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Four companies rethink databases for the cloud – Page 1 – Information Architecture

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Several companies are developing new database technologies to solve what they see as the shortcomings of traditional, relational database management systems in a cloud environment. Four of them described the approaches they’re taking during a panel at the GigaOm Structure conference on Thursday.

The basic problem they’re trying to solve is the difficulty of scaling today’s RDBMS systems across potentially massive clusters of commodity x86 servers, and doing so in a way that’s “elastic,” so that an organization can scale its infrastructure up and down as demand requires.

“The essential problem, as I see it, is that existing relational database management systems just flat-out don’t scale,” said Jim Starkey, a former senior architect at MySQL and one of the original developers of relational databases.

Starkey is founder and CTO of NimbusDB, which is trying to address those problems with a “radical restart” of relational database technology. Its software has “nothing in common with pre-existing systems,” according to Starkey, except that developers can still use the standard SQL query language.

NimbusDB aims to provide database software that can scale simply by “plugging in” new hardware, and that allows a large number of databases to be managed “automatically” in a distributed environment, he said. Developers should be able to start small, developing an application on a local machine, and then transfer their database to a public cloud without having to take it offline, he said.

via Four companies rethink databases for the cloud – Page 1 – Information Architecture.

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With Cleary Presiding, Nortel Patent Auction Could be Biggest Ever | AmLaw Daily

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Two and a half years after Nortel Networks Corporation filed for bankruptcy protection, the estate of the insolvent Canadian telecom is scheduled on Monday to sell off its last valuable asset: a portfolio of nearly 6,000 patents that could be key to the future of mobile computing.

The patent trove–which covers technologies used in smartphones and tablet computers, as well as in  cellular infrastructure, online search, and even social networking–is expected to bring in more than any of Nortel’s previous asset sales and could set a record for the most money ever raised in a single public sale of intellectual property assets, lawyers familiar with the auction process say.

In addition to Google, whose so-called stalking horse offer of $900 million represents the minimum bid, other high-tech companies expected to vie for the Nortel patents include Apple and Intel. All three companies have received approval from federal antitrust regulators to participate in the bidding, as has Rockstar Bidco LP, according to Bloomberg.

Other potential suitors include Ericsson and defensive patent aggregator RPX. As of Friday, it was unclear whether another reported bidder, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, will ultimately enter the fray.

Interest in the portfolio, which Nortel says includes about 3,650 U.S. patents and 1,650 patents in other countries, has been so intense that the auction–originally scheduled for June 20–was pushed back a week.

via With Cleary Presiding, Nortel Patent Auction Could be Biggest Ever.

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Apple confirms iWeb hosting, iDisk to end in 2012 | Web | MacUser | Macworld

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

iWeb publishing, MobileMe Gallery, and iDisk will all disappear as the company sunsets its current online service in favor of iCloud, according to a new MobileMe transition guide Apple published on Friday.

The existing features won’t disappear immediately, though: Apple says that it will continue to host MobileMe websites and Galleries and keep iDisk operational through June 30, 2012. If you haven’t been keeping your photos on your Mac, Apple provides a document that explains how to download copies of your photos and movies, either via the Web or through iPhoto or Aperture; other documents detail how to move your iWeb site from MobileMe to another Web host and copy files from your iDisk onto your Mac.

via Apple confirms iWeb hosting, iDisk to end in 2012 | Web | MacUser | Macworld.

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UP2U Gum Builds Buzz in Social Media – Advertising – NYTimes.com

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A  BRAND that has been present online since the days this newspaper still included “http://” in Web addresses is expanding its digital marketing tactics by embracing social media.

Perfetti Van Melle has hired the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, as the social media agency in the United States for its Mentos line of mints and gums. As Perfetti Van Melle gears up to introduce Mentos UP2U, its first stick gum sold in this country, the initial advertising efforts will be focused in social media like Facebook.

For instance, the new gum already has a Facebook fan page, at facebook.com/up2u, which more than 95,900 people have indicated they “like.” The first 1,000 visitors who clicked on the “like” button got free gum in a promotion that began on June 13 and ended on Wednesday.

Plans call for an invitation to be made next month on the fan page, asking those who “like” the new product to provide the name of friends they would want to receive samples.

via UP2U Gum Builds Buzz in Social Media – Advertising – NYTimes.com.

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Apple iPhone Patent a Huge Blow to Rival Smartphone Makers | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Apple has been awarded its long sought-after patent on the iPhone. Intellectual property experts say it’s so broad and far-reaching that the iPhone maker may be able to bully other smart phone manufacturers out of the U.S. market entirely.

Some three-and-a-half years after filing for a patent on the iPhone, Apple on Tuesday was awarded U.S. patent number 7,966,578 for “[a] computer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display, [that] comprises displaying a portion of page content, including a frame displaying a portion of frame content and also including other content of the page, on the touch screen display.”

That’s just the beginning of the abstract for Apple’s iPhone patent, which the company filed back in December 2007. It gets quite a bit more technical in its full form, but there’s one thing patent experts consulted by PCMag agree on—Apple has been awarded an incredibly broad patent that could prove to be hugely problematic for other makers of capacitive touch-screen smartphones.

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Apple’s patent essentially gives it ownership of the capacitive multitouch interface the company pioneered with its iPhone, said one source who has been involved in intellectual property litigation on similar matters. That’s likely to produce a new round of lawsuits over the now-ubiquitous multitouch interfaces used in smartphones made by the likes of HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Research in Motion, Nokia, and others that run operating systems similar in nature to Apple’s iOS, like Google’s Android, said the source, who asked not to be named.

via Apple iPhone Patent a Huge Blow to Rival Smartphone Makers | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

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House Passes Patent Overhaul – Law Blog – WSJ

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

House lawmakers passed a bill today to overhaul the U.S. patent system for the first time in nearly 60 years.

