Science and Technology Innovation Journal

Cloud Expo Early Bird Savings A robust ecosystem of solutions providers is emerging around cloud computing. Here, SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Journal expands its list of most active players in the fast-emerging Cloud Ecosystem, from the 'mere' 100 we identified back in January of this year, to half as many again - testimony, if any further were needed, to the fierce and continuing growth of the "Elastic IT" paradigm throughout the world of enterprise computing. Editorial note: The words in quotation marks used to describe the various services and solutions in this round-up are in every case taken from the Web sites cited. As ever we encourage software engineers, developers, IT operations managers, and new/growing companies in every case to "suck it and see" by downloading or otherwise sampling the offering in question for themselves. (Omissions to this Top 150 list sh... (more)

The Beauty of the Cloud

What is cloud computing? What is the difference between a cloud and the internet?  Some Twenty-One Experts Define Cloud Computing differently, and there are even more definitions out there. Among many that I've heard are some of the following: Cloud = Internet Cloud = Innovation Cloud = On Demand Cloud = Autonomic computing Cloud = Distributed computing Cloud = Grid computing Cloud = Hosting Cloud = Multi-tenancy Cloud = SOA Cloud = Utility computing Cloud = Virtualization Cloud = SLA-driven Cloud = SaaS Cloud = PaaS / OPaaS Cloud = IaaS / HaaS Cloud = Just a marketing buzzword ... (more)

Artificial Intelligence - It Isn't Science Fiction Anymore

Computer scientists have been pursuing artificial intelligence, using computers to simulate human thinking, for sometime and with little success. Recently, however, great progress has been made to create devices that can listen, speak, see, reason and learn. According to scientists the result is not only that artificial intelligence will transform the way humans and machines communicate and work together, but also that it will eliminate millions of jobs, create many others and change the nature of work and daily routines. Steve Lohr and John Markoff wrote a recent article in th... (more)

Creating Correlated Workflow Services in WF4 / .NET4 : Part 1

In the past, Windows Workflow Foundation hasn't gotten a (deservedly so) bad reputation for being full of needless bloat, overly complicated, and missing a lot of key things that make workflow productive for developers. As a result of that, Microsoft completely overhauled WF in the .NET Framework 4.0. One of the new features of WF4 is the concept of a workflow service. A workflow service is really nothing more than a workflow that is hosting WCF endpoints within the activity. This allows the workflow to progress from start to finish by communicating with external clients, such as... (more)

DDN Plans to Roll Out Massive Digital Signage Network with 7-11

Digital Signage Journal There's a press release making the rounds today about a company called DDN - who you will have never heard of - announcing plans to roll out with convenience store giant 7-11. The deal between the the world's biggest c-store operator and Digital Display Networks, Inc. would create one of the bigger digital out of home networks, anywhere, if it gets out to more than 6,200 stores in the United States and Canada, reaching an estimated 190 million monthly viewers. The programming will have national and local entertainment news and weather, and a blend of hous... (more)