The Nexus One is a smartphone from Google, which uses the Android mobile operating system.The device is manufactured by HTC Corporation, and became available on January 5, 2010.Features of the phone include the ability to transcribe voice to text,a native Gmail application, and voice directions while driving.
The phone comes unlocked, and is currently offered for use on the T-Mobile network in the United States; a version for use on the Verizon (US) and Vodafone (European) networks is expected in the second calendar quarter of 2010.It can be used on any GSM network worldwide, although 3G speeds will only function on certain networks.
Hardware
The Nexus One features a 3.7in AMOLED display, with a resolution 800×480. The screen has a 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a response time of 1ms. It has an illuminated trackball which can emit different colors of light based on the type of notification being received. The phone has two microphones, one on the front and one on the back, to enable noise cancellation to reduce background noise during phone conversations. A standard 3.5mm headphone jack is also provided.
The phone features a 1GHz Qualcomm 8250 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 4GB microSD card, 512MB of internal Flash storage, a 5MP auto-focus camera with LED flash and digital zoom, GPS receiver, light and proximity sensors, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and 802.11b/g/n Wifi capabilities. It provides hardware decoding for H.263, H.264 and MPEG-4 video, and is capable of playing MP3, AAC+, Ogg Vorbis, WAV and MIDI audio, and displaying the JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP image formats. It has a standard micro USB port rather than the proprietary HTC connector, and the microSD card slot allows expansion up to 32 gigabytes of card storage. Initially applications from the Android store will be limited to the 512MB of internal flash memory, although application storage on removable SD cards will be enabled once security and piracy concerns have been addressed.
The phone weighs 130 grams (4.6 oz), with a height of 119 millimetres (4.7 in), a width of 59.8 millimetres (2.35 in), and a depth of 11.5 millimetres (0.45 in). It is powered by a removable 1400mAh battery, expected to last up to 290 hours on standby, 10 hours talk time, or 5 hours while browsing the internet.
The phone’s antenna covers most major GSM providers worldwide, with the notable exception of the 850MHz and 1900MHz UMTS 3G bands used by AT&T and Rogers (of Canada). The GSM radio frequencies covered are 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 along with UMTS frequency bands 1 (2100MHz), 4 (1700MHz), and 8 (900MHz).
Software
The Nexus One runs the Google Android 2.1 operating system, codenamed ‘Eclair’.The 2.1 firmware version of the Android operating system adds a few aesthetic changes such as “Live Wallpapers” which are animated in the background and react to different user inputs. It also replaces the “Application Drawer” with a simple button which can be pressed to access the list of applications installed on the phone. This thumbnail list can be scrolled up and down and as it’s scrolled, the applications roll up into a 3D cube instead of disappearing from the screen. Once the bottom of the application thumbnail list is hit, the screen bounces off similar to the iPhone functionality.
Pinch-zooming is still not available on the 2.1 firmware of Android. However, double-tapping will zoom in. Additionally, the “Gallery” application allows the use of finger swiping to switch pictures rather than requiring use of the “Right” or “Left” arrow keys.
Pricing and release date
The Nexus One was released on January 5, 2010. The phone is sold via Google’s website, at a price of $529 unlocked, or a subsidized $179 when purchased with a T-Mobile two year contract.Only one plan is available – $79.99 per month rate, which includes 500 talk minutes with unlimited nights and weekends, unlimited texting/MMS, and web data.The $179 T-Mobile price is only for individuals who are not currently under contract with T-Mobile. If one currently has a T-Mobile contract without a data package, the price of the phone rises to $279.99. If the contract has both the voice and data package, the price of the phone again jumps to a higher price bracket, which is $379.99.By spring 2010, a Verizon version will be available in the US and a Vodafone model in Europe, with plans to expand the phone to other carriers and international markets in due course.
Google is making the phone available for delivery to the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong, although native carrier tie-ups have not been finalized for these countries, and the phone will be shipped from the US. Customers ordering from the UK are charged $20 international shipping and an optional $19.99 for an AC adaptor, with an additional 17.5% VAT and 6.5% import duty being added. Singapore applies 7% GST, while Hong Kong does not add any additional taxes.
