Blog

Last month Google held a Project Glass hackathon event in San Francisco and in a recent Google+ blog post, the tech giant let us in on a couple of details and a handful of images of the event. Members of the event included those who had signed up for the Glass Explorer Program at Google I/O 2012. It’s no surprise there were a lot of people that signed up after the stunning demonstration of Project Glass at the same conference. According to the post, the event was called Glass Foundry and was held over the course of two days.

From the two days, 80 new ways of using Project Glass were developed according to the post. Out of the eight teams formed, one was the grand prize winner for the hackathon and they won the cost of their Glass Explorer Edition kit while the remaining seven earned honorary pioneer credits for the final release of Project Glass.

Google is still keeping quiet about the API’s themselves but were kind enough to include several images of the event. Google also says it hopes to hold more Foundry events in the future which means even more ways in which consumers can utilize Project Glass. Let us know what you think of the event and the possibilities that came up during the first Google Foundry event in the comments below.

Source: Google+

Come comment on this article: Google releases images and details of Glass Foundry event

One of the questions I get asked every time Apple has a modest update to one of their Macs, is whether or not “now” is a good time to buy a new Mac. Most just want to know how long they would have to wait for the next release, and if it is not too far off, they will wait.  Some Mac refreshes have significant performance improvements while others are just minor updates.  But knowing whether or not the upcoming release will offer a major overall performance boost can help you decide.

There is also a more practical reason for trying to time your Mac purchase just right.  That is the fact that the hardware from Apple will most certainly outlast the version of the operating system it ships with.  A good goal when deciding on a purchase is to maximize the time your new Mac purchase will be able to run on a supported version of Apple’s OS X software.

The following looks at release cycles, processor performance and the history of Apple and Intel release dates to help you determine if waiting for a new release worth it before you go shopping.

Intel providing the performance

Looking at performance, the most important factor to consider is the Intel chip inside the Mac you are purchasing. Intel releases its chips on a tick-tock release cycle. Each “tick” is a major step forward in manufacturing and each “tock” is an improvement on micro-architecture. At this year’s CES, Intel showed off its new Haswell micro-architecture, part of their fourth-generation Intel Core processor family, that will be made available later this year.  Haswell is a “tock” as it enhances the micro-architecture of the chip.

Using the Mac Geekbench scores from Primate Labs for the 15-inch MacBook dating back to the first release of an Apple MacBook with an Intel processor, you can see that (other than the time Apple skipped a “tock” release from Intel) the first release in a tock cycle has had the more significant performance gains than chips that were released during a “tick.”  So provided Apple includes a Haswell chip in its upcoming Mac releases, we can expect significant performance improvements once again since this will be the first release of a new Mac during Intel’s tock cycle of chip enhancements.

The big question is, will Apple have a Haswell chip inside of the next revision of Macs?  It’s always tough trying to predict what Apple will do, but as the above chart indicated, Apple has done a good job historically of releasing a MacBook Pro update within a month of Intel releasing the chipset that is used inside the MacBook Pro. So not only are you getting the latest hardware from Apple, you are also most likely getting the latest chips that Intel has to offer. And if Intel can deliver on its promise, this particular chipset will be just what a manufacturer looking to move away from dedicated GPU chips in their products in favor of sleeker and thinner designs is looking for.

Apple providing the support

Keeping up-to-date with all of the current versions of Mac OS X, including all of the security updates and bug fixes is important too. Being able to continue to run your favorite software on the latest version of OS X also helps.  With each OS X release comes the potential that your favorite software will no longer be supported on older versions of OS X.  It is therefore a good idea to see just how long you can expect Apple to continue supporting the hardware you are thinking about purchasing.

When it comes to the lifespan of a given OS version, Apple has typically been keeping up OS X versions around for about 580 days, or a little over a year and a half. This is the average time from the initial release of a new version of OS X until the date of the last update Apple puts out for that version of OS X. In contrast, we’ve seen, at least historically, a hardware update about every 260 days. That ends up being about two MacBook Pro hardware updates for every one OS X software update.

The current version of OS X, Mountain Lion, supports MacBook Pros back to the June 5, 2007 release of the MacBookPro 3,1, the previous version of OS X, Lion, continues to support MacBook Pros back to the Oct. 24, 2006 release of the MacBookPro 2,1, and finally OS X Snow Leopard, whose last update was released on July 25, 2011, supported all Intel-based Macs, the first of which was the MacBookPro 1,1 released on Jan. 10, 2006. This trend continues all the way back to the original release of OS X 10.0.

