The demanding throughput requirements of large databases and transactional applications requires better virtual machine performance than previous generations.
Intel and VMware deliver enterprise virtualization platform designed for these extreme workloads. “New Power for Data Center Virtualization,” is a white paper by Intel that explores the ways mission-critical applications can be scaled with consolidation goals met across the data center.
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New Power for Data Center Virtualization
The product you've built, the team you've assembled, the customers you've won, the growth you're predicting - all crucial for winning investor support. And you can have all those pieces in place and still blow it during your pitch. This can happen because of your demeanor or something you say.
"Startup killers" is how Cynthia Kocialski describes them. "When speaking to someone about the new product or the business proposition, there is often the moment when you know that you have lost your listener," she writes in a blog post titled "How to Lose an Investor Before You Finish Speaking." "One misspoken comment and everyone wants to leave as soon as possible. They've made their decision and they want you to stop wasting their time."
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Kocialski lists these "turn-offs," including:
Attitude and demeanor can't be stressed enough, as David Lerner noted following a recent pitch competition event where presenters started "royally pissing off a few of the judges." Lerner offered the following (slightly tongue-in-cheek) tips on "How Not To Piss People Off When You Present to Them."
As Lerner and Kocialski contend, you can have a great product and a great PowerPoint, but you do need to be mindful that your pitch itself doesn't alienate investors.
For more advice, see our other ReadWriteStart coverage on pitching.
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So that’s what the future of gaming looks like. Depressing, isn’t it?
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In the latest example of VC chatter - wherein multiple venture capitalists simultaneously blog about a hot issue - the topic du jour is the debate between convertible debt and equity rounds. The spark came from a Friday night tweet by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham (yes, he finally joined Twitter) that declared convertible notes victorious since each of this summer's YC class opted for them. This morning, several VCs have weighed in on the issue, so here's what entrepreneurs and early-stage startups need to know about the debate.
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Firstly, what is convertible debt and how is it different from a normal straight equity investment? Foundry Group's Seth Levine was the first VC to blog about the issue today, and he does a solid job of laying the cards out on the table.
"Convertible debt is exactly that - debt which is convertible into equity at some later point in time (or is paid off)," writes Levine. "Preferred equity is stock which carries with it certain rights (preferences) in terms of how and when it gets paid back and a handful of other items that relate to the control of the underlying business."
As Levine explains, he sees the current convertible debt trend as a short-term positive for entrepreneurs because it delays the awkward valuation discussions and can provide an early boost to a company's value. In the long-run, however, Levine is less optimistic about the viability of convertible debt.
Mark Suster of GRP Partners responded to Levine's post with one of his own detailing his similar, yet alternatively justified views on the matter. One of the largest reasons Suster sees for accepting a convertible deal as an entrepreneur is to get a deal done quickly, which keeps legal costs down and puts more cash in the hands of the company.
Also weighing in this morning is investor and Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon who tweeted a few gems of advice on the issue. He believes the best option for seed investments (of which he has made several) is convertible debt with a price cap because it "gives investors economic rights but not control rights and keeps legal fees down." Additionally, Dixon notes that this keeps control where it belongs; "Let great people do their thing," he says.
As for whether convertible debt has "won" as Paul Graham suggested on Friday, both Levine and Suster see the trend as just that - a trend. Levine points out that while many west coast investors are making convertible deals, many others are not. Suster says that convertible debt is popular when the market is thriving (e.g., right now), while down markets are prone to priced equity deals.
Perhaps all Graham meant was that convertible notes had "won" at Y Combinator. The general consensus elsewhere seems to be that these types of investments aren't the end-all be-all of early-stage investing, but do indeed have their place and can be used on a case-to-case basis depending on the market.
"In larger rounds I think equity makes sense so that everybody agrees to the terms up front," writes Suster. "On smaller rounds, why don't we just do 'convertible debt with price' and everybody can be happy?"
I'm curious to hear what the people across the table from these VCs think about the debate between convertible debt and priced equity. As entrepreneurs, which sounds more attractive to you and why? Let us know how you feel in the comments below!
NASA today joined the Commons on Flickr. Thanks to this, NASA will now begin to share a large variety of pictures from its vast collection of images on Flickr. Currently, three image collections ("Launch and Takeoff," "Building NASA" and "Center Namesakes") are available on Flickr. All of these images are published without any copyright restrictions.
In collaboration with the Internet Archive, NASA already makes thousands of images and thousands of hours of video available on NASAimages.org. There, however, users can't comment on pictures.
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NASA joins a growing number of institutions like the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Public Library and the U.S. National Archives on Flickr's The Commons.
According to Debbie Rivera, the lead for the NASA Images project at the agency's headquarters in Washington, the agency hopes that this new collaboration will provide "an opportunity for the public to participate in the process of discovery. In addition, the public can help the agency capture historical knowledge about missions and programs through this new resource and make it available for future generations."
