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Boot up: Google App Engine changes pricing model, 5 warning signs at Apple, and more(Guardian Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A quick burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team What Google App Engine price changes say about the future >> High Scalability blog of Web Architecture Google App Engine has changed its pricing model. "Pay for what you use has changed. From an abstract resource driven model, where pricing is pegged to actual CPU usage, GAE is moving to an instance driven model, in the Amazon style, where pricing is pegged to the fully burdened cost of real physical assets (see the FAQ for details). Estimates range from between 2x to 10+x cost increases for running on GAE with the new pricing scheme."Dead easy has changed. Pricing is just part of the story. GAE still delivers on its zero platform maintenance pledge, but much more pressure is being put on programmers to navigate the new pricing model and recode to a complex moving target in order to minimize costs. It's no longer that simple to use. Work has shifted to clever programming." Smartphones at the dinner table? Smartphone trendspotting down under >> Official Google Australia Blog: "Here's a question for all of you smartphone owners out there: If someone asked you whether you'd rather give up your phone or your TV, what would you say?"Earlier this year, Google teamed up with IPSOS Research to learn the answer to this exact question (and many others) by asking 30,000 people in 30 countries about how they use their smartphones, and where (on the bus? at the office?). It's the first time anyone has asked this many people the same questions, for free: that means we can compare and contrast behaviour and trends across different age groups, different cities, and even countries."So what did we learn about Australia? To start with, those of us at Google Australia were particularly proud to discover that Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world -- ahead of the US, UK, and Japan." BSA secret agenda: open source saves the world >> ZDNet UK Rupert Goodwins turns his gimlet eye onto the Business Software Alliance: "The BSA also says that its survey shows that more than 70% of people agree with it about not being naughty, and blames the disparity on lack of education and enforcement. If we all knew it was wrong, and if we all got caught if we copied software, then that $59bn ["lost to piracy] would magically appear in the bank accounts of Microsoft et al, and the world would be a better place. "I disagree. Furthermore, I detect a hidden and most praiseworthy agenda behind the BSA's thesis." stephentrainor.com: tools Sure to be someone who'll like this: "Landscape photographers typically wish to plan their shoots around the times of sunrise/sunset or twilight, or alternatively when the moon is in a particular place in a particular phase."While times of sunrise etc. are readily available on various sites on the internet (direction of sunrise etc. less so, but still readily found), there are fewer programs available which combine such information with a topographical map allowing the photographer to match the astronomical to the location."A typical use might be to determine when the sun will set along the axis of a mountain valley, or when a full moon rise will rise across a lake."The application uses Google Maps providing users the ability to select a location and determine the time and azimuth of sunrise or sunset for a given date or dates." 5 warning signs to watch for at Apple >> Bob Sutton Hard to argue with any of them. LeapFrog releases a PlayBook competitor >> Loop Insight Jim Dalrymple: "RIM fans were quite upset when I compared the PlayBook tablet to the iPad. In fairness, it wasn't a good comparison because the iPad is so much better. They were also upset when I compared the PlayBook to the legendary Etch A Sketch (probably because the PlayBook lost)."Now there is a new competitor from LeapFrog. The best part is that you don't need a BlackBerry to use the LeapPad. It's important to note that neither device does email or calendaring." Think the LeapFrog one might be more robust though. How the Guardian's custom CMS & API helped take content strategy to a traditional publisher >> Martin Belam Come and have a look around behind the back of that screen you're looking at. Seventh Circuit awards e360 a whopping $3 in damages against Spamhaus >> Technology and Law Blog We wrote about this some time back. The law grinds slow but... "The lawsuit between e360 and Spamhaus was a long-running, tortured affair, and it looks like it finally came to a close. With e360 being awarded a whopping $3 in damages against Spamhaus. (Here's a link to Ars Technica's recap of the oral argument, where Judge Posner blasted e360's counsel: 'This is just totally irresponsible litigation . . . .You can't just come into a court with a fly-by-night, nothing company and say 'I've lost $130 million.')" Yes, three dollars. Farewell Ovi Maps, hello Nokia Maps (on iOS and Android too) >> Gary's Bloggage "In May of this year, Nokia announced the retirement of the Ovi brand and the observant map watchers amongst you may have noticed that pointing your browser of choice at maps.ovi.com now automagically redirects you to the new, shiny maps.nokia.com."What you may not have noticed is that Nokia maps doesn't just work on your desktop or laptop web browser or on Nokia smartphones, as Electric Pig nicely pointed out, Nokia has invaded the iPhone too. Point your iPhone or iPad at the Nokia Maps for Mobile Web at m.maps.nokia.com and you'll see something like this ... a fully featured version of Nokia Maps that does search, satellite views, GPS and location fixes, navigation, even public transport and, of course... places. And it's not just iOS devices that the new Mobile Web maps supports, Android users can have this too as can Blackberry users." 10 reasons why iPhone 5 doesn't stand a chance against Motorola Droid Bionic >> International Business Times For example, because: "The Droid Bionic offers TI OMAP4430 chipset clocking at 1 GHz which uses dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with a PowerVR SGX540 integrated 3D graphics accelerator that runs at a clock frequency of 304 MHz. And it comes with ARM-Cortex A9s with ARMs SIMD engine (Media Processing Engine, aka NEON) which may have a significant performance advantage in some cases over Nvidia Tegra 2s Cortex-A9s with non-vector floating point units. And there is a dual-channel LPDDR2 memory controller compared to Nvidia Tegra 2s single-channel memory controller..."Apple's A5 processor, which will be featured on iPhone 5, has a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU with NEON SIMD accelerator and a dual core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU. Apple lists the A5 to be clocked at 1 GHz on the iPad 2's technical specifications page, though it can dynamically adjust its frequency to save battery life." Convinced now? You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on delicious (c) 2011 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |