RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, was absolutely destroyed yesterday in the stock market. But that’s just part of the story. RIM is screwed. More »
Indie developers turned to the Web hours after receiving warning letters from Lodsys last month, but larger devs took a more traditional approach, leaving the communication and finger-pointing to lawyers instead. Two such companies, the New York Times and OpinionLabs, came to light after filing suit against the patent troll yesterday, seeking declaratory judgements to invalidate Lodsys’s patents. A nine-page complaint filed by NYT lists four Lodsys patents, including 7,222,078, which had previously been used to target smaller developers. NYT’s ad click-through system and OpinionLabs’ surveys were both also targeted, and if the suits are successful, Lodsys would be responsible for all legal expenses, and wouldn’t be allowed to collect on its patents in the future.
We spoke with Julie Samuels of the EFF, who explained that filing for a declaratory judgment could theoretically enable NYT and OpinionLabs to have trials held in California and Illinois, where the declaratory judgments were filed, instead of the Eastern District of Texas — the notoriously plaintiff-friendly court where Lodsys filed its suit against seven devs on May 31st. Other devs who received letters but have not yet been sued can also do the same. The suits brought by NYT and OpinionLabs formally call the validity of Lodsys’s patents into question, but unfortunately don’t change the game for devs Lodsys already sued, who would still be responsible for licensing fees and other damages if the court determines the patents to be valid (and their apps to be infringing).
New York Times, OpinionLab sue Lodsys seeking declaratory judgement originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Developing for the new Windows 8 platform won't be anything like developers' past experiences, according to Microsoft. (Photo courtesy Ars Technica)
By Peter Bright, Ars Technica
When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive. The new Windows 8 user interface looks clean, attractive and thoughtful. And, in a first for a Microsoft desktop operating system, it’s finger-friendly. But one aspect of the demonstration has the legions of Windows developers deeply concerned, and with good reason: They were told that all their experience, all their knowledge and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.
Key to the new Windows 8 look and feel, and instrumental to Microsoft’s bid to make Windows a viable tablet operating system, are new-style full-screen “immersive” applications. Windows 8 will include new APIs for developing these applications, and here is where the problem lies. Having new APIs isn’t itself a concern — there’s simply never been anything like this on Windows before, so obviously the existing Windows APIs won’t do the job — but what troubles many developers is the way that Microsoft has said these APIs will be used. Three minutes and 45 seconds into a demo video, Microsoft Vice President Julie Larson-Green, in charge of the Windows Experience, briefly describes a new immersive weather application and says, specifically, that the application uses “our new developer platform, which is, uhh, it’s based on HTML5 and JavaScript.”
Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Windows developers have invested a lot of time, effort and money into the platform. Over the years, they’ve learned Win32, COM, MFC, ATL, Visual Basic 6, .NET, WinForms, Silverlight and WPF. All of these technologies were, at one time or another, instrumental in creating desktop applications on Windows. With the exception of Visual Basic 6, all of them are still more or less supported on Windows today, and none of them can do it all; all except Visual Basic 6 and WinForms have a role to play in modern Windows development.
Hearing that Windows 8 would use HTML5 and JavaScript for its new immersive applications was, therefore, more than a little disturbing to Windows developers. Such a switch means discarding two decades of knowledge and expertise in Windows development and countless hours spent learning Microsoft’s latest-and-greatest technology. Perhaps just as importantly, it means discarding rich, capable frameworks and the powerful, enormously popular Visual Studio development environment, in favor of a far more primitive, rudimentary system with substantially inferior tools.
The idea of Microsoft discarding all of that expertise seems crazy, and one might think that the developer response is an overreaction — but it’s seen as confirmation of the direction Microsoft already appears to be heading down: moving HTML5 to the foreground, in spite of its inferiority to other technology. The Windows 8 comment made by Larson-Green was shocking, yes, but seemed to be confirmation of what developers already suspected. Developers aren’t willing to assume that the company is going to do right by them, because the messages from the company have given them every reason to believe that the Larson-Green really meant what she said: If you want to use the new development platform, you’re going to have to use HTML5 and JavaScript.
The company has never exactly been good at picking a direction for its development strategy and sticking with it. There’s been too much infighting, too many leaps aboard new technology bandwagons, and too much software that fails to adopt new paradigms. But until about a year and a half ago, it looked like things were beginning to settle down, with the combination of .NET, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and WPF’s Flash-like sibling, Silverlight. WPF and .NET provide a flexible, high-level and structured approach for writing GUI applications, and Silverlight is a cut-down version of WPF that can be used as a browser plugin on both Windows and Mac OS X.
Neither of these technologies was perfect — WPF has never been as fast as it should be, and Silverlight is not as cross-platform as it ought to be — but the set of products did at least represent some kind of a coherent vision for software development. WPF and .NET for big applications, Silverlight for portable ones.
Apple files motion to intervene in Lodsys patent lawsuit originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jun 2011 11:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Microsoft’s App Guy has quite a job on his baby-soft hands: to boost Windows Phone 7’s numerically-challenged Marketplace by encouraging developers to port apps across from other platforms. The little fellow helped iPhone devs out a couple of months ago with an API mapping tool to make it easier to translate iPhone APIs to WP7 code. Now he’s extended the mapping tool to work with Android APIs too, and backed it up with a 90-page white paper and a promise to get more involved in developer forums. Will the App Guy’s efforts unleash a flood of new apps for Windows Phone? We don’t know, but we dig his shorts.
