By Vic DaSilva
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Capturing the essence of open source software, a group of students in Copenhagen posted a beer recipe on the Internet and invited everyone to develop, brew and sell their product. The open source beer is an experiment in applying modern open source ideas and methods on a traditional real-world product. The beer is called “Vores Øl,” which means “Our Beer,” which is a traditionally brewed beer that is enhanced with guarana, for its natural caffeine boosting properties. Version 1.0 is a medium strong beer (6% vol) with a deep golden red color and an original but familiar taste. The students have also designed a bottle, a label for the beer and developed a marketing campaign. The recipe and the whole brand of Our Beer is published under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to use their recipe to brew the beer or to create a derivative of their recipe.

“You are free to earn money from Our Beer, but you have to publish the recipe under the same license (e.g. on your website or on our forum) and credit our work. You can use all our design and branding elements, and are free to change them at will provided you publish your changes under the same license.”

They are hoping with development of the recipe that perhaps one day it will become the Linux of beers

For the recipe and more info Source: Toronto Star

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

The escape pods I usually think of are, of course, futuristic ones like in Star Trek (say the ones on Voyager that they used and then seemingly had re-appear the next episode. Much like their unending supply of shuttlecraft).

After watching a documentary on 9/11, Jonathan Shimshoni and a team inventors in Israel developed a system that could be lowered like lifeboats over the side of a skyscraper. The invention was demoed in Tel Aviv to much positive praise, including the landlord of a Manhattan skyscraper, who offered his property for a pilot test.

However, the NYC Office of Emergency Services was not so kind. They sent Shimsoni a letter saying the project was unworthy of the necessary building permits. However, he’s not yet discouraged.

Shimshoni believes public opinion and political pull could change the city’s position.

He also says he has the backing of advocacy groups for the disabled, which believe his system would improve the chances of survival for people in wheelchairs. And he has received letters of endorsement from city council members, including Yvette Clarke, chairwoman of the fire services committee, who checked out the prototype on a trip to Israel.

“I personally rode on the system and was amazed,” Clarke wrote. Source: CNN

You can see a video here.

We Say: This looks promising. I understand it’s expensive, but compared to the cost of a skyscaper … what I mean is that if installed when the skyscaper was built, it would be a very small percentage of the overall cost. So new high-rises (I think) should just incorporate this into planning. For retrofitting, it would be tougher to scrape up the $$$, but I think it should be given a real look.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

An entry yesterday on the Google Base Blog reveals plans to allow people to buy and sell items on Google Base using their Google Accounts. By the way, apparently signing up for a Google Account doesn’t give you Gmail, but the reverse seems to be the case. I never signed up for a Google Account but I seem to have one, and it uses the password from my Gmail account.

For buyers, this feature will provide a convenient and secure way to purchase Google Base items by credit card. For sellers, this feature integrates transaction processing with Google Base item management.

We’re starting with a very small number of sellers and we expect to include more over the next several months. If you’re a seller and you’re interested in getting an announcement when this feature is generally available, let us know. And if you want to know how this functionality relates to Google’s broader work in payments, read this update. We hope this feature will make it even easier for people to use Google Base to post and distribute a wide range of content, whether information for sharing or goods for sale. Source: Google Base Blog

We Say: There was speculation about Google both moving into CraigsList and eBay territory with Google Base, and it looks like it’s started. I haven’t really used Google Base much and some searches today (so that I can see what’s out there) didn’t find anything that looks like it’s linked into this service yet, but I’ll search more later.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Readers may recall our earlier story on AOL and Yahoo (AOL will be first) starting email postage services, which will result in email thus postmarked being treated differently, bypassing the spam filters and being labeled “AOL Certified E-mail” in AOL’s case. The liberal political group MoveOn.org started a petition drive on Thursday that asks AOL to halt its plans.

The online petition was emailed to all 3 million MoveOn.org members on Wednesday, Adam Green, spokesman for the political group’s Civic Action unit, said. MoveOn.org members who also subscribed to AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc, were sent the petition last week.

