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Apple CEO Tim Cook is going before Congress on Tuesday to defend his company’s tax-paying practices. On Monday, the company published his planned testimony, including his recommendations for “a dramatic simplification of the corporate tax system.” Cook will argue that his general suggestions for an overhaul will benefit the economy by encouraging U.S.-based companies like his own to bring more of their foreign profits back to their accounts in the U.S.

Cook will call for a revenue-neutral reform of the corporate tax code that does away with all tax expenditures, lowers tax rates and establishes a “reasonable” tax on companies’ earnings from overseas. It’s not in the planned testimony, but in an interview last week, Cook made it clear that he does not believe that a tax rate of zero is a reasonable number. In his testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Investigations, he will say that Apple supports this simplification of the tax code despite the likelihood that it will mean Apple’s overall corporate taxes will go up. The current corporate tax system “applies industrial era concepts to a digital economy” and “undermines U.S. competitiveness,” Apple believes.

Before Cook gets into his specific suggestions for fixing how U.S. businesses are taxed on foreign earnings, he’s going to spend most of his time going over why he’s being called to testify in the first place: Apple’s accounting methods. Apple keeps at least $100 billion in foreign earnings outside of the IRS’s grasp because it doesn’t wish to pay the 35 percent tax it would incur by bringing that money home. Many other businesses follow similar practices.

According to the published testimony, Cook will going into detail about how the company accounts for profits earned in the U.S., how investment in its foreign assets is taxed, how it shares R&D costs with an Irish subsidiary and more. (It’ll probably be a snoozefest for everyone except those who get a thrill out of spreadsheets.) Most of it is Cook on the defensive, explaining how what Apple does is within legal limits. Cook plans to assure the committee it’s not cheating on its taxes with any special tricks and “does not have a bank account in the Cayman Islands.”

He will underscore his point about Apple being on the up and up by laying out how much the company pays in taxes. Last year it paid $6 billion in taxes to the U.S. and this year, Cook has said it will pay $7 billion.

Tuesday’s testimony will be Cook’s first appearance before Congress. The company’s tax practices came to light a year ago when the New York Times highlighted some of the methods Apple has used to keep its overall taxes at a minimum.

Update 2:43 p.m. PT: Later on Monday the Senate released the results of its own investigation into the Apple’s tax-paying practices. It found that Apple’s convoluted system of subsidiaries has allowed it to avoid paying $44 billion in U.S. taxes over the last four years. However, it also noted that Apple did not break any U.S. law in doing so, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Expect many questions during Tuesday’s hearings about how the company uses its subsidiaries in Ireland to do this.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Casting for Season 2 of Netflix’s breakout hit House of Cards is currently underway in Maryland.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley recently announced that the show had returned to production in the state, as producers take advantage of a tax credit it offers to film productions.

On Tuesday, O’Malley was hanging out on set:

On set at @houseofcards Season 2 – a great #Maryland film industry / @netflix production creating 5,700 jobs twitter.com/GovernorOMalle…

— Martin O’Malley (@GovernorOMalley) May 14, 2013

Great visit w/ Cast & Crew of @houseofcards – agree w/ @kevinspacey, MD is ‘without question, Hollywood East.’ twitter.com/GovernorOMalle…

— Martin O’Malley (@GovernorOMalley) May 14, 2013

Thanks for visiting the set @governoromalley. Informative @baltimoresun piece detailing Maryland’s film tax incentive bit.ly/19u8t0c

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) May 15, 2013

He caught up with House of Cards star Kevin Spacey again on Saturday:

Great seeing @kevinspacey at the @preaknessstakes. Film & horses: two great economic boosts for MD. twitter.com/GovernorOMalle…

— Martin O’Malley (@GovernorOMalley) May 18, 2013

Spacey, by the way, apparently wore a ring from the show at Preakness:

If you’ve watched House of Cards you will know all about the ring I’m wearing at Preakness. If not – you should watch. Its Francis’s ring.

— Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) May 19, 2013

On Saturday, according to the Baltimore Sun, about a thousand people showed up at the Bel Air Reckord Armory for a casting call for the show. David Anderson reports:

“It was a great cross section of people, I think, that will allow us to depict all walks of life in Washington, D.C.,” local casting director Kimberly Skyrme said.

Skyrme, who is the owner of Kimberly Skyrme Casting of University Park in Prince George’s County, and her staff took headshots and the resumes, and spent several minutes speaking with hundreds of men, women and children who came through the Armory gymnasium throughout the day Saturday.

While a release date for the second season has not yet been set, fans will be happy to know that the ball is indeed rolling. In the meantime, they can expect more good stuff coming from Netflix. Later this week, Arrested Development will finally make its long-awaited return as a Netflix-exclusive.

Meanwhile, fans of Netflix’s most recent original show, Hemlock Grove, are eagerly awaiting a second season.

House of Cards Season 1 will hit DVD on June 11th.

Image via

This year, just before the Super Bowl, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (the self-proclaimed best quarterback in the NFL) stated that holding the Super Bowl in non-domed venues where the weather is cold is “retarded.” He immediately took his words back, calling it “stupid” instead, but the word had been said.

Flacco issued a public apology on Super Bowl media day, saying it was “a bad choice of words.” This week, the Ravens’ starting quarterback is going even further.

The Special Olympics of Maryland this weekend held a “Casino Night” to promote the Special Olympics and related organizations. At the event, Flacco and his teammates Gino Gradkowski and Ed Dickson signed a pledge not to use the word retarded. The Facebook post:

The pledge is part of the “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign, which seeks raise awareness that the words retard and retarded are seen by many as “dehumanizing and hurtful.” The campaign is a joint effort by the Special Olympics and Best Buddies International.

(Image courtesy Keith Allison/Wikimedia Commons)

Iran is a dangerous place for anyone who might even be remotely in contact with foreign countries. That danger was clearly demonstrated over the weekend.

The AP reports Mohammad Heidari and Kourosh Ahmadi were hung over the weekend after being convicted of spying for foreign countries. Heidari was accused of spying for Israel, whereas Ahmadi was accused of spying for the CIA.

Not much more information is known at this point as the report came from Iran’s state-run radio station. The report failed to mention when the men were arrested, or if they were tried.

The executions come at a time when tensions between Iran, and the U.S. and Israel are at an all-time high. The latter suspects Iran is enriching uranium at its nuclear reactors to create atomic weapons while Iran insists its reactors are strictly used for peaceful power generation purposes. It was deemed enough of a threat that Israel launched a sophisticated computer virus, codenamed Flame, to cripple the computer systems at Iran’s reactor.

Since then, the rhetoric between Iran and Israel has risen dramatically. The two executed men were not Israeli or U.S. citizens so their deaths may not spark an international incident, and the two countries will obviously deny that they had spies working for them.

Still, it’s not going to help improve relations in any way going forward.

Apple’s retail stores continue to outsell, on a sales per square foot basis, all other retailers by a large margin. Horace Dediu of Asymco found that the number of Apple Store visitors grew 7% last quarter and helped Apple’s in-store retail revenue reach a record $57.60 per visitor. Each store is now averaging sales of $13 million per quarter, the highest level for any non-holiday quarter. The average number of visitors per store was said to have reached 250,000 per quarter in the past 12 months, up from 170,000 per store per quarter between 2009 and 2010. Dediu speculates that the jump in visitors could be from more space in new stores and renovations in older stores. Apple’s retail stores now outsell No.2 Tiffany & Co two-to-one and No.3 Lululemon Athletica three-to-one.

Every day, most of us do something morally indefensible — we go about our lives without sending help to the 6.9 million children under the age of 5 who will die this year from poverty-related disease. In today’s talk, philosopher Peter Singer makes the case that ignoring these kids is as inhumane as ignoring a child who’s been hit by a car on the street in front of you.

Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism “Does it really matter that they’re far away?” asks Singer. “I don’t think it does make a morally relevant difference — the fact that they’re not right in front of us, or the fact that they’re of a different nationality or race.”

But he’s not saying this to make us feel bad and helpless. Today’s talk actually delivers good news: that through what Singer calls “effective altruism,” we all have the ability to make a difference. Effective altruism begins with reason – the realization that all lives are of equal value — and looking for charities that affect the most lives, the most effectively.

To hear how a single person — and one who is nowhere close to a billionaire – can make a big impact for good in the world, watch this talk. And below, some resources to get you thinking about giving more effectively.

Peter Singer’s top 10 recommended charities:

1. Against Malaria Foundation. Of those 6.9 million children who die every year of poverty-related illness, 1 million succumb to malaria. AMF provides insecticide-treated bed nets, which only cost $5 apiece.
2. Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. Protecting a child from worm-based disease for a full year costs around 50 cents. This organization works with governments to make sure it happens.
3. The Humane League. Invests time, money and energy to reduce animal cruelty and save the lives of animals, focusing on farmed animals.
4. GiveDirectly. This nonprofit transfers money to poor individuals in Kenya, letting them spend it for food and other basic needs, or on high-return investments.
5. Oxfam International. This mega aid organization works in a wide range of areas, including disaster relief, education, sanitation and women’s rights.
6. Proven Impact Fund. Dedicated to data and results, this fund from Innovations for Poverty Action supports interventions with strong evidence of success.
7. The Fistula Foundation. Fistula is a ghastly injury during childbirth, and it afflicts women living in the poorest areas of the world. This organization provides needed surgery.
8. The Hunger Project. Encouraging men and women to end their own hunger, this organization assists poor villages for five years, relying on the local workforce to build skills and take over before they leave.
9. Vegan Outreach. A nonprofit that seeks to expose and end cruelty to animals.
10. Population Services International. A global health organization that focuses on family planning, a simple service that can improve the health of women and their children.
    

Resources for finding other charities to support:

• GiveWell. This nonprofit does in-depth research on charities and highlights a small number that do a remarkable amount of good per dollar they receive. (Singer recommends this site.)
• Effective Animal Activism. One of the causes nearest to Singer’s heart is animal liberation, and he is impressed with this charity evaluator that focuses on animal suffering.
• Charity Navigator. The largest charity evaluator in the U.S., Charity Navigator has data and ratings for nearly 6,000 charities.
• Great Nonprofits. A site dedicated to informing would-be donors through reviews from board members, volunteers, experts and regular folks who’ve interfaced with a charity.

Resources Singer recommends for connecting with other people interested in doing good:

• Giving What We Can. The members of this international society make a bold pledge: to donate 10% of their income to eliminating poverty in the developing world. A good place to connect with others, and to find high-quality organizations to support.
• The Life You Can Save. At this site, you can pledge to donate any percentage of your income to those in need. In addition to directing you to great charities to support, it’s also a log for local volunteer opportunities.
• Effective Altruism. A blog from Peter Singer and William MacAskill dedicated to the tenets of effective altruism.
• The High Impact Network. This group has a great acronym – THINK. Members meet up to ponder effective giving — both strategically and creatively.

A resource for finding the career that does the greatest good:

• 80,000 Hours. Named after the number of hours most people will work over their lifetime, this career advice site has a twist – it gives advice on how different careers can have an impact on poverty. As Singer mentions in his talk, the site doesn’t shy away from unusual answers; it suggests that working in finance and donating a percentage of your income could fund multiple aid workers.

And further reading in effective altruism:

• The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty. Peter Singer’s book about how each person can be a part of the solution to poverty, it calls for a cultural change to consider poverty eradication a natural part of a moral life.
• The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution and Moral Progress. Peter Singer’s classic study of ethics, which examines the question: Where does our desire for altruism come from? He shows how it might come down to the biological drive to protect or kin — but that it is also a matter of reason.
• The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. A bold look from Peter Singer and Jim Mason on how our individual food choices affect animals, the environment and our fellow human beings.

