Microsoft alternatives + more news

Microsoft alternatives

EU stumbles on buying Microsoft alternatives – The European Commission, a thorn in Microsoft’s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) side for its antitrust campaigns against the software giant, is falling short in its own internal attempt to promote Microsoft alternatives – this isn’t surprising. The open source community have failed with desktop Linux and Office type programmes. Google has managed to do better with web services based alternatives to Office in certain use cases. Munich city government have vacillated for almost a decade on using open source as Microsoft alternatives. Apple provides an OS, but has no Microsoft alternatives for Excel, OneNote or Visual Basic.

China

In changing face of Beijing, a look at the new China – International Herald Tribune

Consumer behaviour

Teen Lab at Alcatel-Lucent: Teens Say Music on Mobiles is Still a Challenge: Mobile Accessories Results Part One

Culture

Coco Wang – cool comic strips based around the individual stories of the Sichuan earthquake

Design

Unto This Last – interesting furniture

Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth – NYTimes.com – A squarer PET milk bottle with ridged sides allows thems to be stacked without a crate and packed 50 per cent more densely. They can be shipped on a pallet bound with cardboard and shrink wrap stacked several units high. Fewer delivery runs are required

Panasonic swivelling HDMI cables – Really nice, clever design

Economics

Eastern Europe: The Worst is Yet to Come – Seeking Alpha

How to

Three Truths to Help You Create a Life of Gratitude | Zen Habits

How to Reduce Camera Shake – 6 Techniques

Scanr – copy and fax with your camera phone or digital camera – handy for pulling in business cards or the contents of a whiteboard

Apple lends scientists a hand with productivity tutorials

Great looking presentations made easy with PowerPoint 2008

Ideas

apophenia: markers of status: different, and yet the same – danah boyd responds to Clay Shirky’s article

Bored With Web 2.0? Demand Change – ReadWriteWeb

Slate Magazine – Long Tails and Big Heads – Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory picks up some critics

Innovation

KVOA News 4, Tucson, Arizona – Can the U.S. Bring Jobs Back from China? – its all about the eco-system

The Environmental Impact of Corn-Based Plastics: Scientific American

Pulling the Plug: Summer of ’08 Sparks Creative Conservation – WSJ.com – Americans get cool on the cheap

Shrinking chip could keep us on track with Moore’s law – tech – 10 July 2008 – New Scientist Tech

Online

Google easily extending dominance to mobile search market

Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo – earn outs have kicked in. However there is still a wealth of talent over in Sunnyvale

Yahoo Boardroom Brawl? | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD – on and on

Yahoo: We’re Not Shutting Down Yet! (YHOO) – but the fact that it had to said isn’t encouraging

Berners-Lee lays in to traditional search

LinkedIn and The Strange Case of The Disappearing Market – ReadWriteWeb

Google sees an online world of over a trillion images, wants to organize them all » VentureBeat

Guardian Media Group Buys paidContent for $30 Million | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD – Kara got the scoop on the deal

Yahoo, Sony extend ad-funded games offerings – Brand Republic News – Brand Republic

Ballmer: Google Won – But It’s Still All About Search, Baby | paidContent.org – I am inclined to agree with him in terms of search being a wider metaphor of interface for information on and off a device

Intel won’t touch Vista – The INQUIRER

ffmpegX a video transcoder for Mac OSX – very handy for posting on video sites

Seven things you need to know about Nokia-Symbian deal