Ajax Girl

Google may be releasing BigTable, its internal database system, as a web service to compete with Amazon SimpleDB, according to a source with knowledge of the launch. There are also rumors that press is being pre-briefed on the product, although we haven’t been contacted by Google.

BigTable is a highly scalable database system used internally by Google to support over 60 of its products and projects. A source says Google has plans to announce next week that it will make BigTable available to outside developers as a service. Amazon provides a similar service through SimpleDB, a cloud database solution announced in December.

Google started development on BigTable in early 2004 and began using it actively in February 2005. The non-relational, proprietary system was designed internally to fulfill Google’s peculiar need for access to massive amounts of data at very high speeds (millions of read/writes per second). BigTable is based on the Google File System (GFS) and designed for distribution across thousands of commodity servers that collectively store petabytes of data. Services that rely on it include Google Search, Google Earth and Maps, Google Finance, Google Print, Orkut, YouTube, and Blogger.

The decision to open up BigTable would seem to mark Google’s challenge to Amazon Web Services (AWS) suite, which also includes the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for cloud processing power and Simple Storage Service (S3) for cloud storage. The Amazon triumvirate of SimpleDB, S3, and EC2 is meant solve the scalability needs of web developers with a utility-like model. Customers pay for just the storage, computations, and bandwidth they need, and none they don’t. While Google has yet to announce the pricing for BigTable, we presume it will share the same model as AWS.

If Google does indeed announce public access to BigTable next week, expect the company to follow up with cloud storage and processing solutions as well, since there are substantial synergies between the three.

For more information about BigTable, see a paper (PDF) that was written about it in 2006. You can also watch a talk about it given at the University of Washington in October 2005.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264292919/

Yahoo shares plunged by upto 5% in after market trading this afternoon on rumors that Microsoft may be ready to quit its takeover offer for Yahoo.

From Reuters:

Microsoft Corp is evaluating its bid for Yahoo Inc because the Internet company may have lost value since it made its offer, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Microsoft has been repeatedly trying to engage Yahoo’s board in discussions, the person said. But the market has deteriorated and changes in Yahoo’s business may have dragged down its value below what it was when Microsoft made its bid, the person said.

Could Yahoo have missed its once in a life-time exit, or is this simply a negotiating tactic with Microsoft trying to force Yahoo’s hand?

Microsoft stock traded up just shy of 1% on the news in late trading.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264240922/

A Pittsburgh couple is suing Google for including their house in Google’s Street View service.

According to a lawsuit filed in Allegheny County’s Court of Common Pleas this week, Aaron and Christine Boring accuse Google of “intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion” of their privacy as their street is “clearly marked with a ‘Private Road’ sign.”

According to the docs at The Smoking Gun, the Borings allege that the inclusion of their house in Google Street View caused them “mental suffering” and diminished the value of their home (note they only paid $165,000 for the house, the cost of a car parking space in a large city). The Borings are seeking in excess of $25,000 in damages and want a court order directing Google to destroy images of their home.

Pics of the Borings house to the right and their house on Google Maps here.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264232908/

The TechCrunch MeetUp LA co-hosted with PopSugar is next Thursday, April 10 and we’re making the last 250 tickets available now.

MySpace will be spinning MySpace Music for us all night with an awesome DJ. Come join the eclectic celebration of new technology, media and fashion that fits the LA scene.

There’s still time to help sponsor the MeetUp. This is our biggest event yet, with over 1,500 attendees, so the business networking will be great. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo to learn more about how to participate.

Event Details:

• Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
• Time: 6:30 pm - midnight
• Venue: Vanguard, 6021 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood (maps: Google / Microsoft / Yahoo)
• Photo/Flickr Tag: techcrunchmeetup12
• For additional details, see our dedicated event page.
• Got your tickets? Join the MySpace or Facebook event pages as well.

Get tickets here, based on availability. As usual, tickets are $10 to manage the guest list, and proceeds will be donated to charity. All ticket purchases are non-transferable and non-refundable. If you purchase multiple tickets under your own name, your guests will need to arrive together with you at the event. Photo IDs are required for event check-in (attendees must be at least 21 years of age); no paper tickets necessary. Hope to see you there!

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Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/264197824/

This is an interesting one. If you go to learn about ASP.Net Ajax at the Microsoft site itself you not only see info about the product, including this:

ASP.NET AJAX is a free framework for quickly creating efficient and interactive Web applications that work across all popular browsers.

ASP.NET AJAX is built-into ASP.NET 3.5. It is also available as a separate download for ASP.NET 2.0.

But, you may get a full screen modal popup that tells you how much better Silverlight is than anything the Open Web has to offer NOTE: Some people see this, and others do not.