Want more advice on how to parse the world of nonprofits and giving? Check out Dan Pallotta’s tips for picking a charity that’s right for you »

“Forget the ATM.”

That’s the brief message that Square is displaying on a new page for Square Cash. It looks like Square is about launch a new money transfer feature.

“Square Cash is the easiest way to send money to anyone, using just email and your debit card,” says Square on the Square Cash about page. Square explains the simple mechanics for Square Cash as such: all you have do do is send an email with the recipient’s email address, cc [email protected], enter a dollar amount in the subject line, and send away.

“You’ll get a receipt each time you send money. You have the ability to cancel the payment by clicking a link within the confirmation email you receive. Keep in mind that you can only cancel a payment if it hasn’t yet been redeemed by your recipient,” says Square.

It’ll cost the sender $0.50 for each payment sent, and it will cost the recipient nothing. Recipients only need to link their debit accounts upon receiving a payment. Funds will be directly deposited within 48 hours.

Currently, Square Cash is an invitation-only service, but you can’t even sign up yet. It appears that Square is simply picking some early testers.

“We’re excited to share Square Cash with our friends. We’ll continue to invite others to try it out in the coming weeks,” a Square spokesperson told TechCrunch.

“Saturday Night Live” may be facing a serious blow soon when Bill Hader and Seth Meyers leave, and that can’t be good for a show that has already seen a slip in viewership due to a severe lack of funny (although this past weekend garnered exceptionally high ratings when Ben Affleck hosted and Kanye West was the musical guest).

Hader and Meyers are two of the biggest catalysts in the show’s success, and to see them go will mean the producers will have to lean heavily on the talents of newcomers, especially with rumors floating that Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis will be leaving soon as well.

But some think that a large cast rotation is a good thing, judging by past events. It might make room for a fresh crop of hungry talent, and that could be just what the show needs.

This past weekend’s show was the last for Hader, who says it was bittersweet.

“It was a hard decision, but it has to happen at some point,” Hader said. “It got to a point where I said, ‘Maybe it’s just time to go.’”

If Marissa Mayer is on a mission to teach kids about her company, which was founded before some of them were even born, buying Tumblr isn’t a bad way to do it. But in all the discussion of Yahoo’s new deal, too many people are writing about Yahoo buying a blogging site, comparing Tumblr to WordPress, when in fact Tumblr is more of a photo site for the youngs.

While buying Tumblr isn’t necessarily a bad deal for the two companies, as my colleague Mathew Ingram wrote, there’s another photo site out there that might have been an even better deal: Pinterest.

In many ways, Pinterest is also building a mobile-friendly photo site just like Tumblr, but Pinterest is also in the midst of constructing the underpinnings for a potentially much more lucrative native revenue experience. Pinterest is oriented around commerce and consumers craving particular items. That’s good for business.

No, buying Pinterest wouldn’t help Yahoo discover its inner tween. It’s a well-known fact that Pinterest is populated mainly by adult women — not exactly the demographic Yahoo needs to attract. And no, considering Pinterest’s valuation as of its last funding round, such an acquisition probably wouldn’t have come cheap. Acquiring the company would require a much bigger departure from Yahoo’s current mass-market advertising into the world of e-commerce and affliate links. It could be a harder sell to the company’s investors, and a bigger transition for everyone.

But if Yahoo is looking to shell out the big bucks for a site with viral growth, visuals to compete with Facebook, and a devoted community of users, Pinterest might have been the better choice. According to a Pew report in December, out of all online adults (which is basically anyone with an internet connection), just six percent of those people visited Tumblr on a regular basis, compared with 13 percent on Instagram (which isn’t exactly for sale), and 15 percent on Pinterest — only Twitter comes in at 16 percent ahead of the others and behind behemoth Facebook at 67 percent.