Hacking & Modifications
Users are able to root the device by unlocking its bootloader using the fastboot command “fastboot oem unlock”.[19] Unlocking the bootloader allows the user to install other firmware images that give the user root access, and even other bootloaders. Obtaining root privileges enables a user to override protected operating system features, install arbitrary software and enable internet tethering to share the phone’s 3G network connection over Wifi among other things. Upon running the fastboot command, the user is presented with a Google-created screen stating that unlocking the bootloader will void your warranty.
History
A trademark application for the name “Nexus One” was filed by Google, Inc. on December 10, 2009.The Nexus One trademark was filed in International Trademark Class 9 for “Computer & Software Products & Electrical & Scientific Products” with description of “Mobile phones”.The trademark was filed as an Intent to Use trademark, with no use in commerce date provided, indicating that the name may be used for a future product.
On December 12, 2009, Google confirmed in a blog post that they had begun internal testing of the device.[23] Google stated that a “mobile lab device” had been given to its employees, at this time Google had not yet confirmed that a device would be sold to consumers. Wireless phone and data services for the device were not activated nor billed to Google, it was up to the employees to activate and pay for wireless service on their own.
Name
The Nexus One name is believed by some to allude to the novel (by Philip K. Dick) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which was later adapted into the film Blade Runner. The term android is also used in the book, but had generic broader usage that predates the book. Both the book and film are centered on a group of rogue androids called ‘replicants’ that are identified through the model designation Nexus-6.Mr Dick’s daughter Isa Hackett described Google’s usage of the Nexus One name as “a clear infringement of our intellectual-property rights” and announced the estate would be taking legal action.
On Wednesday we discussed news that the Authors Guild had objected to the text-to-speech function on Amazon’s Kindle 2, claiming that it infringed on audio book copyright. Today, Amazon said that while the feature is legally sound, they would be willing to disable text-to-speech on a title-by-title basis at the rightsholder’s request. “We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.”
Source:On Wednesday we discussed news that the Authors Guild had objected to the text-to-speech function on Amazon’s Kindle 2, claiming that it infringed on audio book copyright. Today, Amazon said that while the feature is legally sound, they would be willing to disable text-to-speech on a title-by-title basis at the rightsholder’s request. “We have already begun to work on the technical changes required to give authors and publishers that choice. With this new level of control, publishers and authors will be able to decide for themselves whether it is in their commercial interests to leave text-to-speech enabled. We believe many will decide that it is.”
Source:yro.slashdot
Hearst Corp.’s plans to launch a wireless electronic reader for viewing the publisher’s newspapers and magazines reflects the kind of experimentation deemed pivotal to finding a business model that can compete in an era of the content-free Internet.
Hearst, which has seen its own revenue plummet as advertisers shift an increasing amount of their spending to the Web, is planning to launch an e-reader with a large-format screen this year, Fortune magazine reported Friday. The device would be big enough for the layout and advertising requirements of newspapers and magazines.
Asset Management has always been a critical part of management the life cycle of your IT infrastructure. Avocent CTO Ben Grimes walks us through a hands-on look at how his company’s technology helps. BMC believes its leading the charge toward business process management. Bishop describes the future of the open CMDB (bleek) and other enabling technologies Microsoft Windows Server Group Product Manager, Manlio Vecchiet answers questions about Hyper V, network access protection and the adoption to date of Windows Server 2008.
BMC (NYSE: BMC) believes its leading the charge toward business process management. Bishop describes the future of the open CMDB (bleek) and other enabling technologies
Hearst executives declined to provide details of the business model behind the e-reader, but analysts agree that the publisher’s bold move is a necessary, if risky, experiment. Even if Hearst is unsuccessful in making money off its first attempt, what it learns can help it eventually find the right answer to reverse shrinking subscriber bases, as well as revenue losses from publications. The latter is reflected in Hearst’s recent announcement that the company may close the San Francisco Chronicle, unless it gets concessions from unions. Such a closure would leave the city without a major daily newspaper.
“This is absolutely the kind of thing they have to be doing — experimenting,” Michael McGuire, an analyst within Gartner’s media consulting business, said of Hearst’s e-reader. “There are no set answers anymore.”
Which is not to say Hearst will be successful in reversing the downward trends immediately. “It’s tough because there’s going to be a lot of experiments [by publishers] that won’t work,” McGuire said.
