Slashdot Mirror

snydeq writes "InfoWorld provides a reality check on the impact cloud computing will have on IT jobs, the overall effects of which will likely resemble those of outsourcing, automation, and utility computing — in other words, a movement away from the nuts and bolts of technology toward the business end of the organization. This shift from 'blue-collar IT to white-collar IT' will be accompanied by greater demand for IT pros experienced with virtualization and Web scale-out deployments, even among midlevel organizations, and greater emphasis on SaaS integration among in-house development teams, analysts say. And though the large-scale impact of 'cloud-sourcing' is likely a decade away, those not versed in vendor contract management, cloud integration, analytics, and RIA and mobile development may find themselves pushed toward the less technical jobs to come, those that will require days full of conference calls and putting out fires caused by doing business in the cloud."

Colonel Korn writes "Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain suggests in an Op-Ed piece that the seemingly inevitable move toward the often locked-down cloud is stifling innovation and threatening our privacy: '... many software developers who once would have been writing whatever they wanted for PCs are simply developing less adventurous, less subversive, less game-changing code under the watchful eyes of Facebook and Apple. If the market settles into a handful of gated cloud communities whose proprietors control the availability of new code, the time may come to ensure that their platforms do not discriminate. Such a demand could take many forms, from an outright regulatory requirement to a more subtle set of incentives — tax breaks or liability relief — that nudge companies to maintain the kind of openness that earlier allowed them a level playing field on which they could lure users from competing, mighty incumbents. We've only just begun to measure this problem, even as we fly directly into the cloud. That's not a reason to turn around. But we must make sure the cloud does not hinder the creation of revolutionary software that, like the Web itself, can seem esoteric at first but utterly necessary later.'"

Peace Corps Online writes "BBC reports that Brazilian authorities are demanding the return of more than 1,400 tons of hazardous British waste found in about 90 shipping containers on three Brazilian docks. The waste, which includes syringes, condoms, and bags of blood, has been identified as being of UK origin from the names of British supermarkets and newspapers among the rubbish. Reports in the UK media say the waste was sent from Felixstowe in eastern England to the port of Santos, near Sao Paulo, and two other ports in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The British government has launched an investigation into how and why the waste was sent to Brazil and the British Embassy in Brazil has said in a statement that it was investigating and would 'not hesitate to act' if it was found that a UK company had violated the Basel Convention on the movement of hazardous waste. Meanwhile Brazil is demanding the immediate return of the rubbish to the UK. 'We will ask for the repatriation of this garbage,' says Roberto Messias, head of the Brazilian environment agency. 'Clearly, Brazil is not a big rubbish dump of the world.'" Two UK companies named by Brazil as suspected exporters of the waste are owned by a Brazilian, based in the UK, who says that anything that was in the containers other than the expected recyclable plastic is a problem to take up with his suppliers.

Techdirt is reporting that Belgium is trying to extract fines from Yahoo for not producing user data that was recently demanded of the US company. Instead of following normal diplomatic channels Belgian officials apparently made the data demands directly to Yahoo's US headquarters and then took the company to criminal court, where a judge issued the fine. "The implications of this ruling are profound and far-reaching. Following the court's logic would subject user data associated with any service generally available online to the jurisdiction of all countries. It would also subject all companies that offer services generally available on the global Internet to the laws of all jurisdictions, potentially exposing individual employees to a variety of criminal sanctions."

Nazlfrag writes "Earlier this month the blog and discussion forum ZGeek was sued for $42 million AUD over a user's comment. The plaintiffs are aspiring movie producers who claim to have lost a movie deal due to a 9/11 conspiracy discussion thread. Even though the initial lawsuit has been thrown out, and the company complied with lawyers' demands by taking down the offending posts, it is believed the plaintiffs will file suit again. In addition to suing the forum, in an Australian first they have been granted an injunction to force the ISPs to disclose the IP addresses of the two posters involved. Due to the risk of incurring even greater legal costs the company is closing its doors in Australia, and will ban their fellow countrymen from posting there again."

