Amazon Says One Million Customers Actively Use Its Cloud Services


Amazon Senior Vice President Andy Jassy.

Amazon Senior Vice President Andy Jassy. RIchard Brian/Reuters/Corbis



Amazon says its pioneering cloud computing services are actively used by over one million customers.

The tech giant revealed the number day, during its fourth quarter earnings announcement. Each of those one million customers have used its cloud services during a recent one month period, the company said, and usage grew close to 90 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter the year before.


The company still has not provided specific revenues for its cloud offerings, known collectively as Amazon Web Services, but it promised to reveal these numbers during its next earnings call.


Amazon Web Services provide a wide range of online tools that businesses and independent developers use to build and operate all sorts software, from web sites to data analysis tools to email systems. Basically, with these online services, people and companies can build stuff without setting up their own hardware tools.


Amazon pioneered this new breed of on-demand online computing about ten years ago, and though it now faces steep competition from Microsoft, Google, and others, it seems to dominate the market.


Now, we had least have some indication from Amazon about the size of its business. Previously, we’ve had to rely on studies from outside analysts. According to research firm DeepField, Amazon cloud services, at one point, could touches about one percent of all of the internet traffic in North America—an enormous amount.



Feds Bar Man From Posting Revenge Porn


The Federal Trade Commission has barred a man from posting nude images of women to his website without their express written consent, the agency announced today.


The man, Craig Brittain, is alleged to not only have used deceptive practices to gather the images, but also to have solicited payments from the women to have the pictures removed from his site. Brittain will be required to destroy the images as well as personal information he collected while running the site.


Posting nude images of people without their knowledge and consent—generally referred to as “revenge porn”—has become a hot button issue in recent years, as lawmakers and law enforcement struggle to find ways to curb the practice.


University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks, who has proposed federal laws against revenge porn, says the FTC’s ruling is extremely significant. “It demonstrates that the federal government recognizes the severe harm that non-consensual pornography causes and that it is prepared to punish its purveyors harshly,” she told us in an email. “The ruling sends the strong message that the federal government is on the side of the victims and potential victims of this malicious conduct.”


However, the FTC’s case against Brittain was based on his violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which bars deceptive practices, not federal criminal law. “Revenge porn as such is not a federal crime yet,” Franks says.


According to the complaint, Brittain tricked people into sending him photos in various ways, including posing as a woman on Craigslist and offering to swap nude photos of himself for photos of the women. The site then advertised services that charged women $200 to $500 to have the photos removed.


“Despite presenting these as third-party services, the complaint alleges that the sites for these services were owned and operated by Brittain,” according to the FTC’s announcement.


This the second time the federal government has gotten involved in a revenge porn case. Last year, the FBI arrested Hunter Moore, who ran a site dedicated to revenge porn. But Moore wasn’t indicted for revenge porn in and of itself, but for allegedly paying someone to hack into victims computers to steal the images.


States such as Arizona and New Jersey have passed controversial laws that explicitly forbid revenge porn, and Franks has argued that federal laws are needed to ban revenge porn outright. But opponents of such laws, such as Sarah Jeong, argue that over broad laws will lead to unintended consequences, and that existing laws—such as requirements that porn publishers keep records on their models, copyright protections, and extortion laws—already give women options for stopping revenge porn. For example, posting someone else’s selfie is a copyright violation, because photographers own the rights to their photos.


Still others, such as Kevin Conneran, writing for the Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, point out that merely forcing websites to remove unauthorized photos after the damage has already been done does little to discourage men from publishing those images in the first place. In other words, we haven’t heard the last of this debate.


Update 1/29/2015 at 8:20 PM EST: This story has been updated to clarify that Brittain was found to be in in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act, but not in violation of criminal law.



Amazon Says One Million Customers Actively Use Its Cloud Services


Amazon says its pioneering cloud computing services are actively used by over one million customers.


The tech giant revealed the number day, during its fourth quarter earnings announcement. Each of those one million customers have used its cloud services during a recent one month period, the company said, and usage grew close to 90 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter the year before.


The company still has not provided specific revenues for its cloud offerings, known collectively as Amazon Web Services, but it promised to reveal these numbers during its next earnings call.


Amazon Web Services provide a wide range of online tools that businesses and independent developers use to build and operate all sorts software, from web sites to data analysis tools to email systems. Basically, with these online services, people and companies can build stuff without setting up their own hardware tools.


Amazon pioneered this new breed of on-demand online computing about ten years ago, and though it now faces steep competition from Microsoft, Google, and others, it seems to dominate the market.


Now, we had least have some indication from Amazon about the size of its business. Previously, we’ve had to rely on studies from outside analysts. According to research firm DeepField, Amazon cloud services, at one point, could touches about one percent of all of the internet traffic in North America—an enormous amount.



Feds Bar Man From Posting Revenge Porn


The Federal Trade Commission has barred a man from posting nude images of women to his website without their express written consent, the agency announced today.


The man, Craig Brittain, is alleged to not only have used deceptive practices to gather the images, but also to have solicited payments from the women to have the pictures removed from his site. Brittain will be required to destroy the images as well as personal information he collected while running the site.


Posting nude images of people without their knowledge and consent—generally referred to as “revenge porn”—has become a hot button issue in recent years, as lawmakers and law enforcement struggle to find ways to curb the practice.


University of Miami law professor Mary Ann Franks, who has proposed federal laws against revenge porn, says the FTC’s ruling is extremely significant. “It demonstrates that the federal government recognizes the severe harm that non-consensual pornography causes and that it is prepared to punish its purveyors harshly,” she told us in an email. “The ruling sends the strong message that the federal government is on the side of the victims and potential victims of this malicious conduct.”