If historical data is any indication of future expectations, then it is reasonable to anticipate that the next version of OS X will support MacBook Pros back to the Feb. 26, 2008 release of the MacBookPro 4,1 which was when Apple also transitioned from Intel’s Merom to Intel’s Penryn based Core 2 Duo chips. This trend creates a countdown timer for each hardware release. Set at roughly 2,400 days, or 6.5 years, this countdown starts on the first day each new MacBook Pro is released, not the day you happen to purchase your MacBook Pro.

Timing purchases just right

What it boils down to is timing.  Planning out your MacBook upgrade to coincide with Intel’s “tock” releases should ensure that you are getting the largest performance gains with each purchase.  When you purchase your new hardware as close to the release date as possible, you will maximize the number of days your Mac will be running on the last supported version of OS X.  With evidence of testing for the next version of OS X beginning to show online, it wont be much longer until the mid-2012 MacBook Pros are no longer running on the version of OS X they shipped with.  And if you’re like me, purchasing the extended coverage provided with Apple’s own AppleCare program will certainly help guarantee that your Mac will keep running for at least three of the six years that your Mac will be able to run the latest version of OS X.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The evolution of consumer-media cloud storage
• Siri: Say hello to the coming “invisible interface”
• Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015

For your weekend reading, here’s a recap of five noteworthy stories that appeared on Data Center Knowledge this past week. Enjoy!

Equinix Building Boom Continues. Is Chicago Next? – For Equinix, 2012 was a year of extraordinary expansion in its global infrastructure, as the company spent $607 million on data center construction and another $334 million to acquire companies in key international markets. That colocation company’s growth spanned four continents, adding capacity for for more than 15,750 cabinets, with expansions in northern Virginia, northern New Jersey, Dallas, Miami, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Singapore.

Building Smaller: DFT Adopts New Data Center Design – DuPont Fabros Technology will continue to build some of the largest data centers on the planet. But it will do so in smaller chunks. The developer says it is finalizing a new design that will deploy new wholesale data center space in smaller phases of about 4.5 megawatts. DuPont Fabros (DFT) will use the new approach in its ACC7 data center project in Ashburn, Virginia.

QTS Enters Dallas Market, Buys 700,000 SF Facility – QTS (Quality Technology Services) is entering the Dallas data center market, and doing it in a big way. The company has purchased a 700,000 square foot former semiconductor plant, and plans to transform it into a state-of-the-art-data center.

Rackspace Shares Slide as Cloud Revenue Moderates – Shares of Rackspace Hosting fell sharply this week after the company’s earnings raised concerns that the rate of adoption for cloud computing services may be moderating.

Video: LeaseWeb Migrates 3,000 Servers – What’s it like to move 3,000 servers into a new data center? As part of its expansion in the U.S. market, LeaseWeb recently migrated 100 server-filled racks into a new data center hall at the COPT6 facility in Manassas, Virginia. Here’s a video overview of the process.

Stay current on Data Center Knowledge’s data center news by subscribing to our RSS feed and daily e-mail updates, or by following us on Twitter or Facebook or join our LinkedIn Group – Data Center Knowledge.

Developer Auction is a startup that aims to disrupt recruitment for software developers and other professions with low supply and high demand, by putting control in the hands of the people who will actually do the work. It’s a nice idea. AdRoll, Counsyl, Lookout and other companies have hired developers through DeveloperAuction.

The trouble is in the execution. To some degree, the site is redundant, because developers already get plenty of offers without using the site, and big fees aren’t always involved. The site hasn’t been promoted as much as it could be. It prioritizes salary above all else, even though some developers don’t. Despite the write-ups it garnered in the tech press, a handful of developers I spoke with for this article had not heard heard of the site. While auctions run in private to keep developers’ current bosses from spotting attempts to find better work, at least one developer was fired for using the site. And to top it all off, the company’s name calls to mind the antiquated, antebellum idea of selling people as products.

Nevertheless, co-founder Matt Mickiewicz told me venture capitalists are interested in funding the company. At nine employees, overhead isn’t enormous, and its business model allows for sizable revenues off transactions. The company is profitable, Mickiewicz said. Plus, it’s not Mickiewicz’s first startup: He’s co-founded a few startups, including 99designs, which has become profitable, taken on venture funding and expanded operations to multiple countries. Plus, he’s a compelling entrepreneur. In a recent interview, Mickiewicz confidently delivered smart answers to tough questions.

