I, For One, Welcome Our New Patent Overlords

A significant event took place yesterday: potentially the biggest software patent troll of all has finally woken from its slumbers:

Today Intellectual Ventures (“IV”) enforced its rights and filed patent infringement complaints in the U.S. District Court of Delaware against companies in the software security; dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and Flash memory; and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) industries.

On Open Enterprise blog.

WikiPremed: Making Money from Free

The virtues of free are pretty inarguable, but advocating the open release of stuff inevitably begs the question: but how do you make a living from it? So it's always great to come across a *thriving* business built on giving stuff away, like WikiPremed MCAT Prep Course, "an open access comprehensive course in the undergraduate level general sciences".

Here's some background:

WikiPremed was created to make it easier for an intelligent, motivated person anywhere in the world to become a doctor. For premedical students in the United States, there is no better learning program than the WikiPremed MCAT Course for securing the level of mastery that earns a superior MCAT score. In addition to improving the accessibility of science education, the WikiPremed MCAT Course is an important contribution to educational design. This learning program teaches the physical and biological sciences within a unified curriculum, an approach developed over many years working closely with college students in small group teaching. The WikiPremed MCAT Course consists of twenty modules. Each module contains fifteen to twenty hours of videos and assignments. The resources here can be utilized as a stand-alone MCAT course or in combination with another course. There are no restricted areas on this website. You can study at WikiPremed for as long as you want. It is often useful to begin WikiPremed several months prior to beginning a live course to establish the conditions for the full realization of the potential of the live course within a more ambitious program.

And here's the key thing:

The WikiPremed MCAT Course is open access. There are no restricted areas. Although registration is free, when you find yourself relying on this site in a significant way for MCAT preparation, please make a one-time $25 Tuition Payment.

But that's not enforced, so there's always the risk that people won't pay. Happily many do, but more importantly, the site generates money from products that are complementary to the online content.

Given that many remain sceptical about the viablity of this approach, I emailed the creator of the site, John Wetzel, who filled me in on how things work:

Basically, the development of the WikiPremed content has been going on since 1994, and at this point, it is a very large body of work. I think it helps to look at the content from an object oriented programming model and think of the various modes of presentation as methods of the content objects. Everything is licensed creative commons attribution, and we make the online methods freely available, so for example, you can find the entire set of Physics Flash Cards online. We offer the printed versions of the things for which print may be appropriate for sale for a very reasonable price, and students do buy them because print has its own advantages. We put the whole set of physics cards online (three years of work!) and the students still buy the printed cards any way. Even if they want to support the work, I think they like to have a commercial arrangement and a simple value proposition.

There is one work, however, the Premedical Learning System, which sells for $32.95, where the advantages of the print version are so great, compared to the online presentations of the content, which are extensive, that we call the printed work 'essential' for the course, and it is definitely a good value. It's also a board game!

Students need printed study materials, and they get sick of the computer, so I definitely think there is room for creative commons educational content supported by print publications. I think there is an ethic to not holding content hostage to purchases, but I think there are commercial advantages to the open model as well. I don't doubt that the average customer at WikiPremed has 1000 page views before purchasing anything.

I am sure that if there were registration walls and missing chapters I would have fewer customers.

I'm not getting rich or anything, at this point, but it is working.

What's interesting here is that once again it's analogue goods that bring in the money, while the digital side does the marketing - a pattern that is emerging in many sectors.

But irrespective of the how, the simple fact of WikiPremed's success is good news: it means that Wetzel is likely to continue to offer his content for free, helping who knows how many impecunious students in the process; it also means that free content has another great case study showing how you can make money from giving stuff away.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Let My Codecs Go: Will Google Free VP8?

I've written about the growing interest in HTML 5 a couple of times, and there is a parallel discussion around the role, if any, of Flash and its proprietary codecs in an Open Web. And now, hidden away in this dull press release from Google, we have another ingredient added to the bubbling cauldron...

On Open Enterprise blog.

In Praise of TinyOgg

The Ogg sound and video formats finally seem to be gaining some traction; the only problem is that few of the major sites employ it - Flash is pretty much ubiquitous these days. That's where TinyOgg comes in:

This service allows you to watch and listen to Flash-based videos without the need to Flash technology. This gives you speed, safety, control, freedom and openness.

