16 Feb 10 Google calls Apple valuable partner, sees no change

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Google sees Apple as a valuable partner and sees no reason for that to change, a senior executive said amid rumors that Microsoft's Bing search engine may replace Google on the iPhone.
Tagi: barcela, google, reas, reuters, apple, search engine, microsoft

16 Feb 10 HexBug's robotic creatures are the creepy crawlers of the future

Okay, so it isn't as artsy as making gooey bugs in a miniature oven, but HexBug's little micro-robotic tchotchkes are a good time in their own right. The digital entomologists at HexBugs decided to unleash the new Ant Micro and Nano Newton at New York City's Toy Fair, and for some peculiar reason we were quite enamored with watching these autonomous, high speed creatures run around the carpeted show floor. Powered by two button cell batteries, $11.99 Ant Micro has front and rear touch sensors that allow it to maneuver around objects in its path and it's hard, colored transparent exoskeleton casing was durable enough for the little guys to crash into a wooden plank and reverse course. The $9.99 tiny motor powered, 12-legged Nano Newton holds a special place in our heart, and the Jolly Rancher sized caterpillar vibrates uncontrollably and is able to flip itself over and walk forward. HexBugs will also sell different Habitat sets so the creatures can run around on their own without adult supervision. Luckily for you, these little guys weren't camera shy -- check the pics below!

HexBug's robotic creatures are the creepy crawlers of the future originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: robotic creatures, creepy crawlers, touch sensors, cell batteries, tiny motor, tchotchkes, hexbug, jolly rancher, little guys, reas, toy fair, ank, newt, casing, caterpillar, good time, nbsp, butt, ace, bugs

11 Mar 10 Analyst: High price hardware will kill Google Chrome

Mobile systems using Google's Chrome software will be more expensive than competing mini-notebooks using Intel processors and Microsoft Windows--one reason why Chrome will not be successful in an expanding mobile systems market that will see multiple winners, according to an International Data Corp. analyst.



Google Chrome - Microsoft Windows - Intel Corporation - Central processing unit - Clients
Tagi: central processing unit, mini notebooks, intel processors, internatial, google, mobile systems, reas, microsoft windows, intel, microsoft

06 May 10 ARM blames Flash, netbooks and tablets for smartbook delay, oh my

It's not easy to launch a new product category, especially if devices don't have a magically-delicious hook, but that's not why ARM thinks it's taken so long to deliver the smartbook. In an interview with ZDNet UK, VP Ian Drew said Adobe's blame was undeniable -- Flash didn't deliver ARM optimization in time for subnetbooks to be viable. Compounding the issue, the tablet craze has manufacturers all atwitter, he said, diverting smartbook resources to the iPad party instead. As far as netbooks are concerned, Drew cited poor adoption of Linux; he reminded us ARM smartbooks can't do x86. Asked if Atom (which can) might be the real reason for delay, he said absolutely, positively no way. The executive said manufacturers apparently hadn't brought up that idea even once. Guess we'll have to take his word on that one.

ARM blames Flash, netbooks and tablets for smartbook delay, oh my originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 May 2010 02:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: smartbook, atwitter, reas, zdnet uk, product category, vp, hadn, hook, atom, nbsp, adobe, linux

22 Jun 10 Communities, Then Customers (Forrester on OpenSolaris)

As you're probably aware, we've been working very hard to rebuild the community, and the momentum, around all our software assets at Sun, most notably the Solaris operating system.

Why notably Solaris? As a systems company, the operating system (OS) is among the most important lenses through which our microelectronics, software, systems and service innovations are seen by the marketplace - if the lens is cloudy, you can't see much. As is the case with few other products, our overall market is defined by how big a community of skills, applications and developers we can build around Solaris (and its younger sibling, OpenSolaris) - and only then, by how many customers we can generate.

The work to rebuild that developer community was begun in earnest in January of 2005 - the date on which we made the first source code to Solaris available under a free software license. But the investment in innovation (the main reason people care about source code, after all) began far earlier, with projects like ZFS and DTrace beginning about seven (yes, seven) years ago. Other enhancements were more recent - like our embrace of the Postgres community (who delivered a fantastic new 8.3 release into OpenSolaris today), the evolution of Glassfish (which has a similarly long history), and even the inclusion of CIFS (which allows Solaris to be a first class file server for Microsoft Windows machines).

The developer community surrounding Solaris - as opposed to the user community - is best measured by OpenSolaris. Like its brethren in the Linux community, OpenSolaris is always the most up to date release of Solaris innovations, and is used by those who not only tolerate changes to the underlying OS, but eagerly anticipate it in hopes of eeking out incremental performance, features or functions.

Which is why I was so thrilled to read a report from Forrester that showed great progress in Europe - for open source broadly, and for Solaris and OpenSolaris specifically. You can read the report here.

In it, executives in European Financial Services companies point to Solaris as one of the three most important OS's for their business - and the only modern/open source OS (the other two are proprietary). This bodes well for our capacity to grow, and the early return on what's been a long innovation cycle, not solely in features and performance, but in community, too. (I doubt OpenSolaris was even measurable last year.)

But what's really the best part about the report?

It represents data as of nearly a year ago. If two points make a trend...

To the teams involved - inside Sun, and in the community... thank you. Your work is making a measurable difference.

Tagi: free software license, innovatis, software assets, zfs, linux community, first source, reas, developer community, performance features, cifs, windows machines, system os, file server, software systems, brethren, forrester, sibling, ly, microsoft windows,