Hugh Pickens writes "The Salt Lake City Tribune reports that the National Security Agency will be building a one million square foot data center at Utah's Camp Williams. The NSA's heavily automated computerized operations have for years been based at Fort Meade, Maryland, but the agency began looking to decentralize its efforts following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and accelerated their search after the Baltimore Sun reported that the NSA — Baltimore Gas & Electric's biggest customer — had maxed out the local grid and could not bring online several supercomputers it needed to expand its operations. The agency got a taste of the potential for trouble January 24, 2000, when an information overload, rather than a power shortage, caused the NSA's first-ever network crash, taking the agency 3 1/2 days to resume operations. The new data center in Utah will require at least 65 megawatts of power — about the same amount used by every home in Salt Lake City — so a separate power substation will have to be built at Camp Williams to sustain that demand. 'They were looking at secure sites, where there could be a natural nexus between organizations and where space was available,' says Col. Scott Olson, the Utah National Guard's legislative liaison. NSA officials, who have a long-standing relationship with Utah based on the state Guard's unique linguist units, approached state officials about finding land in the state on which to build an additional data center. 'The stars just kind of came into alignment. We could provide them everything they need.'"

Al writes "A company called PolyPlus has developed lithium metal-air batteries that have 10 times the energy density of regular lithium-ion batteries. The anode is made up entirely of lithium metal, and the surrounding air acts as the cathode, making the batteries incredibly energy dense. Previous efforts to make lithium metal batteries have been stymied by the sensitivity of lithium to water in the air. The new batteries use a sophisticated membrane to protect the lithium anode and PolyPlus has even created a version that works underwater, by drawing oxygen through the membrane. Lithium metal-air batteries could be light-weight power sources for demand for plug-in hybrid vehicles and consumer electronics; IBM also recently announced that it would develop lithium metal-air batteries for the energy grid and for transportation."

Verizon announced today that they are working on a service to deliver games through their broadband service for a monthly fee. The service will begin this summer in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Along similar lines, IndustryGamers reports that AT&T is "investing millions in gaming." In addition to revamping the games section of their website, they are also working on an IPTV service and trying to find a way to unify the gaming experience across mobile platforms, computers, and consoles. "[AT&T's Executive Director of Gaming, Glenn Broderick, said,] 'What we're doing is trying to incentivize [gaming companies] to take some risks by tethering mobile games to console or PC experiences.' ... He continued, 'We're putting a ton of money into back-end systems for both mobile and the broadband site... We're making serious investments in the games space because it's now seen as a huge strategic initiative for AT&T. And before it just wasn't; it wasn't on the executive agenda.' Broderick also is optimistic that cloud-based gaming services like OnLive that provide games on demand will take off in the next 5-10 years, and he sees AT&T and its network as a big player in that."

already-living-in-a-virtual-world writes "On his blog, mispeled writes about a new type of game he'd like to see for the iPhone. It's interesting stuff: '... the integration of a true gaming platform with the capabilities of a phone is unique, at least for the quality of the gaming experience offered. For all intents and purposes, the iPhone is a new system. And new systems demand that new gameplay mechanics be explored. For a long time I've been a fan of the MMORPG genre, and the iPhone offers several MMO-type games, especially those in the facebook, social-networking style. However, what I've yet to see is a game that takes advantage of the iPhone's location services, the GPS-like capability of the phone. Tons of applications use it, but no games, as far as I've seen. Why not? Motion sensing is all the rage on the consoles — the Wii popularized it, but now Microsoft and Sony are jumping on the bandwagon. But the iPhone, because it's portable, offers something more. And I want those offerings taken advantage of. I want to play an MMO that knows where I am and links my physical location to a virtual location. I want to create a game that gives the planet Earth a virtual overlay, interactable via a mobile (read: the iPhone) interface.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot tells CNBC that he believes the next generation of video game systems isn't as far away as the public has been led to believe. Guillemot noted that public demand for the best machine possible, as well as coming competition from companies such as OnLive could spur Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo to roll out new systems sooner than they want. That's not good news for publishers, though, as he says games in the next generation will likely cost $60 million to create."

narramissic writes "It appears that after its initial review of a deal that would settle a lawsuit publishers and authors filed against Google over the latter's book search engine, the DOJ is leaning toward challenging the proposed settlement. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported late Tuesday that the DOJ is now sending civil investigative demands (CIDs) to organizations involved in the deals, a more formal approach than its initial information-gathering efforts. But Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken said the fact that the DOJ is reviewing the proposed settlement isn't surprising, considering Google is involved: 'Any big deal that involves Google is going to get a look from the Justice Department.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Last year California spent $350m on textbooks so facing a state budget shortfall of $24.3 billion, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has unveiled a plan to save money by phasing out 'antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks' in favor of internet aids. Schwarzenegger believes internet activities such as Facebook, Twitter and downloading to iPods show that young people are the first to adopt new online technologies and that the internet is the best way to learn in classrooms so from the beginning of the school year in August, math and science students in California's high schools will have access to online texts that have passed an academic standards review. 'It's nonsensical — and expensive — to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form,' writes Schwarzenegger. 'As the music and newspaper industries will attest, those who adapt quickly to changing consumer and business demands will thrive in our increasingly digital society and worldwide economy. Digital textbooks can help us achieve those goals and ensure that California's students continue to thrive in the global marketplace.'"

