Asia and Pacific: Seiko Epson gyro-sensor lends a steady hand to DSCs
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
Seiko Epson Corp. has significantly reduced the size of a sensor used in digital still cameras to correct the effect of vibrations, it said Wednesday.
Sony Epson's new gyro-sensor occupies 10 percent the volume and uses two-thirds the amount of power of current models, according to Alastair Bourne, a spokesman for the company, based in Suwa, Japan. The sensor is also very stable and isn't affected by changes in ambient temperatures and noise levels, he said. The sensor measures 5 millimeters by 3.2 millimeters by 1.3 millimeters, making it the smallest such sensor in the world with built-in drive circuitry, according to Seiko Epson.
The device was developed with Japan's NGK Insulators Ltd. and Seiko Epson said it represents the company's first step in a new drive to expand the scope of its quartz crystal device business. Beyond the camera market, Seiko Epson said it is also looking at applications including game machines, remote-control security devices and navigation systems such as GPS.
Production of the XV-3500CB gyro-sensor will begin in December of this year, the company said. Seiko Epson couldn't provide a sample price for the component but is aiming to manufacture at about the same cost as existing models, Bourne said. "Hopefully there will be no effect on the price of cameras," he said.
Asia and Pacific: LINUXWORLD: HP exec calls for fewer open source licenses
By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
The open source community needs fewer licenses and the large number of software licenses used to release open source code is becoming a significant issue for developers and users, said a senior Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) execu-tive speaking at the Linuxworld Conference & Expo here Tuesday.
"A lot of people don't realize that today there are dozens and dozens of open source licenses," said Martin Fink, HP's vice president of Linux. "The number has reached 52 open source licenses and will likely be 55 by the end of the week"
Open source licenses are approved by the nonprofit Open Source Initiative, (OSI) which has certified software licenses from organizations as diverse as the National Aeronautics and Space Admi-nistration (NASA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Apple Computer Corp., and Nokia Corp., since it was founded in 1998.
But according to Fink, there are already too many such licenses. "There really is no value, and there is only confusion in having that many licenses," he said.
To date, HP has not seen the need to create a new license for its own contributions, choosing instead to release its software under existing open source licenses, Fink said. "I approve on average three to five open source projects and con-tributions every single week," he said. "If I have never had to create a new license, I have a really hard time understanding why you think you do."
Fink called on open source developers in the LinuxWorld au-dience to try and reduce the number of software licenses. "Lets look for ways to start consolidating the existing set of licenses so that we remove the confusion that having that many licenses has on our industry," he said.
The issue has attracted the attention of the OSI board and has, at least, the potential to become serious, said Eric Raymond President of OSI. There is a "strong chance" that the organization will be more restrictive in the number of licenses it certifies, though it has not put such a policy in place, he said in an e-mail interview.
The majority of OSI-certified licenses are used in a very small number of works, Raymond said. "All but a dozen of these are vanity licenses, usually uttered by a corporate legal department with too much time on its hands, used on exactly one project," he said.
Any confusion brought on by the proliferation of open source licensing is probably a greater issue for open source vendors, who must ensure that the products they sell do not have incompatible licenses, but it is also an issue for customers, said Chris Hjelm the Chief Technology Officer with Orbitz LLC, which uses a variety of open source software in its online travel business.
"If everyone sort of opted out of the licensing game, it would make everyone's life a little easier," Hjelm said.
At least one company, Waltham, Massachusetts-based Black Duck Software Inc. has been created to simplify the life of customers like Orbitz. Black Duck, sells a product called protexIP which allows IT managers to track their software developers contributions and to help ensure that any open source software being used or complies with its licensing terms.
Orbitz is currently having its internal code audited by protexIP, said Hjelm. "The promise is that they'll manage this complexity," Hjelm said.
For software vendors toying with the idea of adding to the plethora of open source licenses, Fink had some words of advice. "If you're out there and you're a vendor and you're planning to create a new license. Stop. Please don't. Call me."
America: SCO CEO McBride on the road ahead
By Todd R. Weiss, Computerworld (US online)
Darl McBride, CEO of embattled Unix vendor The SCO Group Inc., sat down with Computerworld at the annual SCO Forum conference here Monday to talk about a wide range of issues affecting his company. Here are excerpts from that interview:
In your keynote address at the opening session of SCO Forum 2004, you said you believe that the IT community will eventually "embrace" SCO's legal position on alleged intellectual property infringement after all the evidence in the IBM case is made public. Since the IT community in general has reacted negatively since the lawsuit was filed in March 2003, how do you think that this will realistically change?
McBride: It's really going from one end of the spectrum to the other. I think that what will happen here is when the truth is on the table and people really understand what happened in the case, there will be a big swing in the public perception about this small company that got clobbered by this big bully. I'm going a year out and saying that between now and then, when the truth gets out in the public filings and people know what we know, people are going to view us in a much more positive light.
