Virtualization, Cloud Computing and Mobile: 7월 2010

2010년 7월 29일 목요일

Blogging on the iPad: A Sad State of Affairs

Blogging on the iPad is a sorry state of affairs — I’m also coming at this from the angle of a prose blog, not a photo blog. Both WordPress and BlogPress allow you to do the same basic features: type in your thoughts and press publish. Neither of the apps let you define links or format your text — you’re limited to plain style. Some of this, I am led to believe from researching other apps with the same problem (Evernote), is how restrictive Apple is on its rich text features. On the other hand, all of the Office-style apps out there let you format text, so I don’t know what’s up. What I do know is, neither of these two apps even come close to the feature set most bloggers need.

WordPress (Free)

As the official app for WordPress, it’s a sad commentary when the best I can say is, “Some of the time, it doesn’t crash. And it’s free.” A quick five minute double-check of some features yielded four crashes. It crashed inserting a picture. It crashed while canceling edits. I wouldn’t be surprised if it crashed while crashing. When I was able to successfully insert a picture, it didn’t show up in the local draft; I had to go out to the local view to see it, and even then it was just code, not a visual. You can, however, manage comments, pages, and assign categories within the WordPress App.

Buying Guide: Apple’s New iMac

Apple updated its iMac and Mac Pro desktop line today with little or no design changes, but the technical specifications of these two machines are finally in line with what you can get from their Windows-running counterparts.

Let’s take a look at these two machines side by side for anyone looking to upgrade or switch.

First of all, if you’re looking to buy one of those shiny new 27″ Apple Cinema Displays to go with a new iMac, wait to make your purchase as those won’t be available until September. In my opinion, Dell’s monitor offerings are priced very competitively to Apple’s, but you lose out on that Apple touch such as an aluminum enclosure and built-in MagSafe adapter. I have a 30″ Dell LCD hooked up to my 27″ iMac and it performs perfectly with Apple’s Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter.

China Media Drops The F-Bomb on Tencent - Novell's New Cloud Partner

The news came recently that Novell will be developing a cloud-computing platform with Tencent, China's largest Internet service provider. As part of the deal, the two companies will establish a research laboratory in Shenzen, China that will be used to develop the data center network that will serve as the cloud platform.

These kinds of deals often seem distant as our knowledge of China's Internet community is a bit limited. But sometimes news comes out that provides a whole new insight.

That's exactly what happened this week when China Computerworld dropped the F-bomb on Tencent in an article and featured the company's mascot bleeding from knife wounds.

Whoa! And we thought the media here can be tough.

Weekly Poll: Is the Cloud Infrastructure Market Too Crowded?

We wrote last week about the state of the cloud services market and how crowded it is becoming.

Cloud Bzz lists more than 30 providers. That includes companies that provide enterprise private clouds, public clouds and public sector clouds. John Treadway's take is that over the next few years there will be at most five or six companies that matter in the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) space.

Augment Reality for the Enterprise - SAP Employee Unveils Prototype

SAP BusinessObjects logo SAP employee Timo Elliott has unveiled a prototype for an augmented reality business intelligence iPhone app. He emphasizes that it's a prototype, not a supported product. It's not available for download yet, but Elliott gives us a look at what an augmented enterprise could look like.

Elliot released some proof-of-concept mock-ups on his blog earlier this year (see our coverage), but the project is now in development at SAP in the BusinessObjects Innovation Center, which Elliot says is based on Google Labs.

Augmented enterprise - small

The app prototype enables users to mashup location information with any sort of corporate data available in an enterprise's BusinessObjects OnDemand account. The use case Elliot demonstrates is locating the nearest customers and displaying supplemental information.

When Startups Grow Out of the Cloud

Cloud computing has been a boon to tech startups, allowing them to build, launch and scale without substantial up-front investment in hardware. But at what point does the moving from the cloud to a data center make more sense - for both performance and cost?

Facebook announced plans earlier this year to build a custom data center in Prineville, Oregon, and Twitter announced last week that it plans to build one near Salt Lake City, Utah. And web app maker 37Signals isn't building its own data center, but it did reveal last week that it will move its infrastructure from Rackspace hosting to a colocation space in a Chicago data center.

As Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook's VP of Technical Operations said at last month's Structure 2010 conference, "For a consumer web site starting today, I would absolutely run on the cloud. It allows you to focus on building your product. But if you have 10 million users, that's a pretty big check I'm writing to someone else. How much control do I have?"

Verizon Smartphones (Droids?) Use More Data than iPhones

A study from wireless billing vendor Validas has revealed that Verizon Wireless smartphone owners are now exceeding the data usage of iPhone owners, who are currently restricted to AT&T. According to the study, average data consumption on Verizon smartphones is 421 MB as opposed to 338 MB on the iPhone. Out of all the vendors, Verizon Wireless has seen the largest data usage increase over the past year, jumping from 33.4% to 42.9%.

Since Blackberry devices were excluded from the study (and they compress data anyway), that leaves Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian and Palm's webOS to blame (or thank?) for the Verizon phones' data-hogging ways. But given Motorola's extremely strong Droid sales, most of that data usage is likely to have occurred with Droid devices like the Motorola Droid.

The 2009-2010 Validas study looks at year-over-year trends in wireless data usage across U.S. carriers. The data was drawn from 20,000 consumer wireless bills, analyzed from January through May 2010. To be clear, Validas did not detail the Droid's data usage in the study versus the other phones. We're assuming Droid data usage surpassed data usage on other phones. Below we explain why that assumption is a likely one.

Golfscape Augmented Reality Rangefinder for iPhone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld1tMwZi-n0&feature=player_embedded

Hands On with Golfscape AR Rangefinder for iPhone

As the popularity of augmented reality (AR) grows and the technology becomes increasingly easier to develop, it is hard to find an area of our every day lives that is not being augmented. Sports have played a large role in the proliferation of AR - you can thank the technology for telling you where the first-down line is on Sunday - and it's being brought right down to field level now with mobile applications. Last weekend during a brief vacation, I played a round of golf and was able to test out Golfscape, an iPhone app that helps golfers determine distances with an AR rangefinder.

Golfscape is made by Shotzoom Software, the company behind the popular Golfshot app which provides GPS distances, stat tracking and score keeping. Why the AR functionality isn't simply packaged in with the original Golfshot app is almost beyond me - it may have something to do with the fact that Shotzoom charges $29.99 for Golfshot and $19.99 for Golfscape.

Fake Chinese iPads No Longer Hot Sellers

China's vibrant "shanzhai" (also "shanzai") industry, which modifies or knocks off existing electronic products, quickly pounced on the iPad as it did many other phones and devices. Shanzai.com, a site that reviews these ersatz gadgets, reported the first iPad clone in March. Since then the faux iPads have reportedly been selling like crazy. "China's shanzhai industry is rolling out 'iPads' faster that people can say 'one gig or two'!" CNNGo wrote in June.

But months after the iPad's release, Chinese news media are reporting that the market for fake iPads has slowed dramatically. Why?

Lax intellectual property enforcement has fueled China's scrappy shanzhai industry, especially for consumer electronics. Shanzai phones and gadgets are often cheaper, more available and may come with creative twists, like the inPad's multiple USB ports or the slide-out keyboard that doubles as a stand on an unnamed, but clearly iPad-inspired, tablet device.

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2010년 7월 16일 금요일

Before Applegate, There was Gizmododom

At WWDC, Steve Jobs all but begged the audience to take as close of a look as possible at the little notches separating the stainless steel bands that surround the newly announced iPhone 4. Acknowledging Gizmodo’s capture of an iPhone 4 in the wild, Steve made a point of singling out the gaps between the stainless steel bands to which there had been much speculation across the blogosphere as to their function.

iOS 4.0.1 Available Now

Apple today released the much anticipated first update to the fourth iteration of its mobile operating system iOS 4.0.1. iPhone users everywhere have been eagerly awaiting the new update ever since Apple revealed last month that there was a problem with the way the system was calculating the strength of cellular signals from ATT, incorrectly displaying more bars than appropriate.

