Cody Taylor

thefickler writes “Microsoft is opposing an industry plan, the Open Cloud Manifesto, to promote cloud computing interoperability. Officially, Microsoft says the plan is unnecessarily secretive and that cloud computing is still in an early stage of development, but there are allegations that Microsoft feels threatened by the plan because it could boost Linux-based systems. The goal of the group behind the manifesto, the Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum (CCIF), is to minimize the barriers between different technologies used in cloud computing. And this is where the problem seems to lie, with the group stating that ‘whenever possible the CCIF will emphasize the use of open, patent-free and/or vendor-neutral technical solutions.’ Some speculate that Microsoft is actually worried that this will allow open source systems, such as Linux, to flourish, at the expense of Microsoft technology.” Amazon is also declining to support the plan, saying, “the best way to illustrate openness and customer flexibility is by what you actually provide and deliver for them.” Reader smack.addict contributes a link to an O’Reilly piece asking what openness really means for cloud computing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

snydeq writes “Non-relational upstarts — tools that tack the letters ‘db’ onto a ‘pile of code that breaks with the traditional relational model’ — have grabbed attention in large part because they willfully ignore many of the rules that codify the hard lessons learned by the old database masters. Doing away with JOINs and introducing phrases like ‘eventual consistency,’ these ‘slacker DBs’ offer greater simplicity and improved means of storing data for Web apps, yet remain toys in the eyes of old guard DB admins. ‘This distinction between immediate and eventual consistency is deeply philosophical and depends on how important the data happens to be,’ writes InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner, who let down his old-guard leanings and tested slacker DBs — Amazon SimpleDB, Apache CouchDB, Google App Engine, and Persevere — to see how they are affecting the evolution of modern IT.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

snydeq writes “Non-relational upstarts — tools that tack the letters ‘db’ onto a ‘pile of code that breaks with the traditional relational model’ — have grabbed attention in large part because they willfully ignore many of the rules that codify the hard lessons learned by the old database masters. Doing away with JOINs and introducing phrases like ‘eventual consistency,’ these ‘slacker DBs’ offer greater simplicity and improved means of storing data for Web apps, yet remain toys in the eyes of old guard DB admins. ‘This distinction between immediate and eventual consistency is deeply philosophical and depends on how important the data happens to be,’ writes InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner, who let down his old-guard leanings and tested slacker DBs — Amazon SimpleDB, Apache CouchDB, Google App Engine, and Persevere — to see how they are affecting the evolution of modern IT.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes “Discovery Communications, the parent company of the Discovery Channel, is alleging that Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader infringes upon their patent for DRM-encumbered e-books (Discovery’s complaint, PDF). The patent in question was filed back in 1999 and issued in 2007 — coincidentally one day after Kindle 1.0 went on the market — and has claims for DRM implemented with a great many particular symmetric key ciphers and key exchange algorithms, (the patent has 171 claims). Unlike most software patents, this one goes into quite a lot of detail about how the encryption is to be performed. But it will still be interesting to see if it can pass the ‘machine or transformation’ test now that In Re Bilski is being accepted as precedent. After all, it seems like all of these encryption and e-book distribution schemes could be run on a general-purpose PC, so is the ‘invention’ actually tied to a ‘particular machine or apparatus’ just because an e-book ‘viewer’ (not to mention ‘home system’, ‘library’, and ‘kiosk’) happens to be specified in the patent’s claims? Or can the encryption of an e-book be claimed as some kind of ‘transformation’ when the law in that area is especially murky — when no one knows how In Re Bilski may affect the precedent of In Re Schrader?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon recently threatened the smackdown on a site offering instructions on how to trick the Kindle into reading other types of files. This isn’t a question of copyright infringement, it’s a question of control.

InlawBiker writes “Today, Amazon invoked the DMCA to force removal of a python script and instructions from the mobileread web site. The script is used to identify the Kindle’s internal ID number, which can be used to enable non-Amazon purchased books to work on the Kindle. ‘…this week we received a DMCA take-down notice from Amazon requesting the removal of the tool kindlepid.py and instructions for it. Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.’ Ironically, the purpose of the script is to make the Kindle more useful to its users.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

InlawBiker writes “Today, Amazon invoked the DMCA to force removal of a python script and instructions from the mobileread web site. The script is used to identify the Kindle’s internal ID number, which can be used to enable non-Amazon purchased books to work on the Kindle. ‘…this week we received a DMCA take-down notice from Amazon requesting the removal of the tool kindlepid.py and instructions for it. Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.’ Ironically, the purpose of the script is to make the Kindle more useful to its users.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The real problem for Dreamweaver and for its users is that the nature of the web is changing dramatically. Dynamically-generated web applications, from Amazon right down to the humble blog, all offer much more – in-built commenting, voting, RSS feeds, etc – than the best sites built on static HTML can ever hope to provide.

The real problem for Dreamweaver and for its users is that the nature of the web is changing dramatically. Dynamically-generated web applications, from Amazon right down to the humble blog, all offer much more – in-built commenting, voting, RSS feeds, etc – than the best sites built on static HTML can ever hope to provide.

First the bad news: In multiple ways, Amazon’s new Kindle reader for the iPhone falls short of being the ultimate iPhone e-book application. It fails to replicate all the major features of a 9 Kindle device. But despite that, it’s a delight to have Kindle on the iPhone. What makes Kindle Kindle isn’t software but content –244,000 books’ worth.