EMC to buy cloud computing start-up Pi
February 21, 2008
EMC on Thursday said it will acquire Pi, a cloud computing start-up founded by former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz.
Financial terms of the all-cash transaction were not disclosed.
Maritz will join the storage company as president and general manager of a newly created Cloud Infrastructure and Services division.
Privately held …
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Synchronize Your Browsing Habits with Opera Link
October 26, 2007
Scandinavian web browser provider Opera will be announcing today a new feature that allows users to access their bookmarks and favorite websites list (called “speed dial”) wherever they go.
Out of Opera’s three consumer offerings - Opera for Desktop, Opera Mini, and Opera Mobile - the first two will be able to natively load the bookmarks that you have saved to your Opera account. Your bookmarks will therefore show up as the same no matter which instances of these browsers you use, as long as you’ve signed in with your account and chosen to synchronize. With Opera Mobile, or any non-Opera browser for that matter, you will be able to access your bookmarks via a web interface at my.opera.com.
For those unfamiliar with Opera’s product lineup, Opera provides versions of its browser for an array of devices including the Nintendo Wii. There is only one standard version for the desktop but two for mobile devices. Opera Mini is a lightweight browser intended for cell phones that can’t normally support a full-featured browser. It supports a good deal of JavaScript but no Ajax, and it also depends on an Opera server to send compressed versions of webpages. Opera Mobile, on the other hand, is a more fully-featured mobile browser for smart phones that looks more like Safari for the iPhone.
Opera Link introduces competition for Delicious, which provides a useful plugin for Firefox that makes it possible to sync your bookmarks across browser instances. Soon, users will also be able to share their bookmarks with one another using Opera Link, thereby competing even more directly with social bookmarking sites.
This feature also represents one aspect of Opera’s attempt to turn the browser into a more sophisticated platform. Developers can already create widgets for Opera, and the company suggests that it may add more synchronization capabilities in the future, such as the ability to sync sessions, passwords, and notes.
Opera - which consists of about 430 employees - is based in Oslo, Norway but has offices around the world in places like Japan, China, and India. They just opened their first Silicon Valley office in Mountain View.
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Friendster Announces Developer Platform; Can You Say “Commodity”?
October 26, 2007
Good thing we launched the CrunchBase widget, because you may need it to refresh your memory about a certain social networking company called Friendster that’s announcing its own developer platform today (okay okay, to be fair, they do have 50 million users and are very popular in Asia).
Friendster’s platform announcement comes five months after that of Facebook and not even a week after that of MySpace, the company that usurped Friendster a few years ago. Looks like Facebook will need to find itself another major differentiator, because developer platforms are becoming commodities just like social networks themselves.
Admittedly, it may be too early to make this prediction. We haven’t even seen either MySpace or Friendster’s offerings after all. One company may end up continually executing their platform much better than the rest. However, judging by Friendster’s description of their platform - which will be open to developers immediately but not live for users until November 30th - these platforms will probably end up looking very much alike.
Friendster will allow developers to advertise with their widgets but will not require any revenue sharing; there will be a “widget directory” much like Facebook’s application directory; widgets in Friendster will be promoted virally using a “My Network Module” akin to Facebook’s news feed; Friendster widgets will be able to access “Friendster data” (which must mean profile, or “social graph”, data); and Friendster vows to improve the platform over time in response to community feedback.
In what could amount to little more than fluff, but could also mean something more substantial, Friendster is claiming that its platform will be non-proprietary. The suggestion is that widgets developed for other platforms will be easily deployable on Friendster’s platform. Another possible differentiator: it looks as though widget creators will be allowed to display advertisements anywhere they please within their creations, and not just on canvas-like pages as in Facebook.
Friendster is calling this announcement the “third stage” of its opening up process. Apparently in August 2006 the company started letting users add HTML and Flash widgets to their profiles and in September 2007 they created “Fan Profiles” for music promoters. Thus, we arrive at the third stage. Yea, sounds like a stretch to me, too.