And if you want more detail on the latter advantages:

Choosing Ogg over Flash is both an ethical and technical question. We all want our computers to do better, so here is how our computers are better with Free Formats:

1. You will be able to enjoy the media "natively"; there is no need to install any plug-in or add-on to your standard-friendly browser.

2. You will not need to load heavy and possibly unsafe scripts, which helps with speed and stability.

3. You will support a free, open Web where no corporation monopolizes an important technology, such as video.

4. You will enjoy more control over your digital life with Free Formats and Open Standards because no corporation decides what you can and cannot do with the files you have.

If you're wondering how they can afford to host all the stuff, the answer is, they don't:

All videos on TinyOgg are hosted for 48 hours. We believe that most users are going to watch the video only once, so there is no need to the "for-ever hosting" feature, which is going to be costly.

However, you can download the converted files and view them at your leisure. Recommended.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Visualising Open Data

One of the heartening trends in openness recently has been the increasing, if belated, release of non-personal government data around the world. Even the UK is waking up to the fact that transparency is not just good democracy, but is good economics too, since it can stimulate all kinds of innovation based on mashups of the underlying data.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the more such data we have, the harder it is to understand what it means. Fortunately, there is a well-developed branch of computing that tries to deal with this problem: visualisation. That is, turning the reams of ungraspable numbers into striking images that can be taken in at a glance.

Of course, the problem here is that someone has to spend time and effort taking the numbers and turning them into useful visualisations. Enter the Open Knowledge Foundation, which today launches the self-explanatory site “Where Does My Money Go? - analysing and Visualising UK Public Spending” (disclaimer: I have recently joined the OKFN's Advisory Board, but had nothing to do with this latest project.)

Here's what the press release has to say about the new site:

Now more than ever, UK taxpayers will be wondering where public funds are being spent - not least because of the long shadow cast by the financial crisis and last week’s announcements of an estimated £850 billion price tag for bailing out UK banks. Yesterday’s pre-budget report also raises questions about spending cutbacks and how public money is being allocated across different key areas.

However, closing the loop between ordinary citizens and the paper-trail of government receipts is no mean feat. Relevant documents and datasets are scattered around numerous government websites - and, once located, spending figures often require background knowledge to interpret and can be hard put into context. In the UK there is no equivalent to the US Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which requires official bodies to publish figures on spending in a single place. There were proposals for similar legislation in 2007, but these were never approved.

On Friday 11th December the Open Knowledge Foundation will launch a free interactive online tool for showing where UK public spending goes. The Where Does My Money Go? project allows the public to explore data on UK public spending over the past 6 years in an intuitive way using an array of maps, timelines and graphs. By means of the tool, anyone can make sense of information on public spending in ways which were not previously possible.

There's currently a prototype, and a list of the datasets currently analysed available as a Google Docs spreadsheet. There are some really cool interactive visualisations, but I can't point you to any of them because they are hidden within a Flash-based black box – one of the big problems with this benighted technology. Once HTML5 is finalised it will presumably be possible to move everything to this open format, which would be rather more appropriate for a site dedicated to open data.

That notwithstanding, it's great to see the flood of information being tamed in this way; I hope it's the forerunner of many more like it (other than its dependence on Flash, of course) as governments around the world continue to release more of their data hoards. Meanwhile, do take it for a spin and pass on any suggestions you have that might improve it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Korea Cottons on to the Microsoft Monoculture

I've written several times about the extraordinary situation in South Korea - otherwise one of the most advanced technological nations - that maintains an almost total dependence on Microsoft's ActiveX technology for banking and government connections. Now it seems that the Koreans themselves are finally waking up to the disadvantages - and dangers - of that situation:

The bizarre coexistence of advanced hardware and an outdated user environment is a result of the country's overreliance on the technology of Microsoft, the U.S. software giant that owns the Korean computing experience like a fat kid does a cookie jar.

It is estimated that around 99 percent of Korean computers run on Microsoft's Windows operating system, and a similar rate of Internet users rely on the company's Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser to connect to cyberspace.

The article points out the obvious security issues with this approach:

This is a risky arrangement, since Active-X controls require full access to the Windows operating system and are often abused by cyber criminals who spread malicious programs to direct the browser to download files that compromise the user's control of the computer.

But it seems that the problem goes *much* deeper:

Even Microsoft seems ready to bail on Active-X, looking to phase out the program over security concerns and compatibility issues. However, in Korea, where most Web sites rely on Active-X to enable a variety of functions from online transactions to simple flash features, the program is abundant and critical as air.

