Florian Mueller, spokesman for the European NoSoftwarePatents.com and a leading anti-patent activist, thinks that may be the case. Mueller sees a recent Forbes interview with Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer as stopping just " short announcing patent litigation against Linux."

In the interview, Ballmer said, "Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy. And when there is something interesting to say, you'll be the first to hear it."

Mueller reasons that, "By 'intellectual property' he must mean patents. IP is a broad term and includes diverse rights, but it's hard to see how Linux would infringe any trade mark rights or copyrights held by Microsoft. However, given the size of the Linux code, it's almost certain that it will violate a number of patents, and some of them, such as the ones on the FAT file system, may indeed be held by Microsoft."

Others who are also concerned with open-source and patents don't see Ballmer's recent comments as being anything new.

"Well, I wouldn't say that [these comments are] noise, [but] it's actually less than they've said in the past," said Daniel B. Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation.

"The 'experts' I think [Ballmer is] referring to is my report from a couple years ago about Linux and patents. But, I've been over that and directly responded to his misinformed interpretation of that study," said Ravicher.

Specifically, though, in the current situation, Ravicher said, "I like Florian a lot, but I think I see this a little differently than he does. To me, these statements by Ballmer are nothing new. Of course, there's always a threat that Microsoft will use its patents against free software. I just don't think that this interview by Ballmer manifests an increase in that threat."




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VoIP service provider Vonage will provide its subscribers with Enhanced 911(E911) emergency calling service, which automatically links a physical address with a caller's telephone number.

Vonage said it worked with 911 Public Safety Answering Points throughout the U.S. to turn on the emergency calling service. The VoIP calling firm noted that it has a national emergency call center for its customers who use Wi-Fi phones or other calling devices not directly connected to landline phones.

Source: here
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Gcast has simplified by building a free service that makes publishing a podcast as easy as making a phone call. The service is not flawless by any means, but it is easy to use and allows anyone with a telephone to get their own podcasting.

To start with first, need to establish an account and create a PIN for your phone number on the Gcast Web site. Then you call Gcast's 800 number, enter your PIN, listen to the instructions, and record your podcast. You can then re-record, save to your Gcast account for further review, or broadcast the podcast directly to your podcast channel.

Creating these voice-only podcasts is certainly simple, but there are trade-offs. You have no power to edit the recording, other than re-recording it again. Also when you play back the recording on the Gcast Web site, you may hear electronic noise in the recording or a distinct sound when the recording ends, this is another drawback of using the phone. Still, you can't beat it for ease of use or for putting together a short podcast quickly and easily


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AllofMP3 has released a beta of its latest desktop music library and download tool AllTunes. AllTunes is a windows desktop or smartphone interface to the AllOFMP3 library, allowing users to find and download high quality music easily.

The Concept is simple, download the application, signup for an account, find music (amongst the 40,000 albums they have) click and download. The price is 2c per megabyte downloaded, which works out to be around $1-1.50 per album, much better than the $0.99c a song at iTunes. The reason the prices are so low is because AllOFMP3 and allTunes operate in Russia, where they claim they are complying with local copyright law and paying royalties back to artists and labels.


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Talqer, a new player in the VoIP game, has developed a platform that lets Google Talk users start making calls to normal telephones anywhere in the world from their PC.

It offers:

Choice: You choose whether you want to integrate Talqer together with Google Talk or use it as a stand alone application


Quality: Talqer is based on open industry standards and offers very high voice quality


Convenience: Talqer adds three buttons to the Google Talk user interface to allow you to call normal telephone lines from inside Google Talk


Affordable: Talqer offers affordable rates: every single Talqer rate is lower than Skype. Calls to 22 countries cost only 1.5¢ per minute: a 33% savings when compared with Skype for US callers and a 53% savings for European customers (no VAT). We offer calls to another 8 countries at just 2¢ per minute. That's thirty (30) countries at 2¢ or less!


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In attempt to steal the music player market from Apple, Samsung continues with the launch of its YP-Z5.

The new Samsung Z5 range features three models to suit most consumers needs including the 1GB Z5-Z ($229), the 2GB Z5-Q ($319) and the 4GB Z5-A ($379). Its best feature is a battery life of about 35 hours compared to nano's only 14 hours. Other advantages include a larger and brighter colour screen, while files can be dragged and dropped on to the player if you don't fancy using Windows Media 10 software.

The sound quality is excellent, but what could scupper the player is its control system. The YP-Z5 system is controlled by the user gently flicking the player. In an attempt to distance itself even further from the iPod, Samsung has achieved Microsoft PlaysForSure accreditation, which means it can play a variety of music formats from different music subscription services.

Source: Here
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Three month old Zillow, which gives people an indication of home values in specific locations based on publicly available comparables, will be having some competiton in the near future.

This new site is Real Estate ABC (which is owned Internet Brands).


The Zillow competitor is in beta on a hidden URL. I have no idea if they’ll leave it up, but as of right now it’s live.

The name does suite with the design isn’t a fluid as Zillow, but it may be better in some ways. For instance, Real Estate ABC allows users to adjust property values for a particular property using an "Ajax" slider. Adjustable property factors include Interior design, Exterior design, Lot Size, View, Privacy/Noise and Local Market Condition.

Users can also refine property values by adding or removing comparables directly on the results page itself. In fact, Real Estate ABC gives significant detail on comparables, including distance from a specific address. Real Estate ABC also provides a integration with Google maps, although they do not use satellite images lot looks like Zillow.

Zillow is perhaps one of the most popular one to launch. If anything, Real Estate ABC shows that if a the site is going to try to make a go at creating a real business, they need to build in proprietary features that are not easily duplicated before the competition arrives.

