Dr. Bill | The Computer Curmudgeon

Could the impossible happen? Will Microsoft EVER release Windows to Open Source? I gotta say, I don’t think so.

Open-source Windows? The unthinkable is already happening, says Microsoft

PC World – By: Mark Hachman – “However unlikely a future in which Microsoft makes Windows open source may sound, Microsoft has already taken considerable strides in that direction.

But instead of allowing developers to make changes to Windows and other products, it’s Microsoft’s fingers at the keyboard.

According to Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich, a future that includes an open-source Windows could happen. ‘It’s definitely possible,’ Russinovich reportedly told an audience at the ChefCon conference in Santa Clara this week. ‘It’s a new Microsoft.’

‘Every conversation you can imagine about what should we do with our software—open versus not-open versus services—has happened,’ Russinovich added.

Why this matters: Saturday marks Microsoft’s 40th anniversary. Just a few years ago, such a statement by Russinovich would have been anathema to Microsoft—and if Bill Gates were still at the CEO’s desk, it might have resulted in a letter of termination. But this is the new Microsoft, forced into a spirit of cooperation and collaboration by increasing pressure on the PC and on its business model. This is still pie-in-the-sky stuff—but science fiction can become reality. Just ask Dick Tracy’s watch.

You can’t just toss away $4 billion per quarter

An open-source Windows would be unlikely in the near term, however. That would require Microsoft to expose its reams of code to public view, theoretically allowing developers to create their own proprietary, incompatible forks of Windows. That’s an absolute example, of course—Microsoft could decide to open the code to certain components within the OS—perhaps what will turn into the ‘legacy’ browser, Internet Explorer. But open-sourcing Windows—and perhaps make it free to use—would also require Microsoft to give up a large chunk of the $4 billion or so a quarter it collectively receives from Windows, Windows Phone, and Office licenses.

As Wired points out, Microsoft has agreed to provide OEMs a free copy of Windows for devices with displays under 8 inches. And it’s far more open to running open-source products on top of its Azure cloud services than it was.”

Will ARC lead to one OS for all?

Google’s ARC Beta runs Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux

Ars Technica – By: Ron Amadeo – “In September, Google launched ARC—the “App Runtime for Chrome,”—a project that allowed Android apps to run on Chrome OS. A few days later, a hack revealed the project’s full potential: it enabled ARC on every “desktop” version of Chrome, meaning you could unofficially run Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. ARC made Android apps run on nearly every computing platform (save iOS).

ARC is an early beta though so Google has kept the project’s reach very limited—only a handful of apps have been ported to ARC, which have all been the result of close collaborations between Google and the app developer. Now though, Google is taking two big steps forward with the latest developer preview: it’s allowing any developer to run their app on ARC via a new Chrome app packager, and it’s allowing ARC to run on any desktop OS with a Chrome browser.

ARC runs Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS thanks to Native Client (abbreviated “NaCL”). NaCL is a Chrome sandboxing technology that allows Chrome apps and plugins to run at “near native” speeds, taking full advantage of the system’s CPU and GPU. Native Client turns Chrome into a development platform, write to it, and it’ll run on all desktop Chrome browsers. Google ported a full Android stack to Native Client, allowing Android apps to run on most major OSes.

With the original ARC release, there was no official process to getting an Android app running on the Chrome platform (other than working with Google). Now Google has released the adorably-named ARC Welder, a Chrome app which will convert any Android app into an ARC-powered Chrome app. It’s mainly for developers to package up an APK and submit it to the Chrome Web Store, but anyone can package and launch an APK from the app directly.

Since anyone can get an app up and running, we decided to take a look at just what ARC was like with certain apps. It turns out ARC is based on Android 4.4 and runs Dalvik VM, not the faster Android Run Time (ART) that debuted in Android 5.0.

A lot of standalone apps, like Twitter, work perfectly, while many stop working because ARC is not a smartphone and is missing a lot of what makes Android Android. Which brings us to the next big improvement:

ARC gets serious with Google Play Services

September’s unofficial hack allowed us to explore a few limitations of the Android Runtime for Chrome. The biggest missing puzzle piece were all of the Google Play components, which weren’t supported on the early version. This made ARC less like “Google’s Android” and more like an unsupported AOSP fork. Any app that used Google Play Services for OAuth logins, Maps, in-app purchases, cloud-to-device messaging, Play Games support, or any of the myriad of other features listed above would simply crash.

With this new release, ARC includes Google Play Services, potentially opening up compatibility for many apps that depend on Google’s proprietary ecosystem APIs. It’s not the full list of APIs from Play Services, though, only a handful: OAuth2, Google Cloud Messaging , Google+ sign-in, Maps, Location, and Ads. Developers have to specifically enable Play Services on ARC with ARC-specific metadata, too, so end users can’t go too crazy with other people’s apps.

