Boxee is a program that enables you to access multitudes of streaming videos, tv episodes and movies and much more. Video content in most cases is supported with advertisements. Many of these resources you could find on your own if you searched long enough for it. The advantage that Boxee offers is that it provides one location where you can quickly browse and select from a wide selection of tv shows and movies.

Full Screen mode in Boxee

Another advantage that Boxee offers is that you can view most content in full screen mode. In Linux you can view a program in full screen mode by pressing the right arrow key. The program has a message pop up that states to press any key for full screen mode. That actually isn’t the case with the Linux version at least, you will need to use the right arrow key to get full screen mode.

Interuption free viewing

Another advantage is that Boxee seems to have a very efficient streaming method in place. Often when watching online video you will have occasional interruptions to buffer the video. After spending way to much time watching tv episodes and movies with boxee I found that interuptions were rare and very brief. That is my experience, obviously the speed of your internet has some bearing on this as well.

The program also has a very polished interface. And includes a cnn app, radio station app and applications/plugins to access a wide variety of online media applications.

Videos are also accessed through hulu and a few other services that are not particularly Linux friendly, giving Linux users a way to access services that they may not have been able to use in the past.

I did have some difficulty getting it installed, but thankfully I found this tutorial and soon had boxee running in Ubuntu 10.04.

When Oracle first aquired Sun they indicated that they would not be axing Open Solaris. Yet in a short period of time Open Solaris got axed. So what technology will be cut loose by Oracle next? Virtualbox? Or maybe OpenOffice. You may think how could such a thing happen? Those are two very popular products. But, what is Oracles objective? They are looking at the bottom line. That is, how much money they are making. So, if a product is not bringing in the money they expect, how long will they fund that products development.

What is the point?

Perhaps someone should put together a project that provides an alternative to virtualbox and or open office. Maybe we should not leave it in Oracle’s hands to provide further development for the open source community. Open Source technology was built on the idea of freedom from restrictive proprietary products. We do not want to turn around and become dependent on one company. Especially one that is setting such an unpredictable course.

The tech news industry is buzzing with stories about companies suing each other over patent infringement. Most of the supposed patent infringements come closer to patents representing a concept then an actual invention. As I have said before the conduct of many patent holders is the equivalent of patenting the color blue and suing anyone who wears a blue t-shirt.

This is where the Open Invention Network comes in to play. They have invited the public to review patents, especially patents that are being used to attempt to block open source development. The Open Invention Network is asking for its readers to submit examples of prior art. This is where a company has patented a product or concept that had already been developed by previous companies or individuals. Once evidence is in place of prior art in connection with a patent, that patent can be invalidated.

The Open Invention Network explains their objective

Post-Issue Peer to Patent, or simply Post-Issue, seeks to improve the quality of patents by providing a framework for ferreting out weak, non-meritorious patent claims in patents that have issued. Harnessing the power of a community of peer reviewers created through Peer to Patent (www.peertopatent.org), Post-Issue elicits previously unidentified prior art that may invalidate or narrow the claims of issued patents. In so doing Post-Issue provides greater freedom to innovate, removes uncertainty from the patent system, and provides greater certainty as to the value of issued patents. Whether for-profit or non-profit, whether for responding to demand letters or litigation or for improving a party’s own patents, all parties are invited to request posting of patents to Post-Issue for review.

End of Quote

And the results?

Information is already coming to light that may invalidate patents that threaten innovation.

For example I found this in the comments section regarding a patent used by Microsoft against TomTom.

1. This is no different really from flash ROM chips used to hold programs for the video games we used at KSE back in the early 90’s, that were themselves based on earlier designs. Flash has improved (in that you don’t have to put it under a UV light to erase it or use a eprom emulator), but the overall process is the same. There is nothing new here to justify a patent.
2. C. Lingo, May 14th, 2009 at 03:46 PM
   Commodore used an EEPROM for OS storage in the computers.

Is there anything that could possibly force Apple and any portion of the open source community to quit bickering long enough to engage in a little team work? The idea seems like nonsense. But a recent development in the form of a long list of law suits that take in Apple as well as companies and websites that use open source technology will likely force Apple and at least a small portion of the open source community to behave long enough to work together and accomplish something worthwhile.

Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft has a list of really vague patents such as displaying ads based on the information a reader is viewing. Or even just the concept of viewing information in a browser. These patents do not cover anything technical that he has invented. Just the concept of being able to do these things. It is kind of like if I decided to patent the color blue and then sue anyone who wanted to wear a blue t-shirt. I didn’t invent the color blue. I just came along and patented the concept.