Microsoft releases Android developer poaching package for Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Let’s see if we’re grokking this: Samsung is not only telling the dev community it’s okay to place custom ROMs on its flagship device, it’s actually encouraging the practice by handing out free phones? Atinm, the developer responsible for prepping CyanogenMod on the Captivate and Vibrant, took to Twitter to praise the manufacturer for sending him a free Galaxy S II. From the looks of it, Samsung sent the phone to a select number of devs intent on building an official release of CM7 for the GSII. Unlocking bootloaders has already become the new fancy with manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson jumping on the bandwagon, but this is the first time we’ve heard of a company doling out free devices to the custom ROM community. Does this mean that, instead of enforcing TouchWiz with an iron fist, Samsung is looking at how this practice could actually benefit consumers? We doubt this will be the case for all of the company’s future Android phones, but wouldn’t you love to live in a world where it was?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: As it turns out, this was not the first time a free device has been handed out to the CyanogenMod community. It’s been done at least once before, when T-Mobile gave out a G-Slate in April.
Samsung shows affection to CyanogenMod, gives its devs a free Galaxy S II (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Peter Chou is sharing HTC’s graces at Uplinq 2011 with the announcement of OpenSense SDK, where the company hopes to recruit developers willing to create apps specifically for Sense 3.0. With help from the HTCdev community, software designers will receive tools to create a seamless experience between their applications and HTC’s user environment (while also rendering their apps incompatible with non-HTC handsets). Beneath the skin, developers will be provided access to proprietary APIs that support 3D displays and tablet pens — which could make quite the gaming session. There’s currently no release date for the SDK, but the company is already taking names for a summer launch. So, if you’re comfortable helping HTC build this barrier around Android’s “open” mantra, we imagine there’s some rather slick apps waiting to be given life. Jump the break for the accompanying PR.
[Thanks, Jonny and Eric]
Continue reading HTC announces OpenSense SDK and HTCdev, offers paradise inside its walled garden
HTC announces OpenSense SDK and HTCdev, offers paradise inside its walled garden originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Are you sick of hearing from Lodsys? We know devs are, but the rather outspoken patent troll is at it again, hitting the blog to defend its good name. Hidden among today’s posts is an announcement that the firm is taking the next steps with its accusations, filing a lawsuit against some of the developers it previously targeted and, get this, blaming Apple. It explains: “Lodsys chose to move its litigation timing to an earlier date than originally planned, in response to Apple’s threat, in order to preserve its legal options.” We’re not sure which developers are targeted by this suit, specifically, but the firm has promised a $1,000 payment to each dev, “if it turns out that the scope of Apple’s existing license rights apply to fully license you with respect to our claim relating to your App on Apple iOS.” Devs may be tempted to spend that promised gift on a well-deserved vacation (or a WWDC conference pass), but with layers of LLCs protecting the man behind the curtain at Lodsys, we wouldn’t be surprised it the firm disappeared before anyone sees a cent (or 99) of payment. Unfortunately, it appears that the saga continues, so if you’ve had enough of the patent troll, feel free to enjoy the rest of our content, Lodsys free.
[Thanks, Andrew]
Update: We’ve been told that the list of devs named in the lawsuit include: Combay, Iconfactory, Illusion Labs, Shovelmate, Quickoffice, Richard Shinderman, and Wulven Game Studios.
Lodsys hits devs with lawsuit, $1,000 offer, and 1,000 words of eloquent prose originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 18:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We figured Apple’s firm response to Lodsys earlier this week regarding its claims against iOS devs would prompt the patent holder to move on to its next target, and sure enough, it looks as if said target has been selected. Unfortunately, a group of Android app devs have now found themselves in the Texas-based company’s crosshairs, which is citing the same patent infringement that Apple recently addressed, relating specifically to in-app upgrade purchases. As was the case with the last round of letters, Lodsys is demanding licensing fees from small, individual developers, who don’t have the resources to fight back. Lodsys appears to be maintaining its trend of ignoring media requests, so we’re keeping an eye on the patent troll’s blog to see if anyone comes up to the surface to defend this latest round of allegations. In the meantime, plugging your ears while humming and ignoring the mailman might not be such a bad idea… you know, if you do this kind of thing for a living.
Lodsys shifts in-app purchasing target to Android devs following Apple response originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 14:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
While Google continues to work on an official Android Market for TVs, Sweden’s own People of Lava has announced the second version of the app store for its Scandinavia Android TV. With version 2.0 People of Lava is focusing on attracting developers to create apps specifically for the Android 1.5-powered TVs in order to fill its own app marketplace. Like Google, it has opened up a developer site stuffed with information for anyone interested in developing apps for the TVs, which are currently hand built in 42-, 47- and 55-inch sizes with prices starting at €2500 ($3,564). We wish them well, but with that high price developers may have as much trouble finding a wider audience as current Google TV partners have so far.
Continue reading People of Lava invites Android developers to version 2.0 of its app market for TVs
People of Lava invites Android developers to version 2.0 of its app market for TVs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 May 2011 18:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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