Kudos for Microsoft

C|Net reports on Microsoft's 'Elevate America' program, which is now getting off the ground in California.  With currently seven states actively distributing vouchers and five more in process of getting started (map here, MS Silverlight plugin required), Microsoft's goal is to provide free technology training to two million people over the life of the program.

Of course, I'm sure it's entirely Microsoft-centric training.  But nevertheless, while Congress and the White House are talking earnestly about job loss and the economic recession, and assuring us that they're going to fix it all Any Time Now, You'll See, Honest, Microsoft is actively doing something about it.

Granted, there's no guarantee the program will actually create any new jobs; but it should give two million people new job options.

Questionable claims

"OnLive, a service aiming to knock off the traditional video game console model by delivering streaming games at high frame rates regardless of the power of a user's computer, [...] explained that it was able to deliver high-performance streaming of games due to a series of patented and patent-pending compression technologies.  [...]  OnLive argues that, among other things, this infrastructure model future-proofs customers because they will never have to upgrade their equipment.  Rather, all the technology advances will happen on the back end."

So ... they claim to be able to deliver high-frame-rate, high-definition games over consumer internet connections by using proprietary compression systems, but it's independent of the ability of the user's computer to decompress the stream in real time and independent of its power to render the video?

.... RIGHT.  I'll believe that when I see it.  "I love the smell of vaporware in the morning."

Interest you in a nice historic bridge?  It's going cheap this week....

Sun's Jonathan Schwartz on Apple v. HTC

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.)  If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”

My response was simple.  “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?”  Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996.  Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996.  Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration.  “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix.  I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.”  Steve was silent.

Former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz blogged yesterday about some of the intellectual-property wars Sun has been involved in, including threats by both Apple and Microsoft — well, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in person, actually — to sue Sun over alleged IP violations, threats which Schwartz defused on the spot by pointing out how many Sun patents Apple and Microsoft were violating.  C|Net discusses the post and its implications for the Apple - HTC lawsuit here.