We all know that high-tech firms do their best to retain valuable employees. Salaries and stock options are just the beginning. There are also awards programs, aid for ongoing education, and many more perks. Some of the industry's biggest companies have the most creative retention programs—for example, Google's laid-back Googleplex workplace is specifically designed to help the company attract and keep the programming cream of the crop.

Given the competition over scarce superprogrammer resources, you would expect high-tech companies to raid each other's cubicle farms like crazy. But according to documents recently made public by the U.S. Department of Justice, that is not the case. In fact, just the opposite has occurred. It appears that top execs at Google, Apple, Pixar, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, and Lucasfilm made gentlemen's agreements not to recruit each other's employees.

According to the documents, the six companies not only agreed not to “poach” employees from each other, but they also agreed not to give employees offers if they applied voluntarily. The companies even agreed to notify each other when employees tried to switch jobs. The agreements were apparently made at the companies' very highest executive levels. For example, the court papers include an e-mail message from Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen to Apple's Steve Jobs titled “Recruitment of Apple Employees.”

The problem with these agreements is that they can be illegal—especially if they are made for the purpose of preventing bidding wars for talent, hindering employees' efforts to negotiate for higher salaries, and artificially keeping compensation low.

The Department of Justice examined the documents in 2010 and negotiated a settlement with the companies. The six companies did not have to admit wrongdoing, but they had to promise to end their illegal hiring practices.

Now a group of employees has launched a class-action suit against the companies. The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for salaried employees who worked for the six companies during a four-year period during the late 2000s. If the suit is successful (or if a settlement is negotiated), a lot of tech workers could receive a lot of money.

The case will be heard starting next week by Judge Lucy H. Koh in United States District Court in San Jose, California.

Web recommendation: This page made me laugh out loud. And the more I poked around the site, the more impressed I was at the resources that were gathered there. J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He is finishing this blog early so he can go for a short walk before the sun sets.

I am writing on January 18, 2012 – SOPA Internet Blackout Day. Today, thousands of Web-site operators have temporarily deleted their pages to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation that is currently under consideration by Congress.

The protest seems to be superfluous. Over the past seven days President Obama has expressed opposition to the proposed bills, the bills' sponsors have removed the DNS-blocking provision that sparked the most concern, and a few former supporters in Congress have responded to Silicon Valley pressure by deleting their names from the list of sponsors.

SOPA and PIPA have been gutted. My prediction is that the bills will not pass. Even if they do, they will be rendered mostly harmless. It's Internet 1, Hollywood 0. Right?

Right...I guess. Sort of.

I've been as vocal a critic of the SOPA bills as anyone. I've warned of the bills' excesses here and here and here. My voice was part of an Internet-wide chorus seeking the legislation's defeat. I have had legitimate concerns about the power the bills would have placed in the hands of copyright holders and government, power to shut down or hamper the operations of Web sites without the burden of due process. I'm a libertarian at heart. I didn't have to think long or hard about my position.

Now that it appears we have won, I'm having second thoughts. If the bills are voted down (or, more likely, die without being put to a vote), the Internet will continue operating as it did before this brouhaha began. YouTube won't have to fear being shut down because a single person posted a video that included snatches of a copyrighted song being played in another room (to cite a persistent straw man from the anti-SOPA handbook). Everything will be hunky-dory.

And...piracy of copyrighted material will continue. It will no doubt continue to become more prevalent. Pirates will continue to become rich by offering access to stolen material. Google, DoubleClick, Clicksor, Pubmatic, AdBrite, Image Space Media, PayPal and other middlemen will get their share of the action. Content creators will continue to get nothing from illegal streaming and download of their work. They will continue to incur the expenses, do the work, create the content, and get nothing.

It isn't right to congratulate ourselves on killing SOPA and going on as if the world is as it should be. We own the Internet, and it is our job to make sure it is a force for good. We have a responsibility to correct inequities. To stop theft.

The Obama administration explained its opposition to SOPA and PIPA in a post at the White House blog. The post's authors wrote this: “[R]ather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right.”

So. What's right?