Hearst’s entry into the e-reader market would come at the heels of Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN).com’s success with the Kindle, a wireless reader that gives buyers access to the online retailer’s site to download and read books and newspapers and magazines. The device, introduced in November 2007, is one of Amazon’s best-selling consumer electronics. Analysts, however, say the gadget’s $359 price tag is likely to keep it out of the mainstream market and attractive mostly to traveling professionals who prefer not to carry around lots of books and periodicals.
Hearst has its best chance of striking a chord with the majority of consumers if it includes its e-reader at no additional cost with a multiyear subscription to the publisher’s magazines and newspapers, McGuire said. To make the device even more attractive, it should have a Web browser to access other content and include additional capabilities, such as the ability to share content with others over the Web.
Selling the device separately would require a device so compelling “that people say that’s how they’ll want to consume newspapers in the future,” McGuire said. “That’s going to be tough.”
Of course, the cost of developing and then hiring manufacturers to build a device that’s given away may be too great to make a profit through a content subscription. No matter which direction Hearst takes, its approach will be closely watched.
Source:informationweek
Facebook launched on Thursday a campaign polling users over its new draft Terms of Service (TOS). Applauded by advocates and seen as a revolutionary move toward democratic social networking, Facebook’s new campaign is making its way on the Internet. But what are the new TOS all about?
Facebook created virtual Town Halls where users can comment and vote for 30 days (closing March 29) on the proposed draft Terms of Service. Two groups have been created: the Proposed Facebook Principles group, which highlights the rights and responsibilities of Facebook and its community and the Proposed Statement of Rights & Responsibilities group, which looks into the highly debated problem over who actually owns your content.
To refresh your memory, Facebook updated its terms of service (those long pages of small text that too many of us almost never read) on February 4. The changes went unnoticed, only until a consumer-oriented blog attacked them, sparkling an Internet-wide debate over why should the social network own your content. Shortly after, Facebook reverted to its old TOS, hence now polling users on what changes should be made.
Inside the Changed TOS
The most radical and noteworthy change in Facebook’s proposed TOS addresses the concern of last week’s debate — who should own the content you post on Facebook. The new terms read: “You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, including information about you and the actions you take (”content”).” That’s a significant change from the previous grant of “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers),
So in the new draft TOS, by signing up to Facebook “You give us permission to use, store, and share content you post on Facebook or otherwise make available to us (”post”), subject to your privacy and application settings,” which basically covers the fact that if you put for example a picture on Facebook you have to grant them the right to use in order for you to share it with you friends.
“You may delete your content or your account at any time with the understanding that removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be generally available to other users), and that content shared with others may remain until they delete it.” That seems reasonable, considering that Facebook backs up its database on multiple servers and once you delete your account, the content you uploaded won’t be “generally” available to other users.
As for “content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos and videos), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, copy, publicly perform or display, distribute, modify, translate, and create derivative works of (”use”) any content you post on or in connection with Facebook. This license ends when you delete your content or your account.” The last phrase should put to rest any concerns that Facebook will us your pictures after you have deleted them or your account. However, a gap is left here over whether Facebook will obtain financial gain when using these pictures.
Not everyone will be happy
Voting over the new Terms of Service is now open and “If users approve the draft Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, then all future policy changes would be eligible for a vote by users, provided the level of intensity of user interest would justify it,” reads a Facebook press release.
But Facebook’s move cannot satisfy the 175+ million users of the social networks. Plenty of comments started popping up in the newly crated Town Halls with various opinions (of those who are actually on topic).
Blake Davis, a Facebook user, says: “Facebook is a private company and shouldn’t have to solicit opinions of its users. Facebook is an oligarchy, not a democracy, and should be treated as such. Having people ‘vote’ on terms can only lead to havoc.”
But another user, Albatros Jones disagrees: “Vote away! As with any other organization (i.e. HOA, School Groups, etc) the community creates the rules and determines what is appropriate within the community. Facebook has become too large; it isn’t run by the creators anymore. If it was, the TOS that became so controversial would still be in effect and we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
However, Facebook left plenty of loopholes in the draft TOS and judging by the number of comments already piling up on the Town Halls pages, opinions are divided. But such a debate Facebook created, in which millions have so much to say, could only lead to a discussion that will span way over the 30 days window the social network offered.