However, the FTC’s case against Brittain was based on his alleged fraud and extortion, not the fact that he was running a revenge porn site. “Revenge porn as such is not a federal crime yet,” Franks says.


According to the complaint, Brittain tricked people into sending him photos in various ways, including posing as a woman on Craigslist and offering to swap nude photos of himself for photos of the women. The site then advertised services that charged women $200 to $500 to have the photos removed.


“Despite presenting these as third-party services, the complaint alleges that the sites for these services were owned and operated by Brittain,” according to the FTC’s announcement.


This the second time the federal government has gotten involved in a revenge porn case. Last year, the FBI arrested Hunter Moore, who ran a site dedicated to revenge porn. But Moore wasn’t indicted for revenge porn in and of itself, but for allegedly paying someone to hack into victims computers to steal the images.


States such as Arizona and New Jersey have passed controversial laws that explicitly forbid revenge porn, and Franks has argued that federal laws are needed to ban revenge porn outright. But opponents of such laws, such as Sarah Jeong, argue that over broad laws will lead to unintended consequences, and that existing laws—such as requirements that porn publishers keep records on their models, copyright protections, and extortion laws—already give women options for stopping revenge porn. For example, posting someone else’s selfie is a copyright violation, because photographers own the rights to their photos.


Still others, such as Kevin Conneran, writing for the Richomd Journal of Law and Technology, point out that merely forcing websites to remove unauthorized photos after the damage has already been done does little to discourage men from publishing those images in the first place. In other words, we haven’t heard the last of this debate.



China’s New Rules for Selling Tech to Banks Have US Companies Spooked


An Apple employee instructs a journalist on the use of the iPhone fingerprint scanner technology during a media event in Beijing,

An Apple employee instructs a journalist on the use of the iPhone fingerprint scanner technology during a media event in Beijing, Ng Han Guan/AP



Technology companies that want to sell equipment to Chinese banks will have to submit to extensive audits, turn over source code, and build “back doors” into their hardware and software, according to a copy of the rules obtained by foreign companies already doing billions of dollar worth of business in the country. The new rules were laid out in a 22-page document from Beijing, and are presumably being put in place so that the Chinese government can peek into computer banking systems.

Details about the new regulations, which were reported in The New York Times today, are a cause for concern, particularly to Western technology companies. In 2015, the China tech market is expected to account for 43 percent of tech-sector growth worldwide. With these new regulations, foreign companies and business groups worry that authorities may be trying to push them out of the fast-growing market. According to the Times, the groups—which include the US Chamber of Commerce—sent a letter Wednesday to a top-level Communist Party committee, criticizing the new policies that they say essentially amount to protectionism.


The new bank rules and the reaction from Western corporations represent the latest development in an ongoing squabble between China and the US over cybersecurity and technology. The US government has held China responsible for a number of cyberattacks on American companies, and continues to be wary that Chinese-made hardware, software and internet services may have some built-in features that allow the Chinese government to snoop on American consumers. Meanwhile, China has used the recent disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as proof that the US is already doing this kind of spying—and that this is reason enough to get rid of American technology in the country.


If US companies are forced out of the Chinese market, it could significantly hurt some of the biggest American tech companies—notably Apple. Its recent earnings call revealed a blockbuster quarter for the company, during which it sold a whopping 74.4 million iPhones over 90 days—or 34,000 iPhones sold every hour, every day of the quarter. The market with the biggest growth? China, where revenue grew by 70 percent in the most recent quarter from a year earlier, which is more than triple the growth rate in America and Europe.


Beyond hurting US businesses, China’s strict control over technology and internet policies could further widen the digital divide between China and the rest of the world. These regulations could hamstring hardware and software makers to choose between selling to either China or the United States, as the Times points out. In that scenario, the alternative would be to create two different versions of all hardware and software for the two countries, depending on the regulations for each.


But, according to the Times report, even if Beijing pushes the banking industry to uphold the new rules, they won’t be able to implement them immediately. Banks need billions of dollars’ worth of technology infrastructure to manage the transactions that pass through its systems, and Chinese companies don’t yet have the ability to support production on that level.



When Robots Beam Down From the Cloud


cloud-high-low-ft

theaucitron/Flick



It’s been over 20 years since Larry Ellison made the case for cloud computing. Some speculate he only invented the idea to get at Bill Gates, the dominance of the PC and the then-newly released Windows 95. Even if the motivation had a personal edge, the point is that he had a strong case.


As always, the argument is about economics, and the issue is: how many people benefit under the new regime as compared to the old?


When Ellison first espoused the model, he likened it to things like power plants, reservoirs and recycling – cases where it makes sense to share and where we all consume the output. Aside from the out-of-character, dangerously socialist undertones, Ellison were simply saying cloud computing costs less.


The idea was quickly ridiculed. Journo comment went for the jugular, saying, “The day Larry Ellison composes sensitive Oracle memos on this new fangled device is the day I…”


Well. How far we have come since then. Not only do people compose sensitive memos on the “new fangled devices,” we use them to keep unreleased film scripts and actual finished films. Plus, it seems all celebrities keep their nude snaps on these fangled devices too. It has even invented a new form of blackmail where we, the public, get to see (or not see) these items unless demands are met. So, the sensitive data argument has been laid bare and beaten by the good ol’ cost reduction paddle.


Ellison always argued it was the network that should be regarded as the real value – not the device. And to this we now have much consensus. The bean counters like networks because they deliver everything as a service (EaaS). This means capex is abolished, everything is a running cost, and there are no more bulging balance sheets groaning under the weight of old iron and tin.


