[H]ardNews 9th Edition - Blair's Tech Ed

MS Might License Xbox Software?

Bill Gates is saying that he “might” license the Xbox software to other companies. What this means isn’t clear but imagine the possibilities.

The U.S. software company is considering offering "the basic software" for Xbox, although no decision has been made, Microsoft Japan spokesman Kazushi Okabe said Thursday, confirming the Gates' comments reported in Thursday's editions of Japan's top business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

Judge Won’t Toss SCO Suit Out…Yet:

The judge in the SCO versus Novell case says that it is too early to toss the case. Hell, I didn’t think it was ever to early to toss a SCO lawsuit.

In his ruling Monday, Kimball refused to let Novell off the hook despite having previously raised doubts about whether any copyrights were transferred and finding merit in the competing ownership claims of both companies. Given that, Novell argued it couldn't have acted with malice in making its ownership claim.

Self Driving Cars…Again:

On one hand we have VW trying to design a self driving car. On the other hand, we have the searing memory of the driverless race DARPA, where not one single car even finished the race, burned into our brains. I’ll stick to my trusty human driven car for now.

By designing a vehicle that can drive itself, it may look like the engineers at Volkswagen are going off on some strange but entertaining tangent.