Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on December 26, 2005 by CyberNet.

Have you always wanted to add more to your Google Personalized Home Page, like a better bookmark system? Well, now you can thanks to a site to centralize all the modules that people make for the Google Home Page. If you have made your own module that you can submit it here so that other people can also benefit from it. This is a great idea but is not officially run by Google. This means that Google does not host any of the content that is displayed, so for a bookmark module it will be a third party site that will save and maintain the different sites you bookmark. For security reasons, you may want to check who the publisher of each module is to see if they are a reliable source. At least this way you can display your bookmarks for your del.icio.us account!

Of course, if you want to stick with Official Google Modules, then you can visit the forever-growing site where Google accepts module submissions and may eventually add them for you to add to your Google Home Page.

Get OFFICIAL Modules For Google Home Page

Get UNOFFICIAL Modules For Google Home Page

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So it’s been a fun day of armchair code forensics and legal analysis on the web after Florian Mueller published a piece this morning alleging Google directly copied somewhere between 37 and 44 Java source files in Android. That’s of course a major accusation, seeing as Oracle is currently suing Google for patent and copyright infringement related to Java, and it prompted some extremely harsh technical rebuttals, like this one from ZDNet and this one from Ars Technica. The objections in short: the files in question are test files, aren’t important, probably don’t ship with Android, and everyone is making a hullabaloo over nothing.

We’ll just say this straight out: from a technical perspective, these objections are completely valid. The files in question do appear to be test files, some of them were removed, and there’s simply no way of knowing if any of them ended up in a shipping Android handset. But — and this is a big but — that’s just the technical story. From a legal perspective, it seems very likely that these files create increased copyright liability for Google, because the state of our current copyright law doesn’t make exceptions for how source code trees work, or whether or not a script pasted in a different license, or whether these files made it into handsets. The single most relevant legal question is whether or not copying and distributing these files was authorized by Oracle, and the answer clearly appears to be “nope” — even if Oracle licensed the code under the GPL. Why? Because somewhere along the line, Google took Oracle’s code, replaced the GPL language with the incompatible Apache Open Source License, and distributed the code under that license publicly. That’s all it takes — if Google violated the GPL by changing the license, it also infringed Oracle’s underlying copyright. It doesn’t matter if a Google employee, a script, a robot, or Eric Schmidt’s cat made the change — once you’ve created or distributed an unauthorized copy, you’re liable for infringement.*

Why does this matter? Because we’re hearing that Oracle is dead-set on winning this case and eventually extracting a per-handset royalty on every Android handset shipped. In that context, “those files aren’t important!” isn’t a winning or persuasive argument — and the more these little infringements add up, the worse things look for Google. Whether or not these files are a “smoking gun” isn’t the issue — it’s whether Android infringes Oracle’s patents and copyrights, since the consequences either way will be monumental and far-reaching. Ultimately, though, the only person who can resolve all of this for certain is a judge — and it’s going to take a lot more time and research to get there.

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*They’re not directly comparable, but think about the Psystar case for a second. Even though Psystar desperately wanted to argue that Apple’s OS X license agreement was invalid, the judge never got there — he simply ruled Psystar wasn’t authorized to copy and distribute OS X, and swung the hammer. It really is that simple sometimes.

Android source code, Java, and copyright infringement: what’s going on? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Maybe you thought the Motorola Xoom would be devoid of — or dare we say, spared from — a coat of Motoblur. Being the inaugural Honeycomb device, you’d expect Google to keep the tablet as vanilla as possible (e.g. G1, Nexus One, Nexus S). Indeed, Android’s director of engineering Dave Burke tells CNET UK that Xoom is a flagship product for Mountain View, but in the same reported meeting, Motorola’s Jonathan Nattrass said Motoblur will be coming to the tablet as a software update. In what form? We don’t know, but if we had to guess, it’s gonna be much more isolated that previous devices — special widgets, perhaps, and services for backup or tracking a lost slate. Let’s play wait-and-see on this one, at least until the top bar gets a cartoonish blue aesthetic.

Update: Motorola reached out to Phandroid to say that, yes, this is a “Google Experience Device” and as such, you should expect the platform and UI to be Google’s. Doesn’t exactly explain where Nattrass got his talking points, but for now let’s call it a strong rebuttal and move on. Certainly we’ll have a clearer picture once we can actually try Xoom / Honeycomb out for ourselves.

Motoblur coming to Xoom as software update, still considered Google flagship product? (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As promised, it seems that T-Mobile’s version of the Vibrant is getting Froyo today after a brutally long wait. The good news is that you won’t need to wait for a staggered rollout, apparently — but the bad news is that currently you’ll need to get it using Samsung’s Kies Mini PC app, not over-the-air. Tethered updates are always less convenient than their OTA equivalents (though Samsung continues to be particularly fond of them), and in the case of Kies Mini, there’s no Mac version, so you’ll need to be near a Windows machine to make it happen. This hasn’t been officially announced yet, though commenters over on TmoNews appear to be having luck — so if you give it a go, let us know how you fare.

Samsung Vibrant’s Android 2.2 update now available, it seems originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google is going to get into the coupon business, damn it–whether that means buying the leader in the field (Groupon) or launching a direct competitor. The former didn’t work out so well–while the company reportedly came really close to securing a multi-billion Groupon buyout, but the coupon site ultimately opted to stay independent.

Now Google is apparently starting from scratch with its own Groupon-like site, Google Offers. Mashable managed to grab some info on the yet-to-be-launched Offers. Google confirmed the existence of the site (a welcome change from most companies’ “we don’t comment on speculation” comment), telling the blog,

Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.

And here’s the explanation from the Offers fact sheet,

Google Offers is a new product to help potential customers and clientele find great deals in their area through a daily e-mail.

Sounds pretty familiar, huh? The user gets an e-mail and has a limited amount of time to respond to it. Offers will utilize Google Checkout and will have the requisite social connections (Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, and Buzz–remember Buzz?).

Google in the process of recruiting businesses to join the upcoming service. In fact, Mashable seems to have gotten its hands on just such a document.