Category: Links

Oracle Rumored to Buy webOS from Hewlett-Packard

Today I read the post linked below that talks about a rumor that Oracle is planning to buy webOS from Hewlett-Packard. HP became the owner of webOS when it acquired Palm and released the Touchpad a few months ago that used webOS as its operating system. Sadly for HP, this tablet failed miserably and only became popular for a short while when the price was dropped to $99 in the United States, resulting in a fire sale.

The post is a bit cynical when stating the following:

Oracle? How does that work, you ask? Well, Oracle has close ties to Apple, since Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison, was one of Steve Jobs’ closest friends. This explains – in large part – Oracle’s interest in suing Google over Android’s use of Java technologies. Since Oracle probably has some spare change lying around, a purchase of webOS and associated IP may give them some additional patents to sue others with.

I sincerely hope that a great, though unpopular operating system like webOS will not end up as ammunition in patent lawsuits.

An other post on ZDnet publishes the same thoughts and has some other views as well. The link to this post can also be found below.

Tilt: a Firefox Addon for Viewing, Debugging and Editing Webpages in 3D

Are you a web developer and is Firefox your main browser? Then I suggest taking a look at Tilt: an addon that enables you to view the structure of a webpage in 3D. Not only does this look truly awesome but it is also very helpful and educating when used to view existing websites.

You can even use it with Firebug and Style Editor at the same time. Here is a quote from Mozilla blog post, which is linked below:

Because Tilt is able to detect when a webpage’s DOM structure changes or when a repaint is necessary, integration is seamless with existing Developer Tools. Using Tilt and Firebug or Style Editor at the same time is easy. One can enable or disable CSS properties, changing the style of a node, and the visualization changes accordingly.

Tilt can be extremely useful for solving nesting problems:

Tilt is useful when searching problems in the HTML structure (like finding unclosed DIV elements for example) by providing the extra third dimension, layering each node based on nesting in the DOM tree. Stacks of elements visually represent branches in the DOM, and each node can be inspected for the inner HTML contents, its computed CSS style and the attributes.

For a detailed explanation of the addon and a couple of cool videos that demonstrate it, click the link below.

Link : hacks.mozilla.org – Debugging and editing webpages in 3D

Microsoft’s Latest Security Intelligence Report from 2011

Some interesting quotes from Ars Technica’s summary of Microsoft’s latest Security Intelligence Report (linked below). The first one talks about spam volumes. We’re talking about billions of messages a month here, which is mind-boggling if you try to imagine this.

Microsoft … attributes the drop [in spam volumes] primarily to the “takedowns of two major botnets: Cutwail, which was shut down in August 2010, and Rustock, which was shut down in March 2011 following a period of dormancy that began in January.” Consequently, the biggest drops in e-mails blocked occurred in September 2010, when spam dropped to about 65 billion messages, and in January 2011, when it fell under 40 billion. The low point was in May 2011, with about 22 billion, but it ticked up again in June.

The next quote is about Java, and it’s not really good news for Java:

The most commonly observed exploits target vulnerabilities in Java, specifically the Java Runtime Environment, Java Virtual Machine, and Java SE in the Java Development Kit. “Java exploits were responsible for between one-third and one-half of all exploits observed in each of the four most recent quarters,” Microsoft said.

For more details and some interesting graphs, visit the link below.

Link : ars technica – Microsoft finds 64 billion fewer spam messages per month after …

iPhone 4S Preliminary Benchmarks Show Impressive Numbers

Looking at the graphs in the article linked below, the iPhone 4S is about 80% faster than the Samsung Galaxy S2. That’s nearly double the performance of this flagship Android device. The benchmarks of the iPhone 4S are getting close to those of an iPad 2. Quite impressive.

I am very curious how the Nexus Prime with Ice Cream Sandwich will perform compared to the iPhone 4S. We’ll have to wait a few weeks to find out.

