chipanalyst.com

Tomorrow Skype is going up against GPL in court over an infringement Skype made with GPL licensed software after selling Voip Wifi phones that used operating system Linux to the public in February 2007.

Initially Skype didn’t respond to this allegation until GPL filed for a preliminary injunction, which was issued for June. Skype then appealed the case, so the court date tomorrow is to debate the appeal.  Interesting enough Skype is fighting against the validity of GPL as a whole, saying that it breaks anti-trust regulations, and other claims.

There’s a new Window’s browser for phones called Skyfire. It’s been modified to be quite fast, and comes with features like Flash, which in reviews is said to work quite well. The Skyfire server makes online pages into image form allowing it to scroll around pretty fast and easily, but also makes it a little choppy for zooming in and out.

Sounds like it plays YouTube videos more like fast slide-shows than videos. Even though a lot of it has to do with bandwidth speed, it’s not the best quality in the world. So if you’re already using something like the iPhone Safari browser, no sense in switching, but if not Skyfire does get the job done.

Some interesting news I just ran into is about the 2007 wiretapping statistics (the ‘non-secret’ ones). They show that the number of wiretaps have gone up 20% since the 2006. Mainly good has come from this for law enforcement officers, and for the general safety of the public. 81 percent of the targets were those involved in drug related crimes, while 6 percent were used to catch people involved with murder and assault.

By wiretapping these wireless devices, law enforcement officers have been able to make some big drug busts. Including one where they were able to arrest 105 people, and another that led to the confiscation of 40 pounds of methamphetamine, 4 kilos of cocaine, and $700,000.

Many people complain about this being an ‘invasion of privacy’ but if you’re not doing anything illegal you probably don’t have to worry about it, and if they can catch dozens of drug traffickers by tapping their phones, then more power to them. I hope they have even greater success this year.