WebProNews

Category: Emerging Tech

Emerging Trends

  • Google “Not Betting the Farm” on Self-Driving Cars

    Google “Not Betting the Farm” on Self-Driving Cars

    Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page spoke to investors, and aimed to set their minds at ease with regards to the company’s spending habits.

    The company’s stock has not been doing so great since Page took over as CEO, with investors worrying that Google is spending too much on things that might not pay off. According to Mercury News, Google’s stock has dropped nearly as much as $100 per share since the transition in leadership.

    Page highlighted the company’s success with Android, Chrome, and Display Advertising. He reportedly put up a picture of Google’s famous self-driving cars, saying shareholders shouldn’t read press reports about things like that and assume a large amount of the company’s resources are being poured into them.

    He’s quoted as saying, “It’s much more interesting [for the media and people outside of the company] — what is the latest crazy thing that Google did. It tends to be like three people in the company, keep that in mind. We are not betting the farm on a lot of those things. That’s not what we are doing.”

    Page stressed that the company is still focusing on search and advertising, Google’s real breadwinners. “We don’t want to choke innovation,” he added. “We want to make sure we have a lot of things going on at the company that are maybe speculative…we spend the vast majority of our resources on our core businesses, which are search and advertising. … That’s our core focus.”

    In October, Google announced:

    So we have developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think this is a first in robotics research.

    Our automated cars use video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to “see” other traffic, as well as detailed maps (which we collect using manually driven vehicles) to navigate the road ahead. This is all made possible by Google’s data centers, which can process the enormous amounts of information gathered by our cars when mapping their terrain.

    To develop this technology, we gathered some of the very best engineers from the DARPA Challenges, a series of autonomous vehicle races organized by the U.S. Government. Chris Urmson was the technical team leader of the CMU team that won the 2007 Urban Challenge. Mike Montemerlo was the software lead for the Stanford team that won the 2005 Grand Challenge. Also on the team is Anthony Levandowski, who built the world’s first autonomous motorcycle that participated in a DARPA Grand Challenge, and who also built a modified Prius that delivered pizza without a person inside. The work of these and other engineers on the team is on display in the National Museum of American History.

    This followed a lot of media criticism about Google’s continued ability to innovate, and numerous reports of top engineers choosing Facebook as an employer over Google.

    As recently as last month, Google was found to be “quietly lobbying” for proposed legislation in Nevada that would legalize self-driving cars on public roads. According to the New York Times, Google had hired a Las Vegas-based lobbyist to promote the legislation, which would allow the licensing and operation of the cars while also allowing texting behind the wheel of a self-driving car. 

    Self-driving cars aside, Google has recently unveiled some other ambitious endeavors, not the least of which being Google Wallet – the company’s vision for mobile payments. At Google I/O, the company’s developer conference held last month, the company discussed Android @ Home and the Open Accessory Projects, which would see everyday appliances getting integrated with the company’s mobile operating system. Google also unveiled Google Music, and the new Chromebooks, based on its innovative operating system strategy – Chrome OS.

    This week, Google officially launched Google Offers, which is a little more in line with the more traditional money makers like search and advertising. Then of course there’s the +1 button, which is even more directly tied to search and advertising.

  • Toyota Friend, Salesforce Take Social Media to the Street

    Toyota Friend, Salesforce Take Social Media to the Street

    Is driving the car the best time to engage in social media? Probably not, but what if the car helped with these tasks, reducing the “need” for mobile device use while driving? Would a car that’s social media savvy appeal to today’s drivers?

    That’s what Toyota wants to find out, and thanks to their partnership with Salesforce.com, consumers will be able to find out, as well. The partnership was made to power the “Toyota Friend” program, a social network designed to engage other Toyota drivers/owners. According to the release, Toyota Friend is a social network that connects Toyota owners to their car, the dealership, and with the Toyota company, providing things like maintenance tips and other service-related information. An example used in the announcement introduces the concept of Toyota Friend informing hybrid owners if their battery isn’t sufficiently charged.

    Powered by the Salesforce Chatter network, which is described as a “private social network for business,” Toyota Friend will issue “tweet-like” notifications to the owner’s mobile device, which seems to ignore the elephant in the room. Aren’t we in a time of informing people about the dangers involved in mobile device use during vehicular operation? Doesn’t such a service bring the temptation of driving while playing with a mobile device? Questions for another day, I suppose.

    While the Toyota Friend social network will be a private one, members can connect to their friends on other social networks like Twitter and Facebook, an idea that seems to court the potentially deadly combination of mobile device use while operating a vehicle even further. Killjoy reactions aside, Toyota President Akio Toyoda likes where the partnership is going:

    “Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication. The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation. I am always calling for Toyota to make ever-better cars. The alliance that we announce today is an important step forward in achieving that goal.”

    Unfortunately, it’s doubtful Mark Schaefer will approve of this latest social network capability. How about you? Does the idea of a socially-networked vehicle, one that let’s you connect with other social networks, appeal to you? Could you see yourself driving a socially networked vehicle, one that issues messages about the condition of your car? As for the service, will you be able to “friend” other Toyota drivers you see out and about? Something like, “hey, did you see that babe in the Camry? Send her a friend request, dude!”

    If so, Toyota Friend’s potential just increased a great deal.

    The service is scheduled to debut in 2012, and will be initially offered in Japan to hybrid and electrical Toyota owners.

  • Congress Debates Budget, Economy, Energy, Afghanistan, Education, Healthcare at YouTube Town Hall

    There is a new YouTube project called YouTube Town Hall, which has senators and representatives debating the hot issues. Google says the issues are the ones that are the most popular on Google News and Google search over the past year.