This leads to awkwardness whenever Microsoft introduces a new product here. The release of Windows Vista caused massive disruption when Active-X used by banks and online shopping sites didn't function properly.

And the Korean Internet users sweated over Microsoft's initial plans to reduce its support for Active-X in IE8, the latest version of the company's Web browser. Although IE8 did end up backing Active-X, strengthened security features have made its use more complicated.

The reliance on Active-X has locked Korean computer users into a depressing cycle where they are prevented from venturing off to other operating systems and browsers, and stuck with an outdated technologies their creator can't wait to dispel.

That is, by instituting a monoculture, and becoming completely dependent not just on one manufacturer, but on one particular - and very unsatisfactory - technology used by that manufacturer, the Koreans find themselves trapped, left behind even by Microsoft, which wants to move on.

There could be no better demonstration of why mandating one proprietary technology in this way, rather than choosing an open standard with multiple implementations with the scope for future development, is folly.

Unfortunately, the article quoted above doesn't seem very optimistic on the chances of openness breaking out in South Korea any time soon, so it may well be that all its superb Internet infrastructure will go to waste as it remains locked into aging and increasingly obsolete technology on the software side. (Via Mozilla in Asia.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter and identi.ca.

Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry is Out

Although I've been sceptical of the OLPC project, not least because of its ridiculous decision to offer a Windows XP version - putting them in thrall to a US monopolist is really good way to "help" the developing world, people - I'm a big fan of the GNU/Linux-based Sugar Learning platform. I'm also a big fan of using USB sticks as a way of providing complete software solutions based on GNU/Linux. So it should come as no surprise that I think this is fab:

Sugar Labs, nonprofit provider of the Sugar Learning Platform to over one-million children worldwide, announces the immediate availability of Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry. Available free for download at www.sugarlabs.org, Sugar on a Stick can be loaded onto an ordinary 1GB USB flash drive and used to reboot any PC or netbook directly into the award-winning Sugar environment. It runs on recent Macs with a helper CD and in Windows using virtualization. Sugar on a Stick is designed to work with a School Server that can provide content distribution, homework collection, backup services, Moodle integration, and filtered access to the Internet. Today’s Strawberry release is meant for classroom testing; feedback will be incorporated into the next version, available towards the end of 2009.

...

Learning Activities are at the heart of Sugar. Sugar on a Stick includes 40 Activities to interest young learners such as Read, Write, Paint, and Etoys. Hundreds more Activities are available free for download at the Sugar Activity Library. Most “Sugarized” Activities have student collaboration built-in; students and teachers work, play, and learn on the same Activities together. The Sugar Learning Platform is open, so by leveraging the work of other open source projects, existing software for children can be integrated; for example, the acclaimed GCompris suite of 100 Activities developed over the past five years by Bruno Coudoin was recently added to Sugar, including Activities such as Chess, Geography, and Sudoku. Teachers and parents interested in Sugar’s Activities and its modern interface for children can watch short videos on the recently opened Sugar Labs Dailymotion channel.

Note that this is a great way to (a) use old PCs (b) provide educational materials in a single package for free (c) to avoid security issues associated with Windows. What's not to like?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

A Drowsy Numbness Pains My Sense

Here's the good news:

Hemlock is a new web development framework, focused on allowing easy development of real-time, many-to-many apps. Hemlock follows the inspiration of Ruby web frameworks like Rails and Merb. It can be used for applications such as games, workspace collaboration and education.

Open source, too. What's not to like? How about this?

By combining the scalability of XMPP with the flexibility of Flash, Hemlock allows you to create web applications that are more dynamic, interactive and exciting.

Flash??? Aaaargh - quick: pass the hemlock.

It's Open, Gov, Honest

Interesting to see Microsoft jumping on the openness bandwagon again - specifically, on the open government bandwagon:

The Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) is a cloud-based collection of software assets that enables publicly available government data to be easily accessible. Using open standards and application programming interfaces (API), developers and government agencies can retrieve the data programmatically for use in new and innovative online applications, or mashups that can help:

* Improve citizen services
* Enhance collaboration between government agencies and private organizations
* Increase government transparency
* And more…

OGDI promotes the use of this data by capturing and publishing re-usable software assets, patterns, and practices. The data repository already holds over 60 different government datasets that are readily available for use in new applications, and is continuously updated with additional government datasets.

