An anonymous reader writes "This controversial post by Adobe's Kas Thomas asks if splash screens are just a sign of program bloat and callous disregard for users. It suggests that big programs should launch instantly (or appear to), perhaps by running against an instance in the cloud while the local instance finishes loading. Users of cell phones and tablets are accustomed to apps being instantly available. This is the new standard for performance, the author argues. Nothing short of it will do, any more."

itwbennett writes "In a post on the company blog, JotForm.com cofounder Aytekin Tank alerts users that 'a US government agency has temporarily suspended' the jotform.com domain. He explains that it is part of an 'ongoing investigation' of content posted to its site by a user. Although which user and what content haven't yet been disclosed, there is speculation about forms used for a phishing attack on a South African bank. JotForm hosts over two million user-generated forms, and uses software to block fraudulent accounts (65,000 so far), so you can see there's plenty of opportunity for mischief."

pigrabbitbear writes "The gradual transformation of the web into an ultra-personalized, corporate-owned social space in the cloud has raised more than a few legitimate concerns about data privacy. Google, for obvious reasons, has always been one of the top cheerleaders for this metamorphosis. Touting a fresh new privacy policy that allows data about you from all of their services to coalesce, they've recently been particularly bullish about rendering that increasingly realistic digital portrait of you that lies stuffed away in their servers. It has led us again to question: How much are we comfortable with our machines knowing about us? How much is our privacy really worth? With their new program, Google is now asking those questions quite directly, and preceding them with dollar signs. Are we all on the verge of making our own information age Faustian bargains?"

MrSeb writes with this selection from ExtremeTech: "Why doesn't Google offer a cloud storage service to rival Dropbox, Box.net, or Microsoft's SkyDrive? Google has the most internet-connected servers in the world, the largest combined storage of any web company, and already offers photo storage (Picasa), document storage (Docs), music storage (Music), but for some reason it has never offered a unified Google Drive. According to people familiar with the matter, however, our wait is almost over: Google's Hard Drive In The Sky is coming soon, possibly 'within weeks.' Feature-wise, it sounds like Google Drive will be comparable to Dropbox, with free basic storage (5GB?) and additional space for a yearly fee."

jfruh writes "A French court has ruled that Google is unfairly subsidizing its free mapping products, making for unfair competition with paid services. This might seem ridiculous, but keep in mind that Google started charging for use of its mapping API once the free version had come to dominate the market."

judgecorp writes "The OpenStack open source cloud project has removed Hyper-V from its infrastructure as a service (IaaS) framework, saying Microsoft's support for its hypervisor technology is 'broken.' This will embarass Microsoft, as major partners such as Dell and HP support OpenStack, along with service providers such as Internap." Adds reader alphadogg, this "means the code will be removed when the next version of OpenStack, called Essex, is released in the second quarter."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Google has sought leave to submit an amicus curiae brief against Capitol Records' preliminary injunction motion in Capitol Records v. ReDigi. In their letter seeking pre-motion conference or permission to file (PDF) Google argued that '[t]he continued vitality of the cloud computing industry — which constituted an estimated 41 billion dollar global market in 2010 — depends in large part on a few key legal principles that the preliminary injunction motion implicates.' Among them, Google argued, is the fact that mp3 files either are not 'material objects' and therefore not subject to the distribution right articulated in 17 USC 106(3) for 'copies and phonorecords,' or they are material objects and therefore subject to the 'first sale' exception to the distribution right articulated in 17 USC 109, but they can't be — as Capitol Records contends — material objects under one and not the other."

jfruh writes "Mandriva, a venerable Linux distro, is on the verge of shutting down. One of its main problems is that it never grew into more than just an OS vendor. The big players in the commercial Linux space — Red Hat, SuSE, Canonical — all built Linux into their larger computing visions. Is there any room in the marketplace for just a straight-up Linux distro anymore?"

First time accepted submitter AlistairCharlton writes "Users' data on the seized Megaupload website will be saved for two further weeks, according to the website's lawyer, despite being shut down by US authorities. From the article: 'Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken reportedly told tech blog TorrentFreak.com that users' data would be saved for at least another two weeks, after it was previously thought that the data would be deleted by Thursday, 2 February.'"

itwbennett writes "In a classic case of 'we say destroy, you say party hard,' the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security detained a pair of British twenty-somethings for 12 hours and then sent them packing back to the land of the cheeky retort. At issue is a Tweet sent by Leigh Van Bryan about plans to 'destroy America,' starting with LA, which, really, isn't that bad an idea."

First time accepted submitter Capt.Albatross writes "At Boing Boing, Rob Beschizza reports that, in an act of delicious irony, Swiss ISP Ort Cloud [sic] has acquired Righthaven's domain name and has relaunched Righthaven.com as a web hosting service diametrically opposed to the practices of its original owner, a notorious but ultimately unsuccessful copyright troll. The new owners, in partnership with first amendment lawyer Marc Randazza (who was instrumental in the original Righthaven's demise), promise 'infrajuridsictional infrastructure' — uptime that would require international cooperation to bring down. 'Frivolous plaintiffs will find little comfort here' says Ort Cloud's Stefan Thalberg. The domain name became available in a court-ordered auction of Righthaven LLC's assets, to pay its creditors."

sweetpea86 writes "Cloud providers based in the European market could turn the fear, uncertainty and doubt around data protection and the U.S. Patriot Act to their advantage, according to Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum. The only way that European companies can absolutely guarantee that their data doesn't end up in the hands of U.S. authorities is by choosing a provider that not only has a data centre within their jurisdiction, but is also owned by an organisation based in that jurisdiction."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "ReDigi has fired back, opposing Capitol Records's motion for a preliminary injunction. In his opposition declaration, ReDigi's CTO Larry Rudolph explains in detail (PDF) how the technology employed by ReDigi's used digital music marketplace effects transfer of a music file without copying, but by modifying the record locator in an 'atomic transaction,' and how it verifies that only a single instance of a unique file can enter the ReDigi cloud system. ReDigi's opposition papers also point out plaintiff's own admissions that mp3 files are not 'material objects' or 'phonorecords' under the Copyright Act, and therefore not subject to the Copyright Act's distribution right, and defend ReDigi's used digital music marketplace and cloud storage system (PDF) on a number of grounds, including the First Sale exception to the distribution right applicable to a 'particular' copy, the Essential Step exception to the distribution right applicable to a copy essential to the running of a computer program, and Fair Use space shifting."