The release of the Google Cast software development kit should lead to more Android, Chrome, and iOS apps if you want to work with the Chromecast TV streaming device. 10 Great Google Apps Tips (Click image for larger view.) Google released software Monday that permits developers so as to add support for the Google Chromecast streaming device to their Android, Chrome, and iOS apps. The Chromecast wireless receiver connects to TVs through an HDMI port and may receive content streamed from the cloud, mobile devices, or personal computers. Introduced last summer for $35, the device has proven popular, unlike Google TV, the company’s previous try and integrate television and the net. Though Google has not released Chromecast sales figures, CFO Patrick Pichette said in the course of the company’s earnings call last week that Chromecast was a bestseller during the last quarter of 2013. Chromecast remains on the top of the Amazon.com Best Sellers In Electronics list. Initially, Chromecast users could access content only through... Read More »

Google’s cloud gaming service for developers gets new features and analytics capabilities. As the sport Developers Conference got underway in San Francisco on Monday, Google announced upcoming enhancements to its Google Play game services with the intention to offer greater support for both Android and iOS devices. Launched last year as Google’s answer to Apple’s Game Center, Google Play offers game developers APIs to implement game-enhancing features like leaderboards, achievements, cloud-based data storage, and real-time multiplayer connectivity. Google, however, positions Play as a complement to Apple’s offering. “We propose that both Game Center and Google Play games are equally visible within your application,” the corporate says in its developer documentation. Several of the hot features coming to Google Play games within the weeks ahead aim to assist with player engagement. Google Play is gaining the power to send virtual in-game gifts to people of their circles or through multiplayer search. The Play games app now supports multiplayer invites. And the Google Play Store now supports... Read More »

Federal agencies have until June 5 to certify their cloud systems. Here is what will happen in the event that they miss the deadline. Most Wasteful Government IT Projects Of 2013 (click image for larger view and for slideshow) As we reported last week in an in-depth analysis, cloud service providers are queuing up for a rigorous government review process that certifies their service meets a strict baseline of security standards. This certification, often called the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, is mandatory for any cloud merchant seeking to do business with federal agencies. But the stakes are equally high for the federal agencies. The Office of Management and Budget, which mandated in 2011 that agencies begin using cloud services, has given them until June 5 to turn that those services meet federal security standards. A big question now could be what happens if cloud service providers do not get the safety certification by the June deadline? And where does that leave agencies... Read More »

Watch out, Amazon Web Services. These younger cloud companies bring new architectures and provisioning tips on how to the sport. The cloud is sufficiently old, and Amazon Web Services mature enough at age seven, to make you wonder: Could market leader AWS be outflanked by a fresh architecture or a supplier with a more flexible approach to provisioning user-designed servers? So far, cloud vendors have defined services using their very own templates, with a given amount of CPU, memory, and storage. Market leaders Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Rackspace each do it roughly an identical way. But younger companies try new architectures and more flexible provisioning methods. On earth of cloud computing, where names like Savvis, Terremark, CSC, and SoftLayer predominate, here is a six-pack of contenders to be the following superstar in cloud computing. DigitalOcean in Big apple has an architecture which could pose a challenge in the future to Amazon, given its heavy reliance on solid-state disks and high-speed provisioning. However the firm has... Read More »

Examine this analogy closely. Open-source hardware and open-source software involve different processes with different levels of user participation. The analogy of the way Open Compute is analogous to Linux was made repeatedly on the Open Compute Summit V this week. The analogy is fair — open-source hardware shares many underlying values with open-source software — but i discovered myself curiously disagreeing with the statement every time I heard it. The Open Compute Project (OCP) is a bold initiative to position hardware designs into the general public sphere and let many parties use them. Collaborative groups have formed to specify what they need in an OCP-certified server, storage device, or datacenter switch, giving hardware manufacturers the choice to select to provide it or not. The goal is to cut back vendor lock-in, put more power into the hands of end users, and standardize key pieces of hardware within the datacenter to create more interchangeable parts. These are worthy goals, ones that potentially overturn some of the... Read More »