Linus and Jonathan Schwartz light flame war

I got this links from Phillip this week and I wanted to share with you, it’s really fun to see a flame war from two top high profile tech guys. Linus first posted some comments about Sun and then Schwartz replied at his Blog and I really like Jonathan’s attitude, it was more sympathetic at least.

Linus mail: http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/12/232

And Jonathan’s answer: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/one_plus_one_is_fifty

Linus Torvalds talking about Source code control

Phillip Calçado sent me this very cool video with Linus talking about Git at Google. It’s a must have to see video. It’s funny to see him joking on CVS and making fun of Subvertion, too radical but, you know, that’s his character.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8[/youtube]

Oi Mobile launches campaign against operator’s lock on phones

Oi, one of the biggest mobile operators in Brazil, recently launched a big campaign, called “Bloqueio Não“, against the lock that some operators apply on their phones so that customers get stuck with them for a long period of time. The lock on mobile phones is a very common practice that telecom companies does around the world, so they can get their pay back from the discount they provide to their subscribers. So you can buy a brand new phone for almost nothing, but for that you need to sign or renew your contract for a period of two years or more.

Anyway, I’ve never saw an initiative like this one from Oi, that put the other Brazilian operators against the fence, they created a website where you can sign an electronic petition against “the lock” and you can also send a message to your operator complaining about it.

It’s a very bold move, that already get a lot of positive feedback from the users and some attention from the media, Oi is investing a lot of money on promoting this campaign using a lot of big Brazilian actors and stars on the ads, including the soccer popstar, Ronaldinho. The campaign was created by NBS agency.

Bloqueio Não Website:
http://www.bloqueionao.com.br/

Brazilian Mobile Operators Market Share:
http://www.teleco.com.br/en/en_mshare.asp

New Ask.com design

Last week Ask.com launched a new layout and some new features they are calling Ask 3D. Sometimes we are only checking on news about Yahoo and Google and we forget about the fourth player in the US market, Ask.com.

Unfortunately we don’t have Ask.com in Brazil, but is good to see that they are moving forward and innovating without copying Google and Yahoo moves. This new Ask.com is really good looking, the 3 panels are really useful, besides the fact that I think this is something for advanced users other than the average search user. They’ve added some new features that were available on the beta site, Askx.com, and there are a lot of new features, Check it out the complete list in here. And there is a interesting post at the Ask.com blog that talk about the transition from Askx to Ask 3D.

One of the coolest features is the improved “Binoculars“, which allow you to preview the website with larger images. Here is the image from a search for Globo.com

As Ask executives stated, the redesign may not take market share away from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, but it can increases the number of time the current users visit the site. Recently, in an interview to the Business 2.0 magazine, Jim Lanzone stated that Ask.com is focused on improving the search results, rather than on distractions like e-mail or blog services. “If we grow one point of market share, that translates to about 15 percent revenue growth,” Lanzone said.

New RealPlayer to add downloading features

RealNetworks announced today that a new version of the RealPlayer will be launched in June – no specific date yet – and that this new player will have a lot of new features for the online video aficionados.

The most important feature is the on click download, that allow any user o download very easily almost any video available on the Internet. You can name it, You Tube, Google Video, Dabber, Blip.tv, MSN video, Apple trailers, all with on click. It can even record streaming videos (rtsp and mms, not only http streaming) and you can even close your browser because it will download/record the content in background.

That’s really some awesome news coming from Real, after a long time with zero innovation to the RealPlayer, and this is exactly what the users want right now. I am just concerned about the reaction of the big media companies on this matter, Real will have some legal workout to do, or they need to step up and show some business model where the content owners can get their share of money.

Check it out the interview with Jeff Chase (VP for RealPlayer at RealNetworks), it’s a shame that the interviewer doesn’t even know what is the Rhapsody service, but the demo is worth it.

Official post at the RealPlayer’s Blog:
http://rws-blog.rhapsody.com/realplayer/