Value begets more value

VCs refer more companies to the site than any other group, Mickiewicz said. A talented developer is “one of the biggest value adds to add value to (a VC’s) portfolio,” he said.

Sure, the site’s concept makes sense for the developer segment, especially nowadays. The number of jobs in Silicon Valley increased by 4 percent from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2012, according to data from California’s Employment Development Department that was included in the 2013 Silicon Valley Index. That high level of job growth hasn’t been seen since 2000.

The website says a typical developer will receive five to 15 requests from venture-backed startups for job interviews. Developers stay available on auction for two weeks and are free to take any offer, not necessarily the one with the highest salary. The first auction ran in September.

The company claims to be cheaper than a recruiter, but it’s not exactly cheap. If a company decides to pay a developer $100,000 a year through DeveloperAuction, the company pays either a $15,000 flat fee — 15 percent — or a $10,000 fee as well as the equivalent of $10,000 of the developer’s salary in stock options (10 percent plus 10 percent in options). DeveloperAuction even kicks in a small reward to developers as an incentive for using the service — 20 percent of the fee that the hiring company pays DeveloperAuction, which can be $3,000-6,000 or more, according to the site. That appears to mean DeveloperAuction rakes in $12,000-$24,000 or more per hire.

There’s competition, too. Besides more traditional hiring routes on company websites and job boards, so-called dev bootcamps have emerged as a new talent source.

Issues bubble up

However, last month the site received criticism on a few fronts in a Hacker News thread. Commenters complained about spam emails, shared alternative recruiting options (Pitchbox, for example), pointed out technical shortcomings and even called the company’s name into question. According to one user, “‘auction’ reminds me (of) the last time human beings were sold like stuff.” Another user reported being fired for using the site.

Developer Zac Shenker of Collusion, a company with a plan to make iPad drawings shareable with a nifty pen, told me the site duplicates and commercializes what already happens naturally to those looking for new jobs, whether on LinkedIn, over email or at networking events.

Recruiting managers at larger companies might be reluctant to use the site because of its emphasis on compensation packages above all else. A recruiting director at one webscale company who declined to be named for this article said the company would not hire people through DeveloperAuction, because finding people with the right character traits is more important than finding someone willing to work for a low price.

And while the model seems sensible now, with developers in great demand, the most talented ones will get gobbled up quickly, resulting in a drop in quality, said Chris Hollindale, chief technology officer at Hasty, a stealth-mode startup creating technology that aims to make people healthier.

Developers, customers abound

Mickiewicz sounded unswayed as I brought up the issues.

Regarding the comparison to slave auctions, he said people elect to join the auctions. That wasn’t the case in the pre-Civil War South.

“I think that’s a very unfair comparison,” he said. He emphasized that developers don’t have to work for the highest bidder. “It’s about who tells the best story at the end of the day,” he said. Developers, he said, want to make “a meaningful impact.”

Still, the founders might just have to consider changing the name, because it includes the word auction, he said.

Overall, Mickiewicz cited the adoption of the website among job seekers — 10 apply for every auction spot — and employers alike as proof of its value. “The employers are seeing very, very good success with us, compared to any other platform,” he said.

Hollindale intends to try out the site when Hasty is ready to hire another developer.

“To me, it’s a very interesting kind of twist on the whole technical hiring process,” he said.

Will the steady stream of developers availing themselves of the auctions de-escalate the tech bidding war? The answer to that question could determine the fate of DeveloperAuction.

This story was corrected at 9:17 p.m. with a revised list of companies that have hired employees through DeveloperAuction. Dropbox and Quora made job offers through the site but did not hire.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• A near-term outlook for big data
• Dissecting the data: 5 issues for our digital future
• What Amazon’s new Kindle line means for Apple, Netflix and online media

GigaOM’s regular readers are familiar with the plague of patent trolls. These are shell companies that don’t make anything but instead amass old patents in order to demand licensing fees from those that do. Startups are frequent targets for the trolls and those who resist are dragged into multimillion dollar litigation they can’t afford.

The patent troll problem, widely exposed by NPR in 2011, has long infuriated real companies and the tech sector. And now people in high places are starting to notice.

