Yahoo Cloud Computing with 4th Largest Supercomputer in World
March 24, 2008
Yahoo announced an agreement today with Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) to support cloud computing research. At Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York last week, Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins previewed the future of search in his keynote address. (For a video of his keynote click here soon.) No doubt cloud computing will one day make search engine innovations possible that we can only dream of today.
CRL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd., a Mumbai, India-based industrial conglomerate, will lend one of the world’s top five supercomputers to Yahoo for joint research. The CRL supercomptuter has “substantially more processors than any supercomputer currently available,” according to Yahoo.
The first Data-Intensive Computing Symposium held at Yahoo’s campus this week will bring together leading industry and academic experts from all aspects of data-intensive distributed computing.
The symposium is part of a larger effort to explore opportunities for research and application of large-scale computing to benefit applications ranging from machine translation to genomic medicine.
So who in the world are CRL and Tata?
Tata Sons Limited–founded in 1868–could be the poster boy for The Big Switch, a brilliant book by SES keynote speaker, thought leader, and Mike Arrington BFF Nick Carr on the transformation of corporations and computing leading up to the Age of the Internet and beyond Google.
Tata Sons Limited has reinvented itself to keep pace with global changes in technology. The privately-held company, founded in 1868, provides voice and data-based business outsourcing services through one of its subsidiaries.
Tata, through its subsidiaries, provides solutions for projects in water supply and wastewater, industry, power, and chemicals; identification of land, project conceptualization, designing, construction, marketing, and management of residential and commercial complexes; financial consultancy services, financial planning, investment banking and strategy consulting services.
The company also engages in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas.
Tata companies include Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Tea, TACO, Tata Technologies, Titan Industries, and Tata Communications.
That’s a lot of computing power to put in the clouds. The Yahoo/CRL effort promises to leverage CRL’s expertise in high performance computing and Yahoo’s technical leadership in the Apache Software Foundation’s Hadoop, an open source distributed computing project. The benefit: enables scientists to perform data-intensive computing research on a 14,400 processor supercomputer.
The first ever Hadoop Summit (sponsored by Yahoo! and the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), funded by the National Science Foundation), brings together Hadoop developer and user communities to discuss current projects and future directions of the cloud computing environment.
First deliveries of Superjet 100s put off over test delays-2
March 24, 2008
MOSCOW, March 24 (RIA Novosti) - Deliveries of the first Sukhoi Superjet 100 medium-range passenger aircraft have been postponed indefinitely over test delays, the head of the United Aircraft Building Corporation said on Monday.
“We are not ruling out that deliveries of the Superjet 100 aircraft to the first clients will be postponed over a delay in certification tests,” UABC CEO Alexei Fyodorov said.
He added that the first test flight was planned for next month.
A spokesman for Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, a civilian subsidiary of the Sukhoi aircraft manufacturer, confirmed that the first Superjet 100 would make its maiden flight in April.
“The airplane is currently in the final testing stages, and it will make its first flight within a month,” he said.
“Our specialists are working round the clock to meet our obligations to contractors,” he added.
Olga Kayukova, Sukhoi Civil Aircraft’s director for public relations, said another two Superjet 100 airplanes were in the final stages of assembly, and a fourth jet was on its way.
“That will enable us to certify all four prototype aircraft within the specified timeframe,” she said.
Originally, the first Superjet 100 deliveries were to be made in late 2008.
The Superjet 100 project is a family of medium-range passenger aircraft developed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau in cooperation with major American and European aviation corporations, including Boeing, Snecma, Thales, Messier Dowty, Liebherr Aerospace, and Honeywell.
Sukhoi aircraft manufacturer successfully tested Superjet 100 engines in mid-February.
The company plans to manufacture at least 700 Superjet 100s, and intends to sell 35% of them to North America, 25% to Europe, 10% to Latin America, and 7% to Russia and China.
Mikhail Pogosyan, Sukhoi’s general director, said in January that the company had secured 73 solid orders for the aircraft.
The list price of a 95-seat base model is $28 million, but the company is currently working on both smaller and larger capacity modifications.
The market for the Superjet 100 is estimated at around $100 billion for around 5,500 planes, through to 2023.
Wanted - movie reviews
March 21, 2008
Oh well i guess 2 articles in 1 day should mean something, so i will just ride the wave. Today we talk about ‘Wanted’ the next super action movie, with Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman. What i most love here, is that the director is Timur Bekmambetov, the director of NightWatch , DayWatch , and the upcoming Twilight Watch . Although people started ranting about good movies gone bad, and american production companies taking over successful foreign productions, and turning them into crap, i have to say that this isn’t a law of how things should be.
That’s why i present you the second trailer which most of you saw already maybe, and in my opinion it looks awesome. The actors are grade A, and judging from the past experience with Timur Bekmambetov and from the trailer, i think the movie will be both fun to watch, and a pleasant experience.
Now, enjoy the trailer:
Why Does Google Hate Link Manipulation?
March 21, 2008
Anyone who knows the Google Web Spam team well, knows that they all have a huge distaste for link manipulation. In my opinion, it is more than just a distance for some of the web spam team members, specifically Matt Cutts.
Matt Cutts, a great guy, Google engineer since January 2000, has a strong, deep, gut wrenching distaste for link manipulation, in my opinion. Where do I get this opinion from? I don’t think from our conversations but from watching Matt write and communicate with webmasters on link issues since early 2003.
