Otoy hopes to encourage Amazon Web Services customers to decide to its royalty-free application streaming technology. IBM Predicts Next 5 Life-Changing Tech Innovations (click image for larger view) Otoy, a 3D graphics technology company, this week said it had decided to maintain its ORBX and OctaneCloud Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) free, because of unexpected demand. If that demand could be sustained, Otoy could succeed where game streaming service OnLive failed. AMIs are software packages which may boot an Amazon EC2 instance. Otoy’s AMIs allow 3D graphics to be rendered rapidly with assistance from a GPU. Along side ORBX.js, a JavaScript framework for streaming traditional applications from cloud-based servers, these AMIs enable Amazon Web Services customers to stream sophisticated 3D graphics applications which include Autodesk Maya, high-quality Hollywood movies, or graphically demanding 3D games to an internet browser without the desire for plug-ins, video codecs, or other client-side software. Otoy began offering its ORBX and OctaneCloud AMIs at no cost in November, with the intention of... Read More »

Google patent application describes ways computers can read people’s body language to measure their interest in media. CES 2014: Cisco’s Internet of Everything Vision (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Google desires to know the way you reply to the media content you view. It will probably ask you, but you could possibly not like to answer, and, even though you probably did, you may not accurately convey the way you feel. To obtain a more accurate measurement, the company’s engineers has been exploring methods to read your body language. A patent application published on Thursday describes the way to assess enthusiasm for media content using information captured by a videocamera, the one who will soon be watching you at your residence, through your TV, computer, or mobile device, if it is not there already. “Determining User Interest Through Detected Physical Indicia” outlines what may well be called either an enthusiasm meter or a boredom meter, reckoning on whether you... Read More »

IT consultant David Linthicum says ignore claims on performance and just test your application in a target environment. I’m always skeptical about claims that seem too good to be true, especially with regards to technology. The newest instances are claims made round the Google Cloud’s ability to give “performance stability,” as best highlighted in a commentary by Chandra Krintz, “Google Cloud’s Big Promise: Performance Stability.” While cloud platforms, specifically, IaaS platforms, do their best to supply consistent performance, the performance that we see from most cloud providers is often a bit of “bursty.” They sometimes provide non-consistent performance inside the day. Here’s due largely to the undeniable fact that you finally share physical resources, comparable to CPUs, memory, disk, network, etc., with many alternative tenants, with a variety of requirements. This is an old problem. Multiuser systems (versus multitenant) have long had an identical issues, and you’ll still see it today. As more users log in to a system, the slower the system becomes. Eventually, there’s... Read More »

Amazon Web Services will kick off cloud services in China inside the first quarter of 2014. It may learn from the hurdles Microsoft and Google have jumped. Top 10 Cloud Fiascos (click image for larger view) Last May Microsoft established two Azure cloud datacenters in China. Apple is at the verge of changing into the #1 smartphone vendor within the country. If Microsoft, Apple, and Nixon can visit China, Amazon Web Services thinks it may be there, too. The world’s second largest economy is just too big for a corporation with Amazon’s ambitions to disregard. Amazon will launch numerous its cloud services in “limited preview” in its new Beijing region within the first quarter of 2014. Only selected businesses with customers or operations in China should be allowed to apply the services while they continue to be in limited preview. But that would turn into general availability later inside the year. China have been a tough environment for giant Web companies, akin to Google, to... Read More »

IBM execs tout Watson-as-a-Service, venture funding to tech startups in California. Lance Crosby, CEO of IBM’s cloud unit SoftLayer is traveling up and down the Silicon Valley meeting with startups. But his mission isn’t to get them to show to IBM for cloud services, although startups typically show a robust affinity for using cloud infrastructure. Rather, he’s busy introducing IBM’s 14-year-old venture capital unit, which has $100 million to speculate in firms that see new business opportunities from IBM’s Watson analytics system. SoftLayer is now offering Watson-as-a-Service out of 3 of its cloud centers — Dallas, London, and Hong Kong  — Crosby said during a trip to InformationWeek offices Wednesday March 5. “We moved the Watson Group to Manhattan’s Silicon Ally, its tech hub,” noted Crosby. That puts 2,000 Watson developers, maintainers, product managers, and marketers next to at least one of the best concentrations of startups at the East Coast. IBM has previously partnered with John Hopkins University to explore what Watson can do when... Read More »