...

OGDI data is hosted in Windows Azure. It is accessible through open, standards-based web services from a variety of development environments, including Microsoft .NET, JavaScript, Adobe Flash, PHP, Ruby, Python, and others. Check out the Community for more information.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Adobe and Nokia Fund Open Screen Project

The Open Screen Project was set up in May 2008:

Partners in the Open Screen Project are working together to provide a consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications — taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR. This consistent runtime environment will remove barriers to publishing content and applications across desktops, mobile phones, televisions, and other consumer electronics.

Now, Adobe's AIR ain't open source, so I'm a bit sceptical of the "open" bit in the name of Open Screen Project, but AIR does, at least, run on GNU/Linux. I've been using the AIR-based TweetDeck on Ubuntu, and memory leaks aside, it just works.

The Open Screen Project has received a wad of dosh:

At the GSMA Mobile World Congress, Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) and Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) today announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund designed to help developers create applications and services for mobile, desktop and consumer electronics devices using the Adobe Flash® Platform. The new fund is a result of the Open Screen Project, an industry-wide initiative of more than 20 industry leaders set to enable a consistent experience for web browsing and standalone applications. Additional Open Screen Project partners are expected to join the fund in the future.

Apparently, AIR projects are also eligible, which is something.

Now, if they could just open source AIR, as they will probably have to if they want to see off the threat from Microsoft's Silverlight...

Whole Lotta Whole Earth Catalog(ue)

One of the seminal publications of recent years was the Whole Earth Catalog, which has attained almost mythic status in hacker circles. Now you experience (most of) the reality:

After the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG and its descendants ceased publication, New Whole Earth LLC, headed by entrepreneur and philanthropist Samuel B. Davis, acquired the intellectual property and physical assets of the family of publications from the Point Foundation.

We thought it was important to preserve the heritage of the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG and its succeeding publications. Although the CATALOG's heyday was during a specific and turbulent period of American history, the ideas found in it and in its related publications continue to engage the brightest minds of the 21st century—and Whole Earth LLC believes that those ideas should be preserved as they were originally disseminated.

This collection is not complete—and probably never will be—but it is a gift to readers who loved the CATALOG and those who are discovering it for the first time. The great stuff found on these pages is a celebration of the genius of Stewart Brand and all those associated with the WHOLE EARTH family of publications.

It uses Flash (alas), but quite effectively, to let you flick through the volumes. Fantastic fun for browsing.

The Pink 'Un Starts to Get It

Surprisingly spot-on piece in FT today about netbooks. Key bit:

The netbook category is posing a challenge for Microsoft, the biggest software group, as manufacturers turn to alternatives to its Windows operating system, writes Chris Nuttall.

To help cut costs, the free Linux operating system is featured in many products, while the use of flash memory rather than hard drives along with ‘virtualisation’ techniques means that Windows is being bypassed in others.

Consumers are beginning to associate netbooks with “instant-on” features, which mean that they can be used in a few seconds rather than waiting a few minutes for Windows to be booted.

Analogue Steganography

Steganography is about hiding stuff in such as way that it isn't even apparent stuff is hidden. For example, you might change predetermined pixels in a digital image so as to encode a hidden message, but not in such a way as to be obvious to anyone looking at said pic.

That's clever, but this is even more clever: a USB drive that doesn't look like a USB drive.

* 2GB flash drive cleverly disguised as a frayed and broken USB cable
* Easily transfer and store files, photos and music
* USB 2.0 with 1.1 backwards compatibility
* Mac, Windows and Linux compatible, of course

(Via Bruce Schneier.)

*Not* the Facebook Virus

Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus designed to get hold of sensitive information like credit card details.

'Koobface' spreads by sending a message to people's inboxes, pretending to be from a Facebook friend.

It says "you look funny in this new video" or "you look just awesome in this new video".

By clicking on the link provided they're then asked to watch a "secret video by Tom".

When users try and play the video they're asked to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

If they do, that's when the virus takes hold and attacks the computer.

But only, of course, if they're stupid enough to use Windows (which the story - once again - somehow fails to mention.) Oh, and BTW, it's a worm, not a virus.

Sigh.

Update: At least Charles gets it right.