Less than a year out of beta, Pinterest is a dominant force on the web; a place where women of all ages collect photos of things that inspire them or things that they want to remember or create. For many, it’s a digital wish-list. And because of that, Pinterest sends huge amounts of traffic to online retailers. To be the intermediary between the people and the stores is a good place to be — you’re a crucial link that drives the sales, without any of the hassle of shipping or orders or user acquisitions that come with e-commerce.

Pinterest has no business model in place right now — the site is free to join and for brands to integrate with — but that’s just right now, and it likely won’t last. The company just announced yesterday that it is starting to connect photos of items back to the brands who sell them, and it’s not hard to image how this could play out.

Tumblr does have a business model right now based on ads, and it just started rolling them out on mobile users in April. But the company has been reportedly burning through cash and not yet making a lot of revenue, hoping to bring in $100 million this year. But people are usually pretty unhappy about a free product suddenly peppering them with ads — especially if those ads are dropped into a feed that users have created (just ask anyone how they feel about Facebook ads.) CEO David Karp said at our paidContent event just last month that he wants advertising on the site to be native and unobstrusive.

“We focused on higher up in the funnel, the type of advertising that creates intent,” Karp told us in April. “It gives room for the most creative advertisers to create their best work. I think we’ve started to prove it, and see really good examples of it.”

But that’s a hard nut to crack.

Suddenly, the possible Pinterest model of taking a cut on sales and traffic resulting from users creating digital shopping lists looks a lot less disruptive to the core experience, and potentially more lucrative, than trying to solve mobile display ads for the Tumblr feed. Making money off traffic and sales wouldn’t disrupt Pinterest’s core product, and would generally fit in with the company’s existing user experience, just as promoted tweets are fitting with Twitter’s on both desktop and mobile (a profitable venture so far estimated to bring Twitter $528 million in ad revenue this year.)

So no, buying Pinterest wouldn’t make Yahoo all that hip. But buying the site that has potential to become a strong force in modern, social retail? Seems like a good bet — especially since teens might leave you once Mom joins and you become mainstream.

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It takes a special kind of idiot criminal to talk about their crimes on Facebook. We’ve seen plenty of that since the advent and expansion of Facebook. It takes a whole other kind of idiot to taunt police on Facebook when you’re a wanted fugitive. And I’m not sure what it makes you when you taunt police on their actual Facebook page.

Whatever it is, Sam Greenwood is it.

According to the Greater Manchester Police Rochdale North, Greenwood is back in custody after posting a taunt on their Facebook page.

Greenwood was reportedly wanted after he breached the terms of his release from jail. GMP Rochdale North tapped the Facebook community to help in their search, posting a photo and status about Greenwood. A day later, Greenwood posted to the GMP Rochdale’s status.

“Catch me if u can,” he commented.

They can, and they did. Within 12 hours, Greenwood was back in jail. Imagine that? Our mastermind couldn’t elude the police. Shocking.

“Caught you. Do not pass Go, do not collect £200, go straight to jail,” posted GMP Rochdale North after his capture.

“Unfortunately this man was always going to be a hostage to fortune once he decided to goad us on Facebook. I tried my best to coax him into handing himself in, but he seemed determined to remain at large. Thankfully, we managed to track him down in no time at all and he is now back where he belongs for the time being – behind bars,” said Inspector Umer Khan.

I’d like to say that this is the only time we’ve seen a criminal taunt police on Facebook – but I can’t. Back in 2011, we told you about a New York man who posted the status “catch me if you can, I’m in Brooklyn.” NYPD found him shortly thereafter, sitting at his computer, with Facebook open in his browser. Idiocy knows no geographical bounds, my friends.

[GMP Rochdale North via CNET]

This weekend, Justin Bieber was booed while accepting an award at the Billboard Music Awards. The crowd reaction was enough to startle the 19-year-old, who used his acceptance speech to tell everyone he should be “taken seriously” and that they should not speak of “this other bull.”

