01.25.14
Posted in GNU/Linux at 4:03 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Various bits of recent news about lesser-known distributions of GNU/Linux
Choices
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A lot of you may use many different versions of Linux on a regular basis. Or, maybe you don’t see your choice here. Vote for the one you use the most or the one from this list that is your favorite.
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Bodhi is definitely a fine looking distro, and Xubuntu would also go at the top of my list for desktop distros. Be sure to click through and read the full article for details on why Carla picked each distribution. Then fire up VirtualBox and check out the ones that interest you. There’s definitely some fun distrohopping to be had in her list.
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The Linux avalanche is rolling and gathering mass and momentum. Linux won, so what’s next? Amazing growth is what’s next: we’re at the bare beginning of the Linux juggernaut rolling into existing markets and blazing into new ones. All this growth and progress is the result of years of hard work by tens of thousands of people and billions of dollars of investment. It has reached critical mass and there is no stopping it.
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Doesn’t it seem a bit ridiculous that there are so many Linux distributions? I had recently read an article where some guy was lamenting about five Linux distributions which they believe need some TLC (Note: I did not say THC 
). That is five extra Linux distributions, on top of the five main Linux distributions which just about everybody knows about and from which every other Linux distribution is based off of. Not only that, they all claim pretty much the same thing. Everything just works out of the box, blah, blah, blah. I would consider that a standard for today’s Linux operating systems, not something to use as a selling point.
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As I wrote in my previous post, Linux is Everywhere and there are hundreds if not thousands of different distributions. Some are very famous, some boasts of their 10 million user base and then there are others who live in the shadow of famous distributions. Some distributions struggle to even gain a fraction of what big distributions enjoy and a few handful of distributions die every year. But today we are here to discuss about few distributions that being awesome still don’t get the love they deserve. It doesn’t matter if the distribution is original or forked or based on some other distribution, if it does the job, is stable enough for daily use and is not getting the love it deserves, it will be on the list.
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The key to a good netbook operating system is that it needs to fully utilise its resources. Memory usage has to be kept to a minimum when running idle. The screen is smaller so you need to have a very intuitive navigation system that doesn’t clutter the screen.
Quirky
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The Quirky Linux distro has a lightweight design with a powerful delivery system. That, plus a leading-edge test bed of new ideas, makes Quirky Linux an ideal OS for netbooks and older computers with limited storage and memory. Run Quirky on a hardware-enhanced modern machine and experience a new definition of fast and dependable. It’s definitely worth a try.
CAINE
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The distribution’s name is derived from Computer Aided INvestigative Environment, and it is an Italian GNU/Linux live distribution, whose development is headed by Nanni Bassetti. The goal of this distribution is to provide an interoperable environment and user-friendly tools for digital forensics.
Netrunner
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The Netrunner Team is proud to release Netrunner 13.12 – 32bit and 64bit stable.
Black Lab
Qimo Linux
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Qimo Linux is a kid-friendly distribution designed to make computers simple for children. Parents will appreciate the cartoon theme and the fact that everything is easy to find, even for the youngest users.
Parted Magic
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A new release of the once popular Parted Magic Linux distribution is available that aims to assist in data recovery and disk/partition management, but it continues to be commercial-only.
Last year was when Parted Magic fundamentally shifted its distribution model and went from being freely available for download without charge to then being behind a pay wall but some free download links remained. Now with modern versions of the Linux distribution designed for disk/partition management, the pay wall is being enforced.
Santoku Linux
Jolicloud
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Jolicloud 2 will be the next version of Jolicloud, a Cloud service that aggregates all the popular and not-so popular Cloud services.
It started life as Joli OS, a free operating system optimized for netbooks and other low-resource computers. Since then, it has evolved into a pure online service. Jolicloud, the company behind it, is based in Paris, France.
Microlinux
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MLED 14.1 Xfce is a lightweight production desktop based on Slackware 14.1 and the Xfce desktop environment with many enhancements. It sports a complete choice of neatly integrated applications, one per task.
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MLED 14.1 MATE is another lightweight production desktop, based on Slackware 14.1 and the MATE desktop environment with many enhancements. It sports a complete choice of neatly integrated applications, one per task.
This edition uses the MATE desktop environment provided by Chess Griffin and Willy Sudiarto as a base. MLED adds some eye candy and applications galore.
