legacy

As we headed to a Disney preview of toys and gear for the upcoming "Tron" movie sequel, "Tron Legacy," we were reminded of what Yogurt said in "Spaceballs": "Merchandising, merchandising!"

While we're as excited about Disney's upcoming "Tron" sequel as anybody, it's clear the merchandising push will be fierce and all-encompassing. But if our preview of a few of the upcoming items is any indication, some of them are actually kind of cool, too.

Among the very many pieces of Tron gear available for your shopping pleasure … Read more

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., better known as the maker of Subaru automobiles, announced that it has completed the development of a new driver aid system called "New EyeSight." The New EyeSight setup is based on Subaru's current old EyeSight system, which debuted in May 2008 and has been available since then in Japanese Subaru vehicles; it features dual forward-facing cameras to give the vehicle stereoscopic vision for pedestrian detection. The new rig integrates with the other driver assist systems to improve overall vehicle safety. How come we never see this sort of tech in Subaru's North … Read more

With Java investments in the billions over the last dozen years, it's a safe bet that enterprise companies won't be replacing these systems any time soon. In fact, one could claim Java usage is growing in spite of best efforts to claim otherwise by aficionados of Ruby, PHP, Python, Groovy, Scala, and other dynamic languages.

Red Hat for example reports that its JBoss Java middleware is its fastest growing business. IBM remains heavily invested in its WebSphere Java middleware. And let's not forget Oracle, which not only has the Sun brand (and ergo Java) pending but last year added BEA to the fold.

Java application platforms have been so focused on scalability and efficiency of database-driven applications that they've often ignored what's evolved in the consumer Web: rich user environments, better interactivity, and a mixing of content and data, collaboration and social features--all with much more personal control and empowerment. Efforts like JavaFX have been interesting if not ready for prime time.

But Java is hardly irrelevant, and Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo Platform, thinks he can change exactly the perception that Java can't be Web 2.0 hip. eXo, which just opened its first U.S. office, is hoping to remake Java from stodgy to socially aware by combining powerful REST-based common services with rich Web 2.0 apps to get the most out of so-called legacy Java apps.

eXo counts a number of very smart people with deep Java roots in their court to make this happen including: Bob Bickel, a founder of Bluestone Software, former head of HP Middleware and former JBoss head of strategy; Edwin Khodabakchian, founder of Collaxa and former VP of Product Management at Oracle; and Sacha Labourey, longtime JBoss CTO and former co-GM of Red Hat Middleware. … Read more

I remember the first time I ran into Windows in 1995. It was in one of the few small computer shops in Hanoi, Vietnam, where you had to pay money to use the machines. Being a high school student with absolutely no money, I made friends with the owner and helped him clean up the place just so I could use the computers after-hours. And I spent many hours using them.

Compared with what I had known, namely MS DOS, Windows 95 was truly revolutionary. I loved the support for long file names and marveled at the Start menu, the Taskbar, and the Control Panel. Everything made so much sense then, as it still does to this day.

Now, after having used Windows 7 exclusively for about four months on my PCs and even on my Mac, I realized that the impression Windows 95 made on me was far stronger than that of Windows 7 (or any other Windows).

Don't get me wrong. This is not a Windows 7-bashing article. Windows 7 is undoubtedly the most advanced and probably the best Windows ever. However, after 14 years, I think it's time Windows offered something more original than just improving and thriving on the success of Windows 95.

This is why when I saw the "I am a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" ads, I just wanted to jump into panel to ask the presumptuous-looking guy, "What is your idea, dude, really? What's really new?" (And speaking of original, come on Microsoft! You can do better than imitating Apple's painfully old and goofy, "I am a Mac, I am a PC" ads!)

So, strictly from a user's point of view, here are my ideas for how Windows could be better. … Read more

Subaru's booth at the 2009 SEMA Show is located directly in front of the entrance to the show's Central Hall. And, wow, does it make a good first impression.

The first thing that you see upon passing through the doors is the towering 400-horsepower TRAX STI and its equally imposing sleigh trailer--built by none other than Subaru enthusiast numero uno, Ken Block. After finding our way around (or under) this massive one-off snowmobile, the rest of Subaru's offerings seemed a bit mild, yet were still impressive in their own ways.

For example, a VIP-styled Legacy sedan featured … Read more

Jeremy Toeman is unveiling on Tuesday a simple, clever, and very different kind of backup service.

Legacy Locker simply backs up the passwords and access codes to your online accounts. When you die, it gives that information to the people you designate.

I got this concept in half a second: if I go, I cannot imagine the trouble my wife would have trying to untangle my financial and e-mail accounts and deal with my contacts on my social networks, not to mention controlling the disposition of some online assets I own, like domain names.

The idea with Legacy Locker is … Read more

Mac OS 7 which, also known as System 7 (Wikipedia), has begun a port process to the iPhone.

According to the Web site: "Welcome to the MacOS iPhone Project! We are Dedicated to putting MacOS on the iPhone. We hope to be launching the code soon, but we are wanting [sic] to complete something before fully releasing stuff, so please bare with us! But heres [sic] what we have [been] working [on] so far."

The team goes on to describe some of its work. The most difficult issue so far: getting the System 7 cursor working with the … Read more

By her own admission, Maria Shriver is not techy.

Confusing hardware for software and feeling like a fish out of water while speaking at the Adobe Max conference in San Francisco, California's first lady is seemingly more comfortable talking about education and history--anything other than technology.

Regardless, Shriver has lent her name and efforts to a rather sophisticated online educational tool for students of state history called "The California Legacy Trails." In my brief one-on-one interview with her, we talked about her inspiration for creating the program (Boston's Freedom Trail); who it's targeted for (the … Read more