This week, a young woman told President Obama in a Google Hangout that she and other entrepreneurs live in fear of patent trolls and asked if he planned to continue patent reform. In response, the president made his boldest statement to date on the issue:

“The folks that you’re talking about are a classic example; they don’t actually produce anything themselves. They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”

It looks like common sense has come even to the highest halls of power (see interview and transcript here via Patent Progress). The question now is whether President Obama will actually take charge and do something about the patent plague that is sucking money out of the most innovative sector of the economy.

In the past, the president has proved adept at throwing sops to his fans and fundraisers in the tech sector without doing much to help them. In 2011, for instance, he signed the America Invents Act, which was a milquetoast measure to fix the worst elements of the patent system. While the law made it easier to challenge bad patents, it didn’t reign in absurd jury verdicts or overly broad patents that enable the trolls in the first place.

It’s time for the president to try again. To do so, he will first need to get around the specific concerns of the pharmaceutical industry, which has blocked previous patent reform efforts; as Judge Richard Posner has noted, drug makers are among the few who may need the monopoly power of a patent in order to recoup their investments. This is not the case for software and tech where a first-mover advantage provides an adequate head start and technology rapidly becomes obsolete.

As for addressing the trolls, law professor Brian Love has proposed a very sensible solution. Love, a protege of IP godfather Mark Lemley, suggests changing the patent fee structure to create disincentives for hoarding the obsolete patents that trolls typically use to torment their targets. The advantage here is that this is something Obama can do directly. Meanwhile, in Congress, the president can push for legislation to eliminate billion dollar jury verdicts.

Finally, the president can also tap his executive power to increase antitrust scrutiny of giant patent trolls like Intellectual Ventures for imposing what is, essentially, a startup tax across the tech sector. If the Obama administration even attempted to impose such a tax, the political cost would be enormous; there’s no reason the private sector should get away with the same thing.

Enough talk. It’s time to act, Mr. President.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The 2013 task management tools market
• How consumer media will change in 2013
• Social 2013: The enterprise strikes back

President Obama was in Chicago on Friday to talk about the importance of making sure every child in America has every chance in life to succeed. Speaking at the Hyde Park Career Academy, which is less than a mile from the Obama's home in that city, the President discussed the recent death of Hadiyah Pendleton, a Chicago teenager who was shot just days after attending the 57th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, DC.

Hadiyah's parents were guests of First Lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address on Tuesday, where President Obama discussed the need to prevent this kind of senseless violence and protect American children. But the important goal of  keeping guns out of the hands of criminals is not enough to ensure a bright future for all of our children, and the President also laid out a plan to rebuild ladders of opportunity for every American who is willing to work hard and climb them. This includes making sure every child in America has access to high-quality pre-K, and raising the minimum wage so that no family that works hard and relies on a minimum wage is living in poverty. But creating a path into the middle class also means transforming high-poverty communities into places of opportunity that can attract private investment, improve education, and create jobs, and President Obama talked about his plan to make that happen:

read more

Journalist Mary Roach has investigated the nitty gritty of space travel, cadaver research and the afterlife. But at TED2009, she shared some of her most fascinating research yet … into the orgasm.

Mary Roach: 10 things you didn't know about orgasm

In her talk “10 things you didn’t know about orgasm,” Roach digs deep into scientific research in sexuality — much of it recent, much of it ancient — and shares several hilarious and disturbing thoughts. It’s simply a must-watch. This week’s TED Weekends on the Huffington Post digs deeper into the talk, with essays from Roach and several others. Read some selections here.

Mary Roach: Let’s Talk About Orgasm

In 2009, I walked onto the TED stage and gave a talk that included video of a Danish pig inseminator. The topic of the talk was orgasm, and the video related to a centuries-old debate over “upsuck”: that is, whether the contractions of the uterus during orgasm serve to draw the semen toward the egg and boost the odds of conception. In pigs, research suggests, this is the case. The inseminator up on the screen was practicing the Five-Point Stimulation Plan, a technique developed by Denmark’s National Committee for Pig Production, following research that showed a 6 percent higher farrowing rate among titillated sows. In other words, as a group, they produced 6 percent more piglets than sows inseminated while idly standing around the sty.

