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+ - LogMeIn launches cloud service for 'Internet of Things'->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Dealing with objects sending frequent messages back and forth between themselves is a given with the 'Internet of Things', but dealing with this traffic, and with the security of implications of networked objects, can be a pain for a devs. LogMeIn, better known for its remote access applications, has launched a service designed to make it easier to create and deploy IoT devices and applications. The awkwardly named 'Xively' offering is a 'platform-as-a-service' cloud designed to take care of much of the nitty gritty. Xively uses the same infrastructure employed for LogMeIn's remote desktop services. I had a chat to the company's CEO prior to Xively's launch about the Internet of Things and the market opportunity it represents for his company."
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+ - IBM releases 'Watson box'-> 1

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "IBM has released a new product based on the game-show-winning technology used in Watson. The new 'Watson Engagement Advisor' is designed to let companies better interact with their customers, either directly through providing an intelligent agent that draws on natural language processing, a knowledge store and data about an individual customer or indirectly by advising the people who directly engage with a business' customers. IBM says that performance of the Watson system has increased by 240 per cent since it won Jeopardy! and its size has been reduced to the equivalent of four pizza boxes."
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+ - WikiLeaks donations by Visa ruled OK in Iceland->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "The three-year blockade against donations to WikiLeaks may have just been chiseled away, in Iceland, by a ruling handed down by the European country's Supreme Court. The verdict says that the Visa subcontractor Valitor had unlawfully terminated its contract with WikiLeaks' donation processor, DataCell, and must re-open the processing of donations to the whistle-blowing site within 15 days or else face a fine of ISK800,000, or US$6,830, per day."
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+ - Using open source to build sustainable communities->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "A documentary from Filament Features coming out this year will feature the work of the Open Source Ecology project, which aims to produce a set of open source tools capable of building environmentally sustainable communities. The project aims to design a 'Global Village Construction Set' (GVCS): a set of 50 modular, easy-to-replicate tools that can be used to construct sustainable communities, with the designs available under an open source licence."
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+ - Taking the pain out of debugging with live programming->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes ""Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place," Brian Kernighan once wrote (adding: "So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?") However, Sean McDirmid, a researcher at Microsoft, has been working to remove some of the pain from debugging. McDirmid, based at Microsoft Research Asia, has been studying ways of implementing usable live programming environments: a solution that is less intrusive than classical debuggers. The idea is to essentially provide a programming environment in which editing of code and the execution of code occur simultaneously — and in the same interface as code editing — with tools to track the state of variables in a more or less live manner."
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+ - Cloud's real ecological timebomb: Wireless, not data centres->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "New research from an Australian university argues that increased carbon emissions from powering data centres aren't the biggest environmental threat from the growth of cloud computing. Instead, the problem is the Wi-Fi and cellular networks increasingly used to access cloud services. By 2015, the energy used to run data centres will be a "drop in the ocean" compared to the energy used to power wireless access to services. By 2015 the energy consumption associated with 'wireless cloud' will reach 43 terawatt-hours, compared to 9.2 terawatt-hours in 2012 (an increase in carbon footprint from 6 megatonnes of CO2 in 2012, up to 30 megatonnes of CO2 in 2015). Data centres will comprise only 9 per cent on this increased energy consumption, compared to up to 90 per cent for wireless access."
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+ - Prices of Windows RT tablets drop, point to failure of OS->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Prices of Windows RT devices have started falling, signaling an attempt by PC makers to quickly clear out stock after poor adoption of tablets and convertibles with the operating system. Microsoft released Windows RT for ARM-based devices and Windows 8 for Intel-based devices in October last year. The price drop is an acknowledgement that Windows RT has failed, analysts claim."
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Open Source

+ - MySQL's creator on why the future belongs to MariaDB->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "When Oracle purchased Sun, many in the open source community were bleak about the future of MySQL. According to MySQL co-creator Michael "Monty" Widenius, these fears have been proven by Oracle's attitude to MySQL and its community. In the wake of the Sun takeover, Monty forked MySQL to create MariaDB, which has picked up momentum (being included by default in Fedora, Open SUSE and, most recently, Slackware). I recently interviewed Monty about what he learned from the MySQL experience and the current state of MariaDB."
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Australia

+ - Adobe to Australians: Fly to US for cheaper software->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "It's been a long-running joke that it's cheaper for Australians to get a plane ticket to the US if they want to buy Adobe's Creative Suite instead of paying local prices. But appearing before a parliamentary inquiry into the disparity between IT prices in Australia and elsewhere, Adobe's local chief appeared to suggest just that."
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Networking

+ - Open sourcing the Internet of Things->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Thingsquare, a company founded by Contiki OS creator Adam Dunkels, today released the code for its wireless IoT networking system, Mist, which is designed to make it easy to connect low-power devices to the Internet. The company has posted the source code (.zip) for the Thingsquare Mist firmware, which lets wireless-capable microcontrollers connect directly to the Internet. Thingsquare partnered with chip makers Text Instruments and STMicroelectronics for the launch."
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Open Source

+ - Drupal's creator aims for world domination->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Open-source content management system Drupal has come a long way since it was initially released in 2001. Drupal now runs 2% of the world's websites — but Drupal's creator Dries Buytaert thinks that this could easily grow to 10%. I caught up with Dries to talk about Drupal's evolution from a pure CMS to a Web platform, cracking the enterprise market, and the upcoming release of Drupal 8, which features significant architectural changes — incorporating elements of the Symfony2 Web framework to replace Drupal's aging architecture."
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Piracy

+ - UK court orders H33t, Kickass Torrents and Fenopy blocked->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "A court in the U.K. has ordered key Internet service providers in the country to block three torrent sites on a complaint from music labels including EMI Records and Sony Music. The High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, ordered six ISPs including Virgin Media, British Telecommunications and British Sky Broadcasting to block H33t, Kickass Torrents and Fenopy."
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Android

+ - HP launches Android tablet->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "After the failure of its WebOS-based offering to challenge iOS and Android, HP is trying to re-enter the tablet market again, launching a seven-inch Android tablet called the Slate 7, priced at US$169. This will be HP's first tablet based on Google's Android OS. HP quit the consumer tablet market in 2011 when it killed off its WebOS-based TouchPad, but it's now back to take another swing."
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I would like to urinate in an OVULAR, porcelain pool --

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