Facebook’s ‘Look Back’ videos

Facebook’s recent blog post about the whole thing is pretty amazing.  In less than a month, they set up the infrastructure, coded the videos, and rendered 9 million videos per hour without sacrificing quality and while also rolling out other projects (like the awesome ‘Paper’ app) and gearing up for high-traffic times like the 2014 Winter Olympics.  I hope to God people got some OT hours out of that. 

What they did was add more server power, upped bandwidth and implemented more than 25 petabytes of disk space to be able to render and store videos.  Also, their data centers weren’t built for running power at full capacity at all times, so they isolated the servers used so that it wouldn’t screw with the rest of the site’s functionality.  They ran a small test with employees and tracked data and power usage and then adjusted accordingly for when the full roll out happened.

All in all, they rendered and stored over 720 million videos, used 11 petabytes of storage, 450 Gbps of outgoing bandwidth and more than 200 million people watched and shared their movie within the first two days.

Pretty impressive for the most annoying thing of all time (just kidding). 

[Facebook Blog]

For more information contact Chris L.

-       Static or manual selection and reallocation of network resources.

-       Individual setup of every network device even if there are a large amount of them.

-       Complicacy and resource-intensiveness when introducing and changing network politics, configurations and new services.

SDNs in Data Centers

Many prominent vendors, including IBM, see the solution of the above described tasks in using of software-defined networks, which will fully change the economy and introduction experience of IT systems. Let’s examine a new approach in detail. In a typical telecommunication network system, which performs switching or routing functions, three tasks perform at the same time (let’s call them “surfaces”):

Processing surface takes part in creating data about network’s topology, in other words FIB (Forwarding Information Base) on the 2 level OSI models and RIB (Routing Information Base) on the 3 level OSI. Such tables are created by protocols of network map, for example, OSPF for routing or Spanning-Tree for data switching.

Data transmission surface performs packets and frames transmission into concrete interface or port which is based on RIB or FIB.

Data control surface performs monitoring and controlling surfaces of data transmission and processing.

Historically, in telephone networks there was a conception of single traffic processing surface and it was bounded to the telecommunication devices and performed function of signalization.

The first mention about surfaces division appeared in Hi-End corporate routers and switches it was performed at two separate processors. Today data processing surface functions at main hardware (it is an overly programmable structure). The next evolutionary step in need of surfaces differentiation comes from the fact that if network devices use their own processing surfaces it can lead to their suboptimal productivity. There also can be problems because of poor or asynchronous coordination. The final step of the complete data transmission surfaces division inside the data center’s network.

Under such approach we have two parallel networks: one for traffic transmission and other for its processing, which uses external signaling mechanism. Main conclusions and advantages of such approach are:

-       Operations on network resource allocation for physical and for virtual networks of data centers are automated. Operating costs for network support are reduced.

-       The complicacy of network configurations is reduced, for example, during actuation the security policies, filtration, service quality, authentication and routing.

-       The control becomes centralized.

-       It is possible to avoid suboptimal ways of traffic at the expense of approach above. Because a centralized traffic processing surface can make decision about way choosing, based on productivity, availability and other additional network parameters.

-       There is no need to use Spanning-Tree protocol for data transmission about the network topology among network devices.

You can find more information or contact Melisa at Google+ or bestresumewritingservice.org.

About Hosting

HOSTING builds and operates high-performance clouds for business-critical applications. Using enterprise-class networking and connectivity technologies, they provide the highest levels of availability, recovery, security, and responsiveness. They own and operate six geographically-dispersed data centers across the United States under an ITIL-based control environment independently validated for compliance against the PCI DSS and SOC (formerly SAS 70) frameworks.

CLLA’s Connection Network

CLLA has added HOSTING to its “Connection Network”–a group of providers around the globe that are focused on bringing quality colocation services to businesses and individuals, giving them a platform to host their data.  CLLA’s Connection Network is focused on bridging the gap between providers and clients by enabling and facilitating communications between the two groups.

We here at CLLA are extremely excited about adding HOSTING and their state-of-the-art facilities to our Connection Network and look forward to providing clients in the Denver area quality IT services courtesy of HOSTING.

