Second sun story reminds me of an important point Douglas Hofstatdter mentioned

by .ygor

‘Second sun’ on its way – Telegraph
[Via Telegraph]

The Earth could find itself with a ‘second sun’ for a period of weeks later this year when one of the night sky’s most luminous stars explodes, scientists have claimed.

The supernova could provide the biggest light show since Earth was formed, and will be so bright that night will become like day for one or two weeks, experts said.Betelgeuse, which is part of the Orion constellation 640 light years away from Earth, is a red supergiant, meaning that it is nearing the end of its life and is due to explode.

 

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This sounded really interesting until the last line of the article:

Brad Carter, senior lecturer of physics at the University of southern Queensland in Australia, said the explosion could take place before the end of the year – or indeed at any point over the next million years.

Color me unimpressed, it is an old joke

Patent infringement may have been the best thing Microsoft ever did for Apple

from Wikipedia

In a look at an older patent infringement case, it seems possible that Apple’s current ascendency could be due to Microsoft’s stupidity in copying patented software.

Could the iPod, and everything since, have been partially funded because of Microsoft’s thievery?

Recently, Oracle may have caught Google redhanded in a patent infringement case. That sounded familiar.

Microsoft also got caught redhanded doing this with Apple’s Quicktime software about 10 years ago. They knowingly used code from Apple in their own software. No big deal because they had copied Apple before and had gotten away with it with regards to Apple’s GUI, at least as far as Apple was concerned.

But there was one big difference this time – Steve Jobs had been forced out at Apple before that first lawsuit was resolved.  In the Quicktime case – which had started in 1994 and had dragged on for several years – Steve had returned to Apple and the result was quite different. Apple had originally asked for a multi-billion dollar settlement from Microsoft.

The result was both much smaller and, possibly, much larger.

Publicly, there was a settlement with Microsoft – Apple got $150 million from Microsoft, Microsoft continued to support Apple software and Apple would use Internet Explorer as its primary browser. However there was some fine print in there about also finally settling the GUI case, the Quicktime case and some patent swaps.

What is intriguing and possibly ironic, about these non-public parts of the settlement is that there is some expectation that Apple got a lot of money from the settlement, much more than the $150 million in the public announcement.

It wasn’t until 1998 that Apple began selling off its shares in ARM, and those sales took place over several years.  Prior to that, how did Apple manage to spend nearly two billion dollars more than it earned across two years, lose 14% of its income, and still manage to sit on the same $1.2 billion in cash without pawning anything?

Possibly a whole lot more:

It is rumored that Apple was ready to finally win a much bigger suit (1997) based on Microsoft’s theft of QuickTime technology (via Canyon). Steve Jobs used this leverage to get Microsoft to do a patent “swap” where Microsoft pays Apple $500M-$2B over 4 years, and Microsoft also coincidentally bought some Apple stock ($150M) and started playing nice. Microsoft agreed to make Mac Apps for the next few years, and some other PR moves. Of course the press only reported the parts that reflected well on MS.

The money Microsoft paid for the ‘patent swap’  would have come between 1997 and 2001. The iPod was released on October  23, 2001– wouldn’t it be ironic if that bolus of money from Microsoft was what funded the beginning of the Apple story?

Perhaps Apple is where it is today only because Microsoft was stupid enough to use copied code? Apple might just be a footnote now if Microsoft had been a  little more ethical.

If so, that has to be the most sustaining victory for Jobs, as Microsoft’s own ascendency was from its original copying of Apple’s GUI.

This would be a much better movie than making one about Google.

Copied code suggest smoking gun in Google-Oracle patent case

Oops: Android contains directly copied Java code, strengthening Oracle’s case
[Via Engadget]

Florian Mueller has been killing it these past few months with his analysis of various tech patent suits on his FOSSpatents blog, and today he’s unearthed a pretty major bombshell: at least 43 Android source files that appear to have been directly copied from Java. That’s a big deal, seeing as Oracle is currently suing Google for patent and copyright infringement in Android — which isn’t a hard case to prove when you’ve got 37 Android source files marked “PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL” and “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE” by Oracle / Sun and at least six more files in Froyo and Gingerbread that appear to have been decompiled from Java 2 Standard Edition and redistributed under the Apache open source license without permission. In simple terms? Google copied Oracle’s Java code, pasted in a new license, and shipped it.

