Aug 25

Icons of the Web

By admin cloud computing, communication-standards, design concepts, information aesthetics, infosthetics, insights No Comments »

A large-scale scan of the top million web sites (per Alexa traffic data) was performed in early 2010 using the Nmap Security Scanner and its scripting engine.

We retrieved each site’s icon by first parsing the HTML for a link tag and then falling back to /favicon.ico if that failed. 328,427 unique icons were collected, of which 288,945 were proper images. The remaining 39,482 were error strings and other non-image files. Our original goal was just to improve our http-favicon.nse script, but we had enough fun browsing so many icons that we used them to create the visualization below.

The area of each icon is proportional to the sum of the reach of all sites using that icon. When both a bare domain name and its “www.” counterpart used the same icon, only one of them was counted. The smallest icons–those corresponding to sites with approximately 0.0001% reach–are scaled to 16×16 pixels. The largest icon (Google) is 11,936 x 11,936 pixels, and the whole diagram is 37,440 x 37,440. Since your web browser would choke on that, we have created the interactive viewer below (click and drag to pan, double-click to zoom, or type in a site name to go right to it).

via Icons of the Web.

Aug 20

BCS Data Centre Specialist Group

By admin 24x7 Management And Support, cloud computing, design concepts, disaster-recovery, it-management, operating systems & collaborative tools No Comments »

The Data Centre environment provides the foundation for the reliability, availability and security of systems and networks that power the world’s economy. The consumer’s drive for 24/7 availability of goods and services places increasing pressure on the availability of the facilities, systems and networks that provide these services. Underpinning the service reliability is the provision of a suitable, stable and reliable operating environment. The Data Centre is this environment.

As applications, data and infrastructure grow they have an increasing impact on the Data Centre and in turn an increasing impact on the environment. Business and consumer demands for richer functionality and interfaces are driving more complex applications which create demands on processing and data storage that can outstrip performance growth. This brings increased power and cooling requirements for the Date Centre. The economic and environmental impacts of this growth now require serious consideration.

The IT industry as a whole has charged forward without much attention paid to its impact on the environment. Among today’s hot topics are the inefficiencies found within Data Centres, including the facilities themselves and the IT equipment they house. One of the key areas the DCSG is focused on is working with the UK, EU and North American legislative bodies to ensure our industry is properly focused on driving the changes required to become more efficient with our use of energy.

Whilst there are many individuals in our industry with useful knowledge and experience in Data Centre engineering, their information is not easily accessible. The DCSG has been formed to create a forum for open and honest discussion, information sharing and evaluation of Data Centre-related issues and technologies.

What does the future of the Data Centre look like and just how critical a role will it play in business, the environment and the economy?
The DCSG aims to hold around twelve meetings/events per year that will focus on the hot topics of the moment and provide a forum for communication while further fostering professionalism through the industry.

Zahl Limbuwala FBCS CEng CITP MIET

DCSG Founder & Chairman

Data Centre Specialist Group.

May 20

Google To Launch Amazon S3 Competitor ‘Google Storage’ At I/O

By jeromewagner SOA, cloud computing, disaster-recovery, document-management, green-it, insights, network-security, offsite-backup, operating systems & collaborative tools No Comments »

Amazon’s cloud storage services are going to be getting another major competitor this week: Google.

We hear that this week during its I/O conference, Google will be announcing a new service that is a direct competitor with Amazon’s S3 cloud storage. Google’s service will be called Google Storage for Developers, or ‘GS’. We believe it will be available in a private beta initially.

We also hear that the service will be positioned to make it very easy for existing S3 customers to make the switch to Google Storage.Features will include a REST API, the ability to use Google accounts to offer authenticated downloads, and data redundancy. Developers will be able to use a command line tool to manage their data, and there will be a web interface as well.We’d previously reported that Google was looking to expand its cloud service offerings, but that it would primarily be focused on ‘value-added’ services that took advantage of technology Google has been using internally, like its translation tools and video processing.

We’re hearing that such value-added services will not be part of this launch, but it is highly likely that they will be coming in the future. And that’s the key here — competitors will have a hard time matching the array of technologies and infrastructure Google has spent years developing.

via Google To Launch Amazon S3 Competitor ‘Google Storage’ At I/O.

May 10

Canonical unveils new ‘Unity’ desktop environment at Ubuntu Developer Summit | Ubuntu

By admin MobileOS, OS, Ubuntu, cloud computing, operating systems & collaborative tools No Comments »

Previews ‘Ubuntu Light:’ an implementation of Unity Targeted at OEMs for ‘instant-on’ computing

Ubuntu Developer Summit, La Hulpe, Belgium, May 10, 2010: Canonical today unveiled a new desktop environment called ‘Unity’ at the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) in Belgium. Unity will be the desktop environment for Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, released in October 2010, and is available today to developers building applications for the netbook environment.