    One interesting element is that it seeks to tear down party lines, by not positioning them as Democrat vs. Republican at the beginning, but by simply displaying two videos side by side and by having the user pick which one (if any) they support.

    “How would you vote if you focused purely on the ideas needed to make our country and our world a better place, rather than on the parties putting them forward?” asks Will Houghteling of YouTube News and Politics. “That’s a question that the new YouTube Town Hall seeks to answer.”

    “After you watch the video, you’ll find out which party the representative comes from—and sometimes you might be surprised,” he says.

    The videos that attract the most support from users will be tracked on the YouTube Town Hall Leaderboard.

    “You’ll also have the opportunity to ask the questions you want members of Congress to answer,” said Houghteling.”Every month, members of Congress will add new videos to the site answering a selection of the top-voted questions.”

    He suggests asking questions about lowering gas prices, reforming the tax system or making college more affordable.

    It is really fascinating to see how far YouTube has come over the years from its days of mostly being known as a place to watch cat videos. While it’s been progressing steadily for years, they seem to really be taking things up a notch this year, particularly as more homes get connected devices in their living room.

    Now YouTube is presenting interactive debates with Congress, renting new release movies, and streaming big events live. Not to mention the fact that brands, news organizations, and citizen journalists alike all have an opportunity to get to consumers while they’re sitting on their couches.

  • Google Lobbies for Self-Driving Car Legality in Nevada

    Google Lobbies for Self-Driving Car Legality in Nevada

    Google’s once secret automated vehicle research and testing is now looking towards the next step: legality.  Well, in one state at least.

    The New York Times is reporting that Google is “quietly lobbying” for proposed legislation in the great state of Nevada to legalize self-driving cars on public roads.

    Back in the fall of 2010, Google announced that they were in fact developing the technology for automated driving, and that they had already been testing the cars with great results.  Google said that they has test-driven the robotic overlords self-driving cars more than 140,000 miles in California, 1,000 of those being driven entirely autonomously.

    A couple months ago we got some video of the cars in action, signalling that the future is upon us.  Slow down! You’re driving like a maniac, bot!

    According to the NYT, Google hired a Las Vegas-based lobbyist to promote the legislation in Nevada.  One piece of legislation allows the licensing and operation of the autonomous cars and another would allow texting behind the wheel of a self-driving car.  You know some lawmaker’s daughter in Nevada made them put that one in there.

    The self-driving cars could have great benefits, like safety, fuel efficiency and job creation.  Unfortunately, they could also aid in the transportation of our robot masters during the robot uprising.

    But lower gas costs sound nice.

    No word on why Google is looking to Nevada to break this issue.  There is also no word on whether inebriated gamblers leaving casinos could get behind the wheel of an automated car.  I see no correlation.

  • Apple iCloud – The Future of iOS and Mac OS?

    Apple had been rumored to have acquired the domain iCloud.com from Xcerion, which changed its own cloud service’s name to CloudMe. According to a report, this has been confirmed by unidentified people who are in a “position to know”.

    AppleInsider says it has learned that the company has actually begun adopting the iCloud name within “several products in currently under development”. The publication’s Kasper Jade reports:

    According to people familiar with the matter, Apple is prepping beta versions of both iOS 5.0 and Mac OS X Lion ahead of its annual developers conference that integrate with a service dubbed “iCloud,” enabling users to sync and store much of the same information they currently can with the company’s existing MobileMe service, such as bookmarks, email, contacts and iCal events.

    It would only make sense then, that developers will get a glimpse at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in June, which has been advertised in the following manner:

    Worldwide Developer Conference To Showcase New iOS and Mac OS

    “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”

    It was expected that iCloud would be used for a cloud-based music service to rival Amazon, Google, and others, but the lack of any music-based word in the name means a broader scope would indeed make sense. I would guess that the iTunes brand will be heavily involved in any music-related aspect of iCloud.

    iCloud.com is rumored to have been purchased from Xcerion for around $4.5 million. It doesn’t appear it has actually changed hands yet, as it currently redirects to CloudMe. It could just be early in the transition.

  • Amazon Talks Preventing Future Outages, Says It’s Sorry

    Amazon has finally released a big statement regarding the recent server disruptions it experienced, which led to some sites having massive losses in service, and people to question the reliability of the cloud.

    When I say that the statement is “big” I mean it. I will post a few choice snippets here. First, a quick summary at the beginning:

    The issues affecting EC2 customers last week primarily involved a subset of the Amazon Elastic Block Store (“EBS”) volumes in a single Availability Zone within the US East Region that became unable to service read and write operations. In this document, we will refer to these as “stuck” volumes. This caused instances trying to use these affected volumes to also get “stuck” when they attempted to read or write to them. In order to restore these volumes and stabilize the EBS cluster in that Availability Zone, we disabled all control APIs (e.g. Create Volume, Attach Volume, Detach Volume, and Create Snapshot) for EBS in the affected Availability Zone for much of the duration of the event. For two periods during the first day of the issue, the degraded EBS cluster affected the EBS APIs and caused high error rates and latencies for EBS calls to these APIs across the entire US East Region. As with any complicated operational issue, this one was caused by several root causes interacting with one another and therefore gives us many opportunities to protect the service against any similar event reoccurring.

    It then gets into an overview of the EBS system, and technical details of the outage and recovery, as well as the impact on the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). Then it talks about prevention, which is probably the most important takeaway, considering businesses rely on Amazon to stay up and running:

    The trigger for this event was a network configuration change. We will audit our change process and increase the automation to prevent this mistake from happening in the future. However, we focus on building software and services to survive failures. Much of the work that will come out of this event will be to further protect the EBS service in the face of a similar failure in the future.

