May 21, 2012
Volume XXXIX, Issue 7
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 First Call for Participants
The DCIA and CCA this week invited cloud computing industry participants to take an active role in the upcoming summit, CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012), scheduled for November 8th-9th in Santa Monica, CA.
CCW: 2012 features three co-located conferences that will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production and distribution; the impact of cloud services on broadband network management and economics; and evaluating and investing in cloud-computing services providers.
Opportunities to participate include multiple levels of sponsorship and exhibition, as well as a variety of speaking roles, from keynotes to panels to roundtable discussions. Interested parties are encouraged to call 410-476-7965 or e-mail info@dcia.info for details.
Registration to attend CCW:2012 enables delegates to attend any session in the three conferences being presented on: ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, and INVESTING IN THE CLOUD.
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST: 2012 features one common exhibit hall for all three conferences, and all networking functions (e.g., luncheon, refreshment breaks, evening cocktail reception, etc.) are open to every attendee at no additional cost.
Facebook IPO Doesn't Register on Richter Scale
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Ray Bolger
As of mid-afternoon on Friday, in one of the most anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs) in history, shares of social networking giant Facebook were up by about 2.5 percent in their first day of trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
Check the latest Facebook price here.
The company late Thursday priced 421.2 million shares at $38 each - the high end of its revised price range - raising approximately $16 billion.
The move means that shares owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's 28-year-old Co-Founder and CEO, are worth approximately $19.1 billion. Following a brief delay, the stock began trading under the symbol "FB" at 11:30 AM, opening up 11 percent before tailing off.
Please click here for a video of Facebook's Zuckerberg ringing the NASDAQ opening bell on Friday.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) and the Cloud Computing Association (CCA) have entered into a strategic alliance to better serve expanding industry needs driven by the explosive growth of cloud computing in the software sector.
Along with CCA Executive Director Don Buford, we are very pleased to announce plans this week for our first jointly sponsored event, CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW: 2012), November 8th-9th in Santa Monica, CA.
CCW: 2012 will feature three co-located conferences focusing on the impact of cloud-based solutions in the industry's fastest-moving and most strategically important areas.
The CCA is an independent membership organization, founded in 2012, dedicated to building a community of end-users and service providers of cloud-based solutions and products through individual professional memberships and industry conferences. The CCA has quickly amassed a contact list of three-hundred thousand industry participants.
As DCINFO readers know, the DCIA is an international trade organization, established in 2003, with more than one-hundred industry-leading member companies, including software developers, broadband network operators, and content providers. The DCIA conducts working groups and oversees political initiatives, as well as publishing this weekly online newsletter.
As part of the strategic alliance, DCIA member company employees will be offered the opportunity to become CCA professional members on special terms. And CCA individual members will be offered opportunities to participate in DCIA activities on special terms, as well as receive subscriptions to DCINFO.
The DCIA & CCA together invite companies and individuals to take active roles as exhibitors and speakers in CCW: 2012, a first-of-its kind cloud-computing summit that will bring together three conferences in a single venue. Interested parties are encouraged to call 410-476-7965 or e-mail info@dcia.info for details.
CCW: 2012 will encompass the latest advances and key pitfalls associated with cloud computing applied to entertainment distribution, telecommunications infrastructure, and venture financing, which the DCIA & CCA have identified as the three most critical areas for industry development.
The opening plenary session, "Cloud Computing Effects on Media, Telecom, and Investing" will feature a keynote address answering the questions: How are cloud-based solutions in the entertainment sector evolving? How do these and related developments impact broadband network infrastructure? How should investments in this space be evaluated?
This will be followed by a panel discussion answering questions such as: Is "the cloud" more important to content creation or storage and delivery? What role(s) do Internet service providers (ISPs) play in this arena? What are risk profiles and ROI projections for entities in this space?
From there, each of the three conferences will zero in on issues of importance to its area of focus.
The entertainment conference will start with latest trends in cloud solutions for high-value content production and distribution, then analyze pitfalls to avoid in adopting cloud solutions for content development/delivery, and finally examine ten tactical areas associated with the implementation of cloud-based solutions for media companies.
The telecom conference will start with current impacts of cloud migration on broadband network operations and businesses, then analyze drawbacks to cloud deployments from broadband network operators' perspectives, and finally examine ten tactical areas associated with external cloud services and those that ISPs themselves offer.
The investment conference will start with new updates on venture capital and mergers-and-acquisitions (M&A) activity in the cloud computing space, then analyze liabilities that need to concern investors regarding cloud-based businesses, and finally examine ten tactical areas associated with criteria used for investing in cloud-based ventures and exit strategies.