With the lawsuits against IBM Corp., Novell Inc., AutoZone Inc. and DaimlerChrysler AG, SCO was putting companies on notice that it will go to court to protect its intellectual property. But despite those pending cases, other major IT vendors, including Unisys Corp. this week, continue to unveil their Linux products. What's your reaction to the continuing rollout of Linux applications from major vendors despite SCO's legal fight? Are there more lawsuits to come against additional Linux vendors or users?
McBride: We came out and put our claims in front of the courts. We look forward to getting a resolution to those issues. When those issues are fully resolved, we'll go from there. We've got our hands full right now. From our perspec-tive right now, we're fine to let the reservoir fill. Later on, we'll worry about the water flowing out the other side. We don't want to be spread too thinly by taking on the rest of the world (today). It's a long-term game. It's an endurance race.
As the case against IBM continues to go through the courts, isn't it possible, as critics have sug-gested, that IBM could buy SCO in a settlement and close the company down?
McBride: The notion is that SCO loses either way - that IBM buys us, or we lose in court. We didn't go into this thing to try to go out of business. We're trying to reclaim the business that was improperly taken from us (due to alleged infringement of its Unix System V code). A settlement to me would be to restore what was taken from us so that we can stay in business.
In June, SCO reported that its Unix SCOsource licensing revenue in the second quarter had dropped 99 percent to $11,000, from $8.25 million in the previous quarter.
What's your reaction to such a drop?
McBride: In the day-to-day business, we have some speed bumps that come up from our (intellectual property) issues. In the previous quarter, we had several large licensing deals, but you can't repeat those every quarter. It's not really as brutal as people might expect.
America: Sonnet intros new Allegro USB 2.0 PCI card
By Brad Cook, MacCentral.com
Sonnet Technologies Inc. has released its latest Allegro PCI adapter card, which adds USB 2.0 connectivity to any Mac with an open PCI slot. It features five USB 2.0 ports, four external and one internal. The US$29.95 card requires Mac OS X v10.2.8 or higher and is compatible with all Power Mac G3, G4 and G5 computers, except the G4 Cube.
America: DIGITAL GEAR : Charged-up bags and flashy drives
By Agam Shah, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
Travelers take heart. Recent gadgets may come in handy. If you travel to Germany to see models sashaying down the catwalk adorned in Rosner GmbH & Co.'s new MP3 jacket, but realize your laptop's power adapter doesn't fit into a power socket, plug it into American Power Conversion Corp.'s TravelPower backpack, provided you are carrying one. A carry-on item that won't occupy a lot of space is M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneer Ltd.',s 2G-byte DiskOnKey USB (Universal Serial Bus) keychain flash drive.
APC's TravelPower BackPack TPC-1900P
American Power Conversion's (APC's) TravelPower BackPack TPC-1900P is a backpack - more precisely, a computer bag with a power adapter. It has capabilities to power and charge notebooks, cell phones and PDAs (personal digital assistants) from literally any air, auto or AC power source. A number of interesting tools also make it worthwhile during travel - for example, when your laptop's power adapter dies down, an in-built airline adapter allows laptops to utilize power sockets provided on airline seats. The cigarette lighter plug adapter can charge up devices in automobiles. APC claims the backpack's universal notebook power adapter works with most laptops. Charging mobile phones or PDAs from the backpack require separatel USB charging cables that need to be purchased.
M-Systems Flash Drive
Transporting a whole laptop for just a tiny bit of data can be overkill. Instead, the DiskOnKey key-chain flash drive, now available in a 2G-byte version from M-Systems, could be a very convenient way to transport data. A Windows XP laptop detected a 256M-byte flash drive as soon as it was popped into the USB port, and it showed up in Windows Explorer as a separate drive. It didn't automatically detect on a Windows 98 laptop, but it worked after drivers from the M-Systems Web site were down- loaded. The drive was very handy in transporting information from one Windows computer to another.
MP3 players are in fashion
Last year tank tops and skirts were in fashion, this year striped dress shirts and capri pants are in. Next year, it could be MP3 jackets. Rosner (http://www.mp3blue.de) has created a limited edition MP3 jakket for its 2004-2005 collection, hoping to attract fashion- and technology-conscious men. The jacket has a 128M-byte MP3 player with Sennheiser Electronic GmbH & Co. KG headsets built into the collar, controlled through soft textile posing as buttons on the left sleeve. It also has a hands-free cell phone microphone tucked into the collar, which works with Bluetooth-capable phones. The MP3 player, Blue-tooth device and battery all reside in the left pocket as one tiny module, that needs to be removed so the jacket can be washed. The MP3 player works for up to eight hours, according to the company. The Euro 599 jacket will be available at starting in August, with shipping in February. The MP3 jackets will be created in limited numbers. After all, fashion is meant to come and go.