Misc.
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If you have been following the news and stories on Linux distributions since over ten years like I have been, you tend to have a fairly standard view -yet an educated one- about what’s going on with them, why every year since about 2002 this could have been the year of the Linux desktop, how Mandriva almost made it but was beaten off by Ubuntu, and why Android and likely Ubuntu are triomphing not on the desktop itself but on the phones and tablets.
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At the beginning of 2013 I wrote about an ambitious Linux distribution that set out to create what its lead developer called would be the most robust, beautiful, and performant Linux operating system out there and ultimately aspired to take on Ubuntu. Well, that distribution is now a matter of the past.
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Posted in GNOME at 3:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News about GNOME desktop and desktops that are derived from it
GNOME Desktop/Shell
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Most Linux distros bundle GNOME desktop environment (DE) with even minor version numbers (3.8.x, 3.10.x). Like Fedora was released with GNOME 3.10.3. The version 3.11.2 was available in November but it was not bundled .The reason behind it is that GNOME takes a different approach to their software releases. The odd minor versions (3.9, 3.11) of GNOME are development versions of the subsequent even versions (3.10, 3.12). So the .11 version is roughly an alpha version of the .12 branch.
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For a while it looked like Ubuntu 14.04 would stick to a GNOME 3.8 world, for the GNOME packages it ships in Ubuntu Linux as newer packages are partially held back by Ubuntu dependencies for their Unity desktop. Previously blocking the GNOME 3.10 update in Ubuntu was the GNOME Control Center, which ended up being forked by Canonical until their own Ubuntu System Settings can be developed.
Alternatives
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Surely users must be ready for a change from the default Gnome Shell theme by now. I have sampled some of the available Gnome Shell themes on Fedora 20 and now you can see them for yourself. A new shell theme will not change your entire desktop, but it will provide a new look for the activities overview window, and the Gnome indicator applet panel.
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I get a lot of queries regarding the difference(s) between the MATE and Cinnamon desktop environments. And of course such queries tend to come from those new to Linux and Free Software.
For the benefit of those class of users, this very brief article summarizes the key difference between these two desktop environments. Nothing technical, just basic stuff that will help those users to better understand what their options are. And because a picture is worth more than a thousand words, there are a couple of galleries to complete the picture.
Applications
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GNOME has finally updated the look and feel of their text editor, gedit. The app has been redesigned to match the newer GNOME 3 interface guidelines.
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The GNOME Project has also announced today that a new development release of the Epiphany 3.12 web browser for the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is now available for download and testing.
Epiphany 3.11.3 adds HTTPS (secure HTTP) support for both the DuckDuckGo and Google search engines, improves the looks of the location bar and the downloads bar, improves filename suggestion for downloads, and cleans up the style of the about: pages.
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Dconf 0.19.3 introduces various improvements in the test coverage area, adds a proper DCONF_ERROR error domain, suppress the GLib deprecation warnings during the build process, correctly handles writability changes in GSettings, displays warnings about missing files only once per source, and it will link to -ldl only if it is required.
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The GNOME Project has released the fourth development release towards the Eye of GNOME 3.12 application, which will be the default image viewer for the highly anticipated GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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GVFS 1.19.4 introduces pull support for gPhoto2 and implements truncate and seek support for output streams for the DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning) protocol.
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The GNOME Project has announced a new development version towards GNOME PackageKit 3.12, a graphical user interface (GUI) for the powerful PackageKit software, which will be used in the upcoming GNOME 3.12 desktop environment.
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The GNOME development team behind the Glib project, a library used in the GNOME desktop environment, has announced the immediate availability for download of Glib 2.39.3, which introduces lots of fixes.
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Dubbed Spoilers, the third development version of the upcoming GNOME Documents 3.12 software, the main document viewer of the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment, has been made available for testing.
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The GNOME Project has announced that a second development release towards the upcoming GNOME Weather 3.12 application that will be available in the GNOME 3.12 desktop environment is available for testing.
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Posted in KDE at 3:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Selected (important) news about KDE, accumulated over the past 1.5 weeks
Releases
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Today KDE released updates for its Applications and Development Platform, the first in a series of monthly stabilization updates to the 4.12 series. Starting with the next Applications and Development Platform release, 4.12.2, there will also be a maintenance release of Workspaces 4.11.6. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates; it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.
