Author: Serkadis

Got too many cloud storage accounts with files seemingly scattered across them all? Perhaps Glide, a mobile app that combines multiple cloud storage accounts can help. The app already supports Windows 8 and Android devices, but added a version for Apple’s iPhone on Thursday. Even though Apple approved the application, the cross-platform message in the Glide press release isn’t sitting well with Apple’s developer relation’s team.

First, the application details: Once installed, the free Glide app effectively brings together files from Google Drive, Dropbox and SkyDrive accounts. It does this by grouping files from the different cloud services into four categories: Photos, Videos, Music and Documents. Think of it as a consolidated cloud drive on your mobile devices. You can easily find and download files to your phone, computer or tablet from the cloud regardless of which vendor service you use. And you can share media files to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sounds pretty useful to me, partially because I have storage everywhere in the cloud — even though that 1 TB of Google Drive capacity included with my Pixel LTE purchase is my main storage these days. I also gravitate towards cross-platform solutions because I use various computing platforms and devices, often switching several times in a day. But Apple doesn’t sound too happy with how Glide’s press release focuses more on the cross-platform features of Glide than on the iOS release itself.

In the release, Donald Leka, the chairman and CEO of TransMedia Corporation, which developed the Glide app, says:

“Consumers really don’t care that much what platform they are on, where their files are stored, or what the file types and file formats are. They simply want to be able to easily access and share a family photo, a letter to a friend, a favorite song or show.”

I tend to agree with Leka for the most part: Platforms are great, but can limit data shared between them. Leka shared a note he received, from Tyler Stone of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Relations group with us via email, in response to his press release. Stone’s reaction indicates Leka’s message didn’t sit well with Apple.

“…We believe the best press releases for a product launch concentrate on that product. Your release is ostensibly for the launch of your iPhone app, but the copy actually references other apps on other platforms more often than it mentions the one being launched.  We think the customers, bloggers, and media who follow app launches are usually quite parochial — quite focused on specific platforms — so we counsel developers to craft press releases tailored to each individual platform.

And that brings me to my final point: the tone of your release and your product positioning is at odds with not just our primary marketing messaging, but the entire reason Apple exists. To wit, you are quoted in the press release as saying “Consumers really don’t care that much what platform they are on…”  Our drive, our passion, our singular focus on creating the best products we can make is rooted in the fundamental belief that customers really do care about the products in which they invest their time, money, and energy.  We strive to make the best products we can because we believe the right product will change a customer’s life.  And customers do indeed care about things that change their lives.

Our experience is that customers are interested in apps that help them get more from their iPhone, that give their cherished, chosen device exciting new functionality that fits their mobile lifestyle.  I’d encourage you to recast your messaging in this positive, affirmative way.”

Perhaps if iCloud were supported by Glide, Apple might feel differently? At the very least, it seems to want the Glide team to highlight Apple more than the actual core feature of the software.

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Google is running a homepage doodle honoring German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri in parts of the world where the date has already changed to May 31st.

The date marks the 160th birthday of the scientist, who is known as the inventor of the Petri dish, an accomplishment he achieved while working as an assistant to Robert Koch. Here’s a brief history from Wikipedia:

Petri first studied medicine at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Academy for Military Physicians (1871–1875) and received his medical degree in 1876. He continued his studies at the Charité Hospital in Berlin and was on active duty as a military physician until 1882, continuing as a reservist.

From 1877 to 1879 he was assigned to the Imperial Health Office (German: Kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt) in Berlin, where he became an assistant to Robert Koch. On the advice of Angelina Hesse, the New York-born wife of another assistant, Walther Hesse, the Koch laboratory began to culture bacteria on agar plates. Petri then invented the standard culture dish, or Petri plate, and further developed the technique of agar culture to purify or clone bacterial colonies derived from single cells. This advance made it possible to rigorously identify the bacteria responsible for diseases.

The doodle is animated, and features the word “Google,” with each letter appearing in a separate Petri dish. Simon Rueger shares this video of the animation:

Russian search engine Yandex announced a new change to its algorithm that looks at a person’s search history from within a particular search session to deliver results and suggestions based on what it says is the “full picture” of the user’s search behavior.

