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Today’s topics include Intel’s return to a European Union court to fight a $1.4 billion antitrust fine, the FAA’s finalized commercial drone rules, the addition of new business-oriented features to Drobox’s cloud storage service, and Docker’s launch of its containers-as-a-service management and orchestration software.
Intel is continuing to fight the $1.4 billion fine levied seven years ago by European regulators who said the giant chip maker used its dominant market position to illegally try to keep PC makers from using processors from rival Advanced Micro Devices.
Two years after the company lost its bid in the European Union General Court to have the fine overturned or lowered, Intel lawyers are back in court arguing that the European Commission was wrong when it ruled that Intel acted improperly in offering loyalty rebates to PC makers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Lenovo and NEC between 2002 and 2005 to buy 95 percent of the chips for their systems from Intel.
In addition, Intel was accused of putting stringent restrictions on the other 5 percent of PCs not using its processors and of paying Media-Saturn, a retail chain in Germany, to only sell systems powered by Intel chips.
The Federal Aviation Administration has finalized its long-awaited commercial drone rules that allow businesses to use drones weighing up to 55 pounds for aerial photography, agricultural work, construction site surveys and other uses. However, related rules that could allow package delivery are still not ready.
The FAA’s new regulations, formally called the Part 107 Rule, will now allow businesses to use small unmanned aircraft systems, commonly referred to as drones, to expand their operations and develop new technologies while operating in the nation’s airspace, according to the agency. The Part 107 Rule will take effect in August.
Dropbox, continuing its market share battle with Box, Microsoft, Google and several smaller players, released on June 22 a set of new business-oriented features designed to make it easier to move files in and out of its cloud storage service and to search for content.
One of the new capabilities that its competitors do not have is an optical character recognition scanning tool within Dropbox’s mobile application that enables business users to scan documents with their iPhones and upload the content directly to their Dropbox accounts. This not only saves time and allows for fewer attack surfaces for potential hackers, it makes the documents keyword searchable.
This scanner and other tools are available for iOS users only at this point.
Docker Datacenter, the new commercial platform that enables containers as a service for the open-source Docker application container platform, is now available on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform via Azure Marketplace. The announcement was made June 21, during the last day of DockerCon 16 conference in Seattle, a stone’s throw from Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters.
As Docker container use has grown, so has the event’s profile among developers, IT professionals and industry watchers.
Other DockerCon 16 highlights included the integration of container orchestration technology directly into Docker Engine 1.12 and new Internet of things development tools for IBM’s OpenWhisk serverless computing platform, which uses Docker.