Is Your Site SEO Friendly?

With so much discussion about search engine optimization, business owners are generally left in the dark about what makes a website SEO friendly. As visually attractive as a website might be, if it's not optimized, your target market may never have to opportunity to view it. By using keywords effectively in both content and site navigation, search engines will be more apt to rank your site higher in popular search queries.

Is Your Site Social?

Search engines today place a high value on how websites are integrated with social media sites. When visitors share your content on a regular basis, social signals will indicate that your site has potential value for search engine users. By integrating social sharing buttons into a website, visitors are able to share content with very little effort.

Is Your Site Responsive?

While websites may look amazing on a desktop computer, they may not translate very well on many of today's portable devices. With so many consumers using smart phones and tablets to conduct business online, it's critical that your website be responsive and user friendly on those devices. Most developers will design sites with responsiveness in mind. When using platforms like WordPress to build websites, it's important to look for themes that are responsive right out of the box.

Is Your Web Hosting Service Dependable?

Choosing the right web hosting company makes all the difference in the world. A hosting service should provide reliable support, responsive customer service, and should offer affordable hosting packages that are scalable to your growing business. The top web hosting companies offer guaranteed uptimes and server configurations that promote fast loading times. Sluggish websites will turn away potential customers, and will affect the way search engines rank your site. Be sure to look at web hosting reviews to find the best company for the needs of your business.

Is Your Content Fresh?

Fresh, engaging content is not only important for SEO, but it's important to your site's visitors. Stagnant content is just another way of telling customers to leave your site and find value somewhere else. Business owners should keep their blog posts fresh and their static content up to date.

Consistent site maintenance will ensure business owners that their websites aren't struggling to reach their target audience. A little time spent every day will serve to keep a website effective and appealing to customers.

Anita is a freelance writer from Denver, CO and writes about business, family, home and finance. A mother of two, she enjoys traveling with her family when she isn't writing.

NYC’s subway kiosks

NYC MTA has gotten together with the Control Group to develop touchscreen kiosks for subway commuters.  The “On the Go” HD kiosks dole out information to visitors and passengers—information such as up-to-date arrival and departure times, closures, services, attractions at stops, and directions to different stops.  If you’re not a seasoned subway rider, finding out which trains to get on to go where using a paper map can be a little confusing, especially in big cities like NYC with multiple stops and rails. 

You can touch a stop on the map and find out directions, the exact arrival and departure, total travel time and attractions to see once you get to your destination.  Pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.

The cool part is that they are developing a system to turn the kiosks into beacons, allowing you to connect to the system with your phone despite the lack of signal underground.  This will give you detailed information while riding, as well as a chance for the MTA to throw some ads your way and gain some revenue.  It’s a win-win for everyone.

[Control Group]

Facebook’s 10^th birthday

-By now, everyone has seen those really annoying cool videos about your life.  If yours wasn’t the masterpiece you thought it would be, now you can channel your inner Scorsese and edit your ‘Look Back’ video.  Here’s an idea—instead of doing a ‘Best Of’, maybe go the opposite route and show all the pictures, statuses and other stuff you’re totally not proud of.  I’d watch that.

-I’m sure we all have the Facebook app on our smartphones, and I’m sure that, like me, you’ve been incredibly disappointed in it.  That’s all changed, yo, because last week Facebook released a new app called ‘Paper’ that is awesome.  Seriously.  Is the worst part about Facebook the people on it?  It is, and that’s why Paper is amazing: in addition to your newsfeed, Paper acts as a news aggregator, and brings in a bunch of stories from various categories like Headlines, Sports, Food and others.  All this, plus it retains 99% of the functionality of the regular Facebook app (events aren’t accessible but pretty much everything else is).  It’s replaced the official Facebook app on my phone.

-After Facebook turned 10, ol’ Zuck decided he wanted to be less of a billionaire, and sold some of his shares to bring him to less than 20% stake in the company.  He offloaded some $2.3 billion worth of shares to pay a hefty tax bill because that’s a thing rich people can do.  For real, how much do you think Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodies cost?  Does he get them specially made?  I have so many questions about billionaire fashion choices, mainly because I fret every time I buy a $20 shirt at Target.