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The KDE community has announced the updates for KDE SC 4.12 series. According to the community blog, “Starting with the next Applications and Development Platform release, 4.12.2, there will also be a maintenace release of Workspaces 4.11.6. This release contains only bugfixes and translation updates; it will be a safe and pleasant update for everyone.”
Development
Conferences/Meetings
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The Plasma team is meeting in Barcelona, Spain these days to work on the next major version of KDE’s popular workspaces. As we are in a transition period, technically and organisationally, this is a very important meeting. I won’t go into too many details in this post, as they are still being fleshed out, but to give you an idea what we are talking about, here’s a quick run-down of some of the things we talked about.
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conf.kde.in was announced in November, to take place February 21 – 23, 2014 in Gandhinagar, India. This three-day conference, the biggest KDE event in India, will bring together Qt developers, KDE contributors, open source enthusiasts and users from all across the nation. Visitors will have the opportunity to learn, share, contribute, innovate and create around Qt and KDE technology.
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In the second week of January, KDE’s Plasma team gathered in the Blue Systems office in Barcelona, Spain, to discuss and work on the next generation of KDE’s popular workspace products. The meeting comes just at the right time, as the Plasma team has just finished a first technology preview, which puts the base technology in place and allows for an evaluation of the current progress. It also gives an opportunity for more refined plans for a first stable release.
Applications
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Akregator is the default KDE RSS/Atom feed reader and it does it very well. Without being bloated with a lot of features, Akregator takes a rather simple approach, yet providing all the needed features one would expect from a feed reader. You have an integrated web browser, tabs, feed fetching interval configuration, feed archiving, system tray notifications and a few other notable features shown below. Akregator is part of the KDE Kontact Suite.
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If you have used Gwenview before KDE SC 4.11 you might be familiar with the following situation: you are running Gwenview in fullscreen mode, pressing Space to go through a folder full of images. At one point, pressing Space does not do anything anymore… What’s wrong? A quick move of the mouse to bring up the fullscreen bar reveals that you are on the last image.
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The Calligra team is proud and pleased to announce the second beta release of version 2.8 of the Calligra Suite for testing! The team will now focus on fixing remaining bugs. Let’s make sure the final release of 2.8, expected by the end of January is as stable as possible by giving the current beta a good testing!
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Mesa contributor and KDE developer Fredrik Höglund has been working on support within Mesa for GL_ARB_multi_bind. This OpenGL 4.4 extension is implemented across eighteen patches and Fredrik hopes to land the support next week.
Misc.
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In May of this year, our project to place refurbished computers into the homes of disadvantaged kids will turn nine years old. Aside from an extremely short-lived and disastrous trial with Microsoft Windows in the beginning, Reglue (formally HeliOS) has depended on Linux to power those computers and we’ve used a number of distros over the years.
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KDE’s leadership is an opportunity to extend free and open technology, providing creative minds unlimited room to innovate. Mainstream tech companies try to do this without disrupting their profits or stock prices. We are fortunate to have such freedom.
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Posted in News Roundup at 3:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Various articles from the past week, focusing primarily on GNU/Linux
Careers
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In this article, we present the findings of the January’s update of IT Skills Watch. Additionally, we study the whole data gathered in the last year to explain some fluctuations in the demand for some IT skills of interest. As a highlight of this article, we identify three IT skills, whose demand has clearly risen during the past year. This may give you an indication for the IT skills you need to gain knowledge of to stay ahead in the Linux job market.
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As scheduled, on the 14th of January 2014, we have launched LinuxCareers.com: a new niche job board, which allows recruiters of Linux talent to post their job offers to the targeted audience of Linux professionals. LinuxCareers.com specializes in Linux based careers and covers the US job market.
Migration
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Arista spent the last nine years building a switch operating system based on Linux, including nearly six years of field experience. Here are five lessons we learned along the way.
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Doubtless you’ve heard of Linux, free software, and open source software. It’s important for small business owners to understand the finer points of these, because knowing what they are, and what role they play, is crucial to developing a smart business strategy.
Roundups
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Linus Torvalds released the first new Linux kernel of 2014 this week with the debut of Linux 3.13. As always with any given kernel release there are a lot of driver updates included in the new kernel.