MoveOn.org plans to hold a news conference on Tuesday to unveil a number of organizations that have joined it in opposing AOL’s pay-to-send system, Green said. Those groups include political organizations from the left and the right, nonprofits, businesses and Internet advocacy groups. Source: TechWeb via Yahoo! News

We Say: MoveOn.org targeted AOL because after conversations with both companies, it was discovered Yahoo was more tentative on its plans (reflected in our earlier story, as well). There were many critics when the earlier story first posted. Honestly … I signed the petition. ‘Nuff said?

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

What is the Origami Project? Where’s Waldo? Who Watches the Watchmen (Sorry, I had to throw that in; it’s one of my favorite graphic novels of all time)? Microsoft has registered a website called “The Origami Project“, and rumors abound as to its meaning. Taking a page out of Apple’s secrecy book, there’s a video there that’s cryptic, at best.

But what we’re hearing now is that Origami might be little more than a new code name for an ultra-portable device that Microsoft demonstrated last year at its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference. (Since Microsoft is continually changing code names to keep company watchers guessing, such a move would not be unprecedented.)

The original “Haiku” device was described as an ultra-portable mini-Tablet when the first prototypes made their public debut. The systems, as described Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, would weigh about a pound, feature a battery that could hold a charge for a full day, and integrate a camera, a phone and a music device in a single form factor. Source: PC Magazine via Yahoo! News

We Say: For some reason I keep confusing The Origami Project with The Dharma Initiative. Note that an alternative name being kicked around right now is the OrPod.

Leaving out gaming consoles, aside from mice and keyboards, Microsoft hasn’t really done that well with hardware, so I’m not all that excited. On the other hand, the teaser at the site would make sense if the rumors are true. Microsoft promises more info on March 2.

By David Johnston
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Has it been that long already? A decade is a long time, especially in the computer gaming industry. From 1995 to 2005 we’ve seen some tremendous advances in the industry on all fronts. One series that has always been leading the way in the real-time strategy genre is Command & Conquer. The series started out in 1995 with the original Command & Conquer game and has had 5 major releases between then and 2003 (not including the many, many expansion packs): Red Alert, Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2, Renegade, and Generals. Each of the games has brought something new to the table. A larger arsenal of weapons, updated graphics or gameplay, and even different worlds. The original Command & Conquer as well as Tiberian Sun and Renegade are set in a less Earth-like world whereas Red Alert is a kind of alternate history of the World (set in the Cold War period) and Generals is set in the near-future.
More

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

The U.S. District Judge ruling over the RIM and NTP case, James Spencer, did not issue an immediate ruling over the popular BlackBerry service.

During the hearing, lawyers for NTP asked Spencer to issue an updated $126 million judgment as soon as possible against the BlackBerry manufacturer, covering all of the devices it says infringed NTP patents through November of last year. They also called for an injunction against RIM’s U.S. service.

Spencer did not rule from the bench, saying he would take the matter under advisement. He said he expected to release an order related to the damages before releasing one related to the injunction.

He also scolded the companies for not coming to a settlement on their own.Source: News.com

And, in other news from the patent office, a second final rejection has been issued by the Patent Office, two days after issuing the first. There are three other patents in the re-examination process, but those could take months or even years to complete. NTP’s lawyers Friday asked Spencer to award it $126 million in damages related to the infringement of its patents, but the judge will probably not rule on that today. Source: News.com.

By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Despite Apple shutting down a pair of MacOS for PC sites, it didn’t take long for 10.4.5 to be cracked. The 10.4.5 update was released last week … besides including some fixes it also included more code to prevent running on non-Apple PCs, but today a hacker named Maxxuss released a patch which updates MacOS to 10.4.5 and enables it to run on non-Apple Intel-based PCs.

According to his blog, there are still some issues with AMD CPUs and iTunes, as well as with DVD Playback and ATI SSE2. However, this is still pretty remarkable.

We Say: Honestly, as soon as Apple announced plans to move to Intel-based Macs, most people felt these type of hacks would only be a matter of time, and despite Apple trying to stop it, it looks like enterprising hackers will continue this every time they make a release. Maybe they should look at it this way: maybe there will be more Mac programmers coming from countries that can’t afford real Apple hardware.