Microsoft gets royalties for Google’s Android on HTC

April 28, 2010 by rich scadding Leave a Comment

Another Microsoft Vs Google patent war?
The lawyers up in Redmond seem to have been woken from their slumber with the sudden realization that — oh look! — Google’s Android OS infringes on Microsoft’s boatload of software patents. How specifically it does so is not identified, but Microsoft believes that elements from both the user interface and the underlying operating system are in violation of its rights. This is very much in keeping with the Windows maker’s crusade to assert patent claims over Linux, which in the past has garnished it with cross-licensing deals with Amazon and Xandros, as well as a settlement from TomTom. Lawsuits are not yet being discussed here, but lest you think this is a small-time disturbance, HTC has already decided to shorten its list of troubles by ponying up for a license from Microsoft for “running the Android mobile platform.” Yes, that does sound ludicrous, but it’s now an unfortunate fact that a major Android phone manufacturer is having to pay Microsoft royalties to use Google’s operating system.

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Howto – Linux – install Google Earth

April 17, 2010 by rich scadding 1 Comment

Google Earth seems to throw up error messages lately:
setup.data/setup.xml:1: parser error : Document is empty

^
setup.data/setup.xml:1: parser error : Start tag expected, '<' not found

^
Couldn't load 'setup.data/setup.xml'

So here is the cure:

1. Download and extract Google Earth to a temporary dIrectory:
wget http://dl.google.com/earth/client/current/GoogleEarthLinux.bin && chmod +x GoogleEarthLinux.bin && ./GoogleEarthLinux.bin --target /tmp/ge

2. Change to the temp directory and change setupgtk to setupgtk2:
cd /tmp/ge/setup.data/bin/Linux/x86/
sudo mv setup.gtk setup.gtk2
cd /tmp/ge

3. Run the installer:
./setup.sh

Now the Google Gui installer will open.

Happy Globe-trotting ;-)

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Ready to run ChromeOS available – ChromiumOS Cherry

December 11, 2009 by rich scadding Leave a Comment

chromiumcherrySo, after all the hype about ChromeOS, we were all pretty narked when we found that Google had only released the source code, and we would have to manually compile the distro.

Fear not! Hexxeh to the rescue. Hexxeh decided that he would be the one to give ChromeOS to the masses via a ready made USB pendrive image that anybody can download, and boot directly into ChromeOS on any machine (which can boot from USB). There are instructions for: Mac – Windows – Linux

I first picked up on Hexxeh on Twitter and then followed the project to his blog which outlines plans and also offers various mirrors and a torrent to obtain the image. On his blog’s FAQ he says that he is “a student who occasionally pretends he’s a Web Developer/Programmer and works on various websites with people” and he started this project “Because I think Chromium OS is a cool idea, and I thought I’d fill a gap that hadn’t been filled”.

It’s great that somebody has taken the time to provide the masses with something which we first saw as a bit of a let-down after all the hype. Could this be the first ever ChromeOS derivative? I hope so, and this weekend I will be providing a full write up.

Go to his blogs to get the full details and also follow him on Twitter:

Hexxeh’s Blog:- http://blog.hexxeh.net/

ChromiumOS Cherry: – http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/

Hexxeh on Twitter:- http://twitter.com/hexxeh

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