While those five APIs are pretty common and will certainly help compatibility, ARC is still missing a big chunk of Play Services, which will stop some apps from working. The biggest missing piece seems to be the Play Store’s in-app purchasing, which isn’t in the API list. The Chrome Web Store supports in app purchasing, but it would require custom code from the app developer.

We can’t explore the full potential of Play Services on ARC, because it’s up to the app developer to add special metadata to the app to enable ARC’s special version of Play Services.

Write once, run anywhere?

So calling all developers: You can now (probably, maybe) run your Android apps on just about anything—Android, Chrome OS, Windows, Mac, and Linux—provided you fiddle with the ARC Welder and submit your app to the Chrome Web Store.

The App Runtime for Chrome and Native Client are hugely important projects because they potentially allow Google to push a “universal binary” strategy on developers. “Write your app for Android, and we’ll make it run on almost every popular OS! (other than iOS)” Google Play Services support is a major improvement for ARC and signals just how ambitious this project is. Some day it will be a great sales pitch to convince developers to write for Android first, which gives them apps on all these desktop OSes for free.

For now though, the project is just a developer preview. The next steps are to bring in the rest of the Play Services APIs, which will no doubt happen over the coming months. Google will also needs to do something about the Chrome Web Store, which isn’t nearly as popular, feature rich, or mature as the Play Store. Will they merge some day? Google already displays Chrome apps in the Google Play Store for Education.”

I know, I have 1 gig fiber to my house, but if 1 is good, 2 is better!

Comcast Takes On Google With 2Gbps Internet Service

PCMag – By: Chloe Albanesius – “There’s been a lot of talk about Google’s 1Gbps ‘gigabit’ Internet service, but Comcast said today that it is planning a 2Gbps service, beginning in Atlanta.

Comcast Gigabit Pro is a fiber-to-the-home service that ‘will be offered broadly across the Atlanta metro area’ starting next month, the cable giant said today.

The goal, Comcast said, is to make it available to about 18 million homes by the end of the year.

Pricing details were not released; Google Fiber will set you back about $70 per month for gigabit Internet service alone. As Ars Technica noted, Comcast’s existing 505Mbps residential speed tier costs $399.95 per month, but Comcast told Ars that Gigabit Pro will not be that pricey and 505 customers will get a bump to 2Gbps.

‘Our approach is to offer the most comprehensive rollout of multi-gigabit service to the most homes as quickly as possible, not just to certain neighborhoods,’ said Doug Guthrie, senior vice president of Comcast Cable’s South Region, a dig at Google’s city-by-city rollout. ‘We already provide the fastest speeds to the most homes and businesses in Atlanta, and access to Gigabit Pro will give our customers all the broadband capacity they need to stay ahead of future technologies and innovations.’

Comcast already has a fiber infrastructure for its business-level Internet service (145,000 route miles), which promises up to 10Gbps for its 1.5 million customers. As a result, Gigabit Pro ‘will be available to any home within close proximity of Comcast’s fiber network,’ provided they pay an installation fee.

That includes SunTrust Park, home of the Atlanta Braves. Last month, Comcast inked a deal with the team to provide Internet access there in exchange for a Comcast-branded office tower that will house an innovation lab. Comcast will wire up buildings in the vicinity, which includes residential units.

Google, meanwhile, recently announced plans to launch Google Fiber in Salt Lake City, while AT&T is expanding its gigabit Internet offering into Apple’s hometown of Cupertino.”

I know, right?!? Hooray for ubiquitous WiFi! And, solar-powered planes… geek out alert!

Facebook’s solar-powered planes will provide Wi-Fi to the ‘burbs

Ars Technica – By: Casey Johnston – “Facebook revealed a new research lab on Thursday that will develop “aerospace and communication technologies” to bring Internet access to areas that have not yet been networked. One of the Connectivity Lab’s projects includes a plane that can remain in the air for months at a time, broadcasting Wi-Fi to regions below.

The plane technology comes from Ascenta, a UK company that specializes in high-altitude long-range aircraft. On Thursday, Facebook announced its acquisition of the company for $20 million. The planes would be solar-powered and would fly over suburban areas at an altitude of 20 kilometers, above where commercial airlines fly.

For more remote areas, like mountain ranges, Facebook and Connectivity Labs hope to put up satellites that not only cover the area with network access but talk between each other via free-space optical communication using infrared laser beams.

The project bears some similarity to Google’s Project Loon, which uses untethered balloons flying in the stratosphere to broadcast Internet connections. The balloons create a mesh network at the same altitude that Facebook’s solar planes would occupy and provide 3G speeds. Project Loon is still in the experimental stages, but the company anticipates that it could be deployed for use in military communications or in disaster areas.”