Author: Serkadis

A report is out from the Wall Street Journal today, indicating that Amazon is working on a new line of hardware products, which includes a smartphone with 3D display capability, an additional smartphone, and an audio-only streaming device. These are in addition to the previously rumored set-top box. Collectively, the report (which cites people familiar with the company’s plans as the source) says, the projects are known as Project A, B, C and D or “The Alphabet Projects” and are in development in Amazon’s Lab126 facility.

The one smartphone would be able to display 3D images without users having to wear glasses, and would use retina-tracking technology to let people use their eyes to navigate through content, which would appear to float above the screen like a hologram, according to the report. The device would reportedly support 4G LTE and would come with Qualcomm chips.

Finally, the Journal’s sources suggested that Amazon’s efforts could lead to a streaming music service that would compete with the likes of Pandora and Spotify, and presumably accompany the aforementioned audio-streaming device. They also indicated that the company wants to release some of the offerings in the coming months, but they could be abandoned if financial or performance concerns become too great.

We’ve been hearing rumors about Amazon smartphones for quite some time. Speculation has been happening for years. Frankly, it would make a great deal of sense alongside its Kindle and Kindle Fire devices as the company increasingly competes with Apple and Google.

In March, rumors heated up that Amazon planned to launch a Kindle Phone in Q2.

One of my favorite things about broadband and the Internet is the ability to do things differently – not just faster. So I enjoyed an article last weekend in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on a local startup that’s using social media wisely – for market research and marketing…

But the three co-founders of Inspiration Medical already have financing. They’re using the crowdsourcing techniques to conduct the R&D and marketing work they need to bring their product to the market. And it’s a tough market: bleeders, people who, for a variety of reasons, have trouble stopping a cut from bleeding.

The company plans to launch its AllaQuix nonprescription pad that quickly stops nuisance bleeding for those on blood thinners. They are using social media to introduce their product to potential customers, and get feedback before they spend hundred of thousands on marketing.

Social media becomes a tool to help everyone’s aha idea become a reality.

Apple’s negotiations with Warner Music and Sony Music to launch its “iRadio” streaming music service have hit a snag, The Financial Times reported. Earlier reports suggested Apple was close to striking deals with two major labels, and Universal Music has reportedly already agreed to terms that will see its catalog made available on Apple’s upcoming streaming music service, which should be similar to those offered by Pandora and Spotify. Apple’s most recent offer to Sony and Warner was 12.5 cents per 100 streamed tracks, the report claims,  but neither label has accepted the terms at this point. According to FT, they want Apple to pay more than the standard rate paid by Pandora and similar services because of its “broader ambitions for iRadio.” It is unclear exactly how Apple plans to structure the upcoming service, which the company seemingly hopes to launch this summer.

As we’ve reported on several times, Google has started cleaning up its Image Search experience, sometimes making results less relevant in the process. In fact, some other things that Google is doing these days make for a much more censored experience altogether. With regards to Image Search in particular, they made it harder to find adult content, even with SafeSearch turned off.

Bing, on the other hand, is not only not doing this, but it is going out of its way to suggest that you search for adult content on some popular searches. If you go to Bing’s image search without typing a specific query, it displays the top twenty trending image searches like so:

Many of these, when clicked, come with some rather risque search suggestions. Number ten, Heather Graham, for example, suggests the following searches in bold at the top of the page: Heather Graham Naked, Heather Graham Nude, Heather Graham Tits, Heather Graham Pussy, Heather Graham Sex Scene, Heather Graham No Bra, Heather Graham Boobs, Heather Graham Sex, Heather Graham Hot, and Heather Graham Tesch.

Granted, SafeSearch is off, but this is quite a bit different than what you get from Google. Click on those explicit search suggestions, and you’ll get explicit content.

Google’s recommended searches at the top of the screen on a “Heather Graham” search are: heather graham hangover, heather graham premiere, heather graham 2013, heather graham judy moody, heather graham no makeup, heather graham husband.

Quite a bit different.

It’s worth noting that Google calls them “related searches,” and that this is without checking the “filter explicit results” option, which replaced the old SafeSearch style that was similar to what Bing still has.

