TBO.com - News From AP

TBO.com - News From AP: "Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

'When we got it, it was two hunks of metal stuck together. We couldn't even tell it was a hard drive. It was burned and the edges were melted,' said Edwards, an engineer at Kroll Ontrack Inc., outside Minneapolis. 'It looked pretty bad at first glance, but we always give it a shot.'"

Slashdong: 3Feel Released in Korea

Slashdong: 3Feel Released in Korea

"3 Feel will make money in three ways: subscription fee, item selling and lovemaking fee which will be calculated from the caressing period."

Newt Gingrich gives some advice to Obama

Dear Senator Obama … | Print Article | Newsweek.com
President Carter never understood this. When his vague campaign of "trust me" and "a government as good as the American people" came to Washington, it ran into a Democratic Congress that didn't trust him and that wanted a government that was good for the Congress. Carter, like many outsiders who become president (including the current White House resident), greatly underestimated the institutional strengths of the Congress. Many state legislatures meet very rarely. Georgia was like that when Carter was governor, and the Texas legislature only meets every other year. This gave Governor Bush a considerable misunderstanding of the depth of institutional trouble he would face in Washington.

By contrast, Congress is a permanent institution with a 225-year history of challenging the president. Carter learned even before his Inauguration that Speaker Tip O'Neill was happy to stand up to a newly elected president. President George H. W. Bush painfully learned that his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge was a target for the Democrats rather than a problem for them. Hillary Clinton learned as First Lady that she could cut a healthcare deal with Republicans Bob Dole and John Chaffee, but she could not get several key Democrats to go along. Her plans foundered on the unwillingness of House Democrats to give up their core values for a presidential "win."

YouTube to MP3 Online Converter - Convert YouTube's videos to MP3 fast and free

YouTube to MP3 Online Converter - Convert YouTube's videos to MP3 fast and free

IDT Labs - Free Software Tools � // Internet Duct Tape

IDT Labs - Free Software Tools � // Internet Duct Tape: "Internet Duct Tape is my personal blog. I enjoy programming as a hobby, and creating software to automate simple tasks. The software is organized by the websites they interact with. You can find the latest updates about my software projects on it’s own blog called IDT Labs."

Google Confirms Plans To Put Display Ads On Google.com - Silicon Alley Insider

Google Confirms Plans To Put Display Ads On Google.com - Silicon Alley Insider

The most pressing question for Google (GOOG) shareholders is what product will drive the company's next growth boom as the search product cycle ends. Most likely candidate? Not sexy mobile or video. Just boring old display ads.

Google has been serving display ads on other sites for years, and the DoubleClick acquisition will accelerate that effort. Third-party display ads will only make a small contribution to the bottom line, however (10-20 cents on the dollar). So the key question here has been whether Google would deign to put display ads on its own sites.

We've argued that a full load of display ads on Google.com could add $3-$4 billion in annual revenue. Many SAI readers considered this estimate too optimistic, and it might be, at least over the next couple of years. But $1-$2 billion seems easily achievable.

Amazon Web Services Blog: Taking Massive Distributed Computing to the Common Man - Hadoop on Amazon EC2/S3

Amazon Web Services Blog: Taking Massive Distributed Computing to the Common Man - Hadoop on Amazon EC2/S3: "Everyday, I hear new stories about running Hadoop on EC2. For example, The New York Times used 100 Amazon EC2 instances and a Hadoop application to process 4TB of raw image TIFF data (stored in S3) into 1.1 million finished PDFs in the space of 24 hours at a computation cost of just $240. It not only makes massive distributed processing easy but also makes it headache-free.

Whether it is Startup companies or University Classrooms in UCSB, BYU, Stanford or even enterprise companies, its just amazing to see every new story that is utilizing Hadoop on Amazon EC2/S3 in innovative ways.

That’s what I love about Amazon Web Services - a common man with just a credit card can afford to think about massive distributed computing and compete with the rest and emerge to the top."

Defining cloud computing | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Defining cloud computing | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com: "Ask a dozen people what 'cloud computing' means and you'll get a dozen different answers, all pointing to the network. Rob Boothby of Joyent interviewed more than a dozen technology wonks, including Steve Gillmor, Matt Mullenweg, Tim O'Reilly, Kevin Marks, Rafe Needleman, Stowe Boyd, Brian Solis and myself, at the Web 2.0 Expo, to answer the question, 'What is Cloud Computing ?'

Check out the responses in this video:"

Has Microsoft really closed on the door on Microhoo? | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Has Microsoft really closed on the door on Microhoo? | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com: "Based on comments by Chairman Bill Gates and CTO Craig Mundie in the last few days, you might think Microsoft has not lost its lust for Yahoo. With no alternatives in sight, Yahoo may be rethinking its terms and conditions for becoming part of Microsoft. In this video, I outline the latest moves and nuances of the Microhoo affair."

Google Reader (1000 )

Google Reader (1000 ): "The #2 book on Amazon’s JavaScript shelf this morning is Douglas Crockford’s forthcoming Javascript: The Good Parts (currently available for preorder and due for release later this month). In this volume, Douglas articulates a philosophy of coding in JavaScript that builds up on and extends the content of his popular video series and articles. The premise, as Douglas puts it: 'Most programming languages contain good parts and bad parts. I discovered that I could be a better programmer by using only the good parts and avoiding the bad parts.'"

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive: "Microsoft Corp.'s decision to drop its pursuit of Yahoo! Inc. increases the pressure on Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer to make his money-losing Internet business succeed against Google Inc.

Ballmer's bid for Yahoo, the most-visited Web site, signaled that Microsoft was making little progress against Google in Internet search advertising, said Charles Di Bona, a Sanford C. Bernstein analyst. Ballmer withdrew his bid over the weekend after Yahoo refused a sweetened offer of almost $50 billion, leaving investors asking what his online strategy will be.

