Linked List: May 10, 2012

Thursday, 10 May 2012

Microsoft Antitrust Finding Specific to Windows on Intel? ★

Hal Berenson, retired engineer and general manager from Microsoft, back in February:

Microsoft can get away with Office as the only non-Metro app on ARM because the anti-trust finding was specific to Windows on Intel.

I’m no lawyer, but a quick perusal of the Department of Justice’s 1999 Findings of Fact (PDF) has me nodding my head in agreement. I count 36 instances of “Intel-compatible PC operating systems”.

Study: NFL Players Living Longer Than General Population ★

Mike Freeman, reporting for CBS Sports:

The main conclusion of the NIOSH study, which it says was commissioned by the union, is that players in the study had a much lower rate of death overall compared to men in the general population. This means, on average, NFL players are actually living longer than men in the general population which contradicts a popular notion that former NFL players live into their mid-50s.

Out of the 3,439 players in the study, 334 were deceased. Based on estimates from the general population, NIOSH had anticipated 625 would be deceased.

Good news for football.

Google Agrees With Mozilla’s Windows RT Browser Concerns ★

Google statement:

We share the concerns Mozilla has raised regarding the Windows 8 environment restricting user choice and innovation. We’ve always welcomed innovation in the browser space across all platforms and strongly believe that having great competitors makes us all work harder. In the end, consumers and developers benefit the most from robust competition.

Microsoft is free to ship a fully-functional version of IE for Chrome OS, right?

Asa Dotzler Objects to Windows on ARM Locking Out Competing Web Browsers ★

Asa Dotzler, Mozilla’s product director for Firefox:

Here’s what’s going on. For Windows on X86, Microsoft is giving other browsers basically the same privileges it gives IE. It’s not great that you don’t get those privileges (certain API access) unless you’re the default browser and I think that’s deeply unfair (a post for later,) but at least we’re able to build a competitive browser and ship it to Windows users on x86 chips.

But on ARM chips, Microsoft gives IE access special APIs absolutely necessary for building a modern browser that it won’t give to other browsers so there’s no way another browser can possibly compete with IE in terms of features or performance.

In other words, Microsoft is setting policies for Windows for ARM that are a lot like Apple’s policies for iOS. These policies and restrictions make just as much sense for Microsoft as they do for Apple. The problem for Microsoft, as Dotzler points out in the comments on his piece, is that Microsoft has made antitrust agreements that seemingly preclude such restrictions.

Serious question: What if Windows 8 for ARM, instead of being called “Windows RT”, were instead called, say, “Metro OS”? Would that make a difference? Is Dotzler arguing that Microsoft should not be permitted to ship a version of Windows that locks out third-party browsers, or that Microsoft should not be permitted to ship any OS that locks out third-party browsers?

Lightroom 4 Now Available on the Mac App Store ★

Lightroom continues to lead the way for Adobe’s Mac development.

BetterZip 2 ★

Haven’t mentioned BetterZip in a while, but it’s still my favorite compression/archive tool for Mac OS X, and version 2 added some sweet features like Quick Look. $20, worth every penny.