HighPoint
Misc.
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Wolf is correct — I did find him via UberWriter, a beautiful Markdown editor. There are lots of Linux tools that work well and there are lots of Linux tools that look great, but there’s not always a lot of overlap between the two. UberWriter looks great and works great. Wolf uses Synapse, an application launcher, within GNOME, which has some built-in launcher functionality, but that lacks the depth and finesse Synapse offers. Wolf’s other ideas for how to enhance GNOME are very interesting, too.
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TweakTown is reporting that the US Army has purchased Linux-powered rifles from TrackingPoint.
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If there is only one message you take away from reading this, let it be this: Linux and FOSS do not need more glamorous elite uber-rockstar coders. We need more ordinary, dedicated individuals from all walks of life contributing however they can. Just plain ordinary people with whatever they have to offer.
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Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux at 2:59 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Rebuttal tackling another typical piece of FUD which belittles GNU/Linux as a desktop platform
A HEATED thread in Diaspora presents strong criticism of a provocative (if not trollish) article from Mac Asay [1], who appears to be ignoring the rise Chromebooks, basically revealing either ignorance or dishonesty (while also mocking those who adhere to facts). There are already some rebuttals to Asay’s article [2], which was posted/published/dumped in a Microsoft-friendly site. Some rebuttals are too rude to quote, but those who are curious can follow the links.
It is not hard to see why Asay is wrong. He bolsters FUD that we habitually find in ZDNet/CNET (CBS) and IDG (Microsoft-funded) — FUD that we see easily tackled in [3]. Even some pro-Windows sites show that large-scale migrations are happening which boost GNU/Linux, helped in part by the imminent death of Windows XP. The desktop does matter and GNU/Linux is gaining in this area.
Treat with great suspicion people who claim that GNU/Linux on the desktop is “dead”, “dying”, “irrelevant” or something along those lines. In recent months we wrote several articles on this topic, including:
We wrote a lot more on the subject, but this is just a partial list of posts from the past 3 months.
The pattern of GNU/Linux FUD in relation to “desktops” makes a comeback because sometimes those who give it a go are not being challenged. Ignoring and thus failing to rebut is not necessarily the wise strategy here. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Wow. Talk about a Negative Ned take on the Linux desktop! I’m somewhat flabbergasted at this blithe dismissal of Linux as a desktop operating system. And almost all of it is based on the anecdotal experience of the writer’s hair cutter friend Valerie.
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For more than a year now, sales have been downright dreary for PCs and PC equipment makers, but new-generation Chromebooks running Google’s Chrome OS platform have shown signs of bucking the trend. Late last year, there were many reports that Chromebooks were not selling well at all. For example, a ZDNet column cited some IDC research that apparently showed Chromebooks struggling.
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“Up to 500,000 computers are discarded each year in Ireland, half of which are suitable for reuse. Every reused computer can provide 21 disadvantaged students with the crucial 21st century skill of digital literacy. After the data is securely wiped from the hard drive, the Linux operating system is installed, which is compatible even with older computer equipment,” Camara stated in an official blog post.
Once Camara receives your donated computer, the hard drive will be erased and a Linux-based operating system will be installed, along with Open Office and access to Wikipedia. Kids will then have access to a wide range of tools and resources so they can learn a wide variety of topics through their new refurbished computers – thanks to you.
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Posted in News Roundup at 1:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: News coverage about the NSA, primarily from Friday and today
NHS
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Well, what do you know. The government saw fit to send us a message about the NHS and all the wonderful things they are doing for us with it. The Guardian tells us a bit about it here.
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Our medical information will be uploaded to a central database. In some ways this makes sense, but the care.data project is cause for concern too
Snowden
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“Not all spying is bad. The biggest problem we face right now is the new technique of indiscriminate mass surveillance, where governments are seizing billions and billions and billions of innocents’ communication every single day,” he said.
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Attorney general prepared to ‘engage in conversation’ with NSA whistleblower but says full clemency is ‘going too far’
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In an online Q&A session, former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden answered 13 questions posed by Twitter users. The questions he considered ranged from the reasoning behind his leaks, to his hope for what the future of American intelligence programs may look like.
