Microsoft lets federal agencies take its newly operational Azure for presidency for a “shakedown cruise.” (Click image for larger view.) Slideshow: Top 20 Government Cloud Service Providers. Microsoft has begun giving a select group of federal customers the likelihood to lay Microsoft’s new government-only cloud service through a sequence of personal tests. “The processes, people, technology, and infrastructure are all in place. We wish real-world test loads,” for a shakedown cruise, said Greg Myers, VP of federal sales, in announcing the scoop Tuesday at Microsoft’s US Public Sector Federal Executive Forum in Washington.  Although Microsoft’s commercial Azure cloud offering has received authority to function under the FedRAMP program for cloud services, the recent government platform — announced last fall and called Azure for presidency — has not yet been certified. [Who’s seeking FedRAMP approval? Check the net portal. Read FedRAMP Cloud Security Approval: Look Who Applied.] The government-only offering is housed in two specially constructed datacenters located within the America and isolated physically and logically... Read More »

Yahoo drops third-party logins, will soon require Yahoo IDs. 10 Famous Facebook Flops (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) If you utilize your Google or Facebook credentials to sign into Yahoo services, you will soon be out of luck: The corporate said it’ll end this process and require everyone to apply a Yahoo ID instead. “Yahoo is consistently engaged on improving the user experience,” a Yahoo spokesperson said in a press release. “This new process, which now asks users to register with a Yahoo username, will let us offer one of the best personalized experience to everyone.” Yahoo will make the change gradually, and has already begun with Yahoo Sports Tourney Pick ‘Em, a service for school basketball fans, just in time for March Madness. Other popular Yahoo services on deck include photo-sharing site Flickr and Fantasy Sports. Yahoo didn’t provide a timetable for when these and its other Web properties would make the switch. [Some Yahoo users got greater than they bargained for.... Read More »

Former US Transportation Department CIO Nitin Pradhan discusses why advanced HD desktop videoconferencing systems are a sensible choice for enterprises, and provides 12 tips for using them effectively. A critical portion of the CIO’s job is to maintain the enterprise’s technology environment recent and relevant. Relating to communication, most CIOs have thinking about upgrading email systems and bringing in VOIP telephones — but many have missed the boat on desktop videoconferencing. A easier and efficient alternative to traveling, videoconferencing is becoming a popular approach to conduct both one-on-one and group meetings. It allows employees to take part in a more relaxed and comfy setting, whether they’re working from home or inside the office. Live video feeds allow participants to engage in real time. This results in increased involvement and stronger personal connections. Throughout the enterprise, videoconferencing might also reduce time spent walking between campuses and buildings. Better yet, recent advances in videoconferencing technology make it more appealing and price-effective than ever. Why conference... Read More »

Responding to surveillance revelations, EU officials seek changes in commercial and law enforcement data sharing arrangements with america. The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, is demanding that the usa respect the privacy rights of EU citizens and is looking for changes in its commercial and law enforcement data sharing arrangements with the united states to “restore trust.” The Commission on Wednesday issued a methodology paper, an analysis of the Safe Harbor agreement that governs international commercial data flows, and an information Protection report, among other documents, in line with ongoing revelations about the level folks surveillance. The latest such disclosure, that the NSA spied at the porn habits of “radicalizers” with a view to be discredited, was published late Tuesday by The Huffington Post, in accordance with documents provided by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden  “Massive spying on our citizens, companies and leaders is unacceptable,” said EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding in a press release. “Citizens on each side of the Atlantic should be reassured that their... Read More »

AWS Kinesis service takes in thousands of knowledge streams, processes them on an Amazon cluster, and provides ends up in near real time. Top 10 Cloud Fiascos (click image for larger view) Kinesis, Amazon Web Services’ new service for processing a high volume of real-time data, corresponding to that pouring off a stock ticker, is open for business. The system was announced, but not made generally available, Nov. 14 during AWS’s Re:Invent event in Las Vegas. A customer can start off feeding kilobytes of information into Kinesis and move as much as terabytes over the process an hour, reckoning on the demands of the actual-time data stream. Streams from hundreds or thousands of sources, which includes social media, investment research services, or news services, could be added to an original stream, allowing Kinesis to indicate correlations between real-time events. Breaking news items, inclusive of a report that the anchovy harvest has failed off the coast of Chile, could have a huge impact on trading at... Read More »