The DCIA most recently presented the CLOUD COMPUTING CONFERENCE held within the 2012 NAB Show, focusing on cloud-based solutions for broadcasting. On the same date at a different location, the CCA presented two conferences, hCLOUD and PublicCLOUD, focusing on cloud-based solutions for healthcare and government.
"We've been astonished by the responsiveness of software sector representatives to the introduction of CCA and the value they've derived from our initial efforts to bring buyers and sellers of cloud-based solutions together. We look forward to leveraging the depth of experience of the DCIA in this space as we team with them to increase the scope and effectiveness of our combined service offerings," said CCA Executive Director Don Buford.
This very timely partnership will enable us to better serve our rapidly expanding industry by integrating a dual focus on individual participant as well as company level advancement. People as well as enterprises have major stakes in the ongoing cloud-computing revolution, and we are thrilled to be working with the CCA to drive continued success on both fronts. Share wisely, and take care.
DCIA & Level 3 Share Netflix Concern about ISPs' Data Cap Exclusions
Excerpted from Communications Daily Report by Jonathan Make
The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) and Level 3 share Netflix's concerns over ISPs that exclude from data caps traffic not sent on the public Internet, such as streaming video to Xbox 360 videogame consoles.
The association for cloud-computing providers and Level 3, which speeds delivery of content including Netflix to broadband subscribers of companies like Comcast, were the only two entities in the Internet content realm to tell us they take issue with exceptions to data caps.
Amazon continues to want "vigilance" from lawmakers and the FCC over such arrangements, it said. Netflix had been the only company to criticize AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable for not subjecting to monthly usage limits some of their own content when it's not delivered to broadband customers on websites but by apps or consumer electronics.
The pool of companies telling the FCC it's a violation of net neutrality rules when ISPs don't apply bandwidth caps equally to all content, no matter how distributed, may not broaden much anytime soon beyond Netflix, said industry officials who support the caps and cap foes.
They said that's because the exclusions are relatively new, and Silicon Valley companies appear to still be considering what, if anything, to do.
Some non-profit groups have also criticized Comcast for the caps, while two non-profits that often oppose regulation weighed in to support the caps: The Free State Foundation and Technology Policy Institute.
Netflix executives visited the commission last week for the first time in two years to oppose caps at AT&T and Comcast, which exclude streaming Internet Protocol video (IPTV content) sent to Xbox consoles, and Time Warner Cable for exempting what's sent to its iPad app. The three ISPs had no comment.
Fans of net neutrality rules said the caps represent the latest version of ISP attempts to get around the spirit of the regulations, which include Comcast slowing down BitTorrent P2P traffic several years ago. The case led the FCC to sanction the cable operator, which it successfully challenged in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, leading to the 2010 net neutrality commission order. The commission, which has said it's monitoring the situation, declined to comment Monday.
Level 3 backs "Netflix and other Internet content providers in their efforts to assure that individuals continue to have full and open access to all of the Internet content they want to see, hear, and use," said Chief Legal Officer John Ryan. "We hope that Comcast shares that objective, and that it will take all actions to assure that its Internet subscribers have full use of the Internet without unnecessary or discriminatory rationing of Internet bandwidth."
The telecom backbone provider had said Comcast was violating net neutrality rules in 2010 when the cable operator wanted Level 3 to pay to send to the ISP's broadband subscribers much more content than they sent to Level 3.
Amazon wants broadband subscribers to "pay for the bandwidth they use," a spokesman noted. Vice President Paul Misener told the Senate Commerce Committee in an April 24th hearing, "Immutable or unrealistically priced data caps could hinder or prevent competitive products and services made possible by online video." Misener said then, "Consumer choice, without impairment, must be preserved."
The data limit exceptions have "got to be a concern to everybody who is working on over-the-top (OTT) video solutions, particularly some of the cloud-based IPTV offerings that are coming along now," said CEO Marty Lafferty of the DCIA. He said that segment of the market is likely to include CE companies and Intel, which are packaging devices like Web-connected TVs and set-top boxes (STBs) with content.
The current concern is a "pretty classic one," where the owners of a distribution infrastructure - broadband networks in this case - that also own content want to treat it differently from independently owned content, said Lafferty.
"Typically the issue gets resolved by means of 'rules of engagement;' but initially it may require that the FCC become active in ensuring that there is fair play and that content that's owned by broadband network operators is not treated any more favorably than content that's owned by third parties."
It's "early on" for this particular issue, and the DCIA isn't taking action "other than keeping an eye on it," Lafferty said. The group's members include cloud computing services companies, broadband network operators, and content rights holders.
