It's a more solid-state Sun, embedding flash memory in servers
This week, Sun announced solid-state disk technology as an option for its x64 and chip multi-threaded (CMT) rack and blade servers, along with free trial and pricing discount offers. In addition, it rolled out the Sun Flash Analyzer, a new software tool for helping customers leverage SSD-based servers to raise application performance.
The company's overall flash effort is particularly ambitious and far reaching, even though Sun isn't the first vendor to offer SSD flash as a server option, according to some analysts. IBM, for example, beat Sun out the door with SSD-enabled servers way back in 2007, noted Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, in an interview with Betanews.
It has come to this: A claim that patent reform threatens the environment
Much of America's ability to once again play a contributing factor in the restoration of balance in Earth's natural environment depends on the continuing creation of new technologies, both for replacing other technologies that damage our planet and for simply curing the problem at hand. Some of these technologies are being created at the grass roots level, by entrepreneurs and experimenters, often with the intention of licensing or selling that technology once it receives its US patent -- its assurance of originality and viability.
But the value of that patent in the modern market is determined by its defensibility -- literally, how much it can rake in, in infringement cases. Without that market value, much of the incentive for trying to build new technologies in the first place, may be lost.
Vivek Kundra's maiden-voyage speech: content 8, timing 2
The FBI's been pretty emphatic so far that Vivek Kundra's not the target of the investigation that resulted in yesterday's raids on his old offices in DC, though a person can't blame the White House for putting the guy on administrative leave anyway until the details are clear. (The guy the FBI nabbed is, after all, acting CSO for the district.) In all the hubbub, however, the press has mainly passed over Kundra's speech on Thursday to FOSE, in which he laid out his ideas for shaping up the tech aspects of the ship of state. The audacity of the free market, anyone?
Kundra's speech (transcribed in its entirety at Government Computer News) made the case for government-led innovation, when it's done right -- DARPA and the NSF with the early Internet, for instance, and the National Institutes of Health with the Human Genome Project -- while emphasizing the need to provide public access to the data, bring the public into policy discussions, and lower the cost of government.
Intel's Atom and the return of the thin client
Decades ago, one of the most viable arguments for major enterprises holding onto their "big iron" -- their aging mainframes -- was that they could still provide processing power for thin clients, the smaller and less expensive terminals that didn't need the speed to crunch numbers. Today, in the era of virtualization, the concept of shifting processing power back to the data center has been reborn, especially with the deployment of lighter-weight, single-core processors that only provide the power needed to render results.
With that, a thin-client manufacturer named Devon IT this week announced it's shipping a little PC called the TC5 that frankly isn't much smarter than many smartphones these days...but it doesn't need to be. It's shipping with Intel's single-core Atom N270 processor clocked at 1.66 GHz, which isn't much; it uses Intel's GMA 950 embedded graphics, which also isn't much; and it has Windows XP or Linux on board rather than Windows Vista, and you know the drill there now.
So what's its purpose? To serve as a wired or wireless network receiver and to pump data to the screen as fast as possible...and besides gathering user input, that's about it. Its design enables it to run one program -- maybe the only one it ever has to run: a desktop virtualization host.
Analysts predict smartphones will thrive, even in this market
Last week, market research company NPD released findings that showed the touchscreen smartphone market has been thriving. Today, Gartner market research has released its figures for 2008, confirming the shift toward a smartphone-dominated market.
The overall mobile phone market is expected to shrink by about 10 percent in 2009, while smartphones will comprise an ever larger segment of that contracting market. Informa Telecoms and Media last week predicted a 35.3% growth in smartphone sales this year, and Gartner this week predicted a growth of 28%.
Tests: Firefox 3.1 JavaScript outpaced by Safari 4, Google Chrome
Download Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 for Windows from Fileforum now.
Internet enthusiasts today are getting their first glimpse of the TraceMonkey JavaScript interpreter that Mozilla claims will be one of the principal reasons to own and use Firefox 3.5 -- what the latest Firefox will inevitably be called once the numerology gets sorted out. A fresh round of comprehensive Betanews tests Thursday afternoon indicate that Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 will demonstrate close to eight times the general JavaScript calculation and rendering performance of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 -- a clear performance gain.
T-Mobile USA: UK report on Android Cupcake is 'just a rumor'
Now under development for the past several months, an envisioned update to the Android mobile OS known as "Cupcake" is expected to add video recording and other desirable new features to T-Mobile's G1, as well as to future Android phones.
In a report widely bandied about this week, UK-based gadget blog Pocket-lint on Wednesday quoted a T-Mobile spokesperson as stating, "We will be offering G1 users the firmware update some time in April." Pocket-lint did not supply the name or location of its public relations source, though.
Google ad exec tapped to head AOL
Time Warner's CEO Jeff Bewkes announced this evening that AOL's current chairman and CEO Randy Falco will be replaced by Tim Armstrong, President of Google's American Operations and board member of the Advertising Council, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and The Advertising Research Foundation.
