Saturday, April 6, 2013

Google Cloud Storage

Google Cloud Storage

Store, access and manage your data on Google's storage infrastructure. Take advantage of the scale and efficiency we have built over the years.
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  • Fast Data Access

    Quick and easy access to your data around the world with hosting choices in multiple regions.
  • Reliable infrastructure

    Google's proven cloud infrastructure provides highly available, robust storage for your mission-critical data.
  • Unlimited Storage

    Store and manage an unlimited number of objects.

Google Compute Engine Expands Availability

In a world that is currently dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google has taken the next steps to announce itself as a solid alternative to AWS. The Google Compute Engine (GCE), an Infrastructure-as-a-Service product that allows running Virtual Linux Servers at Google scale was announced in June of last year and was available by invite only. The gates have been thrown open a little bit with Google announcing its expanded availability, price cuts and newer features.
Google announced at the App Engine blog that GCE is now available immediately for all customers who sign up for Gold Support and a price cut of 4% across the compute platform. Gold support starts at a fee of $400 per month. The initial feedback from customers has been positive for Google and the gradual rollout of the service and features shows that Google is being careful of getting the service rich with features and tested well before rolling it out to general availability.
It is not just price cuts that have been announced but also a set of Administrative features that allow a unified view of all the Google Compute Services that you use, five new instance type families and 2 additional zones in Europe for European customers.
Google Engineers are also highlighting World Wide Maze Chrome Experiment, developed by the Chrome team in Japan. This is a showcase for the various back-end services that are part of Google Compute Engine. The site converts any website of your choice into a three-dimensional maze that you can navigate via your smartphone. The Game state and synchronization data is handled by Virtual Servers running Node.js while the UI is hosted on AppEngine.
With Google I/O 2013 around the corner, we should definitely expect more news on the Google Compute Engine platform.

Alienware X51 Now Shipping with Ubuntu Linux, Starts at $599

When Alienware released their diminutive X51 desktop last year, we were instant fans. It takes up no more room than an Xbox 360, but offers so much more potential - both in the games it can play and what they look like on your screen. In addition to being the smallest Alienware desktop, it was also the most affordable - by a large margin. 
Up until now, you could get your hands on a fully-fledged Alienware for just $699. As of today, it's even cheaper.
Alienware X51 Ubuntu
Gamers who like Linux have always had a tough go of things, tougher even than gamers who traditionally preferred to run Mac OS X. Fortunately, running Linux has your primary desktop and gaming have won a number of important battles. Perhaps most obvious is Valve's decision to port Steam over to the platform, as well as at least one (but likely all) of their games.
It's been bolstered recently by the efforts of Epic and Unity, too. And if Valve is sincere in their efforts to put a Steam console on the market, it's likely to run some flavor of Ubuntu, according to recent leaks.
Today, Dell announced that they were throwing their own support into the fray, with an Ubuntu-powered desktop with Alienware branding. While Dell is no stranger to Ubuntu on machines, it's until recently been a second-class citizen - it would cost the same as a Windows PC, offer fewer configurations, etc.
That all seems to be changing, however, and this announcement is a very big sign of it.
When Dell first announced the X51, we commented on how it would be an excellent way of bringing Steam to the living room; it wouldn't surprise us in the least if Dell is making the move pre-emptively to cash in on Steam's effort later this year.
For that matter, Valve head Gabe Newell has gone on record as saying that any hardware effort on Valve's part would be along with the help of several companies; that is, there won't be any single Steam Box - there will be dozens.
Maybe this is Dell's Steam Box.
Whether it is or isn't doesn't matter. It's an awesome piece of kit, and without having to pay extra licensing fees, it's a hundred bucks cheaper than the Windows-powered version. That's right - it starts at just $599.
For that price, you get:
  • Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual Core
  • Ubuntu operating system
  • 6GB DDR3 at 1600MHz (2 DIMMS)
  • 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 645 
  • Slot Load Dual Layer DVD Burner
  • Dell Wireless 1506 (802.11gn) WLAN half mini-Card
  • 1TB SATA 3Gb/s,7200RPM
Not a bad start, and if you like, you can pay a bit extra and move things up to a quad-core Core i7 and even stronger graphics. 
The new systems are available today from Dell.

Rackspace puts trollers on the rack

Rackspace wants to end the terror campaign on IT by patent trolls by following them to their lair and killing them with fire.
The cloud infrastructure service provider has successfully defended itself from a patent infringement lawsuit over Linux and has started a counter attack.
The company has filed a lawsuit against Parallel Iron and IP Nav, a patent assertion entity (PAE) that Rackspace calls "the most notorious patent troll in America".
Writing in its blog, Rackspace said Parallel Iron sued it and 11 other defendants in Delaware last week for allegedly infringing on three patents that Parallel Iron said cover the use of the open-source Hadoop distributed file system.
It all goes back to 2010 when IP Nav, acting on Parallel Iron's behalf, accused Rackspace of patent infringement. However, it refused to reveal the details of its claims until Rackspace agreed to a "forbearance agreement," which held that either side would give the other 30 days notice before suing.
Rackspace agreed but Parallel Iron broke the agreement by suing Rackspace when it became clear it was not going to get what it wanted.
Rackspace has now fired back with its own lawsuit for breach of contract and a declaratory judgment that Rackspace does not infringe on the patents in question.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of Rackspace winning dismissal of a lawsuit from Uniloc, which alleged Linux infringed on a patent it holds connected to processing floating-point numbers.
Rackspace general counsel Alan Schoenbaum wrote that his company was not going to take it anymore,
He said that his company's goal with this lawsuit is to highlight the tactics that IP Nav uses to divert profits and capital from business.
His goal is that this time the patent troll should pay the company it attacked.
IP Nav claimed in a Federal Trade Commission filing to be a "white hat" entity created to "give the little guy a chance".
But Schoenbaum said that statement was "laughable" and that there were few trolls more notorious than IP Nav.
He added that there was no such thing as a patent troll that has the best interests of small businesses in mind.
"Instead, IP Nav and Parallel Iron are acting in their own selfish interests and suffocating innovation, while stripping capital away from businesses both large and small," he wrote. 

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