Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Microsoft's Gazelle browser takes a radical path | Beyond Binary - CNET News

More on Microsoft’s browser research; also see this CACM article 

Microsoft first outlined Gazelle earlier this year, but has only recently started to detail its thinking. Wang plans to present a paper on Gazelle at the Usenix security conference next month, and last week Microsoft posted an article on its Web site explaining more about Gazelle.

Wang isn't trying to suggest Windows is going away. Indeed, she says, Gazelle depends on Windows, acting merely as the middleman for Web pages seeking to access a computer's resources.

"We're really trying to leverage the decades of operating system experience and apply that in the Web and browser setting," Wang said.

Microsoft's Gazelle browser takes a radical path | Beyond Binary - CNET News

How I Spent My Summer: Hacking Into iPhones With Friends - WSJ.com

Sign of the times…

Like many teenagers, Ari Weinstein spends his summers riding his bike and swimming. This year, the 15-year-old had another item on his to-do list: Foil Apple Inc.'s brightest engineers and annoy chief executive Steve Jobs.

Ari is part of a loose-knit group of hackers that has made it a mission to "jailbreak" Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. The term refers to installing unapproved software that lets people download a range of programs, including those not sanctioned by Apple.

How I Spent My Summer: Hacking Into iPhones With Friends - WSJ.com

Mark Logic CEO Blog: XQuery's Real Potential: Transforming Application Development

Check the full post for a timely and extensive XQuery reality check

Oracle's Daniela Florescu gave a talk at UC Irvine this May entitled The Magic Is In The Glue: XQuery + Cloud. A coworker pointed me to the slides here, which I thought I'd share in a more convenient SlideShare-based format and agree with violently in more than a few respects.

Mark Logic CEO Blog: XQuery's Real Potential: Transforming Application Development

Monday, July 06, 2009

Business & Technology | Facebook's future: Web 3.0? | Seattle Times Newspaper

A timely Facebook snapshot 

But admirers say Mark Zuckerberg's five-year-old startup is poised to fulfill hype as the next big thing — that it will power online social interaction the way Google drives online search. Facebook is aggressively moving beyond the home page to pursue its mission to become a "social utility" that helps people "connect and share."

To typical users, Facebook may seem a stand-alone Web site — a vehicle for people to renew and revitalize personal relationships, to post comments and photos and perhaps play games. But more than 10,000 Web sites now recognize a service called Facebook Connect, which enables users to use their Facebook ID and password to move fluidly among sites where registration is required.

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Business & Technology | Facebook's future: Web 3.0? | Seattle Times Newspaper

The Dead Souls of the Google Book Search Settlement | July 2009 | Communications of the ACM

Conclusion of an article on the Google Book Search settlement (you’ll need to be a CACM subscriber to read the full text):

In the short run, the Google Book Search settlement will unquestionably bring about greater access to books that major research libraries collected over the years. But it is very worrisome that this agreement, which was negotiated in secret by Google and a few lawyers working for the Authors Guild and AAP (who will, incidentally, receive up to $45.5 million in fees for their work on the settlement—more than all of the authors combined!), will create two complementary monopolies with exclusive rights over a research corpus of this magnitude. Monopolies are prone to engage in many abuses.

The Book Search agreement under consideration is not really a settlement of a dispute over whether scanning books to index them is fair use. It is a massive restructuring of the book industry's future without meaningful government oversight. The market for digitized orphan books could be competitive, but will not be if this settlement is approved in its current form without modification.

The Dead Souls of the Google Book Search Settlement | July 2009 | Communications of the ACM

Wife exposes chief spy's personal life on Facebook | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

Sign of the times

It is always a case of some considerable concern when a lady reveals too much on Facebook. The site has standards, after all.

The lady in question this time is Lady Shelley Sawers, the wife of Sir John Sawers, the new head of British spy agency MI6.