    We will be making a number of changes to prevent a cluster from getting into a re-mirroring storm in the future. With additional excess capacity, the degraded EBS cluster would have more quickly absorbed the large number of re-mirroring requests and avoided the re-mirroring storm. We now understand the amount of capacity needed for large recovery events and will be modifying our capacity planning and alarming so that we carry the additional safety capacity that is needed for large scale failures. We have already increased our capacity buffer significantly, and expect to have the requisite new capacity in place in a few weeks. We will also modify our retry logic in the EBS server nodes to prevent a cluster from getting into a re-mirroring storm. When a large interruption occurs, our retry logic will back off more aggressively and focus on re-establishing connectivity with previous replicas rather than futilely searching for new nodes with which to re-mirror. We have begun working through these changes and are confident we can address the root cause of the re-mirroring storm by modifying this logic. Finally, we have identified the source of the race condition that led to EBS node failure. We have a fix and will be testing it and deploying it to our clusters in the next couple of weeks. These changes provide us with three separate protections against having a repeat of this event.

    Then, there’s plenty more about the impact to multiple availability zones and recovery, before Amazon addresses another big element of this story, which has come under significant fire from the media: the company’s lack of communication on the whole matter (something that seems to be a trend in the tech world these days):

    In addition to the technical insights and improvements that will result from this event, we also identified improvements that need to be made in our customer communications. We would like our communications to be more frequent and contain more information. We understand that during an outage, customers want to know as many details as possible about what’s going on, how long it will take to fix, and what we are doing so that it doesn’t happen again. Most of the AWS team, including the entire senior leadership team, was directly involved in helping to coordinate, troubleshoot and resolve the event. Initially, our primary focus was on thinking through how to solve the operational problems for customers rather than on identifying root causes. We felt that that focusing our efforts on a solution and not the problem was the right thing to do for our customers, and that it helped us to return the services and our customers back to health more quickly. We updated customers when we had new information that we felt confident was accurate and refrained from speculating, knowing that once we had returned the services back to health that we would quickly transition to the data collection and analysis stage that would drive this post mortem.

    That said, we think we can improve in this area. We switched to more regular updates part of the way through this event and plan to continue with similar frequency of updates in the future. In addition, we are already working on how we can staff our developer support team more expansively in an event such as this, and organize to provide early and meaningful information, while still avoiding speculation.

    We also can do a better job of making it easier for customers to tell if their resources have been impacted, and we are developing tools to allow you to see via the APIs if your instances are impaired.

    Finally, the apology:

    Last, but certainly not least, we want to apologize. We know how critical our services are to our customers’ businesses and we will do everything we can to learn from this event and use it to drive improvement across our services. As with any significant operational issue, we will spend many hours over the coming days and weeks improving our understanding of the details of the various parts of this event and determining how to make changes to improve our services and processes.

    The company was good enough to give affected customers a 10-day credit (equal to 100% of usage of EBS volumes, EC2 instances and RDS database instances that were running in the affected availability zone).

  • Amazon Outage Casts Shadow Over Cloud Perception

    Amazon recently suffered some problems with some of its servers, which left some sites with large hiccups in their services. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service had some issues, primarily in Virginia. Among the sites affected were Foursquare, Quora, Reddit, and Hootsuite.

    Amazon has said that .07% of the data not able to be fully recovered, according to several reports. “We have completed our remaining recovery efforts and though we’ve recovered nearly all of the stuck volumes, we’ve determined that a small number of volumes (0.07% of the volumes in our US-East Region) will not be fully recoverable,” Amazon is quoted as saying.

    The company has been letting the companies affected know. It’s unclear what all companies are actually affected.

    The whole incident hasn’t been good for the perception of cloud computing in general. After all, if something like this could happen, what’s to stop all kinds of similar incidents from happening in the past. Reliance on others for important data is a liability.

    Look at Twitter’s inability to stay operational for all users at all times. What if Twitter was hosting a great deal of your company’s information. Business have come to rely on Twitter for various purposes, yet the site is often plagued with downtime. It’s just another example of reliance on third-parties for business-critical functions.

    The whole Playstation Network debacle hasn’t done anything to help the perception of cloud computing either.

    Amazon recently launched its cloud storage service for consumers. Amazon will have a lot more information on its servers than just businesses, as people store their music collections and other files.

    As far as business, it might be wise to have a backup plan in case you can’t rely 100% on a third party. InformationWeek has an interesting piece about the need for failover planning.

    Bizo, a company that depended on Amazon, “resorted to a practice that many observers were left wondering why Amazon itself hadn’t adopted,” writes InformationWeek’s Charles Babcock. “- the ability of a system in one data center to be shifted to another in a separate, geographic location.

    Everything on Amazon’s status dashboard is currently listed as “operating normally”.

  • Apple iCloud on the Way?

    Apple iCloud on the Way?

    A new report from GigaOm, cites a “tipster” as saying that Apple has purchased the domain iCloud.com from Xcerion, which just changed the name of its own iCloud service to CloudMe at CloudMe.com. According to the tipster, Apple bought the domain for about $4.5 million.

    Naturally, one would have to assume Apple would be interested in that “i” in the name, as the company is expected to launch a cloud-based music service that would compete with Amazon, mSpot, and potentially Google. TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters says he asked Xcerion why they changed their name and got the following response:

    “We decided we needed a name change to better reflect our new focus on files and storage, where the desktop is just one of many clients to access files and content stored in CloudMe. Since we a couple of months ago launched our iPhone and Android app, WebDAV and the automatic backup software, Easy Upload for Windows, Mac and Linux, we now have many clients that interact with our users’ content. There also are a lot of third party apps and software supporting the CloudMe online computer.”

