Microsoft directors want Alan Mulally to shepherd the corporate through its restructuring while an insider is groomed for the CEO role, reports say. Speaking Tuesday on the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates said he has met with “lots” of CEO candidates, but that the choice committee just isn’t rushed right into a decision. a brand new report published the identical day reiterated rumors that Ford CEO Alan Mulally is front runner for the job, nevertheless it added a twist: Microsoft directors want Mulally to shepherd the corporate for under two or three years, and then a Microsoft insider would take over. If a two-step succession plan is within the cards, Gates maintained his poker face Tuesday. He confined his remarks to predictable topics resembling the complexity a better CEO will face and the progress the choice committee has already made. He also choked up, in a moment more characteristic of retiring CEO Steve Ballmer, as he said Microsoft is exclusive... Read More »
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Mozilla Brings Unreal Engine 4 To Firefox
[ Developer] HTML5 has come far because it was getting used to render simplistic 2D scenes in a browser. Just last year, Mozilla ported Unreal Engine 3 to Firefox for complex in-browser 3D scenes. Now they’re taking it one step further. Mozilla and Epic Games announced today that the 2 are bringing Unreal Engine 4 to the net through Firefox. Very similar to Unreal Engine 3, UE4 will run via JavaScript using Mozilla’s asm.js subset. They claim that asm.js has increased the performance of Web applications to 67 percent of native and that it’ll get even better. The porting of Unreal Engine 4 is a testament to the facility of the net. “This technology has reached some extent where games users can jump into via an internet link at the moment are almost indistinguishable from ones they may have needed to wait to download and install,” said Brendan Eich, CTO and SVP of Engineering at Mozilla. “Using Emscripten to cross-compile C and C++ into asm.js,... Read More »
Google Buys Nest Labs
The $3.2 billion deal represents one in every of Google’s largest acquisitions CES 2014: 8 Technologies To Watch (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Making a big bet at the “Internet of factors” and at the value of connecting with customers beyond cell phones and tablets, Google on Monday said it has reached an agreement to obtain Nest Labs, maker of well-regarded network-connected thermostats and smoke detectors, for $3.2 billion. That’s $100 million greater than the corporate paid in 2007 for ad network DoubleClick, arguably the company’s most financially meaningful transaction. Nest Labs becomes Google’s second most costly corporate purchase (or third if inflation is considered). Its $12.5 billion deal for Motorola Mobility two years ago was its costliest acquisition. Google have been on something of a buying binge lately. It disclosed the acquisition of eight robotics companies in December and has acquired two companies to date in January, the opposite being mobile app maker Bitspin. Google CEO Larry Page welcomed Nest founders Tony... Read More »
IBM Buys Cloudant, Eyes Amazon’s Turf
IBM’s planned Cloudant buy will advance cloud-based database services, but can the underlying database compete against Amazon DynamoDB, MongoDB, Couchbase, and DataStax? IBM announced Monday that it intends to obtain Cloudant, a database-as-a-service (DBaaS) provider that delivers the open source Apache CloudDB as a service. IBM described it as a cloud services boost and a significant foray into the NoSQL database management system (DBMS) market, but it is not quite clear how CloudDB stacks up against better-known competitors. IBM said it’s buying the privately held, Boston-based Cloudant to aid companies exploit big data, cloud, and mobile trends. The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, suggesting it was a small acquisition. IBM touted Cloudant’s scalable, JSON-conversant database service because the right tool for the days, citing its simplicity, scalabilty, and open source credentials as key attractions to web- and mobile-app developers. “Cloudant is delivered as a service, so developers needn’t be database experts or administrators, and that they needn’t know where the info goes to live... Read More »
Mozilla’s Eich: Trust Us, We’re Open
Firefox is trustworthy because its source code may be verified, says CTO Brendan Eich. IBM Predicts Next 5 Life-Changing Tech Innovations (click image for larger view) Software cannot be trusted unless it’s open-source, claims Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich, in a bid to advertise Firefox, Mozilla’s open-source web browser. Eich notes that it has become increasingly difficult to trust the privacy promises of our software and services because governments, corporations, organizations, and individuals can be surveilling us online without our knowledge. We now have little recourse, he argues, because such surveillance may well be conducted under statutes that limit oversight and public scrutiny. Eich points to the Lavabit case for example. Lavabit began offering encrypted email as a service in 2004 but shut down abruptly last August without explanation. Lavabit owner Ladar Levison was under a gag order to not reveal information about his reason behind shutting the service. With the unsealing of court records several months later, it emerged that Levison is resisting a central... Read More »