However, apart from the security question, there is an issue that still generates corporate jitters, and that is interoperability. It is the question of the basic plumbing: how do these things get connected together? Say I want two or three clouds? More? How do they connect with non-cloud things? In short, how do they interoperate? Especially in an emergency?


Most businesses want more value from assets, not less. For that reason, connections between on-premise and cloud, and between clouds, and even within a single cloud, is key. Otherwise we fear a padded cell that eventually rains value out of our businesses. Without certain freedoms it risks becoming a One Size Fits All as a Service (OSFAaaS) prison, in which we are forced to survive on a single service Pangea with no way off. Where is the balance?


Businesses want great value but they need choices, flexibility and some individuality. Like it or not, we also all compete at some level, even on how we pay sales bonuses, deliver parcels and make telephone calls. Put another way, we even configure SAP differently.


One of the most exciting things about this situation is the intervention of our now-familiar software robots. They are late to the party but will make a crucial point.


Software robots, or computers/virtual machines/processing capabilities, are repurposed to mimic humans and the way humans orchestrate and operate other software applications. These software robots become fantastically relevant in the cloud context because they offer choice.


They are totally promiscuous – like humans. They will use any service, like humans; can switch and distribute workload across services based on congestion and latency, unlike humans; automate like machines, unlike humans; are available from the cloud, unlike humans; and can scale, almost at the speed of light, very unlike humans.


Software robots offer a form of “operating system” for the cloud, providing freedoms from one provider to another, or between complex blends of configuration. One could even arbitrage service levels with the right software robots. This looks a lot less like prison.


Punters will truly welcome these software robots. They dispel the fear of being trapped and having to make economic choices that don’t seem to make total sense. Legacy on-premise systems can deliver value. Moreover, the cloud choice is not irrevocable. It means on-premises capacity is used, as needed, can be enhanced, mixed and even replaced with cloud services as required.


Software robots also accelerate the adoption of dedicated cloud switch over. They are a technology that is used by the operations teams, so they offer an immediate increase in the resources capable of carrying out these types of initiatives. It also helps that the business teams are capable of taking data sections (literally through GUI windows) to the new cloud service, without the extremity of uprooting and performing a complete ETL database transplant. This sheds an enormous amount of weight and risk.


Because robots mimic humans, they future-proof against new releases and upgrades at any link in the chain. This flexibility means cloud becomes less like prison and more like a service buffet. Who could dislike that? It means people can relax and enjoy the balance sheet improvement. Ironically, they may even accelerate the race towards a service Pangea.


Jason Kingdon is chairman of Blue Prism.



Prosecutors Trace $13.4M in Bitcoins From the Silk Road to Ulbricht’s Laptop


172786948

Getty Images



If anyone still believes that bitcoin is magically anonymous internet money, the US government just offered what may be the clearest demonstration yet that it’s not. A former federal agent has shown in a courtroom that he traced hundreds of thousands of bitcoins from the Silk Road anonymous marketplace for drugs directly to the personal computer of Ross Ulbricht, the 30-year-old accused of running that contraband bazaar.

In Ulbricht’s trial Thursday, former FBI special agent Ilhwan Yum described how he traced 3,760 bitcoin transactions over 12 months ending in late August 2013 from servers seized in the Silk Road investigation to Ross Ulbricht’s Samsung 700z laptop, which the FBI seized at the time of his arrest in October of that year. In all, he followed more than 700,000 bitcoins along the public ledger of bitcoin transactions, known as the blockchain, from the marketplace to what seemed to be Ulbricht’s personal wallets. Based on exchange rates at the time of each transaction, Yum calculated that the transferred coins were worth a total of $13.4 million.


“You mean direct, one-to-one transfers?” prosecutor Timothy Howard asked Yum.


“Yes, direct, one-to-one transfers,” Yum responded.


Yum’s testimony represents another damning line of evidence connecting Ulbricht to the Silk Road, on top of a journal detailing the Silk Road’s creation found on his laptop and testimony from a college friend who said that Ulbricht confessed creating the site to him. Ulbricht’s defense has argued that despite initially founding the Silk Road, the 30-year-old Texan quickly gave it up to the site’s real owners, who later lured him back just before his arrest to serve as the “perfect fall guy.” But Yum’s analysis showed that Ulbricht was receiving bitcoin transfers from Silk Road servers in data centers near Philadelphia and Reykjavik, Iceland long after his defense has argued he turned over control of the site.


More broadly, Yum’s testimony confirms what most savvy bitcoin users already know: that the cryptocurrency is by no means untraceable or anonymous by default. Although using bitcoins doesn’t necessarily require revealing any identifying information, all bitcoin transactions are traced on the blockchain, the same widely distributed list of transactions designed to make counterfeiting bitcoins impossible. If someone can identify a user’s bitcoin addresses—in Ulbricht’s case, by seizing the laptop he was actively using at the moment of his arrest—then they can often be used to trace his or her transactions.


In fact, Berkeley computer science professor Nicholas Weaver had already shown that he was able to follow more than 29,000 bitcoins from the Silk Road to Ulbricht’s laptop based only on publicly available information. The prosecution, with access to Ulbricht’s hard drive, had far more success. Nearly 500,000 bitcoins of the 700,253 bitcoins were transferred from September to November 2012, explaining their relatively low total exchange rate.


Remarkably, that total trail of drug-tainted coins represents more than four times as many bitcoins from Silk Road Ulbricht’s laptop than have yet been found and seized in the Silk Road investigation. It’s still not clear from Yum’s testimony where the rest of them ended up.


The Silk Road advertised that it protected users by “tumbling” coins, mixing them up between users to prevent anyone’s transactions from being identified. But Yum’s testimony makes it clear that withdrawals from the site could still be tied to users, particularly after the FBI possessed the Silk Road’s servers. Bitcoin anonymity tools like Bitcoin Fog or Dark Wallet could further obscure bitcoins’ digital trail, but it doesn’t seem that Ulbricht himself used those protections, instead transferring the coins directly to his own wallet. Based on earlier testimony from FBI agents, Ulbricht likely believed his hard drive’s encryption would prevent anyone from tying his bitcoin addresses to his real-world identity.


When the morning’s testimony ended, the prosecution still hadn’t finished questioning Yum, and that questioning will be followed by cross examination from Ulbricht’s defense attorneys. Given the mind-twisting complexity of the bitcoin blockchain for an unschooled jury, the defense may yet have plenty of room to inject doubt into the government’s analysis. Stay tuned for further updates later today.



One of F1’s Greatest Partnerships Ever Reveals Its New Rocket


honda-f1-inline1

Honda



We’ve been like little kids waiting for Christmas since we heard that McLaren and Honda were teaming up again in Formula One. And now they’ve unveiled a brilliant, red-tipped silver bullet that the ridiculously talented driver lineup of Fernando Alonso and Jensen Button, both former World Champions, will helm around the world’s racetracks during the 2015 F1 season.


McLaren-Honda was one of the most successful partnerships in Formula One history, with drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost winning both the driver’s championship and constructor’s championship each year from 1988 to 1991 thanks in large part to Honda’s amazing engines1.


After a lackluster fifth place finish in 2014, McLaren dropped Mercedes as an engine supplier in favor of its long-lost flame. The result is the MP4-30, the only car on the grid to be fitted with Honda’s RA615H Hybrid Power Unit—basically a fancy name for a fancy engine. Like the engines used last season (as required by F1), Honda’s turbocharged 1.6-liter V6 will work with a pair of hybrid systems, one on the crankshaft for use during braking and one connected to the turbocharger to generate power when the driver isn’t on the throttle, to charge the car’s 50-pound lithium-ion battery. The result is an engine that has a little more in common with a standard road car, allowing F1 research and development efforts to maybe end up in your Honda Accord some day.


honda-f1-inline2

Honda



The look of the car—really the only thing we can talk about because we haven’t seen the thing actually run yet—is an evolution of what McLaren raced last year, with a sleeker front nose and a dashing red line around the nose and back to the driver’s mirrors. Perhaps a nod to new McLaren driver Fernando Alonso’s long history with Ferrari?

The partnership between the two companies is especially interesting because, at least for 2015, Honda is only working with McLaren. They will be able to exchange information and strategies without worrying about competitors learning what they’re up to. In contrast, last year, McLaren was using Mercedes engines and, with Mercedes having their own factory race team, there must have been more than a little consternation at McLaren over sharing technical information with their competitors. After all, Mercedes completely dominated the field in 2014.


Either way, we think the car looks phenomenal and can’t wait to see McLaren, Mercedes, and the rest of the field duking it out across 20 of the world’s best racetracks. The 2015 season opens in Melbourne, Australia on March 15.


1Post updated at 2:28PM PST: Corrected the type of engines used by Honda between 1988 and 1991.



To Adjust This Standing Desk’s Height, Just Hold Out Your Hand


Top image

The TableAir is a variable-height workspace that uses a sensor to detect the height of an outstretched hand, then moves the desk surface up to match it. Plus it lights up all cool-like. TableAir



With the office world trending toward its feet, we’re awash in choices for standing desks. Even better are sit/stand or variable-height desks that don’t force you to commit to standing all the time. Models like the Stir or the Ikea Bekant are recent faves.


The TableAir is one of these variable-height desks, but it’s built with tech that’s more advanced than the rest: it uses a sensor to adjust to your position. When you want to work standing up, you briefly press the button on the top, then hold your hand out in front of you to indicate the desired height. The sensor on top of the desk detects your hand’s height, and the motors move the TableAir up to match it. Oh yeah, and the whole rim of the desk lights up like an Arc Reactor while this happens.


Pushing the button once and holding your hand above the sensor raises it. Push and hold the button, and it lowers back down until you let go. The TableAir’s motors are small and relatively silent, and they can move the surface between 25 and 51 inches (between 64 and 130cm for you non-Imperial folk). That’s roughly 2 feet, the height of a tall coffee table, to 4.25 feet, the height of a comfortable standing desk.



China’s New Rules for Selling Tech to Banks Have US Companies Spooked


An Apple employee instructs a journalist on the use of the iPhone fingerprint scanner technology during a media event in Beijing,

An Apple employee instructs a journalist on the use of the iPhone fingerprint scanner technology during a media event in Beijing, Ng Han Guan/AP



Technology companies that want to sell equipment to Chinese banks will have to submit to extensive audits, turn over source code, and build “back doors” into their hardware and software, according to a copy of the rules obtained by foreign companies already doing billions of dollar worth of business in the country. The new rules were laid out in a 22-page document from Beijing, and are presumably being put in place so that the Chinese government can peek into computer banking systems.

Details about the new regulations, which were reported in The New York Times today, are a cause for concern, particularly to Western technology companies. In 2015, the China tech market is expected to account for 43 percent of tech-sector growth worldwide. With these new regulations, foreign companies and business groups worry that authorities may be trying to push them out of the fast-growing market. According to the Times, the groups—which include the US Chamber of Commerce—sent a letter Wednesday to a top-level Communist Party committee, criticizing the new policies that they say essentially amount to protectionism.


