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Cloud

Submission + - Report: Amazon is building a $600M cloud for the CIA (networkworld.com)

Brandon Butler writes: "In what's being described as a "radical shift" in its cloud strategy, the CIA has signed a reported $600 million, 10-year deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a private cloud, according to a story in Federal Computer Week.

Such a deal would be significant for multiple reasons. First, there are ongoing questions about whether cloud computing is an appropriate use case for important, mission-critical workloads and large enterprises. The CIA embracing the cloud to the tune of a $600 million contract could help dispel that somewhat.

In addition, the article reports that Amazon would likely build a private cloud for the government agency, meaning it would run, at least in part, on the CIA's own infrastructure, behind the CIA firewall, and not in Amazon-controlled public cloud data centers. That would be a radical shift for AWS, which does not have a private cloud offering for customers to run on their own premises. Is this the start of a new AWS private cloud business?"

Microsoft

Submission + - DOJ, SEC allege Microsoft bribed Chinese, other government officials (networkworld.com) 1

colinneagle writes: Microsoft, which is often slow to comment with any substance when mud is flung its way, responded almost immediately after a Wall Street Journal article claimed Microsoft is the subject of probes being conducted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by both the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission; allegations were made that kickbacks were given to foreign government officials in China, Italy and Romania for software contracts.

WSJ reported that the kickbacks were allegedly made by a "former Microsoft representative in China" and reported to U.S. investigators in 2012 by an "anonymous tipster" who was responsible for landing "potential new business." This "tipster" claimed that "an executive of Microsoft's China subsidiary instructed the tipster to offer kickbacks to Chinese officials in return for signing off on software contracts."

Microsoft's John Frank, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, responded, "We take all allegations brought to our attention seriously, and we cooperate fully in any government inquiries. Like other large companies with operations around the world, we sometimes receive allegations about potential misconduct by employees or business partners, and we investigate them fully, regardless of the source."

Android

Submission + - The Galaxy S4 has a Barometer - and a Humidity Sensor! (cumulonimbus.ca)

cryptoz writes: "Canadian software company Cumulonimbus is building pressureNET, a free and open source Android app that taps in to the environment sensors on new phones and is now a quickly growing weather network. They're collecting about 250,000 atmospheric pressure measurements per day which they are livestreaming to scientists who are working on new methods of thunderstorm forecasting. More data density is needed first, however. Luckily, the Samsung Galaxy S4 will join the existing fleet of barometer-carrying phones which will enable further growth and better science experiments. They provide a data visualization website where you can view live graphs of the collected data."

Comment Re:Does it really improve local forecasts? (Score 1) 82

You might be right, but I don't think so. If you look at the screenshot of the analysis tool in the blog post, you can see that even through all of the noise there is a *very* clear curve for Hurricane Sandy. Although, we do know that the data is very noisy and we are working with some professors who are researching this very topic (calibration of phone sensors for weather data collection). I think we will have useful data for short-term prediction. But if not, that's okay too. Science!

Comment Re:Needs isobar lines (Score 5, Informative) 82

I agree completely! We are adding those as soon as we can. In the early days of the project, there was not enough data to build isobars. But now, we have enough and we are determined to add that feature. The project is built by me and volunteers in our free time, so it'll probably be a couple weeks or months before we get isobars in. Of course, pressureNET is fully open source and so if anyone feels like writing the isobar code and getting that feature done faster, we will welcome that too! Code is on github: https://github.com/JacobSheehy/pressureNET, https://github.com/JacobSheehy/pressureNETServer and https://github.com/JacobSheehy/pressureNETAnalysis.
Android

Submission + - pressureNET 2.1 released: The Distributed Barometer Network for Android (cumulonimbus.ca)

cryptoz writes: "Cumulonimbus has released a new version of their open source, global barometer network. The network is built around an Android app called pressureNET which uses barometric sensors in new phones (such as the Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S3, Note, and others) in order to build the comprehensive network. They plan to use the data to improve short-term weather prediction, and the gives a teaser of the new data visualization tool they are building."
Android

Submission + - Google's new Android Nexus linup: More Barometers! (cumulonimbus.ca)

An anonymous reader writes: Google recently announced the Nexus 4 phone and Nexus 10 tablet as the new flagship devices, but more subtly they also revealed these devices both contain barometers. Previous Android devices such as the Xoom tablet Galaxy Nexus set this trend last year. Cumulonimbus Software is building the free and open source application pressureNET, a global network of these devices. They have received more than 5,000,000 measurements since last year, and are rapidly gaining users in hopes to build the highest-resolution weather data network in existence. They have collected more than 100,000 pressure readings from Hurricane Sandy and will soon be releasing some analysis of their data.

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