Author: Serkadis

Google introduced a new real-time bidding platform called Open Bidder at Google I/O. It’s currently in beta status, and requires users to apply for testing.

It’s described as a customizable toolkit for building real-time bidding applications, and combines Google Cloud Platform with DoubleClick’s real-time bidding.

Google’s Open Bidder Team says in a blog post, “Currently, companies interested in building their own real-time bidding technology face significant barriers to overcome, including: Development and maintenance of a scalable and secure infrastructure for their bidder; Development of a robust system to apply bidding logic to incoming bid requests; Development of a bidder with sufficient latency at scale to meet real-time bidding requirements.”

“Open Bidder removes these barriers by providing a customizable bidder toolkit with a reference implementation that developers can adapt to plug in their own bidding logic and data,” the team explains. “Additionally, we provide an administration console for managing bidder and load balancer instances within Google Compute Engine. With Open Bidder buyers can significantly lower the latency of their bidders by leveraging Google Compute Engine’s scale, speed, and proximity to DoubleClick Ad Exchange. Now buyers can focus on developing new and innovative bidding logic instead of worrying about the complexity of scaling to over 250,000 qps while responding in under 100ms.”

Google has been working on the project for over year, and has been testing it in the alpha phase, but it’s now it’s ready for beta. If you want in on it, you can apply here.

Documentation for Open Bidder is available here.

YouTube has now been around for eight years, having launched in May of 2005. Google acquired it the following year.

The company put up a blog post celebrating the landmark, thanking users, and sharing a few stats. The YouTube Team writes:

When YouTube’s site first launched in May 2005, we never could have imagined the endless ways in which you would inspire, inform and entertain us every day.

Today, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s more than four days of video uploaded each minute! Every month, more than 1 billion people come to YouTube to access news, answer questions and have a little fun. That’s almost one out of every two people on the Internet.

They also mention that millions of partners are creating content for YouTube.

There are certainly plenty of things on the horizon for the site. It recently introduced YouTube Subscriptions, where users can subscribe to channels starting at $0.99 per month, which could be the beginning of something much bigger for YouTube.

The company also announced a new way for businesses to get more out of YouTube last week at Google I/O, which could be the beginning of something else much bigger in ecommerce.

New YouTube channel designs are rolling out to everyone on June 5th. Last week, YouTube channels in good standing with over 1,000 subscribers became eligible for live streaming.

Check out the YouTube Trends Map to track current video popularity.

Last week I got to spend a couple of days in Lac qui Parle County. LqP is home to a ARRA-funded fiber to the home network. It’s also home to a couple of businesses who are making good use of Facebook and other social media channels. I thought it might be fun to hear from two businesses (The Cellar Door and Crazy About Purses) about how and why Facebook has been working for them:

Pinterest has introduced what it refers to as “more useful pins”. Essentially, they’re adding relevant information to certain types of pins so people can take action on the pins that they like.

For example, if you see some cookies that you are interested in trying to bake, you might be able to see the recipe. If someone posts an interesting movie-related pin, you might be able to see a review.

The company has partnered with a bunch of sites, which will provide this information. There are three types of pins, which will take advantage.

There are product pins for things like clothing and furniture, which include pricing, availability, and where to buy the item. This info is updated on a daily basis. The initial partners for this category include: Anthropologie, Asos, BHLDN, eBay, Etsy, Free People, Home Depot, Modcloth, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Overstock, REI, Sephora, Shopify shops, Shop Terrain, Sony, Target, Urban Outfitters, Walmart, Wayfair, and Zulily.

Next are recipe pins, which include cook times, ingredients and servings. Initial partners for these are: 101 Cookbooks, Better Homes and Gardens, Bon Appetit, Chobani, Country Living, Delish, Epicurious, Good Housekeeping, Leite’s Culinaria, Martha Stewart Living, MyRecipes, Naturally Ella, Nestlé Very Best Baking, Real Simple, Simply Recipes, Skinny Taste, The Girl Who Ate Everything, The Kitchn,What’s Gaby Cooking, Whole Foods Market and Woman’s Day.

Finally, there are movie pins, which include content ratings, cast members, etc. Info comes from Flixster, Netflix and Rotten Tomatoes.

The new pins are only available in the new Pinterest design.

If you think your site has something to contribute in the way that all of these sites do, you can learn more about rich pins and making your own site’s Pinterest experience better here.

In addition to the new types of pins, Pinterest has finally made the ‘Pin It’ button available to mobile apps. You can see it in action in apps from Behance, Brit+Co, Etsy, Fotopedia, Jetsetter, Modcloth, Snapguide, TED, The North Face and Zulily.

An artist’s illustration of the plans for the NSA data center at Camp Williams in Utah.

The National Security Agency (NSA) finds itself facing millions of dollars in taxes on the electricity usage in its Utah data center as a result of a new law passed by state legislators, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

The new law, known as HB325, was signed into law by Gov. Gary Herbert on April 1. It allows the Utah Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), which was set up to put select military properties on the public tax rolls, to collect a tax of up to 6 percent on Rocky Mountain Power electricity used by the Utah Data Center.

The NSA has said it will spend up to $1.5 billion on the Utah data center, which is approaching completion of its first phase after nearly four years of construction. The project will have a power capacity of 65 megawatts, making power a big component of its operations.

“Long term stability in the utility rates was a major factor in Utah being selected as our site for our $1.5 billion construction at Camp Williams,” wrote Harvey Davis, NSA director of installations and logistics, in an April 26 email obtained by the Tribune. “HB325 runs counter to what we expected.”

Lot of Computing Horsepower

The 1 million square-foot Camp Williams facility in Bluffdale, Utah will house a 100,000 square foot data center, while the remaining 900,000 SF will be used for technical support and administrative space. Wired has estimated the Utah Data Center would consume $40 million of electricity a year, which translates into about $2.4 million annually in additional taxes under HB325.

The Utah project has raised concerns in some quarters about domestic surveillance and the types of data that will be gathered and stored at the Utah facility. Officials in Utah have publicly touted the project as a boost to the local economy, creating 10,000 construction jobs.

One thing is clear: The NSA is bringing a lot of computing horsepower to bear on its mission in Utah. The facility will include both air-cooled and liquid-cooled IT gear, according to construction specs. The agency is also reported to be deploying server-side Flash memory to speed their data collection, according to Sterne Agee analyst Alex Kurtz.

“We have learned through multiple sources that the National Security Agency will deploy Server Side Flash in their reported $2 billion data center in Utah (code name “Bumblehive”) as part of their data ingest architecture,” Kurtz wrote in an April 24 research note, in which he speculated that Flash specialist Fusion-io could eventually benefit from the NSA requirement.

Jolla, the Finnish company that continued Nokia’s work on the MeeGo mobile platform, announced details of its first smartphone on Monday. Availability for the Jolla device is expected by year end and can be pre-ordered now; the phone will be priced at no more than €399 (US $512.26). In a Kickstarter-like approach, pre-order packages also include options for Jolla T-shirts and rebate vouchers.

The Jolla hardware looks similar to that of Nokia’s Lumia, with a clean, button-less front face that houses the 4.5-inch touchcscreen. Jolla’s product page mentions “The Other Half”, which appears to be a removable back cover that comes in different colors, allowing for some device personalization. The phone will use a dual-core processor and support 4G LTE in some regions. Internal storage tops out at 16 GB, but can be expanded via microSD card. The phone also includes an 8 megapixel rear camera with auto focus.

Jolla is less about hardware, however. Jolla’s Sailfish software has roots in the old MeeGo platform that Nokia and Intel created with their Maemo and Moblin projects. The operating system offers a multitasking style interface and supports apps written with the Qt framework. But the phone is also “Android app compliant” which, in a move similar to that of BlackBerry, can help with available apps at launch.

While I like the idea of Jolla — a community-based open-source smartphone approach — I think it will be extremely difficult for Jolla to gain serious traction in the marketplace. Handset and component makers already have several platforms to work with and the potential payback to invest efforts in Jolla is relatively small.

Credit to the Jolla folks though: Even as Android and iOS rule the smartphone markets, the little Davids are still willing to take on the Goliaths.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Analyzing the wearable computing market
• Carrier IQ and the continued erosion of operator trust
• Siri: Say hello to the coming “invisible interface”

An artist’s conception of the future Facebook data center in Altoona, Iowa (Image: Facebook)

What goes on behind the scenes in winning a “codename” data center project? It’s a secretive process in which negotiations begin on a first-name only basis, and continue through anonymized email accounts and subsidiaries with mysterious names, followed by non-disclosure agreements. After many twists and turns, delays and haggling over incentives, the mystery company is finally revealed.

The Des Moines Register takes readers inside this previously secret site selection process in “How Iowa Landed Facebook,” which provides details of the state of Iowa’s courtship of “Project Catapult,” which culminated in a new Facebook data center project in Altoona, Iowa. The story is based on an examination of 330 emails between state officials and representatives, which were obtained through the state’s open records law.

When dealing with state and local officials in Iowa, members of the Facebook corporate team all used Gmail accounts to hide the company’s identity. Facebook’s site selection expert used a fake last name (“Siculus”, which was also the name of the legal subsidiary created for the project). Even though Facebook reps pressed Iowa officials to line up permits and incentives to meet their “aggressive timeline,” there were several extensive delays.

“There were times the project just went dark,” Iowa economic development official Debi Durham told the Register, speculating that the company’s turbulent IPO may have been a factor in the delays. At one point in November 2012, a Facebook rep told Durham last fall that the project was “stuck in corporate approval hell.” The Register story also highlights the fierce competition between Iowa and Nebraska, where the company was known as “Project Edge.”

It adds up to a revealing look inside the process. If you’re in site selection or economic development, it’s must-read material. Read the full story at the Des Moines Register.

Star gazing is an amazing activity, but things get a lot more interesting when you actually know what you are looking at. Stellarium is a realistic, open source education tool that puts a virtual planetarium on your desktop and helps you identify celestial objects, constellations, and much more.

Stellarium must be an epiphany for astronomy aficionados and educated… (read more)