NASA plans to release additional photo sets over time.
Construction of Hangar One at NAS Sunnyvale circa 1931 - 1934
Dr. Robert H. Goddard at His Launch Control Shack
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The iPad meets many of the needs doctors say that have for a lightweight mobile computer and many are very interested in the device. An infographic below, from Mobile Health News, articulates various things doctors are taking into consideration.
ComputerWorld's Matt Hamblen wrote about medical, legal and other professional use of the iPad today as well. Hamblen writes that doctors like the device's unobtrusive size and unintimidating profile in patient care, but wish that it had Bluetooth support. Easy access to electronic health records is the device's most compelling quality, something Mike Kirkwood wrote about in depth here on ReadWriteWeb before the iPad launched. (The Healthcare System: An Apple Tablet's Biggest Opportunity)
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The infographic below was created in support of the latest research report from Mobile Health News, titled The iPad vs. The Tablet PCs in Healthcare. A similar recent report that may be of more general interest is PSFK's Future of Health report for UNICEF.
Google has released its latest "Chrome Experiment" today in the form of a music video "experience" that takes you, quite literally, back to the streets of your youth.
The experiment is the work of writer/director Chris Milk and social media savvy band Arcade Fire and it shows off the interactive, artistic and technical capabilities of open-Web tools like HTML5 and Google products like Chrome, Maps and Street View.
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As Wired Magazine's Eliot Van Buskirk points out, it's easier to call the entire thing an "experience" rather than a video, as it goes well beyond a traditional music video. Don't get us wrong - there's music and there's video, but there's also real-time graphics rendering and real-world imagery pulled from Google Maps satellite and Street View imagery. There are multiple windows, with 3D rendered birds flying from one to another and there's even a sentimental moment when you can pen a note to your younger self.
The experiment begins by asking you for "the address of the home where you grew up"and you quickly begin seeing images pulled directly from Google Street View and birds-eye-view satellite imagery from Google Maps of your childhood neighborhood.
Google Creative Lab tech lead and co-creator of the project Aaron Koblin told Wired Magazine that they were "excited about breaking out of the traditional 4:3 or 16:9 video box, and thinking about how we could take over the whole browser experience". Koblin also noted the importance of "incorporating data-feeds on the fly, and tailoring the experience to the individual."
According to Chris Milk, HTML5 is still in its "infancy" but he sees the browser as the next artistic medium, because of its ability to allow for interaction between the art and the user. The entire experiment showcases a number of HTML5 features, such as the ability to choreograph windows and synchronize music and video between them, use HTML5 for 3D rendering, rotating and zooming of Google Maps satellite imagery and even inserting animated sprites directly over satellite imagery.
Beyond the neat tech involved, the experiment is quite the experience and we encourage you to take a look. Google advises (of course) that you use its own browser, Google Chrome, and close down windows and other programs before beginning, as it can be quite processor intensive. And after you take a look, tell us what you think - how long will it be before HTML5 eats Flash's lunch?
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Nearby Friends is a new Facebook application which taps into the recently launched Facebook Places check-in service to locate all your Facebook friends plotted on a Google Maps interface. The app, a simple tool that places Facebook profile photos as a pin on the map, doesn't limit itself to where your friends are right now, it actually displays their entire Facebook check-in history, as lines traversing the map. With the app installed, you can actually track a friend's travels, easily identifying their favorite hangouts, daily treks, their workplace and more. Is this the first Facebook Places cyber-stalking tool? Or just a handy way to see what your friends are up to?
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At first glance, the Nearby Friends app didn't really impress. Facebook friends on a map - haven't we seen that before? But after further testing, the true purpose of the app became clear: this tool is ideal for cyber-stalking your Facebook friends. Whether or not that was the developer, Matt Hoden's, intention is unclear. His background as an entrepreneur, web developer and financier at companies including J.P. Morgan, Genstar Capital and Y-Combinator, hints that this app was likely just something he thought would be cool, without considering its greater ramifications.
Now granted, the tool can't track anyone and everyone using Places - it only displays your own friends, meaning you and the person tracked already have a relationship of some sort. In addition, not all users on Facebook do or ever will use Places. Most users are still hesitant about location-sharing technology, as the New York Times reported this weekend, citing research we wrote about in July.
That being said, it's worth considering how an app like this could possibly be used for less-than-savory purposes. The Facebook Places feature has been launched with a confusing array of privacy settings, which apparently allow friends to check you in to a venue ("check in," meaning announce that you've arrived at a particular venue, like a restaurant, bar, club, business, etc.) even if you never authorized the service to do so. To be excluded from check-ins like this, you must explicitly turn the feature off in your Facebook settings.
This is Facebook's M.O. when it comes to launching new functionality: everything is generally turned on by default. Why's that? Because the company understands that the majority of its user base neither knows nor cares about how each new feature impacts their privacy. For example, even when the Facebook privacy backlash was underway earlier this year, the service continued its unparalleled growth.