It’s worth mentioning that this revelation came in the midst of rampant speculation on the part of many new IPhone 4 owners who were noticing unusual behavior whenever they touched “The Spot” on the new phone’s magical external antenna.

iPad RSS Reader Roundup

NetNewsWire first came out in 2002, and back then, it was the only application of its kind. RSS was just beginning to pick up steam, Google Reader wasn’t even conceived of yet, and most people got their news by visiting a series of bookmarks. Fast-forward to 2010, and the once unique NetNewsWire has started an entire genre of applications dedicated to consuming feeds. NetNewsWire now has three versions, the original OS X app, an iPhone app, and now an iPad app.

NetNewsWire is still the best OS X feed reader available for the Mac, but competition on iOS is stiff. Feed reading is arguably one of the primary uses of the iPad, so making a good RSS client for it very important.

Android Market hits 100,000 apps and a billion downloads (Update: not so much)

While Google hasn’t confirmed these numbers, an estimate of total downloads and app numbers maintained by Androlib has ticked over to 100,000 apps and games available, and a full billion downloaded. iPhone comparisons? If we must. Apple’s billionth app download occurred 287 days after the App Store’s debut. It took Android… well, let’s just say significantly longer. But Android is also seeing accelerating growth. I’m guessing 2 billion isn’t too far off, at this rate.

Update: Google just contradicted Androlib’s app numbers in their earnings call. There are only 70,000. Ah well. Now I’m wondering about that billion figure, too.

Google: Android Cost “Isn’t Material” For the Company — Android Search Up 300% In 2010

During Google’s Q2 2010 earnings call today, one of the things Google’s executives were clearly very excited about was the Android platform. They noted that there are now 70,000 apps in the Android Market — up from 30,000 in April. They also reiterated the company line about how important openness is to the platform. But during the Q&A session, an interesting question was raised: how much investment is Google putting into Android for this open platform?

“Android cost isn’t material for the company,” Google CFO Patrick Pichette noted. He said that it’s important to remember that perhaps the key products for Android — the phone hardware — isn’t developed by Google at all. Droid X, for example, was entirely an investment by Motorola to make the device. “The entire ecosystem is exploding,” Pichette said.

Apple, I Mean A “Source”, Confirms There Will Be No iPhone 4 Recall

As we’re now less than a day away from Apple’s surprise iPhone 4 press conference, speculation is at a fever pitch. Depending on what you read, Apple is either going to recall the device, offer users to trade it in for a new version, offer free bumpers, offer gift cards, simply explain the problem — or do something else entirely. But now it seems that we may be able to rule out one of those scenarios: the recall.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple will not be recalling the device. Normally, this type of one-source report may not seem too concrete — except that WSJ has an interesting history with these type of Apple rumors. That is, they often seem as if they come from Apple itself.

The most recent example of this is in January, when speculation was swirling about Apple’s then-unannounced tablet device. WSJ not only confirmed it, but confirmed that it would ship in March (it eventually slipped to April, but close enough). They also had some funny wording in that story,

Apple to Address iPhone 4 Issues at Friday Conference

Apple, the company that has found itself in the limelight over recent weeks for the antenna trouble experienced by some iPhone 4 users, has said that it will hold a news conference this Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal. While the company has kept tight-lipped about the conference, it has acknowledged one thing - that the iPhone 4 will be at the center of attention.

Within hours of the iPhone hitting owners' doorsteps last month, the reports and YouTube videos showing the then-unconfirmed issue began showing up all over the Internet. The issue came to a head this week when Consumer Reports said it wouldn't recommned the phone and the R-word - recall - started being heard. Although Apple has said the issue could be found across various cell phone models and was due toa software error in how the phone reported signal strength, the hoopla over the antenna issues has continued to grow. This week, the iPhone 4 debacle (which some are now calling "antennagate") hit mainstream audiences when it made it on to David Letterman's Top 10 list.

CloudCamp at OSCON: 5 Topics We'd Like to Discuss

We are thinking of how to get the most out of CloudCamp at OSCON on Monday night as the discussions will be exclusively about open-source and the cloud.

So we decided why not write down some topics that we'd like to explore. These are in no particular order but just generally what we are thinking about. A lot of these questions come from trends and topics of discussion we are seeing on the Web.

Let's get started:

The Basics

A simple discussion on the different components of the open cloud.

Questions: What is the anatomy of the open cloud? What are its components at the node and system infrastructure level? What are the dynamics of the current market that is affecting its overall structure?