Now another incident caught on video at the Billboard Music Awards is making the rounds on the internet.

Backstage at the show, Bieber ran into his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Selena Gomez. Their encounter was caught briefly on camera, and Bieber can be seen receiving a peck on the cheek from Gomez. What’s more interesting, however, is that fellow pop star Taylor Swift happened to be walking by the couple at that exact moment. Her look of disgust perfectly encapsulates what the large portion of the crowd who booed Bieber must have been feeling:

Bieber hasn’t officially commented on either of Sunday night’s embarrassments. Instead, the pop star used his 39 million-follower Twitter feed to thank fans and express his love for Jesus:

(Image courtesy roffleswaffles on Reddit)

Hayden Panettiere is having quite a year as her show “Nashville” takes off, and fans want to know if she’ll be upping her game with an engagement announcement soon.

Rumors began when the young actress was spotted out with a flashy diamond ring, but the jewels were on the wrong hand to be an engagement ring and besides, she claims it hasn’t happened yet. When asked about the rumors at the Billboard Music Awards, Panettiere held up her bare left hand and said, “No ring.”

Panettiere attended the ceremony with her boxer boyfriend, Wladimir Klitschko, with whom she’s had an on-again, off-again relationship for the past couple of years. And despite her adamant protests to the contrary, rumors are still flying that she and Klitschko are about to make it official.

Image: WireImage

Laptops are the new desktops. While you can buy a solid tower PC for about $500, this price represents how little manufacturers care about the desktop world. Barring a few huge gaming rigs, laptops are where it’s at.

We have been arguably remiss in avoiding formal laptop reviews and so we’re trying to remedy that with a series we’re calling Laptop Week. This week we will focus on some of the best laptops available today alongside a few gems that popped up over the past year or so. We will run the gamut from Chromebooks to Windows 8 and take a few detours on the way.

You can read all of our Laptop Week coverage here and feel free to contact me if you’d like to see us look at anything in particular on the market or in the laptops we’re testing. Look for a few Laptop Week posts per day, starting with an amazing Ubuntu laptop that I think could easily replace a MacBook Air for those in the right frame of mind.

We’ve created a quick and easy rating method for each laptop we address and take into consideration the needs of designers, entrepreneurs, and programmers. Because you mostly don’t care about speeds and feeds, these will be high-level assessments of each laptop from a practical perspective.

Welcome to Laptop Week. We hope you enjoy your stay.

When Zach Sobiech was told that he only had months to live, his response was to “embrace every day with hope and joy,” and as described in the text of the “Clouds” video, he turned to music to say goodbye.

Released in December, the video went viral, and tugged at the heartstrings of viewers around the world, and eventually led to a celebrity tribute video featuring Bryan Cranston, Anna Faris, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, Jenna Elfman, Jason Mraz and others.

Sobiech was diagnosed with osterosarcoma (a rare, cancerous bone tumor that develops in children) in November 2009. He went through several surgeries and months of chemotherapy. At the end of last May, cancer was found in his pelvis and lungs. “There are no effective treatments left,” the video says.

Zach’s mother Laura posted the following message to website CaringBridge.org today:

Zachary passed away this morning. He was surrounded by his sisters, brother, parents and girlfriend. We love him dearly.

A concert is scheduled for this coming Saturday to raise money for Sobiech’s fund, which aims to raise money to fight the disease. Donations are also being accepted here.

Clouds is currently approaching 3 million views on YouTube.

Here’s another song Zach and his group A Firm Handshake released in February:

[via Today]

Sometimes, an app annoyingly doesn’t allow you to disable its notifications in the app’s settings. Sometimes, an app even gives advertisements through the notifications, which is even more annoying. If you have Jelly Bean 4.1 or higher, you can fortunately disable almost any app’s notifications straight from the device settings. After the break are instructions on how you can get rid of the pesky alerts. 

1. When you get a notification you don’t want, pull down the notification bar, and hold down the notification until a box pops up that says “App info.” Tap that box.