Add a Computer to a Cable

Here's a GNU/Linux-based computer the size of an RJ-45 jack:

Specs listed for the Digi Connect ME 9210 are said to include:

* Processor -- 32-bit Digi NS9210 75MHz (ARM926EJ-S)
* Security -- On-chip 256-bit AES accelerator
* Memory -- 8MB SDRAM
* Flash -- 4MB or 8MB of NOR flash
* Networking -- 1 x 10/100 Ethernet
* Expansion -- Flexible Interface Modules (FIM) with 300MHz DRPIC165X CPU
* Interfaces:
o High-speed TTL serial
o Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
o I(2)C v1.0 bus with 7- and 10-bit address modes
o 10 x shared GPIO ports with up to 3 external IRQ options
* Power management -- modes for on-the-fly clock scaling, low power sleep, and configurable scaling/wake-up events (EIRQ, UART, Ethernet, etc.)
* Other features -- software watchdog
* Operating temperature -- -40 to 176 deg. F (-40 to 80 deg. C)
* Power -- 3.3VDC @ 346 mA; 1.14 W typical consumption
* Operating systems -- Digi Embedded Linux; NET+OS (ThreadX-based

Don't miss the pix - they are almost literally incredible. (Via Wind River blog network.)

High Priority Free Software Projects

One of the criticisms of free software is that certain classes of applications are missing. Interestingly, the FSF agrees, up to a point, and has put together what it calls its "high-priority projects list":

The FSF high-priority projects list serves to foster the development of projects that are important for increasing the adoption and use of free software and free software operating systems. The projects on our list are neither run, controlled, nor maintained by the FSF, but are supported entirely by the individuals in the free software community. Our list helps guide volunteers and supporters to projects where their skills can be utilized, whether they be in coding, graphic design, writing, or activism. We hope that you can find a project here where your skill, energy, and time can be put to good use.

Some of the most important projects on our list are replacement projects. These projects are important because they address areas where users are continually being seduced into using non-free software by the lack of an adequate free replacement.

If you're interested - and maybe want to contribute - here's the list:

1. Gnash — the free software Flash player
2. Coreboot — the campaign for a free BIOS
3. Free software replacement for Skype
4. Membership and donor transaction and contact system
5. Free software video editing software
6. Free Google Earth Replacement
7. gNewSense — The all free software GNU/Linux operating system
8. GNU Octave — free software Matlab replacement
9. Replacement for OpenDWG libraries
10. Reversible Debugging in GDB
11. Free software drivers for network routers

Any others that you'd add? (Via linux.com.)

Want to Open Flash? Ask Sun How

I'm not the world's biggest fan of Flash, but there's no denying an open version would at least be better than a closed one. Here's why that's not happening:

Now whether we would publish the entire Flash Player as open source is something that first of all would be somewhat challenging in that there are some codices in Flash that we don't have the rights to all the source to. That's one challenge with that. The other is that I think in terms of what's best here for consistency of Flash on the web, having multiple implementations and having forking and splintering of that code would be a big loss for the web in terms of that consistency. So we're really working to be a good steward of Flash and making sure that it runs across operating systems on the web. And we really want to make sure that we don't end up in a situation where it's fragmented and loses the value that it has brought to the web so far. That's really what we're working to do is to maintain the consistency, but we're very inclusive of open source and involved in open source to enable that innovation of the open source community to be part of the success story with Flash.

Now replace the word "Flash" with "Java", and you have *precisely* the argument that Sun used to give for not open-sourcing Java. Which is now available under the GNU GPL.

Adobe, are you listening...? (Via Aral Balkan.)

How Low Can They Go?

How about $98 low?

HiVision CO., LTD makes one of the worlds cheapest Linux laptops at $98 using a new cheaper chipset, WiFi, 1GB flash storage, it runs Linux, 3 USB ports, Ethernet, SDHC card reader, audio in and out. Voice-chat, Skype, multi-tabbed Firefox browser support, Abiword for word processing.

(Via tuxmachines.org.)

Google Is Evil in a Flash

On Open Enterprise blog.

SproutCore Sprouts From Nowhere...

...well, at least as far as I'm concerned:

Apple, continuing its reliance on open-source technologies, is using an open-source project called SproutCore to provide rich Internet applications like its new MobileMe service.

The idea is to use to keep Apple from being "locked into the browser plug-ins for...one particular standard."

Never heard of it, but if it offers a completely open alternative to the dreaded Flash, put me down for two of them....