Geekness - closer to the world » Uncategorized

@HTC removes Desire Kernel Sources?

CoCaman — Sun, 23 May 2010 10:31:20 +0000

Hey @htc, where did the Desire kernel sources go? Just 9 days after releasing, you removed them? Why? Afraid of people simply creating a 2.2 ROM out of the Nexus One Vanilla Rom and your sources? I am pretty confident, Sense UI needs little change for Android 2.2 aka Froyo.

In case anybody wants the sources, I have a backup.

Google to buy Global IP Solutions from Norway

CoCaman — Tue, 18 May 2010 06:18:26 +0000

Google just informed that they are acquiring Norway based “Global IP Solutions” for close to 69 mio USD. What is Global IP Solutions?

Global IP Solutions offers IP based communication services for Samsung, LG and other device manufacturers. So this buy is definitely for Android, Google Voice and other IP based communications tools from Google. One of the most interesting products is the video conferencing system. Wouldn’t it be cool to have video chat on your Android device?

Full press release

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (18 May, 2010) – Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Global IP Solutions (GIPS) Holding AB (publ) (OSE:GIPS) today announced that they have entered into a transaction agreement under which Google Acquisition Holdings Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Google, will make a recommended voluntary public cash offer to acquire all the issued and to be issued shares of GIPS for NOK 13.0 (USD 2.12) in cash per share, or an aggregate price of approximately NOK 421 million (USD 68.2 million) based on the currently issued and outstanding share capital of GIPS.

“The Web is evolving quickly as a development platform, and real-time video and audio communication over the Internet are becoming important new tools for users,” said Rian Liebenberg, Engineering Director at Google. “GIPS’s technology provides high quality, real-time audio and video over an IP network, and we’re looking forward to working with the GIPS team at Google to continue innovating for the Web platform.”

“This is an exciting milestone for GIPS as we join Google with a shared vision to transform and accelerate IP communications,” said Emerick Woods, Global IP Solutions CEO. “With Google’s global reach, scale and widely recognized leadership, we are confident that our existing customers will continue to be fully supported while we continue to enhance and extend our products and technology at Google.”

The offer price represents a premium of 142.1% over the closing share price of GIPS stock (adjusted for the rights issue in GIPS completed in March 2010) on January 11, 2010, the last trading day prior to GIPS making a public announcement of strategic interest from a potential buyer, a premium of 170.8% over the subscription price per share of GIPS stock in the last rights offering completed in March 2010 and a premium of 27.5% compared to the closing share price on 14 May, 2010, the last trading day prior to the offeror’s public announcement of its intention to make the offer. Furthermore, the offer price represents a premium of 54.6% compared to the adjusted volume weighted average market price for the last three month period prior to the announcement of the transaction.

The completion of the offer will be subject to the satisfaction or waiver by the offeror of customary conditions, including acceptance of the offer by the holders of at least 90% of the GIPS share capital on a fully diluted basis. The transaction is not currently expected to require approval by competition authorities in any jurisdiction. The offer will not be subject to any financing condition and will be funded from Google’s existing cash resources.

Following the successful completion of the offer, the offeror intends to cause GIPS to submit an application to delist the GIPS stock from the Oslo Stock Exchange and to initiate compulsory acquisition proceedings with respect to the remaining minority shareholdings in GIPS in accordance with Swedish law.

An offer document setting forth in detail the terms of the offer is expected to be published and distributed to all GIPS shareholders on or about 20 May, 2010, following review and approval by the Oslo Stock Exchange. The expiration date of the offer is expected to be on or about 4 June, 2010, as it may be extended by the offeror in accordance with the offer document and applicable law. In the event the conditions to the offer are not satisfied or waived by the offeror prior to 31 August, 2010, the offer will lapse.

Based on the information provided on the date hereof, the board of directors of GIPS has made a resolution to recommend the offer. The statutory required statement from the board of directors of GIPS will be included in the offer document. Certain GIPS shareholders, including Kistefos Venture Capital AS and Kistefos Venture Capital II DA, have irrevocably committed to accept the offer with respect to approximately 50% of the outstanding shares and votes of GIPS.

GIPS has entered into a transaction agreement with Google which, among other things, regulates the offer process, imposes restrictions on certain actions by GIPS outside the ordinary course of business and contains non-solicitation provisions. The transaction agreement also provides that the board of directors of GIPS may only withdraw its recommendation on certain terms and conditions.