As usual, I am highly interested in your opinion on this matter. Are you happy with the changes Facebook made into its draft TOS? Which issues do you think were not addressed? Have you found any other loopholes in the TOS? Please let me know in the comments.
source:pcworld
NEW YORK – The bar was crowded with well-dressed professionals enjoying drinks and conversation, a typical evening – except that many of them had no job.
The event was a Wall Street Pink Slip Party, where the unemployed mix with recruiters and curious bystanders to network, look for work, and share their stories.
With employers shedding 600,000 more jobs in January, the undercurrent at this party in a Manhattan bar was decidedly glum.
“Wall Street, directly or indirectly, has ruined the best 10 years of my life,” said Susan Lange, speaking of colleagues and friends she lost on Sept. 11, 2001, and the sense now, after being laid off from her job as an AIG training manager, that her world has again turned on its head.
“I’m devastated,” the 39-year-old woman said.
Figures released Friday showed that the unemployment rate hit 7.6 in January, a month with more layoffs than at any other time since 1974.
Jobseekers are gathering in bars, delving into the business networking Web site LinkedIn, waiting in lines at city help centers, and even starting up hopeful conversations with prosperous-looking strangers on commuter trains – all in the hope of landing jobs in what seems to be a shrinking pool of opportunity.
“Places have hiring freezes. And they have cutbacks. And they have layoffs. There are a lot more people in the job market,” said 32-year-old Ana Arrendell, who has been searching for work since August.
At first, she was looking only for a job in her field, graphic design. But as the months have gone by, Arrendell has lowered her expectations. “Right now, I’ll take anything,” she said Friday as she left a New York City-run office that offers resume-writing assistance and interview training.
Already having given up hope for a Wall Street job making $80,000 per year right out of college, recent graduate David Gunther is getting creative as he tries to expand his business network.
The 23-year-old has begun hanging around commuter ferries and suburban trains, chatting up professional-looking types traveling to areas where executives live. Recently, at an electronica concert – a wildly different atmosphere than at the career services office at his university – he talked to some fans who introduced him to an entertainment-industry manager. Now he’s preparing for a job interview with the man.
Gunther isn’t the only one looking for new ways to meet people. Among the groups using the networking service Meetup, the NYC Job Seekers & Career Strategy group has more than doubled in size to 454 people since September, with more than 95 joining since the first of the year. Worldwide, Meetup has seen a boom in career-related groups; more than 2,000 were started in January, compared to about 500 a month over the summer, said spokesman Andres Glusman.
Chandlee Bryan, a resume writer and career coach who acts as facilitator for the New York group, says she has seen it transform. Initially, people attending the meetings were pondering a career switch out of a desire for something new. Now, participants in talks on online networking and interviewing techniques are more often being forced into the hunt, either because they’ve been laid off or because they believe they might be.
Bryan says the meetings help people fight off the solitude that comes with being jobless.
“There’s a great deal of isolation,” she said. “That complicates the process and makes it harder, given that the majority of people find their jobs through networking.”
That’s the point of the Wall Street Pink Slip Party – modeled after similar events held following the dot-com bust. Since the reincarnation was launched in November, the intensity at the parties is increasing, says organizer Rachel Pine.
The first event drew a mix of people, only a quarter of them laid off. By the Feb. 4 event, 85 to 90 percent of the 400 people were looking for work.
The scene at the bustling Public House bar on Wednesday night was varied, as men and women in a mix of suits and corporate casual wear – and pink glow-in-the-dark wristbands that marked them as jobseekers – homed in on recruiters wearing green wristbands.
Some were approaching their job search with equanimity, figuring they could rely on savings socked away during the flush years. Others seemed more desperate, counting their change after paying for the coat check. Some, drink in hand, sounded almost bitter about their personal economic downturn.
Andrea Bouwman recounted watching the Super Bowl with a growing sense of ire, as she saw the millions of dollars that her former employer PepsiCo had spent on advertising instead of salaries.
“They kind of compromised people for the actual advertising,” said the former marketing manager, adding that since she got her pink slip she’s been drinking only Coca-Cola.
Options are more limited back at the city employment center in Brooklyn, where 43-year-old Desmond Moulton, who held jobs as a retail salesman, recounts months of dashed hopes.