William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the pioneering sex researchers of the ’50s and ’60s, were upsuck skeptics. They didn’t believe orgasm facilitated conception, at least not in humans, and they worried that the belief might be hobbling fertility research. So they set out to prove their case. Read the full essay >>

Marnia Robinson: Why Stop Orgasm Research at Climax?

Mary Roach’s irreverent orgasm trivia reminds us that researchers, like porn makers, tend to snap their notebooks shut right after the money shot. Yet some of the most intriguing findings about orgasm may lie beyond its brief fireworks. Post-O data could one day help solve all kinds of mysteries, such as why lovers’ libidos often go out of sync — especially after those initial“honeymoon poppers” wear off.

After a rat satiates himself sexually (which is how rats normally mate, and requires an average of 2.5 hours and up to 7 ejaculations), he exhibits a pronounced 4-day cycle. He’s a bit fragile. His sexual motivation (libido) is nil-to-sluggish, and he’s hyper-reactive to a range of drugs. Why does this happen? Read the full essay >>

Robert Koehler: The Sex Closet

Mary Roach’s TEDTalk is about … well, our giggling, collective discomfort with the human body and its processes.

While we can publicly talk about sex in all its thrilling messiness with a little more candor than we could a few generations back, we still live most of our lives within an invisible envelope of politeness. What interested me about the video at least as much as the actual stuff I learned — for instance, that the longest ejaculation of sperm Dr. Kinsey ever measured was 8 ft. — was the fact that the TED audience (and I) laughed at it all. Why is this so funny? Why does explicit commentary on sexual arcana summon up the public guffaws? Read the full essay >>

HTC is giving the public more to speculate over with the release of their latest cryptic picture on their Twitter page. The picture is of a camera lens that seems ordinary to the naked eye. Upon close inspection, however, the numbers “2, 19, 13″ are revealed along the lens’ outside rim. These numbers ordinarily would give indications of the camera’s lens quality but these numbers happen to line up with the date of the dual press events in  New York City and London.

(more…)

In this week’s address, President Obama calls for quick action on the proposals he made during the State of the Union to grow our economy and create jobs, including making America a magnet for manufacturing, strengthening our education system through high-quality preschool for every child, and raising the minimum wage. 

Transcript | Download mp4 | Download mp3

Samsung (005930) was accused of covering up a gas leak last month that left one contract worker dead and four others injured. The company initially claimed to have the situation under control, however police have discovered that as much as 10 liters of hydrofluoric acid may have leaked into the environment endangering thousands of people who live and work in the area. The incident occurred on January 28th when one of the pipes leaked at Samsung’s main semiconductor factory in Hwaseong, a city located roughly 40 miles south of Seoul.

Continue reading…

I swear I fully expect to awaken one morning to find someone with a large camera strapped to his or her back standing at the foot of my bed. At this point my home may be the only place the Google Maps team has not gone. Give credit where it is due — the Google Maps team is nothing if not intrepid and has gone down the trails of national parks and under the waves in places like the Great Barrier Reef, as well as covering the standard road-fare.

Now the team has ventured into the NFL arena, starting with Lucas Oil Stadium, home of number-one overall draft pick Andrew Luck and his Indianapolis Colts team.

Today Evan Rapoport, manger of the Google Maps team announces that his team has produced “the first imagery of inside an NFL stadium in Google Maps”. He also tips off of plans to build “the most comprehensive, accurate and usable map of the world — complete with imagery from inside your favorite sporting venues”.

The new addition contains 360-degree images depicting, not only the field itself, but the Colts’ locker room and the view the players have as they march down the tunnel before kickoff.

Although I am a bit put off that Rapoport refers to the locker room as the site where “coach Chuck Pagano gave his memorable post-game locker room speech on November 4, after an inspirational win against the Miami Dolphins”. Easy there Evan — those are my Dolphins you are referring to. I need no reminders of that fateful day.

Still, it is a neat trip into the bowels of yet another location that most of us will never see in person. You can view the images by searching for “Lucas Oil Stadium” or “Colts Stadium” in Google Maps on your browser or mobile device. Or, you could just head straight to Lucas Oil Stadium in Google Maps Street View.

