Author: Terren

An Italian team of researchers claims to have discovered cold fusion. It will either change the world or be another fruitless and premature “breakthrough.”

Wow, insider tipsters are getting efficient! Verizon appears to have only just added Minimum Advertised Pricing for the Motorola Xoom to its internal systems, but already it’s been leaked out by more than one source. Android Central has the damning evidence, which lists an $800 levy for any prospective owners of the flagship Android Honeycomb device. It’s accompanied by a listing of the HTC Thunderbolt at $250, with the logical conclusion being that the Moto tablet will come unsullied by subsidies while the HTC LTE handset will probably cost that much on a two-year deal. That makes plenty of sense to us — the typical smartphone price is $200 and Verizon can point to the 4G goodness the Thunderbolt brings as justifying its $50 premium, whereas the Xoom’s cost seems to be in line with the Galaxy Tab’s pricing. Now, how about some launch dates, leaksters?

Motorola Xoom priced at $800 at a minimum, according to Verizon leak originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might have stumbled across a story or two on the web today about Florian Mueller from FOSSpatents finding 43 more files in the Android source that look to be copied from Sun.  I know I did, and had a heart wrenching editorial all ready to go, all about Google's open source strategy in their fight against Oracle, how it might fail, and how I was going to shave my beard and cry.

Then I stumbled across Ed Burnette’s story on ZDNet.

All the fuss, all the hysteria, and most importantly all the cries against Google proclaiming them as thieves aren't what they seem.  There are two sets of files in question — a series of seven (PolicyNodeImpl.java, AclEntryImpl.java, AclImpl.java, GroupImpl.java, OwnerImpl.java, PermissionImpl.java, and PrincipalImpl.java) that contain proprietary code from Sun, and do exist, but they are in the unit test area of the AOSP source tree.  This means they are only used to test software after it's built, and before it's shipped.  To be clear — these files are not used to build Android, nor are the shipped with Android.  To take things a step further, these files were published by Sun on their own website to assist developers to test and debug — exactly what Google is using them for.

The other 37 files exist as well, but are inside a zip file in an area of the source tree used for one particular audio chipset.  These files look like they were uploaded by mistake, and also aren't used to build Android or ship with any Android devices.  These will probably just be deleted from the tree, as they don't do anything.

One more anti-Android story proven false and put out to pasture.  Let's get ready for the next one, because everyone wants to see some of those beautiful, green Android dollars. [ZDNet]

ref. links — FOSS patents; Engadget

Update: Before anybody starts nailing anybody to anything, please read Engadget’s excellent update on whole situation.

Copied code not in Android source after all (updated) posted originally by Android Central

Sponsored by Android Cases and Accessories

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The goal is optimistic, but doable.

You could be forgiven for thinking this day would never come. Heck most anyone who cared about the Duke thought he was dead and buried years ago. But like all great action heroes, he just keeps coming back.

In an interview with Game Informer, Gearbox President Randy Pitchford said he was revealing,

the most inconceivable, incorrigible and inspiring turn around story in the history of the video game industry – the coming of Duke Nukem Forever on May 3, 2011.

Equally excited was Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K, who added,

The moment fans all over the world have been waiting for is almost here. May 3, 2011 marks Duke’s return as he unleashes his brash and brutally honest wit on the world. His return is going to be epic and one that will make video gaming history!

I find myself a little disappointed on this one. I was kind of hoping that they’d release this on April 1. It would been the perfect ending to the decade of drama surrounding DNF. Of course, they may have decided that folks were skeptical enough about the game’s release. But I digress…

So there you have it – the most politically incorrect protagonist in history is blasting onto PC, PS3 and XBox 360 in a little over three months. I hope you’re prepared. If not, here’s a little trailer to hold you over.

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NASA has officially added another space shuttle launch to its schedule – the final one for the fleet.

via http://i.imgur.com/G2IIb.jpg
faved by Faith Schaefer

Google’s announcement today that Eric Schmidt will step down as CEO ends what has to be one of the most successful tenures for a chief executive over the last decade. Schmidt has presided over a period of spectacular growth at the search giant. Here are five data points that show how Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has changed since Schmidt joined in 2001.

Sales

Start: $86.4 million
End: $29.3 billion

Net income

Start: $6.99 million
End: $8.5 billion

Stock Price

Start (2004): $85
End: $626

Market Value

Start (2004): $23 billion
End: $200.43 billion

Employees

Start: 284
End: 24,400

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