Microsoft has been having antitrust issues with the European Union for a while now and has paid some pretty hefty fines. Now they may have more issues coming. Opera, makers of the Opera Web Browser have filed an antitrust compaint with the EU against Microsoft complaining about Internet Explorer. As many know, every Windows installation comes with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE6 with XP and IE7 with Vista). Opera is complaining that by bundling IE with Windows, Microsoft is hindering the ability for consumers to choose what browser to use. At the very least, Opera wants Microsoft to include other browsers into Windows. Opera also complains about Internet Explorer's lack of following standards causes undue hardship for web development.

Asking the EU to pressure Microsoft to unbundle IE from Windows does not come without precedent. The EU has already forced Microsoft to provide a version of Windows that does not include Windows Media Player. The version was called Windows XP Edition N. Despite the antitrust ruling and the release of Edition N, it didn't really sell well as the version of XP with WMP was the same price. Technically, taking Windows Media Player out of Windows is seemingly simpler than taking IE off. IE is tied in closely with XP as many applications within Windows seem to use it as well. Windows, Microsoft, and Office Update all require Internet Explorer to function, so unbundling IE from Windows seems to be trickier than simply removing it from the install. So that would pretty much leave installing alternative browsers with XP. For those tech-savvy enough, that might work, but I'm sure if Microsoft does that, then they will probably make IE the default browser which would probably mean the non-tech people probably won't realize the difference and only use the default browser, which in this case would be IE.

Opera's second complaint though is definitely a valid one. If anyone has done any real web development, they probably know how difficult making a website look the same across the browsers can be. While Safari, Firefox, and Opera tend to be pretty easy, Internet Explorer really becomes hardball. I can say from personal experience that making my website show up properly across the browsers tended to be a headache.  I remember the first version of my site, it looked fine in all but IE. Forcing Microsoft to follow the web standards would be a good idea, but sadly, I don't see it happening anytime soon which sucks.

In the end, I don't know how much Opera and the EU are going to be able to accomplish.  I want to see them succeed, but the reality of the situation is much more complicated than it should have to be.

Opera files antitrust complaint with the EU [opera.com]

Tags: opera, eu, microsoft, links, antitrust, news

NASA's THEMIS satellite, launched less than 8 months ago has discovered some interesting findings regarding the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. The energy traveled twice as fast as anyone previously thought, traveling about 400 miles in a minute.  I wish I could move that fast.  THEMIS also discovered that the Earth's magnetic field appears to be linked to the sun by what appear to be magnetic ropes.  These ropes seem to originating in the Magnetosphere and are seemingly almost as wide as Earth itself.

I have been fortunate and have seen the Northern Lights at two points in my life.  Both times canoeing up in the wilderness of Canada. The sight is nothing short of breathtaking.  The pictures you see can't even begin to grasp how beautiful they are.  Sadly for me, living right outside Philadelphia, it is seemingly impossible to see the Northern Lights from here.  On a clear night up there though, I could see thousands upon thousands of stars, the Milky Way, and of course the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights Race Across the Sky [Space.com]

Tags: astronomy, nasa, northernlights, news, links

I was reading this article about Nokia and Ogg music/video codec. For those of you who don't know, Ogg  is an open source music/video codec. Nokia is petitioning to the W3C, (the World Wide Web Consortium) who makes the standards for web languages like CSS and HTML, not to include Ogg in the HTML v5 standard. Their reason?  Ogg is proprietary and DRM is neccessary. First off, Ogg is NOT proprietary. It is open source. Second DRM is a horrible idea in itself, and the idea gets even worse on the web.  DRM is prorprietary as well and the web should not become such. The proprietary format of DRM is the primary reason DRM should be excluded from standards.

Fortunately, the W3C is known to be very much against proprietary standards so whether they will actually listen to such an argument from Nokia is very much debatable. The W3C insistance on anti-propietary standards as well as not licensing its standards is admirable in my opinion. If only more companies and groups could follow the same base. Standards should be based on the format's merits, not  to please Nokia, Hollywood, etc.

Ironically, Nokia also produces a Linux TabletPC...wait, isn't Linux open source?

Nokia to W3C: Ogg is proprietary, we need DRM on the Web [boingboing.net]

UPDATE:  Sadly, the W3C seems to have given into the pressure and removed Ogg from HTML v5.

Removal of Ogg Vorbis and Theora from HTML5: An Outrageous Disaster [rudd-o.com]

Ogg Vorbis / Theora Language Removed from HTML5 Spec [slashdot.org]

Tags: thoughts, links, nokia, w3c, opensource, news

NASA delayed the launch of STS-122 Atlantis until January 2, 2008 as a fuel sensor in the external fuel tank showed the same glitch that prompted the initial delay on Thursday. This type glitch had previously been seen on STS-114 back in July 2005 for Discovery's first return to flight mission following the Columbia Tragedy in 2003.

NASA has 3 primary reasons for doing this. The first is obviously the glitch, if the sensors report that the tank is full when it is really empty, the Shuttle's 3 main engines won't cut off and could result in massive damage to the orbiter which would obviously cause major problems. The second is that they want the solar wings of the International Space Station to be generating optimal power while Atlantis is docked. If they launch now, that won't happen.  The third reason is the New Years Bug.  Apparently the Space Shuttle computers can't properly handle the switch in years from December 31 to January 1. NASA was worried last year about Discovery's STS-116 mission, but they were able to launch and land prior to Christmas so it all worked out. NASA has a fix for it, but they'd rather not use it if they can avoid it.

This bit of bad news comes after NASA successfully launched 3 Space Shuttle missions in 2007, so while it may be a sour note that they can't get the 4th launch in, they at least have something good they can look back on.

Tags: space, news, nasa, astronomy, spaceshuttle

Google has just announced that it has integrated AIM into GMAIL. What does this mean? It means that from GMAIL, you can access and talk to your contacts on AIM from the side chat menu. This is pretty big news as it is I believe that first real integration between the IM companies (AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, & Google). I mean there are the multiple protocol clients like Adium, Trillian, Pidgin, & even the web clients like Meebo.com, but never done before by the service company. I tried it out, and it runs just like Google Talk. With everything that Google has done to GMAIL lately, I'd be curious to see where else they go.

UPDATE: I also just happened to notice that the chat feature in GMAIL now works on Safari, which is great because Safari is my primary browser on my Mac and once the final version is released for Windows, it may very well become my primary brower there too.

Google Integrates AIM into GMAIL [macworld.com]

Tags: google, gmail, aim, links, news