The caps haven't been a subject of much discussion at the Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC), said Vince Jesaitis, a lobbyist there. "Maybe this is something people were talking about four or five years ago, when net neutrality was really picking up." ITIC's members include Apple, Google, and Sony. Those companies had no comment.
Broadband caps can be pro- or anti-competitive, said anti-trust law professor James Speta of Northwestern University, who backed Comcast in the BitTorrent case. "Such arrangements are potentially anti-competitive, if there is market power that can force exclusion. This is the exact concern that was raised in the NBC/Comcast merger concerning 'managed' or 'supervised' services, although it is happening on the broadband platform, not a separate platform," he said.
"But the arrangements are also potentially pro-competitive, or at least pro-consumer, in that they provide an efficient and desirable form of transaction." Speta expects more ISPs and wireless carriers to exclude other types of content from caps when content creators pay a data fee.
What Comcast and other ISPs with exclusions are doing is "differential treatment benefiting the ISP's own traffic - it is a classic network neutrality violation," said Marvin Ammori, who runs a small law firm with clients such as Google but was only speaking for himself.
"It's one we would often propose as a potential, hypothetical problem for many years," said Ammori, who argued as an intervenor in support of the FCC during oral argument in the BitTorrent case at the D.C. Circuit.
"I think Comcast probably thinks that the market can't punish it - DSL is a pale competitor and Comcast just cut a deal with Verizon neutralizing mobile wireless and FiOS" in that operator and three others selling advanced wireless service spectrum to the carrier, Ammori said.
"Nor will DC punish Comcast: The current FCC is a press release driven agency that isn't known for taking actual action to benefit consumers, and spent a year of hair-on-fire cowardice trying to avoid making a hard decision on the network neutrality rule. If you were Comcast, you'd have learned a lesson: Nobody will stop you."
Non-profits will try to stop Comcast, said Ammori, a fellow at the New America Foundation. "And it's good to see Netflix taking the lead, at the CEO level," he said, "because a corporate consumer coalition will be necessary."
Comcast CTO: VoD to Xbox Goes over a Dedicated IP Path
Excerpted from Multichannel News Report by Todd Spangler
Rebutting accusations that Comcast is violating the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) network neutrality rules, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Tony Werner said the MSO is sending video-on-demand (VoD) to Xbox 360 consoles over a separate, additional segment of IP bandwidth but isn't "prioritizing" that over Internet traffic.
Comcast debuted the VoD-on-Xbox feature in late March. That has drawn fire from competitors and public-interest groups, because the operator exempts its own IP video service on the Xbox 360 from the 250-Gigabyte monthly usage cap on broadband users.
Last week, Netflix complained to the FCC that Comcast's Xfinity TV app for Xbox, Time Warner Cable's TWC TV iPad app and AT&T's U-verse on Xbox violate the commission's network neutrality regulations. The video-rental company told the FCC that the operators' policy of exempting their own video services from usage caps - while metering Internet-delivered video services such as Netflix's - is "economically irrational or anti-competitive," and contrary to the FCC's Open Internet order.
But Werner, in a post Tuesday on Comcast's official blog, said the Xfinity TV-on-Demand on Xbox 360 "essentially acts as an additional cable box for your existing cable service," and is therefore governed under Title VI of the Communications Act.
Instead of using traditional QAM or the public Internet, Comcast delivers its VoD to Xbox consoles over a separately provisioned, additional IP bandwidth flow into the home "above and beyond, and distinct from, the bandwidth a customer has for his or her regular Internet access service," Werner said. "Our Xfinity TV content is provided through the Xbox over that separate service flow, and therefore does not use a customer's provisioned Internet service capacity."
Meanwhile, the MSO appears to be prioritizing IP-based video delivered to customers' Xboxes over other Internet video traffic, according to a Bryan Berg, Founder and CTO of development firm Mixed Media Labs. He said an analysis of network traffic indicated Comcast is setting a higher Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) value for VoD destined for the Xbox than other IP-based traffic.
"By selectively remarking traffic destined to my broadband service, it is implicitly being treated differently," Berg wrote in a May 5th blog post.
But Werner disputed that Comcast is "prioritizing" VoD to Xbox. He acknowledged that the MSO is using DSCP markings, but he said that's only to "mark the Xfinity TV packets to identify these packets so our network knows that these packets must be transmitted over the separate service flow from the CMTS to the customer's cable modem."
"It's really important to us that we make crystal clear that, in contrast to some other providers, we are not prioritizing our transmission of Xfinity TV content to the Xbox as some have speculated," Werner wrote. "While DSCP markings can be used to assign traffic different priority levels, that is not their only application - and that is not what they are being used for here."