Web recommendation: Speaking of piracy, here's some food for thought. Click on the embedded video. Yes, it's a bit overlong...but it's a powerful, provocative message. It may just change your mind. J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He is currently reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.

It's a funny thing. Android is the undisputed best-selling mobile operating system, but Android developers seem to suffer from an inferiority complex. Especially when their apps are compared to software that runs on that other platform. You know the one I mean. The highly polished, tightly controlled, immaculately curated, stylistically homogenous, Steve Jobs-inspired iOS platform. Who can compete with that, right? I mean...Jobs was a legend.

Google is addressing the Android development community's stylistic shortcomings with a new Web site. Android Design is an illustrated set of principles for Android 4 developers. Some of site's advice is a little cheesy – it suggests you you consider these goals when designing your app: “Enchant me,” “Simplify my life,” and “Make me amazing.” But as you delve deeper into the site you'll find real, tangible information that will be of great helpfulness in making your apps run and look better on Android.

In particular, the site does a good job of identifying new features of Android 4.x – Ice Cream Sandwich – and explaining how they should be used in apps. Some of Google's advice sheds light on innovative new interface widgets and how they can make apps better, and some is just good sense. But in both cases, the style guidelines serve as important reminders of how consistent style can improve the user experience of platforms and apps.

Bottom line: Android Design is more than just a good idea. It promises to be an essential resource for Android developers.

Web recommendation: IBM researchers have succeeded in storing a bit of information in just 12 atoms. It's unclear how long it will take this innovation to reach the field, if ever, but it's an astonishing achievement. You can read all about it here. J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He wore no shoes during the composition of this post.

The latest Google acquisition is Apture Inc., developer of an innovative search-in-place feature for Web pages.

Apture is the maker of Apture Highlights, a plug-in for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Once the plug-in is installed, users simply double-click or highlight a word or phrase on a Web page. A window then pops up with search results for the highlighted word or phrase. Search results come from YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google and other sources – more than 60 in all. Apture calls it “a glossary for the Web.” (You can see a short video of Apture in action here.)

Why is such a plug-in a good idea? The Apture Web site explains that 30 percent of publishers' outbound traffic is lost to search sites, suggesting that users leave Web pages to research topics they have encountered there. Apture Highlights lets users conduct that research without leaving the page. It's more convenient for users and better for Web-site publishers, who get their users to stick around longer.

A notice at the Apture Web site suggests that Google is acquiring the company in order to integrate in-page search features into its Web browser, Chrome.

I think this acquisition is an encouraging sign that Google is not taking its dominance of Web-search services for granted. In particular, it seems Google recognizes that the Apple iPhone's Siri feature signals a change in the way mobile users conduct online searches.

I installed Apture Highlights to try it out, and after a few hours of use I find that I'm using Chrome's “open link in new tab” feature much less often. I'll let you know if I'm still using Highlights in a few weeks after the novelty has worn off.

Web recommendation: Inc. magazine has called Penelope Trunk “the world's most influential guidance counselor.” I bumped into a thoughtful post on her blog two or three weeks ago and I've reread it a couple times since. The article provides a refreshing perspective on a dilemma that is increasingly common in our industry: When it's OK to take a pay cut. J.D. say check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He gets nostalgic for life in the U.S. now and then.

Digital rights management, or DRM, is a catch-all term that refers to license agreements and technologies intended to protect the rights of content providers from would-be pirates. It is DRM technology that Apple uses, for example, to prevent unlimited duplication of songs from its iTunes store.

I've been looking at tablet computers, including the Amazon Kindle and B&N's recently updated Nook. English-language books are hard to come by here in Serbia, and they're expensive when you find them. So I've been thinking that I should feed my addiction to literature with an e-reader of some kind.

The problem with most e-books is that they suffer from draconian DRM restrictions. Most user licenses cover only a single hardware device, so if you want to use the tablet one day and the laptop another, you need to buy a second copy of the book. Some e-book publishers tie their offerings (officially if not practically) to their own software. Copying, printing, sharing, and reselling are typically not allowed. It's complicated – the relevant restrictions on a particular book may come from the publisher, the distributor, or the e-reader's platform vendor. Individual titles from the same publisher or vendor may have different restrictions.

