Group items tagged

That has sparked an uproar among some Chinese Internet users, because the unfiltered Web access will be available only to foreign companies, according to the reports. People commenting on social-networking sites have slammed the zone as a throwback to the days of "No dogs and no Chinese allowed,"a reference to how local Chinese were prohibited in the early 20th century from entering certain foreigner communities.

Chongqing Economic and Information Technology Commission, which is overseeing development of the cloud zone, declined to comment on whether the media reports about Web access were accurate. A spokeswoman said the commission continues to "push forward" with the project.

"It goes beyond ironic," he said. "The Chinese government is marketing an uncensored, unfiltered Internet connection as a selling point, while they so blatantly and purposely deny that right to the vast majority of their citizens."

1. Distributed cocreation moves into the mainstreamIn the past few years, the ability to organise communities of Web participants to develop, market, and support products and services has moved from the margins of business practice to the mainstream. Wikipedia and a handful of open-source software developers were the pioneers. But in signs of the steady march forward, 70 per cent of the executives we recently surveyed said that their companies regularly created value through Web communities. Similarly, more than 68m bloggers post reviews and recommendations about products and services.

for every success in tapping communities to create value, there are still many failures. Some companies neglect the up-front research needed to identify potential participants who have the right skill sets and will be motivated to participate over the longer term. Since cocreation is a two-way process, companies must also provide feedback to stimulate continuing participation and commitment. Getting incentives right is important as well: cocreators often value reputation more than money. Finally, an organisation must gain a high level of trust within a Web community to earn the engagement of top participants.

2. Making the network the organisation In earlier research, we noted that the Web was starting to force open the boundaries of organisations, allowing nonemployees to offer their expertise in novel ways. We called this phenomenon "tapping into a world of talent." Now many companies are pushing substantially beyond that starting point, building and managing flexible networks that extend across internal and often even external borders. The recession underscored the value of such flexibility in managing volatility. We believe that the more porous, networked organisations of the future will need to organise work around critical tasks rather than molding it to constraints imposed by corporate structures.

Security is a hot issue in the computing world. Hackers broke into Sony's networks and accessed the information of more than 1 million customers, the latest of several security breaches.The breaches were the latest attacks on high-profile firms, including defense contractor Lockheed Martin and Google, which pointed the blame at China.

Analysts and industry experts believe hardware-based security provides a higher level of protection than software with encryption added to data in the servers. Chipmakers are working to build more authentication into the silicon.

one of the problems cloud faces is that it is a fragmented market where many vendors provide different security solutions based on their own standards.Intel's rival ARM and Advanced Micro Devices are also in the process of embedding higher security in their chips and processors, but working with different partners.If there was an open standard to follow, it would help the industry to build a much secure cloud system, according to AMD.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke in Washington about the Internet and human liberty, a Columbia law professor in Manhattan, Eben Moglen, was putting together a shopping list to rebuild the Internet — this time, without governments and big companies able to watch every twitch of our fingers.

The list begins with “cheap, small, low-power plug servers,” Mr. Moglen said. “A small device the size of a cellphone charger, running on a low-power chip. You plug it into the wall and forget about it.”

Almost anyone could have one of these tiny servers, which are now produced for limited purposes but could be adapted to a full range of Internet applications, he said. “They will get very cheap, very quick,” Mr. Moglen said. “They’re $99; they will go to $69. Once everyone is getting them, they will cost $29.”

In his hour long presentation, he discusses… 2:05 Ubiquitous Human Computing or “Minds for Sale” 2:32 The Tween Bot 4:14 Crowdsourcing “The Future of the Internet” 7:36 A tour of the Ubiquitous Human Computing pyramid 8:37 Example 1: The X-Prize 10:24 Example 2: Innocentive 12:08 Example 3: LiveOps 15:43 Example 4: SamaSource 16:16 Example 5: Amazon’s Mechanical Turk 20:13 Example 6: The ESP Game 22:47 Example 7: Human Computing for Electronic Design Automation 24:01 Example 8: Google 25:24 Why Should We be Pessimistic? 26:38 Child Labor on PBS 28:11 Laboring for a Devious Cause 29:23 US Border Webcams 30:05 Smart Drive 30:45 Internet Eyes 32:09 Identifying Protesters 33:21 A Speculative Example 35:05 Mechanical Turking your way to a Fake Reputation 39:36 Mechanical Turking your way to a Political Movement 41:20 Captchas Sweatshops 43:03 “Crowding Out” 44:41 The Future of Crowdsourcing and How to Stop It 47:14 Clickworkers of the World Unite! 50:45 Monetizing Kindness

Running a server is no more difficult than starting Windows on your desktop. That’s the message Dave Winer, forefather of blogging and creator of RSS, is trying to get across with his EC2 for Poets project.

Winer has put together an easy-to-follow tutorial so you too can set up a Windows-based server running in the cloud. Winer uses Amazon’s EC2 service. For a few dollars a month, Winer’s tutorial can have just about anyone up and running with their own server.

but education and empowerment aren’t Winer’s only goals. “I think it’s important to bust the mystique of servers,” says Winer, “it’s essential if we’re going to break free of the ‘corporate blogging silos.’”

The state-of-the-art data centers, meant to make Chongqing a big player in the cloud computing game, might attract business, but the locals certainly aren’t too happy about it [via IT World]: That has sparked an uproar among some Chinese Internet users, because the unfiltered Web access will be available only to foreign companies, according to the reports. People commenting on social-networking sites have slammed the zone as a throwback to the days of “No dogs and no Chinese allowed,”a reference to how local Chinese were prohibited in the early 20th century from entering certain foreigner communities

Freedom Box is the name we give to a personal server running a free software operating system, with free applications designed to create and preserve personal privacy. Freedom Box software is particularly tailored to run in "plug servers," which are compact computers that are no larger than power adapters for electronic appliances. Located in people's homes or offices such inexpensive servers can provide privacy in normal life, and safe communications for people seeking to preserve their freedom in oppressive regimes.

Because social networking and digital communications technologies are now critical to people fighting to make freedom in their societies or simply trying to preserve their privacy where the Web and other parts of the Net are intensively surveilled by profit-seekers and government agencies. Because smartphones, mobile tablets, and other common forms of consumer electronics are being built as "platforms" to control their users and monitor their activity. Freedom Box exists to counter these unfree "platform" technologies that threaten political freedom. Freedom Box exists to provide people with privacy-respecting technology alternatives in normal times, and to offer ways to collaborate safely and securely with others in building social networks of protest, demonstration, and mobilization for political change in the not-so-normal times. Freedom Box software is built to run on hardware that already exists, and will soon become much more widely available and much more inexpensive. "Plug servers" and other compact devices are going to become ubiquitous in the next few years, serving as "media centers," "communications centers," "wireless routers," and many other familiar and not-so-familiar roles in office and home. Freedom Box software images will turn all sorts of such devices into privacy appliances. Taken together, these appliances will afford people around the world options for communicating, publishing, and collaborating that will resist state intervention or disruption. People owning these appliances will be able to restore anonymity in the Net, despite efforts of despotic regimes to keep track of who reads what and who communicates with whom. For a list of specific Freedom Box capabilities, check out our Goals page.

With a strong focus on speed, the Chrome OS promises nearly instant boot times of about 7 seconds for users to login to their computers.

t will not be available as a download to run and install. Instead, Chrome OS is only shipping on specific hardware from manufacturers Google has partnered with. That means if you want Chrome OS, you’ll have to purchase a Chrome OS device.

Chrome OS netbooks will not have traditional hard disk drives — they will rely on non-volatile flash memory and internet-based storage for saving all of your data.