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I wrote before about Google’s patent problems. And it appears to be continuing down this road with its current push for WebM – create possibly infringing software, get others to use. And Oracle is not the only one with Android patent issues – Gemalto, Microsoft, Apple are also suing.

I never thought they would get caught directly copying code. It is awfully hard to claim innocence or clean room technology when this happens.

Apple sales like a rocket launch

Chart: Where Apple makes its money
[Via Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0]

Last quarter, 65% came from products that did not exist three and a half years ago

Source: Asymco

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The iPod took Apple up a level. But the last three years have shot Apple to the moon.

Meanwhile, Google’s main innovations – Chrome and Android – have simply sustained them, not disrupted things, as the iPhone and iPad have. Fiddling at the edges if Youtube will not raise the level for Google much.

The beginning of the end of incandescent bulbs

California switches off 100-watt bulb
[Via All Today's News - Sightline Daily]

California was allowed to jump the gun on next year’s nationwide phase-out of the standard incandescent bulb. Stores here can sell their stock of the 100-watt lights, but after that, they can sell only more energy-efficient bulbs equivalent to 100 watts.

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We will all replacing all of our incandescents in a few years as they will no longer be allowed for sale. California is starting early. CFLs and LEDs will be the major choices.

A great quote that is sure to be requoted to make it better

This quote tells us just what America has always been – a melting pot of people whose diverse individualities meld together to create something unique.

There was one observation that was made this week I just have to pass on to you by a friend of mine, Allen Ginsberg, who is an historian up in Maine. And he said, this week, we saw a white, Catholic, Republican federal judge murdered on his way to greet a Democratic woman, member of Congress, who was his friend and was Jewish. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year-old Mexican-American college student, who saved her, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon. …And then it was all eulogized and explained by our African-American president. And, in a tragic event, that’s a remarkable statement about the country.

Mark Shields. PBS Newshour.

I am sure this quote will be reworked to make it flow a little better, as many quotes are. But does a nice job encapsulating just who Americans are and why.

Because in the final analysis, it is not what our heritage is as much as what we accomplish. So many good people did the right things that day, people who seldom get noticed, except when something very bad happens and they react by doing good.

We are all more similar than the media and political elite want us to understand.

What Google may be lacking – a bagload of patents for protection

by cliff1066™

FOSS Patents: Google’s patent portfolio too weak to protect Android
[Via MacDailyNews]

“About a week ago, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services published its new ranking of the 50 companies awarded the most US patents in 2010. Microsoft is still the number three patentee with 3,094 new patents, Apple is a rising star with 563 new patents (+94%, a greater gain over the previous year than anyone else on the list), but Google isn’t even on that list,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “I ran a couple of queries on the USPTO’s patent database. Last year, Google was granted 282 US patents and — at the time of posting this — owns 576 in total. While Google has ramped up its patenting activity in recent years, the gap in portfolio strength between the Android developer and its mobile operating system competitors actually appears to be widening.”

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Companies develop large patent portfolios not only to protect their own IP but to also discourage others. Apple may infringe on Nokia, for example, but Nokia likely infringes on Apple. So they can sue and countersue or eventually settle and cross license. The latter is easiest but you need to make sure you have patents to protect any possible infringement.

Google may not have the patents to protect some of its technology. In this case, Android. This could all be FUD and we may not know anything until a court case decides but few companies like to let their entire business model depend on how a court rules.

And, since Google will not indemnify the handset makers, they could be on the hook. At the end of the day, a large amount of money may ahve to change hands. The question is who will have to pay.

This is the only way MS and HP will really have a shot with their proprietary operating systems in the market place – if Google can not protect the Android OS.

So, follow this case, since Oracle does have the deep pockets to force the issue.

For all of those in ‘fly-over’ country (and many who are not) – the best NYT article not from the NYT

Fake New York Times article is the most perfect fake New York Times article ever
[Via Boing Boing]

The most-emailed New York Times article of all times. (The Awl)

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The juicy deliciousness of this article, its rambling nature and its lack of self-awareness makes it laugh out loud funny.