“We all know what it takes to understand another person,” the company says. “It’s a lot. Even if all you need to understand is what a person is looking for online. We have been trying to do this for years. A person’s interests and preferences give a good clue as to what they want to find. We used to look into a user’s search history as far as a few months back to choose for them the search results that would be most relevant to their scope of interests.”

“Updating our knowledge of users’ interests once a day allows us to understand their more-or-less stable interests, such as a love of books or football, or that they speak Russian and live in Saint Petersburg,” says Yandex. “More than half of all searches on Yandex, however, are about something that interests the searcher at the very moment of searching and stops interest them the moment after. To be able to cater to such momentary searches, we now analyse search sessions in real time.”

The company notes that the change helps it deliver more relevant results to users who don’t actually have another search history on the search engine.

Yandex’s real-time processing system processes over 10 terabytes of data per day.

More on the changes here.

Tumblr announced today that it will start to bring sponsored posts to users’ dashboards on the web.

“Just like in our mobile apps, these posts will simply blend in with the posts from the blogs you follow,” the company says in a short blog post.

Sponsored posts were launched for the mobile dashboard last month. Launch partners included Ford, Universal, Viacom, Denny’s, Purina, Capital One and AT&T.

“Since we launched our first sponsored post on Tumblr Radar one year ago, we’ve been proud to see our partners bring their most creative work to Tumblr,” the company says. “Their posts have already earned more than 10 million likes and reblogs”.

The dollar sign (pictured) is an indication that a post is an ad, and matches those used on the Radar ads.

As TechCrunch points out, people (teenagers) are “freaking out” about the ads, which is to be expected. The initial freak-out period will no doubt die down, as people realize the ads are pretty much like everything else you see on Tumblr anyway. The format hasn’t done much to alienate users from Facebook or Twitter either.

Yahoo, of course, announced that an agreement to acquire Tumblr earlier this month, along with plans to put more ads on it.

After originally denying it would do so, HTC is indeed going to offer what it calls a “Nexus Experience” edition of its HTC One handset, confirming rumors of such a move. The unlocked phone running a plain version of Android 4.2.2 goes on sale June 26 for $599 without contract, according to Google’s Sundar Pichai, speaking at the D11 conference on Thursday. Google will sell the phone directly through its Google Play store, just as it will do for a Samsung Galaxy S 4 “Google Edition” phone.

When rumors of this phone made the rounds, I liked the idea and I still do. Google can help HTC in one area it sorely lacks compared to Samsung: marketing. HTC is helping itself as well with a price that’s $50 lower than Samsung’s Google Edition smartphone. While I don’t mind Samsung’s plastic-based hardware — it helps allow for a removable battery and microSD card — the HTC One is indeed a well-designed and premium-quality phone with an aluminum frame.

This new HTC One model will keep the 32 GB of internal storage — a Developer Edition is available with 64 GB but uses HTC Sense software — and will be released first in the U.S. The handset uses GSM networks, so it will work on both AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks. Here’s a rundown of the supported frequencies and technologies:

• HSPA/WCDMA: 850/1900/2100 MHz
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• LTE: 700/850/AWS/1900 MHz (US)

Google will provide software updates directly, just as it does for its own Nexus devices. Effectively, there’s no need to wait for carriers to test and push software updates and HTC won’t be responsible either.

There is a bit of a downside to this, however. Just like Samsung’s similar Google Experience model, any software features created by HTC for the One won’t be present: this phone will run plain old Android. Sure you can skin it or add custom software to your heart’s content, but you won’t get all of the camera modes and options provided by HTC Sense, for example. Some of these make the phone a better device, so there’s a small trade-off.

It’s one I’d personally make however for either Samsung’s or HTC’s flagship because it provides total control over how the phone works and looks. So too do Nexus devices — are they going away?

I suspect the Nexus program changes but doesn’t disappear. Instead of trying to design cutting-edge phones to show handset makers how to build a great Android experience, I think Google focuses on reasonably good Nexus phones that aren’t quite flagship models. What will make them appealing however — aside from the pure Android experience — is a lower contract-free cost in the $250 to $350 price range.

Regardless of what Google does with the Nexus, I think it’s smart that HTC reversed course on this. The company has a chance to sell even more of its flagship smartphones, won’t likely have as many support costs, and gains the benefit of Google helping sell the phone.

