Jordan covers cloud computing and is based in San Francisco. He has written for newspapers and magazines in New York, Mississippi and Oregon, most recently at The Bulletin newspaper in Bend, Ore. He studied magazine journalism at the University of Missouri.
Facebook executives on Thursday talked about how its acquisition of Parse’s Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) can help developers, Facebook users and, of course, Facebook. Read more »
Box recognizes that user experience is important, particularly on mobile devices. The company said Thursday it has acquired technology from the Folders iPhone app, which lets users open many kinds of files. Read more »
Software-defined networking vendor ConteXtream says a wireless service provider has deployed software to virtualize a network that supports around 40 million customers. Read more »
In line with big investments in IT security, Skyhigh Networks is gaining ground with $20 million in new funding for software that puts a spotlight on shadow IT. Read more »
An article from Data Center Knowledge points to things robots can do to increase efficiency in data centers. But hurdles lie ahead, and data centers will still need administrators, the article suggests. Read more »
As cyberattacks just keep on coming, there’s lots of investment activity, and now Blue Coat Systems is adding more software and hardware capability by acquiring Solera Networks. Read more »
VMware executives shared the prices that its customers will pay to use its new vCloud Hybrid Service launching later this year, but it’s unclear if customers and partners will be happy with the offering. Read more »
Many companies rely on multiple databases, but what if you could take bits and pieces from each and make queries that way? Orchestrate.io has picked up seed funding to help companies do so. Read more »
Intel, whose chips are in production at data centers worldwide, has taken steps lately to make consumer data more accessible to the public. How to expose the data is another matter. Read more »
The Google Cloud Platform gets a little stronger with the coming of new networking features, such as load balancing, on the Google Compute Engine, which could help enterprises get on board. Read more »
In response to a question at a Google I/O talk on Thursday, luminaries from Google Research took a stab at predicting life 10 years from now. Here’s what they had to say. Read more »
To make sure the response time for their increasingly interactive sites stays low, Chrome developers might want to look at ways to make use of the graphic processors embedded in consumer devices. Read more »
Google said Thursday it is establishing a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab to trigger the next phase of machine learning with the power of quantum computers. The efforts could trickle down to ordinary people. Read more »
Even as Google makes moves to compel developers to try out the Google Cloud Platform, developers see Amazon Web Services as the clear cloud to beat, at least for now. Read more »
New notification features for Google Now and richer voice recognition in searches on mobile devices and desktops keeps Google the search to beat. Read more »
Google said it will introduce location-oriented APIs so Android developers can build richer applications that make the most of the sensors on Android devices. Read more »
Andreas Weigend, formerly chief scientist at Amazon, has some ideas for how businesses can do more with their customers’ data. A few come from his old employer, while others stem from personal experience. Read more »
Looking to help people with little programming experience build out their own applications, Software AG is releasing its own Platform as a Service following its acquisition of LongJump. Read more »
@WalmartLabs has picked up OneOps and Tasty Labs, which will enable rapid application development and social applications. The buys make sense with Wal-Mart trying to offer rich experiences that best other online retailers. Read more »
Northern New Jersey is a hotbed for data centers, with New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq data located there. And there’s considerable demand for rented space nearby, meaning Equinix and the like are keeping busy. Read more »
Google will use Arduinos to pick up on motion and sound at this week’s Google I/O conference. While it could help Google better use its conference space in the future, it could also inspire developers. Read more »
Many companies have realized mobile applications can help employees track operations on the go. No wonder DNS provider Dyn has acquired Trendslide, a company with dashboard technology, to enable monitoring for devops. Read more »
Twitter will expand its data center footprint in Sacramento, Data Center Knowledge reports. The move would help the social network support traffic spikes and a continually growing user base. Read more »
Google Drive had another service disruption on Friday, and it probably doesn’t help Google’s efforts to woo enterprises onto Google Apps and other Google cloud products. Read more »
Box wants to make document sharing and collaborating “consumer-grade,” and it’s moving forward on that journey with the acquisition of the PDF-to-HTML5 converting company Crocodoc. Read more »
Tweets and other public-facing data have limits, but researchers see new value in Wikipedia page views. That data could inform an investment strategy more closely tied to Dow Jones performance than a random strategy. Read more »
Some analysts are believe two Fusion-io founders might be leaving because they disagreed with the future direction of the company, which involves more software capability and more business from smaller companies. Read more »
To bring scalability to application delivery controllers, Riverbed has miniaturized its software, so load-balancing resources can keep up with changes in storage and compute. Read more »
Shooting for general release later this year, Juniper is testing its JunosV Contrail controller in a long-term strategy shift that aims to keep its hardware relevant and enables programmability. Read more »
Venture capitalists are seeing all the headlines about cyberattacks, and they’re moving quickly to fund security startups that could solve problems. Read more »
A defense contractor faced repeated hacks from Chinese spies who gained access to terabytes of confidential data, Bloomberg reports. More security tools could help, and the government could do more to protect itself. Read more »
Asana wants to help people around the world become more productive and efficient. New features for larger businesses and teams give Asana better credentials for enterprise adoption. How many enterprises will bite? Read more »
Amazon Web Services’ 2013 San Francisco summit kicked off with boastful words about the public-cloud leader. Read more »
Application-performance management has been hot lately, and New Relic has the revenue and customer growth to prove it. Read more »
10gen, the company behind the popular MongoDB NoSQL database, has come out with a way for users to back up their data, so developers can focus on building applications. Read more »
Novell, a staid brand in enterprise software, is adding its first totally new product — Filr — since Attachmate closed on its acquisition of the company in 2011. Read more »
Following on its purchase of Vyatta, Brocade is coming out with software options and some hardware to support its drive for network virtualization. Read more »
While benchmarks on cloud-computing performance come with their share of caveats, new data from Compuware show smaller cloud service providers such as Layered Tech coming out ahead of the big dogs. Read more »
In a post on Facebook’s engineering blog, engineers discuss the ways in which natural-language processing helps interpret what users plug in to suggest the best possible queries. Read more »
Amazon and Facebook are looking for engineers to work on deploying next-generation software-defined networks. Amazon’s project could bring new services for its cloud customers. Read more »