In its Open Internet order issued last November, the FCC excluded "specialized services" such as voice-over-IP (VoIP) and managed IP-video services (IPTV) from having to comply with nondiscrimination and transparency provisions. But the Commission also said it expects broadband providers "to disclose information about specialized services' impact, if any, on last-mile capacity available for, and the performance of, broadband Internet access service."
Netflix, in its May 8th presentation to FCC staff, argued that with respect to the Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T services it questioned, "differential treatment of affiliated services is opaque to consumers."
Comcast's Werner was hoping to clear the air by spelling out how the VoD-to-Xbox feature works. "Our Xfinity TV content being delivered to the Xbox is the same video subscription that you've already paid for, to your home over our traditional cable network - the difference is that we are now delivering it using IP technology to the Xbox 360, in a similar manner as other IP-based cable service providers," he wrote.
All content delivered over the Internet, including from XfinityTV.com, the Xfinity TV iPad app, and NBC's digital properties like NBC.com, is subject to Comcast's 250-GB usage threshold.
"We treat all of this traffic the same, as required by the FCC's Open Internet rules and the FCC Order and DOJ Consent Decree entered into in connection with the NBCUniversal transaction," Werner wrote.
Werner added that the Xbox 360 app "is the first of many consumer-friendly changes we'll be announcing in the months ahead as we respond to consumers who want to watch their favorite content when they want to watch it, where they want to watch it, on multiple devices.
PCLOB Nominations a Long-Overdue Victory
Excerpted from TechFreedom Report by Berin Szoka
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved five nominations to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) this week.
The PCLOB is a board that even the staunchest critic of government bloat should love. This isn't another unnecessary regulatory agency, but an essential tool for overseeing how the Federal government collects and uses information about Americans. That's why a dozen leading conservatives and libertarians signed a letter last week supporting the PCLOB.
A key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, the PCLOB was first established in 2004, but the Senate never filled the Board. So this week's vote is a long-overdue victory for privacy and the rule of law.
The PCLOB is more necessary than ever as Congress careens towards passing cybersecurity legislation that, while well-intentioned, could allow radical new intrusions by government into our private communications without traditional safeguards.
Even if such legislation is amended as TechFreedom and others have urged, the PCLOB will be needed to ensure those added safeguards are actually enforced. A budget of one or two million dollars a year is a small price to pay to help protect us from a growing government. The PCLOB can't do this alone, but it won't happen at all without the Board.
TechFreedom has recently joined on three three separate coalition on the issue of cybersecurity. To learn more about the PCLOB, read the Congressional Research Service Report.
TechFreedom is a non-profit, non-partisan technology policy think tank that works to chart a path forward for policymakers towards a bright future where technology enhances freedom, and freedom enhances technology.
DataDirect Networks Supports Storage on OCP Hardware
DataDirect Networks (DDN), world leader in massively scalable storage, this week announced support for DDN's Web Object Scaler (WOS), its award-winning hyperscale object storage solution, on the recently announced Open Compute server and storage platforms in cooperation with the Open Compute Project (OCP).
WOS software enables organizations to easily build and deploy their own storage clouds across geographically distributed sites that can scale to unprecedented levels, while still being managed as a single entity. Designed for performance, resiliency and capacity scalability, WOS can ingest and distribute over 55 billion objects per day with today's commodity storage hardware. With a fundamental design to support scalability to over an exabyte of global storage capacity and trillions of objects, global data distribution and latency-optimized global access, WOS is built to enable multi-site, global organizations to connect to and collaborate on data without the bottlenecks and overhead associated with traditional file access.
"Historically, there has not been an industry movement around standardizing and driving the adoption of mass-market hyperscale hardware technology," said Jean-Luc Chatelain, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Technology, DDN. "With the new OCP storage hardware specification, DDN is able to focus its cloud storage efforts and investments on the software intelligence that drives today's business and social connection. The Open Compute movement allows us to harness the power of crowd-sourced hardware design and a highly optimized supply chain to drive the best value for our customers."
"The challenges around building web-scale infrastructure are particularly thorny when it comes to designing the storage component, particularly as organizations look to deal efficiently and effectively with storing very large data volumes," said Simon Robinson, Research Vice President at 451 Research. "This is leading to some creative approaches, not only in terms of innovative technology but also in terms of exploring new pathways to market. Alliances between proprietary offerings such as DDN's WOS and open source initiatives such as the Open Compute Project are one such example, and we're fascinated to see how this could help create new value in the market."
OCP is a non-profit organization focused on the development of open standards to support massively scalable, efficient, and economical computing infrastructure around the world. They recently held their third OCP summit, at which Chatelain discussed object storage, the peer-voted most popular topic of the workshop. "It was an exciting inflection point in the DDN story to be chosen to speak to such an engaged collection of scalability specialists about the opportunity presented by hyperscale object storage and the market disruptions which are driving this to become the de facto storage model in web-scale data centers," said Chatelain.
DDN WOS software will be qualifying the OCP storage platform when it becomes generally available from hardware manufacturers, which is expected to be within the next year.
What's Behind the Amazing Appeal of Pinterest?
Excerpted from Engage:Gen Y Report by Susan Liao
There's a new social media kid on the block - and she's already the most popular kid in school. What's her name? Let's just say she's gotten a lot of Pinterest lately.
The site launched only two years ago but has enjoyed astronomical growth since - some 866% between September 2011 and February 2012, with more than 16 million unique visitors in February alone. Pinterest's 10 million users spend an average of 98 minutes a month on the site. So the new kid already has some major social standing.
This might lead you to an obvious question: Since when are bulletin boards social creatures? The answer is since Pinterest. Its sleek layout and clean organization provide an easy, fast and fun user experience. Images take center stage, creating visually compelling panels. It's perfect for collaborating, since users with similar interests can share boards and collect pins together. And while images have short descriptors, they're not the focal point - great for people who are fatigued with Facebook updates and Tweets.
Pinterest differs from its social-media cousins in another key way: Pinners choose which content to follow, not which users to follow. If you follow someone's themed board (wedding inspiration, for example), then you only get that person's wedding-related content and nothing about the books they're reading or the recipes they're trying. Pinterest is for people who want to curate their own user experience.
What else do we know about Pinterest users? Well, a whopping 80% of them are female and almost half are Gen Y (ages 18 to 34). That may be because Pinterest speaks to Gen Y behaviors of discovery, curation and collaboration. Gen Yers seek tools and environments that help them work better and be more effective in reaching goals. Pinterest allows them to do all that, but also to visualize and then present their aspirational self - what they want to do and become. And what's more Pinteresting than that?
One thing is: That big-name brands are paying big-time attention to Pinterest's big user base. Pinterest lends itself especially well to design-focused brands such as magazines, fashion labels and lifestyle retailers. One such brand is Sephora. Sephora builds a trust relationship with its consumers by allowing pinners to pin images from its own boards as well as those of its employees. This injects a personal touch into the consumer/brand interaction. Another Pinterest innovator is Whole Foods, one of the first to venture onto Pinterest. Visitors to the Whole Foods boards won't just find beautiful strawberries and the latest in organic haircare - they'll also learn about the company's many partnerships and community initiatives. A testament to Pinterest's unique ability to create emotional connections with customers.
Marketers are still exploring how to further this emotional connection in the context of marketing campaigns. Brooks' "Pin Your Run Happy" campaign did this by encouraging users to create their own "Run Happy" boards filled with images of what inspires them to run in their Brooks shoes. Fashion brand Calypso St. Barth also leveraged Pinterest's strong female Gen Y demographic by collaborating with fashion blogger and million-follower Pinterest member Christine Martinez, who flew to St Barth to "live pin" one of their island photo shoots.
So will "live pinning" someday replace live Tweeting? Nobody can say for sure, but we do know that consumers are still exploring ways to make Pinterest a daily part of their lives. As marketers, that definitely piques our Pinterest.
Huawei Technologies Grows with Ghana
Excerpted from GhanaWeb Report
Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Through dedicated customer-centric innovation and strong partnerships, it has established end-to-end advantages in telecom networks, devices, and cloud computing.
Huawei's products and solutions are deployed in over 140 countries, supporting the communications needs of one-third of the world's population and serving 45 of the world's top 50 telecom operators. Huawei has over 140,000 employees with 150 nationalities worldwide, 72% recruited locally and 44% or 62,000 engaged in research and development (R&D).
In 2005, Huawei Technologies registered in Ghana and has positioned itself as the strategic partner for ICT development in Ghana. The company has established excellent cooperation with the government of Ghana, all the telecom operators, businesses and organizations, as well as consumers.
Huawei has invested heavily in Ghana. The company has 20+ R&D specialists, a main warehouse in Tema, and one of the most experienced deployment teams in Ghana. Their total number of employees exceeds 350, with local employees accounting for 84%. Huawei also has over 110 technical engineers for on-site support service and project implementation. In 2011, Huawei's local procurement was $45,360,000 an increase of 18% compared to 2010. The company has 43 local partners bringing employment to 3,700 people in related industries.