Unity is designed for netbooks and related touch-based devices. It includes a new panel and application launcher that makes it fast and easy to access preferred applications, such as the browser, while removing screen elements that are rarely used in mobile and netbook computing.

In parallel, Canonical announced Ubuntu Light, an implementation of Ubuntu that is based on Unity and intended for the dual-boot ‘instant-web’ market. This pared-down version of Ubuntu features chat, IM, browser and media player applications and is aimed at PC manufacturers seeking an ‘instant-web’ experience that complements Windows on consumer PCs.

Ubuntu Light distinguishes itself by connecting the user to the web, with a running browser, in under 10 seconds. The product includes a media player and tools to integrate with Windows to access music files, photos, etc. This is a new market for Ubuntu and research into the requirements for this market drove many of the design principles for Unity.

PCs equipped with Ubuntu Light offer users immediate access to the web and personal content – photos, music and documents. For mobile users, or simply for cases where the simplified interface of Ubuntu is more appropriate, Ubuntu Light saves time associated with a full Windows boot and login. Ubuntu Light can be used on a standalone PC or notebook without Windows, but it is particularly designed for dual-boot environments, where it is installed alongside Windows and presented as an option at boot.

More here

May 06

Goodbye petabytes, hello zettabytes!!

By jeromewagner cloud computing, hardware, insights, storage No Comments »

Goodbye petabytes, hello zettabytes

• Massive figure equal to a million million gigabytes

The growth in digital content last year alone was enough to fill 75bn Apple iPads. Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Every man, woman and child on the planet using micro-blogging site Twitter for a century. For many people that may sound like a vision of hell, but for watchers of the tremendous growth of digital communications it is a neat way of presenting the sheer scale of the so-called digital universe. The explosion of social networking, online video services and digital photography, plus the continued popularity of mobile phones, email and web browsing, coupled with the growing desire of corporations and governments to know and store ever more data about everyone has created an unprecedented amount of digital information and introduced a new word to the nerd lexicon: a zettabyte.

Research published today estimates that the so-called digital universe grew by 62% last year to 800,000 petabytes – a petabyte is a million gigabytes – or 0.8 zettabytes. That is the equivalent of all the information that could be stored on 75bn Apple iPads, which would equal the digital output from a century's worth of constant tweeting by all of Earth's inhabitants.

By way of stark contrast between the output of present day humanity and its pre-digital predecessor, experts estimate that all human language used since the dawn of time would take up about 5,000 petabytes if stored in digital form, which is less than 1% of the digital content created since someone first switched on a computer.This year, the planet's digital content will blast through the zettabyte barrier to reach 1.2 ZB, according to the fourth annual survey of the world's bits and bytes conducted by technology consultancy IDC and sponsored by IT firm EMC. A zettabyte, incidentally, is roughly half a million times the entire collections of all the academic libraries in the United States.

via Goodbye petabytes, hello zettabytes | Technology | The Guardian.

Apr 15

Psion’s new take on internet business | Business | The Guardian

By admin MobileOS, cloud computing, design concepts, hardware, insights No Comments »

Psion is encouraging its customers to adapt its products and then share that knowledge with everyone online

Richard Wray

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 April 2010 19.34 BST

A Psion Series 5 electronic personal organiser, 1999 vintage. The Organisers were a big hit with gadget fans in the 1980s and 1990s. Photograph: David Sillitoe

Next month one of the more venerable names in British technology will start field tests of its latest device: the product of a complete overhaul of the company and another test case for a new way of doing business spawned by the internet.

The newest handheld computer from Psion is based on individual modules which resellers and buyers can configure and even add to, to meet their specific needs. Rather than relying on the traditional one-size-fits-all model – or its expensive alternative, making bespoke products for each customer – Psion is actively encouraging its customers to adapt its products. It is also encouraging its customers to then share their experiences and get involved in research, development and after-sales care, by using the internet.

“We opened up an online community and customers and partners [resellers] are starting to talk to each other,” according to John Conoley, Psion’s chief executive. “At first, frankly, it was frightening. We are in there too and we are learning, we make mistakes and get flamed occasionally … but at other times you see a customer with a problem and one of our resellers – often from a completely different market – will chip in and deal with their issue.”

The idea of using the internet to interact with all users of a particular product or service is becoming increasingly popular in business, with executives talking about “mutualising” their operations. For many companies it makes financial, rather than purely philosophical, sense.

Mobile phone company GiffGaff – funded by O2 – gives money to users who help others with their technical problems, saving on customer support costs.

via Psion’s new take on internet business | Business | The Guardian.

Mar 24

Navigating 13.3 gigapixels on a 22 megapixel display wall

By admin cloud computing, design concepts, insights, it-projects, operating systems & collaborative tools No Comments »

Navigating 13.3 gigapixels on a 22 megapixel display wall.