    Apple’s service is expected to be a paid service. While unconfirmed, a price that has been rumored is $20 a year. The service would let iTunes users stream songs from a remote server from anywhere there is Internet access.

    Apple is said to be in talks with record labels about licensing of songs. Google is in the same boat. Both would surely like to have a product out as soon as possible, but those pesky legal issues always get in the way. Apple has reportedly already reached deals with a couple of the major labels. Obviously Apple has a foot firmly in the door with iTunes.

    Google has actually been said to be talking to Spotify as a possible partner on its own music service, which was supposed to be ready with Honeycomb (the latest version of Android designed primarily for tablets).

    Xcerion is still listed as the owner of the iCloud.com domain.

  • Cisco Acquires newScale, Cloud Service Catalog Provider

    Cisco Acquires newScale, Cloud Service Catalog Provider

    Update (04/15): Cisco announced today that it has closed the acquisition.

    Original Article (03/29): Cisco announced its intent to acquire newScale, a “self-service, service catalog, and lifecycle management software” provider for cloud-based IT. The above video does a pretty good job of explaining what newScale is all about.

    newScale claims to have over two million users globally, and counts companies like AT&T, American Express, Boeing, and Allstate among its customers. It fact, its customers come from a wide range of industries, including: automotive, chemicals, consumer goods, education, energy, financial, healthcare, insurance, IT outsourcing, manufacturing, oil/gas, pharmaceuticals, public sector, retail/hospitality, services, technology, telecommunications, and transportation.

    “Cloud computing represents a major shift in the evolution of the Internet, and as more customers migrate from traditional IT infrastructures, the need for rapid self-provisioning and efficient management becomes increasingly critical,” said Parvesh Sethi, SVP of Cisco Services. “With the acquisition of newScale, Cisco will be able to accelerate the deployment of cloud services through a service catalog and self-service portal that allows customers to easily manage their IT infrastructures.”

    Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second half of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011. newScale’s team would report to Cisco’s Advanced Services organization.

    A couple weeks ago, Cisco announced its first-ever cash dividend, with a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per common share to be paid on April 20, 2011, to all Cisco shareholders. “As the role of the network expands across the IT sector, Cisco’s leadership position in the markets we serve is strong, and the time is right for Cisco to pay our first-ever cash dividend,” said Frank Calderoni, Executive Vice President & CFO of Cisco. “This dividend complements our leading position, and is an important part of our commitment to bring value to shareholders.”

    Also about two weeks ago, Cisco completed another acquisition – that of Inlet Technologies, a provider of Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) digital media processing platforms. That one was about $95 million.

  • Google Funds AI Project to Implement “Regret”

    Google recently announced that it will help fund groundbreaking research by computer scientists and economists at Tel Aviv University.  The Blavatnik School of Computer Science is attempting to help computers make better decisions using a term they dubbed “regret.”

    Head of the program Professor Yishay Mansour began this project earlier this year at the International Conference on Learning Theory in Haifa, Israel.  He and the other researchers are working on algorithms that would allow computers to learn from their past failures in an effort to make better predictions.  This is referred to as “minimizing virtual regret” by Mansour.

    “If the servers and routing systems of the Internet could see and evaluate all the relevant variables in advance, they could more efficiently prioritize server resource requests, load documents and route visitors to an Internet site, for instance,” says Mansour.

    “Regret” is not really comparable to the human emotion that follows a night of heavy drinking or a bad relationship, but is more along the lines of measuring the distance between the desired outcome and the actual outcome.

    Since the actions of people are wildly unpredictable, the algorithm would need to allow adaptation on the fly, and real-time decision making.

    “We are able to change and influence the decision-making of computers in real-time. Compared to human beings, help systems can much more quickly process all the available information to estimate the future as events unfold – whether it’s a bidding war on an online auction site, a sudden spike of traffic to a media website, or demand for an online product,” says Mansour.

    All of this research greatly interests Google, as would be expected.  As Google grows, their need to be able to process large amounts of data in real-time also grows.  Apparently the search giant is particularly interested in how this new technology can benefit AdWords and AdSense.

    Masour will work with a 20 person team on the project, headed by Professor Noam Nisan of Hebrew University.  Also involved will be the head of Google Israel, Professor Yossi Matias, a Tel Aviv University faculty member.

    I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.

  • Google Invests $168 Million In “Solar Power Tower Plant”

    Last week, Google announced that it was investing $5 million in a German solar power plant, and many people nodded in appreciation.  Only it turns out the search giant was just warming up, as the company announced today it’s now putting almost $170 million into a solar plant much closer to home.

    Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations at Google, wrote on the Official Google Blog, “We’ve invested $168 million in an exciting new solar energy power plant being developed by BrightSource Energy in the Mojave Desert in California.  Brightsource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) will generate 392 gross MW of clean, solar energy.  That’s the equivalent of taking more than 90,000 cars off the road over the lifetime of the plant, projected to be more than 25 years.”

    Then, while noting that this does represent Google’s largest clean tech investment (“to date”), Needham continued, “The investment makes business sense . . .”

    That should come as a relief to investors who are concerned about how Google will perform under Larry Page.  And that’s starting to be a serious factor, too, since the company’s stock has dropped 2.43 percent since Page took over as CEO a week ago.  (For reference: the Nasdaq’s lost just 0.65 percent and the Dow is up a tiny bit over the same period.)

    Anyway, the “Ivanpah Power Tower,” as the solar project’s known, is supposed to be finished in 2013.  NRG is an additional supporter, and the U.S. Department of Energy is providing clean energy technology loan guarantees.