Huawei's business activities cut across all sectors in the ICT industry. In Ghana, it has provided ICT Solutions for the government of Ghana. These include an Integrated National Security Communication System Project and a Comprehensive e-government Platform Project. Huawei will also provide an ICT surveillance system for the gas plant to be built by government. Huawei is also cooperating very well with leading network operators on innovation to promote technical development in the industry. It established the 1st Joint Innovation Center in Ghana with Vodafone for new application experiments and tests. The company is partnering with the top operators in the telecommunication industry for new sources of energy including solar, wind, and hybrid energy base station implementations in Ghana. The purpose is to promote a greener world and industrial technical upgrading.
Huawei is working closely with the operators in the research and experiment of new technologies in LTE for Ghana. It has deployed mass GPON high speed optical network in Ghana, which brings Ghana's bandwidth and speed to No. 1 in West Africa.
Huawei is leading the commercial deployment of a new wireless access network, overtaking its major competitors in Ghana. The company is also working on the implementation of a Unified New Application Deployment Platform.
Huawei continuously strives to achieve its goal of becoming the most influential device brand in the world and the preferred choice for Ghanaians. The company is steadily moving towards accomplishing its strategic goal of becoming the world's leading mobile phone brand within the next three years.
It is providing devices (modems, routers, tablets, fixed and cordless phones, and mobile phones) for all the network operators in Ghana. Huawei now has the slimmest and the fastest phone in the world the ASCEND P1S (7.69mm thick, 4.3-inch super AMOLED screen, stunning 3D UI, 1.5GHz Dual-core CPU, Android 4.0ics, and weighs 130g). The aim of the company is to launch their latest range of devices in to the Ghanaian market middle of this year. Huawei's focus is not just on business. The company's vision is to enrich life through communication and this is reflected in both its commercial and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Huawei's Enriching Life through Communication program is an international CSR commitment to empower positive changes. It has made several substantive contributions to reach that goal in Ghana. In all, the company is growing steadily and has indeed come to stay. Huawei Technologies will continue to support ICT development in the country and make its own contributions towards the growth of the economy.
100-Gig? 40-Gig? Yes, Says Cisco
Excerpted from Light Reading Report by Craig Matsumoto
Rather than choosing 400Gbit/s or 1Tbit/s as the next standard speed grade, it might be better to have variable port speeds, a Cisco Systems keynoter said at Packet-Optical Transport Evolution 2012.
It's almost certainly not going to happen. But Cisco is floating the idea and verbally trying it out with some customers, says Bill Gartner, Vice President of the company's Converged Optical and Routing business unit.
Gartner brought up the idea during a keynote and again in a late-afternoon panel here Thursday. He's not aware of anybody actually working on the media access control (MAC) devices necessary to do this -- and those customers he's mentioned it to seem to like the idea, he told Light Reading after the Packet Optical Transport Evolution conference.
Gartner's group inside Cisco is a manifestation of the greater trend that the conference is all about, namely, the converging of the packet and optical layers. As equipment starts to follow that trend, service providers have to contend with the corresponding human convergence: getting router and transport groups to talk to one another.
That's been happening inside Gartner's group and has been enlightening to both sides, he said.
"One of my experiences is that organizations tend to form around architectures," he said. "I had a college professor who said he could open up an automobile, look at the engine, and he could draw the org chart for the company that built that engine."
Among the operational benefits of combining network layers would be the ability to adjust to demand more quickly. Future capacity usage is "unknowable" for service providers, Gartner said. Collapsing layers together could give carriers more flexibility to react to changes in demand.
Vendors will have to think about how to manage the different scales of the optical and electrical sides, he said, and this is where that flexible port speed comes in. Optical interfaces have reached 100Gbit/s with 1Tbit/s reaching the early phases of planning. But services still come in increments of 1Gbit/s or smaller. How do you get all those 1Gbit/s services out of a 1Tbit/s link?
"Maybe what's next in order to match what's happening in the electrical and the optical layer is not 400Gbit/s or 1Tbit/s, but maybe it's a port that can grow from 25Gbit/s to 50Gbit/s to 75Gbit/s," Gartner said. "That would imply some level of flexible MAC scheme that doesn't exist today."
A flexible port speed would be analogous to what's happening with flexible-grid ROADMs, which allow wavelengths to span different amounts of bandwidth, he noted.
But the "doesn't exist" part is key. For now, the industry will have to eye a plain speed jump to 400Gbit/s or 1Tbit/s, Gartner later noted in an afternoon panel about 1Tbit/s possibilities. But he thinks a variable transport rate, driven by a standardized flexible MAC, is the right answer in the long term.
YouToo's Facebook App Uploads Video for TV Watchers
Excerpted from Online Media Daily Report by Gavin O'Malley
Blurring the lines between old and new media, Youtoo just debuted a Facebook app that encourages users to upload videos for TV consumption. The move is plainly a bid by Youtoo to expand its reach. "For the first time, Youtoo technology is instantly available to the 800 million Facebook users," said CEO Chris Wyatt.
Formerly AmericanLife TV Network, Youtoo TV - which can now be seen in 177 domestic cable markets - and social-media platform Youtoo.com have been around since late 2011.
Youtoo TV is available in more than 15 million cable households, but Wyatt sees the network and the Web site as a way to test new products and technologies.
The idea is to then work with TV producers and networks to integrate those technologies into the shows.
Users of the new app can record and upload videos based on certain questions. Once videos are recorded, they will automatically post to users' Facebook timelines or walls. They can then be shared among "friends."
When a Facebook user's video is approved and scheduled for air, they will receive a notification on Facebook of the time and date they will be on Youtoo TV. To date, YouToo claims to have nationally televised over 90,000 videos submissions from users who have uploaded their videos via Youtoo.com.
For Facebook users who don't want to be on TV, the "Be on TV" app allows them to send personalized messages, including birthday greetings and congratulations to family and friends
Mark Burnett -- who has overseen a string of reality hits, including "Survivor" -- recently took an ownership stake in Youtoo. The investment, which was not disclosed, came from Burnett's company One Three Television.
To date, Youtoo has attracted big cable networks, including Comcast, as well as content creators, directors and producers such as Christopher Coppola.
Social TV Is in Your Future
Excerpted from CED Report by Alper Turgut
TV is already in the process of transforming from one-way broadcast to a community platform where viewers can interact not only with each other, but also with the content owners and the brands that advertise on TV.
It is not necessary to wait for consumers to upgrade to smart TVs that connect to the Internet and run applications. Connected mobile devices such as today's tablets and smart-phones are the catalyst of this change.
Social TV is in its infancy, but it has gone beyond its initial baby steps. A recent Nielsen study showed that 70 percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smart-phones users use their devices while watching TV. We know that's not just for changing channels.
At heart, social TV is not about the latest smart TVs that can run applications, but about complementing the existing TV experience with portable devices such as tablets, smart-phones and laptops. It is about leveraging popular social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, letting friends share comments about programs and ads.
Social TV offers a new platform for brands to interact directly with consumers who check in to the shows and ads they are watching.
According to media forecaster MagnaGlobal, advertisers spent $60 billion on TV ads in 2011 and are expected to spend $62.4 billion in 2012, whereas online ads increased 15.6 percent to $30 billion in 2011. This increase is occurring despite there being no good way for advertisers to engage individual viewers and reward them with incentives while watching aired shows and TV ads.
Eventually, advertisers are going to want to reward the behavior with status rewards or buying incentives (coupons) for interacting with the brands.
So the idea is as follows: Ever since premium channels came alive via cable and satellite, people have been thinking of ways to reinvent the TV experience.
Because people spend 17 hours a day with their phones, and with tablets like the iPad and Kindle Fire growing in popularity, augmenting the TV experience with these so-called second and third screens is the key. Already, people are watching TV while interacting with their social media accounts. The new TV interface has expanded to include tablets, laptops, smart-phones, gaming consoles and who knows what else down the road (eventually, the entirely wired smart house).
Lost the remote? The phone is the new remote. One of the challenges behind social TV is finding a seamless backend synchronization of mobile devices and the TV. Fingerprinting technology can pick up audio feeds and tell you what program or what tune or movie you're watching; it can also ensure that all input devices fall in sync with the TV.
And it performs this feat in real time while the show airs. The beauty is that you don't need to upgrade your TV to run any applications - your favorite smart-phones or tablet computer will suffice.
With networks looking for ways to recapture revenue lost to online streaming, in addition to finding new strategies to keep their viewers glued, new promo services can be offered to advertisers where, for example, tweets can follow TV characters and comment about merchandise in real time: "Those shoes Rachael wears are from Macy's." During a commercial break, this can be followed up with: "Click here to get a 20 percent Zappos coupon."
Social TV will create new advertising models. For the first time, broadcast owners can reward their audiences with something meaningful and in real time. They can say: "You have done something for my advertiser. You have not only watched the commercial, but you've tweeted about it. Now I'll do something for you."
It's the ultimate brand marketing that couples a call-and-response action with a feedback loop. With a small app installed from the App Store, for example, the networks will have the intelligence to know when viewers are engaged online and which program they're watching.
