News (412)

Microsoft's Europe prices attract lawsuit

A Dutch software dealer has filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission, arguing that the company's pricing policy in Europe violates antitrust laws. Read more »

Copyright attack: Sydney net cafe fined

The Sydney CBD internet cafe raided by the Australian Federal Police late last year has been fined $82,000 in the Downing Centre Local Court for copyright violations. Read more »

Ballmer to testify in Vista suit

A judge last week ruled that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would have to testify in a class action suit over the "Vista Capable" logo program that Microsoft ran ahead of the launch of Windows Vista. Read more »

Microsoft in patent battle over Visual Studio

Aiming to head off further legal action against its customers, Microsoft is asking a federal court to declare that its Visual Studio product doesn't violate patents from WebXchange. Read more »

Ballmer rules out new Yahoo bid

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today said that Microsoft was "not interested" in making a new offer for internet company Yahoo, despite Yahoo's share price currently sitting at less than half what Microsoft initially offered. Read more »

Azure manages to avoid a Hailstorm of criticism

Microsoft's Hailstorm prompted an avalanche of criticism when it was proposed seven years ago, but developers seem to have few qualms with Windows Azure, which embraces many of the same notions. Read more »

MS piracy squad targets Aussie retailers

As part of Microsoft's attempt to stop software piracy, it has named several Australian individuals partaking in "the sophisticated, illegal trade of pirated and counterfeit software". Read more »

NASA hacker loses second appeal

The man accused by the US government of accessing more than 73,000 US military machines has lost his second appeal to the UK Home Office against extradition. Read more »

Play!
Apple drops NDA for iPhone developers

Apple has decided to end the nondisclosure agreement attached to software that has already been released for the iPhone Read more »

CSIRO victorious in Wi-Fi appeal

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has come one step closer to defending its patent relating to several Wi-Fi standards, with defendant Buffalo Technology losing a US appeal on the matter. Read more »

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Features (129)

Google: Open source lets us control our destiny

Chris DiBona, Google's open source program manager, gave the opening keynote at the Open Source Developer's Conference. Builder AU caught up with him to discuss why Google uses open source, how the company open sources its software and what it is like to be a comic book character. Read more »

HTML 5 Editor Ian Hickson discusses features, pain points, adoption rate, and more

In this interview, HTML 5 Editor Ian Hickson discusses his favourite features, the features he thinks might be most contentious, the pain points he expects HTML 5 will address, and much more. He also talks about what he would change in the original HTML spec if he could go back in time. Read more »

50 significant moments from internet history

We take you through 50 defining moments of the internet. Read more »

Print on all Java platforms with JPS

Java Print Service (JPS) allows you to print even on very size-limited platforms such as J2ME; it also supports standard Java 2D graphics. Learn how to organise printing with this API. Read more »

Sleep deprivation can spell big trouble

Most of us operate on short sleep from time to time -- it's the nature of our profession and modern lifestyles. But if skimping on sleep is a way of life for you, watch out: you could wind up functioning below par and incur some serious health problems. Read more »

Disclose data collection practices via privacy policies

Since Web site visitors are (understandably) wary of providing personal data, a common practice for Internet sites is to provide a privacy policy. Read more »

Use ASP.NET's Literal control to its full potential

One option of placing text on an ASP.Net Web form is the Literal Web control, which allows you to place and easily manipulate text within a page. Read more »

ASP.NET basics: Working with the TextBox control

Developers often overlook basic programming options in favor of new or cool ways to deliver results. This is true for many of the standard ASP.NET features. A good example is the TextBox Web control, which offers plenty of options for building applications. Read more »

Microsoft plays open but patent jaws still have teeth

Despite Microsoft's claim it will not sue developers that build free open source software on Microsoft platforms, a caveat leaves a yawning space for its legal teeth to gnash those that commercialise the software. Read more »

Generating PDF files with PHP and FPDF

This tutorial provides an overview of the FPDF functionality and two examples using the PHP object-oriented approach to get you started with building your own PDFs. Read more »

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Video (2)

Play!
Nasa hacker awaits Lords' decision

Gary McKinnon talks about his appeal to the House of Lords against extradition to the US to face hacking charges. He could face up to 60 years in jail if extradited. Read more »

Play!
Is Google sharing your information with US govt?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt yesterday admitted that the US government has made "requests" for the search giant to share information about its users – and he said Google would comply if the requests were legal. Read more »

Blog (16)

The good and truly awful celluloid depictions of computers

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- Ever wonder why your lawyer uncle leaves the room whenever you turn over to Boston Legal? Or why your forensic science cousin can't stand crime drama? You know the answer: it’s the horrid trivialisation and dumbing down of an occupation to make it appear entertaining. Sometimes it is so unbelievable that it actually hurts and yelling at the screen is the only outlet. Read more »

Facebook developers to factor in age, location

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Facebook has announced modifications to its developer application programming interface so that the creators of third-party applications can restrict their reach by demographic -- more specifically, by age or location. Read more »

Is public domain software open-source?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- When writing earlier this week about Adobe's sponsoring of the SQLite project, I ran into a complicated issue: is software released into the public domain also open-source software? Read more »

Samba gets an inside look at Microsoft documentation

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- A complicated third-party arrangement means that the open-source Samba project will be able to make use of proprietary documents describing Microsoft file-sharing software. Read more »

Busybox settles a second GPL suit

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- The folks behind Busybox have settled a second lawsuit that argued a company violated the widely used free and open-source license. Read more »

Where are all of those donated XO laptops going?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Given all the interest around One Laptop Per Child's "Give One, Get One" program, I've been wondering just where all those laptops that are being donated are actually going. Read more »

Conference time goes Hollywood

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Conference season hit a high this week with three major conferences underway. Read more »

How Microsoft dealt with GPLv3

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- The easiest way for Microsoft to avoid the snare of the Free Software Foundation is to step around GPLv3 and leave it to their partners -- this is certainly the case for Silverlight. Read more »

Adobe bashes open source alternatives

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Adobe Systems has embraced open source software for some products, but its core Creative Suite line looks like it'll remain proprietary. Read more »

How Microsoft beat Linux in China and what it means for freedom, justice, and the price of software

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Thanks to some major concessions on source code and a precipitous price drop, the Chinese government has now thoroughly embraced Windows and Office, what does this mean for the world? Read more »

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