Anyways, that’s the Facebook birthday roundup.  Resume your regularly scheduled distractions at work.

[TechCrunch,The Verge, Mashable]

The next generation of gaming

This is the future, yo; it’s going to take video games to a whole new level.  Oculus Rift, for the uninitiated, is a virtual reality system–a for real virtual reality system–that immerses players into the game world via headset.  You can look around the game world, taking it all in like it was a real experience, move around through head movements and all kinds of other cool stuff, but the main controls of the game you’re playing are still governed by a handheld controller.

That’s where the Myo armband comes in.  The armband uses motion sensors to be able to control the movements of the things on the screen:  for example, if you’re playing a game with a gun and you raise your arm, the gun raises on the screen.  Simple.  Effective.  Awesome.

But when you combine them?  HOLY CRAP, it’s like you’re in the game.  Imagine playing something like Madden with the Oculus Rift/Myo combo–you’d be in first person as the QB, looking around and throwing, with your arm motion effecting the direction, velocity and how the ball flies.  INTENSE.  It’d be like you’re actually on the NFL field.  Screw you, Peyton Manning!  At least I can score more than 1 touchdown in a Super Bowl!

The Oculus Rift/Myo team-up is a match made in gaming heaven, and will surely result in a lot of people missing work, ruining relationships, but being really, really good at throwing a fake football.

[TechCrunch]

Google spends money on data centers

Yeah man, they went on a spending spree in 2013, and why not?  You got a lot of product you need to keep going, so spending money on your data centers makes sense.  It’d be like having a lot of personal possessions to store and then only having one closet.  Dude they spend $1 billion per quarter just on capital expenditures alone.  A cool billion every 3 months is some serious spending; that’s some Brewster’s Millions type stuff.  I don’t know if I’d be able to spend $1 billion in 3 months, but dammit I’d try.  The major spending came from all the upgrades they did to their current data centers:  expansions in Oregon, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina, and across the pond in Belgium.  Hooray, Belgium!  They also bought a bunch of companies, opened a few new data centers, and invested in some new technologies that will help them in the future like wind!  So, be on the lookout for Google Wind, coming in 2015.  

Go ahead, Google.  Keep spending that cash, son.  If you got it, flaunt it, right?

[Data Center Knowledge and Data Center Dynamics] 

Gun safety technology

See, these are the kinds of things we should be using tech for.  Put our geniuses to work and make something happen, people!  Less smartwatches, more things that result in less people getting killed.  That’s why the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation is awarding $1 million to whoever comes up with the best use of tech that makes guns safer.  The best part about all of this is that it isn’t trying to interfere with any current laws—it just wants to make guns safer for those who own them and those who are around them.  So you can stop clutching your shotgun to your chest while whispering, “They’ll take my guns over my cold, dead body!” 

Some of the better ideas are the biometric locks for guns and gun cases.  It’s pretty simple—scan your fingerprint, unlock your gun. 

The idea behind the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation is that competition breeds innovation.  With a sweet award of $1 million—which is more than enough to make it rain properly—hopefully there will be some amazing advancements in gun safety that will be mass-produced.

[CNN]

Asia has the fastest internet

Yeah man, sucks for the rest of us.  Asia is out there with blazing fast download speeds and we here in the US are stuck with our slow-ass internet.  Make no mistake, the US’ internet isn’t at dial-up speeds by any means, but Hong Kong is out there rocking something like 65 megabits per second, so you know, it could be better.  Blame it on the telecomm companies, though; you know Verizon has the goods and is just holding out because they’re jerks.  The Asian markets have benefitted from the strong internet connections, as shown by their massive growth over the past few years, especially in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, which all come in the top 10 in terms of connections.

Bulgaria clocks in over the US at #12, showing you that just because you’ve never heard much about a country doesn’t mean they can’t have great internet speeds. 

One positive is that the US is ahead of the United Kingdom, which means that even 200+ years later, we’re still dominating them!  Boom!  Independence, son!