  • The Japan Quake Maps Are Useful, Educational

    The Japan Quake Maps Are Useful, Educational

    If there’s some good that comes from the kind of natural disaster that hit Japan, aside from seeing people put aside their petty differences for a moment in favor of assisting those in need, it’s seeing Internet technologies being used as a tool that both educates those who are unaware about the extent of the disaster, and, in some cases, as a tool that assists with relief efforts.

    One technology in particular, online maps, has proved to be a powerful tool, thanks in large part to the flexibility and the allowance of user-generated content, either in the form of educational mash-ups and/or the use of crowdsourcing to provide these maps with as much accurate data as possible. Considering the concept behind crowdsourcing — “the act of outsourcing tasks… to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “crowd”)” — and the ease-of-manipulation these maps offer, much of this crowd-produced data is done in real time.

    Take, for instance, the Haiti earthquake and the subsequent OpenStreetMap collaboration that, very quickly, produced an accurate post-earthquake map of populated areas that was actually used by disaster relief workers. This is a perfect example of just how helpful technology can be while dealing with the effects of a devastating natural disaster.

    While it’s true that Japan’s technology infrastructure is in much better shape than Haiti’s; one’s a third-world country, while the other is considered a technological super power, the Tōhoku earthquake left a sizable need for updates to Japan’s geo-map offerings. Clearly, these user-generated maps are becoming more and more useful, if, for nothing else, providing an accurate before-and-after picture of the disaster area.

    Because of the fear related to the nuclear power plants affected by the Japanese earthquake of March 11, one such geo-map mash-up, as detailed by Boing Boing, focuses on monitoring the radiation levels of the locations these plants are housed in.

    Over at RDTN.org, there’s a Google map of Japan that derives its data from user-generated content, or in this case, crowdsourcing. Users are invited to take and post a reading, provided they have new information to offer. The map is complete with placemarkers that use different colors than Google’s default setting (blue) in order to differentiate their content.

    Japan Radiation Map

    Another map, called the Japan Quake Map, is an awfully revealing look at the area in question. This particular mash-up shows just how many different earthquakes have hit the area since March 11, the day the “big” one hit Tōhoku. The results are quite surprising and it shows that, even though they may not cause the destruction the “big one” did, the Japanese proper is constantly being bombarded with earthquakes.

    Since March 11, there have been over 700 earthquakes in and around Japan and the tectonic plate boundary the island resides on. While most, if not all, of these “other” quakes are indeed smaller on the magnitude scale, the fact there’s been so many is frightening. Apparently, as long as you keep the Richter reading below the six level, it’s just another day in the life of living on the tectonic plates that make up Japan.

    As a comparison, here’s what a earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 looks like on the map:

    Japan Quake Map

    And now here’s what the Tōhoku earthquake looked like. According to the mash-up, this particular quake registered in at a magnitude of 9. As you can see, the difference between this and the above image is staggering:

    Japan Quake Map

    While it’s often difficult, if not impossible, to find the good in such natural disasters, in a world of pathetic scammers trying to make a buck off of Japan’s misery, it’s almost inspiring to see the potential of the Internet being put to good use for a change.

  • HP Looking To Cloud For The Future

    If you’re a new CEO and are looking to put your own stamp on a company upon starting, look to HP’s Leo Apotheker for inspiration. On Monday, Apotheker outlined his vision for the company and many came away impressed with his words. Citing cloud services, connectivity, and webOS, Apotheker has laid the foundation for the future of the company. Now, it’s time to see if something can be built on it.

    Opening on Tuesday, HP’s stock took a hit and is currently trading at $40.72/share. A $0.75 decrease from yesterday. This can be attributed to talks of “new directions” and “long-term strategy“, as such terms can lessen the confidence of investors.

    Apotheker mentioned cloud services as a market HP plans to invest heavily in moving forward. He even promised to deliver a cloud infrastructure in 2011. Services HP will offer include an app store, along with other programs for enterprises.

    To coincide with their cloud services, HP will move forward with their expansive plans for WebOS. Last year, HP purchased Palm and looked to their WebOS platform as an investment opportunity. Last month, HP laid out their list of devices which will utilize WebOS: HP TouchPad, Veer and Pre3. Of their plans for the mobile space, Apotheker believes there could be 100 million devices a year running the WebOS platform.

    Bill Shope, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, had mixed feelings towards the CEO’s plans, “We were impressed with the new CEO’s long-term vision, and agree with his view on the areas where HP needs to focus in coming years” he continues, “Nevertheless, we still believe the company is underestimating the costs of its current transformation and the resulting risks to medium-term margin stability.”

    The obvious problems ahead for HP come from staunch competition they’ll be facing in the new markets they plan to dive into. On the cloud side of things, Oracle and Cisco are established companies with renowned products. Their mobile plans will be going up against the two-headed monster of Android, and iOS.

    While HP has a tough journey ahead, sometimes it’s bold words and plans that are needed to come up from a rut. Ever since the abrupt exit of ex-CEO, Mark Hurd, the company has been sliding backwards. Their stock has been down 20% the past year.

    Apotheker has laid out the plan, now it’s time to see how HP handles the follow through.

  • SXSW – Rackspace Startup Program, Cloud 2.0 iPad App Launched

    Rackspace has kicked off SXSW Interactive with the announcement of the Rackspace Startup Program and Rackspace Cloud 2.0 an app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPad Touch (the timing of which also coincides with the release of the iPad 2).

    The Rackspace Startup Program provides cloud resources to startups participating in programs with 500 Startups, TechStars, Y Combinator and General Assembly.    “A lot of folks don’t understand that Rackspace is actually a startup success story – they grew from a 10 person start-up to a leading cloud player, so they understand what it takes to succeed. Fortunately for the tech community, Rackspace continues to invest in entrepreneurs by providing compute power,” said Dave McClure, Founder of 500 Startups.  “Unlike years ago, these startups will likely never touch a server because the cloud provides a cheaper, easier way to operate – which is key for any startup that is boot-strapped and short on time.  We’re using Rackspace at 500 Startups, and we’ve been consistently pleased with both the service and the support.”

