Mozilla to the Rescue, Again?

I've written a number of posts about Mozilla's rise and fall and rise: how it went from saving the open Web and open standards in the face of the stagnation brought about by Internet Explorer 6's long dominance; to losing its way somewhat, with the upstart Chrome threatening to supplant its role as the "other" browser; and finally finding a role once more as it concentrated on what it called Web apps.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Indian Village Bans Unmarried Women And Girls From Using Mobile Phones

It's fairly widely accepted that the key digital device in the future will be the mobile phone, not the desktop computer that has had such an impact on Western society for the last few decades. That's partly a question of cost -- if devices are to reach even the poorest in emerging economies, they must be very cheap. But there are also other factors, such as the mobile phone's small size and portability; its rugged design and ability to cope with intermittent power supplies; and the built-in Net connectivity that more or less comes as standard. 

On Techdirt.

As UK Government Considers Opt-Out Porn Censorship, Report Already Finds Overblocking On Mobile Networks

A few weeks ago, we noted the UK government was considering plans to bring in an opt-out form of censorship, in what would amount to a kind of porn license, and that such an approach runs the risk of blocking a far wider range of materials. Now the Open Rights Group (ORG) has released a report that shows the "child protection filters" on UK mobile Internet networks are already overblocking sites: 

On Techdirt.

Just Because Something's Fake Doesn't Mean It Can't Be Innovative

The term "shanzhai" literally means a fortified mountain village, and originally meant those places in China that were outside government control, and hence not subject to its law. Today, by extension, it refers to Chinese outfits producing counterfeit goods that ignore intellectual monopolies like patents. 

On Techdirt

Mozilla's Next Firefox Moment?

Last year, there was a lot of handwringing about Firefox's continuing loss of market share. This was only by relatively small amounts, but people wondered whether Firefox had peaked and was in trouble.

On The H Open.

Moving beyond the Microsoft Monoculture

For the last 15 years we have been living in a Microsoft monoculture, which has had very real knock-on consequences for everyone online – not just for users of its products. Today, though, that monoculture is fading away, to be replaced by something much more complex.

On The H Open.

AllJoyn Open Source

One of the sure signs that open source has entered the mainstream is when companies not normally associated with this approach starting getting involved. A case in point is Qualcomm, not someone that I've come across in this area before apart from this kind of half-hearted toe-dipping (but maybe I missed earlier work: anyone know of anything previously?) Here's a very interesting project they are supporting:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why Android's Victory is Inevitable

Arguably the most important development in the world of open source in the last year or two has been the rise and rise of Google's Linux-based Android operating system. It's true that the mobiles out there employing it are not 100% free, but they are considerably more free than the main alternatives. More importantly, they are turning Linux into a global, mass-market platform in a way never before seen.

On Open Enterprise blog.

The King of the Trolls Strikes Gold

Well, this is rather droll. The other day I was writing about the patent troll to end all trolls, Intellectual Ventures. And now we have this:

Patent #7,679,604 — “Method and apparatus for controlling a computer system” — the broad motion-control patent I’ve been writing about all week, has passed through a number of hands over the years. First assigned to ArrayComm in 2006, it was subsequently handed over to Durham Logistics, a limited liability company which is itself managed by another obscure Las Vegas LLC called Memscom. But there’s one more company at the end of that oblique line of ownership: Intellectual Ventures, an “invention capital firm” or patent troll, depending on your views on innovation and intellectual property.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Microsoft About to Declare Patent War on Linux?

Microsoft's comments on happenings outside its immediate product portfolio are rare, and all the more valuable when they do appear. Here's one from Horacio Gutierrez, “Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel”, entitled “Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones.”

On Open Enterprise blog.

Schools for Scandal - the UK's

Here's an interesting piece about software in UK schools. There are a couple of remarks that although incidental, are incredibly revealing of all that's wrong with UK schools in this respect:

several people told me of contracts which meant that every time a school wanted to upgrade software, or even install something free like Mozilla Firefox, they had to pay a hefty fee to their contractor. That meant they were reluctant to change anything, with the result that software was soon out of date.

and

I spoke to Tom Barrett, a Nottinghamshire primary school teacher, who's part of network of like-minded individuals trying out new methods. Tom told me about a lesson where he was teaching probability by asking friends on the Twitter social network to predict the likelihood of snow in their part of the world.

It sounded like an engaging lesson - and the technology cost nothing. Of course there are computers and electronic whiteboards in Tom Barrett's school - but he says using free software or indeed gadgets like mobile phones which children bring to school themselves means added flexibility: "I think some of the larger scale projects like Building Schools for the Future... have been guilty of taking too long to roll out." The danger then, he says, is that the technology moves on, whereas with free software you can keep up to date at no cost.

Obviously, it's scandalous that schools not only don't have the option to install Firefox in the first place - since it's much safer than Internet Explorer - but that they must *pay* to install it afterwards. As the article rightly notes, this means they also pay in another way, through lock-in to old software because they can't afford to do so.

