SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft is preparing to take its most ambitious step yet in transforming its personal computer business into one tied more closely to software running in remote data centers.

The software giant announced on Tuesday a data storage and Web software system, called Live Mesh, that is intended to blur the distinction between software running on the Windows operating system and an elaborate array of services that will be delivered to a growing collection of electronic gadgets. Live Mesh is Microsoft’s late entry into a rapidly growing market described as cloud computing. The term refers to the movement of software applications and services from PCs to centralized data centers, where they are made available via the Internet. Companies like Amazon.com, Google, Salesforce and dozens of others are building computing centers that will effectively outsource data processing and make it a commodity that companies purchase as they would electricity.
soucre: NYtimes
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Yahoo said Tuesday that it would join an alliance organized by Google, its principal rival, that will try to make it easier for programmers to write software that can run on the pages of many social networks and other Web sites.

Google announced on Tuesday that it would give up control of the alliance and turn it over to a nonprofit foundation. Google, Yahoo and MySpace, another member of the group, will be among founding members of the group, the OpenSocial Foundation.

The addition of Yahoo broadens the potential reach of the foundation. The group is working on standards that will let developers create programs that can run on any social network or Web site that embraces them. Such programs might, for example, allow users to let friends know the music or movies they enjoy.

The creation of the OpenSocial alliance last fall was widely seen as a response by Google and others to the growing power of Facebook, which has persuaded thousands of outside developers to build applications for its site. Those applications have helped bolster Facebook’s popularity.

The creators of many of the most popular Facebook applications have since said they plan to adapt their programs to be compatible with OpenSocial.

Although Google is not a major force in social networking, its rivalry with Facebook appears to be intensifying. Facebook, for instance, has signed an advertising partnership with Microsoft and has recruited several prominent programmers and executives from Google, including Sheryl Sandberg, who became Facebook’s chief operating officer.

A Facebook spokeswoman, Brandee Barker, said it would not be part of OpenSocial. “Facebook is not joining this foundation, but the company remains focused on advancing Facebook Platform to benefit the developer community and help users communicate and share information more efficiently,” Ms. Barker said.

Yahoo considered joining the alliance for months, according to a person with direct knowledge of its plans. But Yahoo executives worried that Google might exert too much control over the evolution of the alliance and over any intellectual property it created, that person said.

In a conference call with reporters, Google and Yahoo executives dismissed the idea that the decision to put OpenSocial in the hands of a foundation was a response to Yahoo’s concerns.

Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google, said the foundation represented “more an evolution of where OpenSocial is heading” than a response to concerns raised by any one member. And Wade Chambers, vice president for platforms at Yahoo, praised Google’s stewardship of the standard so far.

The foundation, to be created within 90 days, will “ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-governed specification for building social applications across the Web,” the companies said.

Yahoo gave no details on when or how it would adopt the OpenSocial standards. So far, only MySpace and Orkut, Google’s social network, have introduced OpenSocial, Mr. Kraus said.

By MIGUEL HELFT
Source: The NewYork Times

Leading UK internet service providers are warning they may have to restrict customers’ access to the BBC’s new iPlayer service unless the corporation contributes to the cost of streaming videos over the internet.

Internet companies such as Tiscali, BT and Carphone Warehouse have raised concerns that the iPlayer, which allows viewers to watch TV shows over the internet, will put too much strain on their networks if it becomes popular among a mass audience.

Streaming TV shows takes up a lot of bandwidth and could clog up the network, severely slowing internet access speeds at peak times.

“The internet was not set up with a view to distributing video. We have been improving our capacity, but the bandwidth we have is not infinite,” said Mary Turner, chief executive of Tiscali UK. “If the iPlayer really takes off, consumers accessing the internet will get very slow service and will call their ISPs to complain.”

ITV and Channel 4 have also launched internet players and new media companies such as Joost are hoping to create businesses around on-demand television over the internet.

However, the free BBC service, which launched at the end of July, is seen as potentially the most popular and is therefore a focus for ISP concerns.

Ms Turner said that unless they could agree a strategy with the BBC to share network costs, Tiscali would have to restrict users’ access to the iPlayer.

This practice of “traffic shaping” is already used by Tiscali and several other internet companies to manage network traffic by giving lower priority to users who download large music, video or games files at peak times.

While it would not block access to the iPlayer, it could make it painfully slow at popular times.