    “Now through the free app, users can manage their Rackspace Cloud and customize OpenStack clouds – anywhere they have a connection!” a spokesperson for Rackspace tells WebProNews. “The universal app supports Rackspace Cloud Servers and Rackspace Cloud Files for multiple cloud accounts and in the US and UK.”

    “As people debate if the tablet has a place in the enterprise, Rackspace believes adding this level of functionality mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones allow system administrators some freedom that is available to other workers who have the option to go mobile,” she adds.  “Other new features include Chef integration helping to automate processes while saving system admins time, and it is one of the first to run on Apple’s iOS 4.3, connecting audio and video Cloud Files from the app directly to Apple TV.”

    “Now that the cloud application is available on more portable devices and has more features, Rackspace is extending fanatical support by bringing ease of use and portability to the cloud,” said Mike Mayo, mobile application developer of the Rackspace Cloud.

    SXSW is just getting started out here in Austin. Look for more SXSW coverage, including exclusive interviews from WebProNews throughout the interactive portion of the vent.

    Rackspace will be participating in various panels and events at SXSW from Saturday through Monday.

  • iPhone App Shows Map Of Charging Stations

    Drivers of electric cars can now access an app called PlugShare that shows a map of charging stations in their area.

    The PlugShare app was created by a Palo Alto-based start-up called Xatori which focuses on software for electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt.

    PlugShare is available for iPhone and iPod touch users for free via the iTunes App Store. Xatori also plans to release PlugShare for Android soon.

    The app allows drivers to share their own charging locations with each other. Users can contact other electric car owners and ask for permission to recharge. PlugShare users have to create an account to view address and profile information.

    Other features of the PlugShare app include:

    *Browse a listing of public charging stations

    *Call or text other PlugShare members

    *Set privacy and notification settings

    *Get directions to shared outlets or charging stations

    “Many people won’t have EVs right away, but everyone has an electrical outlet,” said Forrest North, CEO.

    “Sharing electricity from a standard outlet only costs about $0.15 an hour, a small price to lessen our dependence on oil.”

  • Amazon Web Services Launches In Japan

    Amazon Web Services Launches In Japan

     Amazon Web  Services (AWS) said today it has launched data centers in Japan for its cloud computing platform.

    Japan is the fifth region where Amazon has introduced its cloud computing platform. Amazon said it is offering support in Japanese for any users who have a Japanese language preference. In addition, AWS plans to provide in the coming months the option for billing in Japanese Yen.

    Amazon-Web-Services-Japan “Today, AWS powers hundreds of thousands of customers in over 190 countries around the world, including individual developers, startups, government agencies and enterprises,” said Andy Jassy, Senior Vice President, Amazon Web Services.

    “More and more, companies are realizing that they can use AWS to save significant capital, innovate faster, accelerate their pace of technology delivery, and focus their scarce engineering resources on what differentiates their business rather than on infrastructure.”

    AWS Basic Support is free to all users and offers access to the AWS Resource Center, Service Health Dashboard, Technical FAQs, and Developer Forums.

  • Augmented Reality + Location = The Holy Grail for Marketers?

    Augmented Reality + Location = The Holy Grail for Marketers?

    WebProNews recently spoke with Layar’s augmented reality strategist Gene Becker about the present and the future of augmented reality. Layar thinks AR will become essential to consumers’ mobile experiences. 

    Ogmento is a an augmented reality gaming company that says it’s helping to change the way consumers interact with their smart phones. Ogmento recently released an iPhone game called Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary (based on the popular movie franchise), that combines augmented reality, geo-social elements and user-generated content – an interesting combo. President and co-founder Brian Selzer shared some more insights on the industry with us.

    Ogmento's Paranormal Activity Game Uses Augmented Reality

    The company says it has created the first game that combines geo-social elements and computer vision augmented reality to physically "check in" to a location. For example, if the GPS is saying that the user is standing near a Starbucks, and the phone’s camera is looking at a Starbucks logo, then a special reward will open for the players. This reward is proof that the player is, indeed, where they say they are, the company explains.

    The user-generated content comes in as users can draw out symbols on a piece of paper and have them come to life on their iPhones.

    “The combination of AR (computer vision) with LBS (location-based..) has been called the holy grail by some in marketing,” Selzer tells WebProNews. “Applications like Foursquare and Gowalla currently rely on GPS to verify where a user is. This is not accurate, and users can check in to 100 places from their couch.  People are rewarded for not even going into the actual locations. With AR, it’s an extra verification that a person is actually there, because it’s about vision. The camera can recognize a logo, or a sign, and that along with GPS makes for a much stronger connection. AR also allows users to interact with brands.. mixing real world and virtual world gaming experiences. The engagement is much stronger. So now mobile marketing is about understanding where people are, what they are doing, having them interact with their brands, reward them for these interactions, all in the real world. The dynamic nature of our games allows us to create campaigns on the fly. for locations, time of day, and much more.”

    “AR is about computer vision… seeing, understanding and interacting with the real world around us,” he says. “A traditional mobile game is not inherently mobile. It does not think about LBS, or interacting with the people, places, things around us.  With AR, we turn the real world into the game experience. This is a fundamentally different approach to gaming, and will only grow as the technology advances.”

    “LBS is already catching on quickly,” says Selzer.  “Our belief is that LBS, plus great game mechanics, plus AR will make the mix much more powerful though. LBS will likely go mainstream without AR, primarily because the tech is still very nascent.  As the sophistication of mobile computer vision advances though, LBS apps will take on an entirely new level of usefulness.”