The House passed the America Invents Act on a 407 to 117 vote, WSJ reports.  The bill would change how the U.S. grants patents and award them to the party which is “first to file” an invention instead of the “first to invent” it. The change would bring the U.S. in line with other countries, according to WSJ.

The Senate passed similar legislation in March on a 95-to-5 vote. (Click here to see LB background on the Senate vote.)  The House and Senate must now negotiate a final bill before President Obama gets a crack at the legislation.

Why, you ask, do we need patent reform?

Some businesses complain that the current, “first to invent” standard results in too much litigation from individuals who claim they were first to own an idea even though they don’t have a formal patent.

“This bill is designed to help all inventors,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R, TX), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and helped author the legislation. The current system hurts inventors because it can lead to years of costly legal challenges to their patents, he said.

Some inventors and small businesses complained that switching to a “first to file” system would give large companies an advantage and hurt individual inventors, according to WSJ.

via House Passes Patent Overhaul – Law Blog – WSJ.

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Is the Google Probe ‘Microsoft Redux?’ – Law Blog – WSJ

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As we noted yesterday, Google faces the most serious legal threat of its young existence:  an antitrust probe into whether it has used its dominance in search-advertising to illegally freeze out competition.

Specifically, the Federal Trade Commission is expected to look into whether Google searches unfairly steer consumers to Google’s own products, and away from those of its competitors,  WSJ reports.

Google, of course, could walk away without a scratch. But still, the antitrust probe is so broad in scope, with the potential to reshape the tech landscape, that it naturally calls to mind the Microsoft case, when the government in the 1990s accused the computer company of using its dominant Windows operating system to hobble competitors.

Are the comparisons apt?

Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer who attacked Microsoft before and has pushed for action against Google, sure thinks so. “It is Microsoft redux,” he told WSJ in this piece comparing the two high-profile antitrust matters. “It is almost exactly the same case,” he said.

via Is the Google Probe ‘Microsoft Redux?’ – Law Blog – WSJ.

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Fired IT Guy Sticks Porn into CEO’s PowerPoint Presentation – TIME.com #ediscovery

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It may have been the most unexpectedly sexy PowerPoint presentation about a substance abuse center’s achievements ever witnessed. But then, most PowerPoint presentations about substance abuse don’t feature pornographic images, to the best of my knowledge.

Walter Powell, a 52 year old former director of management information systems at Baltimore Substance Abuse Systems, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years of probation (in addition to a two year suspended sentence) earlier this week.

Powell hacked into his former employer’s systems following his firing in September 2009 and replaced a prepared presentation to the Board of Directors with porn.

According to the Baltimore Sun:

“It happened one day last year, as more than a dozen board members of a Baltimore substance abuse center had gathered around a conference room. The CEO was giving a PowerPoint presentation on his accomplishments.

Suddenly, his computer shut down, then restarted, replacing the latest slide with an image of a naked woman onto a 64-inch screen. The board members include city officials and foundation heads and is chaired by Baltimore’s health commissioner.”

Powell had installed keystroke recording software on the BSAS computers, obtained network passwords of at least five BSAS employees and not only forwarded confidential emails to others, but also composed fake messages while using the email account belonging to BSAS CEO Greg Warren.

via Fired IT Guy Sticks Porn into CEO’s PowerPoint Presentation – Techland – TIME.com.

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Cellphone Offers Clues of Bin Laden’s Pakistan Ties – NYTimes.com

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

he cellphone of Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, senior American officials who have been briefed on the findings say.

The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside the country, the officials and others said. But it also raised tantalizing questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency, given that it had mentored Harakat and allowed it to operate in Pakistan for at least 20 years, the officials and analysts said.

In tracing the calls on the cellphone, American analysts have determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the senior American officials said. One said they had met. The officials added that the contacts were not necessarily about Bin Laden and his protection and that there was no “smoking gun” showing that Pakistan’s spy agency had protected Bin Laden.

via Cellphone Offers Clues of Bin Laden’s Pakistan Ties – NYTimes.com.

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Demystifying cloud computing for consumers – USATODAY.com

June 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

There’s a huge digital disconnect. Only 40% of Americans understand such cloud services as Google Docs for documents, according to a report from market researcher Ipsos OTX MediaCT. Even fewer — 9% — actually use such services, according to the survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents.

Stakes are high for technology companies to define the consumer cloud. The winner gets the keys to the digital media kingdom. Forrester Research forecasts the U.S. market for personal cloud services will hit $12 billion and 196 million consumers by 2016.

For tech companies to reap benefits, they’ll have to answer a nagging consumer question: What is the cloud?

In a way, the cloud is as old and simple as the Internet itself. The cloud is really just about accessing storage or software remotely from a computer via the Internet. It’s a modern twist on an old concept of timesharing on giant mainframe computers dating back to the ’60s, industry experts say.

Think of TurboTax online, the Internet-based tax preparation service from Intuit. Log on. Crunch numbers. File from TurboTax. That’s a cloud service.

Or easier yet, consider uploading images on the photo-sharing sites from Google’s Picasa or Yahoo’s Flickr. “In some ways, consumers have been using the cloud for a long time. There’s a million online photo galleries where you’ve been leveraging a Web-based cloud service,” says IDC analyst Danielle Levitas.

Truth be told, the consumer cloud is simple. It’s the many places we go on the Internet to access such things as Google’s Gmail and Docs. That type of Web-based access is far different from using e-mail software such as Microsoft Outlook, installed on a PC, and Microsoft Word, which saves to a computer’s hard drive.

via Demystifying cloud computing for consumers – USATODAY.com.

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