The new bank rules and the reaction from Western corporations represent the latest development in an ongoing squabble between China and the US over cybersecurity and technology. The US government has held China responsible for a number of cyberattacks on American companies, and continues to be wary that Chinese-made hardware, software and internet services may have some built-in features that allow the Chinese government to snoop on American consumers. Meanwhile, China has used the recent disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden as proof that the US is already doing this kind of spying—and that this is reason enough to get rid of American technology in the country.


If US companies are forced out of the Chinese market, it could significantly hurt some of the biggest American tech companies—notably Apple. Its recent earnings call revealed a blockbuster quarter for the company, during which it sold a whopping 74.4 million iPhones over 90 days—or 34,000 iPhones sold every hour, every day of the quarter. The market with the biggest growth? China, where revenue grew by 70 percent in the most recent quarter from a year earlier, which is more than triple the growth rate in America and Europe.


Beyond hurting US businesses, China’s strict control over technology and internet policies could further widen the digital divide between China and the rest of the world. These regulations could hamstring hardware and software makers to choosing between selling to either China or the United States, as the Times points out. In that scenario, the alternative would be to create two different versions of all hardware and software for the two countries, depending on the regulations for each.


But, according to the Times report, even if Beijing pushes the banking industry to uphold the new rules, they won’t be able to implement them immediately. Banks need billions of dollars’ worth of technology infrastructure to manage the transactions that pass through its systems, and Chinese companies don’t yet have the ability to support production on that level.



When Robots Beam Down From the Cloud


cloud-high-low-ft

theaucitron/Flick



It’s been over 20 years since Larry Ellison made the case for cloud computing. Some speculate he only invented the idea to get at Bill Gates, the dominance of the PC and the then-newly released Windows 95. Even if the motivation had a personal edge, the point is that he had a strong case.


As always, the argument is about economics, and the issue is: how many people benefit under the new regime as compared to the old?


When Ellison first espoused the model, he likened it to things like power plants, reservoirs and recycling – cases where it makes sense to share and where we all consume the output. Aside from the out-of-character, dangerously socialist undertones, Ellison were simply saying cloud computing costs less.


The idea was quickly ridiculed. Journo comment went for the jugular, saying, “The day Larry Ellison composes sensitive Oracle memos on this new fangled device is the day I…”


Well. How far we have come since then. Not only do people compose sensitive memos on the “new fangled devices,” we use them to keep unreleased film scripts and actual finished films. Plus, it seems all celebrities keep their nude snaps on these fangled devices too. It has even invented a new form of blackmail where we, the public, get to see (or not see) these items unless demands are met. So, the sensitive data argument has been laid bare and beaten by the good ol’ cost reduction paddle.


Ellison always argued it was the network that should be regarded as the real value – not the device. And to this we now have much consensus. The bean counters like networks because they deliver everything as a service (EaaS). This means capex is abolished, everything is a running cost, and there are no more bulging balance sheets groaning under the weight of old iron and tin.


However, apart from the security question, there is an issue that still generates corporate jitters, and that is interoperability. It is the question of the basic plumbing: how do these things get connected together? Say I want two or three clouds? More? How do they connect with non-cloud things? In short, how do they interoperate? Especially in an emergency?


Most businesses want more value from assets, not less. For that reason, connections between on-premise and cloud, and between clouds, and even within a single cloud, is key. Otherwise we fear a padded cell that eventually rains value out of our businesses. Without certain freedoms it risks becoming a One Size Fits All as a Service (OSFAaaS) prison, in which we are forced to survive on a single service Pangea with no way off. Where is the balance?


Businesses want great value but they need choices, flexibility and some individuality. Like it or not, we also all compete at some level, even on how we pay sales bonuses, deliver parcels and make telephone calls. Put another way, we even configure SAP differently.


One of the most exciting things about this situation is the intervention of our now-familiar software robots. They are late to the party but will make a crucial point.


Software robots, or computers/virtual machines/processing capabilities, are repurposed to mimic humans and the way humans orchestrate and operate other software applications. These software robots become fantastically relevant in the cloud context because they offer choice.


They are totally promiscuous – like humans. They will use any service, like humans; can switch and distribute workload across services based on congestion and latency, unlike humans; automate like machines, unlike humans; are available from the cloud, unlike humans; and can scale, almost at the speed of light, very unlike humans.


Software robots offer a form of “operating system” for the cloud, providing freedoms from one provider to another, or between complex blends of configuration. One could even arbitrage service levels with the right software robots. This looks a lot less like prison.


Punters will truly welcome these software robots. They dispel the fear of being trapped and having to make economic choices that don’t seem to make total sense. Legacy on-premise systems can deliver value. Moreover, the cloud choice is not irrevocable. It means on-premises capacity is used, as needed, can be enhanced, mixed and even replaced with cloud services as required.


Software robots also accelerate the adoption of dedicated cloud switch over. They are a technology that is used by the operations teams, so they offer an immediate increase in the resources capable of carrying out these types of initiatives. It also helps that the business teams are capable of taking data sections (literally through GUI windows) to the new cloud service, without the extremity of uprooting and performing a complete ETL database transplant. This sheds an enormous amount of weight and risk.


Because robots mimic humans, they future-proof against new releases and upgrades at any link in the chain. This flexibility means cloud becomes less like prison and more like a service buffet. Who could dislike that? It means people can relax and enjoy the balance sheet improvement. Ironically, they may even accelerate the race towards a service Pangea.


Jason Kingdon is chairman of Blue Prism.