[Bloomberg]

NSA uses apps to collect data

You heard that right:  the NSA is using apps and the data collected by the apps to monitor you.  New documents released by Edward Snowden show that the NSA has been developing capabilities to intercept data transferred from apps to advertisers, and may be using it on certain “leaky” apps like Angry Birds.  Yeah—every time you want to lay the smackdown on some green pigs your stuff is getting broadcast through the air, and the NSA is snatching it out of the air and using it to collect information on you; information like your phone number, location, contacts, and your high-scores on Level 33.  (Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, denied that they are supplying data to the NSA in a recent press release. )

Heck, if you upload an image to Twitter or Facebook, it could be intercepted and they could be able to tell literally everything about you, regardless of whether or not those social sites remove metadata from their images.  Love Google Maps?  They use that too to determine your location and other data.

I’m not sure if it’s displayed on iOS, but with Android, every time you download an app, Google Play brings up a series of warnings, showing what exactly the app needs to have access to in order to function.  Things like your phonebook, contacts, messages, access to photos and other things can all be accessed by an app and thus intercepted by the NSA. 

Pretty scary that the government can track you because of that one time you downloaded a Fart Noise app.

[The Guardian]

Google buys DeepMind

DeepMind is based in London, and they develop algorithms that simulate learning development so that, you know, computers can learn.  The best part?  They’re only a startup.  They have just a landing page on their website that kind of sort of tells you what they do, but apparently they’re big time.  I mean, do you really need a fancy website when you’re busy making computers learn?  You do not.

Google’s recent purchases like Nest and Boston Dynamics, and this new purchase, make for some interesting theories.  Nest, being the connected-home people, Boston Dynamics with the robots and DeepMind with the learning and you have a recipe for an at-home, constantly-learning ROBOT BUTLER.  Finally, I’ve always wanted my own Rosie fromThe Jetsons.  This is some big-time stuff, mainly because it points to Google really wanting to control your home. 

I just had the perfect idea!  Google needs to buy Ask Jeeves immediately and install it as the default operating system on their Robot Butlers.  I want a Robot Butler named Jeeves I can ask questions.  Make this a reality, Google.

I’m already really looking forward to ‘Lee Daniels’ The Robot Butler’ when it hits theaters in 2035. 

[Re/code]

CNN hacked by SEA

So, the story goes that a hacker that is part of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) saw the story on CNN’s website, got angry, enlisted another hacker and then went on a tear that resulted in at least 6 CNN employees being hacked.  They used an e-mail phishing scheme, asking employees to change their company passwords on a duplicate site that they created to steal passwords.  Using malware, the hackers were able to take control of six CNN employees’ computers.   The hackers sent two waves of e-mails:  the initial phishing e-mails, and then e-mails from the phished employees warning of an attack/hack that prompted other employees to use the fake login page as well.  Clever.

The result was that the SEA was able to take control of the CNN Twitter account as well as other CNN-branded accounts, as well as posting articles on several CNN Blogs.  The employees initially targeted by the SEA probably weren’t the people in charge of social media, but after you take over their computers and send more phishing e-mails, the people in charge of the social media were probably more willing to be open with a fellow CNN’er than someone e-mailing them from niceguy@iswearimnotahacker.com.  The hackers, who go by the pseudonym’s “Th3 Pr0” and “The Shadow”, are probably from Syria, but who knows, really.  If they’re good enough to hack into CNN, they’re good enough to cover their trails. 

An investigation is still ongoing.  Dun dun dunnnnnnnn!

[Mashable]

Some social media campaigns manage to achieve a very strong ROI without being executed very well, but some campaigns are executed flawlessly yet end up with a negative ROI. Let’s take a look at some campaigns that were creative, unique, executed extremely well and also achieved a very strong return on investment, or in other words that had great results.

Water is Life

This poignant campaign took over an already popular hashtag, #firstworldproblems, which people use to complain about silly, trivial things. Usually, campaigns try to promote a hashtag. In this case, the campaign wanted to end the use of this ignorant hashtag.