The patent that covers viewing information in a browser should be of interest to the open source community as it could hinder the use of open source web browsers, if the lawsuit somehow succeeded.

Also anyone who has a website and is displaying content based advertising would be theoretically infringing on the patents that relate to content based advertising.

What is at stake?

Why is cooperation between Apple and the open source community crucial in dealing with this situation? Take a look at what is at stake:

Content based advertising which makes many products and services on the internet possible

Web Browsers (firefox, chrome and Opera just to name a few

Any service which alerts users to items of interest

What about Microsoft

Microsoft is in violation of these patents just the same as the companies that Paul Allen is suing. Interestingly he has not chosen to sue the company that he helped to build. Most of his targets are companies that use open source technology with Apple being one of the few exceptions.

The Patents

Here is a list of the patents that are being used in this lawsuit:

• United States Patent No. 6,263,507 issued for an invention entitled “Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data.”
• United States Patent No. 6,034,652 issued for an invention entitled “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”
• United States Patent No. 6,788,314 issued for an invention entitled “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”
• United States Patent No. 6,757,682 issued for an invention entitled “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.”

Ever since Apple came out with ipad the markets have been flooded with companies offering tablet computers for 300-600 dollars. I have yet to see any tablet computers available on the market in the U.S. that break the 100 dollar barrier. And I cannot imagine spending 300 dollars for a tablet computer. Right, I am going to spend 300 dollars for a cheap underpowered device with no keyboard instead of just going ahead and getting a laptop.  Worse yet other manufacturers are pushing ereaders for a 150 dollars. They want me to spend 150 dollars of my hard earned money to stare into a black and white screen that does nothing but sell books.

The tablet novelty is wearing off quickly for me as you may have guessed by now. Somehow Linux news has become tablet computer news. I don’t care if it is running Linux. If it is underpowered and is not a feature rich product why would I pay the price of a laptop or pc for something that cannot hardly do anything.

I can see some value in a small pocket size computer instead of lugging a laptop around. But for me, no tablet computer is worth paying more than a hundred dollars for.

Imagine yourself in this case scenario. You are a system administrator for a supercomputer and or web server. The air conditioning goes down and you are standing here in a room full of powerful computers that are about to overheat, threatening a halt to your operations, thousands of dollars lost, lost data and the need to replace some very expensive computer systems.

What are your options:

In some cases servers are set to shut down when the air reaches a temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Another possible solution is to bring in a bunch of large fans and spend the next several hours sweating it out hoping your servers don’t melt.

A new solution

The team at Purdue University have developed a program that will reduce the amount of heat produced by servers. This solution comes at a cost of a reduction in your systems performance of 70-80%. Basically this program deliberately slows your computer down to keep it from overheating.

The program is available from FolioDirect for 250 dollars, which is a fragment of the cost of replacing a supercomputer.  Also as you would expect with any quality software available for the supercomputing environment, this program will run on many distributions of Linux.

I stumbled across this video just today on youtube. Truth happens gives examples of other technologies and truths and how those technologies or truths which were rejected by some and later became the standard. Such as the telephone and the radio just to name a couple. The video finishes up by shining some light on the Linux community.

Here is a link to the truth happens youtube video.

Apple has created some notable products. But for me, if I am going to spend my hard earned money on hardware and software, then I plan to use it however I see fit. That is the difference between the technology provided by the open source community versus what has been made available in locked down proprietary formats.

Apple has applied for a patent related to technology that will enable them to disable various features of jail broken devices, this action will result in even less freedom for Apple users. Either use what Apple gives you or many of your devices features will be disabled. Those not content with the walled garden approach and who want to be able to make full use of their computers and gadgets will find that their are many alternatives available.

Apple is not the only non windows computing solution.

For your desktop there is Ubuntu. For your smartphone there is Meego and Android. For your mp3 player you will find that there is a wide variety of alternatives available that cost only a fraction of the price of an iPood.

Do you remember when you could not go anywhere on the web that had anything to do with Linux without getting bombarded with steam is coming to Linux and steam is definitely coming to Linux and tech writers came up with just about every title to give this story to get their little piece of traffic from this story. It was a big deal.

The truth has came out. And the developers behind steam have no intention of developing a version of steam for Linux. This is very disappointing to the Linux community.

Valve’s Doug Lombardi simply told GI.biz:

“There’s no Linux version that we’re working on right now.”

A lesson for tech writers

There were many reasons why the community believed this was about to happen. I read many of the articles and it all made sense. But, at least at this point in time the company has no plans to release a Linux version of steam. Sometimes it is better to just wait until a company releases actual information instead of trying to rush a story out in an effort to be on the cutting edge of tech information.