Beyond Binary

Adoption of Windows 7 continues to grow, with the weeks-old operating system accounting for 4 percent of PCs accessing the Web over the past weekend, according to Net Applications.

By contrast, it took Windows Vista seven months to reach that level, the Web-monitoring firm said in a report.

"The early anticipation and high expectations for Windows 7 seem to have been warranted," Net Applications Executive Vice President Vince Vizzaccaro said in an e-mail.

One of the key questions, though, is whether Windows 7 will help Microsoft regain share from Apple, Vizzaccaro said. "Can Windows 7 stop the slow Windows decline, or even reverse it? I think we'll see that answer develop in the next few months," he said.

A week ago, Net Applications noted that Windows 7 use had topped 3 percent. The new operating system tends to do better on weekends, the time when consumer use accounts for more of the market and then share dips back somewhat as the work week starts.

Windows 7 went on sale October 22, though it was already topping 2 percent market share in Net Applications' daily tracking statistics even before its official debut.

Market researcher NPD said last week that boxed copy sales of Windows 7 were also outpacing those of Windows Vista in its initial days on the market.

Microsoft has also said it is seeing strong interest from businesses, although typically corporations take many months to test a new operating system before deploying it widely.

At TechEd Europe, Microsoft talked about enterprise adoption of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, highlighting some early customers of the two products.

"We remain just pleased and humbled by the very warm reception we're seeing," Windows Vice President Tami Reller said in a Webcast on Monday.

Microsoft has halted distribution of its Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool after questions were raised as to whether the software utility makes improper use of open-source code. The tool is designed to help owners of Windows XP-based Netbooks get Windows 7 onto their machines.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has halted distribution of a tool aimed at making it easier to put Windows 7 on Netbooks amid allegations that the utility makes improper use of open-source code.

The software maker said on Tuesday that it has pulled down the Windows USB/DVD Tool while it investigates the issue, which was raised last week by Windows blogger Rafael Rivera on his Within Windows blog.

In his blog post, Rivera said Microsoft appears to use code from a tool called ImageMaster that is licensed under the GPLv2 open-source license. The General Public License, like other open-source licenses, allows code to be freely used by others, but has its own set of terms and conditions, such as sharing any modifications made to the code.

Microsoft confirmed it has launched a review of the matter and taken the utility off its online Microsoft Store until that inquiry has been completed.

"Microsoft is looking into this issue and is taking down the (Windows 7 updating) tool from the Microsoft Store site until its review is complete," the company said in a statement. "We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience."

Though somewhat arcane, the utility is important because it solves a technical challenge in upgrading the operating system on Netbooks and other PCs without an optical drive.

Microsoft had been exploring for months different ways of trying to help users of Windows XP-based Netbooks move to Windows 7. The tool, which was released last month alongside Windows 7, allows users to take a downloadable copy of the operating system and create a bootable drive.

The issue is also a thorn in Microsoft's efforts to show that it can play nice with the open-source community. As ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley notes, this isn't the first time Microsoft has been accused of misusing GPL code.

The latest dust-up comes as Microsoft is celebrating the third anniversary of its deal with Novell, one of Microsoft's biggest--and most controversial--efforts to blend its world with the open-source world.

Under that deal, Microsoft agreed not to sue Novell customers for their use of its Linux distributions.

Microsoft has also released a number of products under various open-source licenses itself, though typically not under the GPL, which it sees as one of the more restrictive licenses. Redmond has been particularly critical of terms in version 3 of the GPL.

The software maker did release a few Linux drivers under GPLv2, although it appears its hand may have been forced there. Some have suggested the drivers contained GPL code, meaning that they would have necessarily needed to be released back under the GPL.

Microsoft has taken a number of different approaches to open-source software, particularly Linux. The software maker has at times accepted the notion of a heterogeneous world where Linux and Windows co-exist, pledging to do better to make sure IT administrators can manage mixed environments.

At other times, Microsoft executives have lashed out, painting open-source software as violating hundreds of Microsoft patents. In its lawsuit against TomTom earlier this year, Microsoft for the first time made those accusations in court, alleging that TomTom's implementation of Linux in its GPS systems infringed on Microsoft patents. The two companies quickly settled the matter, although terms were not disclosed.

