In a move no doubt calculated to appease antitrust officials in Europe and the rest of the world, Microsoft has announced four key new interoperability principles it intends to implement across Windows Vista, it’s .NET framework, and mainstream server technologies. The new interoperability concepts are intended to increase the openness of Microsoft’s products and provide opportunities for developers—in fact, the company is promising it won’t sue open source developers for implementing key Microsoft protocols. Microsoft has launched a new interoperability Web site to detail the program to developers.
“For the past 33 years, we have shared a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners around the world and helped build the industry, but today’s announcement represents a significant expansion toward even greater transparency,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in a statement. “Our goal is to promote greater interoperability, opportunity, and choice for customers and developers throughout the industry by making our products more open and by sharing even more information about our technologies.”
Microsoft is heralding these new principles of interoperability as a fundamental chance in the way it shares information about its products and technologies. If that proves to be the case, it may appease antitrust regulators in the U.S. and the European Union who have repeatedly rapped Microsoft’s knuckles for failing to adequately disclose protocols used by its server products and operating systems so third parties can interface with the systems successfully. Microsoft recently gave up its appeals of antitrust rulings against it in Europe, and just had oversight of its business practices in the U.S. extended for another two years as a result of an antitrust settlement it made with the federal government in 2001.
Microsoft intends to apply the principles across its “high volume” products, including Windows Vista, the .NET framework, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office Sharepoint Server 2007, along with future versions of the products. Part of Microsoft’ effort will including publishing documentation and API information without requiring developers to obtain a license or pay a royalty: Microsoft says it’s pushing out 30,000 pages of documentation on MSDN today that were previously only available under a trade secret license. Microsoft will also document which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents, and promises to license those patents on reasonable, non-exclusionary terms.
Microsoft also says it won’t sue open source developers who build or distribute non-commercial implementations of its protocols, although developers who engage in commercial distribution of open source implementations will need to obtain patent licenses.
Microsoft also promises new APIs for its mainstream Office applications that will enable developers to support additional document formats, like OpenDocument Format (ODF). Microsoft also promises it will work with major standards implementors when it adopts a standardized technology in its high-volume products, and that documentation of its implementations will be available free of charge.
“Customers need all their vendors, including and especially Microsoft, to deliver software and services that are flexible enough such that any developer can use their open interfaces and data to effectively integrate applications or to compose entirely new solutions,” said Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie. “By increasing the openness of our products, we will provide developers additional opportunity to innovate and deliver value for customers.”
If Microsoft follows through on these principles, they may well represent a fundamental shift in the way the company develops its products. To date, Microsoft’s product development methodology has been based on implementing proprietary solutions that, in the real world, only work well with other Microsoft products. By trying to convert its products into a common denominator other developers can work with, Microsoft may find its protocols embraced as the bedrock of business and enterprise computing for decades to come—and in the long run, that would keep Microsoft in a leadership position in the software business.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.