Just a few quotes from this article about Anna Williams:

While waiting to hear back from the Ivy League colleges she’s hoping to attend, the seventeen-year-old senior at one of Manhattan’s most exclusive private schools is doing research for a paper about organic farming in the West Bank, whipping up a batch of vegan brownies, and, like an increasing number of American teenagers, teaching her dog to use an iPad.

Or:

Anna’s parents, Leslie Wilhelm, an editor of style and fashion books, and Walter Gilliam, a partner at a boutique investment firm, love that they can see their daughter often. (Williams, Anna’s last name, is a portmanteau of her parents’ surnames.)

Or:

Like many of the ibex farms sprouting up across the northeastern United States, Yael offers an intensive Chinese-language immersion course.

This is so good that I want to see it made into a TV show.

Apple drives hard drive makers nuts

Apple iPad sales slamming hard drive makers
[Via AppleInsider]

The outlook for hard drive manufacturers is getting jolted by the popularity of Apple’s iPad as the market wakes up to the reality that a significant segment of personal computers will no longer user mechanical hard drives.

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The original iPod changed things with its use of a small hard drive to store music, allowing it to hold much more than other non-hard drive MP3 players.

But, when it needed solid state memory to build smaller players, it started a trend away from physical hard drives with moving parts.

As the price came down, Apple included more and more of these types of memory – which are faster, more stable and sturdier than comparable hard drives.

Now, we see them in iPads, which is taking sales away for netbooks and smaller laptops – both of which normally have hard drives – as well as see them in the Macbook Air.

So Seagate sees its financial results drop by 72%. The iPad is following an adoption curve unheard of in the industry, with it being quickly taken up even by enterprise units that are normally quite slow to change technologies. They are selling every single one they can make and still can not make enough.

As the article states “Apple’s ecosystem makes its own rain.”  Apple is pushing the market to flash RAM devices and depressing the sales of physical hard drives, meanwhile being able to command prices for the components that their competitors can not match, permitting Apple to sell these devices for prices for profits that can not be easily matched.

WHat is interesting is that analysts have not really examined this effect on the storage market until after it happened. They created a whole new category for the iPad – media tablet – as though it was not related to a PC at all.

But even Ballmer called it a PC.

The iPad in physical rehabilitation

by Yutaka Tsutano

Gabrielle Giffords Standing Up and Using iPad
[Via Daring Fireball]

Reuters:

Just 12 days after she was shot in the head, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords can stand with assistance, has tried to speak and is using an iPad, doctors and her husband said on Thursday.

Sounds like an Onion headline, but it’s true. Unbelievable.

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This is great news although she has a long, long way to go. Regaining cognitive skills will take a lifetime.

Sometimes it is too easy to forget just what amazing wonders we have today. The iPad was only introduced a few months ago, yet it has become a powerful tool for the disabled. It lets them to things in ways that are at once very easy for most of us but very hard for them.

Just do a search on ‘iPad rehabilitation’ and you can see how rapidly it has been taken up by many institutions. There is this one, where a boy with a severe motor-neuron disability was using an iPad the first time he saw it.

Or using it for autistic children. Or for those who do not have a voice.

I was really taken with the mention of a woman with cerebral palsy, who uses it to help communicate. In a bar, she felt like she was normal when she used it.

Simply being able to play a game like Angry Birds could be an incredible tool

And these are using the iPad with apps that are not specifically designed for rehabilitation efforts. What will it be accomplishing when some more apps created by these rehabilitation centers come online?

Analysts raise Apple targets and the stock goes down

Analysts raise targets for Apple shares following blockbuster quarter
[Via Edible Apple]

Apple’s recently announced earnings completely trounced Wall Street expectations. With profits rising by 77% and Apple setting quarterly sales records across much of its product line (Macs, iPhones, and iPads), analysts are adjusting their targets for Apple shares accordingly.

In the weeks leading up to Apple’s earnings results, a number of analysts began upping their Apple stock targets to the $400+ range, and following Apple’s blockbuster earnings during the first quarter of fiscal 2011, analysts are more bullish than ever on Apple.

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This is such a typical event that I no longer give it much notice. But, at a time that analysts are raising their targets by $30-$50, the stock was down almost 12 dollars.