Microsoft made two enterprise moves on Monday, one expected and the other a bit of a surprise.

As promised, the company used its TechEd event in Berlin to release Exchange 2010, the latest version of its e-mail and calendar server software. Microsoft finalized the code for the product last month and had said it would launch at TechEd.

Microsoft VP Tami Reller talks about enterprise adoption of Windows 7 as part of a Webcast held after the first day of TechEd Europe.

(Credit: CNET News)

Meanwhile, the company also announced it is buying the Teamprise technology from SourceGear. Teamprise allows developers using Eclipse and those working on non-Windows operating systems to build applications using Microsoft's Visual Studio product.

"We know our customers face daily challenges with management, collaboration and development in heterogeneous environments. The industry must take steps to make interoperability a stronger business asset for our customers," senior vice president and developer unit head S. Somasegar said in a statement. "With the acquisition of the Teamprise assets, we're taking a step forward on this journey, providing customers with a viable cross-platform development solution that will help produce business results more quickly."

Microsoft didn't announce financial terms of the deal, but did say the Teamprise technology will be integrated into Visual Studio 2010.

At TechEd Europe, Microsoft also talked about enterprise adoption of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, highlighting some early customers of the two products.

"We remain just pleased and humbled by the very warm reception we're seeing," Microsoft vice president Tami Reller said in a Webcast on Monday.

As part of the same Webcast, senior vice president Chris Capossela sounded off on Cisco's announcement of updated collaboration tools that could take on Exchange.

"Rather than stitching together acquired products and calling that a solution, we've built Exchange form the ground up," he said.

Vitamin D, a start-up formed by three ex-Palm executives, is releasing a public beta of software that consumers can use to detect human motion in their security cameras and create rules on what to do when someone is spotted coming or going.

(Credit: Vitamin D)

The great thing about security cameras is the fact that they let you record things without needing to have a human being physically there.

The downside is that, in most cases, it takes a human being to figure out whether there is anything interesting there. Sure, there is motion-sensing technology, but such systems are often fooled by animals, cars, or even by a tree rustling in the wind.

Three former Palm executives think they have some software that could help shake things up. Their company, Vitamin D, is releasing a public beta on Monday of software that can detect and isolate human motion, potentially allowing the growing number of surveillance cameras out there to be a whole lot more useful.

The software, which works on either PCs or Macs, puts a yellow box around any human motion it detects and can be further refined to show only someone coming or going from a particular area--say entering or leaving through a particular door. The software is designed to work with any IP camera or even an inexpensive Web cam.

Getting in the surveillance game is admittedly a bit of a shift for early Palm employees Greg Shirai and Rob Haitani--two guys who have spent most of their careers creating consumer gadgets.

But, after years of listening to Palm and Handspring founder Jeff Hawkins talk about his brain research, Shirai and Haitani, along with Celeste Baranksi, another ex-Palm executive, thought they had a way to make a business out of it. "We were always fascinated by what Jeff was doing," Shirai said. Vitamin D's software is powered by artificial intelligence technology licensed from Hawkins' Numenta start-up.

Shirai and Haitani say they are starting with the security camera industry because that's the first application the technology can be used in. But over time, they hope to refine the technology such that it can have broader uses, such as powering object-based search within video streams.

Haitani gave a preview of the technology at this year's Demo conference. There's also a video of the technology in action on Vitamin D's Web site.

Using artificial intelligence makes the system remarkably adaptable, Haitani said, something that is not the case even with very high-end systems that use various rules to try to identify humans.

Vitamin D's software, for example, is able to pick out two people carrying a lawn mower, someone crawling, or even a person pushing a stroller--all shapes that don't look a lot like what an algorithm might think of as human.

"You can see how the shape-based rules quickly break down," Haitani said.

The technology isn't perfect. It isn't well suited to nighttime work, or anything where there isn't sufficient light. "We actually would not do well in poorly lit scenes," Shirai said.