If you are a developer who wants to start working now in preparation for November 30th when widgets will be available to Friendster users, you can check out this online documentation.
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Friendster Announces Developer Platform; Can You Say “Commodity”?
October 26, 2007
Good thing we launched the CrunchBase widget, because you may need it to refresh your memory about a certain social networking company called Friendster that’s announcing its own developer platform today (okay okay, to be fair, they do have 50 million users and are very popular in Asia).
Friendster’s platform announcement comes five months after that of Facebook and not even a week after that of MySpace, the company that usurped Friendster a few years ago. Looks like Facebook will need to find itself another major differentiator, because developer platforms are becoming commodities just like social networks themselves.
Admittedly, it may be too early to make this prediction. We haven’t even seen either MySpace or Friendster’s offerings after all. One company may end up continually executing their platform much better than the rest. However, judging by Friendster’s description of their platform - which will be open to developers immediately but not live for users until November 30th - these platforms will probably end up looking very much alike.
Friendster will allow developers to advertise with their widgets but will not require any revenue sharing; there will be a “widget directory” much like Facebook’s application directory; widgets in Friendster will be promoted virally using a “My Network Module” akin to Facebook’s news feed; Friendster widgets will be able to access “Friendster data” (which must mean profile, or “social graph”, data); and Friendster vows to improve the platform over time in response to community feedback.
In what could amount to little more than fluff, but could also mean something more substantial, Friendster is claiming that its platform will be non-proprietary. The suggestion is that widgets developed for other platforms will be easily deployable on Friendster’s platform. Another possible differentiator: it looks as though widget creators will be allowed to display advertisements anywhere they please within their creations, and not just on canvas-like pages as in Facebook.
Friendster is calling this announcement the “third stage” of its opening up process. Apparently in August 2006 the company started letting users add HTML and Flash widgets to their profiles and in September 2007 they created “Fan Profiles” for music promoters. Thus, we arrive at the third stage. Yea, sounds like a stretch to me, too.
If you are a developer who wants to start working now in preparation for November 30th when widgets will be available to Friendster users, you can check out this online documentation.
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You can’t keep Nokia down
October 26, 2007
We’re No. 1!
Nokia remains the king of the cell phone world and it shows no signs of being pushed from its throne anytime soon. According to figures that IDC released yesterday, the Finnish mobile giant held a 38.6 percent worldwide market in the third quarter this year, …
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eBook evolution marches on
October 26, 2007
The publisher Hachette Book Group USA, a member of the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), has decided to go with the digital publishing organization’s recommended standard for distributing books in digital format.
Starting with its December 2007 launch titles, HBG plans to release its bestsellers in the .epub eBook …
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Senators want probe of Comcast’s BitTorrent ‘discrimination’
October 26, 2007
Comcast’s reportedly aggressive filtering of BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic is drawing calls for a U.S. Senate hearing–and a renewed push for Net neutrality laws.
Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) on Friday sent a letter asking Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) to convene a hearing …
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Dreaming of first class on the A380
October 26, 2007
Sky high style
(Credit: Singapore Airlines)
Though CNET News.com’s Daniel Terdiman already covered the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380 in his blog, as a fellow aviation nut, I just had to weigh in on the aircraft’s interior. This morning I drooled over the photos taken …
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Just how many electric car start-ups are there?
October 26, 2007
I woke up today ready to write a story on the three-wheeled electric cars coming from Venture Vehicles when a question dawned on me. How many electric car and plug-in start-ups are there in the world today?
Electra glide in silver
(Credit: Zenn Motors )
I count 16. They are: Tesla …
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One helluva week for Microsoft, Leopard notwithstanding
October 26, 2007
During the Microsoft antitrust trial, one of the company’s PR execs named Mark Murray would dutifully approach the press microphone on the courthouse steps in Washington, D.C., each afternoon to declare: “It was another good day for Microsoft.”
That was called playing the part of loyal soldier in …
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