Tech Blog

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The Plethora of Presents edition:

Yep, it's boxing day, so I hope you've all received the gift's you've wanted, 'cause you won't find them here. Instead, I've got a gaggle of goodies found around the internet; things that happened this past week both interesting and fun.

Apple
The Tablet
Lots of buzz this week over the mythical Apple tablet. It seems that Apple owns the iSlate.com domain - which kicked off a huge amount of speculation and discussion:

• Jobs "happy" with unannounced Apple tablet
• Microsoft, Intel to cede tablet market to Apple?
• Apple To Demo Tablet In January, Asks Developers To Get Apps Ready
• NYTimes: 2010: The Year of the Tablet
• Apple’s New Tablet To Be Baptized iSlate?
• Apple 'iSlate' Trademark and What is a 'Magic Slate'?

A Bluetooth keyboard for your iPhone?
Only if you've got a Jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch - Want to connect your iPhone and Bluetooth keyboard?

Microsoft
An interesting peek behind the Hotmail service
Includes a rather detailed technical overview of some of the hardware and software that goes into managing one of the world's largest email systems:

Hotmail is a gigantic service in all dimensions. Here are some of the highlights:

• We are a worldwide service, delivering localized versions of Hotmail to 59 regional markets, in 36 languages.
• We host well over 1.3 billion inboxes (some users have multiple inboxes)
• Over 350 million people are actively using Hotmail on a monthly basis (source: comScore, August 2009).
• We handle over 3 billion messages a day and filter out over 1 billion spam messages - mail that you never see in your inbox.
• We are growing storage at over 2 petabytes a month (a petabyte is ~1 million gigabytes or ~1000 terabytes).
• We currently have over 155 petabytes of storage deployed (70% of storage is taken up with attachments, typically photos).
• We’re the largest SQL Server 2008 deployment in the world (we monitor and manage many thousands of SQL servers).

The Holiday Hodge-podge
Planet Mule - that classic C-64 game now available for free play online:

In 1983, Electronic Arts released a game called M.U.L.E, a strategy game with a heavy focus on supply-and-demand economics. It was playable by up to four players on a single machine, and today it's widely regarded as one of the most influential games of all time. Fast-forward 26 years, and in December 2009 a free-to-play version of the same game was released and dubbed Planet M.U.L.E. Developed by independent studio Turborilla, and produced by Blue Systems, Planet M.U.L.E. is essentially a straight port of the original game, albeit with a few upgrades.

An E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy

As a first step towards addressing these problems, EFF has created a first draft of our Buyer's Guide to E-Book Privacy. We've examined the privacy policies for the major e-readers on the market to determine what information they reserve the right to collect and share.

A gem amongst the rough: Story Something
Story Something is a mobile and web platform for personalized and customized children's stories. Story Something provides busy, time-starved with parents with a powerful, meaningful and fun way to connect with their children through stories and storytelling.

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Your Turn
So, did I miss anything? What online story really got you going this week? Link to it in the comments!

Message Edited by bgrier on 12-26-2009 09:16 PM