
A week ago Microsoft announced Azure Mobile Services. In Scott Guthrie’s own words, the offering “makes it incredibly easy to connect a scalable cloud backend to your client and mobile applications”. With this move, the Azure team positioned themselves firmly in the Backend as a Service space. The BaaS space, beyond the early movers (Kinvey, Parse and Stackmob), is now fairly crowded with startups, a new one showing up every 2-3 weeks.
What Azure brings to the table
It is worth noting that Azure provides a “dynamic schema” feature for the backing relational database. It is enabled by default, and it will automatically add data “columns” if they don’t exist, essentially making the data store schema-free. It is fascinating that we at Kinvey are adding relational features to make the underlying NoSQL DB more relational, and Azure is adding schema-less features to make the relational store to make it schema-free, thereby independently converging to the same ideal tradeoff point.
A major feature Azure has done well is the ability to execute server side Business Logic. They call it “scripts” and it is a piece of JavaScript code that runs on every requests and can fire off additional requests, read more data, send push notifications and control the request as a whole. The choice of JavaScript as a language is very intriguing. Perhaps Azure Mobile Services runs on node.js.
The one key differentiator Azure offers is the ability to run your backend on a dedicated VM. Since Azure in its entirety is now a full IaaS-PaaS-BaaS stack, it has the ability to offer more control over the instances running the backend (obviously at a higher price point). This will not matter for individual developers or small shops, however, the larger higher-end enterprise customers will pay more for additional protection from other tenants of the platform. At its current prices, BaaS is so cheap compared to the development effort it takes to create and maintain a backend, that it is trivial for many companies to justify a 4 digit monthly bill.
Windows-only
The Azure Mobile SDK is only available for Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 8. On his blog, Scott Guthrie mentions that the REST API fronting the service will be publicly documented soon, making it possible for the service to be consumed from any platform. In addition, the Azure team will provide “pre-built helper methods for iOS and Android”.
It takes a lot more than helper methods to create an SDK compelling to mobile developers, though. The SDK has to feel native, integrate well with native features such as CoreData, caching, offline usage and syncing.
While Microsoft is traditionally known for developer lock-in, they had recently made some moves that suggested a shift away from it, for example, integrating Azure with Cloud9 and running MongoDB on Linux. This break away from the old style of providing a complete MS universe for developers was deemed necessary for the company to win some prominent hackers over to their side, the best example being Ryan Dahl, the creator of node.js. MongoDB and node.js are, arguably, the hottest new technologies of the last couple of years, so this move is well thought out.
A major pain point I have with Azure is the the fact that their management console is written using Silverlight, and this does not work well if at all for Linux users like me. I am not a Windows developer, yet at Kinvey we use Azure for its Blob Service from our node.js environment, and I’m finding myself having to resort to awkward alternative means just to login to Azure’s portal.
Competition with BaaS startups
 Microsoft is looking for new strategies to bring developers into their platform. Android and iOS ecosystems have a giant lead over Windows Phone and in order to have a chance of catching up, Microsoft needs to think a step ahead. Only a strong incentive would make the mobile developers truly excited about the Windows 8 ecosystem and pump apps into their app store. We know well that developers like nothing better than fast iterations on their applications, and few services are better positioned to enable that than Backend as a Service. With Azure Mobile Services, many traditional Windows developers can quickly retool for the mobile world, while remaining focused on the app rather than reinventing and operating backends.
At the same time this move inadvertently positions Microsoft against the 20-odd startups in the BaaS space. It is true that almost none of the BaaS companies have a Windows SDK, yet their REST APIs are well documented, and a sophisticated Windows library with caching and offline usage is only a matter of time. Whether Microsoft will start marketing the solution beyond the Windows world remains to be seen, as is the BaaS companies’ level adoption in the Windows world.
It is clear, though, that Windows developers who are already programming mobile apps, or are looking to re-skill for the mobile industry, should be very excited about Azure Cloud Services. If developers are looking to write true cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, or HTML5 based bridging frameworks, they are better off today sticking to an established backend as a service player.

