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Oracle Changing Berkeley
Oracle has changed the license of its embedded database library, Berkeley DB. The software is widely used as a key-value store within other applications and historically used an OSI-approved strong copyleft license which was similar to the GPL.
Under that license, distributing software that embedded Berkeley DB involved also providing “information on how to obtain complete source code for the DB software and any accompanying software that uses the DB software.”
Now future versions of Berkeley DB use the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). This says “your modified version must prominently offer all users interacting with it remotely through a computer network … an opportunity to receive the Corresponding Source of your version.”
This will cause some problems for Web developers using Berkeley DB for local storage. Compliance has not really been an issue because they never “redistributed” the source of their Web apps.Now they will have to make sure their whole Web app is compliant with the AGPL and make full corresponding source to their Web application available.
They also need to ensure the full app has compatible licensing. Practically that means that the whole source code has to be licensed under the GPLv3 or the AGPL.
Intel Invests In Tablet Business
Intel has invested in E La Carte, a firm that designs tablets for restaurants.
Intel Capital, the chipmaker’s investment arm, has bought into in all sorts of companies outside of semiconductors in a bid to diversify the firm’s income. Now the chipmaker has invested in E La Carte, a firm that designs tablets for use in restaurants.
E La Carte raised a total of $13.5m in second round funding for its niche tablet business, with Intel Capital leading the investment. The firm said it would use the capital injection to grow the firm and to try to increase the number of restaurants that use its tablets.
Christine Herron, director of Intel Capital said, “E La Carte offers the most innovative and reliable guest tablet solution in the industry. We’re thrilled to further accelerate the company’s growth with not only capital, but also our significant resources and expertise in manufacturing, operations, and media.
“As E La Carte transforms the dining experience, we are creating a new market for both restaurant and guest services.”
E La Carte claims to have sold thousands of tablets to restaurants and cites a month on month growth rate of 35 percent. For Intel it is one way of getting a foothold in the tablet market, even if its Clovertrail+ tablets have yet to take the market by storm.
Rajat Suri, CEO of E La Carte said, “We are excited to work with Intel to grow our footprint to more restaurants across the country. With more than 200,000 casual-dining restaurants in the US, we see an enormous opportunity to make full service and fast casual restaurant experiences more enjoyable for guests, and more profitable for restaurant operators.”
Aside from the cash, Intel Capital will also provide advice in manufacturing, operations and media to E La Carte, presumably with the hope of taking the firm public in the future.
Will Oracle Retire MySQL?
The founder of MySQL Michael Widenius “Monty” claims that Oracle is killing off his MySQL database and he is recommending that people move to his new project MariaDB. In an interview with Muktware Widenius said his MariaDB, which is also open source, its on track to replacing MySQL at WikiMedia and other major organizations and companies.
He said MySQL was widely popular long before MySQL was bought by Sun because it was free and had good support. There was a rule that anyone should get MySQL up and running in 15 minutes. Widenius was concerned about MySQL’s sale to Oracle and has been watching as the popularity of MySQL has been declining. He said that Oracle was making a number of mistakes. Firstly new ‘enterprise’ extensions in MySQL were closed source, the bugs database is not public, and the MySQL public repositories are not anymore actively updated.
Widenius said that security problems were not communicated nor addressed quickly and instead of fixing bugs, Oracle is removing features. It is not all bad. Some of the new code is surprisingly good by Oracle, but unfortunately the quality varies and a notable part needs to be rewritten before we can include it in things like MariaDB. Widenius said that it’s impossible for the community to work with the MySQL developers at Oracle as it doesn’t accept patches, does not have a public roadmap and there was no way to discuss with MySQL developers how to implement things or how the current code works.
Basically Oracle has made the project less open and the beast has tanked, while at the same time more open versions of the code, such as MariaDB are rising in popularity.
Toshiba To Offer A 20-megapixel Image Chip
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Toshiba is gearing up for to offer a 20-megapixel image sensor for digital cameras that it says will be the highest resolution of its kind.
The Tokyo-based firm said the new chips will be able to support capturing 30 frames per second at full resolution. They will also be able to shoot video at 60 frames per second at 1080P or 100 frames at 720P.
Toshiba said it will begin shipping samples of the new CMOS chips in January, with mass production to begin in August of 300,000 units monthly. Toshiba is best known in components for its NAND flash memory, which it develops with partner SanDisk, but is also a major manufacturer of LSI and other semiconductors.
Digital point-and-shoot cameras are steadily falling in price, squeezed between brutal competition among manufacturers and the increasing threat of smartphones and mobile devices. While the number of pixels a camera can capture is not always a direct measure of the overall quality of its images, it is a key selling point to consumers.
The image resolution of top-end smartphones now often meets or exceed that of digital cameras. The Nokia 808 PureView launched earlier this year has a 41-megapixel image sensor.
The Japanese manufacturer said it has increased the amount of information pixels in the new chip can store compared to its previous generation of CMOS, producing better overall images. It has also reduces the size of pixels – the new 20-megapixel version has individual pixels that measure 1.2 micrometers, down from 1.34 micrometers in its 16-megapixel product.
Is HP Getting Sued?
HP is in the process of being sued by an angry investor who claims the company knew statements about its Autonomy acquisition were misleading and led the stock to fall.
A proposed class action lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco federal court. HP bought British software firm Autonomy for a $11.1 billion last year but made an $8.8 billion write-down on its acquisition claiming the company inflated sales with improper accounting.