Most recently he returned to the job placement center, only to see a once-enthusiastic counselor turn somber as she studied his prospects.
“She clearly wanted to help me. She clearly wanted to have some good news to give me,” he said. “But she had none.”
It was a busy day for Sergey Brin in Manhattan. First he helped introduce the New York version of Google Transit. Then he rollerbladed 20 blocks north and west to the unveiling of the new HTC G1 phone, the first that uses Google’s Android phone software.
Someone at Google must not have searched for what happens on the East Side of New York in late September — the neighborhood was clogged as limousines shuttled dignitaries around for the opening of the United Nations session. Mr. Brin said he found that even on rollerblades, his path was blocked.
Blocking anything, however, was not on the agenda at the press event, held in a cavernous space under the 59th Street Bridge. Executives of Google, HTC and T-Mobile, the first carrier to introduce the phone, used the word “open” more often than a gaggle of pediatric dentists.
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Reports say Henry Nicholas, a Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM – message board) founder and former CEO, surrendered to government realtors today following making indicted on grievances connected to inventory opportunities backdating and, separately, drug use.
Documents unsealed today reveal this a grand jury indicted Nicholas for fraud and conspiracy in October. The Los Angeles things claims Nicholas was set to attain a court occurrence currently afternoon.
The !no! sensational part of the story comes for a terse 18-page indictment documenting Nicholas’s assumed drug use based on 1999 to 2005. (Nicholas left Broadcom in 2003, citing deep custom and family issues.)
It describes the majority of instances of Nicholas attaining MDMA (Ecstasy) for several parties and events, combined with Woodstock ‘99 and a Super Bowl. Later, the allegations branch out to insert cocaine, methamphetamines, and prescription drugs and also Valium.
Nicholas is accused of distributing drugs at a large number of houses and at an office-warehouse space he’d leased out. He’s in addition accused of lacing customers’ drinks without this knowledge and of hiring a Broadcom employee $1 million to stay quiet close to There are those of the goings-on. Prostitutes, of course, merit a brief mention.
Nicholas’s lifestyle has continued the subject of speculation from the time a lawsuit endure year accused him of producing an underground sex-and-drugs lair at his palatial home. (See Henry Nicholas, Party Animal?)
The inventory choices indictment is longer, at 65 pages, and chronicles particular instances of stated backdating of 1999 to 2002. Former CFO William J. Ruehle is furthermore named as a defendant in who indictment.
Broadcom has had to compete provided an continuous Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) exploring during supply options. The SEC has put forward bills against thre executives combined with Nicholas. The two who got continue to provided Broadcom — CEO Henry Samueli and entire counsel David Dull — took leaves of absence of this posts as a result. (See Options Scandal Deepens at Broadcom.)
PHILADELPHIA – Comcast Corp. stated Thursday such a by the beginning of 2010 it plans to put up shoppers in a large amount of of its markets Internet aide so speedily properties serves to be able to download a high-definition movie in minutes.
The nation’s second-largest Internet benefits provider — and leading cable TV operator — would deploy a technology fit of delivering up to 100 megabits of information or a larger number of per instant in 20 per cent of its markets by the end of 2008, Comcast senior vice president of investor relations Marlene Dooner assumed at the Merrill Lynch U.S. Media Conference in London.
Dooner declared the quickness was “very competitive” providing Verizon’s fiber-optic Internet service, that had nearly 1.8 million subscribers in the previous quarter.
Among cable operators, Comcast has carried on one of the various aggressive in deploying a wideband technology labeled Docsis 3.0 to fend off competitors as further users download videos within the duration of the Internet.
Dooner too claimed Comcast expects to move the majority of its analog television channels to digital in a multitude of markets by the beginning of 2010. The Philadelphia-based organization had set a mission of reclaiming analog bandwidth in 20 per cent of its markets their year.
As competition increases, cable’s triple-play package — of video, Internet and phone assistance — is no longer exclusive due to the fact that phone and satellite TV firms are submiting comparable bundles.
In response, Comcast has carried on aggressively courting cost-conscious consumers, among its sector legislation and offerings this heap two services alternatively of three.
“We’ve responded. We’re amendment and we are certain it is working,” Dooner said.
