Microsoft Testing Cloud-Based Data Sharing | Redmond Developer News

More cloud + data sync news

Microsoft announced last week that it is seeking customers willing to test their databases in a cloud-based data connectivity project.

The testing is part of "Project Huron," a synchronization-enabled cloud data hub that's being developed as part of Microsoft's SQL Data Services effort. The technology combines Microsoft's Sync Service with its SQL Data Service, all of which is hosted using Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform.

Microsoft Testing Cloud-Based Data Sharing | Redmond Developer News

Technology Review: Wolfram Alpha and Google Face Off

An interesting snapshot; see the full article for details

Last week, as physicist Stephen Wolfram was demonstrating his new Web-based "computation engine"--Wolfram Alpha--to the public, Google announced a data-centric service of its own. Alpha accesses databases that are maintained by Wolfram Research, or licensed from others, and deploys formulas and algorithms to compute answers for searchers.

Using some prelaunch log-in credentials provided by the Wolfram team, I decided to run my own Wolfram Alpha versus Google test. I used a handful of search terms that could produce data-centric answers and tried variations in a few cases to see what might happen.

Technology Review: Wolfram Alpha and Google Face Off

Technology Review: Moving Data around the Clouds

Another indication that cloud computing is going mainstream

One startup, called Cloudkick, hopes to provide a simpler way to manage data stored across several different cloud-computing services. Cloudkick provides a unified, Web-based interface for monitoring data regardless of the cloud provider hosting it.

Another feature launched recently by Cloudkick, called Cloudshift, lets customers transfer data between different cloud-computing providers with just a few clicks. It makes it possible to shift an application from Amazon's servers to those of competitors, such as Rackspace, with surprising ease. This means that businesses using Cloudkick can avoid being locked into one provider--a feature that could help save money if a different provider suddenly offers a cheaper service.

Technology Review: Moving Data around the Clouds

Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks - WSJ.com

More on the new Kindle; also see Publishers Nurture Rivals to Kindle

Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beginning this fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be given large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already installed, said Lev Gonick, the school's chief information officer. The university plans to compare the experiences of students who get the Kindles and those who use traditional textbooks, he said.

Amazon to Launch Kindle for Textbooks - WSJ.com

Apple, Google face antitrust inquiry - The Boston Globe

See the full article for more details

The Federal Trade Commission has begun an inquiry into whether close ties between the boards of Apple and Google violate antitrust laws, said several people briefed on the inquiry.

Apple and Google share two directors. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 prohibits a person's presence on the boards of two rivals when it would reduce competition between them.

Apple, Google face antitrust inquiry - The Boston Globe

Why the Kindle HD Can’t Save Newspapers [GigaOM]

A timely reality check as the noise levels rise for the anticipated “Kindle 3”; read the full post

What’s more painful to watch is how unwilling so many people in this business are to come to terms with the shift the Internet has brought by wresting control of the distribution of content. The result has been the rise of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other publishing platforms that are creating micro-brands for what I like to call the Me Media. But the Internet is not solely responsible for the demise of the core media business model; it contains critical flaws. Clay Shirky did a good job of laying out its problems earlier this year, saying: “Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.” Spot on. And new business models will emerge. My ex-boss Josh Quittner of Time magazine thinks one of these models will be “appgazines — that act more like computer programs than Web or printed pages.”

Why the Kindle HD Can’t Save Newspapers

The World's Most Influential Person Is... - TIME

Yeah, that figures

In a stunning result, the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll and new owner of the title World's Most Influential Person is moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey. To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it's worth noting that everyone moot beat out actually has a job.

The World's Most Influential Person Is... - TIME

Oracle aims at Microsoft with upgraded Beehive collaboration [Computerworld]

Interesting to see myself quoted in this article, since I’ve been working at Microsoft for ~4 months. Also a small world instance; I used to work for David Gilmour (now Oracle’s VP of collaboration technologies, also quoted in the article) at Lotus, more than twenty years ago…

Oracle Corp. today announced enhancements to its recently launched Beehive collaboration software in hopes of positioning it more strongly against long-established offerings from Microsoft Corp. and IBM.

Oracle also slashed its entry-level price for Beehive by more than half, while announcing prices for a cloud-based version.