The alternative would be for ISPs to create a “two-tier” system for customers, charging those people who want to download TV and other bandwidth-heavy content more for internet access.

“We are in regular discussions with the ISPs and together are monitoring the costs associated with video-on-demand,” the BBC said.

The Financial Times Limited 2007

The following brief article answers some of the key questions readers may have about the IPTV market and technologies.

What is IPTV?

IPTV is about providing high-quality multi-channel television and streamed/downloadable video, all delivered via the web’s IP protocols and displayed on the TV set in your living room.

IPTV is currently provided by telcos around the world.

Research suggests that although there are barely 2.5 million IPTV subscribers globally today, there will be around 25 million by 2010.

The ability to pipe TV content over broadband has the potential to turn the broadcasting, film, advertising, telecoms and cable industries upside down. It’s extremely disruptive technology.

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IPTV is moving rapidly towards mass-market adoption. The involvement of incumbent telecoms operators in most major markets by 2007 (France, Spain, Italy, UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, for example) will provide the marketing, word-of-mouth and - for the many conservative-minded television viewers yet to switch to digital TV - the credibility that could boost the market for all IPTV providers.

Several early IPTV deployments are now reaching subscriber figures where they must be taken seriously, including Telefonica in Spain, which has over 200,000 subscribers for its Imagenio television service (launched commercially November 2004). The Spanish company is predicting one million customers by 2008. France Telecom (launched December 2003) doubled its customer count during 2005, ending the year with 200,000 subscribers for its MaLigne TV service too.

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MÉDIAS

Le Wall Street Journal réorganise sa rédaction. Il justifie cette opération par «de profonds changements dans la presse». La réorganisation complètera l’intégration des éditions papier et internet du journal et simplifiera l’organigramme des services en charge de l’actualité internationale, a précisé le «WSJ» mercredi dans un communiqué. – (ats)

San Jose, Calif. - June 6, 2007 - Streaming21, the world leader in broadcast-quality streaming solutions, today announced its award-winning IP broadcasting solution, Media Relay Server 2.0, which provides a full suite of functionality for broadcasting reliable live TV channels and live events to televisions over public Internet with broadcast video quality in standard and high definitions. The new solution is an excellent alternative to satellite delivery of live video – it helps broadcasters to save huge cost on video transmission by using IP networks.

Unlike traditional IPTV or cable TV services which rely on expensive managed networks and only serve a limited geographic area, Streaming21 Media Relay Server enables reliable real-time video delivery to televisions through open networks and accepts subscribers from any ISP. Also, in contrast to popular live video channels over the Internet that user often see on the PC, Streaming21’s solution can deliver high-quality, full-motion video playback to TV over the Internet. This unique technology not only ensures stable streaming delivery over unmanaged networks but also allows delivering live channels to televisions over non-multicast networks.
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Calculer la longueur d’un itinéraire avec Google Earth

On ne présente plus le logiciel Google Earth qui cumule les rôles de guide de voyage et de fond cartographique. A côté des tous les services déj� rendus, ce programme est également capable de calculer la longueur d’un itinéraire. Une fonctionnalité, méconnue, plutôt sympathique.

La “règle” est un outil qui permet de mesurer la distance parcourue entre 2 points, � n’importe qu’elle échelle : locale, régionale ou nationale. Une fonction appréciable pour tous les randonneurs et tous les marcheurs mais aussi tout simplement pour satisfaire sa curiosité au quotidien. Quelle est la distance entre le pas de ma porte et la boulangerie ? Pas de problème, j’ouvre Google Earth et sollicite le menu outils pour afficher la règle:

La fenêtre volante “règle” possède deux onglets : ligne, qui permet uniquement de mesurer une distance “� vol d’oiseau” et trajet, qui permet de construire un itinéraire complexe, en plusieurs points. C’est celui-ci que nous allons sélectionner ici. Dernière étape, le choix de l’unité de mesure, prenons les mètres, pour un court trajet.

Le curseur change d’apparence et il ne reste plus qu’� reconstituer l’itinéraire en cliquant successivement avec le bouton gauche de la souris. La distance est actualisée en temps réel.

Conclusion : je marche environ 453 m pour aller jusqu’� la boulangerie la plus proche !

Venice Project delivers streaming video over the internet

The Venice Project, an ambitious global digital video distribution platform from the people behind Skype, is being tested by a group of invited users, including informitv. The first published screenshots show that it aims to provide a full-screen televisual experience. (more…)