Now, you can still find the type of content that Bing is recommending in Google if you specifically type the keywords that Bing is suggesting. It’s not exactly missing from the index. Google has just gone out of its way in recent months to make it more difficult to find this kind of content, electing to make people get more specific with their keywords. As we’ve seen, there are times when this approach has sacrificed the relevancy of the search.

Perusing Bing’s various trending image searches, you see similar results. Amelia Vega suggests: Amelia Vega Nude. Sloane Stephens suggests Sloane Stephens nude. Jodi Arias suggests: Jodi Arias Nude and Jodi Arias Naked. Lohan suggests: Lindsay Lohan Nude, Lindsay Lohan Naked, Lohan Bares All, Lohan Tits, Lohan Topless, Lindsay Lohan Playboy, Lindsay Lohan Spread Eagle, Lohan Wardrobe Malfunction, etc. Similar results for searches for Taraji P. Henson and Sarah Silverman. It’s not just the women though. Nick Lachey suggests: Nick Lahcey Nude, Nick Lachey Naked, etc.

The difference in how these two search engine competitors illustrates how different their philosophies are regarding certain types of content. On the other hand, we’ve seen Bing make some much more appalling suggestions recently too.

I expect we’ll hear much more about Chrome OS apps next week at the Google I/O developer event. Some developers aren’t waiting to move forward with apps for Chrome OS, however, and that’s a good thing. Although it had humble beginnings as a browser-based interface on a prototype laptop in 2010, Google’s Chrome OS is poised to expand beyond the browser with true apps of its own.

Take this game in the Chrome Web Store, for example. It’s called Cracking Sands Racing and comes from Polarbit, which has already released the game for iOS and Android. That tells me it’s basically a port of the mobile version. Plus the 533 MB download and offline support verify this is an app; not a game that’s being powered by the cloud. Here’s a video of the gameplay, which is exactly what the game looks like on my Pixel:

I downloaded Cracking Sands to my Chromebook Pixel, turned off the laptop’s Wi-Fi radio, plugged in a wired Xbox 360 controller and had a ball with this.

It’s no rival to current high-end console games, of course, but it’s fun and can be placed on a Chromebook even without an internet connection. And since the game originated on mobile devices with touchscreens, I can even play it using the Pixel’s touchscreen, although I prefer using a controller.

The point here is this: Google has been working on its Packaged Apps and Native Client support for some time and I think this effort will be highly visible next week at Google I/O.

Instead of touting Chrome OS solely as a fast web experience with some web apps and extensions, I suspect Chrome OS will be shown as a true desktop operating system alternative. Developers are starting to jump on board, although I’d like to hear more from Google just how many are interested. As a full-time Chromebook user, I can’t wait to see what apps end up on the improved Chrome OS platform.

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This video of a baby duck falling asleep, or struggling to stay awake, rather, has been around for about a year. In fact, in a couple days, it will be the video’s one-year anniversary on YouTube.

According to search data from Yahoo, searches for “baby duck falling asleep” are up 590% this week. Clearly interest is holding strong.

Melting hearts across the web… searches for [baby duck falling asleep] are up 590% this week. Have you seen it? ht.ly/kRCnB

— Yahoo! Search Data (@YahooSearchData) May 9, 2013

Unfortunately, the video Yahoo links to does not work. Allow me to direct you to YouTube:

The video actually only has over 800,000 views on YouTube so far, but with interest on the rise, I’d expect that to go up significantly very soon. Watch the video and help the number.

As an added bonus, here’s a lesser known video of baby ducks falling asleep (via AirDrone):

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, LinkedIn announced a few things it’s been doing to make the social network more accessible. These include improved site navigation, improvements to interaction with the service, and the addition of image descriptions.

“What started out as a few passion projects by members of LinkedIn’s web development team has now become the formation of our Accessibility Web Developer Task Force, dedicated to making LinkedIn user experiences inclusive and accessible,” says LinkedIn’s Sarah Clatterbuck (pictured).

As far as the navigation goes, she says, “Members who navigate with a keyboard can now better perceive where they are on a LinkedIn page and save time in moving between professional content and features.”