    As tablets are becoming hot ticket items, we asked Selzer how big of a role this emerging market plays in the growth of augmented reality.  “Tablets will be great for table top based AR,” he says. “You can imagine a family around the table, viewing mixed-reality games, the same way people play board games. It will be great to experience AR on these larger platforms in the real world too, but the practicality of holding them up for any length of time is just not there. Truly, the smartphone and tablet are just a gateway to what everybody in mobile AR wants, and that’s hands-free goggles.  I’m looking forward to the day when we can stop holding up devices in front of our face, and just naturally experience an added digital, contextual layer on the real world though a set of well-designed eyewear.”

    This idea echoes something Layar’s Becker told us: “ In the longer term, we all like to envision a world where we have immersive displays that you can put on just like a pair of sunglasses, and then suddenly the entire world can be sort of continuously augmented with information all around you.”

    “It’s early, and true AR is hard,” says Selzer. “We are seeing a lot of great new AR experiments and early games on a regular basis now. The buzz and expectations are high.  Some see it as a fad, because they are judging the current state of AR and saying, ‘yeah, it’s cool, but so what?’ It’s about the ‘wow-factor’ of seeing mixed reality right now. In a couple years it will be more about having a deeper level of engagement with people, places, things in the real world… to add another layer of content onto the real world which is contextually tied to what you see.  When AR apps show that they truly understand what they are looking at on a consistent basis, that’s when AR will become mainstream. For now, it’s very cool, very fun… and perfect for gaming and marketing folks.”

    Currently, Ogmento only works for iOS, but Selzer says the company is “platform agnostic”. iOS is just their first platform. The company is already developing for Android, and says it will continue to move onto other platforms, other mobile devices, portable gaming devices, PC, and perhaps even console. “Basically any platform that has cameras, sensors, and supports Augmented Reality experiences is being looked at,” he says.

  • Augmented Reality To Become Our Sixth Sense?

    Augmented Reality To Become Our Sixth Sense?

    Late last month, augmented reality developers Layar announced that it was making its platform available to all developers of iOS apps, opening the door for a lot more innovation and practical use-cases for AR technology. "All apps and services that have a location aspect can now easily and without license costs be enhanced with an AR view of their content," Layar co-founder, Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald told WebProNews. "It fits with the new trends within the AR industry, which is the democratization of this new medium – lowering the barrier to enter the new realm of AR."

    Since then, WebProNews spoke with Layar’s augmented reality strategist Gene Becker about what the future holds for not only Layar and the apps that take advantage of its platform, but for the technology and the industry as a whole. "We think of AR as really a emerging medium for creative expression and communication. It’s a medium that’s digital, that’s interactive, but it’s also uniquely physical in nature," he said. 

    "Think about the web back in 1994," he said. "The web was really – as we look back on it now – it was a democratization of the ability to publish – basically to put anything out on the web and connect with anybody in the world. We see augmented reality as kind of being in the early stages, a little bit like the web in 1994. That was kind of the days of black text on gray backgrounds, but it was a fundamental shift in terms of what kind of capabilities it gave people to publish and communicate with the world."

    "We think it’s really important that we enable anybody to create AR experiences to augment their physical world, and that’s going to be one of the things that really helps AR to take off and become mainstream, and a part of everybody’s life," he continued. 

    Once Layar opens up its platform to other developer ecosystems, growth is bound to be fueled even more. Lens-Fitzgerald told us, "We are always looking to expand to other platforms," and Layar’s Layar Stream feature, for content discovery went to Android even before iOS. 

    "When you augment the world it’s probably going to touch just about everything eventually, but I guess if you look at the kinds of content layers that we currently have on our platform, you can kind of get a sense of the range of things that are starting to be touched," said Becker of the technology. "We have commercial layers, and things like retail store finders. We have promotions – marketing promotions for new films coming out…there are games. People are making a variety of different kinds of interactive games…there’s data visualizations – people looking at things like visualizing earthquake magnitudes in real time, looking at pollution visualization…there’s also art exhibits both from established museums as well as from ‘guerilla artists’ who were sort of appropriating AR space for their works."

    "I think ultimately, it will touch everything," he said. 

    "I think one of the big challenges that we have is, it is early days, and up until now, a lot of people have really positioned augmented reality as this sort of really cool technology thing," Becker said.  "That’s pretty typical for a new, emerging space. We really feel like one of the big challenges for this year and the next couple years is to get past that ‘wow, gee whiz technology’ thing, and really get onto the business of creating a new medium that people can use to express, to connect, and to communicate."

    "The early adopters – the techies – get it," he added. "They like it, but that’s not where we’re going to add value to people’s lives more broadly."

    Of course Layar isn’t the only company out there making use of AR, and Layar prefers it that way. 

    "There’s definitely a growing number of AR companies out there," said Becker. "Most of them are actually our good friends. It’s a small industry, and at this point, I think the fact that there is competition is actually one of the best things that we can see, because it says there really is something here. There’s a real market. It supports multiple players, and we’re looking forward to helping push the envelope along with a lot of our friends in the States."

    "I think that over time, AR is really going to become an essential aspect of the mobile experience," he said. "The same way that today we think about email and social media and mapping and so forth. I think that AR is really going to be something that people use every day when they’re out and mobile. In the longer term, we all like to envision a world where we have immersive displays that you can put on just like a pair of sunglasses, and then suddenly the entire world can be sort of continuously augmented with information all around you. And I think that’s several years away still, but I think that when it gets to that point AR’s going to be almost like a sixth sense that we just rely on that we won’t know in some ways, how to do without."