SEB Enskilda is acting as Google’s sole strategic and financial advisor in the transaction and as the receiving agent for the offer. ABG Sundal Collier Norge ASA is acting as financial advisor to the GIPS board of directors.
The description contained herein is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell shares of GIPS. On or about 19 May, 2010, the offeror plans to publish and distribute to all GIPS shareholders of record an offer document setting forth the terms of the offer. The offer document will contain important information about the offeror, GIPS, the transaction and related matters. Investors and GIPS shareholders are urged to read the offer document carefully when it becomes available. Investors will be able to obtain free copies of the offer document by contacting SEB Enskilda, the receiving agent for the offer, at +47 21008500 or by visiting www.sebenskilda.no.
The offer will not be made in any jurisdiction in which the making of the offer would not be in compliance with the laws of such jurisdiction.

About Global IP Solutions
Global IP Solutions (GIPS) provides best-in-class voice and video processing in IP communications. GIPS enables its customers to deliver unmatched quality, with a faster time to market and less risk than alternative solutions. GIPS serves application developers, service providers, and network equipment vendors. Its customer list includes Nortel, Oracle, Samsung, WebEx, Yahoo!, AOL and other key players in the VoIP market. The company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Stockholm, Boston and Hong Kong. More information at www.gipscorp.com.

About Google Inc.
Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets. Google’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.
Caution Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
This document includes certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the expected timing of the transaction, Google’s and GIPS’s ability to complete the transaction, and the expected benefits of the transaction. These statements are based on the current expectations or beliefs of managements of Google and GIPS and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the statements herein due to (1) changes in economic, business, competitive, technological and/or regulatory factors, (2) failure to receive required approvals for the transaction, (3) failure to compete successfully in a highly competitive and rapidly changing marketplace, (4) failure to retain key employees, and (5) other factors affecting the operation of the respective businesses of Google and GIPS. More detailed information about these and other factors that may affect current expectations may be found in filings by Google with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including Google’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, and in filings by GIPS with the Oslo Stock Exchange, including GIPS’s most recent annual and quarterly reports. Google and GIPS are under no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any such obligation to, update or alter their respective forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Protestieren Sie beim BAKOM gegen CI+!

CoCaman — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:04:34 +0000

Cablecom will als Alternative zur aktuellen Set-Top-Box das System CI+ einführen. Damit macht sie unter unserem Druck auf die Entschlüsselung der digitalen Fernsehsignale einen Schlenker: die Signale sollen neu durch eine Karte für Fr. 99.-, die man in den Fernseher schiebt, entschlüsselt werden. Jedoch: CI+ wird von den allermeisten aktuellen Fernsehern nicht unterstützt und beschneidet Ihre Fernsehfreiheit massiv.

Das Bundesamt für Kommunikation (BAKOM) hat es in der Hand, CI+ zu untersagen. Es hat eine Gesetzesänderung zur Abschaffung des Boxenzwangs vorgelegt. In einer Stellungnahme verlangt die SKS, die Grundverschlüsselung zu verbieten. Oder im Minimum den internationalen Standard CI vorzuschreiben.

Unterstützen Sie uns dabei! Bis am 10. Mai kann nämlich jeder dem BAKOM seine Meinung zur vorliegenden Gesetzesänderung senden. Wir haben hierzu im Internet eine Musterstellungnahme vorbereitet. Helfen Sie mit und senden Sie diese ans BAKOM!

Am besten fügen Sie noch ein/zwei Sätze zu Ihrer persönlichen Situation ein. Denn das BAKOM muss begreifen, wie die Realität in Ihrem Wohnzimmer aussieht!

Weitere Infos finden Sie in unserer Medienmitteilung und unter www.grundverschluesselung.ch. Streuen Sie die Information in Ihrem Bekanntenkreis oder auf Internetforen. Denn nur gemeinsam können wir etwas erreichen!

Vielen Dank für Ihre Unterstützung.

VoIP-Telefonie mit iPhone und Sipcall

CoCaman — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:15:12 +0000

[Trigami-Review]

Wer erinnert sich nicht, als vor 3 Jahren das iPhone präsentiert wurde, und sofort die Frage auftauchte, ob man wohl auch übers Internet damit telefonieren konnte. Lange Zeit war dies jedoch nicht möglich. Viele Telekommunikationsunternehmen wie die Swisscom, T-Mobile und andere haben VoIP-Software auf dem iPhone verboten. Und dank den Kontrollen von Apple im App-Store waren keine Internet-Telefonie-Software verfügbar. Doch glücklicherweise hat sich dies im Laufe der Zeit geändert. Nun erlauben die Anbieter solche Software. Mit Sipcall und ihrer iPhone VoIP Applikation lässt sich auch bequem im Schweizer Markt telefonieren. Einfach die Software aus dem App-Store herunterladen (Kosten: Fr. 1.10), anmelden oder einloggen und drauflos telefonieren. Und dabei noch bares Geld sparen.
Gemäss Berechnungen von Sipcall lassen sich mit der iPhone App bis zu 40% Kosten sparen. Als kleines Willkommensgeschenk gibt es sogar noch 5.- aufs Sipcall Konto.

