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The more interesting issue to me is the accusation that Google violates antitrust law by boosting its comparison shopping search results in its search results, unfairly disadvantaging competing shopping services and not delivering best results to users. What's interesting to me is that the Commission is attempting to portray general search as a separate market from comparison shopping search, accusing Google of attempting to leverage its general search monopoly into the separate comoparison shopping search market. At first blush, Iim not convinced that these are or should be regarded as separable markets. But the ramifications are enormous. If that is a separate market, then arguably so is Google's book search, its Google Scholar search, its definition search, its site search, etc. It isn't clear to me how one might draw a defensible line taht does not also sweep in every new search feature  as a separate market.   

Microsoft announcement is at http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2010/jul10/07-12CloudComputingPR.mspx

Talk about a game changer: Excerpt:  An epic battle is brewing out West with much more than a lucrative technology contract at stake: Microsoft Office or Google's cloud? As the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, Microsoft and Google are bidding for a $7.25 million contract to replace the city of Los Angeles' outdated email system. Los Angeles put out a call for bids in 2008. "Google Apps got the nod because city administrators believed it would be cheaper and less labor-intensive," writes LA Times reporter David Sarno. We all knew this day of reckoning was coming. For Microsoft, the fight to hold on to its Office base is on. Google Apps, the Web-based office suite that includes the viral Gmail, promises less overhead and potentially big savings to fiscally strapped cities, corporations and college campuses. In addition to dispatching teams of lobbyists, both Steve Ballmer and Eric Schmidt have offered to put in appearances at city hall, if city officials think it will help, according to a city councilman quoted in the article.

A while back I included the following as one of the areas of interest of the PDF/D Consortium: Structured Documents and Single Sourcing: improving round-trips to document softwareWhat did I mean by Structured Documents? For years Solid Documents has been converting PDF files to Word documents with a focus on retaining format and layout to allow customers to repurpose the content. While this is a great solution for a large amount of customers, it is not the only type of reconstruction that is interesting. PDF is by nature a "document" format: the layout is in the form of pages. Content also needs to exist in alternate formats like a continuously flowing stream. Use cases for continuously flowing content include:conversion to HTML to reflow for form factors other than "pages"conversion to content management systems where structure is more important than layout and formattingconversion for alternate readers for people with disabilities (text to speech, etc)Reconstruction for these use cases focuses more on the structure of the document than on the layout and formatting. For example, we need to take unstructured PDF files and recognize columns, tables, lists, headers and footers, etc. This allows us to organize the content in a logical structure. Ultimately, we'll recognize topics and sections too so that we can produce logical hierarchies from plain old non-tagged PDF files. One great example of where conventional PDF pages are not the most appropriate way to read a document are on small screens of handheld devices. For example, the typical Blackberry has a 3"x2" screen with a resolution something like 320x240 pixels.

4 Pillars for Web Content Management Site & Content Optimization.  Excellent review of the basics of WCM - DMS. Billy Cripe from Oracle.

transclusion of hypertext documents. Transclusion is technically defined as "when you put that one thing in that other thing". In its current implementation, Twitter has declared that media which is shown within the Twitter interface comes from selected partners. But actually, the technology to allow embedding of rich media from almost any site already exists, using a system called OEmbed. Geeky stuff, but it's made by nice people who are pretty smart, and it lets any site say, "Hey, if you want to put our thing in your thing, do it like this". It works. Lots of sites do it. Nobody's getting rich off of it, but nobody's getting sued, and in between those two extremes lies most of what makes the Web great.

Paquete is a packaging plugin Paquete is a simple package viewer javascript plugin which supports packages like IMS and others where a package is a collection of related pages and content. Paquete describes the relationships within the package using a JSON manifest file. Paquete uses one page to host all of the pages of a package which reduces overall page loading time and allows users to navigate easily. Once an individual sub-page is loaded, it is cached in the host page making browsing much quicker. Specific pages are denoted individually so bookmarking of an individual page is possible. What does Paquete do? Paquete arranges files within the package so there is a table of contents (TOC) on the left-hand side and html pages for viewing, on the right. User navigation can randomly utilise the TOC or the arrowed navigation buttons direct navigation through the package page by page, in a linear fashion. How can Paquete be applied? Paquete can be applied in various ways: on its own, to group files and display them in a browser for viewing. in a Learning Management System (LMS) like Moodle, for viewing course content. in other web applications where navigating through grouped content is important.