Apple almost always goes down when great news comes out. It is such a wonderful example of buy on rumor and sell on news.

Angry Birds HD consumed me

Angry Birds HD gets gaming award nod; top paid iPhone apps are games
[Via Ars Technica]

The best portable gaming device is arguably the one you carry the most often, and in that regard the iPhone excels. The hardware is powerful enough to run Unreal Engine 3, iOS developers are creating experiences that are becoming cultural forces, and sales of the hardware remain strong. The power of iPhone gaming is coming into focus, as Angry Birds HD has been nominated for Game of the Year in this year’s Interactive Achievement Awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Apple has finally become a gaming powerhouse, but it didn’t happen in the way we imagined. It doesn’t matter that the iPhone isn’t designed specifically for games; what matters is that people buy games for it, and they’re doing so in huge numbers.

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Angry Birds is such an addictive game. One of the benefits of the iPad is that you can use it to fill those moments when you just need a break, a short consumption of media which can be ended when the bus stops.

Angry Birds belies this use. It expands to fill all your time, except you do not notice it passing. A normal bathroom break becomes an hour. A short break while you are waking up becomes the entire morning.

I really only slowed down once I had every update with new puzzles and had everything up to three stars .

Then I bought Angry Birds Seasons to get some more.

What I am afraid of now is that Angry Birds will release the tools to create our own puzzles and a social network to distribute them. Then all us addicts can feed ourselves and others, working to create the best puzzles and completely losing any sense of time.

If that happened, they might have to start opening up Angry Birds detox facilities.

Some more things to remember about Apple’s financials

Apple spent only $5.5 billion on sales, marketing, and general and administrative expenses last year. Microsoft spent $17 billion.

Apple spent only $1.7 billion on research and development last year. Microsoft, with smaller sales and vastly slower growth, spent $8.7 billion.

Last quarter, research and development increased to $575 million, a yearly pace of $2.3 billion. But as a percentage of total revenue, it went down from 2.5% to 2.2%.

Similarly, sales, marketing and general and administrative costs also went up, to $1.9 billion. While a yearly cost at 1$7.6 billion, it also represents a drop in over all percentages, now representing 7.1% of total revenues instead of last year’s 8.2%.

So Apple continues to grow at astounding rates while keeping its R&D costs, as well as sales and marketing, very low. Last year MS spent over $25 billion in these two areas. Apple spent about $7 billion. Almost 1/4 the costs yet much more profit.

Astounding.

When was the last time Microsoft’s revenue went up over 70%?

Apple’s growth is unprecedented, staggering; 15 amazing things we learned on Apple’s earnings call
[Via MacDailyNews]

“Listening to Apple’s quarterly conference calls these days is like watching a once-in-a-generation sports team demolish every other team in the league,” Henry Blodget writes for The Business Insider. “Apple is absolutely at the peak of its game right now. Each quarter brings astonishing new miracles that leave analysts gasping. Yesterday’s quarter was no exception.”

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One key number – revenue up 71% over last years Companies the size of Apple simply do not grow that much. And they are predicted to grow over 60% this year, assuming the experts are even close.

And they still have $60 billion in cash, if they need to shut out their competitors from suppliers.

I really think that Apple is the first 21st Century company. Now if more companies can create adaptive, creative organizations, we might really see a new economy.

I respect/hate/fear ice

Cars sliding down icy road in Pittsburgh
[Via Boing Boing]

<

[Video Link] “It’s a lot of cars hitting each other,” observes an astute man offscreen.

(Thanks, Felipe Li)

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I have always respected/hated/feared ice since then. I’ve been in 4 wheel drive vehicles that suddenly moved two lanes right because of ice. I’ve tried to steer backwards as my car slide down the hill, hoping to grab some purchase before the bottom.

My entire family and many friends know about my experiences with my brother in an ice storm we got into west of San Antonio – going backwards at 70 mph on the freeway in a Pinto; sliding off the road and watching several other cars slide off after us; leaving my brother behind at the bottom of a hill after his push got the car going because if I stopped I’d slide back.

This video has similar attempts to deal with ice, especially 4WD vehicles where the driver things they can drive out of it. None of them figured out that once ice gets you, nothing will help.