Amazon experimenting with front-lit display for next Kindle
With the display and battery life being such strong selling points, you may be surprised to hear Amazon is experimenting with adding a light source. In fact, Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch has actually seen a prototype new Kindle in action using a front-lit lighting method.
The result? Apparently the E Ink display is lit very evenly and softly. So this isn’t the same type of light you get from a typical tablet LCD unit. He describes it as a “blue-white glow” which may seem a bit peculiar, but could work when just viewing text and on a display lit from the front.
Everything You Wanted to Know About Data Mining but Were Afraid to Ask
With data mining it is possible to let the data itself determine the groups. This is one of the black-box type of algorithms that are hard to understand. But in a simple example – again with purchasing behavior – we can imagine that the purchasing habits of different hobbyists would look quite different from each other: gardeners, fishermen and model airplane enthusiasts would all be quite distinct. Machine learning algorithms can detect all of the different subgroups within a dataset that differ significantly from each other.
U.S. tells court MegaUpload users are out of luck
Carpathia wants the court to help pay the costs of preserving MegaUpload’s data, which it claims is more than $500,000 and growing, or protect Carpathia from civil claims, should it decide to delete the information. Carpathia has said that in most cases where a customer can no longer pay for service, the servers are wiped and used elsewhere. Should that happen in this case, potentially millions of former MegaUpload users around the world would lose data — though how much content was legally obtained is unclear.
via U.S. tells court MegaUpload users are out of luck | Media Maverick – CNET News.
Carpathia Hosting seem to be truly innocent victims here. Somehow I predict the US taxpayer will end up footing the bill for all of this and Carpathia Hosting can start learning the art of cost plus billing.
Dell’s acquisition a Wyse one, analysts say
Dell’s announcement on Monday that it had finalized an agreement to acquire thin client maker Wyse allows the company to fill a portfolio gap that had been exploited by competitors such as HP, according to industry experts.
via Dell’s acquisition a Wyse one, analysts say.
What’s more, given the positions of Wyse and HP as No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the thin client market, he says the move could put HP under considerable pressure.
Microsoft counted as key Linux contributor, for now anyway
The Linux Foundation’s Linux Development Report, released Tuesday, summarizes who has contributed to the Linux kernel, from versions 2.6.36 to 3.2. The 10 largest contributors listed in the report are familiar names: Red Hat, Intel, Novell, IBM, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Nokia, Samsung, Oracle and Google. But the appearance of Microsoft is a new one for the list, compiled annually.
Overall, Microsoft contributed 688 changes, or about 1.0 percent of the accepted changes to the kernel, since version 2.6.36. Company engineers also signed off on 2,174 changes, or about 1.1 percent of all the changes in this review period.
via Microsoft counted as key Linux contributor, for now anyway.
Citrix ditches OpenStack for Apache
Citrix is giving its cloud deployment platform an Apache license, marking a migration away from the evolving OpenStack project and an embrace of Amazon Web Services offerings.
The high costs of the cloud
Call it the curse of the cloud. The proliferation of online video services and portable devices to watch them on have added congestion to data networks even as wireless carriers impose fees on its biggest data users. According to Bytemobile, video accounted for half of all mobile data traffic in February, up from 40 percent only a year earlier.
via The high costs of the cloud | MediaFile | Analysis & Opinion | Reuters.com.
It won’t be just iPads and the next generation of iPhones taxing wireless networks. Apple is the first to offer an LTE tablet to the masses, but LTE Android tablets will follow, as will more LTE phones powered by Android, which runs on 51 percent of the world’s smartphones. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have been building out their 4G networks for years, but Verizon recently warned that despite that effort, demand will outstrip LTE capacity as early as next year.
Open Source SQL Database Security, SQL Injection Prevention
GreenSQL is a Database Security solution.
GreenSQL is an Open Source database firewall used to protect databases from SQL injection attacks. GreenSQL works as a proxy and has built in support for MySQL and PostgreSQL. The logic is based on evaluation of SQL commands using a risk scoring matrix as well as blocking known db administrative commands (DROP, CREATE, etc). Commercial version of GreenSQL supporting Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL, The GreenSQL Express version is available for FREE at GreenSQL.com database security solutions.
via | Open Source SQL Database Security, SQL Injection Prevention.
Can Mobile Operators Create Artificial Demand for Capacity?
This leads to a fundamental implication; are operators creating artificial demand intentionally to drive market prices up with tiered pricing and data caps, while at the same time, screaming for more spectrum allocation? The question remains, what benefits operators the most, building out networks with extensive capital spending, or making more profits on the demand and supply curve?
via Can Mobile Operators Create Artificial Demand for Capacity?.
Corporations Tend to Think Short-Term
Large corporations are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to, not only predicting, but acting on, consumer demand for the long-term. Since they are coupled to Wall Street fundamentals in creating short-term profits, spending for the longer term profitability usually takes a back seat. Put off today what can be worked out later for consumer demand. This is what we are seeing as network capacity demand outstrips the provider’s ability to keep up. See (The high cost of the cloud)