Einige Features der neuen VoIP App von Sipcall

Über 3G (UMTS), EDGE oder WLAN zu den günstigen Tarifen von sipcall telefonieren. (Ab neuer 1.2 Version)
Kostenlose sipcall Telefonie mit anderen sipcall iPhone Anwendern.
Im Durchschnitt sparen Sie 40% Ihrer Mobiltelefoniekosten!
Keine hohen Roamingkosten (weltweit ab 1.9 Rp./Min. in die Schweiz telefonieren).
Nutzen Sie Ihr iPhone zu Hause über WLAN als Festnetztelefon.
Telefonieren Sie unterwegs, in Restaurants, in Hotels oder am Flughafen über das UMTS-Mobilnetz oder WiFi-Hotspots.
Startguthaben von CHF 5.-
Die sipcall iPhone Applikation ist schnell und einfach eingerichtet.
Für das sipcall iPhone-Konto fallen keine monatlichen Kosten an

Über die Software lässt sich auch das Kostenkonto aktualisieren und aufladen. Weiter ist jeder Benutzer über eine persönliche Telefonnummer erreichbar. Natürlich gibt es gegen einen monatlichen Betrag von Fr. 1.90 eine Telefonnummer mit einer kantonale Vorwahl.

Die App lässt also keine Wünsche offen. Lediglich die App-Kosten von 1.10 finde ich seltsam. Und persönlich wäre eine SMS-Funktion noch wünschenswert. Und wie genau die Erreichbarkeit funktioniert, kann ich mir nicht vorstellen. Die App müsste ja die ganze Zeit im Hintergrund laufe können. Dies ist jedoch erst ab der iPhone OS Version 4.0 möglich.
Weiter lässt sich nicht herausfinden, wie gross die Datenmenge ist, die beim Telefonieren übertragen wird. Speziell beim Telefonieren über 3G ohne grosses Datenabo kann dies teuer werden.

Adresse für weitere Informationen bei sipcall.ch: http://www.sipcall.ch/d/voip/iphone.php

Galerie

Corsin – Also a Planet in the Star Wars Universe

CoCaman — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:35:43 +0000

Isn’t this something? I know very few people outside of Switzerland named “Corsin” and none in other parts of Europe or the World. But somehow the name made its way to the Star Wars universe.
According to my research, “Corsin” is/was a planet in the Ploo Sector. A Corsin-year is approximately 0.93 earth years. The population is very low with under 41,000 people. But they all are very proud of themselves and of their beautiful planet.

More information on this websites:
Galaxy Map – Planet: Corsin – Star Wars Combine
Wookieepedia

Virtual Terminal for Chromium OS/Google Chrome OS

CoCaman — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:06:37 +0000

So I managed to get Chromium OS on a virtual machine running. Now I am playing around a little bit. I will document my progress here.

First thing, you need to get the virtual console. Do this by clicking CTRL + ALT + T. More commands are on this shortcut list.

Now you have a functional terminal/console.

Netflix Releases Solution Dataset

CoCaman — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:05:31 +0000

The Netflix Prize has been decided for almost three months now and the Grand Prize of one million dollars has been handed over to the winning team(s) BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos on Monday 21st of September. And Netflix has kept their promise to release the solution dataset via the UCI Machine Learning Repository. As of now everybody can download the “judging.txt” file as well as the winning submission.
This could be important for our challenge project because now we have even more data and a subset we can use to verify our data faster than with the current manual cd-burning-and-delivering way.

You can download the three papers of the winning team below.

Y. Koren, “The BellKor Solution to the Netflix Grand Prize”, (2009).

A. Töscher, M. Jahrer, R. Bell, “The BigChaos Solution to the Netflix Grand Prize”, (2009).

M. Piotte, M. Chabbert, “The Pragmatic Theory solution to the Netflix Grand Prize”, (2009).

I have to admit I haven’t fully read them all. But that is on top of my to-do list.

CloudContacts – Recommendation of the Month

CoCaman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:59:12 +0000

I surf a lot, I hear a lot of new ideas and projects. And I see many websites before other people do. And then there are websites, companies or people I am in regular contact but haven’t actually blogged or recommended on my blog. This post is here to present a great website and service I know for quite a while but that hasn’t got the attention it should in Europe and in Switzerland.

