E-books and the value of outdated, old fashioned ways…

Following the launch of Amazon’s third-generation Kindle, company CEO Jeff Bezos sat down to discuss the e-reader business with USA Today. We’d recommend giving the whole piece a look-see if you just can’t get enough Kindle in your life, but a few choice quotes caught our attention. For starters, Bezos predicted that Kindle e-book sales will “surpass paperback sales sometime in the next 9 to 12 months,” and that “sometime after that, we’ll surpass the combination of paperback and hardcover.” Considering that the Kindle platform is but 33 months old, and that books are just a wee bit older, that’s pretty impressive. In a separate sit-down with Pocket-lint, Steve Kessel — Amazon’s senior vice president of Worldwide Digital Media — teased us all with regard to a color version of the company’s famed e-reader. ‘Course, we’ve known that Bezos and Company aren’t too hopeful about such a thing in the near-term, but we’ve yet to actually hear the company confess to having specific color alternatives in the lab. If you’ll recall, we found Qualcomm’s Mirasol demonstration worthy of laud back at CES, and according to Kessel, “that’s in the lab.” We’re also told that a slew of other color options are always in testing, though, so we’re doing our darnedest to not get those hopes too high. It ain’t working, but still…

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/29/amazon-sees-e-book-sales-surpassing-paper-versions-has-mirasol/

My thoughts..
Now as most of you know, I am all for advancement in technology and continuing progress of the “technical revolution”. With that being said, please give me a regular old book and let me read it, i think not only is technology taking over every aspect of our lives it is to the point of controlling it, which is a scary thought.

BMW announced today it will build an electric vehicle by 2012-13..

BMW announced today that it will build its first regular series production electric vehicle at its plant in Leipzig in northern Germany. The Megacity EV is expected to debut sometime around 2012-13 and will be targeted as an urban commuter vehicle. The next stage in BMW’s electric field test program will be the 1 series-based ActiveE that will be put into the hands of drivers in 2011. The ActiveE will use the same type of SB LiMotive lithium ion batteries that will go into the Megacity.

In addition to vehicle assembly in Leipzig, BMW will also partner with SGL Carbon, SGL Automotive Fibers GmbH & Co KG to produce carbon fiber components, including clutches at plants in Landshut and Wackersdorf in Bavaria.

http://www.autoblog.com/gallery/detroit-2010-bmw-active-e-concept/#9

Current Job Opening – Team Leader / SSRS / C# Developer

Please respond with a resume only if you have these skills listed with most important first.

1. GOOD team lead skills

2. Be an experienced software engineer that can write Tech Specs and Work with BA’s and ask good questions.

3. Be able to write High-level Technical Overview docs with Data Accesss in mind.

4. Understand the concepts of SDLC and be able to apply them.

5. Have good SSRS skills.

This position is working for a company in the Pittsburgh, PA. area. This will be a full time position with HIGHLY Competitive pay rates. If you fit the description above and are interested please reply to jobs@cerasoft.net with your resume.

Zeus Trojan found of 74,000 PC’s…The gods are Angry!

More than 74,000 PCs at nearly 2,500 organizations around the globe were compromised over the past year and a half in a botnet infestation designed to steal login credentials to bank sites, social networks, and e-mail systems, a security firm said Wednesday.

The systems were infected with the Zeus Trojan and the botnet was dubbed “Kneber” after a username that linked the infected PCs on corporate and government systems, according to NetWitness.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Merck, Cardinal Health, Paramount Pictures, and Juniper Networks were among the targets in the attack. NetWitness speculated that criminals in Eastern Europe using a command-and-control server in Germany sent attachments containing the malware in e-mails or links to the malware on Web sites that employees within the companies clicked on.
NetWitness said it discovered more than 75 gigabytes worth of stolen data during routine analytic tasks as part of an evaluation of a client network on January 26. The cache of stolen data included 68,000 corporate login credentials, access to e-mail systems, online banking sites, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail, 2,000 SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate files and data on individuals, NetWitness said in a statement and in a whitepaper available for download from its Web site.
In addition to stealing specific data, Zeus can be used to search for and steal any file on the computer, download and execute programs and allow someone to remotely control the computer.
More than half of the compromised machines were also infected with peer-to-peer bot malware called Waledac, the company said. Nearly 200 countries were affected, with most of the infections found in Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.
The news comes after Google announced an attack targeting it and what is believed to be more than 30 other companies and which was linked back to China. McAfee dubbed that attack “Operation Aurora.”
“While Operation Aurora shed light on advanced threats from sponsored adversaries, the number of compromised companies and organizations pales in comparison to this single botnet,” said Amit Yoran, chief executive of NetWitness and former Director of the National Cyber Security Division. “These large-scale compromises of enterprise networks have reached epidemic levels.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10455525-245.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Carnegie Mellon – Testing Advanced Cloud Computing Research?..

Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science is the latest research institution to host a site as part of Open Cirrus™, a global, open-source test bed for the advancement of cloud computing research and education.

A computing cluster housed in Carnegie Mellon’s Data Center Observatory will provide additional resources for Carnegie Mellon faculty and other researchers worldwide. Open Cirrus was launched in 2008 by HP, Intel and Yahoo! to promote open collaboration among industry, academia and governments on data-intensive, Internet-scale computing. The test bed now includes cloud computing infrastructure at 10 “centers of excellence” worldwide.

Organizations increasingly take advantage of cloud computing, which allows them to use shared services and data processing and storage resources that are managed by other organizations. But until recently, university faculty and students did not have direct access to cloud computing resources necessary for research and education on this emerging computing paradigm. That limited universities in their ability to prepare students who will increasingly work in cloud environments. It also inhibited academic research on new applications for the cloud and on how to improve the software and hardware that enables cloud computing.

“Having a facility like this and being able to participate in Open Cirrus will provide us with unprecedented opportunities for research and education on Internet-scale computing,” said Randal E. Bryant, dean of the School of Computer Science. “We see applications well beyond those being pursued by industry today, including astronomy, neuroscience, and knowledge extraction and representation, and we will be able to delve more deeply into the design of the system itself.”

Carnegie Mellon computer scientists have been leaders as cloud computing has emerged as a focus of academic research. Carnegie Mellon was the first university to make use of M45, a 4,000-processor, Hadoop-based computing cluster that Yahoo! made available to academic researchers beginning in late 2007. Since then, M45 research by Carnegie Mellon has resulted in infrastructure innovations, such as new approaches to diagnosing performance problems and a technique for shrinking the storage requirements for data files by 33 percent. Carnegie Mellon researchers also have used the M45 cluster to pioneer new applications that require Internet-scale resources, such as natural language processing, automated extraction of knowledge from the Web and developing a deeper understanding of when the “wisdom of crowds” is effective and when it is not for services such as Wikipedia.

Carnegie Mellon researchers have benefited from access to the existing Open Cirrus site operated by Intel Labs Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon campus. Together with M45 and the university’s new computing cluster, Carnegie Mellon researchers now are running experiments on three cloud-computing clusters.

http://techburgher.pghtech.org/

Future of the internet — highly mobile?!?

With every day that passes we become more convinced that the Internet in our hands aka on our mobile devices is going to define network usage and innovation. According to some estimates, the consumption of data on mobiles will near an exabyte by the end of 2009.

In less than four years almost three-quarters of the population will have access to mobile broadband, according to data released today by analyst firm Telegeography. The firm predicts that by the end of 2013 the addressable market for 3G and 4G cellular services will have grown to over 4.5 billion potential subscribers — or about 71 percent of all wireless subscribers.

And as I’ve noted, the mobile Internet platform is a greenfield opportunity for innovators. We plan to discuss many of those opportunities at our Mobilize 09 conference on Sept. 10 in San Francisco. (related research from GigaOM Pro: Will Google Lead the Way in Mobile App Innovation?.)

While we’re eagerly awaiting the next generation of 4G wireless services in the U.S., it can be hard to remember that China is just rolling out its 3G networks. But given the huge jump in data speeds offered by a 3G network when compared to a 2G network, as mobile broadband catches on, web access and computing becomes ever more mobile and ever more accessible.

The key issue will be getting people to sign up. As part of the same research, Telegeography expects only 28 percent of subscribers to actually connect to the faster services by 2013. TeleGeography’s Executive Director John Dinsdale says that the actual “take-up rates for 3G/4G services in 2013 will range from 25% of potential subscribers in Africa to 62% in Western Europe.”

http://gigaom.com/2009/07/17/data-the-future-of-the-internet-looks-highly-mobile/

Apple to Reinvent Mobile Advertisements?

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — With the iPhone, Apple changed the face of mobile devices. Can it do the same for mobile advertising?

CEO Steve Jobs is reported to have said, “Mobile ads suck,” and in the wake of its purchase of mobile ad network Quattro, all signs point to Apple exerting its considerable clout on the mobile web to make the ads, well, better. “Static banners aren’t very Apple,” said Krishna Subramanian, co-founder of mobile ad exchange Mobclix.