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As previously reported, Windows 8.1 is adding an updated Bing experience. Now, we have a better idea of what that entails, as Microsoft has just put out a blog post about them.

With the new Bing experience on Windows, you’ll see rich images across your search results, and Bing will search across the web as well as your machine.

“With search in Windows 8.1 our intent is to have one way to find what you’re looking for, no matter where it lives – whether it’s a document on your PC, a photo album in the cloud, an app, PC setting or a website. In just a tap or a click you can play, view, launch, or browse,” explains Bing Corporate Vice President Derrick Connell. “To set the course, we looked hard how people have been interacting with the new user experience introduced in Windows 8. Search has long been a part of Windows – especially powerful and useful in Windows 8 – where the Search Charm gives you a single place to find content in your apps. People told us they liked the ease of having fewer places to search. In Windows 8, people could direct their question at an app (like Travel) and have Bing bring back a beautiful, multi-faceted set of information and tools to help them plan their summer trip. But Windows 8.1 takes an even bigger step – with its new search experience, you can find your own personal stuff as well as content from the open web and the creativity of the millions of authors and developers.”

“Imagine you’re planning a trip to Paris,” says Connell. “Simply type the name of the city and you’ll immediately see beautiful, full-bleed images, upcoming events in the city, and popular attractions. But you can also check the current weather and book a hotel in the Bing Travel app, without having to open it up and type ‘Paris’ again. In the same way, your itinerary and budget, whether they are saved on your laptop or in the cloud, are right there. And of course, we’ll show you the great web results you’ve come to expect from Bing. ‘Paris’ isn’t just a single file or a search query in an app: it is a concept, full of both meaning and context, and we’ll bring its unique meaning to your digital life, all in one place.”

More from Connell here.

As Greg Sterling noted at Search Engine Land, depending on user adoption, the new Bing integration could help Microsoft whittle away a bit of market share from Google. It will have to do better than Windows 8 has done so far though.

Google announced that it is rolling out new nutrition information to search, as the latest addition to its Knowledge Graph. If you can’t already, you’ll soon be able to query things like “How much protein is in a banana?” or How many calories are in an avocado?” and get direct answers (spoken to you, if you’re using Google’s new conversational search).

Google will provide relevant nutrition info under an expansion, and will let you switch to other related foods or serving sizes.

“Tempted by some popcorn at the movies?” asks product manager Ilya Mezheritsky. “Ask ‘how many calories are in popcorn’ and you’ll get your answer. [Hint: it’s 31 calories per cup]. Perplexed by a food label or recipe? Ask ‘what nutrients are in breadfruit?’ or ‘is there sugar in grenadilla?’ Big on a high protein diet? Ask ‘how many carbs in corn?’ or simply search for [corn] and you’ll see detailed nutrition info.”

Suddenly it’s starting to seem like maybe Google shouldn’t have killed Google Health. Combined with this feature and Google Now, one could imagine some powerful dietary recommendations.

The feature will be rolling out in English in the U.S. over the course of the next ten days. Google will also be adding more foods and languages. It’s starting with over 1,000 foods.

In related news, Google has also introduced two new tools for webmasters to provide structured data to Google, which can then be used in Google offerings like the Knowledge Graph and Google Now.

Google is taking its strategy of investing millions of dollars into clean power projects in the U.S. and focusing it on Africa for the first time. On Thursday, the search engine giant announced that it’s invested $12 million into a large — 96 MW — solar panel farm in South Africa.

When built, the solar project, called Jasper Power Project, will be able to deliver enough clean power for the equivalent of 30,000 South African homes and will be built in the Northern Cape province near the town of Kimberly. California-based solar developer SolarReserve is working with South African clean power companies Intikon Energy and Kensani Group to build the project.

The Jasper solar farm will cost $260 million, and the developers have closed on the financing, including other investments from Public Investment Corporation, Development Bank of South Africa and the PEACE Humansrus Trust. The same developer group was also able to raise $586 million for two other solar panel projects in South Africa. South African state-owned utility Eskom will buy the solar power from the Jasper project, as well as the two other solar projects.