As Facebook becomes more heavily used for associating with people beyond just close friends and family, the consequences of publicly sharing your location become more important to thoroughly understand. As Hunter Walk recently explained via blog post on technology news website TechCrunch, there are a number of reasons some check-ins need to remain private. Although his post was an analysis of rival check-in service Foursquare's "off the grid" feature and its use cases, the examples are true for any location-based app. For instance, you don't want your boss knowing everywhere you check-in (interviewing in another city? not actually sick?) and you don't want everyone to know about your private moments out in the world at large.
Sure, you could simply not check-in, but then you lose some of the benefits of these new and growing services. Benefits that include everything from mobile coupons to a virtual location history that could eventually be used to surface recommendations for you. (Loved that seafood restaurant? Then you have to try this other one!)
With Facebook's large user base - now half a billion strong - there are going to be a number of people who start using Places without thoroughly understanding the privacy settings and what they mean. This raises several questions: how much of the burden of managing privacy should be placed on the user and how much on the service? Is cyber-stalking really and truly a threat? With increased awareness of location-based sharing, will users in turn learn to better understand when and where it's appropriate to share?
According to Wayne Sutton, a partner and Business Development Marketing Strategist with location-based service TriOut (and who also kindly allowed the above screenshot's use), cyber-stalking is a real concern that everyone should think about. However, he says, most of the time it can be avoided using "common sense" and taking advantage of the privacy settings within your app of choice. "Every individual will have to consider their surroundings, friends approval, app settings and relationship status with potential stalkers before checking in," he explains. "Sadly I don't think enough people consider who they should friend and/or manage their friends list to prevent cyber stalking from happening."
Perhaps it's still too early to thoroughly understand the greater impacts of all this social, location-based sharing. Will we look back wondering why there was ever such a fuss about all this to begin with? Or will we wonder, as a recent commenter points out on a previous post about Places, "what were we thinking?"
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The publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary say that its unlikely the next edition will ever appear in printed form.
The dictionary in question is the full-blown, multi volume edition rather than shorter versions. The second and current edition, published in 1989, runs to 21,500 pages and has just short of 300,000 entries.
Work on the third edition has been underway since that time and is currently 28% complete, with entries from mahurat and rococoesque finished as of June this year. (Each completed batch is added to an online version at the OED site.)
The reason editors started at M is because the sheer time it takes to produce the dictionary means that entries completed later on tend to be more accurate and current and, well, it seemed unfair that A should suffer again! To limit the effect, the editors switch focus every three months, alternating between working their way through entries alphabetically and concentrating on the most prominent words.
The chief executive of publishers at Oxford University Press has now made headlines by saying he thinks a printed version of the third edition is unlikely, arguing that the market for printed dictionaries is currently collapsing.
A spokeswoman for OUP later clarified that: “It’s likely to be more than a decade before the full edition is published and a decision on format will be taken at that point. Lexicographers are currently preparing the third edition of the OED, which is 28 per cent complete. No final completion date is yet confirmed.”
When exactly the dictionary will appear is also a mystery. Based on the current pace of work, it wouldn’t be until 2064, though one writer has previously claimed the schedule is for somewhere around 2037.
Either way, it’s clearly so far away that it’s impossible to predict how publishing will work at that point. If you assume the third edition will indeed be ready in 27 years, trying to imagine the form it will appear in is equivalent to somebody from 1983 (perhaps a WarGames viewer watching thermonuclear war averted with a game of tic-tac-toe) trying to imagine the Kindle.
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Today Skype officially moved Skype Connect (formerly known as Skype for SIP), its first product targeted at enterprise customers, out of beta. Skype Connect will enable business customers to use Skype over regular PBX phones or unified communication systems from Avaya, Cisco, SIPfoundry, ShoreTel and others. The announcement follows a rumor that Cisco made a bid for the VOIP company and Google's addition of voice calling in Gmail.
Skype estimates 37% of its users use the service for business purposes. Although Network World has reported that Skype for SIP was difficult to setup in the past, it seems Skype has taken some steps to improve this.
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Since the original beta launch, Skype has released Skype Manager (pictured above) to help IT manage enterprise Skype accounts and make Skype Connect adoption easier. Skype provides documentation for implementation with tested hardware, and also offers to put customers in touch with its channel partners.
According to Skype's announcement on its blog, Skype Connect will enable users to:
Pricing starts at $6.95 per "channel," roughly the equivalent of a "line" in normal phone systems. Skype's regular fees for calling landlines and cell phones will still apply.
What do you think? Are the features and potential savings worth the work of implementing Skype? Or would your rather wait and see what offerings Cisco and Google release in the near future? Did you implement the Skype for SIP beta? If so, how did it go?
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