Microsoft, Software giant, is in talks to buy Israel's 3DV Systems, a maker of three-dimensional video imaging, financial website TheMarker.com reported on Tuesday.
3DV Systems develops virtual reality imaging technology for digital cameras it sells, called ZCams. Its main target is the gaming market, TheMarker.com said.
It added that Microsoft planned to use 3DV Systems' technology in its own gaming technology, such as in the Xbox 360.
Gary Parkinson had a torrid time when he converted to Linux. Here he shares his experiences with one of the alternatives to Microsoft's ubiquitous operating system.
It's Saturday afternoon and I should be lying on the sofa sipping sweet tea and watching Football Focus.
Instead, I'm stamping loudly round the living room swearing like a sailor, looking for a cat to kick and cursing a Finnish computer programmer whose name meant nothing to me only days before.
The source of all this disquiet sits on the coffee table looking defiant yet lovely.
It's £370 worth of brand spanking new laptop, sleek glossy black, 10 inches wide, give or take, and weighs about the same as a chunky hardback novel.
Hippy ideals
It's not the machine itself that's driving me to violence, but the operating system that controls its programs and hardware: Linux.
Linux is an alternative to operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Mac's OS X and has been around since the early 1990s.
It's creator Linus Torvalds - then a 21-year-old University of Helsinki student - made the heart of his operating system absolutely free and open source, which means anyone can still download the code and tweak it as they see fit.
This kind of hippy philosophy behind Linux - that free access to software inspires development driven by need, not the need for cash - was the main attraction to me of choosing a Linux-fuelled machine over the Windows or Mac OS.
It's a muscular system too. The likes of Amazon and Google, and plenty of other household-name companies, are increasingly turning to Linux to run important parts of their businesses.
Look and feel
My requirements are more modest. It needs to let me surf the web, word process and manage the music that I listen to on an iPod.
First impressions of Linux were positive. The new machine, an Asus Eee, came pre-installed with a distribution, or flavour, of Linux called Xandros.
Because Linux is open source, different programmers have taken its kernel, or core, and written variations on the theme. They may use the same base code, but the desktops look and feel very different.
Some will seem much more familiar to those used to Windows or OS X than others.
There's half a dozen or so popular "distros", including the likes of Fedora, Mandriva and the one I prefer, Ubuntu.
Xandros worked right out of the box. Like most distros it includes Open Office, an open source copycat of Microsoft Office. Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations are no problem.
Linux-based computers won't run the software that you may be used to on Windows or a Mac - but there are free, Linux-compatible versions of pretty much any program you may want that can be downloaded from the internet.
Xandros connected to the net through my home wireless network at the first time of asking. And surfing was fast and easy.
Freedom to fiddle
There were a couple of things about Xandros which I didn't like.
The music management program - its "iTunes", if you like - let me listen to music and podcasts on my new laptop but wouldn't sync anything I loaded on to my iPod. Big problem for a music and podcast junkie.
Plus the desktop - the way the screen looks, the icons it uses to open programs - looks like it's been designed by a four-year-old with a fat crayon. It's may be down to personal taste, but I just don't like the way Xandros looks.
One of the (many) great things about Linux is that if you don't like a particular distro you can just change it for one you do by downloading it from the internet and installing it on the machine.
If you don't like that one either, just keep trying distros until you find one to your taste.
A quick trip to the local newsagent yielded a Linux magazine that included instructions on how to change distros and free CD with Mandriva and Ubuntu on it.
CD into disk drive, hit the escape key right after power up, boot up from the disk not the hard drive as usual, follow the simple instructions to install and 10 minutes later my computer screen looks completely different and much more like what I'm used to. A doddle.
Except now the internet wireless connection doesn't work and the music management software still won't let me sync with my iPod. Mmmmmm......
Like most journalists, I've the attention span and patience of a gnat. The air turns blue and I inform my wife loudly that Linus Torvalds has much to answer for (I paraphrase slightly).
Another great thing about Linux is the plethora of internet forums that you can sign up to where users can share tips and experience. My new machine may not be connected but luckily my wife's computer is. Couple of quick registrations later and I'm picking through the discussion boards for answers.
Text-based
Trouble is, the people populating these forums seem much cleverer than I am. On another planet, in fact. I may not be a good bet to be one to discover the cure for cancer, but I pride myself that not a (complete) fool either.
But I'm completely stumped by the instructions posted on these sites. The level of assumed knowledge is way above my head. I follow a couple of suggestions, try to connect to my router using an ethernet cable, download code that promises to set things right. And fail.
Ubuntu's own website isn't much help either. It suggests that with this particular machine it can sometimes help to whip out the battery, give it a couple of minutes, whack it back in, plug in an ethernet cable and get on line first that way. Nada.
Perhaps I am a complete fool after all.