The industry did take a toll on advertising, amidst profit low 5 per cent in the initial quarter in the wake of not including the present year’s additional broadcast week and a gain on political ads, Dooner said.
Softness was witnessed in automotive, true estate and retail advertising and in ad dealings in Florida, Michigan and California.
By FELICITY BARRINGER
A federal judge on Monday gave the Interior Department until May 15 to come to a decision on whether to give polar bears protection under the Endangered Species Act. The ruling, coming after nearly four months of departmental delays, rejected the government’s contention that the case was too complicated to decide before June 30.
Dot Earth: Court Forces Action on Polar Bears (April 29, 2008) “Defendants have been in violation of the law requiring them to publish” their decision on the bear’s status “for nearly 120 days,” Judge Claudia Wilken of Federal District Court in Oakland, Calif., wrote. In addition to setting a May 15 deadline, Judge Wilken ordered that the decision take effect immediately, setting aside the usual 30-day grace period.
In January 2007, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service issued a proposal to list the polar bear as threatened because warming global temperatures were melting the sea ice the animals use as a platform to hunt seals, breed and make dens.
The retreating ice covers an area of Arctic seas that is also the latest frontier for offshore oil and gas development — an activity that could be curtailed if the federal government gives polar bears protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Shortly after the Interior Department missed its original January deadline for a final rule, the agency held a $2.6 billion oil lease sale covering a 46,000-square-mile area of the Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska. Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, earlier this month accused the department of delaying the listing to ensure it did not affect the lease sale, an accusation Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has denied.
At a news conference earlier this month, the White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said environmentalists were inappropriately trying to use existing environmental laws, like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act, to address climate change. The result, Ms. Perino said, would be a “regulatory train wreck.”
A draft of a final rule was prepared by the Alaska office of the Fish and Wildlife Service in December, Interior Department lawyers told the court in a brief filed earlier this month. This was reviewed by agency lawyers, who produced another draft on Feb. 22. The department said that the February draft was being reviewed by the Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks and that the issues involved were complex.
The environmental groups that had sued to force the Interior Department to act on the bear’s status were elated by the ruling. “Today’s decision is a huge victory for the polar bear,” said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups involved.
“By May 15th the polar bear should receive the protections it deserves under the Endangered Species Act,” Ms. Siegel said, “which is the first step toward saving the polar bear and the entire Arctic ecosystem from global warming.”
Shane Wolfe, Mr. Kempthorne’s press secretary, issued a brief statement on Tuesday saying: “We have received the court’s decision and are reviewing it. We will evaluate the legal options and will decide the appropriate course of action.”
Source:nytimes
The death of Windows XP may have been greatly exaggerated.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company could re-evaluate its plans to phase out Windows XP by June 30, if customers demand that it stick around. So far, they have not.
“XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter, but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments,” Ballmer said during a Thursday news conference in Belgium, according to Reuters.
Big-name computer makers are still scheduled to have to stop selling models with Windows XP installed by the end of June. Mainstream technical support will continue to be available for Windows XP through April 2009, and more limited support will continue through April 2014.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Windows XP’s impending demise: “If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter.”
(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)Microsoft does plan to continue selling Windows XP for a limited class of PCs it calls “ultralow-cost PCs.” It’s a category that covers machines with slower processors, smaller screens and, in many cases, flash memory, rather than a traditional hard drive, for storage.
Ballmer said most consumers are choosing to buy the current version of Windows, Vista. Many acquire Vista by default, however, since most new PCs ship with the operating system. Businesses have been slower to catch on, as many have clung to Windows XP and older versions of Windows.
While Microsoft ponders yet another stay of execution for Windows XP, it’s readying a new version of Windows, being developed under the code name “Windows 7.”
Earlier this month, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates indicated that Windows 7 could come within the next year–in some form, possibly a developer-oriented version–far ahead of the development schedule previously indicated by the software maker.
Ballmer on Thursday also reiterated Microsoft’s intention of appealing directly to Yahoo shareholders, if the company rejects Microsoft’s offer of $43.6 billion for the company.
“We’ve sent them a letter that says, ‘it’s a good price; please let us know. If you don’t let us know, maybe your shareholders will think it’s a good price,’” Reuters reported.
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