Prosecutors Trace $13.4M in Bitcoins From the Silk Road to Ulbricht’s Laptop


172786948

Getty Images



If anyone still believes that bitcoin is magically anonymous internet money, the US government just offered what may be the clearest demonstration yet that it’s not. A courtroom PowerPoint presentation traced hundreds of thousands of bitcoins from the Silk Road anonymous marketplace for drugs directly to the personal computer of Ross Ulbricht, the 30-year-old accused of running that contraband bazaar.

In Ulbricht’s trial Thursday, former FBI special agent Ilhwan Yum described how he traced 3,760 bitcoin transactions over 12 months ending in late August 2013 from servers seized in the Silk Road investigation to Ross Ulbricht’s Samsung 700z laptop, which the FBI seized at the time of his arrest in October of that year. In all, he followed more than 700,000 bitcoins along the public ledger of bitcoin transactions, known as the blockchain, from the marketplace to what seemed to be Ulbricht’s personal wallets. Based on exchange rates at the time of each transaction, Yum calculated that the transferred coins were worth a total of $13.4 million.


“You mean direct, one-to-one transfers?” prosecutor Timothy Howard asked Yum.


“Yes, direct, one-to-one transfers,” Yum responded.


Yum’s testimony represents another damning line of evidence connecting Ulbricht to the Silk Road, on top of a journal detailing the Silk Road’s creation found on his laptop and testimony from a college friend who said that Ulbricht confessed creating the site to him. Ulbricht’s defense has argued that despite initially founding the Silk Road, the 30-year-old Texan quickly gave it up to the site’s real owners, who later lured him back just before his arrest to serve as the “perfect fall guy.” But Yum’s analysis showed that Ulbricht was receiving bitcoin transfers from Silk Road servers in data centers near Philadelphia and Reykjavik, Iceland long after his defense has argued he turned over control of the site.


More broadly, Yum’s testimony confirms what most savvy bitcoin users already know: that the cryptocurrency is by no means untraceable or anonymous by default. Although using bitcoins doesn’t necessarily require revealing any identifying information, all bitcoin transactions are traced on the blockchain, the same widely distributed list of transactions designed to make counterfeiting bitcoins impossible. If someone can identify a user’s bitcoin addresses—in Ulbricht’s case, by seizing the laptop he was actively using at the moment of his arrest—then they can often be used to trace his or her transactions.


In fact, Berkeley computer science professor Nicholas Weaver had already shown that he was able to follow more than 29,000 bitcoins from the Silk Road to Ulbricht’s laptop based only on publicly available information. The prosecution, with access to Ulbricht’s hard drive, had far more success. Nearly 500,000 bitcoins of the 700,253 bitcoins were transferred from September to November 2012, explaining their relatively low total exchange rate.


Remarkably, that total trail of drug-tainted coins represents more than four times as many bitcoins from Silk Road Ulbricht’s laptop than have yet been found and seized in the Silk Road investigation. It’s still not clear from Yum’s testimony where the rest of them ended up.


The Silk Road advertised that it protected users by “tumbling” coins, mixing them up between users to prevent anyone’s transactions from being identified. But Yum’s testimony makes it clear that withdrawals from the site could still be tied to users, particularly after the FBI possessed the Silk Road’s servers. Bitcoin anonymity tools like Bitcoin Fog or Dark Wallet could further obscure bitcoins’ digital trail, but it doesn’t seem that Ulbricht himself used those protections, instead transferring the coins directly to his own wallet. Based on earlier testimony from FBI agents, Ulbricht likely believed his hard drive’s encryption would prevent anyone from tying his bitcoin addresses to his real-world identity.


When the morning’s testimony ended, the prosecution still hadn’t finished questioning Yum, and that questioning will be followed by cross examination from Ulbricht’s defense attorneys. Given the mind-twisting complexity of the bitcoin blockchain for an unschooled jury, the defense may yet have plenty of room to inject doubt into the government’s analysis. Stay tuned for further updates later today.



One of F1’s Greatest Partnerships Ever Reveals Its New Rocket


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Honda



We’ve been like little kids waiting for Christmas since we heard that McLaren and Honda were teaming up again in Formula One. And now they’ve unveiled a brilliant, red-tipped silver bullet that the ridiculously talented driver lineup of Fernando Alonso and Jensen Button, both former World Champions, will helm around the world’s racetracks during the 2015 F1 season.


McLaren-Honda was one of the most successful partnerships in Formula One history, with drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost winning both the driver’s championship and constructor’s championship each year from 1988 to 1991 thanks to Honda’s amazing turbocharged engines.


After a lackluster fifth place finish in 2014, McLaren dropped Mercedes as an engine supplier in favor of its long-lost flame. The result is the MP4-30, the only car on the grid to be fitted with Honda’s RA615H Hybrid Power Unit—basically a fancy name for a fancy engine. Like the engines used last season (as required by F1), Honda’s turbocharged 1.6-liter V6 will work with a pair of hybrid systems, one on the crankshaft for use during braking and one connected to the turbocharger to generate power when the driver isn’t on the throttle, to charge the car’s 50-pound lithium-ion battery. The result is an engine that has a little more in common with a standard road car, allowing F1 research and development efforts to maybe end up in your Honda Accord some day.


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Honda



The look of the car—really the only thing we can talk about because we haven’t seen the thing actually run yet—is an evolution of what McLaren raced last year, with a sleeker front nose and a dashing red line around the nose and back to the driver’s mirrors. Perhaps a nod to new McLaren driver Fernando Alonso’s long history with Ferrari?

The partnership between the two companies is especially interesting because, at least for 2015, Honda is only working with McLaren. They will be able to exchange information and strategies without worrying about competitors learning what they’re up to. In contrast, last year, McLaren was using Mercedes engines and, with Mercedes having their own factory race team, there must have been more than a little consternation at McLaren over sharing technical information with their competitors. After all, Mercedes completely dominated the field in 2014.


