human aims could be good business Posted by Adel Mubarak , Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 11:40 PM, in Labels: Google

It's been almost two years since Google announced a philosophy shift at Google.org to focus more on attacking "problems in ways that make the most of Google's strengths in technology and information,". One of the first successes from that shift--Google Earth Engine--may not only help developing countries get accurate data about their environments for the first time, but such a massive collection of information and sophisticated analysis could pay financial dividends as well.
Google does a lot of charitable giving, but tucked away in a corner of its sprawling campus is a group drawn from all parts of the company that is dedicated to something a little more Googly that simply giving money away: "Can we use our engineering skills to design our way out (of the world's problems)?" Megan Smith, general manager of Google.org, said in an interview with CNET.
Take Google Earth Engine, conceived and run by Rebecca Moore, a former member of Google's Geo team who now works for Google.org full time. Moore developed quite a reputation in the environmental community after using Google Earth to map out a proposed logging project in the Santa Cruz Mountains that was defeated after the graphical presentation showed the project's scope was larger than advertised. That led to Google Earth Outreach, a project which taught environmental groups and governments how to use Google Earth as a presentation tool.
Environmental scientists were impressed by the tool, but what they really wanted was a tool that could let them analyze and manipulate the data stored in those images in order to make decisions about environmental policy, such as how much to compensate local groups for protecting forests against logging. Moore recognized that what they needed was something "intrinsically parallelizable;" in other words, something perfectly suited to be broken up into thousands of small tasks and run across a distributed network of servers.

Google.org wants to find hard problems that are often too much for poorer countries with limited or nonexistent IT budgets to solve on their own and apply Google's vast resources of computing power and human talent.
Around 100 Google employees are affiliated with Google.org, and while their salaries are paid out of Google.org's estimated 2011 budget of $45 million, they generally maintain a strong connection to the Google.com working group from which they came.
Earth Engine is an example of a "pilot" project started by one or two engineers from the Geo team that grew into a full-blown Google.org project, Smith said. There are five major products at the moment: Google Earth Engine, Google Flu Trends, Google PowerMeter, REAnother Google Earth Engine project allowed the Surui tribe in the Amazon to receive compensation from the Brazilian government for maintaining the forests in their territory, the green area in the middle of the picture with the clear borders. The yellow and pink areas represent deforested land.
Another Google Earth Engine project allowed the Surui tribe in the Amazon to receive compensation from the Brazilian government for maintaining the forests in their territory, the green area in the middle of the picture with the clear borders. The yellow and pink areas represent deforested land.
(Credit: Google)

Amazon CloudFront Video Streaming Posted by Adel Mubarak , at 11:07 PM, in Labels: OpenSource

Amazon CloudFront, the easy-to-use content delivery service, now supports the ability to stream audio and video files. Traditionally, world-class streaming has been out of reach of for many customers – running streaming servers was technically complex, and customers had to negotiate long- term contracts with minimum commitments in order to have access to the global streaming infrastructure needed to give high performance.

Amazon CloudFront designed to make streaming accessible for anyone with media content. Streaming with Amazon CloudFront is exceptionally easy: with only a few clicks on the AWS Management Console or a simple API call, you’ll be able to stream your content using a world-wide network of edge locations running Adobe’s Flash® Media Server. And, like all AWS services, Amazon CloudFront streaming requires no up-front commitments or long-term contracts. There are no additional charges for streaming with Amazon CloudFront; you simply pay normal rates for the data that you transfer using the service.

CIA Software Developer Goes Open Source Posted by Adel Mubarak , at 10:49 PM, in Labels: OpenSource

Burton, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst and software developer, speaks today at the Military Open Source Software Working Group in Virginia. It’s a gathering of 80 or so national security tech-types who’ve heard a thousand stories about good ideas and good code getting sunk, because of squabbles over who owns the software.
Burton, for example, spent years on what should’ve been a straightforward project. Some CIA analysts work with a tool, “Analysis of Competing Hypotheses,” to tease out what evidence supports (or, mostly, disproves) their theories. But the Java-based software is single-user — so there’s no ability to share theories, or add in dissenting views. Burton, working on behalf of a Washington-area consulting firm with deep ties to the CIA, helped build on spec a collaborative version of ACH. He tried it out, using the JonBenet Ramsey murder case as a test. Burton tested 51 clues — the lack of a scream, evidence of bed-wetting — against five possible culprits. “I went in, totally convinced it all pointed to the mom,” Burton says. “Turns out, that wasn’t right at all.”
The program was supposed to work with Analytic Space, an online workspace for spooks. No one could come up with A-Space’s proprietary development specifications. Then came the problem of figuring out ACH’s licensing rights. Progress on the project ground to a halt.
“The Department of Defense spends tens of billions of dollars annually creating software that is rarely reused and difficult to adapt to new threats. Instead, much of this software is allowed to become the property of defense companies, resulting in DoD repeatedly funding the same solutions or, worse, repaying to use previously created software,” writes John M. Scott, a freelance defense consultant and a chief evangelist in the military open source movement. “Imagine if only the manufacturer of a rifle were allowed to clean, fix, modify or upgrade that rifle. This is where the military finds itself: one contractor with a monopoly on the knowledge of a military software system.”
Take Future Combat Systems, the Army’s behemoth program to make itself faster, smarter, and better-networked. One of the many reasons it collapsed: the code at the heart of the system was controlled by a single company, and not even the sub-contractors building gear that was supposed to rely on that code could have access to it.