The Water is Life organization went to Haiti to film people reading out actual #firstworldproblems tweets found on Twitter, and then offering their condolences to the people complaining about not having heated leather seats, or having to walk into the other room to charge their phones. These “first world problems” sound a lot more trivial coming out of the mouth of somebody who might not even have clean drinking water the next day. Talk about putting things into perspective...

The results of Water is Life’s Hashtag Killer campaign, most importantly, were enough donations to fund a million days of clean water for people in need. Along with that came a lot of exposure and publicity, as this campaign was featured all over the mainstream media, the blogosphere, and social media.

BatKid

The story of a young boy in San Francisco who had a dream of becoming Batman pulled on the heartstrings of the entire world. Even the President of the United States was compelled to reach out to congratulate BatKid for saving Gotham City (The name of the fictional city in which most of the Batman stories take place.)

The Make-A-Wish foundation is known for granting the wishes of terminally ill children, which often involve trips to Disney land or to meet their sports heroes.

What young Myles wanted was something completely different, he wanted to be a strong, powerful superhero for a day and that’s what he got. The entire city came together to cheer for him, and to organize a fun obstacle course which ultimately resulted in BatKid tricking the riddler, and the police showing up to arrest him.

People were moved by the bravery of BatKid, not for capturing the villain but for showing such strength in battling his illness each and every day. In his dream of becoming a superhero, BatKid became a real hero and an inspiration to people all around the globe.

This wasn’t a campaign, per se, in the same way as the other ones on this list and it wasn’t created to generate social buzz for any organization, so instead of measuring the ROI based on how many sales or likes it generated, it’s better to look at the awareness and the inspiration generated, which is immeasurably strong.

Velocity Pet Ambassador

An Australian frequent flyer program for Virgin Australia Airlines was promoting the program to pet owners, as with the new program, pets would earn frequent flyer points just like their owners do.

They've decided to choose a pet ambassador for this occasion. Instead of finding a cute dog or cat themselves, Velocity reached out to their Facebook audience and asked their fans to send in pictures of their pets. The winners would get exposure for their pet and 10.000 points.

The announcement itself got over 3000 likes and more than 650 shares on Facebook. Thousands of people sent their photos in. The company was overwhelmed with the response, so it was decided that not only a pet ambassador would be chosen, but they also chose a “top dog” and a “top cat”.

The winner was Pepper the Westie. This proves that including your customers and social media followers in a fairly sensitive decision for the company can mean huge exposure for your brand, which Velocity did get, as word about their frequent flyer program for pets got around the target audience quickly.

The Haunted Coffeeshop

This is a fun viral video that raised a ton of hype for the remake of the classic horror film Carrie. Prank videos have always been really popular, and this campaign took it to the next level by terrorizing patrons of a coffee shop with all sorts of trickery and special effects.

You’ve really got to see it for yourself, the reactions are priceless! This video generated over 55 million views in just a few short months; it was a massive success in promoting the film and building a huge following for future projects as well.

It was nice to see that the best social media campaigns of the past year were ones that had a positive message, or a feel-good element to them. There were also some very entertaining campaigns, too, and what they shared in common was their ability to capture people’s emotions.

Snapchat’s security system hacked

This one has to sting a little, especially after Snapchat acted like security wasn’t a big deal and were pressured into protecting their users.  Listen, if your app requires someone’s phone number to perform its primary function, you better protect that stuff.  That’d be like going to a bank to deposit your money and then they just put it under a mattress instead of in the vault.  Anyways, Snapchat updated to include their new security system, which involved the user finding the images that contained the Snapchat ghost.  The idea was simple enough:  humans can spot what a ghost looks like and computers can’t right? One guy saw this and said, “I can beat it.”  And did—in under 100 lines of code.  Steven Hickson developed a script to pinpoint key features of the Snapchat ghost character and match them to the security images.  He got it to perform with 100% accuracy, thus beating Snapchat’s new verification system.

If apps are going to require more and more personal information like e-mail, names, phone numbers and more, they need to properly secure their stuff.  At least make it a little harder to break into your system—like forcing the hacker to write over 200 lines of code, or something.

[via CNetand Steven Hickson]