Either way, we think the car looks phenomenal and can’t wait to see McLaren, Mercedes, and the rest of the field duking it out across 20 of the world’s best racetracks. The 2015 season opens in Melbourne, Australia on March 15.



Moore’s Law and Moving Beyond Silicon: The Rise of Diamond Technology


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John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain, the inventors of the transistor, 1948 — the birth of Silicon Valley. AT&T via Wikimedia Commons



My “aha” moment occurred in 2004 when, as a junior at the University of Illinois at Chicago, double majoring in physics and engineering, a research paper seized my interest. It was about the role that diamond could play as an electronics material — vastly uncharted territory at the time. I recognized then that diamond technology could spark a seismic change in the electronics industry and I knew I wanted to play a role in making diamond semiconductor a reality.


Then, as now, silicon had been the popular material choice for semiconductor since the 1960s, and it still constitutes 95 percent of the device types available in the market. But it presented several long-term challenges. The perhaps better known problem, popularly expressed as “Moore’s Law” highlights the trend of smaller and faster electronics being physically limited by the capability of silicon — simply put, the speeds and sizes of devices in the market are almost the absolute best the material can physically perform. The still more pressing and visible problem in silicon was that of heat. Historically, heat management with silicon semiconductor devices has proven problematic for power electronics. The cooling methods required were inefficient and served as a major source of e-waste. The industry required a silicon alternative that enabled devices to be smaller, cooler, faster, more powerful, and cleaner.


That defines the diamond semiconductor. What was once considered the “holy grail” of electronics is a true alternative today, both as a silicon supplement and as a standalone semiconductor platform material. No longer just relegated to gem stone status, diamond provides a road map for an unknown number of years ahead in power electronic development and more broadly the global electronics industry.


The Power to Transform Industries


Indeed, many consider that the industry is entering the Dawn of a Diamond Age of Electronics. They believe the world’s hardest-known natural material with exceptional electronic properties will take a variety of industries to the next level of performance. It is on the verge of being the accepted choice to produce today’s most advanced industrial products – and its use in consumer electronics ranks close behind.


Why diamond? It can run hotter without degrading in performance (over 5 times that of Silicon), is more easily cooled (with 22 times the heat transfer efficiency of silicon), can tolerate higher voltages before breaking down, and electrons (and electron-holes) can move faster through them. Already, semiconductor devices with diamond material are available that deliver one million times more electrical current than silicon or previous attempts using diamond.


Diamond-based semiconductors are capable of increasing power density as well as create faster, lighter, and simpler devices. They’re more environmentally friendly than silicon and improve thermal performance within a device. As a result, the diamond materials market for semiconductors can easily eclipse that of the Silicon Carbide, which is seen growing at a 42.03 percent compound annual rate through 2020 from $3.3 Billion in 2014, due to performance, cost, and direct integration with the existing silicon platform.


The Future Is Here


The semiconductor industry dates to 1833, when English natural philosopher Michael Faraday described the “extraordinary case” of his discovery of electrical conduction increasing with temperature in silver sulfide crystals. But it wasn’t until this century that diamonds began to be considered seriously.


A little over a decade since that research paper sparked my interest, my company AKHAN SEMI, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, has developed a series of advancements that allows us to manufacture standalone diamond materials, deposit diamond directly on processed silicon, fabricate complete diamond semiconductor devices, as well as attach diamond material to other electronics materials.


Diamond wafer technology is producing thinner and cheaper devices already in use in information technology, the military and aerospace applications. In addition, diamond semiconductor will have a major impact on the consumer electronics, telecommunications and health industries, among many others, starting as early as 2015.


Automakers are eyeing applications of diamond power devices in control modules for electric cars. Diamond semiconductors can also help better manage battery life and battery systems for a wide variety of devices including phones, cameras and vehicles.


For cloud computer servers, which are stored in data centers that consume vast amounts of energy in an exceedingly wasteful manner, diamond semiconductors use less energy more efficiently while delivering better performance. Because diamond technology shrinks the size and energy needed for a semiconductor, it paves the way for smaller personal electronics from washers and dryers to televisions and digital cameras. As for defense technology, it delivers greater range, reliability, and performance in both normal and extreme/hazardous operating environments.


As a result, diamond semiconductors lead to a greater range and energy efficiency in their applications. They help drive cheaper, faster cloud integration for consumer and business needs. They change the capability of where and how to use our phones, laptops and other personal electronic devices that have yet to be invented with the benefits extending well beyond performance. Power electronics such as diamond semiconductors represent an enormous opportunity to reduce electronic waste and cut electronic cooling costs in half.


The Perfect Synthetic, Not a Blood Diamond


Everyone knows that diamonds are formed in nature over a considerable period of time and cost thousands of dollars on the open market. However, lab-grown diamonds can be produced cleanly and affordably in a factory setting anywhere in the world from some of the most abundant molecules in the universe: methane and hydrogen gases, which are readily available. The process with which I am most familiar is the one my company employs, and utilizes at Argonne National Laboratory in which methane and hydrogen plasma are exposed to microwave energy to form very thin diamond materials over various sizes, thicknesses, and on different materials such as silicon, sapphire, glass, among others.


Once formed, utilizing these thin diamond film materials (about 1/70 the diameter of a human hair) we are able to alter the electronic properties and form device structures that are over a thousand times thinner than the leading silicon counterpart in addition to the previous state-of-the-art in diamond but with also increased performance, allowing the trend of smaller, faster, and more functional to continue.