The last thing Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos probably wanted to read this week was that his company had allegedly hired a security firm to guard its warehouses in Germany that just happens to be linked to neo-Nazis. Per the International Business Times, a documentary that aired on German TV channel ARD this week accused Amazon of hiring HESS, a security company that has alleged ties to neo-Nazi groups and that shares a name with Rudolf Hess, who served as Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi party. According to the International Business Times, “the documentary showed the guards invading and searching [warehouse workers’] bedrooms and kitchens, and telling the workers that they were mandated to ‘keep order’ in their homes.” Amazon, for its part, denies that it hired HESS and says that it is “currently examining the allegations concerning the behavior of security guards and will take the appropriate measures immediately” and that it does “not tolerate discrimination or intimidation.”

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano joined President Obama today in the Oval Office for a discussion about the deep and abiding friendship between our two countries. President Obama thanked Italy for their contributions to the NATO alliance, and called President Napolitano, whose term ends in May,  a visionary leader, "who has helped to guide and steer Europe towards greater unification, but always with a strong transatlantic relationship in mind."

But the primary focus of the conversation was on the world economy and President Obama's plan to pursue a U.S.-European Union free trade agreement, which he discussed in his State of the Union address earlier this week.

President Napolitano expressed enthusiasm for the proposed agreement, saying he believes it will represent "a relevant contribution for promoting a new wave of development of technologic advancement of social justice on both shores of the Atlantic. And I think it can represent even something more. It is to say a new historic stage in relations between Europe and the United States — not only economically, but also from a political and moral point of view." 

read more

Watch the West Wing Week Here.

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

State of the Union: On Tuesday, President Obama provided his vision for the country in the State of the Union address. President Obama said our generation’s challenge is “to reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth – a rising, thriving middle class.”

The President looks to grow the middle class through balanced deficit reduction, education reform, comprehensive immigration reform, and manufacturing among others.

If you missed the speech or want to see the address again view our enhanced broadcast with easy-to-read charts, infographics, and statistics. While on our page share your thoughts from the Tuesday speech through the Citizens Response tool, which allows you to actually go line by line and share with others from across the country what touched you the most.

You can read the President’s full remarks here and listen to the audio here.

read more

Inspired by the wild success of Apple’s retail stores, Google plans to open some brick-and-mortar stores of its own, according to a report by the 9to5Google web site.

The move makes sense now given Google’s big push into physical (i.e. non-software) products including Chromebooks, Google TV, and Google Glasses. These are the kinds of products people want to touch and feel before buying. Microsoft launched its own retail stores (pictured above) a few years ago for many of the same reasons and is currently using those stores to drum up excitement around its new Surface devices and other products.

According to 9to5Google:

“The mission of the stores is to get new Google Nexus, Chrome, and especially upcoming products into the hands of prospective customers. Google feels right now that many potential customers need to get hands-on experience with its products before they are willing to purchase.”

The internet search giant is not totally new to the world of face-to-face retail sales: Best Buy hosts Google-themed stores in several locations.

Google could not be reached for comment.

 Feature photo courtesy of Flickr user blakespot

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How consumer media will change in 2013
• The state of cross-platform media measurement
• How emerging technologies will influence collaboration

Mark Zuckerberg likes to expound on the “Hacker Way” as the ethos of his social networking company, but Facebook recently encountered some hackers of a more unfriendly nature. Facebook revealed on Friday that it was the target of a malicious attack last month. In a blog post, Facebook stated that the threat was contained and that it found no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised.

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post (emphasis Facebook’s):

Last month, Facebook Security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack. This attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised. The compromised website hosted an exploit which then allowed malware to be installed on these employee laptops. The laptops were fully-patched and running up-to-date anti-virus software. As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day.

We have found no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised.

As part of our ongoing investigation, we are working continuously and closely with our own internal engineering teams, with security teams at other companies, and with law enforcement authorities to learn everything we can about the attack, and how to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The blog post went on to say that the malware exploited a previously unknown, or “zero day,” vulnerability in its Java sandbox software to plant itself in multiple employees’ PCs. Facebook’s security team traced the attack to a suspicious domain, and then informed Java overlord Oracle, which then provided a patch on Feb. 1 to fix the vulnerability.

Facebook added that it wasn’t the only company targeted the attack, but it was one of the first to identify it. The social network said it is working closely with law enforcement and the other targeted companies, but so far the hacker group hasn’t been identified.

Note that Facebook didn’t say for certain that no user data was stolen. It only said it found no evidence of data being compromised. Nor did Facebook provide any details on what data the hackers had access to. We’ll update this story as we learn more.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Social 2013: The enterprise strikes back