Autonomy co-founder Mike Lynch has denied any wrongdoing. The lawsuit, one of the first to be filed by investors on the Autonomy mess, said HP hid the fact it gained control of Autonomy based on financial statements that could not be relied upon.
It claims HP had not revealed to investors that it tried to undo the Autonomy agreement before it closed because of the accounting issues.
RIM Says Subscriber Base Grew
October 2, 2012 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Research in Motion offered investors a glimmer of hope on Tuesday, announcing a surprise jump in subscriber numbers that sent its shares up 5 percent, even as the embattled BlackBerry maker worked hard to drum up enthusiasm for its new BB10 devices.
Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, once a pioneer in the smartphone arena, has rapidly lost market share in North America to Apple’s snazzier iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy devices.
RIM is now attempting to reinvent itself through the launch of new line of totally revamped smartphones that will run on the new BlackBerry 10, or BB10, operating system. In an attempt to create a buzz around the new devices, RIM gave developers at a gathering Tuesday in San Jose, California, a sneak peek at the smartphone and its features.
At the event, the company also announced that its BlackBerry subscriber base has risen to 80 million from the 78 million it reported earlier this year, surprising many on Wall Street and sparking a jump in the company’s beleaguered share price.
In recent months, RIM has been completely focused on the launch its new line of revamped devices. In the meantime, its aging line-up of smartphones in the market have struggled to compete against the recently launched iPhone 5 and a slew of new Android devices. Most analysts had expected RIM to begin losing subscribers in the recently ended quarter, for the first time in its history.
Oracle Agrees To Support Itanium
Oracle has committed to supporting the Intel Itanium processor on servers, ending what has been a long running feud with HP.
Oracle’s announcement is well timed because it was just a few weeks ago that a court ordered it to do just that. It did say however, that it will appeal the court’s judgment.
This should put an end to what has been a rather grubby row between Oracle and HP that centered around whether or not the two firms have an agreement about developing software for the IA-64 architecture.
The row, which was not helped by former HP CEO Mark Hurd’s abrupt firing from HP and hiring at Oracle, pulled in Intel and saw Oracle force HP into admitting that it had a secretive deal with Intel for development.
Upon hearing the court’s decision in August, Oracle couldn’t resist taking another dig at HP and its insistence that Oracle continue supporting a processor that as far as it was concerned could die.
“We know that Oracle did not give up its fundamental right to make platform engineering decisions in the 27 words HP cites from the settlement of an unrelated employment agreement. HP’s argument turns the concept of Silicon Valley ‘partnerships’ upside down,” said Oracle spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger then. “We plan to appeal the Court’s ruling while fully litigating our cross claims that HP misled both its partners and customers.”
It looks like Oracle has no choice however, and in a statement it said that it will abide by the decision of the court.
“Previously, Oracle announced that it would stop developing new versions of its software on Itanium microprocessors. For example, that meant version 12c of the Oracle database due out in early 2013 would not be available on Itanium,” it said.
Intel Partners With WMware
Intel has teamed up with Microsoft’s rival VMware to deliver a platform for “trusted cloud.”
The technology will mix Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) and VMware’s vSphere 5.1, platform for building cloud infrastructures. Intel said its hardware-enhanced security capabilities integrated directly into the processor combined with vSphere 5.1 would provide a hardened and high-integrity platform to run business-critical applications in private and public cloud environments.
Intel thinks that the biggest barrier to cloud adoption is the fact that companies are worried about security. Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel’s Cloud Infrastructure Group, in a statement that Intel TXT provides hardware enforcement to help overcome some of the most challenging aspects of cloud security, including detection and prevention of bios attacks and evolving forms of stealthy malware, such as rootkits.
Sprint Will Support Mozilla’s Mobile OS
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A new operating system for mobile phones, similar to the Mozilla Firefox internet browser has got the backing of several major telecom companies, turning up the heat on Google and Apple in the smartphone market.
Mozilla said on Monday that mobile network operators Deutsche Telekom, Sprint, Smart, Telecom Italia, Telenor and Etisalat are backing the Firefox platform.
The non-profit organization which evolved from Netscape after the internet browser wars 14 years ago, said phone makers ZTE and TCL Communication Technology will roll out the first Firefox OS phones using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors in early 2013.
Mozilla, which fosters the collective development of open-source Web applications, currently generates most of its income from a contract which makes Google the default search provider for Firefox users.
Broad support from telecom companies and handset makers is crucial for any new smartphone platform to take off in a market increasingly dominated by Google’s Android software, which has a market share of around 60 percent, while Apple’s iPhones run on its proprietary iOS software.
Windows 7 Most Used OS
Windows 7 is now the leading operating system (OS) for PCs, according to figures from web traffic analysis firm Statcounter.
The report claims that in June more than half of all internet connected PCs, or 50.2 per cent, ran Microsoft’s most recent Windows 7 OS.
Statcounter’s statistics show that Windows XP was the next most popular operating system, used by 29.9 per cent of users.
This might be the first time that Windows 7 has had more market share than the other operating systems put together, but with the launch of Windows 8 looming, it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft will begin pushing Windows 7 users to make the switch to its next operating system.
That’s already started happening with XP. Launched back in 2001, the OS was a massive hit for the software giant and for this reason it’s finding it hard to wean users away from Windows XP – especially considering how rubbish Windows Vista was. However, Microsoft has said that it’s time to move on, and it will end business support for Windows XP in the next two years.