Editorials

After watching the Department of Homeland Security try to force new amendments allowing them very expanded powers to police and control the Internet it seems the FBI wants to get in on some of this too. You see The FBI and law enforcement are having a hard time doing their job (according to them) and their current methods for gathering information with a warrant are just not enough. They would like Mandatory backdoors into online communication services like Skype, MSN, Gmail etc.

In another installment of our “and that is why you fail” byline we come to the small dispute between Google and Oracle. On the table is not if Google use Java APIs or not, but the basic question of “are Java APIs free to use for development?” This issue is a huge one as a Google loss could set precedent for Oracle to go after ANYONE that is using the Java API without paying royalties to Oracle for their use.

Well we all knew it had to start somewhere. The possibility that some democracy would forget the concept of free speech and free and open communication was always there. I do not think that anyone thought it was going to be the UK though. Unfortunately a judge in the UK has ordered all ISPs in the UK to manually block access to the Pirate Bay website.

Asus has recently released their quarterly results for the other side of Asus. This is the part of the company that makes and sells notebooks, netbooks, the EEE Pad, PC and Slate. It is also a part of the company that we expect to turn into its own fully fledged market with the potential for direct sales in the future. The numbers look pretty impressive so far with gains across the board.