Apple on cloud-computing spree: North Carolina data center starts this spring - International Business Times

Apple $1 billion cloud-computing: North Carolina data center starts this spring

"Apple's ambitions to boost its cloud-computing prowess got a significant push as its $1 billion data center in North Carolina approaches its opening date this spring
...
The North Carolina facility measures 500,000 square feet compared to Newark's 107,000 square feet.
...
The capacity of a smartphone has increased through cloud-computing. Running applications remotely allows smartphones to use the power installed in a data center and removes the limitations of the processing-power, memory, and battery-life in a hand-held physical device.
...
This allows the smartphone makers to assign more complex tasks to the cloud while adding other value-added features to the device. Based on this model, smartphones will continue to evolve and become more powerful devices as the processing and storage features continue to migrate to the cloud.
"

TechTalk - NUI - What’s in a Name? | | Channel 9

NUI "Natural User Interfaces" - What’s in a Name? | Bill Buxton | Channel 9

A great presentation by Bill Buxton from Microsoft Research (and Xerox PARC before)

"Great ideas are a dime a dozen (cheap). It is all in execution..."

"It takes 20+ year from an idea to mature industry ($1 billion)..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Buxton

http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2008/02/01/GreatIdeasAreADimeADozen.aspx

Paul Romer: A Theory of History, with an Application

One of the best presentations I have observed in months! (and I do listen many, on double speed... :-)

Available as a video, a podcast mp3 and text transcript.

It's about value of Ideas!

Ideas have a special property that when replicated
they could in fact help original inventor.
Using good ideas increases global standard of living,
that is in turn increasing total innovation
that produces more value for all.

For this reason people tend to congregate to cities,
where is the highest concentration of ideas (more people = more ideas!)

Social rules are super-important!

Some rules encourage sharing (science),
some introduce protection (patents),
and both are needed in right measure
to enable innovation such as electric light.

Companies compete by improving internal rules,
as so do the countries...

Example: China was at one point world leader in innovation,
just to completely stop and stagnate for a long time,
while other nations moved ahead. Wrong rules!

And how did China managed to break this deadlock?
By imitating Hong Kong, that was an successful example of a different system on a small patch of Chinese rented land.
Little by little, China realized value of some different rules, and then created hundreds of cities similar to Hong Kong...

Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast - Computerworld

Mike Elgan: Why Nokia is toast - Computerworld

A provocative and opinionated article, with some interesting points...
I think there is a good potential in Nokia-Microsoft synergy...
in particular for developers using Microsoft tools...



"Nokia and Microsoft this week announced a new partnership that would replace the Symbian OS with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 as the software for Nokia's smartphones, which accounts for some 30% of their handset revenue.
...
Google VP Vic Gundotra tweeted ungenerously that "Two turkeys do not make an Eagle." Ouch!
...
My view is that Microsoft doesn't matter. Although Windows Phone 7 is a way better operating system than Symbian, Nokia's problem isn't Symbian, and the solution isn't Windows Phone 7.
...
Apple and Google are winning because they have winning strategies. Nokia is losing because it has a losing strategy. It's as simple as that.
...
Nokia should take the advice Steve Jobs gave to Nike CEO Mark Parker: "Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff."
...
In a nutshell, Nokia fails on design, branding and simplicity. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 will solve none of these problems.
...
When you go to the Apple site, there is only one phone -- Apple's best. You can't buy the wrong phone. You can't live in the wrong country.
...
Yet just a year and a half after Nokia's pullout, Apple was capturing an incredible 72% of Japan's smartphone market.

Apple succeeded in Japan where Nokia failed because Apple offered Japanese consumers better
design, better branding and more simplicity -- not the opposite.
...
winning strategy for Nokia is clear: Sell only two phones.
* ultimate minimalist, tiny, super-reliable cell phone that does not connect to the Internet.
* ultimate smartphone based on Windows Phone 7.

Cloudy IT future is already here.
It's just not evenly distributed yet.

Here is how the future of your enterprise IT looks like, get used to it.



This a typical 4th generation container with about 1000 servers,
deployed in one of 20+ humongous data centers
that Microsoft is building at frenetic pace
on strategic locations all over the World.
Even smallest of such centers have more than 250 000 servers!
My "back of the napkin" calculation: Microsoft has already spent
more than $10 billion on more than 5 million servers...

It's only a year since Microsoft started Windows Azure revolution...

Windows Azure is a serious change in the OS world.
Dave Cutler, the creator of Windows NT, as well as DEC VMS before this, is also one of creators and leaders of Azure... Azure is based on Windows 2008 and Hyper-V.

Microsoft management was clearly not afraid of another change...
A short time and a huge amount of money later,
this could be a biggest assembly of computers
that world has seen so far...

IT professionals beware: the change is here. Sun is Eclipsed,
and so are on-premise data centers by a simple economy of scale:
computing power in containers like this is 7 times cheaper that best optimized Dell or Sun/Oracle servers.

Adjust, or go the way of dinosaurs when a huge clouds covered the earth after an asteroid hit the Earth...

Gartner | Application Virtualization

Gartner | Application Virtualization

"According to Gartner, who predicts that “20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets by 2012.” The research firm says three major factors will contribute to this phenomenon: virtualization, cloud computing and employees running personal devices on corporate networks.

“...20 percent of businesses haven’t virtualized, they’re going to be looking for new ways to save money in 2011. And instead of embarking on a complicated virtualization deployment, they might as well just move everything to the public cloud instead.”

That means that 80% of businesses are already using virtualization (including) cloud computing.

In addition, they expect that 20% will have completely moved all IT to cloud by 2012.

Seeing double: Sprint unveils Kyocera Echo with dual touch screens | Android Atlas - CNET Reviews

2 x 3.5" screen



$199 with 2 year contract...

The Internet Just Ran Out of Numbers - Technology Review

The Internet Just Ran Out of Numbers - Technology Review


Every available Internet (IPv4) protocol address has now been spoken for—which could mean huge trouble down the line.

distance between apple and google headquarters - Wolfram|Alpha

distance between apple and google headquarters - Wolfram|Alpha

How distant are Google and Apple?

Answer: 6 minutes by a car... on a first try, from the "smartest search engine"...

Apple | headquarters coordinates | 37° 19' 3"N, 122° 2' 31"W
Google | headquarters coordinates | 37° 23' 34"N, 122° 4' 55"W

Art Project, powered by Google

"Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces."