Google co-founder Sergey Brin said during an interview published on Sunday that Apple and Facebook pose serious threats to Internet freedom because of their closed approaches to software. While speaking with The Guardian, Brin said there are ”very powerful forces that have lined up against the open Internet on all sides and around the world. I am more worried than I have been in the past. It’s scary.” The executive pointed to the “walled-garden” philosophy that sees companies li...

Google CEO Larry Page stated in a blog post on Thursday that the company’s Android platform is “on fire.” The CEO boasted that there are now more than 850,000 Android devices activated each day through a network of 55 manufacturers and more than 300 carriers. Page called Android a “tremendous example of the power of partnership, and it just gets better with each version.” He went on to explain his excitement for the Motorola acquisition and “the opportunities to build grea...

While speaking at HP’s global partner summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman discussed her company’s strategy moving forward, further emphasizing the potential of the now open-source webOS platform. Whitman is already on record saying that webOS offers big benefits compared to iOS (which is closed) and Android (which is fragmented), and now the chief executive is pushing things a step further. ”I think there is room for another operating system,” Whitman sai...

Android may be an open source operating system, but it’s not as open as other platforms according to a new research report from VisionMobile. The research firm compared Android, Eclipse, Firefox, the Linux kernel, MeeGo, Qt and Symbian and found that, of those open source environments, Android was the least “open.” According to the report’s “open governance index,” which scored each environment on how open it is, Android scored a 23%. It was far below the others; Eclipse sc...

The “is Android open?” question is one that constantly fades in and out of focus on blogs and in the tech media. The latest snippet that will undoubtedly reinvigorate the argument was revealed this past weekend, and this time it’s not a pretty one for Google. As part of Skyhook Wireless’ lawsuit against Google, which alleges that the company interfered with a contract that placed its services on Android phones sold by Motorola, several internal emails have been made public by a Massa...

Looking to assuage the previously expressed concerns of some lawmakers, Chinese telecom juggernaut Huawei is asking for a formal U.S. government investigation into its businesses. Huawei is looking to sell its equipment to United States companies, but has been met by heavy political headwinds. Our company is asking for this investigation ”in an effort to reach a clear and accurate conclusion,” writes Huawei.“Efforts to do business in the United States in the past 10 years had been hurt by ...

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson gave a keynote presentation at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, during which he shared some interesting thoughts surrounding Apple’s iOS App Store. Stephenson expressed some distaste for the way Apple’s application ecosystem is set up at the moment, saying customers shouldn’t have to lose all of their apps if they switch to a device other than the iPhone. “You purchase an app for one operating system, and if you want it on another device or platform, yo...

One day after the launch of the Nexus S, the source code for the device’s operating system — Android 2.3 — is being pushed to the Android Open Source Project’s (AOSP) master branch. In a blog post, AOSP engineer Jean-Baptiste M. Queru noted that he was in the throws of getting the code in place. Mr. Queru does however offer this warning:Even though Nexus S is designed to be suitable for AOSP work, there  are some caveats. I very strongly recommend against trying to use  Nexus S for...

“Apple today announced that the Mac App Store will open for business on Thursday, January 6.” That is the opening line of a press release fresh out of Cupertino. The new service announced back in October offers developers a 70-30 split in revenues for applications sold and looks to mimic the utility and ease of the iOS-based App Store on the desktop.“The App Store revolutionized mobile apps,” quipped Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs. “We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by mak...

Alright, we don’t want to get everyone all riled up on a Monday morning, but this next bit of speculative news is pretty exciting. Recently, a gentlemen by the name of Alvaro Fuentes Vasquez let go a pretty exciting tweet. The 160 character quip, which was written in Español, roughly translates as:Prepare your Nexus One (Developer version) for Android OTA update 2.3 (Gingerbread) for the next few days :-DA quick look at Mr. Vasquez’s LinkedIn profile reveals the following position:Leadership team...

Hulu Plus, a premium Web-based video streaming service, is now available to the public. Rob Wong, product director for Hulu Plus, made the announcement Thursday on the company’s blog, saying the service is now available without need for an invitation. Hulu provides a service that allows users to stream movies and TV episodes for free to computers. Hulu Plus, which costs $9.99 each month (for the time being, at least), offers enhancements such as additional content and the ability to stream to more devic...

According to the Economic Times, India’s government has asked the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) to send a notice to RIM, Skype, and Google requesting that each service open its email and other communication data to the Indian government. The data must be presented in a format that is readable by security and intelligence agencies and has given each company 15 days to comply with this request.  If a company fails to meet this deadline, it risks being banned or blocked by the government of India...

Back in 2008 after its legal woes with Apple began, Psystar, seller of Mac clones, was seeking out the support of investors in an effort to secure $24 million to continue development, expansion and “compete directly against Apple.” The reason that Psystar was seeking such a large amount of funding had to do with its sales projections which were clearly not grounded in reality. According to ComputerWorld:Under its conservative projections, Psystar told investors it would sell 70,000 computers in 20...

Making a mobile OS “open” is one thing, but this is unlike anything we’ve seen to date. The Symbian Foundation — the newly formed group charged with bringing Nokia’s ever-popular OS into the 21st century — needs your help. Finding a way to update that aged UI is a bit trying we presume (though we wouldn’t mind seeing TAT finally give it a shot) so Scott Weiss, the Symbian Foundation’s UI Technology Manager, has officially opened the UI conversation to the world....