According to reports in the Mail and numerous other media outlets, the fair lady may not have been quite aware that Facebook can be seen by a rather large number of people if you don't specify that you want to keep your information vaguely private

Wife exposes chief spy's personal life on Facebook | Technically Incorrect - CNET News

Sunday, July 05, 2009

The W3C Kills XHTML in Favor of HTML 5! | Bex Huff

A timely reality check – see the full post 

The W3C has announced that it is dropping support for the XHTML 2 working group, in favor of HTML 5. Now, I'm a big fan of HTML5, but I don't see this as necessarily good news...

[…]

Now... part of me feels this is bad... because now that they can no longer ruin XHTML, the W3C can just focus all of its energies on ruining HTML. I'm also irked by the justifications the W3C put forward about dropping XHTML:

HTML and XHTML 2 working groups were formed by W3C in March 2007. "Basically, two years ago we chartered two working groups to work on similar things, and that created confusion in the marketplace," said Ian Jacobs, W3C representative.

Yeah, right... they were doing "similar things." Not even close, Ian. Allow me to translate: the W3C doesn't have a clue what people need the web to do, so we're going to allow Apple and Mozilla to figure it out for us, then we'll claim credit!

The W3C Kills XHTML in Favor of HTML 5! | Bex Huff

Inspiration at the Imagine Cup Finals in Cairo - Microsoft On The Issues (by Ray Ozzie)

See the full post for more details and this page for an event transcript

Today I had the privilege of kicking off the worldwide finals of the seventh annual Imagine Cup in Cairo, Egypt.  The event is an inspiring culmination to a six-month, global technology competition that has included more than 300,000 students from over 100 countries and regions.

The Imagine Cup grows each year and is one of the most powerful demonstrations of our belief that students must have the educational foundation and access to technology required to pursue their dreams and contribute to improving the human condition.  Initiatives like the Imagine Cup give students the opportunities and confidence to experiment and explore what’s possible.

Excerpt from the full transcript:

If there was ever a defining moment in my career, that was really it. PLATO in letting us do what we did together had transcended the limits of time and location, enabling us to be together, even though we needed to work apart.

It made me realize that technology could take us beyond the limitations of our bodies, kind of acting like a bridge, like a superconductor between our minds.

And ultimately this experience became the inspiration for my own dreams as I left college, as I decided what to work on in my spare time and so on, and this is why I created Notes, this is why I created Groove, this is why I continue to be extremely optimistic about the possibilities in an Internet era of distributed work, and computer supported cooperative work across the industry, and of course at Microsoft.

Inspiration at the Imagine Cup Finals in Cairo - Microsoft On The Issues

Apple, Acer and…Arrington? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

I expect we’ll see a wide variety of options in this form factor over the next few months

The purpose of the CrunchPad will be very simple: surfing the Web. Turn it on and up comes a browser. It is nothing more than “an Internet consumption device,” for reading, checking e-mail or watching video, Mr. Arrington said. It will not have a hard drive or keyboard, though users can plug it in to a keyboard if they wish. It will cost less than $300, he said.

The CrunchPad will be 16 millimeters thick with a screen of at least 12 inches that is flush with the aluminum case, and it will come in different colors. It will run on an Intel Atom chip and support Flash, which the Apple iPhone cannot.

CrunchPad

Apple, Acer and…Arrington? - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Friday, July 03, 2009

Mark Logic CEO Blog: Stonebraker: Send Relational DBMSs to the Home for Tired Software

More relational DBMS bashing – check Dave Kellogg’s full post for more details

Mike Stonebraker spoke today at SIGMOD (see Tweetstream) where, among other things there was a 40-year anniversary celebration of the relational DBMS and, in what I suspect is non-coincidental timing, Mike did a post on the CACM site entitled The End of a DBMS Era (Might be Upon Us).
Excerpt:

Moreover, the code line from all of the major vendors is quite elderly, in all cases dating from the 1980s. Hence, the major vendors sell software that is a quarter century old, and has been extended and morphed to meet today’s needs. In my opinion, these legacy systems are at the end of their useful life. They deserve to be sent to the “home for tired software.”

