Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Larry Dignan.

Google is betting that it can infuse machine learning throughout its various cloud and mobile products to create an advantage over Apple and other rivals. Whether it’s the launch of Google’s new photo service, Google Now or the new Android, machine learning appears to be an emerging common thread.

Google rolled out Google Photos and the differentiator is going to be search and machine learning to categorize them. The pitch with Google Photo is that the search giant will create a home for photos and videos and use machine learning to "make memories not manage them," said Anil Sabharwal, director of Google Photos…

Grazed from ITWorldCanada. Author: Don Sheppard.

Is cloud computing “business as usual” for the IT project manager (the PM)? Are cloud-based projects really any different from traditional projects? Since cloud computing is now enterprise-class, we can no longer ignore cloud solutions for IT projects. For the PM, however, cloud computing is still relatively new and can be a significant challenge, at least it is here in Canada.

PMs are, or should soon be, deciding how cloud computing can affect the execution of their projects. Does it reduce delivery times? Does it simplify the technical tasks? Does it increase project risk? Does it radically change the infrastructure or application development processes? There can be many questions, and the answers aren’t always straightforward…

Grazed from BetaBoston. Author: Curt Woodward.

Threat Stack, a growing digital security company based in Cambridge, has hired its third chief executive as it seeks to add more customers in the cloud-computing sector. Brian Ahern, formerly the founder and CEO of Foxborough-based security company Industrial Defender, is Threat Stack’s new boss. He replaces Doug Cahill, who was brought on as CEO last year.

At Industrial Defender, Ahearn built a company that helped owners of oil refineries, electric power plants, and other industrial facilities identify and thwart cyberattacks against the software controlling their complicated systems. The company was acquired by Lockheed Martin last year…

Grazed from CloudComputing. Author: James Bourne.

Cloud storage provider Box has announced that it is working with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to deliver secure file sharing and collaboration to its employees. The move represents a major customer win for the firm, who now has more than 40 federal customers on its books.

“Innovative government agencies, like DOJ, are deeply committed to leveraging emerging cloud technologies to better serve the American people, while ensuring the security and privacy of sensitive information,” said Aaron Levie, Box CEO. “We are thrilled to support the DOJ’s technology efforts, helping to transform the way they manage and share information,” he added…

Grazed from CCI. Author: William Rabie.

The pace of businesses migrating to the cloud is accelerating. In the UK in particular there certainly seems to be a larger and faster adoption of cloud services. A recent survey from the Cloud Industry Forum stated that more than eight out of ten UK companies currently store some or all of their data in the cloud. Published in May this year, the research found that 84% of firms have now adopted one or more cloud services – that’s up from 78% in June 2014 and an increase of 75% since 2010.

These statistics don’t surprise me at all. With increased cloud adoption we are also seeing an acceleration of take up of Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). Whether safeguarding against human error, cyberattacks, small scale events or even big natural disasters, companies are now turning to DRaaS as a way to avoid serious risk without breaking the bank…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Joab Jackson.

Australian energy company Woodside Energy hopes to strike a gusher in its own backyard — a gusher of information, that is. The company plans to improve the efficiency of its refinery plants by using IBM’s Watson cognitive computing services to gather and share insights from its own engineers.

Woodside "wants to take the knowledge of their senior engineers and make it available, with the support of Watson, to a broader range of employees," said Ed Harbour, IBM vice president of the company’s Watson Group. The two companies will partner to create a search engine, or "cognitive advisory service," that can be used by Woodside’s engineering teams to ask complex questions about facilities management and design, according to IBM…

Grazed from BCN. Author: Editorial Staff.

China Unicom and Akamai have announced a partnership that will see the two companies integrate their cloud services and content delivery network, respectively. The deal between China Unicom’s cloud division CU Cloud and Akamai will see the former offer the latter’s full portfolio of content delivery, web performance and security offerings, a move CU Cloud said will improve global access to its growing suite of cloud services.

Akamai’s turnkey CDN technology will also underpin global delivery of its cloud services, CU Cloud said. “China Unicom is a major carrier in China, serving the global internet market,” said Noam Freedman, senior vice president of Akamai’s global networks division. “We’re excited to be partnering with CU cloud to tap into the fast-growing China cloud and CDN market. Akamai sees increased demand for delivering content to Chinese internet users from global customers…

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: James Bourne.

Cloud Spectator, an analyst firm, has put together the second of its infrastructure as a service (IaaS) pricing reports, and found Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) crown slipping. The latest study, which collected over one million data points over a 24 hour period on processor and memory, examined performance alongside other patterns, such as instability and unpredictability.

Performance tests were conducted on five different virtual machine sizes across 15 IaaS providers. The results were described by the analysts as “eye-opening.” AWS’ T2 micro, with burst performance features, revealed a controlled period of high performance alongside a controlled period of lower performance, putting it right at the bottom of the table…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Dion Hinchcliffe.

Will Amazon ultimately dominate the public cloud and IaaS? It’s perhaps the prime question now on the minds of IT strategists today as they develop their organization’s digital roadmap, for key reasons we’ll examine below. Read More Certainly, the latest industry data sure makes it seem like it, with Gartner’s brand new report on worldwide cloud infrastructure making some astonishing statements: [Amazon] is the overwhelming market share leader, with over 10 times more cloud IaaS compute capacity in use than the aggregate total of the other 14 providers. [my emphasis]

This is essentially total industry dominance in a market that is still very much finding its way, just over a decade after credible Web services-based cloud offerings first arrived. Long-standing resistance by companies — and really, it’s mostly their IT, security, and compliance departments — to the cloud hasn’t stopped some industry watchers from claiming that up to 90% of companies have already adopted some form of it today, usually SaaS but most of the XaaS variants too…