    Do you think we’ll reach that point?

  • Gates Foundation Invests In Facebook App For Education

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced today it has invested $2 million in education technology company Inigral, to help fund its Schools App on Facebook.

    The Schools App uses Facebook to create a virtual community for colleges students during the admissions and orientation process and through their first year. The Schools App aims to increase involvement and engagement among college students to increase the likelihood of graduation.

    Schools App – The Student Perspective from Inigral Inc. on Vimeo.

    "Facebook was founded in a college dorm and gave classmates a way to connect with each other," said Ethan Beard, Director of Platform Partnerships, Facebook.

    "Inigral’s Schools App continues this legacy by working to positively impact the lives of students and increase the likelihood of graduation. The involvement of the Gates Foundation highlights the opportunity for startups like Inigral to build on Facebook to make an impact on education and create new opportunities for students."

    The Gates Foundation’s equity investment is part of an ongoing exploration of  charitable giving to improve education.  The foundation also will provide grants to academic researchers and higher education groups to study the impact of social media on postsecondary student engagement and retention.

     

  • Will Augmented Reality Leap-Frog the QR Code?

    Will Augmented Reality Leap-Frog the QR Code?

    There continues to be a steady buzz about QR codes, those bar code-looking thingys that can be scanned by a smart phone to link you to added content, a website or perhaps even a coupon at the point of purchase. Here’s the Wikipedia definition.

    I’m not an expert in QR codes – or anything for that matter — but I’ve been around long enough to have a good idea if something is going to work or not.  I’m thinking the buzz on QR codes may be short-lived – and I’d like to explain why by telling you a short story about a beer can.

    One of my most interesting jobs was global marketing director for aluminum packaging products (like beverage cans).  While this may sound mundane, the opportunity to nurture $2.5 billion in sales with some of the world’s biggest brands was a lot of fun!

    On a customer trip, I noticed the flight attendant had a lanyard around her neck with a strange plastic device on the end. The device served as a fulcrum that she used under the tabs to open each can.  I asked her why she just didn’t open the pop-tops with her fingers and she pointed to her well-manicured nails.

    I suddenly realized that our humble package had a big problem. A significant part of the population — people with manicured nails — needed a secondary device to open the package. We were vulnerable!  Any competing package that did not require a secondary "opener" (like plastic bottles) would be preferred by these consumers!

    This revelation led to an R&D project aimed at an easier-opening lid which included a depressed "well" under the tab to protect well-groomed nails.

    QR codes are vulnerable in the same way — you need an "opener" to get to the goods. Consumers will resist this, especially if there is an alternative — and there is.

    Last summer I was in Bordeaux and noticed they had QR code posters everywhere to provide information on city events. I was a tourist with money to spend — their target market — but I couldn’t use the system.  Problem 1: The instructions were in French.  Problem 2: You had to download special software to access the information.  Problem 3: As an international visitor, I would have to access expensive roaming charges just to get the code.

    The "opener" in this case was a significant obstacle.  If the city went to the trouble of creating posters, why not put up one up that simply had the information people needed? Why make me WORK for it?

    Now suppose such a helpful poster existed … you would still have the problem of a language barrier, right? The problem could easily be solved for anybody that had a free smartphone app called WordLens. This technology is part of a swelling trend called augmented reality that I think will leap-frog the QR code innovation.

    In this example, by simply holding the phone in front of the foreign language, you get an instantaneous translation and access to the information when you need it, where you need it. No instructions. No dependence on an Internet connection. No expenditure in time or expense.  It’s just an extraordinarily user-friendly experience.

    I don’t think you can question the power of the idea behind QR Codes but I have reservations about customer adoption.  I believe augmented reality is one of the seminal technologies of 2011 and a development that could obsolete QR codes in many cases.  Imagine holding your phone up in front of a city street and having discounts, movie times, even names of nearby friends overlayed on top of the buildings?  Or using the phone to scan a display of shirts to immediately find your size, discounts, and matching pants and accessories?

    There will probably be legitimate uses for QR codes, especially for industrial applications and logistics tracking, but I believe augmented reality may leap-frog the innovation in the consumer arena before it leaves the gate.  This is just one opinion and I’m sincerely open for debate here — what’s your take on it?

    Originally published at BusinessesGrow.com

  • Verizon Buying Terremark for $1.4 Billion

    Verizon Buying Terremark for $1.4 Billion

    Verizon announced that it is acquiring IT infrastructure and cloud services provider Terremark Worldwide in a move the company says will "decisively reshape the rapidly evolving global business technology solutions market."

    The agreement is for Verizon to get Terremark for $1.4 billion, at $19.00 a share. 

    "Cloud computing continues to fundamentally alter the way enterprises procure, deploy and manage IT resources, and this combination helps create a tipping point for ‘everything-as-a-service,’" said Lowell McAdam, president and COO of Verizon.  "Our collective vision will foster innovation, enhance business processes and dynamically deliver business intelligence and collaboration services to anyone, anywhere and on any device."

    Terremark to be acquired by VerizonTerremark Chairman and CEO Manuel D. Medina said: "This transaction, first and foremost, provides Terremark’s stockholders with the opportunity for immediate, maximum value and liquidity for their investment in our common stock."

    "We are very proud of all we’ve accomplished in building and developing a world-class business that delivers industry-leading services," he added. "This agreement represents an exciting opportunity to accelerate our strategy and serve our enterprise and government customers with even greater innovation on a global scale with Verizon’s resources and extensive reach. We will continue to work with leading hardware, software, systems integrator and carrier partners to build on our unique business model."

    Verizon will operate the new unit as a wholly owned subsidiary retaining the Terremark name, and with Terremark’s current management team.

    The Board of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction.