data

'Slow Internet,' the next green trend?

The "slow food" movement came first, followed by "slow work" and even "slow medicine." Next, will people let the Internet relax a little for the sake of ecological sustainability?

Researchers are finding that data centers can make relatively simple power consumption tweaks that mimic those long available for personal computers, as New Scientist reports.

Energy-saving settings take several clicks to set up on Windows or Mac personal computers. But at data centers, where power consumption counts on a grander scale, equipment is often left on even when dormant.

Data centers' emissions of global warming … Read more

Vodafone gives away unlimited data for free

I've always wondered why European telcos were so stingy with their data plans, offering set data limits for a monthly fee when the U.S. carriers--so backwards in other ways--offered unlimited usage.

Well, Vodafone has finally taken off the blinders and is offering unlimited data to all of its customers ... for free, when it used to charge $15 per month.

The fine print is that "unlimited" means 500MB. (While in London recently I burned through 10MB per day, so 500MB may well effectively mean unlimited use.)

As in open source, the opportunity of the mobile web lies … Read more

IBM aims to lighten the (energy) load at data centers

The data centers used by tech companies to run their Web sites and corporate networks are notorious energy hogs.

The information and communications technology sector currently accounts for about 6 percent of the nation's power consumption, up from about 2 percent to 3 percent in 2000, according to a report in February from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

In a report to Congress last August, the Environmental Protection Agency predicted that the amount of power used by U.S. data centers would more than double over the next five years, at a cost of $7.4 billion … Read more

Software monitors the weather in your data center

SynapSense, a start-up focusing on data center energy consumption, has come up with a software package that it says will give a more accurate view of the environment inside of server rooms.

LiveImaging, a new feature of the company's Synapsoft package, provides real-time information on humidity, temperature, pressure differentials, hot spots, cool zones, and other phenomena inside a server room. Armed with the data, IT managers can then adjust, or eventually reconfigure, the air conditioners and cooling equipment in server rooms.

Corporations have been testing technologies that will help them cut their energy costs in data centers and, in … Read more

FBI, politicos renew push for ISP data retention laws

WASHINGTON--The FBI and multiple members of Congress said on Wednesday that Internet service providers must be legally required to keep records of their users' activities for later review by police.

Their suggestions for mandatory data retention revive a push for potentially sweeping federal laws--which civil libertarians oppose--that flagged last year after the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the idea's most prominent proponent.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House of Representatives committee that Internet service providers should be required to keep records of users' activities for two years.

"From the perspective of an investigator, having that backlog … Read more

Full Blackberry BES sync support for Zimbra and SugarCRM now available

I just spotted DataSync's news that it now offers full Blackberry BES sync support for Zimbra and SugarCRM. I no longer use a Blackberry, but for those enterprises (like mine) that use SugarCRM and Zimbra, this will no doubt be a big benefit.

For those who have been frustrated by NotifyLink (Hear! Hear!), the product is still in beta but promises to be better than the mostly lame NotifyLink service:

Zimbra is currently in "beta" BlackBerry support mode, however we have had a very solid response over the past 30 days in our test environment. We've decided to offer this service commercially because of the overall stability of the system.… Read more

Facebook expands Mini-Feed to include Digg

Adding to Tuesday's release, Facebook has added an additional service for Mini-Feed importing, Digg.

This is a big win for Digg. Over the last six months, I have seen a significant increase in the usage of Digg by college students, and this inclusion in the Facebook Mini-Feed will only improve its reach in that demographic.

Of course, Facebook has expanded greatly beyond its initial college market, and the inclusion of Digg may alert a lot of users to the service for the first time.

A concern that I have with the integration is that your Mini-Feed will probably become … Read more

Your preferences are portable (sort of) with Matchmine

We last covered Matchmine in September 2007, noting that the product, a preferences and recommendation engine, was on to something very interesting. They were just going about it the wrong way. I'm glad to report that company has seen the error of its ways and, while keeping true to its mission, now has a product that makes sense.

To recap: Matchmine will tell you what media you will like (it covers blogs, music, video, and movies) based on what you tell it you already like. It's the same idea that you see every day in Netflix, except the … Read more

Google, lock-in, and evil

The last week of news surrounding Google doesn't paint a picture of a lovey-dovey company that just wants to help you search. The backdrop for all of the news is the emergence of "cloud platforms" upon which developers can build. It used to be that developers would write for Windows or Linux: Now they're writing applications to run in the cloud of their choice (Google, Bungee Labs, Salesforce, or open-source Coghead)

The problem with this approach, as Tim O'Reilly points out with reference to Google, is it paves the way to lock-in that the "offline" world could only dream of inflicting:

I've been warning for some time that the first phase of Web 2.0 is the acquisition of critical mass via network effects, but that once companies achieve that critical mass, they will be tempted to consolidate their position, leading ultimately to a replay of the personal computer industry's sad decline from an open, energetic marketplace to a controlled economy.

Enter Google's soft disavowal of its "Don't do evil" motto. As Techcrunch suggests, Google likely doesn't like being held to this (somewhat subjective) standard anymore, now that not doing evil becomes ever more difficult at its size and scale.

So what is Google to do? How can Google preserve the impressive heft of its momentum without strangling its potential supporters?… Read more

Verizon unveils low-cost unlimited data plan

Verizon trotted out a low-cost all-you-can-eat data plan for its subcribers Monday, although it's only available on a few phones.

If you've got a Motorola Q9m, a Verizon Wireless SMT5800 (HTC) or a Verizon Wireless XV6800 (UTStarcom), you can now add a $29.99-a-month e-mail and Web browsing plan to your "qualifying" voice plan. Exactly what the qualifications are was left unsaid in Verizon's press release.

Unlimited plans have been all the rage among the carriers lately, as they try and one-up each other with new pricing. With the growing popularity of smartphones, it also … Read more