovo

By Christine Hall on January 29, 2014 |

Business, Hardware, Mobile and News

Today it was announced that Google is selling handset maker Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. The move comes less than a week after the Chinese electronics company also agreed to acquire IBM’s low-end server business for $2.3 billion. Google purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion in 2012.

Although the move is not necessarily a surprise, it is somewhat unexpected.

When Google purchased the consumer electronics end of Motorola, media pundits were quick to point out that the search company was primarily interested in attaining Motorola’s valuable patent portfolio. At the time, Google’s patent holdings were somewhere between slim to none and they desperately needed patents to defend themselves against legal actions, as Android had become a magnet for attracting patent trolls. Since then, Google has been actively adding patents to their portfolio.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingGoogle Passes Motorola to Lenovo

You Say NSA Has Hurt U.S. Tech Sector

By FOSS Force on January 28, 2014 |

Business, Politics and Polls

Back in the early days of the Snowden affair, when it first became obvious that Microsoft and others had co-operated with the NSA’s agenda to spy on every living human being on the planet who owned a computer, we said this wouldn’t bode well for those who make their living from tech in the U.S. We thought that proprietary software vendors would be most vulnerable due to their lack of transparency, i.e., the lack of available source code, especially after Redmond was exposed for building secret access into Windows.

Back in December, we asked for your opinion in our NSA in the USA Poll.

Continue readingYou Say NSA Has Hurt U.S. Tech Sector

Chrome Eavesdropping, Balkanized Internet & More…

By FOSS Force on January 25, 2014 |

Browsers, Business, Hardware, Internet, News, Politics and Security

FOSS Week in Review

Sixteen-year-old wrote the code for Target breach

TargetMiamiThe press calls him a “nearly seventeen-year-old” and he’s reported to be one of the people behind the malware used to compromise credit card data at Target and other locations. By our way of counting, “nearly seventeen” means he is sixteen or, like the show tune says, “sixteen going on seventeen.” He lives in Russia and is said to be the author of the BlackPOS malware that was used against Target and might have been used against Neiman Marcus.

This info comes from Los Angeles based cyber-intelligence firm IntelCrawler, which says it’s also traced six additional breaches to BlackPOS. As noted on MarketWatch, despite authoring the malware, the kid is just a small fry in this affair.

Continue readingChrome Eavesdropping, Balkanized Internet & More…
Troll Sues FTC, Net Neutrality Dead & More…Supreme Court

Troll Sues FTC, Net Neutrality Dead & More…

By FOSS Force on January 18, 2014 |

Business, Internet, News, Patents, Politics and Security

FOSS Week in Review

NSA spying not as effective as claimed

Claims from the Obama White House and the NSA about the effectiveness of the NSA’s dirty tricks evidently aren’t true, according to a report from the New America Foundation. Since the Snowden revelations began, we’ve heard that something like 50 terrorist attacks have been averted as a result of the NSA monitoring Americans’ phone records and such.

However, Mashable tells us that according to this report, the effects of the NSA’s cyber spying has been minimal.

“‘Our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading,’ said the research team, led by Peter Bergen, a reporter specialized in national security who also interviewed Osama Bin Laden in 1997.

“‘Traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal,’ they added.

The report goes on to claim that the spy agencies wholesale collection of phone data only had an impact in 1.8% of cases. The figures for PRISM’s impact is 4.4%.

Continue readingTroll Sues FTC, Net Neutrality Dead & More…
Blackberry Trolls, Coke in Patent Suit & More…coke patent

Blackberry Trolls, Coke in Patent Suit & More…

By FOSS Force on January 11, 2014 |

Business, Internet, Mobile, Patents and Security

FOSS Week in Review

India drops deal with Google over spying fears

Since the Snowden leaks revealed that Microsoft has allegedly built back doors into Windows for the NSA, we’ve been saying that the spy agency’s actions are going to hurt the U.S. tech industry’s business abroad. Well, it’s started to happen. On Thursday, Reuters reported that India has decided to drop out of a planned partnership with Google designed to help voters access information.

“…the plan was opposed by the Indian Infosec Consortium, a government and private sector-backed alliance of cyber security experts, who feared Google would collaborate with “American agencies” for espionage purposes.”

cokeadThere’s even been more digital security news from the EU, where there’s been a scramble to address privacy and security issues since the NSA scandal began. On January 3, phoneArena.com reported that European phone makers have been coming out with pricey phones designed for the security conscious.

Mark our words. This is only the beginning.

Continue readingBlackberry Trolls, Coke in Patent Suit & More…
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