See the following -
How Data and Open Government Are Transforming NYC
"In God We Trust," tweeted New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg this month. "Everyone else, bring data." Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of Bloomberg L.P., is now in his third term as mayor of the Big Apple. During his tenure, New York City has embraced a more data-driven approach to governing, even when the results of that data-driven transparency show a slump in city services. Read More »
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How Microsoft Handed The NSA Access To Encrypted Messages
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents [...]. Read More »
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How Open Source And Openstack Are Commoditizing – And Transforming – The Cloud
...Similar to how Linux rewrote the rules for software, open source technology is making the path to the cloud more available to enterprises. It’s helping to eliminate the need for specialized software, and offering a standardized platform through which businesses can build open, public, and even hybrid, clouds...
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How Praekelt.org and Open Source Provide Critical Services to Enable Social Change
In Eastern and Southern Africa, women are still dying unnecessarily during the basic, natural act of giving life. According to Unicef, “In 2010, close to 58,000 women lost their lives during pregnancy and childbirth, accounting for more than one fifth of all such deaths in the world.” Gustav Praekelt, founder of the South African design and development firm Praekelt.com, was deeply affected by the high maternal mortality rate in his country and realized in 2007 that open source software and mobile phones could help provide critical information and services to combat poverty and maternal mortality rates -- among other social issues -- across the continent and potentially around the world.
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How the Emergency Alert System Has Already Been Tested—and Could Be Improved
You've probably heard by now that today at 2 p.m., there will be the first nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, which allows the president to address the American public within 10 minutes from any location at any time. Read More »
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How to Decide Whether to Open Source Your SaaS Solution
Should a SaaS provider open source its primary platform, and if so, what is the best way to do it? The decision to open source code requires a fair bit of planning if you want to do it right, especially when it comes to user support and documentation. In the case of SaaS, the required planning is different, although it shares some factors with any open source effort. In my series, How to Make Money from Open Source Platforms, I focused on software that exists solely to be deployed on a computer, whether on a local machine, in a data center, or in a cloud platform (yes, I know the last two are redundant).
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How We Brought the Internet to Standing Rock
Last spring a group I follow on Facebook started sharing information about an oil pipeline, called the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), that was planned to go in the ground in North Dakota, and the Water Protectors, teenagers from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation who were standing up to try to stop that from happening. As I watched the story unfold over the next few months, I knew that I wanted to go out there and see how the nonprofit organization I work for, Geeks Without Bounds, could help...
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Hurricane Irma Just Made a Digital Walkie-Talkie the No. 1 App Online
As Hurricane Harvey dropped anchor over Southeast Texas last week, Zello became the go-to app for rescuers working to save thousands of people trapped by floodwaters. Within days of Harvey's arrival, the app saw a 20-fold increase in usage in Houston, according to Bill Moore, the Austin based startup's the chief executive. As Hurricane Irma hurtles across the Caribbean toward the coast of Florida, Zello continues to boom in popularity. The free Internet "walkie-talkie" app - which relies on cellphone data plans or WiFi and is designed to operate in places where signals are weak - became the top app on iTunes and Google Play Wednesday...
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Hyve Open-Sources An Open Compute Server Design
Hyve Solutions has contributed a server design based on an Open Compute Project spec to the open-source hardware and data center design project spearheaded by Facebook. The design is “OCP-ready” and engineered to fit into a standard 19-inch data center rack. Read More »
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I Downloaded an App. And Suddenly, Was Part of the Cajun Navy.
After watching nonstop coverage of the hurricane and the incredible rescues that were taking place, I got in bed at 10:30 on Tuesday night. I had been glued to the TV for days. Every time I would change the channel in an attempt to get my mind on something else for a few minutes, I was drawn right back in...
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IBM Open-Sources Potential “Internet of Things” Protocol
The openly stated goal from IBM is to produce a completely new world-wide web, one comprised of the messages that digitally empowered devices would send to one another. It is the same Internet, but not the same Web. Read More »
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IEF: Open Source Hardware To Muscle Into Data Centers
Open-source hardware, much of it produced by new players in the computing market, is likely to become the main beneficiary of the the massive spend on cloud-computing infrastructure rather than the established enterprise-computing suppliers, LSI fellow Rob Ober told delegates the International Electronics Forum in Bratislava today. Read More »
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iGoogle's Demise May Toll The Bell For The Personalized Home Page
Google’s iGoogle home page service is no more. Despite protests from hordes of iGoogle users, the personalized home page vanished today, traveling to that great multi-colored Google place in the sky, leaving only a link that now redirects to Google's home page. And other personalized home pages might not be far behind. Read More »
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Inside Facebook's Fantastic Plan To Dominate Cisco's $23 Billion Market
Hands down, one of the most important tech projects Facebook has ever created is the Open Compute Project (OCP). Business Insider recently spoke with two of Facebook's OCP leaders to get the skinny on their latest, ambitious plan. Read More »
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Inside Obama's Stealth Startup
The new hub of Washington’s tech insurgency is something known as the U.S. Digital Service, which is headquartered in a stately brick townhouse half a block from the White House. USDS -employees tend to congregate with their laptops at a long table at the back half of the parlor floor. If there’s no room, they retreat downstairs to a low-ceilinged basement, sprawling on cushioned chairs. Apart from an air-hockey table, there aren’t many physical reminders of West Coast startup culture—a lot of the new techies are issued BlackBerrys, which seems to cause them near-physical pain...
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