Shirai and Haitani have been using the software at their homes and office to try it out. They haven't caught any thieves yet, though there was one scare, Shirai said.

He noticed a group of people struggling at the company's front door early one morning.

"I thought, oh my gosh, there are these people breaking into our office," Shirai said. In reality, he had found something far less sinister--what time his office's cleaning crew came each day.

Haitani said he also learned that his house is frequented by hummingbirds when he is not there. "Apparently my front lawn is this crossing path," he said.

For those who have security cameras, particularly consumers and small businesses, Vitamin D's software can offer significant time savings. Going through all the motions detected in hundreds of hours of video--even if one only spends 5 seconds on each clip--could require hours of work. By contrast, narrowing it down to just humans might cut that workload down to just minutes, as the two demonstrated last week, showing me examples from their collection of surveillance tapes.

The software will be free during the public beta, though the company hopes to start charging for a final version in the first half of next year.

Other potential customers could be law enforcement or even the intelligence community. Indeed, In-Q-Tel, the investment vehicle for the intelligence community, is among Vitamin D's early investors, along with HTC, the cell phone maker that Haitani and Shirai know well from their Palm days.

Bert and Ernie shared space on Google's home page on Friday with an ad for Motorola's Droid, the Verizon Wireless smartphone that went on sale on Friday.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ina Fried/CNET News)

As the newsroom's biggest Sesame Street fan, I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight the tribute Google paid to the PBS show this week, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary.

On Wednesday, Big Bird's feet and lower body graced the home page, while Thursday saw Cookie Monster nibbling on the Google logo. On Friday, Bert and Ernie served as the O's in Google.

But Bert and Ernie had to share the home page on Friday, as Google also used a front-page link to tout the new Motorola Droid smartphone that went on sale at Verizon Wireless stores.

Although such promotional pitches aren't the norm for its homepage, Google has used them in the past to tout the Chrome browser as well as the first Android phone, T-Mobile's G1.

Big Bird's feet served as the "L" in the Google logo on Wednesday, as the search giant kicked off its tribute to Sesame Street.

(Credit: Google)

As for the Sesame Street "doodles," Google Vice President Marissa Mayer noted that "many Googlers grew up on Sesame Street."

"We're delighted to have partnered with Sesame Street to create this special series of doodles, particularly since we share the same values of education, diversity, and accessibility," Mayer said in a blog posting.

Lest anyone doubt my devotion to the show, here's a video interview I did with Elmo Live, when that toy came out last year.

Aiming to reinforce its medical pedigree, Microsoft next week is launching a video show on developments in the health care technology arena.

Bill Crounse

(Credit: Microsoft)

The show's host, Bill Crounse, senior director of worldwide health at Microsoft, is a veteran of both broadcasting and medicine, having served as a broadcaster and practicing physician before joining Microsoft. In a chat on Friday, Crounse promised that the show itself won't be an ad for Microsoft's health care software, though the company is sponsoring the first few episodes with some short commercials.

"It's about demonstrating our investment and commitment to the industry and wanting to be seen, obviously, as a player and a thought leader," Crounse said.

The original concept was for a 10-minute show, though the first episode, set to be broken up into six chapters, debuting November 10, ended up lasting for 45 minutes.

Among the guests are Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, who talks about the role technology can play in expanding access to health care, along with Cornelia Ruland, a nurse in Norway who developed a video game for chronically ill young children that helps them better communicate their experience.

Crounse said the goal is to tell stories to which people can relate. Another segment in the first show focuses on a service called MyHalo, which Chris Otto launched after his own family's experience dealing with an elderly relative.

Otto created a wearable device that people can use to do some physiological monitoring and also detect if someone falls.

"It lets loved ones go online and see how grandma is doing," Crounse said. In the show, Otto demonstrates how the service works by taking a spill in the show's studio.

Crounse, who got his start in television by hosting a Tacoma, Wash.-area variety show when he was 17, said he is aiming for a new episode to be produced monthly, with a goal being to attract sponsors other than Microsoft. For him, it is a chance to mix a bit of his passion for TV in with his day job, which is helping coordinate Microsoft's companywide efforts in the health care field.