CloudContacts

What is CloudContacts?

Basically CloudContacts is a service that scans your business cards, stores them in the cloud and lets you access the data any time with any device. It even connects your contacts to Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and much more. And also it offers a huge variety to export your paper business cards to electronic address books like Gmail, Apple Address Book, Highrise and many, many more.

How does it work?

It is pretty easy actually. All you do is collect your business cards you have sorted or lying around and send them in. Or you can take a photo of your cards and send an email. After sending them CloudContacts will scan and import them to an online address book. From here on you have access to all your contacts 24/7 with your computer, iPhone, Blackberry or PSP (any device with Internet access).

What does it cost?

CloudContacts offers different amounts of volumes. You can send in 100 cards for $29.95 (CHF33 / €22), 300 cards for $79.95 (CHF86 / €57) or 500 cards for $124.95 (CHF134 / €89). For 500 cards that is less than $0.25 each!

What about Swiss Customers?

Do not worry! CloudContacts has already handled customers from Switzerland and will continue to do so. Simply send your cards to the US address and your cards will be scanned in no time.

CloudContacts Voucher

CloudContacts set up a voucher for all readers of this blog. Simply enter
cocaman
in the discount field and you get 5% off your order.

Link to CloudContacts: cloudcontacts.com

Altruism

CoCaman — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:05:04 +0000

Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and central to many religious traditions. This idea was often described as the Golden rule of ethics. Altruism is the opposite of selfishness.

Altruism can be distinguished from feelings of loyalty and duty. Altruism focuses on a motivation to help others or a want to do good without reward, while duty focuses on a moral obligation towards a specific individual (for example, God, a king), a specific organization (for example, a government), or an abstract concept (for example, patriotism etc). Some individuals may feel both altruism and duty, while others may not. Pure altruism is giving without regard to reward or the benefits of recognition.

Source: Wikipedia

OpenExpo 2008 Zurich – Program Announced

CoCaman — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:34:26 +0000

The OpenExpo team just informed the mailing list about the final program of this years OpenExpo in Zurich. And again, it looks very interesting and keeps growing and offering great keynotes and presentation.

I have put together my favorites. But due to other obligations (= studying) I won’t be able to see them all.

Wednesday, September 24

10:00 Keynote: Mozilla – Between Chaos and Order Tristan Nitot, Mozilla Europe
11:50 Community Architecture for Fun and Profit Max Spevack, Red Hat/Fedora Project
15:10 Distributed Computing mit Apache Hadoop Bernd Fondermann, brainlounge, Apache Software Foundation

Thursday, September 25

11:10 Eins, zwei, OpenOffice.org 3 Jacqueline Rahemipour, OpenOffice.org
10:30 Do You Believe in the Users? Brian Fitzpatrick, Google, Inc.
13:10 Behind the Scenes of The Apache Software Foundation Lars Eilebrecht, The Apache Software Foundation
15:50 Open Source Virtualization Kris Buytaert, Inuits

Detailed information and abstracts can be found on the OpenExpo website.

Let me know what events you would like to see!

No Related Posts

Firefox Ubiquity – A Comand Line Interface for your Browser

CoCaman — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:41:08 +0000

I have just discovered ubiquity for Firefox. It is something like a command line interface for your favorite browser. After installation you can hit CTRL+X and a small window shows up in which you can type in some commands.