As Google explains in its blog post this morning, South Africa had the highest growth in clean energy investment in the world in 2012, thanks to its swift creation of incentives for clean power, following a severe energy shortage in the country. These clean power projects are also creating jobs for South Africans, and the Jasper project is supposed to offer 300 construction jobs and 50 operational jobs when completed.

SolarReserve not only develops solar projects, it also makes solar thermal technology, which uses the suns heat to produce power (solar panels convert sun light into electricity). But in recent years, because of the massive drop in the price of solar panels, solar thermal farms have become less competitive with solar panel farms.

Google has invested over a billion dollars into a Hoover’s Dam worth (2 GW) of clean power projects, from wind farms, to solar thermal and solar panel installations. It’s also doing more experimental things — for example, its lab Google X recently bought up the high altitude wind startup Makani Power.

Google is interested in clean power because the company consumes a ton of energy for its data centers every year. Google wants to move more and more of that energy onto clean power in order to reduce its carbon footprint, but also to better manage the source of its energy generation. However, Google has long said that it has been making these billion dollars of investment into clean power projects, mostly as a way to make money. It isn’t directly using the clean energy from most of these investments.

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Google has launched two new tools for webmasters to provide the search engine with structured data from their sites.

For one, Google’s Data Highlighter now supports eight types of structured data, including: events, products, local businesses, articles, software applications, movies, restaurants, and TV episodes.

“With Data Highlighter, webmasters don’t even need to change their site’s HTML,” explains product manager Justin Boyan. “Instead, they can just point and click with their mouse to ‘tag’ the key fields on a few sample pages of their site. Google learns the pattern of the fields and applies it to similar pages on the site, so all their information can be understood.”

More on Data Highlighter here.

The other tool is the Structured Data Markup Helper.

“As with Data Highlighter, one simply points and clicks on a sample web page to indicate its key data fields,” says Boyan. “Structured Data Markup Helper then shows exactly what microdata annotations to add to the page’s HTML code. We hope this helps give HTML authors a running start with adding structured data to their sites, in turn making search results more meaningful.”

These tools should help webmasters stay current with the evolution of Google into products like Knowledge Graph and Google Now, while also potentially improving these Google offerings themselves.

“When Google understands a website’s content in a structured way, we can present that content more accurately and more attractively in search,” says Boyan “For example, our algorithms can enhance search results with ‘rich snippets’ when we understand that a page contains an event, recipe, product, review, or similar. We can also feature a page’s data as part of answers in search from the Knowledge Graph or in Google Now cards, helping you find the right information at just the right time.”

You might also be interested in this recent Google talk about integrating Google’s Knowledge Graph data into your own apps.

Windows 8 is about to get a big dose of Bing, according to reports. We’ve already seen the return of the Start button in a leaked screenshot of Windows 8.1, the operating system’s coming update, but there are some interesting Bing-related changes in store as well.

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling got ahold of some screen caps of the new experience, along with a description from the company itself, which is as follows:

We think that your search experience should be beautiful as well as functional and we don’t think the two are at odds. Modern search takes the best of Bing multimedia and brings it into the Windows search experience to create something that’s not only useful and well-organized but also highly crafted. You’ll see rich images across all your search results that help you find what you’re looking for faster and help bring order to the vast information on the web. Modern search needs to be functional, and we think it should also be spectacular.

Sterling himself explains, “Bing has incorporated the Windows 8 design into the presentation of content and made it much more visually appealing. Users don’t ‘go to Bing’ to obtain the new experience; it’s available from any screen. In the old days this deep OS-search integration might have raised anti-competitive concerns; however not in the current climate. And it has competitive implications for Google if Windows 8.1 is successful. However Windows 8 has struggled to date.”

Here’s a partial look at one of the images he shares, which comes directly from Microsoft. Check the article to see more.

Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc talked about the operating system update in a blog post, saying, “Windows 8.1 will help us to deliver the next generation of PCs and tablets with our OEM partners and to deliver the experiences customers— both consumers and businesses alike —need and will just expect moving forward. Today, there are more devices – and choice – allowing you to pick the right Windows 8 device that meets your needs. Windows 8 provides a great experience for consuming and creating content, for both work and play and on the go. And you’ll immediately benefit from continual updates – whether it’s from app updates through the Windows Store, performance updates through Windows Update or the Windows 8.1 update later this year.”