(An alternate way to get to “App info” without waiting for the notification to appear is by heading to your device’s settings menu. Under the “Device” heading, tap “Application Manager” and select the app causing the problematic alerts.)

2. Once you get to “App info,”  you should see a check box with “Show notifications” checked.

 

3. All you need to do is tap on the box to uncheck “Show notifications”, tap “OK” in the warning popup, and you are good to go. No more notifications!

You can always re-enable the notifications by going back into the settings and rechecking the “Show notifications” box.

Come comment on this article: How to disable annoying Android notifications

Although last week’s Google I/O event overflowed with new feature debuts, I noted on Thursday that one key Google service was absent: Google Voice. Instead we heard about Google’s new Hangouts app, a unified messaging service for the web, Android and iOS devices.

Hangouts has taken the place of Google Talk, which is what I use daily to make phone calls via Google Voice. Or at least I used to.

At the moment, users who upgrade to Hangouts on the web lose the ability to make voice calls through the old Google Talk. Incoming Google Voice calls can still be accepted through the new Hangouts, however. It turns out that Google Voice actually is a big part of Hangouts, it’s just not ready yet. Nikhyl Singhal, a product manager for all of Google’s real-time communications services said this on his Google+ page on Monday:

“Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls is just the beginning. Future versions of Hangouts will integrate Google Voice more seamlessly.”

Singhal notes that from within Gmail, users can still place outbound Google Voice phone calls, so the functionality is still available; just not yet in the new Hangouts app or the Chrome extension for Hangouts.

On a related note, Hangouts still doesn’t use the open source WebRTC, or Web real-time communications, API that will allow for video, voice and file sharing without the need for plug-ins. Instead, the service is still built upon technology from Vidyo, which clarified the WebRTC situation in a blog post today. Google has confirmed the same to my colleague, Janko Roettgers.

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The Uptime Institute has a history of being focused on the enterprise data center, but service providers have begun embracing Uptime and getting their facilities certified with the group’s Tier system. Today Uptime scored a major win on this front, as Digital Realty Trust announced it will have 20 of its facilities certified by Uptime.

Why is this a big deal and a big win for Uptime? Four years ago, Digital Realty might have been considered a critic of Uptime, with one of its executives publicly debating the merits of the Tier system as an industry benchmark. That’s clearly changed, as the multi-tenant universe has warmed to the value of tier certification.  Digital Realty says that five of its projects have achieved Tier III certification, including two projects in Sydney and two in Melbourne, and one data center in Trumbull, Connecticut.

“As a global developer, operator and long-term owner of enterprise-quality data centers, we have long since designed our Turn-Key Flex solution to meet rigorous engineering and reliability standards,” said Jim Smith, chief technology officer for Digital Realty. “Working with Uptime Institute to obtain Tier III certifications for these new projects further demonstrates our commitment to meeting these high standards on behalf of our customers.”

Tier Certification Making More Sense for Providers

With enterprise users more frequently choosing OpEx-friendly colocation deals over in-house data centers, a multi-tenant facility with a tier certification gives provides these enterprises some peace of mind. It tells enterprises that their provider meets rigorous uptime requirements. For multi-tenant data center providers, tier certification tells them that their facilities have an effective life beyond the current IT requirements, meaning it’s more than just an attractive pitch to potential customers. The Uptime Institute is a knowledgebase of information culled over the years from numerous data center operators, so it’s a chance to leverage that collective knowledge.

In addition to Digital Realty Trust, several service providers have jumped on certification including ATAC, IO, ViaWest, Compass Datacenters, and CyrusOne.

Uptime Institute created the standard Tier Classification System to evaluate data center infrastructure in terms of a business’ requirements for system availability. The Tier Classification System provides the data center industry with a consistent method to compare typically unique, customized facilities based on expected site infrastructure performance, or uptime. Furthermore, Tiers enable companies to align their data center infrastructure investment with business goals specific to growth and technology strategies.