pig

The Hadoop open-source project for distributed compute processing continues to be one of the most interesting projects for managing the vast amount of data being analyzed and collected in a wide variety of scenarios.

Today, Cloudera, a provider of Hadoop data management software and services, is set to release a major release of its open source software distribution--Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop (CDH), including Apache Hadoop v3.

Cloudera's CDH3 distribution is an integrated set of components and functions that interoperate through standard APIs and manage required component versions and dependencies.

CDH3 is an integrated stack that includes not just software … Read more

Scientific Conservation, a company that specializes in energy consumption forecasting, has received $15.65 million in Series B funding, the start-up announced Tuesday.

The company is just one example of the way traditional IT is now intersecting with green tech.

Scientific Conservation offers software as a service (SaaS) that allows the company to monitor a building's energy consumption in real-time, apply that data to energy management diagnostics and analytics, and then use that created knowledge to predict the building's energy consumption in the future.

The result is a customized energy plan for a building that is always being … Read more

IBM announced Thursday that it is working with the British Library on a project that will preserve and analyze terabytes of information on the Web before it is lost forever.

Recent research estimates the average life expectancy of a Web site is 44 to 75 days. Every six months, for example, roughly 10 percent of Web pages on the U.K. domain are lost.

In most cases of personal sites, this is no big loss. But in the case of organizations attempting to archive and chronicle elections, news, media, and video, this data leakage presents massive challenges. And even if … Read more

We trekked out to the far reaches of deepest Brooklyn last night to check out an under-development video game called Borderlands. Buzzed about since at least 2007, it's a first-person sci-fi RPG set in a desolate wasteland that looks like the American Southwest, but is, in fact, another planet (go figure).

While hands-on demos of upcoming games are usually enough to get us to show up, publisher 2K went a little further, turning a Williamsburg warehouse into a B-movie set, complete with props straight out of Mad Max, costumed bartenders, and an entire roasted pig, gleefully hacked up for the attendees.

We thought the proceedings were amusing enough to snap a few photos of the event--just be careful not to let it offend your delicate vegetarian sensibilities. … Read more

The Free Music Archive, an organization created by WFMU, a "freeform" radio station, has officially launched into beta. So far, the site has 5,000 tracks that users can download for free. According to the site's founders, the Free Music Archive is aimed at becoming a repository of tracks, remixes, and music clips for personal consumption. Any of the songs can be added to podcasts, video shows, or a playlist. No licensing fees or royalties will be charged. The organization hopes that through free downloads, more people will buy an artist's full album. Along with a … Read more

Wilson Tang thought it'd be a better idea to cover the new Google Android phone today, and we can't disagree. So that just leaves myself and a one Justin Yu to fend for ourselves on today's 404.

Today we'll talk about why it's a bad idea for record companies to release albums on thumbdrives, a U.K. family that lives in a pig sty, and how an Xbox Live Survey seems to be an accurate sampling of how the gaming demographic will vote this November.

Also, Justin updates us on his Justin PSYu Foundation campaign, enlightening us with the difficulty he's having in completing God of War--a game my 11-year-old female cousin has finished three times.

All this plus a HUGE calls-from-the-public session on a very personal and intimate 404.

This little piggy made a guest appearance at CES, but is now finally here. The iPig is a speaker dock system for your MP3 player, with 25 watts of power for the four speakers and four-inch woofer, giving 360-degrees of sound. Speakal claims it's designed to be environmentally friendly, made from non-hazardous materials.

The iPig has a distinctive way of turning the volume up and down. Touch the right ear of the iPig to raise the volume and touch the left one to lower the volume. It ships with a non-piggish remote control that allows you to adjust volume … Read more

On the show today: Guest Alex Green shows us his Web site "GET OVER IT", Space Beer T-shirts, 404 Dark Knight Meetup Wrap-up, Pussy Natural Energy Drink, Monster of Montauk, and Seth Rogan on the pot.

Last night's 404 meet up to see the Dark Knight was a resounding success! Our buddies showed up well before the movie and we chewed the fat for awhile. Big thanks and much appreciation goes out to Issac and Matt (the Intern) for dropping by to say hi. We missed you in the theater dudes! No surprise or complaint here, but … Read more

Here's a clever site that can help you sock away money for purchases you're hoping to make some day: SmartyPig. You tell it what you're saving for, how much it costs, and when you want to buy it, and it will tell you how much you need to save each month (hard math, that). Then, if you let it, it will automatically deduct that amount from your checking account each month until you make your goal.

It pays interest, too (currently 4.3% APR). Plus it lets other people contribute to your fund--if you like gifts of … Read more