The model is similar to the idea behind using cell phone GPS location to send users coupons when they near a particular store. But in this TV model, the user is already in the right context and mindset - he/she is engaged in the media and won't find it nearly as intrusive. TV still holds the largest share of the ad budget, and given what social TV can offer, advertisers will line up for this close proximity to fans.
In the new year, we'll see a trove of second and third screen apps.
In April, Yahoo acquired IntoNow, a check-in service where people share what they're watching. IntoNow listens to the TV and matches it against a hive of 160 million TV hours. Before Yahoo acquired it, IntoNow signed a deal with Pepsi for giveaways redeemable at Target stores.
GetGlue, another check-in app, quickly amassed 1 million users, and its competitor Miso recently received venture funding. The Old Navy retailer used Shazam to give away free jeans.
On this same social TV front, we'll see Facebook, with 800 million members, jump into this in a big way. Google TV will make a comeback. Apple will promote its iTV - not just a set-top box, but pushing its own branded TV sets that will applify TV in profound ways, similar to the way the company reinvented music buying and listening.
We'll see new video fingerprinting technology that binds TV to tablets and all other input devices, auto-listening to identify TV shows, and the assurance that all devices stay in sync. These devices will sync with the cloud, so you may even continue watching on a different device. This sector is bound to grow rapidly and create new roles and revenues because it gives advertisers a new channel to market directly to social media users and consumers.
Is social TV in your future?
Cloud Meets Hardware: The Inevitable Merger
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Larry Dignan
Nvidia this week outlined what it dubbed a revolutionary plan to change the graphic processing game by offloading some computing to the cloud.
For Nvidia, the cloud meets GPU effort would enable things like better online gaming and data crunching for supercomputing.
In a statement, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang outlined the company's Nvidia VGX platform, used to accelerate desktop virtualization, Tesla GPUs and the GeForce GRID for cloud gaming platforms.
Huang said: "The GPU has become indispensable. It is central to the experience of gamers. It is vital to digital artists realizing their imagination. It is essential for touch devices to deliver silky smooth and beautiful graphics. And now, the cloud GPU will deliver amazing experiences to those who work remotely and gamers looking to play untethered from a PC or console."
Nvidia's idea is interesting in that it takes silicon and uses the cloud effectively. Intel's vPro chips, which allow for remote monitoring, could also be a cog in the hardware-meets cloud machine.
But this hardware to cloud movement has been bubbling under the surface for a while. Using Amazon Web Services is not that much different than having a server in-house. Google has outlined Android for robotics with the rough idea that robots could organize by integrating with cloud computing.
Sure, robots may not be packing much processing power, but much of the computing tasks could be offloaded to the cloud, argued Google at its I/O conference last year.
My hunch is that hardware players will increasingly make use of the cloud to save power, do higher-level computing, and assess their surroundings. Nvidia's move drives the point home: Hardware systems will increasingly work in tandem with the cloud.
Coming Events of Interest
Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop V - June 5th-7th in Washington, DC. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts this meeting focused on reviewing progress on the Priority Action Plans (PAPs) for each of the 10 high-priority requirements related to interoperability, portability, and security that were identified by US government agencies for adopting cloud computing.
Cloud Expo - June 11th-14th in New York, NY. Two unstoppable enterprise IT trends, Cloud Computing and Big Data, will converge in New York at the tenth annual Cloud Expo being held at the Javits Convention Center. A vast selection of technical and strategic General Sessions, Industry Keynotes, Power Panels, Breakout Sessions, and a bustling Expo Floor.
IEEE 32nd International Conference on Distributed Computing - June 18th-21st in Taipa, Macao. ICDCS brings together scientists and engineers in industry, academia, and government: Cloud Computing Systems, Algorithms and Theory, Distributed OS and Middleware, Data Management and Data Centers, Network/Web/P2P Protocols and Applications, Fault Tolerance and Dependability, Wireless, Mobile, Sensor, and Ubiquitous Computing, Security and Privacy.
Cloud Management Summit - June 19th in Mountain View, CA. A forum for corporate decision-makers to learn about how to manage today's public, private, and hybrid clouds using the latest cloud solutions and strategies aimed at addressing their application management, access control, performance management, helpdesk, security, storage, and service management requirements on-premise and in the cloud.
2012 Creative Storage Conference - June 26th in Culver City. CA. In association with key industry sponsors, CS2012 is finalizing a series of technology, application, and trend sessions that will feature distinguished experts from the professional media and entertainment industries.
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 - November 8th-9th in Santa Monica. CA. CCW:2012 will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production, storage, and delivery; the impact of cloud services on broadband network management and economics; and evaluating and investing in cloud computing services providers.
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