Windows 8.1 will be a free update to Windows 8 via the Windows Store. It will enter public beta in June. I would imagine the Bing team will be offering up more details on the new experience as it’s released.

Connected Nation recently put out a  press release on the additional round of Phase I Connect America Fund subsidies for larger (“price cap”) local telephone companies. Here are some highlights…

2013 Connect America Fund Phase I Program

Largely speaking, this funding opportunity is structured similarly to the Connect American Fund Phase I program of 2012, but there are several important changes in its implementation. Specific program details include:

Areas Eligible for Phase I Subsidies – For the 2013 round of Phase I subsidies, eligible areas now include areas traditionally served by these 13 price cap carriers that do not have access to fixed broadband service of at least 3 Mbps download/768 Kbps upload speeds, according to the National Broadband Map. Last year, eligible areas included only those unserved by fixed broadband service at speeds of only 768 Kbps download/200 Kbps upload. This new definition nearly triples the number of areas eligible for Phase I subsidies in 2013 than were eligible in 2012.

BTOP and BIP Areas Excluded – The FCC will not award Phase I subsidies in areas where the federal government has already allocated subsidies for broadband build-out through the BTOP or BIP programs.

Build-Out Requirements – A provider that accepts the one-time Phase I funding for a census block will have 3 years to build-out broadband at speeds of at least 4 Mbps down/1 Mbps up in that census block.

Use of the National Broadband Map – The FCC will be using the National Broadband Map to identify eligible areas for these subsidies. It will use the version of the Map currently online based on broadband inventory estimates for June 2012.

Subsidy Amounts per Location Served – Under this program the FCC is offering subsidies on a per-location-passed basis with two separate benchmarks. For areas that do not have access to fixed broadband at 768 kbps download/200 kbps upload, the FCC is offering a one-time subsidy of $775 per location passed to fund the upgrade. To upgrade areas that have access 768 kbps/200 kbps fixed broadband but which do not have access to the FCC’s benchmark of 3 Mbps download/768 Kbps upload, the FCC will provide a one-time subsidy of $550 per location.

Allocation of Subsidies Across Price Cap Carriers – The FCC will make up to $485 million available in this program, allocated among the 13 price cap providers. In this Order it sets an initial allocation of $300 million as follows:

These amounts are not, however, a cap for funding available under this program for each provider. Recognizing that the subsidies offered to each provider may not be accepted (as was the case in 2012 Phase I program), the FCC is introducing a mechanism by which the providers can request funds beyond this allocated amount. In particular, each provider can submit subsidy requests for 2013 up to $300 million. If the program is oversubscribed, the FCC will allocate up to $485 million in subsidies based on the proportions of the allocation above.

The allocation, then, is perhaps best thought of as a guarantee for a minimum amount of subsidies if the subsidy recipients agree to make the associated build-out commitments. Providers like PRTC and Cincinnati Bell that do not have an initial allocation may identify areas to which it would make a build-out commitment in exchange for Phase I funds, and those requests may be accepted if all $485 million is not claimed by all other providers.

Process and Mapping Challenges – The FCC is establishing a 60-day challenge process to resolve disputes as to whether the National Broadband Map accurately reflects the availability of broadband in areas eligible for Phase I funding. After price cap providers make their build-out commitments, the FCC will make those areas public and invite comment from the public within 30 days, with another 30 days reserved for rebuttal. In this way, parties will be able to challenge eligibility of the subsidy if, for example, they can prove that a given area is already served. By insisting that these disputes be raised publicly and in a targeted manner, this process represents a significant improvement over prior efforts by the FCC to resolve this category of disputes.

A close up of a row of lights illuminating equipment inside a Savvis data center in Slough, outside of London. (Photo of Savvis Slough Campus by Luben Solev).

With the right perspective, the inside of a data center is a visual feast. Today we kick off The Illustrated Data Center, a regular series that showcases some of the most unique and visually striking data centers we have seen. We begin with a look at the world of blinking lights that keep the Internet running, followed by photos illustrating the “Four Cs” of the inside of a data center – Corridors, Cabling, Cooling and Containment. If you like data centers, we know you’ll enjoy the The Illustrated Data Center.