I don’t see this when I go to Adobe Spry. There is no “FLEX FLEX FLEX” message.

How do you feel about that?

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/264158563/aspnet-ajax-site-and-silverlight

Above is the breakdown from the Dojo distribution. Peter Higgins was working on an AIR application using the new Dojo AIR integration and wanted to do a better job at stripping down the Dojo build for what he needed.

He ended up with a set of scripts to create a custom build nicely which includes:

• Nuking all of the cruft you don’t want
• Minifying the script
• CSS inline optimization

So, you can run something like:

% ./build.sh profile=standard optimize=shrinksafe.keepLines version=1.1.0mini cssOptimize=comments.keepLines cssImportIgnore=../dijit.css action=release

Also, the fine Dojo Campus folks have created a Dojo feature explorer that acts as a showcase for Dojo itself:

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/264076284/dojo-mini-and-the-feature-explorer

Brendan Eich has responded to Doug Crockford talking about the popularity of JavaScript, and the hash method for sharing JavaScript, in his post on Popularity.

In in he starts out by discussing the history of JavaScript, warped as it may be:

As I’ve often said, and as others at Netscape can confirm, I was recruited
to Netscape with the promise of “doing
Scheme“
in the browser. At least client engineering management including
Tom Paquin,
Michael Toy, and
Rick Schell,
along with some guy named

Marc Andreessen, were convinced that
Netscape should embed a programming language, in source form, in HTML. So it
was hardly a case of me selling a “pointy-haired boss” — more the reverse.

Whether that language should be Scheme was an open question, but Scheme was
the bait I went for in joining Netscape. Previously, at SGI,
Nick Thompson had turned me on to
SICP.

What was needed was a convincing proof of concept, AKA a demo. That, I
delivered, and in too-short order it was a fait accompli.

He continues to talk about how Java came into the equation and the question of “do we need two languages?” came out of that. Scheme with a Java like syntax? That is what won out in the end.

No need to smoke the hash?

Brendan also feels like the hash method has some failings such as security: poisoning attacks and the safety of crypto-hashes. Also, having hash=”some crazy hash” would look a little ugly in your HTML

Brendan proposes a shared URL:

Imagine if we had an AOL CDN / YUI CDN that anyone could use? Some people may not like the “centralized” side of it, but I think it would be huge.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/264055712/popularity-history-and-script-shared

Ben and I were both in the same place for once, so we whipped out a recorder and produced a new Audible Ajax podcast.

There has been a lot going on in the Ajax-related space, and we cover our thoughts on:

• IE 8 and standards
• Acid3 testing
• Server side JavaScript vs. polyglots
• Fluid and GreaseKit
• The meaning of the Open Web

We have the audio directly available, or you can subscribe to the podcast.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/264045713/audible-ajax-episode-25-state-of-ajax

During the recent wireless spectrum auctions that just brought the FCC $19.6 billion in license fees, there was a lot of speculation about what drove each of the different corporate bidders. But the bidders themselves were barred from speaking publicly about their auction strategies. Now that Verizon has been declared the biggest overall winner, and the auction is over, the participants are free to speak. Google was potentially the big spoiler in the auction, but as it explains, the main motivation behind its participation was simply to ensure that some of the open rules it had lobbied for would be enforced on whoever won.

From the Google Public Policy Blog:

Google’s top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called “C Block” reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important “open applications” and “open handsets” license conditions. We were also prepared to gain the nationwide C Block licenses at a price somewhat higher than the reserve price; in fact, for many days during the early course of the auction, we were the high bidder. But it was clear, then and now, that Verizon Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher (and had far more financial incentive to gain the licenses).

In fact, Google raised its own bid in ten rounds without any counter bids, which implies that Verizon was doing everything it could to make sure that the open device and open application rules were not triggered. Ultimately, that strategy was not successful, and it must now abide by the open rules. It remains to be seen whether Verizon will abide only to the letter of the rules or to their spirit.

(Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/263939928/

On Day Two of the Next Web conference, we are once again streaming it live from Amsterdam (click more). Kicking things off is Robert Scoble, who is talking about the new digital divide: People with friends and people without friends. The old digital divide (rich versus poor) still exists. But the new digital divide is a consequence of how social software works. You have a better experience on Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Upcoming or even Google Reader the more friends that you have. But if you don’t have any friends, the experience really sucks.

The speaker lineup today includes: Robert Scoble, Werner Vogels (Amazon CTO), Jessica Mah (17-year-old blogger/entrepreneur), Chris Saad (DataPortability.org), startup demos, and comedy troop Boom Chicago.

(Photo by Anne Helmond).

Update 1: Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK is live blogging the startup pitches.

(more…)

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/263855448/