2010년 7월 15일 목요일

iOS 4.1 doesn't fix the iPhone 4's death grip antenna issue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F6Qzf4foUI&feature=player_embedded

Nope, iOS 4.1 doesn’t fix the iPhone 4’s death grip antenna issue.

And now, to answer the question that’s on everyone’s mind: Does the just released iOS 4.1 update fix the iPhone 4’s death grip issue — or at least appear to?

No, no it does not. At least in our testing of iOS 4.1 in its current state (intended primarily for developers to use to ensure their apps don’t break), the phone appears to drop signal just as easily as it did on OS 4.0. We’ve got a video of a quick test going up on Youtube right this second — ~~check back in about 3 minutes for that.~~ see below for that.

iOS 4.1 brings a whole new look to Apple’s Game Center

Just a quick note for anyone keeping track of the changes in Apple’s iOS 4.1: Game Center, Apple’s unreleased (outside of the developer network) Xbox Live-esque gaming hub, just got a massive visual overhaul.

Apple Calls A Special Press Conference For Friday, Antenna Issue Likely The Subject

Word is breaking that Apple is calling a special press conference on this coming Friday to talk about the iPhone 4. Yes, you can probably guess what this is about.

Apple blog The Loop has the (basically non-existent) details right now — that it will be in California on Friday morning and about iPhone 4. A small group of press are reportedly getting the invites right now. Update: We just got the call, we’ll be there at 10 AM PT on Friday to cover it live.

The big question that everyone must be wondering is if Apple will announce a recall of the iPhone 4 based on the antenna problems — which are very real. We still believe that’s pretty unlikely. That said, it’s very, very, very rare (in fact, I don’t think it has ever happened) that Apple would call a special press conference at the last second. If they didn’t have something very major to say, they’d much more likely issue a release.

Mobile Accounts for 10% of Google Queries, Says Analyst

Mobile searches account for an estimated 10% of Google queries, says Citi analyst Mark Mahaney in a research note released earlier this week. The report, which examined the new comScore search market data, mainly focused on how the use of slideshows by Yahoo and Bing perhaps unfairly boosted their search share ratings.

The mobile search mention itself was nearly overlooked, as it was more of side note in the larger report. Although comScore doesn't include mobile search results in its findings, said Mahaney, those queries now account for "almost 10% of total GOOG queries."

Mobile search queries are "growing very rapidly for GOOG - perhaps triple-digit Y/Y growth," remarked Mahaney in the note released Tuesday morning before attributing the 10% figure to them.

2010년 7월 14일 수요일

Facebook's OpenGraph is Coming to the Mobile Web

Facebook's new head of mobile products, Eric Tseng, spoke today at MobileBeat 2010, introducing a new approach to the company's OpenGraph.

"Where we're going from here is a platform strategy. We're going away from a one-off app strategy,"

In other words, OpenGraph's going mobile, in more ways than one.

Goin' Mobile

First, Facebook considers and will approach further development of OpenGraph as a platform with infinite reach. Second, you'll soon see OpenGraph elements, like the Like button, growing out through unconnected mobile apps, as they already have through the non-mobile space. Facebook, after all, counts its mobile users at 150 million.

The "'Like' button for the entire Web" has now become the Like button for the post-Web world. Whether that is a good thing is highly debatable. That it is in fact a reality is not.

Android 2.2 Froyo on HTC HD2 !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f891vm6vWHM&feature=player_embedded

Where are the Good Mobile Coupons?

Headed out to do some shopping and looking for a few good deals? Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and their accompanying mobile applications, the ability to access geo-targeted coupons from nearby merchants on your handheld device is easier than ever.

Or is it?

In theory, you should be able to go into any store, launch an app and find a coupon for that business which could then be presented to the cashier. We have the technology - it is possible. In practice, however, this sort of mobilized "discount shopping" experience is still quite a ways off.

In Apple's ecosystem alone, dozens of applications are returned when you search iTunes for "mobile coupons." But after some experimentation with a handful of the top names (and a couple of newcomers), the experience was less than desirable.