Link : AnandTech – iPhone 4S Preliminary Benchmarks: …

Oracle Takes U-turn, Announces NoSQL Database

Talking about a U-turn…
Oracle must have thought: “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

A few quotes from the article on Wired.com that I linked below:

Just four months ago, Oracle released a very official-looking corporate white paper intent on “debunking the hype” surrounding the NoSQL movement — a widespread effort to build a new breed of database that can juggle vast amounts of “unstructured” information in ways a traditional Oracle database can’t.
“The NoSQL databases are beginning to feel like an ice cream store that entices you with a new flavor of the month,” the white paper read. “[But] you shouldn’t get too attached to any of the flavors because it may not be around for too long.”

…

Last week, a few words sprinkled onto the OpenWorld website indicated that such a database was on the way, and with his Monday morning keynote, Oracle executive vice president of product development Thomas Kurian officially acknowledged the unkept secret, announcing that the Oracle NoSQL Database will be included with a new hardware system known as the Oracle Big Data Appliance. Big Data is the moniker du jour for the epic amounts of unstructured web data facing many of today’s businesses, and with the new appliance, Oracle is embracing not only NoSQL, but Hadoop, the other open source movement so often associated with the term.

Link : Wired – Oracle Defies Self With ‘NoSQL’ Database

iPhone 4S Already Outdated on Day of Release?

If you check the table in the article at Engadget.com linked below you’ll see that the Samsung Galaxy S2 beats the iPhonse 4S on 13 points where it comes to the hardware. That’s a not a good sign considering the iPhone 4S is not even in the shops yet. Every new Android flagship phone from Samsung, HTC, LG and other phone makers will leave the iPhone even more behind.

Link : Engadget – iPhone 4S vs. the smartphone elite: Galaxy S II, Bionic and Titan

My Top 10 Amplify Posts for May 2011

Next to the website you are looking at right now, there is an other blog I maintain that resides at Amplify.com which is called an Amplog. This website enables you to curate and clip content from the Internet, add your take on the subject and add it to your Amplog.

Posts you create can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, Ping.fm and other social media sites. You can also follow other people on Amplify as news sources, which generates a news stream on the site. And of course you can fire up a discussion by commenting on posts.

Below you will find a top 10 of  the most popular posts from my Amplog from May 2011.

Continue reading My Top 10 Amplify Posts for May 2011

Whatever Happened to the Audiophile?

Today I found a great article about the audiophile of yesterday and today. I recognize myself when the author describes Laurie Monblatt’s listening room. One of the best ways for me to spend time on a free afternoon is to listen to music, preferably from CD or high-resolution formats as SuperAudio-CD (SACD) and DVD-A.

Can’t wait until the next weekend and drown myself into my favorite music!

Continue reading Whatever Happened to the Audiophile?

Meditation Really Can Change the Brain, Study Finds

The following article encourages me even more to attend meditation classes in the near future. If an eight-week meditation program already generates measurable effects, I am curious what the results would be like if you followed a regime of meditation for one year, a few years or even more.

I haven’t decided yet which kind of meditation I would like to go for. Suggestions anyone?

Continue reading Meditation Really Can Change the Brain, Study Finds

Engadget’s Samsung Galaxy Tab Review

The Samsung Galaxy Tab gets a fairly good review. When I look at the price tag in the US, which is $600, I think they could learn from that over here in Europe. In the Netherlands for example the recommended retail price is €750, which is over a thousand dollars. That’s an outrageous difference in price.

Link : Engadget – Samsung Galaxy Tab review

Can Steve Jobs’ iPhone Walled Garden Model Stop Botnets?

On an iPhone, every app lives in its own “walled garden”. An app can only read and write files in its own document folder and cannot access the document folders of other apps or files of the core system.

Mathew J. Schwartz of InformationWeek has the opinion that this approach should be introduced in Windows as well to “gain an edge in the botnet war of attrition” as he says. And you know what? I think he is right.

If you have read the reports of Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event, you may have noticed that Apple is already heading in that direction. During the keynote, Steve Jobs introduced an app store for the Mac. I am curious if Microsoft will do the same in the future for their Windows OS.

Below the jump you will find a quote and a link to Mathew J. Schwartz complete story.

Continue reading Can Steve Jobs’ iPhone Walled Garden Model Stop Botnets?