Let me pull out one recent post by Matt Cutts that demonstrates it. A Sphinn thread, Matt writes:
Todd, what about a query like [symptoms of a heart attack]? The searcher wants accurate results ASAP, and might not have enough time or patience to research the subject thoroughly. We think about searches like this and issues like this all the time, which is why Google may come across as humorless when we talk about some linking issues.I thought Eric made a pretty compelling argument. When you search, you don’t want a search engine that is “fooled” by lower-quality links. And if you’re trying to compete for search rankings fairly, you don’t want a site that takes short cuts to do better than your site. That’s why it’s so helpful to have great content first and foremost and then promote that content well as opposed to just building links to low-quality content.
Just read that. Do people search for such things? I would think so. I don’t think heart attacks are sudden always and I hear many people get them without knowing, they just feel discomfort. So Matt takes this stuff beyond seriously, but sometimes, I feel, personally. Imagine, spending eight plus years working at a company to build out a search experience that provides as much help to the searcher as possible. Now, imagine you have people come in and try to manipulate that? In my opinion, it would take a strong man to not take that somewhat personally. Of course, Googlers can’t take it personally, but in some cases - it can be hard not to.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Rants of somebody that doesn’t like ordinary things
March 21, 2008
Every time i start writing some article (believe me ideas come, but time is so scarce) , i keep coming with so many ideas that i can’t focus on 1 subject only. I was planning to write this article for a LONG time, but i never had the chance to do it, now, i do have the feeling that it should be done.
I will be posting an original article once in a while, with my own rants, and i hope you don’t mind, i simply need to share, and i hope that the news i selected for you are of interest. Now, back to the rants.
Today rant is about destruction vs building. Don’t take it literally, my point is just that well, speaking very very objective, from my own point of view, i was always fascinated about how in both real life, and movies, our attention is drawn to the things that break, crash, explode, we rarely appreciate a movie for instance, that doesn’t have great effects, unless it’s a TRUE good story, and i feel sorry for the fact that if the movie has ok effects and fast paced action, then we are ready to overlook details which we would not otherwise.
My question is, why is it so attractive, to see destruction and … you understand me ? why is the question ? I even believe i would be more attracted to see an iced rose falling and breaking in slow motion, than to see a tree growing in high speed.
Is this what’s up for today? Dunno, it’s just that questions come, and they come at the most opportune moment, and that is when you feel like talking to yourself and thinking beyond. Oh noes, don’t think of me or these thoughts being the product of a delusional mind, it’s just that at some point you get tired of reading, or doing the same stuff on and on and you start thinking … what if, can it be more, why is this, and why is that . It’s pretty crazy altogether, but … the relief … and the fun, is priceless.
I’m not sure if you understood this, i’m not even sure if i will understand it if i read it all over again, but it’s purpose it’s not mostly to be understood, but it’s for driving people into a series of questions, and phrases, that seem not to end, and at some point you should just be drifting away, feeling that you’re doing something different.
I crave for different things, i crave for days that should not go by without anything special happening, so you see, i’m just a normal guy with higher expectations, and with more drive to want more.
Rant is over and we need to get back on Earth.
Until the next flight !
Wordpress 2.3.3 Hidden Links Injection Exploit and How To Not Let It Happen To You
March 21, 2008
A friend yesterday running the latest version of wordpress had some hidden links injected in his blog. I know he is very technical and knows what he is doing so started making me a little paranoid. I started search for Wordpress 2.3.3 hidden links injection and as you can see there is a ton of people claiming to be running the latest and greatest Wordpress version yet getting hidden links inserted in there posts. People are also inserting iframes. Its actually pretty effective if you think about it… How would you notice hidden links in old posts?
First I want to say I have never seen any evidence of a fresh 2.3.3 install of Wordpress.
The issue most likely comes from either a previous exploitable file still existing in your Wordpress install directory or from someone who has already hijacked your admin cookie. You see there were some wicked exploits in earlier versions that allowed people to hijack your admin cookie which authenticates you (keep me logged in).
So what to do…. well if you have Wordpress 2.3.3 and you are getting owned regularly here is what you need to do.
1) Make a new fresh install of Wordpress and copy over your must have files… like themes, plugins (MAKE SURE THEY ARE UP TO DATE) , images, wp-config.php
2) change your password right away. In case someone has a old hash of your password.
If you have been following the proper upgrade instructions (minus changing the admin pass) on the Wordpress you should have been doing this the whole time… ya I know I was not either.
If you are a nerd like me you might want to use SVN which is super dope and is a better and easier way to keep up to date if you know how to use SVN. Here are the instructions for that
Anyway security wise out of the box most web servers are not going to help you find out the root of the problem. Most of these are POST requests and unless you are specifically logging them of have mod_security installed …. there is no log anywhere of any POST request to your web server other then one happened.
Thanks to wordpress developer donncha ocaoimh for answering my twitter 
Hope this helps anyone who is having there wordpress 2.3.3 getting owned.
Extend Firefox, win stuff: The joy of the bounty
March 21, 2008
Mozilla has launched the Extend Firefox 3 contest, with some pretty cool prizes in the offing for the winners (including a MacBook Air). The purpose? To encourage more and better add-ons for Firefox.It’s similar in many ways to Atlassian’s $30,000 bounty program, which is giving away $5,000 bounties for individual plug-ins built for Jira, Confluence, and its other software.
Bounty programs have been around for years. The Ximian team used these somewhat effectively early on at Novell (and prior to that), which was my first experience with them. Since then, the number of bounties has grown considerably within the open-source world.
I personally am not a big fan of bounties, as I don’t think they go to the heart of why many developers write open-source code in the first place: pride of ownership, experimentation, intellectual pursuit.
But, if nothing else, they do call attention to a need (More plug-ins for Firefox and the Atlassian projects, in this case). It’s not as if Mozilla is hurting for Firefox plug-ins. But it may be that it’s trying to remind developers to update their Firefox 2 plug-ins for Firefox 3, and this offers a convenient, relatively inexpensive way to do so.