Additionally, realtime notifications are available to those navigating by keyboard, and actions like sending messages, and interacting with dialog boxes can be done quickly and easily with the keyboard or screen reader.

Image alt text is now being employed in all major areas of the site.

The company says it is currently working on an in-page navigation tool to help keyboard and screen reader users better navigate long pages.

Interop 2013 is being held this week in Las Vegas, with announcements coming from Mellanox, Marvell, and Arista Networks.  The Interop event conversation can be followed on Twitter hashtag #interop.

Arista named grand winner for Best of Interop

Arista Networks announced it  was named the Best of Interop 2013 winner and the Arista 7500E Modular Data Center Ethernet Switch has won both the Grand Prize and the Networking category, recognizing innovation and technological advancements.

“Arista is honored to be recognized again for delivering the best products in the networking industry. The reception on the Arista 7500E from analysts and customers is beyond our wildest expectations,” said Jayshree Ullal president and CEO for Arista Networks.

Eric Hanselman, chief analyst at 451 Research noted, “The 7500E is the winner in both the Networking and Grand Award categories, and its impressive specs are part of the reason. One of the key pieces of innovation in the 7500E is the embedded optical capability that enables transitions between today’s and tomorrow’s networking needs at a reasonable cost.”

Mellanox announces Ethernet Interconnect and InfiniBand/Ethernet gateway

Mellanox Technologies (MLNX) announced its end-to-end 56 Gigabit Ethernet product line, an Ethernet-based server and storage interconnect solution. The 56GbE solution, consisting of Mellanox’s  ConnectX-3 and ConnectX-3 Pro NICs, SwitchX-2 based SX1024 and SX1036 switches, QSFP+ cables, and acceleration and management software, delivers 40 percent more bandwidth than competing 40GbE solutions, enables higher server density at lower cost, as well as a more efficient network design using less cables and less switches.

“Increasing bandwidth requirements, data volume, data center consolidation and virtualization are driving the demand for faster Ethernet solutions,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Utilizing Mellanox’s complete 56GbE solution, companies can gain significant application performance by connecting their storage and server infrastructure with the fastest Ethernet fabric. Furthermore, 56GbE enables the most efficient inter-switch connectivity resulting in lower overall data center capital and operating expenses.”

Mellanox also announced the next step in its Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) strategy, with the availability of an integrated InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway in its SwitchX-based InfiniBand and Ethernet switch systems. Using this new gateway, Mellanox edge switches can now be used for both InfiniBand and Ethernet switching at the same time with an integrated gateway capability between the two networks.

“Mellanox’s new InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway functionality built within Mellanox switches provides the most cost-effective, high-performance solution for data center unified connectivity solutions,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s systems enable data centers to operate at 56Gb/s network speeds while seamlessly connecting to 1, 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet networks. Existing LAN infrastructures and management practices can be preserved, easing deployment and providing significant return-on-investment.”

Marvell announces ARMADA 375 System-on-Chip

Marvell (MRVL) introduced the Marvell ARMADA 375 System-on-Chip, a dual-core Cortex A9 SoC platform that builds on the highly successful ARMADA 370 and ARMADA XP families of embedded ARM processors for business networking applications. The ARMADA 375 SoC, available in 800 MHz and 1 GHz speed, incorporates a host of I/O peripherals, and is optimized to consume very low power for a wide range of applications. It is designed to integrate a 32-bit DDR3/3L memory controller, a security engine, SATA 2.0 ports and dual PCI-Express interfaces to make system designs simple and economical.

“With the launch of the ARMADA 375, Marvell is setting new standards for SoC system performance and integration at very low power for a dual-core 1 GHz processor,” said Ramesh Sivakolundu, vice president and general manager, Connectivity, Servers, Infrastructure Business Unit (CSIBU) at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. “We are enabling our customers to address a wide range of performance and cost-sensitive application challenges by leveraging their existing investment in the legacy Marvell ARMADA SoC families.”

