Tech Mania: IBM, Oracle Java deal could impact Android plus 3 more articles

IBM, Oracle Java deal could impact Android
Facebook and Bing Set to Make Announcement soon about a partnership hopefully
Verizon iPhone 4 leaked – No says Gizmodo
Copy Paste Coming to Windows Phone 7 Early 2011

IBM, Oracle Java deal could impact Android

Posted: 13 Oct 2010 01:10 PM PDT

This is some good news.Oracle and IBM are teaming up together on a fully open source version of Java which could have a serious impact on the Google's Android mobile operating system. IBM and Oracle will be collaborate on OpenJDK and this is expected to be where the companies focus its efforts.

InfoWorld gave some nice breakdown of how this could impact Android, as the apps are written in Java code based on the Harmony project. The Harmony project has deep roots within IBM but those resources could shift over to the new IBM, Oracle collaboration.Google does contribute to the OpenJDK project but it has been able to allay fears that it's totally in control of Android by using the implementation from the neutral Apache Foundation. The search giant could devote more of its resources to the Harmony project, it's speculated.

The move comes as Oracle is suing Google over Java patents in Android. Oracle obtained these patents when it spent about $5 billion to purchase Sun and some have speculated that price tag was so high because it included legal arrows to fire at the wealthy Google.Google called the charges "baseless" and have asked for the patent lawsuit to be dismissed. Essentially, Google said it does not violated the alleged patents and, even if it did, those patents aren't valid anyways.

It was not a serious issue when Android came into existence because it wasn't really a credible money maker at the time. Now that the little, green robot is on a rocket ship to the moon and is already covering its costs with Android Ads, many companies are eying it with dollar signs in its eyes.This isn't the only legal battle Android is seeing, as Microsoft and Apple are also suing companies making Android-related smart phones.

By Blogsdna

Facebook and Bing Set to Make Announcement soon about a partnership hopefully

Posted: 13 Oct 2010 12:51 PM PDT

Facebook confirmed via its official Fan page that the two biggies Facebook and Bing are announcing a partnership today.No idea on what the partnership is for now.Microsoft and Facebook are set to announce some major new changes to Bing, including some big integrations between the world's largest social network and Microsoft's search engine.Mashable is present live at Microsoft's Silicon Valley headquarters in Mountain View for today announcement.According to them the room is filled with press, Bing's development team and a large contingent of the Facebook PR team. They've been cooking something up and you can find the updates whats happening out there thanks to Mashable.

Bing + Facebook — Live Notes

All times are in Pacific Standard Time

11:40 AM: Mark Zuckerberg just arrived. Bing is introducing us to the program for today's event.

11:41: Discussion about how important the Facebook partnership has been. Bing is laying down the love on Facebook.

11:43: Bing is discussing ways to utilize the social graph to "change the way Bing accomplishes tasks."

11:44: Qi Lu, Microsoft's head of digital and search, is on stage. He is discussing how Bing can fundamentally help the user get things done.

11:45: Currently search is about keywords and search results, but does it have to be that way? Are there better ways to help consumers better discover the web?

11:46: The goal is to help users accomplish tasks faster, make decisions better.

11:47: What's the connective tissue of the web? Now Lu is discussing anchor text and its importance to search algorithms and figuring out what you're looking for sites. "But if you go beyond looking for a person or a product, the experience really varies." The search engine doesn't have enough predictive powers to figure out user queries.

11:48: The web has evolved from a web of documents to a web of the world. Digital representations of people, places etc. now exist in the structure of the web.

11:49: Topical graph and social graphs: the "like" button overlays a person and interests and sets the beginning of making the structure richer. This is something that the search engine can tap into. It can complete tasks more efficiently. "We'll be able to harness and unlock the power of social."

11:50: This is really the beginning. This is about making people first-class citizens of search. A lot of this Qi Lu's talk is high level about Big's overarching goals and the long-term vision, along with history of what's been done in search already and where it's currently weak.

11:51: By Bing and Facebook working together will make Bing incredibly better. We will be in a position to tackle that type of problem over time.

11:52: "The experience will be much, much better." Lu is talking about the integration of social data into Bing. Making the experience substantially better is the key theme of his talk.

11:54: Mark Zuckerberg is on stage.

11:54: Zuck is going back to when Facebook got started. "From studying psychology, I knew that a huge amount of people's brains is focused entirely on processing information about people." Emotions, expressions etc. This is the most interesting information that people track around the world — it's hard wired into us.

11:55: Facebook Photos and Groups were made by just 2-3 people. They couldn't build the most feature-rich applications, but early on they only had one advantage — they were deeply, socially integrated. You weren't just posting photos, but you were tagging people in photos.

11:56: We decided in 2007 that we wanted to focus on building a platform. It's about giving people with different expertises the ability to build of Facebook.

11:58: Games was one of the first areas that really leveraged the platform. Zynga and Playfish get shout-outs. Games are an early indicator of what's possible.

11:59: 7 million users at the time when Microsoft and Facebook partnership was started. Search, ads, maps and more partnerships have occurred since then. "What's made Microsoft a great partner because they really are the underdogs here." It compels them to innovate is Zuck's point.

