The United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected a March 2004 patent application for Apple Computer's graphical interface for the iPod.
As reported by AppleInsider, Apple's patent for a "graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player" was rejected in July. The patent examiner cited an earlier application by Microsoft in the ruling. Apple did not respond to requests for comment.
The Microsoft patent in question covers a system of automatically generating playlists from media collections by "seeding" them with both desirable and undesirable items.
Streamlining Windows deployment is one of Microsoft's stated goals for its next Windows release. A new installation kit is one key to realizing that vision.
One of Microsoft's stated goals for Windows Vista is enabling streamlined deployment. Microsoft wants corporations and consumers to be able to roll out Vista more quickly, reliably and cheaply than they have been able to do with previous versions of Windows.
On the corporate side of the house, Microsoft is planning to release a variety of new deployment tools, including one called the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), that it is banking on to deliver these improvements.
Hewlett-Packard is readying several new versions of its IPaq wireless personal digital assistants that will also feature a new version of Microsoft's mobile operating system, according to details of the new products posted on Web sites for HP in both the U.S. and the U.K.
The HP IPaq hw6510 and hw6515 are not yet available in the U.S., but are available in Europe, as pointed out by a presentation on HP's U.K. Web site promoting the new models. However, a link from that presentation on Wednesday also contained specifications for an unannounced series of products, the hw6700 IPaqs.
A senior Palm executive says his company could benefit from building a mobile computing device that runs on the Windows operating system made by once-bitter rival Microsoft.
In an interview, Palm Chief Financial Officer Andrew Brown said that building a Treo that runs on the mobile version of Windows might help the company woo corporate customers who have been reticent to buy its Palm OS-based gadgets. "CIOs don't get fired for using Microsoft products," Brown said, though he did not say whether Palm has such a product in the works.
In an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Microsoft's Digital Media Division chief Erik Huggers said the iPod would have stronger competition by the holiday season.However supporters of Apple's iPod have pointed out that Microsoft made the same claim this time last year, yet the venerable music player continued to widen the gap between itself and its Windows-based competitors.
"Come this fall there is going to be a number of devices that get close to competing with Apple's iPod," Huggers told the news service. He also said that by the second quarter of next year there would be several players that compete directly with the iPod in terms of "industrial design, usability, functionality and features."
The Central Scotland Police is removing Sun Microsystems' StarOffice productivity software from about 400 PCs and switching to Microsoft's Office System, citing lower maintenance costs and the need to interoperate more smoothly with other departments running Windows.
It is the latest anecdote in a wider tussle for business between Microsoft and open-source software in Europe. Several organizations, particularly public bodies, have been adopting or experimenting with Linux and other open-source products, but the move by the Scottish police shows the migrations are not all one-way.
Microsoft continues to woo top Lotus software developers to its ranks.
Among its most recent hires are two former Lotus developers, Julio Estrada, who joined Redmond's ranks in June as software architect in the Exchange Server Group; and Bob Congdon, hired in July as an Exchange design engineer also in the Exchange Server Group, according to Microsoft spokeswoman Michelle Hinrichs.
Estrada formerly served as lead architect for Lotus Domino Web Server and Lotus QuickPlace collaboration technologies, after which he founded collaboration vendor Kubi Software Inc. in 2001 in Lincoln, Mass. Mark Rankovic has now taken the reigns as CEO and President of Kubi.
As Microsoft continues to try and convince its enterprise customers and the open-software community that it is committed to interoperability and working with them, Bill Hilf, its director of platform technology, gave a session at the annual LinuxWorld Conference & Expo that provided a look into the Linux/Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft's Redmond campus.
In a session titled "Managing Linux in a mixed environmentat Microsoft? A look inside the Linux/Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft," Hilf told the audience of more than 100 that he had Linux and open-source credentials, having worked with the software at both eToys and IBM before moving to Microsoft
A public interest lawyer who is also intending to run as a Republican in the 2006 Illinois gubernatorial race is taking his fight to Microsoft in hopes of preventing the company from releasing what he calls "bad code."
Andy Martin of The Committee to Fight Microsoft on Tuesday announced his intentions to block Microsoft from releasing its Windows Vista operating system.
Martin said he intends to ask Microsoft for an unconditional warranty that the operating system is free of bugs that could result in security vulnerabilities.
Microsoft on Monday signed off on the Windows Vista SDK, or software development kit, which will enable developers to create applications for the next-generation Windows release. The SDK, complete with code samples, tools and documentation will be available via MSDN and distributed at next month's PDC conference in LA.
The kit will simply be dubbed "Windows SDK" upon release, as it includes both WinFX and Vista-specific documentation. Microsoft will also post an online version of the docs, which can be browsed by any developer. It's not clear if the Windows SDK will replace the company's current Platform SDK.