Google has made it possible for Internet users to look at historical imagery of the Earth’s surface over time. The company has been working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME on the Timelapse project, and is releasing over twenty-five years worth of imagery of Earth taken from space, compiled into interactive timelapse experiences.

Google says it’s the most comprehensive picture of the planet ever made available to the public.

“The images were collected as part of an ongoing joint mission between the USGS and NASA called Landsat,” explains Rebecca Moore, Engineering Manager, Google Earth Engine & Earth Outreach. “Their satellites have been observing earth from space since the 1970s—with all of the images sent back to Earth and archived on USGS tape drives that look something like this example (courtesy of the USGS).”

“We started working with the USGS in 2009 to make this historic archive of earth imagery available online,” she adds. “Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year.”

Finally, Google worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon Uinversity to convert the Earth images into HTML5 animations.

The imagery is constructed from millions of satellite images, and is even zoomable. Here are some examples:

Here’s Google’s Timelapse site. Here’s Time’s.

President Obama on Thursday signed an executive order making open data the default policy for the federal government. This is a hugely significant move, although one that can and will have its openness and thus, significance, chipped away over time. But it’s a good start.

While we may never get the full extent of government spying on citizens in machine-readable formats, the Census, FDA testing, EPA and myriad other data will offer a treasure trove of information for years to come. And by making it open and machine readable, it will presumably be harder to bury such data in physical warehouses or behind crazy fees.

The executive order is here. Essentially it requires the government to do the following:

• Figure out what data the agencies have, and make an index
• List all of their publicly available data in a public place
• List all of the information that could be made public, even if it is not yet available

But the order attempts to address an almost existential question about moving from an organization where data is assumed TO BE hidden to one where it assumed to be open. John Wonderlich over at the Sunlight Foundation put it well in his blog on the announcement:

“Most importantly, though, the new policies take on one of the most important, trickiest questions that these policies face — how can we reset the default to openness when there is so much data? How can we take on managing and releasing all the government’s data, or as much as possible, without negotiating over every dataset the government has?

How can the public (or policymakers) request what they don’t know exists? How can CIOs manage what they haven’t surveyed?”

He concludes that this order will address a lot of these issues, and I hope that will actually happen. As someone who has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests only to get back boxes of redacted and almost meaningless documents, the hunt for government information — or information that is supposed to be publicly available — can be daunting, exhausting and ultimately fruitless.

Of course, as was shown when the SEC started making its records available online using XML, the greater visibility of those documents, notably the Reg-D filings that indicated a private company had picked up funding, prompted the agency to include less information in those documents. They still made them public online, but also made them less useful in some cases.

Also, this order notes that privileged information, law enforcement information, national security information, personal information, or information that agencies can’t disclose because it is prohibited by law, are all off the table when it comes to the order. This isn’t unexpected, but it can be used to create loopholes where agencies (or private companies working with the government) can attempt to hide data it doesn’t want to share.

But, as the White House release notes, government data such as Global Positioning System data and weather data have been open for decades and have helped create some awesome new services for citizens. I’m sure that today’s news will open up plenty of great data sets that entrepreneurs can start using to build amazing new apps.

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Big Switch Networks announced a joint solution with F5 to simplify how private cloud data center networks are built and orchestrated, enabling customers to deploy the rich network services they expect from traditional networks in an automated fashion consistent with the provisioning speeds of virtual workloads. Using the Big Virtual Switch network virtualization application, it provides two-way coordination between virtual network segments and F5 Application Delivery Networking services.

The combined solution integrates the Big Virtual Switch network virtualization application, BIG-IP Application Delivery Networking (ADN) services and OpenStack into a flexible and unified cloud orchestration framework, using the F5 BIG-IQ Cloud REST API. Big Virtual Switch dynamically provisions virtual network segments, or slices of the network, for applications and workloads and enables automation. The solutions supports the BIG-IP iControl API and the BIG-IQ Cloud REST API. It will also support both native management and OpenStack Horizon Management Dashboard.

“Inserting ADN services, and doing so automatically, is very important in virtualized network and SDN environments, and can only be achieved with a truly programmable system,” said Mansour Karam, Big Switch Networks vice president of business development and strategic alliances. “Big Virtual Switch and BIG-IQ from F5 are both prime examples of programmable systems, and we are enthusiastic about working together to deliver a network automation solution.”