In just a decade, as silicon reaches its threshold, diamond material is taking its place. It is time to pass the torch to diamond – a superior material that will enable the next generation of innovators to create faster, more powerful and greener electronics.


Adam Khan is founder and CEO of AKHAN Semiconductor.



To Adjust This Standing Desk’s Height, Just Hold Out Your Hand


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The TableAir is a variable-height workspace that uses a sensor to detect the height of an outstretched hand, then moves the desk surface up to match it. Plus it lights up all cool-like. TableAir



With the office world trending toward its feet, we’re awash in choices for standing desks. Even better are sit/stand or variable-height desks that don’t force you to commit to standing all the time. Models like the Stir or the Ikea Bekant are recent faves.


The TableAir is one of these variable-height desks, but it’s built with tech that’s more advanced than the rest: it uses a sensor to adjust to your position. When you want to work standing up, you briefly press the button on the top, then hold your hand out in front of you to indicate the desired height. The sensor on top of the desk detects your hand’s height, and the motors move the TableAir up to match it. Oh yeah, and the whole rim of the desk lights up like an Arc Reactor while this happens.


Pushing the button once and holding your hand above the sensor raises it. Push and hold the button, and it lowers back down until you let go. The TableAir’s motors are small and relatively silent, and they can move the surface between 25 and 51 inches (between 64 and 130cm for you non-Imperial folk). That’s roughly 2 feet, the height of a tall coffee table, to 4.25 feet, the height of a comfortable standing desk.



New Fantasy Writers and Internet-Haters Dominate Our Favorite Books This Month


If you’re like us, you resolved to read more in the new year. Don’t worry if you haven’t turned many pages yet—you still have 336 days left. And we’re here to help: While January can suffer from a post-holiday publication lull, it’s a great time room for cooler, less conventional entries. This month, we’ve got a debut from a promising new fantasy writer, an anti-Internet manifesto, and more. January is an aspirational month, and these titles represent new literary directions. If 2015 is to be a year of reading, any one of them would make a great place to start.


1-HR-blues The Full-Length Debut: Daniel José Older, Half-Resurrection Blues

Release: January 6

For a genre in which anything is theoretically possible, fantasy has always been dominated by white people. So we need more books like Daniel José Older’s Half-Resurrection Blues, the first in a new series. Fans will recognize the character of Carlos Delacruz from Salsa Nocturna, Older’s 2012 collection of “ghost noir” stories: An “inbetweener” for the New York Council of the Dead, Carlos must negotiate that tricky space between alive and dead. Nothing about this book is dead, though; it’s urban fantasy that actually feels relevant and alive. (Also, check out Older’s fantastic BuzzFeed essay on diversity in publishing.)


3-Internet The Counterintuitive Opinion: Andrew Keen, The Internet Is Not the Answer

Release: January 6

Whoever’s writing book titles these days is making phenomenal use of “not.” Just a couple of months after Tom Doctoroff argued that social media is hurting brand marketing in the exquisitely titled Twitter is Not a Strategy, tech commentator Andrew Keen is ready to denounce the whole shebang in The Internet is Not the Answer. For Keen, the Internet is a negative feedback loop that punishes its users—economically, socially, psychologically. Sure, this kind of tech naysaying is classic provocation, but it’s necessary. (Also, we told you so.)


4-Outline The Literary One: Rachel Cusk, Outline

Release: January 13

Two things can happen when you make your main character a creative writing instructor: (1) The novel undermines itself in an act of creative meta-destruction, or (2) it challenges and expands the form. Rachel Cusk’s much-praised Outline does the latter. In an artistic age that supposedly values subversion and ambiguity, the novel remains the very definition of convention. Cusk’s “novel in ten conversations” shows what you can do with a little imagination and a lot of style.


5-Deep The Blockbuster: Nick Cutter, The Deep

Release: January 13

The bottom of the ocean remains the scariest place on planet Earth, so setting any novel there all but guarantees sleepless nights. Cutter is no stranger to unpacking isolation’s frightening properties—in his debut, The Troop, a scoutmaster and his charges face peril in the Canadian wilderness—and in his latest, the fate of humanity depends on research being done in a lab located eight miles underwater. When that lab goes silent, a fact-finding mission is dispatched, and (surprise!) they find more than facts in those icy black depths. By the end, we’ll all need rescuing.


2-Rabbit The International One: Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, The Rabbit Back Literature Society

Release: January 20

We’re guessing you probably haven’t read any Finnish fantasy. (Swedish neo-noir, sure.) We certainly haven’t, but that changes with Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s The Rabbit Back Literature Society, translated by Lola M. Rogers. When a secret group of writers recruits a new member, questions form faster than they can be answered.



“Naches” from our Machines


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Marie Mosley/Flickr/CC



This year’s Edge question is “What do you think about machines that think?” My response is less about their likelihood and more about how we should respond, as a society, if this ever comes to pass. Specifically, it involves naches , the Yiddish term for pride and joy:



So how shall we respond? One response is to mark these machines as monsters, unspeakable horrors that can examine the unknown in ways that we cannot. And I think many people might respond this way if and when we birth machines that think about the world in wildly foreign ways from our own.


But it needn’t be so. I prefer a more optimistic response, that of naches. Naches is a Yiddish term that means joy and pride, and it’s often used in the context of vicarious pride, taken from others’ accomplishments. You have naches, or as is said in Yiddish, you shep naches, when your children graduate college or get married, or any other instance of vicarious pride. These aren’t your own accomplishments, but you can still have a great deal of pride and joy in them.


And the same thing is true with our machines. We might not understand their thoughts or discoveries or technological advances. But they are our machines and we can have naches from them.



Read the rest here.