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Microsoft is moving full steam ahead with a plan to permanently modify the way Internet Explorer renders multimedia content on Web pages.

The IE update, which results from a multimillion-dollar patent spat with Eolas Technologies, changes the way the browser handles ActiveX controls and could have a significant impact on how online advertising and streaming media content is delivered over the Internet. If Web sites and advertising units aren't re-authored, Microsoft warned that ActiveX Controls and Java Applets will require user activation before the user can interact with the control.

Source: Here


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Comcast is introducing a new VoIP service that will use Internet technology and poses strong challenge to the regional telephone companies.

"Digital Voice" will let users perform tricks that they cannot do with conventional phones, such as get their voice messages from home sent to their e-mail at work. By using Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, voice calls get chopped up into data just like e-mail or Web pages and reassembled on the other end of a call.

Comcast will charge $40 a month for Digital Voice if the customer also buys cable and high-speed Internet and even more for Digital Voice alone. Upstart VoIP providers like Vonage charge as little as $15 a month, and even phone giants such as Qwest and AT&T charge only $30 a month.

Source: Fobes
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Dell users now can have Cingular Wireless Broadband Connection built into their new line of Dell Latitude notebooks.The new Dell Latitude D620 and D820 notebooks can be configured with Cingular's UMTS/HSPDA-based 3G technology onboard, giving customers global wireless data capabilities with average download speeds of up to 135kbps.

Latitude customers can activate Cingular's BroadbandConnect service directly from Dell and are billed monthly by Cingular. Unlimited monthly BroadbandConnect service is $59.99 per month with a two-year contract and qualified voice contract.

Source: Yahoo


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In five years, most major metros and suburbs will have Wi-Fi based broadband coverage says Chuck Haas, the co-founder and chief executive officer of MetroFi, a Mountain View, Cali-based start-up that is rolling out metro wireless networks. He thinks most metros and suburban areas in the US will be WiFi hot-zones, by end of the decade.

Source: here


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Verizon's online directory SuperPages has linked up with Google to provide search advertising services to its millions of listed businesses.

SuperPages will now offer its advertisers the ability to bid for Google Adwords where appropriate for their business in a resale agreement that could open up a whole new avenue for local advertisers seeking potential customers online.

Source: C.N.N


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Microsoft may wait until April 11 to patch a critical vulnerability in its Internet Explorer browser, security vendor eEye Digital Security has released what it calls a "temporary" patch to address the problem.

Though Microsoft has described these attacks as "limited" in scope, the problem is being taken seriously by the software giant because the exploits can be used to seize control of a user's machine.

EEye's patch, which is available free of charge, will automatically remove itself when Microsoft's official patch is delivered. It is available for download.


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Here is a list of some useful services that allow you to create temporary email accounts so you can use and dispose it when ever you want. The concept is to use a unique, disposable email address (DEA) for each of your registration. If you start getting spam at that email address, you can just trash it away and use a new one.

Here is the list of some:
spamgourmet

trashmail

mailinator

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Internet search portal Lycos entered the Internet telephony (VoIP) market with the launch of Lycos Software Phone.

Lycos is also giving several features for free, features for which Skype and Yahoo charge a fee including U.S. phone numbers, fax service, and transmission of voice mail messages to email. Lycos also allows users to receive calls from traditional landline phones and mobile phones for free, while Yahoo, for example, charges $2.99 a month for similar service.

Lycos Phone plans cool features include:
. Receive Voice Mails even when you are offline
. Receive Fax to your e-mail when offline
. Watch Free video services on e-Tainment

Download: Here
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Emboldened by a growing appetite for its products in the enterprise server market, Microsoft is launching an aggressive push in the education and state-and-local government markets, hoping to get wins as customers wean themselves from Netware.

Microsoft was also encouraged by a report from IDC showing that for the first time ever, there were more migrations from Unix to Windows than to any other operating system.

In particular, Microsoft is confident that it can do well in the state and local government and education markets, despite some high-profile losses in the public sector. Microsoft is banking on the fact that most governments and institutions are less interested in open versus closed-source philosophical debates than in getting more functionality less expensively. To make inroads in this market, Microsoft has partnered with Quest to offer free network assessments, is offering free training on the Microsoft environment, and promises free support for one incident requiring help.

Source: Here
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JAJAH is a new free software to make free audio and video calls to anyone connected to a PC to the Internet, to SIP-compliant devices and smartphones, as well as to interconnect to standard telephone and mobile users around the world.

The software is easy to use, simple to install and operate. Most functions are as easy to use as on Skype or better. JAJAH uses a more effective codec than Skype's own and seems to be capable of providing even higher quality audio results while using less bandwidth.

With JAJAH it is possible to call standard telephone numbers and cellular phones at very low rates just like it is possible with the popular SkypeOut feature.


Key unique features include:

. Live text chat
. Real-time text message translator
. Calls forwarding
. Conference calls
. pre-paid calls
. Search for Skype users
. Ringtones and skins
. Voice mailbox
. Calls secured by end-to-end encryption.



Source: Yahoo
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WinDirStat an open source Windows Directory disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup utility for Microsoft Windows (All Version).

As seen in the Screen shot, each rectangle represents a folder on the disk - the larger the rectangle the more space it is taking up. The coloured areas within the rectangle represent files. The rectangles are filled with colour based on their file type (the top 12 file types have individual colours, indicated in the top-right pane, after that the files are shown in grey). Mousing over a rectangle displays the file name in the status bar.

The three views are also well integrated. Clicking on a rectangle in the tree map at the bottom automatically expands the file system treeview to the file and the file type is highlighted in the right-hand pane. Similarly clicking on the file type in the top-right hand pane highlights all of the files of that type in the tree map.
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