Issue 156 - Friday, 27th May 2016 - Bolvia

• Oracle loses its big deal court case against Google
• Lenovo disappointed with how its purchase of Motorola is going
• Facebook and Microsoft run their own trans-Atlantic fibre cable

• An explanation as to how the internet works - from the ocean to the last mile

NEWS

Oracle loses its big deal court case against Google I didn't mention this whilst the case was ongoing, but Oracle sued Google over its use of Java APIs in Android, hoping to get a slice of Android's revenue. The litigation ended last night, after a two week trial, with a jury finding that Google's use of the Java APIs in Android is fair use and Oracle has to just live with it. Oracle is gonna appeal though, so it's not quite over yet. Discuss

Lenovo disappointed with how its purchase of Motorola is going Lenovo purchased Motorola off Google back in 2014 and recently said during its financial reports that it's disappointed with how the acquisition went. Nobody wants to buy Motorola phones apparently, with Chinese sales plummeting 85% and North American sales not much better. Lenovo wanted to use the Motorola acquisition to challenge Samsung and LG, but that didn't eventuate. Poor Motorola, they sucked, then they sucked at Google, now they suck at Lenovo. Discuss

Facebook and Microsoft run their own trans-Atlantic fibre cable Microsoft and Facebook have pooled their resources to build their own trans-Atlantic fibre optic cable, MAREA. Normally these things are done by telcos and resold to whoever wants the bandwidth. But Facebook and Microsoft shift so much data between the US and Europe, that it ends up being more cost effective just to run the cable themselves (outsourced to a submarine cabling company of course). Google has laid a few, but this is Facebook and Microsoft's first. Discuss

COOL SHIT

An explanation as to how the internet works - from the ocean to the last mile You probably noticed that I'm kinda interested in the infrastructure that makes the internet work, so this piece from Arstechnica explaining how the electrical pulses from your computer get to other computers and back again is something I just had to share. Lots of nice pictures too, I really recommend reading it so you can grasp just what an amazing, yet convoluted invention this internet thing is. Discuss

Here endeth the sizzle (until Monday!) --Anthony