Meanwhile, the other quotation hints at what might be achieved if only free software were more widely deployed: the ability to "keep up to date at no cost".

The fact that this is still a problem in 2010, with schools still locked in to a scelerotic Microsoft monoculture, is a huge blot on the record of all those responsible.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Volantis Who? - a UK Open Source Success Story

Guildford is not famous for being a hotbed of open source, but that's where the British open source company Volantis is based. It's not as well known as it ought to be, probably because it sits astride the computing-mobile divide, helping mobile operators and others to display Web content on their devices....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Mobilising Open Source

I've been wittering on about open source mobiles for ages, but here's someone who actually knows what he's talking about:

Whether it be the proliferation of phone development activity around Google’s Android stack, the phenomenal operator gravitation toward the LiMo Foundation, or Symbian’s intriguing announcement to open source its end-of-life cycle stack, the mobile industry is breaking out of the traditional controlled development environment to favor collaboration that accelerates innovation. The use of open source software in mobile is exploding from the operating system all the way up to the user experience, and Linux-based open source stacks are moving well beyond alpha stage with backing by industry heavy weights.

This post is in the context of the Mobile World Congress being held in Barcelona in February:

26 years after GSM was created to design a pan-European mobile technology, Mobile World Congress number 13 is set to take place in Barcelona in February. This time around, as they did when GSM World Congress was first held in Madrid in 1995, mobile network operators will dominate the scene.

Next month, however, the topic of discussion will not be new network deployments, or the latest traunch of jazzy new devices, or the next best application. Rather, Open Source will be topic Number 1 on the operator agenda in 2009.

Good to hear it.

There are Many Ways to Skin a... Netbook

Good point here:

Even if manufacturers may be getting smaller margins on netbooks, I suspect they will add skins, cool designs and other less technical features to help sweeten their profits.

This, together with the addition of 3G plans, means that netbooks are becoming more like mobiles.

PC vs. Mobile

One thing that is evident is the continuing emergence of the mobile platform as a real alternative to the traditional PC. The iPhone and Android systems are the clearest manifestation of this. But here's another:

For many Japanese adolescents, cellphone is inseparable partner of their lives, you might have heard. Different from PC, kids can have their own (not-shared with your family/siblings, not filtered by home-broadband), can bring it with you to school, outside, anywhere (it is important when your writing back within 5 minutes to your friend’s mail is the only way to prove your true friendship). The largest Social Network Mixi already got more page views from cellphone than from PC (and #2 Mobage and #3 Gree are mainly on mobile).

Some are said to write their college reports by e-mail on cellphone. (*1) (*2) (*3)

For those cellphone-adapted youth, PC’s QWERTY keyboard does not necessary be the best input device. They had to use PC keyboard fewer times on their computer class, however, 0-to-9 number pads are more familiar, even faster way for them.

If number pads in cellphone order is more convenient, some youth feel easier to use it even for PC. Yes, there are some solutions.

Keiboard+IE is USB external keyboard having cellphone-keypads, mouse-like joy pad and many short cut buttons (for IE, as its name implies).

I do hope it's not *that* IE.....

Madness Begets Madness

This is where the madness of authoritarianism leads:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.

This is another reason why the super-duper snooper database is madness: to make it even vaguely workable, the government must try to plug all these loopholes. But plugging one - pay-as-you-go mobiles - only highlights the next. In this case, it's pay-as-you-go mobiles from *abroad*. The logic of the super-duper snooper database means that people will be forced to register every mobile as they come into the UK. But this will simply create a black market for used mobile phones, so then the UK government will have to make *those* illegal. And then people will turn to encrypted VoiP, so that will be made illegal, and so on, and so forth.

Why don't they just implant chips in us at birth at be done with it?

Opening OpenPandora's Box of Openness

After the open source mobile from Android we have the open source game platform from OpenPandora:

* ARM® Cortex™-A8 600Mhz+ CPU running Linux
* 430-MHz TMS320C64x+™ DSP Core
* PowerVR SGX OpenGL 2.0 ES compliant 3D hardware
* 800x480 4.3" 16.7 million colours touchscreen LCD
* Wifi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth & High Speed USB 2.0 Host
* Dual SDHC card slots & SVideo TV output
* Dual Analogue and Digital gaming controls
* 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad
* Around 10+ Hours battery life

Yours, apparently, for around 200 quid.

Android Gets a Hand

As I wrote last week, Android's USP is openness. Although that means open to everyone, there is arguably an advantage to open source coding on the Android platform. For a start, the methodology that Android employs will be totally familiar, as will the idea of building on pre-existing code.

Here's a case in point....

On Open Enterprise blog.

T-Mobile Gets the Open Meme

T-Mobile is working with the industry to foster an open wireless services platform which will provide developers with the tools and information they need to make new, innovative experiences available to T-Mobile’s more than 31.5M customers.

I'm not sure exactly how open their open is, but it's interesting that T-Mobile has adopted this as a strategy to fight back against its bigger rivals.

Volantis Code Takes Flight with GPLv3

On Open Enterprise blog.