"We're investing as deeply in health and health care as anything else these days," Crounse said, noting that Microsoft has gone from having 20 people focused on health care to more than 1,000 people in the time he has been with the company. The company's main products include its HealthVault personal health record and its Amalga products, which health systems can use to coordinate their data.

When I wrote on Monday about the ins and outs of what counts as proper licensing of Windows 7, I was worried that it might turn into a flame war. But, instead, readers sent in a whole bunch of really good questions on the intricacies of licensing Windows 7 that went beyond the basics I had covered.

Things like dual-boot machines and systems with beta versions of the operating system raise all sorts of interesting licensing challenges.

Before we dive into the edge cases, though, here's a recap of the basics on Windows 7.

For those upgrading their PC, they can choose from Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate editions. There is also a family pack that includes three upgrade licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium.

Many people will have to do what is known as a custom or "clean" installation, which involves backing up one's data, installing Windows 7, then restoring the data and re-installing all applications.

All users of XP will have to go this route, as will those moving from a 32-bit version of Vista to a 64-bit version of Windows 7 (or vice versa), as well as those who are moving from a higher-end version of Windows Vista to a lower-end version of Windows 7.

Those moving from Windows Vista to the same version of Windows 7 (or to Ultimate) can do what is known as an "in-place" upgrade, which preserves files and applications.

Anyway, on to the tough cases. Here are some of the questions that readers sent me, as well as the answers I heard back from Microsoft.

Q: I installed the release candidate version of Windows 7 on a reformatted hard drive that previously had Windows Vista installed. Can I use the Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade version to install a licensed copy?
A: Yes. You can do a custom installation ("clean install") to Windows 7 using the upgrade. The Windows 7 installer will detect you have the RC installed, enabling you to do this.

Q: Try as I might, I haven't been able to find any reliable information on whether I can upgrade from Vista Home Premium Edition (that came with my HP Laptop) straight to Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate, or whether it is only possible to upgrade from "Vista Home Premium" to "Windows 7 Home Premium."
A: You can do an in-place upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate, provided you aren't switching from 32-bit to 64-bit or vice versa. Going from Home Premium to professional, however, requires a custom installation. (For a chart of which versions can be done via in-place upgrades, check out this Microsoft Web page.)

Q: I have Vista Basic on two computers and XP on the other one. So all I would have to do is use a Windows 7 upgrade disc on all three computers? Does one disc do one computer or will it do all three? I live in Canada, not the U.S.
A: In both the U.S. and Canada, your best bet is probably the Windows 7 family pack, which offers a license to upgrade up to three PCs.

Q: Can you use an upgrade disk to run XP (or Vista) in dual-boot (meaning that one partition or hard drive has the older operating system and the other partition or drive has Windows 7?
A: Microsoft treats a dual-boot machine as if it were two PCs, so you can only use the upgrade if you are installing over an existing Windows partition. So, unless you have two licenses already on that system, you will need a full copy of Windows 7.

Q: What about upgrading a Mac?
A: In order to qualify to use the upgrade version, Mac owners need to be running a previously licensed full copy of Windows (not just a beta version). That applies whether one they are using Windows in Boot Camp or using a virtualization product like Parallels or VMWare's Fusion.

T-Mobile said on Wednesday that a software glitch was to blame for a massive outage on Tuesday that left many customers unable to send or receive calls or text messages.

"After investigating the cause, we have determined that a back-end system software error had generated abnormal congestion on the network," T-Mobile said in a statement. "T-Mobile has since implemented additional measures to help prevent this from happening in the future."

The wireless service provider did not say which software caused the issue.

"We again apologize to those customers who were affected and may have been inconvenienced," T-Mobile said. I've also asked the carrier what, if any, compensation it plans to give those who were without service.

The service disruption began on Tuesday afternoon and lasted, for some, until late into the evening Pacific Time.

T-Mobile has stated that the outage affected about 5 percent of its users.

T-Mobile customers are still seething after a major outage on Tuesday that left many people across the country unable to text and call their friends and business associates.