It's probably worth mentioning one other important point about Linux here. It's a text-based operating system, which means that a fair few of the things you may want to tell your computer to do - installing certain new software, for example - requires you to open up a "terminal window" and actually type text into the little window.
It's a bit like the way all hackers in Hollywood movies furiously crash out lines of incomprehensible text on their laptops when they're trying to bust into the Pentagon's defence network.
As someone used solely to double-clicking on pretty pictures to do most anything on a computer this is pretty hairy stuff.
Tech support
True to form when I'm too stupid to figure out how to do something in five minutes, I phone an expert.
Geek Squad, a tech support service partnered with the Carphone Warehouse, is more used to dealing with problems with broadband and e-mail but later that night, Agent Jamie Pedder walks me through it over the phone.
Download a couple of bits of code from one of the Linux help sites on to a memory stick. Whack the memory stick into the offending laptop.
Bang a couple of lines of code into the terminal window to tell the machine to install what we've downloaded. Bingo, we're cooking on gas.
Ubuntu's running my wireless network and I'm back on-line. Easy when you know how.
The fly in the ointment remains the music management software. I still can't sync an iPod and Agent Pedder reckons that I probably won't be able to - for now at least.
While Linux is founded on the philosophy of free and easy access to its code for anyone who's interested, Apple is not. That means no iTunes for Linux, and nor is Apple likely to release such a version.
The iPod out of action is a major irritation, but I've not given up hope. There's software out there - free for Linux users as always - that promises to do what I want. I just haven't got round to downloading and playing with it yet.
For the time being, it's back to the trusty CD player. All this talk of hippy ideals has put me right in the mood for a bit of Sgt Pepper's.
Twirling galaxies, exotic nebulae and exploding stars are now just a mouse click away for amateur astronomers.
Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes.
Linux and Unix software from Microsoft? That will be one of the upshots of Microsoft's proposed buyout of Fast Search & Transfer, Microsoft officials said today. But that doesn't mean you'll see Microsoft software shifting platforms.
"You shouldn't expect to see SharePoint running on Unix," according to Kirk Koenigsbauer, general manager of Microsoft's SharePoint Business Group.
"Speaking of Linux and Unix, some people may be (mis)interpreting our continued support and investment in these platforms as a broader change for Microsoft -- so here's some color. We're making a pragmatic decision to continue to delight a core part of Fast's customer base that has chosen the Linux/Unix OS. You can bet that we'll innovate on Windows, too, and over time we hope customers will see .NET as a preferred platform choice," Koenigsbauer wrote in a blog entry on Microsoft's Web site today.Microsoft officials first announced the completed settlement of its tender offer for Fast during the company's quarterly financial conference call yesterday. It then followed up this morning with a press release confirming the completed settlement, while also touching briefly on what kinds of future search products to expect under the Microsoft brand, and how the acquired search firm will fit into the Microsoft's structure.
In a teleconference held in January to announce the Fast acquisition, Microsoft officials said that the firm's technology will be used in conjunction with Microsoft's SharePoint portal for more scalable enterprise searches -- across billions of documents -- than the millions of documents now covered by SharePoint's built-in search capabilities.
According to the press release issued by Microsoft today, Fast will now become a Microsoft subsidiary, presided over by John Markus Lervik, who will move from his current role as Fast's CEO to new the job of corporate VP of enterprise search at Microsoft. Working at a new "dedicated enterprise research and development center" in Fast's home base of Oslo, Norway, the new Microsoft arm will also develop "further innovation" across "Windows as well [as] Linux and Unix."
The new subsidiary will work on development of a "comprehensive portfolio of enterprise search offerings," to include a new product called Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Fast's existing ESP product, which already runs on Linux and Unix.
Elaborating in his blog post today, Koenigsbauer said that Fast's ESP is suited to "both internal and customer-facing scenarios."
"By bringing together our two companies, customers will no longer have to compromise when evaluating the enterprise search solution that's best for them," according to Koenigsbauer. "We can now meet all their needs no matter how basic or complex: Search Server Express available as a free download; SharePoint offers search integrated with other business productivity tools; and for those with highly sophisticated needs, Fast ESP provides best-in-class capabilities for the most demanding search applications in both internal and customer-facing scenarios. And, you can be assured that with our expanded team in place, we'll be in an even better position to continue innovation across all three products, including Fast ESP on Linux and Unix."
Meanwhile, through a controversial agreement unveiled in late 2006, Microsoft is now working with Linux software distributor Novell on about ten different "interoperability" initiatives, although none of them come anywhere close to search technology thus far.
Also during the conference call in January, Microsoft officials acknowledged they had been talking with Fast about using the acquired search company's technology for searches in the wider arena of the Web. For some time now, Microsoft has been avidly pursuing a stronger Web-based search and ad platform to better position itself versus Google, Yahoo, and other rivals.
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