Two of the less prominent announcements during E3 were that Last.fm would be coming to Xbox Live, and so would the ability to purchase games that were only available through physical media in the past. Microsoft has now elaborated on how those services will work. According to Kotaku, "The [Last.fm] service will be made available later this year, and will be free to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers. Once accessed, the Last.fm section of the 360 dashboard will function in much the same way as the popular internet radio station does on your PC." The Games on Demand service will let people pay the actual cost of the game with a credit card, bypassing the Microsoft Point system if they want to. To start, the service will be focused on making the popular, but older games available, rather than launching new games through it. Licensing for the games will work in much the same as for Arcade games now, so players will be able to re-download deleted games at will.

miller60 writes "Many companies have saved money by leasing wholesale 'plug and play' data center space instead of building their own facilities. But the credit crunch has slowed the construction of new data centers, and analysts say this will create a shortage of data center space in 2010 in key markets like northern Virginia and Silicon Valley where demand exceeds supply. The situation is already becoming critical for companies with large space requirements, as indicated by a flurry of leasing recently in northern Virginia, where the remaining space may be quickly absorbed by government stimulus projects."

RWalrond writes "How much do you love your iPhone or iPod? Lay My Head is an interactive application that allows you to treat your iPhone/iPod the way it should be treated: Like your Special Baby! Show your love for your baby by doing what Baby asks of you; shown at the bottom of the screen. Your baby is going to want your full attention. Sometimes baby will be very demanding and will want a lot of things. Are you going to let your baby cry? If you've done all you can do, Baby is telling you I want to 'Lay My Head.' Hit the bedtime button; it will make your baby happy. Do it when people are watching; on the train from work or at the grocery store. They'll know your Phone or iPod is your baby. Don't be shy, love and pamper your baby with hugs, rocking, play a lullaby for Baby and more! Remember nobody likes a cry-baby! So Go Ahead! Make all the other phones and people jealous, and love your Baby!" And the winner of creepiest app ever goes to ...

Death Metal writes "The EU passed the Data Retention Directive years ago, a law that demands ISPs and search engines hold onto data long enough to help the cops (but not long enough to cause privacy problems). But Sweden never passed it into national law, and the European Commission has now sued the country to make sure a bill appears."

testadicazzo writes "Micheal Lynton, the guy who said 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.' has posted an editorial at the Huffington Post titled Guardrails for the Internet, in which he defends his comment, and suggests that just as the interstate system needs guardrails, so too does the information superhighway. The following is pretty indicative of the article: 'Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don't figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.'"

eldavojohn writes "So you're an aspiring band and you haven't signed with a record label. Maybe you've got a fan base interested in purchasing your stuff but you're not really into accounting? Enter Amazon's partnership with TuneCore, a CD printing and music distribution service. You want to sell a full album on Amazon of you brushing your teeth? $31. And you get about 40% back on sales, so selling nine digital copies of your CD will put you back in the black. There you have it, public availability on one of the largest online commerce sites for $31 — no RIAA involved!" TuneCore's CEO put it this way: "As an artist, you have unlimited physical inventory, made on demand, with no [sic] upfront costs and worldwide distribution to anyone who orders it at Amazon.com."

omz writes "The ODF Alliance has prepared a Fact Sheet for governments and others interested in how Microsoft's SP2 for Office 2007 handles ODF. The report revealed 'serious shortcomings that, left unaddressed, would break the open standards based interoperability that the marketplace, especially governments, is demanding.'"

niktemadur writes "In an uncanny case of life-imitates-Monty-Python, the BBC reports of a North Carolina teenager who entered an internet cafe with a banana concealed under his T-shirt, said it was a gun and demanded money. The owner of the shop and its customers overcame the hapless thief and called for help. When the police arrived, witnesses reported that the teenager had eaten the banana in the interim. In addition to attempted armed robbery, officers joked they may also charge the 17-year-old with destroying evidence and took pictures of the banana peel instead. No mention in the article, however, on how patrons might have defended themselves against a pointed stick."