``They've got to come out sooner rather than later with a pretty well articulated vision,'' said New York-based Di Bona."

Sun xVM VirtualBox

Sun xVM VirtualBox: "Sun xVM VirtualBox software is the world's most popular open source virtualization platform because of its fast performance, ease of use, rich functionality, and modular design."

OpenSolaris on Amazon EC2

OpenSolaris on Amazon EC2: "Sun and Amazon Web Services are opening a private beta program starting on May 5, 2008. Approved beta users get access to OpenSolaris on Amazon EC2.

In addition, Sun is now offering 24x7 technical support for its MySQL database running on EC2 and Linux."

Note: I blogged this as it provides a link to the Sun Microsystems site -- SC

Joining Dots: Blog: Rethinking Office

Joining Dots: Blog: Rethinking Office: "ou may or may not have noticed, Google has been rolling out some online services that challenge one of Microsoft's key territories - Office. Google's online version is Google Docs. You can use it to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations using nothing more than a web browser with an Internet connection.

Currently, Microsoft doesn't appear to have an online version of Office available. If there is one, I haven't found it. But searching for variations on 'Office' gets all sorts of junk. Tip for Microsoft. When it comes to having a version of Office available online, consider using the following URLs - http://www.microsoft.com/docs and http://docs.microsoft.com/ ;-)

Here's the interesting part. I've been playing with spreadsheets for a couple of ideas and one feature required me to delve into Google Docs for the first time. Whilst Excel 2007 was best for one solution, Google Docs was best for the other. That, I didn't expect to happen."

TED | Talks | Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world (video)

TED | Talks | Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world (video): "Talks Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world"

UPDATE: I got this to embed by adding an to close it off -- MG.

Direct link to TED talk if it doesn't display above

JavaOne: Sun rolls out JavaFX

OutsidetheLineshe Lines - CNET News.com: "As part of Sun's effort to enable consumers to innovate, Green introduced JavaFX, a rich Internet application environment set to compete with Adobe Systems' AIR and Microsoft's Silverlight. He showed a JavaFX application with Flickr and Twitter feeds running in Facebook within the browser, and then he dragged it out of the browser--to the desktop. The same application also was shown running on a Java-enabled phone via JavaFX Mobile.

The IBM-Google connection | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

The IBM-Google connection | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com: "LOS ANGELES--Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt gave a speech and chatted with IBM's CEO Sam Palmisano onstage Thursday at IBM's Business Partner Leadership Conference here. The two talked up their relationship, which primarily involves a joint research project. In October, Google and IBM announced a cloud computing initiative, based on Google's expertise in distributed, parallel computing and IBM's industrial enterprise management technologies, for public use by universities.

IBM is taking some of the learnings from the project and plans to operate a cloud that will allow partners to house their Web-based applications and sell them to customers, Palmisano said. 'It is the first time we have taken something from the consumer arena and applied it to the enterprise,' he said."

Zoho Blogs � IBM, Microsoft & Google Eras of Computing

Zoho Blogs � IBM, Microsoft & Google Eras of Computing: "By now it is conventional wisdom to say that there was an IBM Era of computing, then a Microsoft Era, and now we are in the Google Era. In this post, I will explain why Microsoft was not the “next IBM” and why Google is not the “next Microsoft” - there are significant qualitative differences among them, quite apart from their status as the dominant, era-defining players. Understanding that qualitative difference is crucial for third party vendors like Zoho to thrive. I was reminded of this because of the IBM/Google partnership unveiled today (via Dan Farber & see also Nick Carr). As an aside, I have coined a kind of Moore’s Law on these computing eras:"

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Is Office the new Netscape?

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Is Office the new Netscape?: "As Microsoft and Yahoo continue with their interminable modern-dress staging of Hamlet - it's longer than Branagh's version! - the transformation of the software business goes on. We have new players with new strategies, or at least interesting new takes on old strategies.

One of the cornerstones of Microsoft's competitive strategy over the years has been to redefine competitors' products as features of its own products. Whenever some upstart PC software company started to get traction with a new application - the Netscape browser is the most famous example - Microsoft would incorporate a version of the application into its Office suite or Windows operating system, eroding the market for the application as a standalone product and starving its rival of economic oxygen (ie, cash). It was an effective strategy as well as a controversial one.

Now, though, the tables may be turning. Google is trying to pull a Microsoft on Microsoft by redefining core personal-productivity applications - calendars. word processing, spreadsheets, etc. - as features embedded in other products. There's a twist, though. Rather than just incorporating the applications as features in its own products, Google is offering them up to other companies, particularly big IT vendors, to incorporate as features in their products."

Share and Annotate Web Pages in Google Reader

Share and Annotate Web Pages in Google Reader: "Google Reader's sharing feature was barely noticed when it was added, then it got more exposure when the shared items started to be broadcasted to Google Talk contacts and some sites aggregated shared posts. As Google Reader became more social, people discovered that it has some important limitations. 'Have you ever wanted to share something that you were reading, but you didn't want to go through the hassle of subscribing to a whole feed for a single interesting article? And what about sharing content from sites with no feeds?, ' asks Google Reader Blog.

Google Reader finally added an option to share any web page and to add notes for each shared item. Next to each post, there's a new action: share with note that can be used to explain why you found the post interesting or to add your comments. You can also go to the new Notes section to add a note or drag a bookmarklet to your browser's link bar so you can share any web pages, even if it doesn't have feeds.

Another improvement is that Google Reader shows small avatars next to each shared item and you can customize your public page by selecting a theme. But don't get to excited as the three themes that are available (ice cream, ninjas, sea) fail to impress and look terrible in Internet Explorer 7."