platform

One rule: Run!

Canabalt is an elegant and addictive side-scrolling game with an extremely simple interface and premise. You play a suit-wearing office-worker who is running and jumping across a series of rooftops and other structures, while you see the city behind you in the midst of some sort of mysterious giant-robot assault.

The interface is very straightforward: you run left to right automatically, steadily picking up speed (if you avoid obstacles), and you tap the screen to jump, with the longer you press, the farther you jump. That's it. But as you run, you have to contend with all sorts of … Read more

NPR hosts unique Digital Think-In with Silicon Valley thought leaders

Forgive me but I have to plug something my company (Frog Design) is involved in. I'm only doing this because it is such a neat event: In collaboration with Frog, NPR will host a unique Digital Think In this Friday in our offices in San Francisco, bringing together 60 thought leaders at the intersection of media and technology to explore new approaches to content creation, distribution, and funding for NPR and NPR member stations.

Hosted by NPR CEO and President Vivian Schiller and Digital Media SVP and General Manager Kinsey Wilson, the Think In will harness the collective expertise … Read more

Open source is a platform, not a product

The platform wars are over, and open source has won. It's not that open source has displaced Windows or the iPhone or anything else, but that every platform will necessarily include open source. It's simply too expensive and too difficult to go it alone anymore, whether you're an aspiring start-up or Microsoft.

IDC captures this thought in a recent Asia Pacific survey, which highlights open-source software as a foundation for flexible platforms, rather than as point solutions:

Vendors position [open source] as a solution, rather than a point product, by customizing to the needs of specific verticals....… Read more

Product management goes open source

One of the hardest parts about launching a new product is knowing what prospective customers want to buy. Sure, some companies like Apple can impose their product visions on the public, but most vendors need to fulfill pre-existing product requirements, not create new ones. For everyone but Apple open source offers a great way to perform product management.

When I was working on my juris doctorate, I signed up to be a guinea pig for Microsoft. (It's not as bad as it sounds.) The company would send people out to my house to observe me using my computer, and … Read more

Restrictive evaluator

eManager is a program that allows users to complete evaluations and assessments by completing a pre-existing template. Although we like the program in theory, its execution could be better.

The program's interface is fairly intuitive, with its main features arranged in tabs. Users simply select the type of procedure they want to complete and then click through the various screens, filling in the blanks. The publisher's description boasts that the program allows users to "follow any procedure without having even the faintest idea of the regulations behind it," and we can see how this would be … Read more

Xen.org to build open-standards cloud platform

The Xen.org community has announced plans to build a new cloud platform for service providers, as the basis of an initiative designed to help private and public cloud services cooperate using open standards.

The planned Xen Cloud Platform (XCP), announced on Monday, will combine enhanced security, storage, and network virtualization capabilities with the Xen hypervisor--a piece of open-source software used for running virtualized operating systems on server hardware.

However, a key goal of the wider XCP initiative is to use open standards from the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) to package virtual appliances in a hypervisor-independent format that can … Read more

Facebook ratchets up privacy controls (again)

A recent simplification of Facebook's user privacy controls wasn't enough for some policymakers.

On Thursday, in conjunction with the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook announced a new set of modifications to its user privacy controls as well as its developer API, and the targets of these changes are the thousands of third-party applications built on Facebook's developer platform. That means there may be major implications for developers--some of whom rely almost exclusively on Facebook activity as a revenue source.

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner's office released a set of recommendations for Facebook last month, specifically highlighting concerns that … Read more

ACLU chapter flags Facebook app privacy

The Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has put out a campaign designed to raise awareness of the privacy implications of Facebook's developer platform. It's focusing specifically on the popular "quiz" applications, like "Which Cocktail Best Suits Your Personality?" and "Which Wes Anderson Movie Character Are You?" These are largely one-time-use apps that many a Facebook user clicks on and tries out with little concern.

According to the ACLU chapter, "millions of people on Facebook who use third-party applications on the site, including the popular quizzes, do not … Read more

RoboCar package gives students taste of things to come

For those who want a shot at the DARPA Grand Challenge but can't afford the gear, a Japanese company is offering a 1/10-scale robot-powered model car with all the bells and whistles so they can at least get their autonomous feet wet.

It's still not cheap, but at $7,000 the ZMP Car Robotics Platform, or RoboCar, provides all the tools needed to test your applied robotic technology, autonomous movement, and inter-vehicular and car/human communications expertise (PDF).

The RoboCar includes a built-in stereo camera, image recognition module, laser range finder, gyro and acceleration sensors, independent rotary … Read more

Microsoft releases SQL Azure Database preview

Microsoft has released a free trial of its cloud-based relational database.

The community technology preview (CTP) of SQL Azure Database was made available Tuesday, along with a preview of an SQL Server driver for building PHP applications for the Azure platform.

The Azure Services Platform, first announced at a developer conference last year, is Microsoft's move into the rapidly growing cloud-computing market. As with all cloud platforms, the idea is to provide scalable, hosted services on a pay-per-use basis, running remotely in Microsoft's data centers.

SQL Azure Database, a key component of the platform, is a rival to … Read more