I have great respect for Michael Stonebraker’s accomplishments, and I am also impressed with Mark Logic’s track record, but I believe catchy phrases such as “the end of the one size fits all database” and “the home for tired software” are generally exaggerated perspectives from people who just happen to be trying to sell you non-traditional data management products…

It’s unhelpful to suggest IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle – which collectively, according to a 2009/06 Forrester report, control 88% of the (revenue share of the) commercial DBMS market – are somehow oblivious about opportunities to use new indexing and storage approaches for OLTP, leverage in-memory models for transaction processing, etc.

Mark Logic CEO Blog: Stonebraker: Send Relational DBMSs to the Home for Tired Software

Microsoft's 'Gazelle' Browser Concept Going on Tour -- Redmond Developer News

See the full article and paper link below for more details

Why can't a Web browser be more like an operating system? That's a question being investigated with "Gazelle," an ongoing project at Microsoft Research.

Microsoft plans to describe Gazelle in greater detail next month at the Usenix Security Symposium in Montreal, according to an article published this week at the Microsoft Research Web site. Usenix is a computer security conference for academic researchers.

Gazelle is pure research led by Helen J. Wang of Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash. She and her colleagues published a paper in February explaining the construction of the Gazelle Web browser. The paper critiques security handling by both Internet Explorer 8 and Google's Chrome browser. Gazelle will seek a different approach -- one in which the browser acts more like an operating system to control processes.

Microsoft's 'Gazelle' Browser Concept Going on Tour -- Redmond Developer News

U.S. Confirms Inquiry Into Google Books Deal - NYTimes.com

Reading the fine print…

In a letter to the federal judge charged with reviewing the settlement, the Justice Department said it was reviewing concerns that the agreement could violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.

“At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition,” William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general, said in the letter. “However, we have determined that the issues raised by the proposed settlement warrant further inquiry.”

U.S. Confirms Inquiry Into Google Books Deal - NYTimes.com

iPhone heat issue much ado about nothing | Apple - CNET News

Okay, maybe not an issue even in places that are having seasonally appropriate weather…

For whatever reason, some people picked up the tech note today and wrote that Apple had admitted to an overheating issue. Here's what the tech note actually says.

Apple recommends that you don't:

  • Leave the device in a car on a hot day.
  • Leave it in direct sunlight for extended amounts of time.
  • Use certain applications in hot conditions or direct sunlight for long periods of time, such as GPS tracking in a car on a sunny day or listening to music while in direct sunlight.

I hardly see that as an admission that there are heat issues. Best practices for operating the iPhone, sure.

iPhone heat issue much ado about nothing | Apple - CNET News

Apple iPhones Could Shut Down in Summer Heat - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

That won’t be a problem in the Boston area this year; we’re apparently skipping summer (cool and rainy for most of the last couple weeks)

Whether or not anecdotal reports of iPhones overheating are true, Apple has taken them seriously enough to reveal the presence of a temperature warning screen for the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

Here's the deal: an unknown but probably very small number of iPhones have been affected by overheating, to the point that some white iPhone 3GSes have allegedly turned pink.

Apple iPhone Temperature Warning

Apple iPhones Could Shut Down in Summer Heat - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

Green Power Takes Root in the Chinese Desert - NYTimes.com

Glad to see this, especially as I’ve been reading Matthew Glass’s Ultimatum this week…

As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower.

Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates energy. Although coal remains the biggest energy source and is almost certain to stay that way, the rise of renewable energy, especially wind power, is helping to slow China’s steep growth in emissions of global warming gases.