Cloud-Based Music Services Must Do More Than Sync or Store

Despite claims from sectors of the record industry that file-sharing kills creativity or that the Internet is dead, the digital music industry clearly has strong momentum right now, aided in no small part by cloud technologies that promise ubiquitous access to music. Both Apple and Google are poised to make an entry into cloud-based music services, joining the numerous other vendors already vying to provide us with music acquisition, sharing, and storage services.

A new report from Forrester Research examines the ways in which the cloud will help enable what it describes as a "360 degree music experience" - not merely opening up the availability of our music across all of our various devices, but expanding the ways in which we experience our "record" collection.

2010년 7월 13일 화요일

Consumer Reports Won’t Recommend the iPhone

Consumer Reports has released testing results of the new iPhone 4 and has confirmed the alleged reception problem is indeed a function of the design of the phone’s antenna. The organization goes as far as refusing to recommend the iPhone 4 to consumers due to the severity of the problem. This flies in the face of Apple’s claims that the problem involves the software displaying the network signal strength, and not an actual reception problem.

Apple’s iPod is Not Dead and Not Dying

Apple’s iconic iPod digital music player is credited for reviving the company and helping the it dominate consumer mind share and spending over the past decade. It still amazes me when I think about all of the MP3 players and companies who failed and the music stores that are now on life support and how badly Apple has hurt Sony, Microsoft and other companies who bet millions on defeating the iPod. One of my greatest fears has started to come true where analysts are now throwing the notion out there that the iPod is dead or dying.Read more...

Steve Ballmer Announces That There Will be Tablet Announcements

ASUS EeePad At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference today, Steve Ballmer promised tablets in a variety of form factors would arrive by the end of the year from partners including Asus, Dell, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba - but offered no specifics. ASUS has already announced ASUS Eee Pad and MSI has announced the WindPad, but previous Windows tablet projects such as the HP Slate and the Microsoft Courier are vaporware thus far. Microsoft is said to be targeting IT managers with its tablets.

Microsoft will be entering a competitive marketplace in which enterprises will have several options. The iPad is gaining in the enterprise, Cisco is entering the tablet market with an Android tablet, and RIM is rumored to be releasing a BlackBerry tablet. Also, Dell has already released a consumer focused Android tablet and Intel and Nokia have demoed a MeeGo tablet.

iPhone 4 to Get First Mobile Video Relay Service for Deaf Users

Apple's face-to-face video chat for the iPhone 4, FaceTime, has been the word on the lips of many people recently, for reasons from its (ahem) innovative uses to its touching commercials. But beyond showing off haircuts and braces, the service is creating a lot of buzz in another community entirely: the deaf.

Video relay service provider ZVRS has announced what it says is the world's first mobile VRS using Apple's FaceTime app - a move that is likely to make the iPhone 4 the smartphone of choice for the deaf community. For the first time, deaf and hearing-impaired callers will be able to communicate not only with each other, but also with hearing individuals while they're on the go.

5 Big Questions About Google's New App Inventor

Google has announced the pending availability of App Inventor, a visual development software for the Android platform. Depending on your perspective, Android is the most or second most exciting mobile operating system on the market - and an easy and popular platform for everyday people to make apps is big, big news.

What does it mean? Where will this go? There are five specific questions we'd like to ask about this potential game changer.

Ben & Jerry's: How a Big Brand Explores Augmented Reality

As we have mentioned previously, the success of augmented reality depends partly on its exposure through major mainstream brands. Late last week, the Ben & Jerry's ice cream empire took its first steps into the world of AR by adding the functionality to its iPhone app - but not in the way you might immediately assume. Today, I had the opportunity to chat with Katie O'Brien from Ben & Jerry's about the app and how a large brand approaches unique and niche emerging technologies.

Usually when a large brand experiments with mobile AR, they immediately think to provide the heads-up navigator that helps people find store locations. We saw this earlier this year when the popular sandwich chain Quiznos partnered with Layar to provide this exact functionality, but the company peppered in a bit of its own brand of fun as well.

2010년 7월 12일 월요일

App Inventor in Action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ADwPLSFeY8&feature=player_embedded

How to Play SNES on Your iPad in Four Easy Steps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQtZcJoIt3o&feature=player_embedded

Nexus One Hacks - Ubuntu Running on Nexus One Android!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wQ9XogfjRU&feature=player_embedded

Flaming iPhone 4 alert (you’re burning it wrong)

burn

Don’t worry, this doesn’t appear to be the kind of hissing explosion we saw happening on previous iPhone models. All signs point to a faulty USB port, which I think we can forgive a couple of when there are millions being made. But fiery iPhones are always worth reporting, so here you go.Read more...