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Former NSA contractor says he will stay in Russia, claiming that he stands no chance of getting a fair trial under current whistle-blower laws
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Over the past few months, it’s been funny to watch the personal attacks on Ed Snowden — especially those that call him either a narcissist or a traitor. These seem to be based on little more than, well, a dislike of what Snowden has done, rather than any sort of logical or rational exploration of his statements and deeds.
GOP on Bush Policies
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New GOP resolution says NSA metadata dragnet program harms basic human rights.
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Crime
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A growing set of people and organizations have spoken out calling for an end to the spy program. Here’s what they said
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A US oversight board has said the NSA’s bulk telephone spying program is illegal. The man responsible for revealing it, fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden, believes he cannot receive a fair trial in the US.
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Former federal prosecutor Eric Friedberg conducted the first court-approved email wiretap nearly 20 years ago while investigating an international conspiracy to sell fraudulent cellphones.
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In Kamloops, B.C., cool overnight temperatures in summer mean Telus (TU) needs to run its air conditioning for only about 40 hours a year to keep its computer servers from overheating. Lower cooling costs are part of the Canadian telecommunications company’s sales pitch to businesses looking to store troves of digital information cheaply. Telus also promotes Canada’s inexpensive hydroelectric power, low seismic activity—and, now, lower risk of government snooping. “There is a structural advantage in Canada in that the data is here and the privacy protection is more stringent,” says Lloyd Switzer, who runs Telus’s 10 data centers.
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This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.
More Important Than NSA Crimes
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There were signs that it is time for us to detonate the Earth and begin colonising a new planet last night, when an MSNBC anchor cut off congresswoman Jane Harman mid-sentence to bring news of Justin Bieber’s arrest.
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Social media users were outraged last night when a MSNBC segment was interrupted for “breaking news” relating to Justin Beiber’s arrest.
Corporate Views
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Is Red Hat secretly working with the NSA to build back doors into their products? I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, the company is the best of breed when it comes to big business and Linux. The company seems to be a very good open source citizen.
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Also, some more details from PrivacySOS. As you can see, rather than go from the Amazon warehouse in Santa Ana, California up the coast to Seattle, instead the package went across the country to Dulles, Virginia to Alexandria (right outside of DC) and was “delivered” there. Upon seeing this, my initial reaction was that it might not be a big deal. With shipping logistics these days, it’s no uncommon to see a sort of hub system, where packages travel across the country from one warehouse to a shipping hub, only to be shipped back across the country for actual delivery.
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On the NSA front, however, Cook said quite pointedly that Apple is under a gag order and can’t tell what it knows about the NSA surveillance.
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Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt has reportedly said that encryption is the key to many of Internet’s modern-day problems, including opening up countries with strict censorship laws.
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Google’s Eric Schmidt is at the Davos World Economic forum right now talking up his company’s potential to end government surveillance and censorship completely using solely “strong encryption,” reports Rich McCormick of The Verge.
The American NSA has proven itself quite adept at finding cracks in Google’s systems, and China’s real-time censorship machine is unlike any other in the world.
Nevertheless, Schmidt is confident, from the Verge:
Schmidt said that Google was attempting to strengthen its encryption so the world’s governments “won’t be able to penetrate it” and obtain private data. Those efforts creates problems for “governments like China’s,” which he thought responsible for “80 to 85 percent of the world’s industrial espionage.”
The Google chairman also said he saw the eventual relaxation of Chinese censorship over time as the number of people using social media in the country continued to grow.
Misc.
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Perhaps the biggest condemnation of President Obama’s address last Friday announcing reforms to the NSA’s surveillance programs was his failure to mention any of the agency’s alleged involvement in subverting cryptography standards and the impact that has had on the trustworthiness of products built on those baselines.
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A couple of days ago Obama gave a long speech about the so-called reforms he was going to bring to NSA. When I went through the transcript of his speech it reminded me of a packet of chips that’s practically full of air.
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The turtle wearing a hat backward, baggy jeans and purple sunglasses looks just like other cartoon characters that marketers use to make products like cereal and toys appealing to children.
But the reptile, known as T. Top, who says creating and breaking codes is really “kewl,” is pushing something far weightier: the benefits of the National Security Agency.