But one question is reverberating around the industry: Will Apple use its dominance to squeeze out other so-called premium ad providers?

Taking control
Last week Apple showed it won’t be shy about setting new standards. In a blog post, the company warned developers that it will reject apps that serve users location-targeted ads. “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” the post said.

Location-based ads are often the most attractive for advertisers looking to drive foot traffic into stores. “If I’m looking at my phone, I want to see an ad for the restaurant around the corner, not for something without context,” said Michael Becker, Mobile Marketing Association’s managing director, North America. “Situational relevance for mobile users — and for marketers — is essential.”

Apple claims the controversial post was only intended to protect user experience. Regardless, to some, this move looks like a preview of what Apple has planned for its new ad network. It has been building out a global sales team, and Quattro CEO Andy Miller is Apple’s first VP-mobile advertising, reporting directly to Mr. Jobs. It’s the first time Apple has been in the ad business, and this move indicates how seriously the Cupertino, Calif.-based company takes it.

“Clearly, Apple is going to do everything it can to redefine mobile advertising,” said Eric Litman, chairman-CEO of ad network Medialets, who also said he sees merit in Apple’s defense of users in its location-based ad restriction. “Obviously they’re going to want to leverage unique capabilities of their device as an advantage to them and not their competitors.”

Restricting competition?
How would that happen? Since all applications must go through a stringent approval process before hitting the App Store, Apple could reject apps with non-Quattro ad network code. But restricting outside ad networks would also mean cutting into developers’ profits, because many already partner with multiple networks to monetize their apps.

It is also likely that Apple will integrate Quattro into its software development kit, giving developers a default ad network that’s built into the app toolbox. With an already embedded ad network, developers would have an automatic revenue stream on approved apps, and would then have to contract networks beyond, or instead of, Quattro.

The iPhone claims about 25% U.S. smartphone market share as of December, according to ComScore. An Apple spokeswoman declined to speak directly about plans for Quattro or Apple’s position on mobileadvertising.

Apple has cast the deal as a way to make money for the developers whose apps have made the iPhone popular. Right now, Apple reaps 30% from music and paid app downloads and, like the existing mobile ad network model, could take a fee for passing ad sales on to developers.

Redefining mobile ads
Developers could also stand to benefit from Apple meddling in mobile ad formats — better ads could mean better results, happier clients and, eventually, more money. With Apple’s characteristic design and usability expertise, it could reinvigorate the ad category so mobile doesn’t get stuck in the same banner doldrums as its interactive predecessor, online advertising.

“There’s no doubt that Apple will add functionality around advertising,” said Mike Sanford, president-CEO FlipSide 5, a developer whose apps, including Touch Hockey, have been downloaded 26 million times.

Mr. Sanford said the current purchasing experience on iPhones is clunky. But with a mobile ad network backed up to the phone’s operating system and the almighty iTunes, Apple could work some of those kinks could out. Imagine ads that click-to-buy to iTunes, a purchase platform consumers already use and trust with their credit card information.

“People might be hesitant to tap credit card information into their phone,” said Mobclix co-founder Sunil Verma, citing the ESPN’s app. “But they’re already used to buying games on iTunes.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-sets-out-to-reinvent-mobile-ads-2010-01

Gigabit INTERNET??? Google owns the world…

Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York. Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture. Universal, ultra high-speed Internet access will make all this and more possible. We’ve urged the FCC to look at new and creative ways to get there in its National Broadband Plan – and today we’re announcing an experiment of our own.

We’re planning to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States. We’ll deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today with 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We plan to offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.

Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone. Here are some specific things that we have in mind:

• Next generation apps: We want to see what developers and users can do with ultra high-speeds, whether it’s creating new bandwidth-intensive “killer apps” and services, or other uses we can’t yet imagine.
• New deployment techniques: We’ll test new ways to build fiber networks, and to help inform and support deployments elsewhere, we’ll share key lessons learned with the world.
• Openness and choice: We’ll operate an “open access” network, giving users the choice of multiple service providers. And consistent with our past advocacy, we’ll manage our network in an open, non-discriminatory and transparent way.

Like our WiFi network in Mountain View, the purpose of this project is to experiment and learn. Network providers are making real progress to expand and improve high-speed Internet access, but there’s still more to be done. We don’t think we have all the answers – but through our trial, we hope to make a meaningful contribution to the shared goal of delivering faster and better Internet for everyone.

