Stories about: Bell Laboratories

The technology behind almost every electronics device in the world, the integrated circuit or IC, celebrated its 50th anniversary on Friday. Its enduring success is thanks in part to two "nice guys" who developed it, and their early efforts to convince an industry that at first reviled their idea.

Although boxing legend George Foreman, a judge on the second-year CBS reality show American Inventor, has yet to invent a network device, his Lean Mean Grilling Fat-Reducing Machine has been used by countless techies to quickly cook sandwiches and hamburgers after a long day in the data center.

At the age of four Jon Maddog Hall stuck the wires from a rabbit-ear television antenna into an electric socket which sent him flying across the room. Acknowledging the power of technology, Hall went on to forge a career and life based around it. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Hall has been the executive director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. He has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer in the Digital Unix marketing group and Bell Laboratories among other companies.

At the age of four Jon Maddog Hall stuck the wires from a rabbit-ear television antenna into an electric socket which sent him flying across the room. Acknowledging the power of technology, Hall went on to forge a career and life based around it. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Hall has been the executive director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. He has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer in the Digital Unix marketing group and Bell Laboratories among other companies. He will be speaking at this year's Linux World Conference to be held in Sydney March 28 to 30. Even though Hall wishes he could have 50 hours in a day and use Star Trek transporters instead of planes to save time, he managed to take the time to speak with Computerworld about his life, open source, Linux International and the upcoming conference.

Novell has appointed former IBM veteran Jeffrey Jaffe as the company's new chief technology officer (CTO). Jaffe, most recently president at Lucent Technologies Inc.'s Bell Laboratories, will head up Novell's technology direction and will lead the company's product business units, according to a Novell announcement Tuesday.

Sleepycat Software is looking seriously at setting up operations in Asia and has ambitious hopes for its XML (Extensible Markup Language) and Java embedded open-source databases. The company introduced version 2.0 of its Berkeley DB Java Edition (JE) Monday.

Voice over IP (VOIP) and open source technology hold great promise for cost savings, but also threaten traditional ways of doing business. Rather than shy away from the challenges that these disruptive technologies represent, Bell Laboratories, the renowned R&D (research and development) arm of Lucent Technologies Inc. in Murray Hill, New Jersey, is attempting to bring them into the mainstream.

Perhaps the decision to name its flagship product after a fictional shipwrecked traveler who spent almost 30 years trapped on a small island was not the best of omens for Transmeta.

Didn't do it. That's the clear message IBM Corp. has sent with its reply to The SCO Group's US$1 billion lawsuit in which it accuses Big Blue of illegally trying to damage Unix to build up Linux.

Caldera Systems, Inc. d/b/a The SCO Group v. International Business Machines Corp. is the first case I could find that involves intellectual property and Linux. At the heart of SCO's complaint are allegations that IBM signed a license to study and use SCO's source code to improve IBM's AIX and that IBM's release of SCO source code to developers has harmed SCO. This is the first time anyone has claimed in a state or federal court that proprietary intellectual property has found its way into Linux. What does this case mean to Linux? Let's find out.

Linux and Unix users and vendors beware: The SCO Group has hired high-voltage attorney David Boies, former antitrust Microsoft slayer, to look into possible violations of SCO's Unix and Linux intellectual property, it said Wednesday.