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Just imagine the “network of all networks,” the globe-spanning Internet, becoming a loose web of tightly guarded, nearly impermeable regional or even national networks. It seems antithetical to the mythology surrounding the Internet’s power and purpose. But ongoing revelations about the extensive surveillance activities of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) are pushing countries like Germany and Brazil to take concrete steps in that direction.
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Posted in Microsoft at 10:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Not another Nokia, at least for now…
Summary: Kevin Johnson from Microsoft finally leaves Juniper, shortly after the company (under his leadership) demonised Linux and years after he brought in many of his former colleagues from Microsoft
One thing we all ought to have learned from Nokia is that Microsoft moles are a huge risk to any company. Only Microsoft benefits from such moles. So we are happy (or cautiously optimistic) to learn that “Kheradpir is replaces Kevin Johnson in the CEO role at Juniper. Johnson was the CEO of Juniper from July of 2008 until December of 2013. While Johnson joined Juniper from the software world, having previously been at Microsoft, Kheradpir is a networking person.”
As pointed out by iophk: “There would still be quite a few left there, if others have not been kicked out already.”
At least a dozen Microsoft executives already joined Juniper in recent years (they joined after Johnson had been put in charge, just like in VMware), based on the Microsoft press. “Only one bio admits to it though,” iophk notes (see this page). As a quick reminder, Juniper has been getting Microsoft-friendly and Linux-hostile after the transformation.
After Nokia had been abducted by Trojan horse Elop several other executives from Microsoft joined Nokia and look where Nokia stands today: “We’re in the Q4 results season and we have Nokia’s numbers but Nokia is being naughty, decided not to give us the detail they have always given in the past…”
As Tomi Ahonen (notable Nokia expert) puts it: “For the full year Nokia sold thus about 30.5 million smartphones and had 3% market share, down from 35.0 million in 2012 and 5%, and down from 103.6 million in 2010 the last year before Elop’s doomed Microsoft strategy when Nokia’s market share was 34.8% and the handset unit grew 52% unit sales and generated Nokia record profits… That is the end of the Nokia tale in smartphones. Sad end but yeah, we saw it coming didn’t we on this blog.”
There are more details in [1-2]. Let this remind us of the fate of companies abducted by Microsoft executives (not just Elop and Nokia). █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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Sales of the Nokia Lumia fell quarter on quarter and the handset division suffered a near-30% drop in sales in 2013
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Sales of Nokia mobile phones slumped by 29 percent during the fourth quarter of 2013, although this will soon be Microsoft’s problem. Nokia blames the drop on falling mobile phone sales and to a lesser extent, a disappointing reception for its Lumia smartphones.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Patents at 10:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A passage of many Palm patents to Qualcomm is not as bad one might think given the patent-stacking attempts against Android
Red Hat, the biggest backer of GNU/Linux, has been targeted by several patent trolls, some of which could be linked to Microsoft. Acacia is one of them. Red Hat bloggers warn about threats of this kind in a new post [1] and following sale of WebOS to LG, which pays Microsoft for Linux, we now learn that Qualcomm receives the patents [2]. This company has been rather aggressive with patents [1, 2, 3], but it is working a lot with Android (the company has Android pages and a Snapdragon SDK for Android), so it’s unlikely to be a real threat to Linux (not directly anyway, maybe just through hardware when it’s not Snapdragon). Perhaps knowing that these patents did not land in the hands of trolls or some Microsoft/Apple proxy (CPTN, Rockstar, etc.) is actually good news. In years to come we shall see what Qualcomm does with those patents and which companies it targets, as it probably will, based on abusive track record which put it under regulatory scrutiny/action. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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In the most recent development, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced what he calls a “groundbreaking settlement” with a well known Patent Assertion Entity (PAE), a so-called “patent troll.” This action in the Empire State follows on earlier state Attorney General (AG) investigations in Vermont, Minnesota, and Nebraska. It heralds what I anticipate to be deeper scrutiny by state AG’s of PAE use of ‘deceptive and abusive tactics’ against businesses and other entities in what the NY AG found in this case to be “an effort to strong-arm them into paying… for patent licenses of dubious value.”
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HP, meanwhile, looks to unload another piece of a Palm business it paid $1.2bn to acquire in 2010 and then all but killed off just a year later. After being mothballed by HP management, Palm’s flagship WebOS platform was eventually sold off to LG, where it has since been remade as a platform for the company’s smart TV line.
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