As a first step, today we’re putting out a request for information (RFI) to help identify interested communities. We welcome responses from local government, as well as members of the public. If you’d like to respond, visit this page to learn more.

We’ll collect responses until March 26, and will announce our target communities later this year. Stay tuned.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/think-big-with-gig-our-experimental.html

Pittsburgh OR Silicon Valley?.. I’m not sure…

As I’ve talked about why I think Pittsburgh is well situated to be a strong entrepreneurial hub, I think I may have spent too much time talking about how Pittsburgh is different from Silicon Valley and not enough time talking about how it is similar.

There are a myriad of reasons Silicon Valley is what it is today, but the ones that I always thought were fundamental was having a top-tier engineering school to serve as an anchor and a strong entrepreneurial community.

Almost every successful entrepreneur will tell you that they were successful in large part because of the help they got from the previous generation, and as a result have this duty to give back to the next generation. The thing about Silicon Valley is that this is so strongly baked into the culture there, creating a very strong sense of community. As @venturehacks put it, “It’s almost a law that cashed-out entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley have to start angel investing. Not years after their exit — right away.” The result of this, of course, is that it creates a very strong network effect; as I’ve said before, building a successful business is a terribly difficult thing, but the Silicon Valley community creates a strong support network to nurture nascent companies into mature and successful ones.

This sense of community and openness was really on display when I spent a week in San Francisco this past August. During that time, I called a number of successful folks in the community and almost every single one made time to sit down and talk that week. (In fact, I think the only two who didn’t were both out of town). We spent over an hour with each one discussing our business, and they happily offered feedback, made introductions and pointed us at potential partners. In every case, I had this feeling that they genuinely wanted to help us; that they wanted to see us succeed, even though we had never met them prior to setting up the meeting. We asked each for 30 minutes, and I think our shortest meeting was 75 minutes.

I spent the following week in Pittsburgh, and interestingly my experience was almost identical. I met around 10 different folks involved in the entrepreneurial community here and was greeted with open arms. Everyone I met with was helpful and again I had that feeling that they wanted me to succeed. I think one thing that Pittsburgh has even more than Silicon Valley is immense pride in the city. The community, though much smaller, is perhaps even stronger here because of that deep-rooted desire to see Pittsburgh succeed.

Of course, that’s no surprise to anyone who has spent any time in Pittsburgh, but I think sometimes without the contrast it goes unappreciated. We have a great community in New York, but there’s still just a different vibe in Pittsburgh – and in Silicon Valley. When combined with other building blocks, I think that’s a big reason why Pittsburgh will be able to transform itself in the long run.

-http://nextburgh.com/post/2009/12/29/What-Pittsburgh-Shares-with-Silicon-Valley-A-Strong-Sense-of-Community.aspx

Technology to make Weather Forecasting More Accurate?

More accurate global weather forecasts and a better understanding of climate change are in prospect, thanks to a breakthrough by engineers at Queen’s University Belfast’s Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT).

The ECIT team has developed a high performance electronic device — known as a dual polarized Frequency Selective Surface filter — that is to be used in future European Space Agency (ESA) missions.
The filters will be installed in instruments being developed by ESA for meteorological satellites it plans to launch between 2018 and 2020. The ESA instruments are used to detect thermal emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere. The data measures temperature, humidity profiles, and gas composition, which are in turn entered into operational systems and used to forecast weather and pollution.
Lead ECIT engineer Raymond Dickie said: “Measuring just 30mm in diameter and 1/100mm thick, the devices will help to provide a much more comprehensive analysis of conditions in the Earth’s atmosphere than has been possible previously.
“Up to now, spaceborne remote sensing instruments have only been capable of separating either the vertically or horizontally polarized components of naturally occurring thermal emissions from gases in the Earth’s atmosphere – but not both together at the same time. The invention of the new filter resolves this problem and will enable complex imaging of clouds to be undertaken for the first time at very short wavelengths.”
Global patent applications have already been filed for the filters which are constructed by ECIT engineers and research staff at Queen’s University’s Northern Ireland Semiconductor Research Centre in Belfast. The filters have been developed as a result of a £1.2 million investment in Queen’s by EPSRC, EADS Astrium and ESA to develop the technology, and have taken over 10 years to develop.
Robert Cahill, a member of the project team added: “As a result of the new filter, scientists will gain access to completely new data on a range of phenomenon including ozone depletion and the size of water particles in cirrus clouds. This in turn will enable more accurate global weather forecasts to be compiled and will provide important new insights into climate change.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090806191938.htm