Commands

google
Performs a Google search. The google command allows you to search Google. Just select whatever text you want to Google and run the command.
translate to swedish Translate the selected text to Swedish.
translate to spanish Translate the selected text to Spanish.
translate to russian Translate the selected text to Russian.
translate to romanian Translate the selected text to Romanian.
translate to portuguese Translate the selected text to Portugese.
translate to polish Translate the selected text to Polish.
translate to norwegian Translate the selected text to Norwegian.
translate to korean Translate the selected text to Korean.
translate to japanese Translate the selected text to Japanese.
translate to italian Translate the selected text to Italian.
translate to hindi Translate the selected text to Hindi.
translate to greek Translate the selected text to Greek.
translate to german Translate the selected text to German.
translate to french Translate the selected text to French.
translate to finnish Translate the selected text to Finnish.
translate to english Translate the selected text to English.
translate to dutch Translate the selected text to Dutch.
translate to danish Translate the selected text to Danish.
translate to chinese traditional Translate the selected text to Chinese (Traditional).
translate to chinese Translate the selected text to Chinese.
translate to arabic Translate the selected text to Arabic.
next song Play the next song from FoxyTunes.
previous song Play the previous song from FoxyTunes.
pause song Pause the song from FoxyTunes.
play song Play the song from FoxyTunes.
lyrics Show the lyrics.
del icio us Bookmark this page with del.icio.us.
help Show this help.
editor Display ubiquity for self defined commands.
zoom Zoom out.
scale firefox down Makes text smalle.
inject snapshot ??
populate with microformat
detect microformat Displays detected microformats an page.
translate to fake swedish Translates to fake Swedish.
display word cloud
reset word cloud
capture word cloud
get sel
perm delete
remove annotations
save
undelete
delete
inject datejs
javascript console
inspect
fade page
inject jquery
map
test
get email address Searches your address book for email addresses of your contacts.
last mail Displays last received emial.
check calendar Display your today’s events.
send
add to google calendar
email Emails the selected text.
is address
unedit page
edit page
define
calculate
am i drunk I like that
signature Inserts your signature in a textarea.
escape html entities
link to wikipedia
to html
to rich text
highlight
redo
undo
underline
italic
bold
map it Redirects to Google Maps with the selected address
imdb Searches iMDb for the selected text.

Most of the features require to have text selected. But once you figured that out it works great. And the translations work inline, so the selected text is translated on the page. This remains me of a project I had a few years ago: IBT – In Browser Translation.
You really should give it a try. It has some nice features

Why the Linux World is Geeky

CoCaman — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:22:56 +0000

CC BY-NC-SA occ4m

I am sitting in a class room on my holiday and getting taught about LPI1. Most of the time we read man pages. And there you see how crazy software engineers are. Little example?

man date
%p – locale’s equivalent of either AM or PM; blank if not known
%P – like %p, but lower case

Really, the big letter P is used to lowercase the output of the little letter p…

mv to rename a file
mv

less is more than more

nl add line numbers to all lines

kill can not kill zombies.
The are already dead. Just like in real life…

But of course, for “normal” users – aka Windows Switchers – this all does not really matter.

Webtuesday July 2008 – Lightning Talks

CoCaman — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:32:47 +0000

This month’s Webtuesday was a little special. Instead of one hour long presentation, Tristan Woerth organized “lightning talks“.
I’ve managed to “edit” and upload the videos to Viddler (recommended by Hugo Schotman) and they look okay. Maybe I need a HD camera ??

Patrice Neff: Service Oriented Architecture

Hugo’s video

Harry Fuecks: RESTful Thumbnailing Technique

Hugo’s video

Tristan Woerth: Relational Databases – Or Not

Hugo’s video

Cédric Hüsler: Perceived Performance – Perceived Render Time

Hugo’s video

Axel Beckert: IkiWiki

Hugo’s video

Vasile Cotovanu: Google Maps

Hugo’s video

Toni Birrer: Splunk

Hugo’s video

TechCrunch Meet Up Zurich 2008

CoCaman — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:57:27 +0000

Update July 18th: My videos are live!

Mike is coming! Yes, the TechCrunch Mike. No, not that Mike, but Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK.
Dominik Grolimund from the Swiss Startup wuala (news) has organized the first TechCrunch meetup in Zurich. I am sorry to say that this event is by invitation only, but you can be sure I will report back all the dirt and news about the startups that are presenting on July 17th at the Bluewin Tower in Zurich. Among those startups are:

Wuala, Your Free Online Hard-Disk (I have invites!)
Amazee, social collaboration platform
Procedural, 3D City Virtualization
LiberoVision, Realistic Virtual Replays
Doodle, Easy Scheduling
NewsCred, (I have invites!)
Zattoo, TV meets PC

If you are a Switzerland based startup and want to present, please get in touch with Dominik (email: dominik AT wua.la) and send a short summary, logo and that stuff.

I really hope this meet up will help the world to understand that Switzerland has some great startup and will maybe start to be a little bit more interested in our company culture. And I still like the idea of DemoCamps … Dominik, we have to talk

iPhone at Orange Switzerland Prices: Not before July 11th

CoCaman — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:30:25 +0000

After the iPhone prices from Swisscom came in today I contacted Orange and asked for prices. Their statement: Not before July 11th. How ridiculous is that? But he said they will be in the same price range, maybe with a little bit more data volume. It was also confirmed to me, that all iPhones will be SIM-Locked by both, Orange and Swisscom. The Orange guy was also surprised that Swisscom sells the device with no monthly plan for a pretty good price.

Stay tuned, I will try to find out more as soon as possible.

Update, July 2nd 18:52: Orange, you will loose!
Definitely no prices before July 11th.