“Intelligent networking continues to be at the forefront of customers’ minds,” said Jason Needham, VP of Product Management and Marketing at F5. “Integrating application delivery components with emerging SDN and cloud architectures provides a path for organizations to seamlessly increase efficiency and add programmability to their systems. As a key innovator in the SDN space, Big Switch is a great partner, and we look forward to adding further value for joint customers through enhanced efforts with their team.”

Funny videos of news anchors and weathermen losing their cool on television are nothing new on the Internet. Some might even say that they’re what makes the Internet worth using. No? Either way, they’re usually pretty funny.

Reddit has unearthed a new one where the weather segment begins after a Depends commercial featuring former NFL defensive tackle Tony Siragusa talking about “guarding your manhood”. Needless to say, the weather guy found the commercial amusing:

[via reddit]

You’ll never view TNG the same again.

[via reddit]

There is no need to emphasize the need for a password manager, since almost every online activity is secured through a username and a countersign. Solutions for storing this sensitive information are many, and most of them are very easy to use.

PassBox is not far from this description but, unlike the popular solutions in its category, it does not integrate in web br… (read more)

Cray announced a new addition to its XC30 systems, with the XC30-AC (air-cooled) supercomputer. The new model includes all of the advanced high performance computing (HPC) technologies offered in the Cray XC30 system, and features aggressive price points intended to attract a new a class of HPC users – the technical enterprise.

The air cooled model economizes the packaging, networking, cooling and power options of the Cray XC30, while balancing customer price/performance requirements.  Prices for the XC30-AC start at $500,000. The XC30-AC enables technical enterprise HPC users in a variety of industries to apply supercomputing resources towards solving technical and business challenges. Additionally Cray has a line of cluster supercomputer offerings, the CS300 cluster supercomputers, to compliment the XC30-AC systems.

“Innovation is not limited to Fortune 100 companies. There are many Fortune 1000 companies, and even departments within Fortune 100 companies, with a growing need for a supercomputing system that provides a critical tool for taking advantage of performing complex simulations,” said Peg Williams, Cray’s senior vice president of high performance computing systems.

Cray states that the new model has all of the features and functionality of its high-end Cray XC30 systems, and is suited for technical enterprise customers, helping them access supercomputing capacity at a lower price.

The XC30-AC has allowed Cray to enter new markets for its supercomputers, with early customers including a global consumer electronics company and a global financial services company. It is targeted at less-traditional HPC segments, as well as a broader class of users in more traditional HPC markets, such as academia, defense and earth sciences. While the XC30-AC contains many of the features of the XC30, it differs in that it is air cooled, has physically smaller compute cabinets with 16 vertical blades per cabinet, has a single fan for bottom-to-top vertical air flow, and has a lower power option supporting either 480V or 208V operation.

“Cray has a history of leveraging the supercomputing technologies featured in their high-end systems, and economically repackaging those same technologies to offer solutions to fit the needs of HPC users with smaller budgets,” said Earl Joseph, IDC program vice president for HPC. “Simulation is no longer bound by the high-end data center, and Cray’s new XC30-AC system continues the company’s tradition of creating purpose-built systems that appeal to new customers in expanding segments of the supercomputing market.”

It looks like Manchester United officially has its replacement for Alex Ferguson, who stepped down as manager this week. Ferguson’s replacement will reportedly be David Moyes, who is said to have signed a long-term six-year deal, and will take over as Manager on July 1st.

CNN tweets:

The Guardian has also confirmed the news with Manchester United, and reports that Moyes will start after his completing his season with Everton. His first official game will reportedly be the Community Shield against either Manchester City or Wigan at Wembley on August 11th. The report quotes Moyes:

“I know how hard it will be to follow the best manager ever, but the opportunity to manage Manchester United isn’t something that comes around very often and I’m really looking forward to taking up the post next season.”

Ferguson, who as won 38 trophies for the club, will become a director and ambassador for it. He is 71 years old.

More background on Moyes here.