The Barcelona World Mobility Conference is under way, and Microsoft is making a show of force.  They are hitting with features that support both "Social Network Hubs" (People Hub) and "Productivity Hubs" (Office Hub).  The key to Microsoft's Windows 7 Smartphone success is not that of new and exciting features competitive with Apple and Google smartphones.  No, the key feature that Microsoft owns is that of integration into legacy desktop productivity business systems based on the MSOffice productivity platform, and, more importantly, integration into the emerging Web centered but proprietary Microsoft Business Productivity Platform.  Stay tuned. excerpt on the new Windows 7 feature set:  The Office Hub lets you easily sync your documents between your phone and your PC. Office Hub comes with OneNote, for notetaking, Documents and Sharepoint for presentation collaboration. Users will also have access to an Outlook Mail application which gives similar features, like flagging important e-mails, that you'd find on the desktop version.

Excellent but light weight and breezy review of the Flash-Silverlight-Open Web HTML5 battle for the future of the Web. excerpt: At the top of the org chart, Apple's deprecation of Flash technology is all about politics. Apple doesn't want its mainstream video delivery system controlled by a third party. So Mr. Jobs backs up his politics with tidbits of technical truths. However, discovering the real truths about HTML5 and Flash is a bit harder, as this survey shows. On February 11th, I wrote an editorial, "What Should Apple Do About Adobe?" Part of the discussion related to Adobe's Flash Player on the Mac, updates and security. Inevitably, the comments escalated to a discussion of Steve Job's distaste for and blocking of Flash on the iPhone and iPad. The question is: is Apple's stance against Flash justified? Of course, any political argument needs only the barest of idealogical arguments to sustain itself. More to the point is, can Apple fight this war and win based on the state-of-the-art with HTML5? Again, Apple's CEO must believe he can win this war. There has to be some technical basis for that, or the war wouldn't be waged.

Great stats and charts!  Here comes the Android. excerpt: Google's Android operating system has plenty to celebrate this holiday season -- and now, a new trio of studies suggests the platform is poised for even more success in 2010. There's no question Android's been enjoying plenty of time in the spotlight since the launch of Motorola's Droid smartphone. But with dozens of new Android devices expected to debut in the coming months -- possibly even including the omnipotent "Google Phone" (have you seen the things that phone can do?) -- the biggest burst may still be ahead.

EU settlement will alter Microsoft's stance on interoperability By Kurt Mackie Dec 21, 2009 Microsoft provided more details about its settlement with the European Commission (EC), particularly with regard to interoperability agreements. In a blog post on Thursday, Dave Heiner, Microsoft's vice president and deputy general counsel, claimed that the company has pledged to implement a threefold approach to interoperability that EC Commissioner Neelie Kroes outlined in past speeches. Heiner summarized that approach: companies should disclose technical information, provide a remedy if the information is inadequate and charge equitable royalty rates for associated intellectual property. Kroes had also specifically called for companies to follow open standards as one of the best ways to achieve interoperability. However, Heiner omitted the word, "open," from his comment. He said that "products from different firms can work well together when they implement common, well-designed industry standards." Microsoft's interoperability pledge announced this week appears to continue ideas the company put forth in February 2008. At that time, the company announced broad interoperability principles as well as APIs for software developers working with Microsoft's mainline products, including Windows client and server operating systems, Exchange, Office and SharePoint, among others. Microsoft has been releasing documentation for that purpose, with "hundreds of Microsoft developers" devoted to the effort, according to Heiner. The new elements to Microsoft's interoperability pledge appear to be warranty and patent-sharing templates. Those documents, and more, can be accessed at the end of a statement about the settlement by Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel.