Amazon made headlines recently when it opened the Kindle Owners' Lending Library for e-books. Reality doesn't live up to the headlines, however. First, the service is available to Kindle users only. Second, it is available only to members of Amazon's $79/year Amazon Prime program. Third, the service is limited to one book per month, one book at a time. Finally, the service is currently limited to about 5,000 titles, a list that consists largely of public-domain and self-help books.

You're better off going to your local public library. Seriously. Public libraries across North America are now making e-books available for check-out, often at no charge. (You can access libraries' offerings with a free e-reader app called OverDrive if you've a mind to. The company's Web site even helps you locate nearby libraries to lend you books.)

The complicated e-books ecosphere is just the latest example of the fractious world of digital rights management. Vendors are lending toward a streaming model, in which they retain all ownership of digital content, offering users only a limited one-time right to view it. Users, understandably, would prefer to store content on their devices or in the cloud, and access it multiple times on an unlimited number of arbitrary devices. The marketplace is a mixed-up mess of compromises between these two poles.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers a thoughtful checklist of issues to consider in the e-books world at this page: Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers. It's well worth reading.

Web recommendation: Call me a cockeyed optimist – I have a good feeling about Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The latest version of Google's operating system for mobile devices is a major release that's intended to power both smartphones and tablets. Google has promised to release the source code to developers so they can fine-tune their offerings. Why develop for Ice Cream Sandwich? ZDNet blogger Ed Burnette has combed through the ICS SDK and emerged with a handful of compelling reasons: Top 10 Features in Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). J.D. say check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He enjoys the occasional game of cribbage.

The tech wizards at Google are on the verge of introducing a second programming language. Unlike the company's Go, a systems-level language, Dart will apparently be tailored to the needs of Web programming.

The news doesn't come to us from Google, at least not directly. We learned about the language by browsing the schedule for the GOTO conference to be held in Aarhus, Denmark October 10-14, 2011. Two language designers from Google will be presenting the keynote address: Dart, a New Programming Language for Structured Web Programming.

Google has already registered a handful of domains to support the new language.

The software engineers who will present the language to the world have very interesting backgrounds. Gilad Bracha is the designer of Newspeak, an object-oriented language in the tradition of Smalltalk and Self. Bracha comes to Google by way of SAP Labs, Cadence, and Sun Microsystems. Lars Bak is responsible for V8, the highly optimized Java virtual machine used in Google Chrome.

Does the world need another programming language? Well...maybe. Google is uniquely positioned to understand the browser-side demands of cloud-computing architectures. Bracha and Bak have years of solid successes behind them. I think we'd better keep our eyes on Dart.

Look for more information here as it becomes available.

Web recommendation: Sebastian Anthony has written an insightful little story on Windows 8's support of Hyper-V virtualization for the good folks at ExtremeTech. The article, Windows 8 Will Feature Hyper-V Guest OS Machine Virtualization, doesn't seem to be geared primarily for developers. But it does highlight a reason or two that this feature might be very interesting to those of us who cut code for a living. It got me to thinking. J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He recently relocated to a small town outside Belgrade – stop by if your travels take you through Serbia.

Google Maps just got a big boost - Zagat, the restaurant review service, was just acquired by Google and now, Google blogged, maps and search will be included in Zagat products.

Marissa Mayer, VP, local, maps and location services at Google, blogged this morning that Zagat may very well be the earliest form of UGC - user-generated content as the Zagats gathered restaurant reviews from friends to start their worldwide review service more than 32 years ago.

So what does this mean for you, developers? Well, personally, I think it might mean incredibly enhanced capabilities for Android applications and perhaps enhanced Map APIs. I think it could also have enhanced Web application uses (for websites or plug-ins) and perhaps can even be helpful in internal applications (Lunch recs, anyone).

Either way, I think it most definitely shows that the mobile battlefield is the one to conquer now and that the best way to do that is through consumer-focused applications.

I mean after all, don't you always "Google" a restaurant before attending?

Android. iOS. webOS. BlackBerry OS. Windows Phone 7. Symbian. MeeGo.  

What operating system has your vote? 

We all know creating applications is about making money (I mean what job isn't about making money??) and so in order to determine where you want to put your money (because it also costs money to make money), many analysts and developers say you should go "where the apps are," because that's where consumers are. 

So where are consumers these days? 

Although iOS is still bringing it's own brand of "magic. The way it always should be done." to households nationwide, Android seems to be bringing the heat as well. 

According to Tech Crunch, in Google CEO Larry Page's blog post announcing the news, since November 2007 more than 150 Android devices have been activated worldwide. Tech Crunch announced last month that Android was on 130 devices, and then offered that iOS is on 222 million devices to date last month. 

So what does that mean to you? To me, I think it's interesting to see that Apple, which has had devices available for a longer period of time, has only 222 million, with Android creeping up so rapidly. 

Do these numbers affect your dev strategy?

Share your thoughts with us. 

The first thing you should probably know about Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. is that this is about more than just the patents. But the patents are a huge part. Google's $12.5 billion purchase of the handset making arm of Motorola will give Google a lot more than just handsets, too. Motorola Mobility Holdings also makes headsets, DVRs, and tablets. Of course, the company also has enough mobile handset patents to keep Google safe from the rampaging hoards of angry competitors.

But, again, this isn't just about patents. Obviously, most of the money in this deal is there to secure the patent portfolio, but the other items in Motorola's pool of products are what interest me about this deal. Google had to buy a herd of patents, of course. But remember Google TV? Now Google has a manufacturer that won't run away and hide at the thought of striking a deal with Google over the automatic TV recording devices.

Additionally, Google now has a tablet maker in its stable. While that didn't really matter much a few months ago, considering a German court imposed an injunction against Samsung to keep it from selling its Galaxy Tablets in a large swath of Europe, this is just what the doctor ordered. You see, the Xoom tablet from Motorola was rumored to be the next target sued by Apple in that same court. With Google combining its patents with Motorola's, and bringing to bear its lawyers on the case, a further injunction may be unlikely.

But, again, my interest in this whole deal is far more focused on the cable box business Google is getting out of the deal. That's the sneaky backdoor portion of the sale. As I already said, Google is still brewing Google TV, which is a bit like Tivo on steroids. But the cable box makers have been terrified of Google's influence here, as recording shows on demand essentially eliminates any desire the advertisers have to purchase ads on said shows. Making DVR's easier to use just compounds the problem. And so, the companies Google has been trying to woo into including Google TV in their set top boxes have all but walked away from negotiations, since the cable companies are also disinterested in selling Google TV.

Now, that's not a problem anymore.I'm also interested to see what Google does with the Motorola enterprise video set top box business. That could yield some incredibly interesting results if handled right and combined with Google's aggressive push into Web video standards. All in all, this is one of those rare acquisitions where there's 0 overlap, and where the potential combination offers some seriously intriguing possibilities. One thing is for sure, the smart phone wars are just going to continue to get more and more interesting with each passing day.

Ever added a "labs" feature to your Gmail? I've always been a big fan of these pre-release prototypes; they always made me feel very cutting edge and gave me a chance to see what Google was thinking about implementing in the future. Now, however, it seems Google has prioritized its efforts in development to focus on other products. 

Google, in my mind, has always been about innovation, so it's rather hard to see why they would decide to stop…well, innovating. From the blog post, it seems that Google believes it can be more effective with "more wood behind fewer arrows" (sounds a bit "Karate Kid" to me). Google speaks of making the "most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead." 

Is the team talking about Google+? That's not extraordinary in my opinion, in fact, it's extraordinarily boring as far as I can tell. But then again, maybe I'm just too hard-core (referring to my favorite brand of tech toys) to understand the fascination with rainbows, desserts and innovative logos. 

Thoughts on this? Do you think this will slow down innovation on the Web? Share your thoughts with me!