Tor-Magne Stien Hagen, Daniel Stødle and Otto J. Anshus, University of Tromsø, Norway In collaboration with Eirik Helland Urke, gigapix.no

Gigapixel images are great. The level of detail, the scope of the images and the sheer amount of data they represent are all fascinating. Viewing them in an enjoyable and efficient manner is another issue entirely. As digital cameras get better and computers become faster, stitching ever larger images becomes possible. In late 2009, a 26 gigapixel image of Dresden in Germany was published online, and currently a gigapixel-image of Paris is the worlds largest gigapixel image.

However, looking at these or pretty much any other gigapixel image online, you are faced with a small viewer confined to your browser window. Can we do better?I work at the Display Wall laboratory at the Department of Computer Science, University of Tromsø located in Northern Norway. The Display Wall lab is home to a 22 megapixel display wall, constructed from 28 projectors and driven by a display cluster of about 30 nodes 28 to do the actual graphics, and another few to do other tasks. Each projector creates a 1024x768 resolution image, which when tiled together with the others form a 7168x3072 resolution display.

During the Fall and Winter of 2009, we contacted Eirik Helland Urke, who had recently published a gigapixel image of Tromsø on his website, www.gigapix.no. You can navigate that image for yourself here albeit with the previously stated “in a tiny browser window” caveat. A fellow graduate student of mine, Tor-Magne Stien Hagen, went to work on building a viewer for gigapixel-scale images on the display wall. We combined his WallScope system with my Interaction Spaces system for device- and touch-free interaction with the display wall, and the result was a very smooth and enjoyable experience for navigating very, very high-resolution images.

More technical details will follow as we have time to write them down. We also have a paper coming up -- stay tuned.

via Navigating 13.3 gigapixels on a 22 megapixel display wall.

Mar 11

The Beast File: Google (HUNGRY BEAST)

By admin 24x7 Management And Support, cloud computing, design concepts, disaster-recovery, document-management, uncategorized No Comments »

It seems the now classic infographic movie “Google Master Plan” from early 2007 is now finally outdated, as the main allegations have been recently updated by another infographically-style film, aptly titled The Beast File: Google [abc.net.au] (movie not viewable outside Australia, but watch a YouTube version below).

The new movie, which itself seems to be inspired by the visual zooming effects from the presentation software Prezi, defines Google as an advertising giant whose main goal is to track users and deliver targeted ads.

For the appropiate counter argumentation, you can read the following post at the official Google Operating System blog.

You can watch the movie below:

Mar 11

Mobile Apps for the Military

By admin MobileOS, cloud computing, communication-standards, design concepts, insights, network-security, uncategorized No Comments »

In todays military, handheld systems are characterized by a tight integration of specialized hardware with a narrowly focused software suite. Most of the handheld devices are heavily optimized for a particular task and are ill-suited for general-purpose use.

A soldiers radio, for example, has very limited data capability and essentially no multimedia capability. Current language translation devices support neither messaging nor collaboration of any form. This inflexibility in function is further exacerbated by the militarys own acquisition process, a process that can take years to complete and involves an unwieldy linear process of formal requirements definition, technology development, and system certification.

The current process adds considerable costs and introduces schedule delays to the deployment of new, cutting-edge technologies. Furthermore, there is a real risk that these very technologies will be obsolete by the time they are in the warfighters hands.A transformation in technical approaches and business processes is called for.

DARPA seeks to overcome current limitations and give our military ready access to the leading edge capabilities.As envisioned by DARPA, this transformation will:• Result in the rapid development of applications and system enhancements that keep up with the fluid demands of warfighter on the ever-changing battlefield; • Demonstrate both affordability and scalability that enable pervasive use, targeted especially among the end-users at lower levels in the military echelon;

• Encourage and support open competition among a broad set of suppliers in the military applications development process; and

• Support new business models and streamlined processes to incentivize a broad community of suppliers.The primary purpose of this RFI is to discover sources of commercial and non-commercial apps with potential relevance to the military specifically the national security community more generally.

These apps may be used in situations such as the tactical battlefield, for humanitarian assistance, and in disaster recovery efforts. DARPAs initial interest will focus on apps developed on the iPhone or Android platforms that can be used today with little or no additional research and development expenses. Application providers may already have offerings in the commercial marketplace that could be adapted to meet these needs.In order to meet this objective, DARPA extends an invitation to the developers of currently existing apps encouraging them to submit a whitepaper about their product offerings.

via Mobile Apps for the Military – Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities.

Mar 01

The State of the Internet Infographic Video

By admin cloud computing, communication-standards, design concepts, insights, operating systems & collaborative tools No Comments »

via YouTube -- State of The Internet.

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