Report: Fujitsu develops its first Android phone

And we have yet another cell phone maker joining the Android bandwagon. Various Japanese media, for example Sankei Digital [JP], are reporting that Fujitsu is currently working on an Android-based smartphone.

Details are scarce at this point, but Fujitsu is planning to market the device to the 55 million mobile subscribers NTT Doccomo has first (Docomo is Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier). It will be Fujitsu’s first Android phone and is expected to hit stores next year.

How to install Android on most Windows Mobile phones

There’s an active community of devs steadily porting Android over to different families of Windows Mobile devices. There’s a port for nearly every series now. However, installation isn’t that easy and you might not want to do it on your work-issued HTC Touch HD. But if you happen to have an unused handset chilling in a drawer someplace that you’re not worried about bricking, continue on for a list of the compatible devices.

iPhone 4 w/ Bumper Drop Test by iFixYouri.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Li7YhEVYsw&feature=player_embedded

Fact: iPhone 4 takes 23 percent longer to charge via USB than via electrical outlet

Well look at this. The iPhone 4 takes an average of 23 percent longer to charge while charging via USB than it does while charging via a standard electrical outlet.

Now, of course, this isn’t exactly breaking news in the traditional sense of the phrase—I’d be shocked if you didn’t know, or at least suspect, that it takes longer to charge via USB than via an outlet.

In dollars and cents, that means the iPhone 4 takes an extra 30 minutes to charge via USB.

And there’s this handy chart.

The more you know, folks. The more you know.

T-Mobile Vibrant coming a bit early: July 15th

galax

Just a quick note: the Vibrant, T-Mobile’s variant of the Samsung Galaxy S Android big-phone, will be getting here a little early — July 15th to be precise.

Maybe it’s to head off the Droid X menace (not to mention the other Galaxy models), or maybe they just got things done a little quicker than expected and want to push it out the door. We’ll never know.I mean, unless somebody tells us.

iPhone 4 jailbroken, but not for you

A bit of bittersweet news for all you crazy cats and kittens. GeoHot has jailbroken the iPhone 4 but, as he says in his comments, don’t ask him for it. He won’t give it to you.

What does this mean? It means you’ll eventually be able to pop homebrew software on the phone but it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to unlock it – yet. That’s next. As Tom Petty wrote, “Waayyaaaayting is the hardest part.”

Apple’s Loose Ends

While Apple has been releasing fancy new products recently, like the iPad and the iPhone 4, this last week something brought my thoughts back sharply to some products that have been languishing for some time without an update. There are a number of products that Apple has let sit for too long and badly need some attention.

The top of this list would probably be the Apple TV, but recent rumors of an imminent refresh of the device, perhaps built on iOS, has bumped the “hobby” project in favor of some other devices and features that are waiting for a little love from Apple.

Geo-Awareness & the Cloud

Just because your data is housed "in the cloud" doesn't mean that earthbound geography can simply be ignored. And while the World Wide Web promises a global and ubiquitous technology, location still matters.

Obviously, data is still housed in a particular place, even if that place is "in the cloud." And while major cloud providers have data centers worldwide - often with locations across several sites in Asia, Europe, and North America - the specific location of these cloud centers as well as the location of the end-users remain important - and complicated.

Trillian for Android On Deck

Instant messaging client Trillian announced on its blog today that an Android version will be available within a couple of weeks.

Trillian dovetails IM from a host of services into one platform, including Facebook Chat, Windows Live, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber/XMPP and MySpaceIM. It will support Android back to version 1.6.

Trillian already has an iPhone app, which is also being tinkered with a bit, including iOS 4 multitasking. But this is not a rough sketch of that version, according to the company.

Microsoft Readies For War with New Small Business Division For Cloud Push

Microsoft is making two big bets for the new fiscal year: the cloud and the small business market.

So it's fitting that the company is creating a new division that will be chartered with offering cloud computing services for the small business sector.

According to ChannelWeb, the division will include all of the SMB sales, technical, marketing and distribution resources under a single multibillion dollar division. It's reputed to have as much resources it needs for its efforts.

iPad & Nexus One: Voted Best of the Web 2010 by RWW Readers

This week we ran a poll asking you to vote for the Web product or platform that has most impressed you in 2010. The overwhelming winner was the Apple iPad, launched in January. This isn't a surprise, but the fact that the iPad garnered over twice as many votes as the second-place getter shows just how much impact the iPad has had on the Web landscape this year.

Second was the Nexus One, an iPhone challenger that runs Google's mobile OS, Android. This shows another significant trend of 2010: the increasing market penetration of Android as a smart phone platform competing with the iPhone. Full poll results below...

2010년 7월 8일 목요일

What Makes an Apple Store So Great

If you haven’t had an opportunity to visit an Apple Store, I strongly recommend doing so. My last visit was a week ago when I picked up my new iPhone 4 and, though I’ve visited the stores plenty of times before, waiting in line reminded me of what makes Apple’s retail plans such a success.

True, I’ve written before about some of the missteps that Apple has taken, but even with its faults, the company never stops and keeps striving to make a difference in the minds of its customers. So what makes an Apple Store so great? It’s all about the experience.

BlackBerry Users Get an Official Twitter App

Beginning Tuesday night, BlackBerry maker RIM began rolling out its official "Twitter for BlackBerry" mobile application to users by way of the BlackBerry App World site, where it can be found under the "social networking" category.

The app, which has been in beta since April, supports all the features one would expect from a mobile Twitter application, including access to timelines, replies, messages, trends and profiles. But it also includes several BlackBerry-specific options, including push notifications, hotkeys and integration with core BlackBerry apps.

Download Our Latest Report For Free: The Future of the Cloud

We're delighted to announce ReadWriteWeb's fourth premium report, The Future of the Cloud: Cloud Platform APIs are the Business of Cloud Computing. Thanks to the generosity of our partners VMWare and Intel, we're providing this report at no cost to you.

Cloud computing is fundamentally changing the way we do business - from strategic planning to how services are delivered. We've been actively tracking these changes on our channel ReadWriteCloud and this report is an extension of that.

Introducing the New YouTube Mobile Website

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGT8ZCTBoBA&feature=player_embedded

2010년 7월 7일 수요일

iPad Dock Perfect for Writing

One of the best features of the iPad is its lack of features, especially when it comes to writing. Knowing that chat is not running and Twitter is turned off lets the writer focus entirely on the task of writing. However, typing on the iPad’s software keyboard for anything more than a couple of paragraphs is frustrating, for me at least. That’s where the Apple iPad dock comes in. Putting the iPad in the dock presents the writer with an elegant and enjoyable environment perfectly focused on cranking out text.

Apple is Abandoning the Mac…and Why I’m Wrong

Leading up to this year’s WWDC in San Francisco, the amount of articles and speculation about Apple’s commitment to Mac OS grew when Apple announced practically zero tracks dedicated to Mac OS and threw out the IT track completely. Apple also didn’t give any Apple Design Awards this year to Mac OS Apps. The winners (listed here) were only iPad and iPhone apps.

That decision actually inspired Ars.Technica to hold its own ADAs (Ars Design Awards) celebrating Mac OS developers and their work in the past 12 months. Developers gave their opinions on TUAW.com and this quote from Justin Williams of Second Gear Software gave his opinion:

Ashes Brings Slick RSS Reader Fever to iPad

Fever, a gorgeous RSS reader we dubbed one of the top syndication technologies of 2009, is now available in iPad format by way of a new mobile application called "Ashes." Like its desktop sibling, the Ashes RSS reader offers the same ranking features that make Fever so much fun to use.

Instead of overloading you with information as you increase your RSS subscriptions, Fever actually works better the more feeds you add. It automatically picks out the most-discussed feeds from a given period of time and surfaces those to the top of the reader, assigning temperatures next to the headlines (hence the name "Fever" - Get it? These feeds are hot!) The more feeds it has to work with, the better these rankings become. Meanwhile, unread counts are hidden so you can focus on the signal while ignoring the noise...and do so completely guilt-free.

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