may the force be with you

A handful of examples of how Google's genetic composition is poised to transform — in most cases, the transformation has already begun

Over the past eight years, Google has quietly and steadily assembled an impressive suite of products and services (yes, their capabilities span far beyond the realm of "I'm Feeling Lucky"). All the while, critics argue that at a time when it is essential for the promise of the Google brand be clear to all, the evolution of Google and its sub-branded properties only makes its promise more elusive.

source:http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2006/id20060411_490873.htm?campaign_id=bier_inna

University research isn't always up on the latest in business IT

Last week I was at Cambridge, learning what Henslow taught Darwin (Kohn, Murrell, Parker and Whitehorn, Nature, vol. 436, 4 August 2005, p643 – available online if you subscribe/register).

Henslow, elected Professor of Botany at Cambridge in 1825, was a careful scientist, the first university lecturer to illustrate his lectures (yes, even before PowerPoint), and a creationist who investigated the variation within species in order to show that species were created as fundamentally stable things that just varied widely in response to conditions.

Darwin was his pupil (Henslow helped arrange for Darwin’s presence on the Beagle), but Darwin made the intellectual leap that allowed him to interpret Henslow’s records of variation - not as evidence of a fixed set of created species with variations, but as evidence of the evolution of new species in action.

Why was I there representing Reg Developer? Well, John Parker’s research establishing exactly what Henslow was doing and its importance to Darwin’s work was assisted by Mark Whitehorn, Reg Developer columnist and database expert, who got his PhD with Parker many years ago.

The research team was cross-disciplinary in the first place – it included David Kohn, a historian from Drew University in New Jersey, USA (who “went white” when he learnt what Henslow had been doing, since he had to rewrite a chunk of his book, yet to be published, on Darwin); Gina Murrell from the Cambridge University Herbarium; as well as Parker, who is from the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

However, it was largely chance that Mark was around to point out that correlating Henslow’s plant collections with the time of collection, the people involved, Darwin’s published work and so on using a card index, was woefully inefficient. He designed a database to hold all the information available from Henslow’s collections (found in sheds and attics around Cambridge, as I remember it) and advised and assisted with the extensive data cleansing needed.

He chose Microsoft SQL Server (although he says any reasonable relational database would have done) to store the data, because he considers its query and analysis facilities to be unparalleled today – and he used SQL Server 2005 in its beta incarnation, simply because it made the management of the database and analysis very much easier than with the previous version. And, the research team’s enthusiasm for the way they could now ask questions of their data and get immediate answers and visualisations was palpable.

Of course, Henslow’s sheets of paper with collections of plants stuck to them, illustrating variations within a single species, is also a database of sorts. These days, we’d photograph the plants and store them in an electronic database as an extended datatype (although whether recreating the database from a set of CDs in a box in a cupboard some 150 years later would be as feasible as recreating Henslow’s work is moot). But perhaps we wouldn’t.

Although computers are widely used in theoretical physics and such research, the tools taken as routine in business are being overlooked in academia – if Mark hadn’t taken a PhD with John Parker and then moved into databases (he’s in the Department of Applied Computing at the University of Dundee) this research would have been based on shuffling index cards in a card index box (or, at best, on something like a spreadsheet).

Makes you think. And one thing it makes me think is that there are still unexplored opportunities for database specialists out there. And, frankly, 20 years or more after James Martin first excited me with the potential of Relational Databases, that rather surprises me.

source:http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/04/10/henslow_darwin_sqlserver/

As TV audiences have shrunk over the past few years, networks have begun scrambling for ways to keep their programming in front of as many eyeballs as possible. The latest move comes from ABC, which will make a number of its most popular programs available online at no cost. Beginning April 30, a redesigned ABC.com website will allow web surfers to watch full episodes of programs such as Lost, Desperate Housewives, and others starting the morning after they air on ABC. In addition, programming from other Disney-owned networks will be made available online over the next couple of months. The first will by Soapnet, which will begin programming on April 17, followed by the Disney Channel in June, and ABC Family at an unspecified point in the future.