Janco notes that from February 2009 to February 2010, IE dropped 6.21%, from 70.99% to 64.78%. "The major findings are that in the last 12 months Microsoft's browser market share has continued to erode - Microsoft lost over 6% in the last 12 months; Firefox's market share is unchanged for the last 12 months; Google Desktop and Chrome now have just under 6%; and Netscape is no more," reads an excerpt from the Browser and Operating System Market Share White Paper.

ARCELONA - This year at the Mobile World Congress is the year of Android. Google's operating system debuted here two years ago. Last year we expected a slew of handsets, and saw just a trickle. This year, Android is everywhere, on handsets from HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and even Garmin-Asus. If this were the world of computers, Android would be in a similar position to Windows: Pretty much every manufacturer puts it on its machines. This is great news for us, the consumer. Android is stable, powerful and now it even runs Flash (I got a sneak peek of Flash running on a Motorola handset here at the show. It crashed). It's even better for the manufacturers, as - unlike Windows Mobile - Android is free. It's also open, so the phone makers can tweak it and trick it out as much as they like. And they do like. Most of the Android phones here at Mobile World Congress are running custom versions of Android, which differentiates them and, in theory at least, makes them easier to use, hiding the complexities of a proper multitasking OS from the user.

Right now, we're all worrying about Apple's patent claims against HTC, but Android may face a similar attack from Microsoft. It's not terribly well known that Microsoft claims that it owns significant intellectual property used in Linux, the operating system at the heart of Android. Starting in 2006, Microsoft began reaching licensing deals with a number of companies that use the open source OS, among them Novell,  I-O Data, Samsung, LG Electronics and most recently, Amazon. All these deals are similar, but as an example, Amazon has agreed to pay Microsoft licensing fees to use Linux on Amazon.com and on the Kindle. Read that again and let it sink in. Many have voiced skepticism that Microsoft could successfully defend their claims, but so far, companies have rolled over and complied rather than take the question to court.

Nice article from Matt Asay, who is now the COO at Canonical, the company behind Linux Ubuntu and Google's Chrome OS. excerpt:  As ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn remarks, "Just as the Internet takes friction out of the distribution and development process, open source for Google removes friction from the business process." In Android land, this means making it easy for device manufacturers and wireless telecoms to evaluate, develop on, and ship Android-based devices. And ship them they are, to the tune of 60,000 Android devices per day. As Wired noted after the recent Mobile World Congress: This year at the Mobile World Congress is the year of Android. Google's operating system debuted here two years ago....This year, Android is everywhere, on handsets from HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and even Garmin-Asus. If this were the world of computers, Android would be in a similar position to Windows: Pretty much every manufacturer puts it on its machines. There is one key distinction, though: Android is open source. It makes all the difference.

Flow is the latest in the line of Hexxeh's hugely popular ChromiumOS builds. Flow is the most exciting version yet, bringing even more hardware support, an auto-updater, webcam support and an improved application menu & directory. All this, requires only a 2GB USB drive (download size is 327MB) ChromiumOS is a lightweight, lightning-fast operating system for your netbook, laptop or even desktop. With the familiar environment of Chromium/Chrome, the entire web is at your fingertips in seconds. HTML5 & Flash are fully supported, allowing you to enjoy the very best that the web has to offer.

Good review of Stoneware's private / public cloud computing system.

Viewing and printing of documents.  Support for PDF, RTF, RTFD, iWork, MSOffice (subject to iOS compatibility), Web archives, HTML, text, source code, and standard iOS multi media.  No discussion yet as tho whether or not Avatron can support Visual fixed/flow viewing of these supported formats. Some interesting support for mounting remote file servers - cloud storage systems like DropBox, Box.net , FTP and secure HTTPS. No WebDav.   Seems to be struggling to make that cross-over from iOS device to desktop to cloud-computing connectivity.

SMEStorage provides provide a cloud storage gateway in which file meta-data is synchronised, but all files continue to reside on the original storage platform. In this way SMEStorage can offer value added services and clients to existing cloud storage providers, whilst also providing a single cloud file system which enables files from many different cloud storage providers to be managed in one cloud file tree. SMEStorage provide services to individual users, and also to corporate users via its Organisation 'FileServer in the Cloud' platform offering, which combines file sharing, user management and collaboration features.