Green Power Takes Root in the Chinese Desert - NYTimes.com

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Oracle's Fusion 11g lays groundwork for ERP platform - SD Times: Software Development News

Bad press day for SQL so far…

This "tera-scale" caching, according to Software AG deputy CTO Miko Matsumura, might displace reliance on traditional relational SQL database infrastructure.
And Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director for Burton Group Application Platform Strategies, said, "I tend to agree with Miko's assertion that Java is the new SQL. Oracle's ownership of Java will give them a huge advantage going forward. For example, combine CEP [Complex Events Processing] with the Coherence object data grid, and Oracle has something very interesting and unique. This solution maintains data from the event stream in the distributed in-memory data grid rather than a relational database [as most other CEP solutions do]. Developers use Java to interface with the data grid; not SQL. And Java is much more expressive than SQL."

FWIW I think Java is the new COBOL, and that SQL is doing just fine…

Oracle's Fusion 11g lays groundwork for ERP platform - SD Times: Software Development News

No to SQL? Anti-database movement gains steam

Hey, it’s circa 1985 (when SQL was a broadly controversial topic) all over again…  See the full article for more details

The meet-up in San Francisco last month had a whiff of revolution about it, like a latter-day techie version of the American Patriots planning the Boston Tea Party.

The inaugural get-together of the burgeoning NoSQL community crammed 150 attendees into a meeting room at CBS Interactive.

Like the Patriots, who rebelled against Britain's heavy taxes, NoSQLers came to share how they had overthrown the tyranny of slow, expensive relational databases in favor of more efficient and cheaper ways of managing data.

While there are obviously some application scenarios for which file systems and specialized storage subsystems are currently a better form-follows-function fit than DBMSs, imho it’s ridiculous to imply that DBMSs are somehow obsolete, or that SQL is overkill.

No to SQL? Anti-database movement gains steam

Official Google Blog: The evolution of Gmail labels

An interesting case study in user conceptual models – and how difficult they can be to change

I love labels in Gmail. Most email programs use folders, which only let me put mail in one place at a time. With labels, I can organize mail in multiple ways. Combined with filters to automatically label incoming messages, Gmail offers powerful ways to organize email.
When I joined the Gmail team, I was surprised to learn that only 29% of Gmail users had created any labels. At first, I thought perhaps conversation threading and search made the need to organize our mail less important. But when we talked to people who use Gmail, we got a different story. People often asked us to add folders to Gmail, assuming no system of organization existed. As one person said in a usability study, "What are labels... and where are my folders?"

See the full post for more details on how Google’s label model is looking a lot like a folder model these days

Official Google Blog: The evolution of Gmail labels

Facebook Activism: Lots of Clicks, but Little Sticks - washingtonpost.com

Yet another sign of the times – from page 2 of the article:

"Click-through activism" is the term used by Chris Csikszentmihályi, the co-director of MIT's Center for Future Civic Media to describe the participants who might excitedly flit into an online group and then flutter away to something else. In some ways, he says, the ease of the medium "reminds me of dispensations the Catholic Church used to give." Worst-case scenario: If people feel they are doing good just by joining something -- or clicking on one of those become a fan of Audi and the company will offset your carbon emissions campaigns, "to what extent are you removing just enough pressure that they're not going to carry on the spark" in real life?

A better scenario for Internet activism, Csikszentmihályi says, would be if causes could break down their needs into discrete tasks, and then farm those tasks out to qualified and willing individuals connected by the power of the Internet. 

Facebook Activism: Lots of Clicks, but Little Sticks - washingtonpost.com

Bing Now Shows Some Twitter Updates - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Another sign of the times

Microsoft is dipping its toes into the hot new area of real-time search. The company said Wednesday that Bing, the search engine it unveiled a month ago, would begin including the latest output of popular Twitter users in its search results.

“There has been much discussion of real-time search and the premium on immediacy of data that has been created, primarily by Twitter,” wrote Sean Suchter, general manager of Microsoft’s search technology center in Silicon Valley, in a blog post about the feature. “We’ve been watching this phenomenon with great interest and listening carefully to what consumers really want in this space.”

Bing Now Shows Some Twitter Updates - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com