All programs will be shown in their entirety, including commercials which cannot be avoided. That's a smart move on ABC's part, as it ensures that advertisers will get another shot at hawking their wares to an audience that might otherwise change channels during commercial breaks or fast-forward through them if recorded. Aside from being unable to avoid commercials, watching the programs will be similar to watching timeshifted content in that viewers will be able to pause, fast forward, and rewind.

ABC's move is the boldest by far of the major networks. NBC appears to be headed in a similar direction, as Jeff Zucker, CEO of the NBC Universal Television Group has called on producers to rethink how they market their shows. His "TV 360" concept means thinking about how to monetize nonbroadcast content, including online and wireless device delivery. NBC also has plans to make a handful of online-only episodes of the British import The Office available online over the summer. Unlike ABC, these episodes will not appear first on TV before showing up online.

Offering full programs online is part of Disney's "rich media destination" strategy. Disney, which owns ABC, is making its content available through a number of delivery methods at varying cost to the consumer. In many ways, it's a no-brainer, as viewers have demonstrated by their viewing habits that they want more control over where, when, and how they watch programming.

Fans of ABC and Disney programming will now have a broad menu of choices for watching their shows. They can catch them when they first air or watch them online the day after for free, but with commercials. If they want to watch them on the go, individual episodes without ads are available from the iTunes Music Store for US$1.99 each, or they can purchase a season-long "multi-pass" for US$34.99 (about US$1.40 per show). There's the on-demand cable option for about US$1.00 a show, also without ads. Of course there's the most expensive option: the DVD, which will doesn't do much for immediate gratification as it won't be available until after the season concludes.

ABC's move may result in fewer sales for iTMS, as viewers opt to watch programming for free on their computers rather than buying it from Apple. On the other hand, the prospect of having to sit through 16-18 minutes of commercials to watch a one-hour show may be enough to send some customers running to iTMS. But that's the beauty of ABC's new model. It gives consumers more control over watching TV, which the networks will have to do if they want to reverse declining viewership trends. This is the face of TV 2.0—embrace and extend!

source:http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060410-6562.html

Researchers at IBM have come up with a way to hardwire encryption technology into a microprocessor, promising a more secure way to store data.

IBM plans to announce availability of the new technology, dubbed Secure Blue, on Monday. The Armonk, N.Y.-based company envisions its idea and technology will be used in digital media players, electronic organizers, cell phones, computers and devices used by the government and the medical and financial industries.

With Secure Blue, data is encrypted and decrypted as it runs through a processor, according to IBM. It is maintained encrypted in the device memory, or RAM. One of the few times data would not be scrambled is when it is actually displayed.

"There is a lot of concern about leakage of data," Charles Palmer, manager security and privacy at IBM, said in an interview. "If you have an architecture where that information is always encrypted, you go a long way to protect your data."

Secure Blue requires a few circuits to be added to a microprocessor, taking up a small percentage of the overall silicon real estate, according to IBM. The encryption and decryption happens on-the-fly, without any processor overhead, the company said.

The hardwired security technology can be used for multiple purposes, not all of which necessarily serve the device owner. It can protect data when a person's computer or device is lost, stolen or hacked, for example. But content owners can also use it for enforcement of copyright, called digital rights management (DRM), which critics have called a scourge to user freedom.

"This is a technology that can solve a lot of problems," Palmer said. "It can be used for DRM, it can be used for systems management, and it can be used for protecting my information on the BlackBerry." The future will decide how it will be used. IBM on Monday is only announcing availability of the technology, Palmer noted.

The idea of hardware-based security is not new. Millions of laptops already contain a chip called a Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, which offers protected storage of encryption keys, passwords and digital certificates. The idea of the TPM is also coming to servers and mobile phones.

"The TPM is a step in the right direction," Palmer said. "But it is not a bulk encryption device, and it would probably melt if you try to use it for an encrypted anywhere capability."

IBM has built a prototype of Secure Blue using its own PowerPC processor technology. However, the system will work with any processor design, including those from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices that are used in PCs. An IBM representative said the company has not had discussions with Intel or AMD on including Secure Blue in their processors.

source:http://news.com.com/2100-7355_3-6059276.html?part=rss&tag=6059276&subj=news