12:01 PM: We've seen good results on ads, Facebook search with Bing and more. Zuck couldn't think of a better partner to work with for creating the next generation of search.

FB Bing640 300x224 Facebook and Bing Set to Make Announcement soon about a partnership hopefully

Announcements :

12:03: First, Microsoft is discussing the Bing integration on Facebook. Web search native to Facebook. It has been good for some subset of users, but most people dont' go to Facebook for web search.

12:03: The next stage was figuring out ways to help people discover what the community at large is discussing, which led to Bing Social.

12:04: "How do we bring the social context into the main Bing search?" "To this point, we haven't done that."

12:05: The Facebook Module — it appears in your search results page and shows you which links your friends are "liking."

12:06: The module is relevancy ranked — it'll appear in the right area of the search result pages depending on how important this will be for the user. It also differs from user to user based on your social network.

12:07: Search example: "steakhouse San Francisco." — the Facebook Module will show you which restaurants your friends have "liked." The same thing happens with movie searches, on top of reviews, show times, etc. But this is about the Facebook module: "He or she knows if I'm going to like this movie."

12:09: If you're looking for a specific video, Facebook data can help you surface the video you're looking for.

12:10: 4% of Bing's queries are about finding people — people searches. If you're looking for your friend Brian Lee, rather than the hockey player, Bing can help. It now has a "People on Facebook" module that will show off which Brian Lee is most relevant to you. It uses similar networks and mutual friends to figure out who to display in people searches.

12:13: In the upper-left corner there is a box that lets you learn more about Bing/Facebook integration or you can say "No thanks." Bing is taking privacy seriously as a concern with instant personalization.

12:16: Facebook is on stage now to discuss the integrations.

12:18: Facebook is swooning over Bing on stage now and talking about how the four year partnership has been extraordinary for both sides. Microsoft and Facebook got even closer when the company invested in Facebook.

12:19: More of the same. Outlook, Bing, f8. Yeah, we get it, Microsoft and Bing are in love with each other.

Q&A

FB Bing2 640 300x224 Facebook and Bing Set to Make Announcement soon about a partnership hopefully

Q: Privacy implications of Bing-Facebook?
A: Zuck: This is instant personalization. Zuck is explaining that it only utilizes public information in Bing's search data.

Q: How does the Facebook popup work?
A: This reporter doesn't understand how Facebook Instant Personalization works. You don't have to be logged into Bing in order to have Facebook integration on Bing. It's opt-out, though — they'll prompt you about 5 times before making the change permanent.

Q: Is Bing sending data back to Facebook?
A: No.

Q: Is Facebook "like" data all public?
A: Zuck: No, you can change it in settings and turn off Instant Personalization.

Q: Financial incentive/does Facebook make money?
A: Facebook isn't talking about that at this time, but it's an extension of a program that it will roll out to more partners in the future. It looks like some money changed hands, if I were to guess.

In short I can summarize as Microsoft showing a video and coming about relationship between Bing and Facebook – bringing social media to search. You’ll be abe to do a search and see what’s relevant to people you know, or to have people searches aligned with your social networks to bring most relevant results.

I.e Bing search being integrated into Facebook – ’social search results’

By Blogsdna

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Verizon iPhone 4 leaked – No says Gizmodo

Posted: 13 Oct 2010 09:21 AM PDT

Today morning Gizmodo posted an image claiming that this would be the new iPhone 4 coming for Verizon.Later on Gizmodo updated the post saying it was fake and headline was changed.Initially, the rumor said that it was the brand new Verizon iPhone 4 — or may be it really was one. It was also said that there would produce(RED) version, sort of like the iPod of yesteryear. It was also said to ship with a bumper included.

Things to be noted or pondered over here is why would Apple stick the same plagued antenna on it ? Would it have been a matter of just simply replacing the internal radios to support CDMA instead of GSM? If that's the case, why bother adding an aluminum backing to an already scratch resistant casing?

Secondly, did no one notice the big, gaping hole in the back that appeared to reveal the camera and flash set in glass? If the back was truly made of aluminum, I'm almost certain that there would have been dedicated holes for the camera and flash.

verizon iphone 4 fake 300x210 Verizon iPhone 4 leaked No says Gizmodo
Actually the red flags didn't matter much and it seems that either a tipster or commenter might have pointed out that the backing was actually this case pictured below, which is available on eBay:

iphone 4 ebay 300x283 Verizon iPhone 4 leaked No says Gizmodo Via Intomobile

By Blogsdna

Copy Paste Coming to Windows Phone 7 Early 2011

Posted: 13 Oct 2010 01:36 AM PDT

Windows Phone 7 were launched in an event in new york a couple of days ago,where microsoft showcased as many as 9 devices from LG,Samsung ,HTC and Dell.Which are slated to be released in upcoming weeks in UK and Asia and in November in USA.

The most criticized feature which is missing in the Windows Phone 7 the Copy Paste which won’t be available at launch is now confirmed to be available in early days of 2011 as mentioned by Joe Belfiore at the Windows Phone 7 launch on monday.

So all those people who’ll buy the windows phone 7 now can get the same feature added to their phones via software update when it’s made available .So if you are hesitant to buy Windows Phone 7 because of this feature ,needn’t you worry because it’s just a matter of time when the update is made available.