Bewkes called Armstrong an advertising pioneer, who has "a stellar reputation and proven track record." Armstrong will also be of crucial importance in Time Warner's decisions about the future of the AOL brand.
Palm Pre and Sprint reveal plan pricing options
They won't say when it'll arrive and they won't say how much it'll cost, but representatives from Palm and Sprint on Thursday were willing to talk about stuff like service plans for the wildly anticipated (though not anytime soon) Palm Pre.
It'll be the Everything plans for would-be Pre users: The available individual service plans, according to company officials will be for 400 minutes, 900 minutes, and the $100 all-you-can-eat Simply Everything option. For families, the options are 1500 minutes, 3000 minutes or (again) Simply Everything for $190. Beyond that, they say testing's going well, including on the Touchstone inductive charger, and Palm officials reaffirmed that they're not out of the Windows Mobile business yet, with more devices on the way. (David Owens, director of consumer acquisition for Sprint. also assured the webcast audience that really, they've heard every possibly Pre pun by now; no reason to offer more -- though your writer feels that pre-empting such things pre-liminary to launch is just... pre-posterous.)
Quelle horreur: French president wants to chop net access for alleged downloaders
French President Nicolas Sarkozy wishes to create a national surveillance program to monitor Internet users and, if they're thought to be illegally sharing content, to cut off their Net access for up to a year.
The proposed law was debated in the French Parliament this week. Sarkozy, whose model-actress wife Carla Bruni has recorded an album, is convinced that France's music and movie industries are suffering because the citizenry is downloading its wares.
Microsoft exec to join DHS as CIO nominee gets tangled in FBI raid
Will the last person in Seattle to leave for the Obama administration please turn off the Space Needle? The Department of Homeland Security today announced that a senior Microsoft exec will step into a major cybersecurity role. Meanwhile, back in the other Washington, an FBI raid at the former DC CTO offices of new federal CIO Vivek Kundra is raising questions.
The raid, which appears to have been predicated on a bribery sting operation, is not known to involve Vivek, whom President Obama nominated to be his chief information officer a week ago today. But there have been two arrests -- Yusuf Acar, an information systems security officer with the city, and Sushil Bansal, president and chief executive of Advanced Integrated Technologies Corp. AITC has a number of contracts with city agencies including the DMV, and the city's human-resources department; Mr. Bansal used to be a city government employee. Both men appeared in federal court Thursday afternoon and corruption charges were brought against them.
Version 3.0 of iPhone software to debut next week
Next Tuesday in Cupertino, California, Apple will unveil iPhone software version 3.0, according to an invitation received by the Apple faithful today.
Apple's popular mobile phone is currently on OS version 2.2.1 (Build 5H11), which was an incremental update pushed out in the first weeks of 2009. The last major update -- one that would warrant its own event, like the one scheduled for next week -- was version 2.0, when the 3G iPhone was released.
A future for eBay that's solidly on the back burner
Yesterday, eBay discussed with investors the company's outlook for the next three years. Fulfilling statements from CEO John Donahoe made nearly a year ago, the company's growth efforts will be spearheaded by PayPal, and will include more changes to the eBay marketplace.
Donahoe said, "We are aggressively remaking and transforming our eBay Marketplace and diversifying the ways in which we compete in e-commerce."
This aggressive transformation, however, has coincided with eBay's worst year to date. During 2008, eBay's CEO of ten years departed, policy changes caused an eBay seller revolt, the economy tightened the budgets of buyers, and the trade of counterfeit goods on site brought high profile lawsuits. The end of last year's holiday season saw eBay's net income drop $163.7 million dollars from the prior year.
Vodafone now offers DRM-free music
Three of the "Big Four" major record labels, Sony, EMI, and Universal, have gotten on board with European carrier Vodafone to provide DRM-free music for the wireless carrier's music store.
Music tracks downloaded through Vodafone Music were formerly protected WMA, but soon the company says it will be selling music as unprotected MP3s. Those who have already purchased music as WMA are eligible for free MP3 crossgrades.
Microsoft silent on whether version 8 will be the last Internet Explorer
This week, elements of the blogosphere drew speculative conclusions about a Microsoft Research paper released last month in time for TechFest, which concerned a prototype Web browser constructed expressly for the purpose of testing new concepts in Web browser user authentication. Cross-site scripting has, after all, been a security plague for nearly every browser at one time or another -- the ability for a script launched by one page to intentionally take control of a page in a completely different window.
Perhaps without even reading the paper itself (PDF available here), speculators concluded that it pointed either to the architecture of the next version of Internet Explorer, or that it somehow signaled the end of the Internet Explorer product line -- that somehow Microsoft, or Microsoft in conjunction with someone else (maybe the University of Washington?), would be making Web browsers for future editions of Windows but without the IE logo. It's a far, far extrapolation of a conclusion that could not possibly have been reached through any logical process.
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