My current $.02 on Beehive: while it might have made sense for Oracle to start from scratch with a new communication/collaboration/content management product more than five years ago, when Oracle architect Terry Olkin reportedly starting working on Beehive at Oracle (incidentally, this means there was an Oracle product development team implicitly betting Oracle Collaboration Suite would fail several years before it ultimately did, and was replaced by Beehive, last fall), Oracle now has a strategic positioning challenge due to the increasing overlap among Oracle WebCenter (based in part on products picked up when it acquired BEA in early 2008) and Oracle Universal Content Management (based on Oracle’s 2006 Stellent acquisition). Since both WebCenter and UCM have market momentum, I suspect Oracle’s sales force will stay focused on them rather than Beehive.

Oracle aims at Microsoft with upgraded Beehive collaboration

The White House - Blog Post - WhiteHouse 2.0

Sign of the times – see the full post for more context-setting

In addition to WhiteHouse.gov, you can now find us in a number of other spots on the web:

• Facebook.com/WhiteHouse
• MySpace.com/WhiteHouse
• Twitter.com/WhiteHouse

The WhiteHouse blog (RSS) will power a lot of the content in these networks, but we’re looking forward to hearing from our fans, friends and followers. Don’t forget these sites as well:

• Flickr.com/WhiteHouse
• Vimeo.com/WhiteHouse
• YouTube.com/WhiteHouse
• iTunes (videos & podcasts)

Technology has profoundly impacted how – and where – we all consume information and communicate with one another. WhiteHouse.gov is an important part of the Administration’s effort to use the internet to reach the public quickly and effectively – but it isn’t the only place.

The White House - Blog Post - WhiteHouse 2.0

Big-Screen e-Readers May Help Save Newspapers - NYTimes.com

Check the full article for details on potential players including Amazon and Apple

Now the recession-ravaged newspaper and magazine industries are hoping for their own knight in shining digital armor, in the form of portable reading devices with big screens.

Unlike tiny mobile phones and devices like the Kindle that are made to display text from books, these new gadgets, with screens roughly the size of a standard sheet of paper, could present much of the editorial and advertising content of traditional periodicals in generally the same format as they appear in print. And they might be a way to get readers to pay for those periodicals — something they have been reluctant to do on the Web.

Big-Screen e-Readers May Help Save Newspapers - NYTimes.com

Pentagon uses Facebook, Twitter to spread message

Sign of the times

You don't often hear a three-star general using the word "friend" as a verb.

But for Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley and other Army brass, a new era has brought a new language — and new tools like online social networks Twitter and Facebook — for seeking out young recruits and spreading the military's message.

Freakley, who heads the Army command that oversees recruiting, says social networking sites offer another way to reach tomorrow's soldiers.

Pentagon uses Facebook, Twitter to spread message

The ‘Face Book Fad’ Is More Than a Century Old - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

History repeats…

Bryan Benilous, a historical newspaper specialist at the digital-archive company Proquest, said he and his colleagues came across a Boston Daily Globe article from August 24, 1902, titled, “Face Book The New Fad,” describing a party game where revelers sketch out cartoony caricatures for fun.

“I think it is interesting to note the similarities with this first iteration of Face Book as a shared social experience,” said Mr. Benilous. “It’s almost like having friends write on your wall in a much less tech-savvy way.”

[…]

In addition to discovering what appears to be an emoticon in a transcript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln, they’ve uncovered a 1942 Washington Post article titled “Think Before You Twitter” about gossiping and a 1903 article referring to the first “pocket telephone.”

The ‘Face Book Fad’ Is More Than a Century Old - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Platformonomics - Is Twitter the Next Second Life?

More classic Charles Fitzgerald insights; read the full post…

In the absence of announcements about making Twitter run on the mainframe, enterprise-class Twitter, Twitter interoperability with private Twitter clouds, IBM company meetings on Twitter or a concerted press campaign about Sam Palmasaino's Twitter account, I think it is safe to say that Twitter is not the next Second Life.

This bodes well for Twitter whose simplicity and accessibility are the antithesis of IBM.  IBM has product names that won't fit in the 140 characters of a single Tweet.  The B in IBM isn't brevity.  but I digress.

Platformonomics - Is Twitter the Next Second Life?

GigaOM: Inside Facebook’s Photo Factory

See the full post for more details

In a blog post today, Facebook shares some secrets of its photo infrastructure, which is based on its core innovation, Haystack. First let me give you some fun facts about Facebook Photos, which will help you understand why what they’ve done is so impressive.

• Facebook users have uploaded more than 15 billion photos to date, making it the biggest photo-sharing site on the web.
• For each uploaded photo, Facebook generates and stores four images of different sizes, which translates into a total of 60 billion images and 1.5 petabytes of storage.
• Facebook adds 220 million new photos per week or roughly to 25 terabytes of additional storage.
• At the peak there are 550,000 images served per second. (See more in this video.)

Inside Facebook’s Photo Factory

Cyberwar - Iranians and Others Outwit Net Censors - Series - NYTimes.com

Check the full story for another fascinating John Markoff snapshot

The Internet is no longer just an essential channel for commerce, entertainment and information. It has also become a stage for state control — and rebellion against it. Computers are becoming more crucial in global conflicts, not only in spying and military action, but also in determining what information reaches people around the globe.

Cyberwar - Iranians and Others Outwit Net Censors - Series - NYTimes.com

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: How Wolfram Alpha May Trump Google

See the full article for more details

Everybody at Wolfram Research characterized the new engine as something complementary to, and not in competition with, Google. (In short: Google uses elaborate means to find you the right Web pages, while Wolfram amasses databases and deploys myriad equations to compute answers for you.)

But that peaceable dynamic changed yesterday when Google announced a data-crunching service of its own, even as Wolfram was giving a demo of his new tool at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. With the new Google service--which is starting in a limited way, with data from the Census and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics--you can do things like enter "unemployment New York" and get a historical chart of that rate, and click to compare the rate of other states and the U.S.

Hmm – finding answers instead of Web pages…

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: How Wolfram Alpha May Trump Google

Platformonomics - Notes from the Super Heavyweight Bout

A timely reality check from Charles Fitzgerald – read the full post.  The final paragraph:

Microsoft certainly benefited from having a long time window and multiple product cycles to invest in new businesses like the enterprise and entertainment.  Google's window may have been much shorter (and in general I believe Google has followed the Microsoft arc albeit much more compressed.  To prepare for their next act I suggest they "lawyer-up").  They have a great franchise, but they didn't build any new franchises during the land grab.  So they're still fundamentally a one-trick pony.

Platformonomics - Notes from the Super Heavyweight Bout

vowe dot net :: What's happening in Lotus land?

Another timely reality check from Volker Weber

edbrill.com, a private web site, has turned into the only IBM channel that keeps pushing the Notes message. Yes, there are more Lotus blogs and quite a few good ones, but they are not effective. The official IBM/Lotus sites are boring corporate sites that fail to get any excitement across.

But what is the audience of edbrill.com? I may be wrong, but I think it is read by the Lotus faithful for encouragement and morale, and by a few Microserfs for amusement.

I can only admire Ed for what he is doing. But you need more than one man, or a dozen, to win this. If you want to break out of this cycle, you need to do something radically different. Something visible and dazzling.

vowe dot net :: What's happening in Lotus land?

Time Warner Expects to Spin Off AOL - NYTimes.com

The former AOL Time Warner prepares to spin off both AOL and Time; maybe they will rename what’s left “Warner”. Also see “When in Doubt, Spin It Out” for related analysis of both AOL and Skype.

In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Time Warner said it was nearing a decision to spin off America Online, and put an end to the travails that began with the merger in 2000 of the two companies, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value.

“Although the company’s board of directors has not made any decision, the company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner’s stockholders, in one or a series of transactions,” the company said in the filing.

Time Warner Expects to Spin Off AOL - NYTimes.com

U.S. Needs to Clarify Cyberwar Plans, Panel Says - NYTimes.com

Disconcerting

The United States has no clear military policy about how the nation might respond to a cyberattack on its communications, financial or power networks, a panel of scientists and policy advisers warned Wednesday, and the country needs to clarify both its offensive capabilities and how it would respond to such attacks.

U.S. Needs to Clarify Cyberwar Plans, Panel Says - NYTimes.com