The outage, which started Tuesday afternoon and lasted through the evening before being resolved, affected a wide swath of users, though T-Mobile said that only 5 percent of customers were affected. T-Mobile has yet to say what caused the problems.

"Our sole focus during the service disruption on Tuesday was to quickly restore normal service to affected customers," T-Mobile said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are now working to determine the root cause and facts surrounding the interruption."

After CNET News reported on the outage and asked readers to share their experience, dozens of e-mails poured in.

From a husband unable to connect with his pregnant wife, to small-business owners unable to reach clients, to people getting grief for seemingly ignoring text messages from their significant others, people wrote in with their grievances.

Electrician Casey French, of Flower Mound, Texas, said that the outage is a major issue for his business, given that he can't afford to sit in an office with a landline phone.

"This is a catastrophic blow to businesses like mine, losing a day or more of production means losing not only money, but potential new customers, which in this economy are extremely hard to come by already," French said.

T-Mobile, which confirmed the outage Tuesday afternoon, released an updated statement around 5 p.m. PST, saying that "some T-Mobile customers may be experiencing intermittent service disruptions impacting voice and some data services."

However, plenty of folks e-mailed me to say they were having more than intermittent problems.

Around 6:15 p.m., the company said it was making "good progress restoring voice and messaging service to affected customers." The company added that, "at this time, approximately 5 percent of T-Mobile customers are experiencing service disruptions."

From that point, though, another 50 people e-mailed me to say they were still having problems with their service--many saying that they had multiple phones that weren't working as well as friends who were also having problems of one variety or another.

Some questioned T-Mobile's 5 percent estimate, saying that nearly everyone they knew with T-Mobile was experiencing some sort of outage. (As of the second quarter, T-Mobile had 33.5 million subscribers, meaning that even if 5 percent of users were affected, that would still be more than 1.5 million people.)

John Bystrom, of Elk Grove Village, Ill., said he also doubted the 5 percent figure, given the number of people who packed a local store he stopped in to inquire about the outage. Bystrom said he had just switched from AT&T to T-Mobile to get the BlackBerry 8900, but now hopes to switch back to AT&T.

"Hopefully I can get out without being charged the fee since T-Mobile in my opinion has broken the contract first by not delivering a stable system," Bystrom said.

At 10:30 p.m., T-Mobile e-mailed another statement, to say that things had been resolved.

"T-Mobile confirms it has fully restored voice and text/picture messaging services for customers affected by intermittent service disruptions on Tuesday," the company said. "About five percent of our customers across various geographies were affected for much of Tuesday evening, and by late Tuesday PST their service was restored... We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused our customers."

Some took issue with the way T-Mobile handled the outage.

"My frustration with T-Mobile is not that they had an outage, but the way they buried their head in the sand," said Carlos Ovalle, an architect in Long Beach, Calif. "They have just about everyone's email and could have notified us of the issue. Had that been the case I could have immediately notified customers that rely on being able to reach me at a moment's notice."

Clarence Barnes, a TV and radio host in Los Angeles, said he also objected to how T-Mobile managed the issue. "The problem for me was that if you called my phone, it would say 'The number you dialed is no longer in service'," said Barnes who is looking for full-time work after the radio station where he worked switched formats. "If you get that message it generally means that the person no longer has that number or simply didn't pay the bill--either answer doesn't make me look that responsible."

Tuesday's outage is the latest blow for T-Mobile, which is still working through a month-long ordeal for its Sidekick service, in which some customers have lost their address books and many more are still waiting to get back other data, such as calendars, to-do lists, and photos.

Of course, T-Mobile customers are not the only ones with cell phone issues. AT&T customers regularly complain about service problems with their iPhones. An outage last year interrupted service for BlackBerry customers on various networks across North America. Earlier this year a cut fiber line left many AT&T customers in Silicon Valley without service.

On Wednesday, T-Mobile customers by and large had their service back, but many were still looking for answers. Bystrom said that several hours after calling customer care he got a call back offering a $5 credit. "When I protested that it was unacceptable (I) was pretty much told take it or leave it," Bystrom said.