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/channels/why-is-microsoft-competing-with-backend-as-a-ser...
 This is so soon!
Welcome to Fall everyone. I hope you spent your week browsing Halloween costumes like I did. Why is that I want to buy one now, but will likely buy one on the 30th? There must be a human aversion to preparing for such things like Halloween and Christmas and Weddings. Fall is also a time for new beginnings, and in our case, great new content. We had a huge week for Channels, seeing content covering everything from owning our iTunes music to working at tradeshows. Must be that new look that Channels have been sporting. Oh, didn’t you know? Now you can read Channels past and present all in one easy feed. Check it out! Welcome to our new Channel Publishers It’s All Tech and NuoDB! Also, are you hiring? Did you know you can post your new positions right on our site with Bostinno Careers? Drive traffic to your channel, get quality resumes, and let the world know about your open positions. Pay only $99 for your career posting for a limited time. If you’re interested in a Channel to call your very own, sign up here. These 4 Varsity Googling Skills Will Show You What the Web is Saying About You – Like all of the posts Sarah Downey of Abine writes on their Channel, this blew our hair back. It *blew* “our” hair back! A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community – Meetups, Newsletters, University Resources. Rob Go of Nextview Ventures covers it all. He even distinguishes between normal meetups and more high-quality ones! I’m really in to his “Places to Hang” section too. There’s lots of great shoutouts to other Channel Publishers here; such as Nanigans, Wayfair, Greenhorn Connect, and more. Superfoods You’ve Never Heard Of Guaranteed to Enhance Athletic Performance & Recovery – Oh yeah, we deliver nutritional news too! Well, Nick Friedman of Channel Publisher Coachup is our chia seed master and guru of all things athletic. Read up and recover! 5 Things Dharmesh Shah Has Taught Me – Sravish Sridhar of Kinvey writes a great piece about learning from someone she doesn’t even know but has the utmost respect for. Who’s your invisible mentor? Samsung Plans to Sue Apple if it Releases Phone with LTE – Edgar Roth of newcomer Channel Publisher It’s All Tech reports! “Samsung is likely waiting for official confirmation that Apple will be releasing a product with LTE support. The company owns about 12.2% of LTE-related patents that have been issued so far, giving it an advantage in a lawsuit against Apple.” DRAMA!
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/09/07/a-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-boston-tech-communi...
There’s been a lot of debate lately about how Twitter is closing down access to the network by outside services, and the impact that has on the broader ecosystem — something former CEO Evan Williams talked about with me on Twitter yesterday — but there hasn’t been much written about how that affects individual startups and developers who have built large parts of their businesses and lives around the Twitter platform. In an attempt to get a better view of what it looks from the inside, I talked with a developer (who didn’t want his name used for obvious reasons) whose business is based almost entirely on the Twitter API, about how he believes the company is essentially strangling his livelihood. He also argues that while this may seem reasonable in the short term, it could backfire badly.
The developer in question — who I will call Dave — has at least a couple of decades experience with databases and programming of various kinds, both on the consumer side and the corporate side, and has been involved in at least one failed web startup (not Twitter related). For the past two years, he has been working full-time doing consulting projects for large and small companies, non-profit organizations and others who want to integrate or work with Twitter. Much of it is “data-mining, data collection and analysis, aggregation and curation, auto-following” and related services, he said. In some cases, companies wanted custom widgets that pull in tweets from influential people within certain topic areas.
“I love the service, but I hate the company”
Dave said that he loves Twitter the service, but hates what the company is doing to him and developers like him by restricting what they can do with the API — and also the fact that Twitter seems to be playing favorites with who they decide to shut down (such as Instagram and Tumblr) and who they decide to play ball with. “I had a very successful consulting business,” he said. “Iit wasn’t very big, it was more of a lifestyle business, making about $15,000 a month. And Twitter killed it — they killed it cold.”
The developer said that within a few days of the blog post by consumer-product lead Michael Sippey, which described the new terms of use for the API (and which Dave refers to as a “bug bomb”), all of his corporate clients said they were cancelling their projects — “Every single one of them. I think they just didn’t know what was going on, or whether they would be affected, so they just stopped.” Some clients have come back, he says, but now he is nervous about whether Twitter will shut down or restrict his access:
“They have a big kill switch — anyone at Twitter can kill me in a second, they can turn off any of my applications any time they want. They can kill all my apps and shut off all my paying clients, and they’ve done that. We’re all terrified of them — we won’t say a word.”
Actively looking for Twitter alternatives

Dave says he is looking at alternatives like App.net and anything else that can make him less reliant on Twitter, and he said that he expects many others like him are doing the same, because they sense that Twitter is closing down the network and trying to control more of the content in order to monetize it through advertising, and that they will just be collateral damage in this battle:
“I’m not going to go to my clients and say you have to switch to App.net or something else, but I am looking hard at it. My sense is there will be three or four of these guys eventually — and a couple will be good technically, so the developers will migrate. Within two years one of them might be bigger than Twitter, especially if all the cool apps and services are built on it, and then the scary thing for Twitter is one of them is going to get bought by someone big.”
Some have argued that the third-party developer dissent over Twitter’s moves is overblown. Anil Dash has called the idea that outside services matter a lot to the network “nerd triumphalism.” But Dave says that there has always been a symbiotic relationship between the company and outside developers — one in which both sides benefitted — in part because the service was so troubled in the early days and needed a lot of help and expertise that it didn’t have. And they were glad to have that help, he says, but that attitude started changing about a year and a half ago:
“The reason why I was a full-time Twitter developer instead of a Facebook developer is that Facebook people were really nasty and extremely competent technically — which is a dangerous combination — whereas the Twitter people were really nice and largely incompetent technically, as was obvious to anyone who ever tried to use Twitter.com. So they needed us, and they knew they needed us. They would go out of their way to try and help make things work.”
In some of his more recent conversations with Twitter, however, Dave said mid-level administrators were all of a sudden telling him what kinds of services and sites he could build — even if what they were describing had nothing to do with the actual terms of service — and threatening to shut his custom applications down if he didn’t comply.
Is Twitter becoming the new Microsoft?

When it comes to the longer-term implications of Twitter’s moves, Dave says he understands that the company needs to make money to satisfy its investors, but he warns that the impact on the broader ecosystem could be severe and long-lasting. While the impact on users might be minimal, he says, a whole freelance labor force of thousands or even tens of thousands of outside developers and consultants could wind up turning on the company, and that could have serious ripple effects for Twitter:
“Everyone is fixated on consumer clients, but the reality of Twitter is that lots of third-party consultants like me integrate corporate business practices with Twitter. That level of integration is invaluable for Twitter — partly because inertia has a huge impact on corporate software, so once it’s integrated it’s there forever. And Twitter didn’t pay for any of that stuff. So who got more out of that relationship? Twitter got a huge amount of value from it. And now they want to kill it.”
By trying to control too many of the levers that involve revenue, Dave says that he is afraid Twitter could significantly impair the value of the network. “I know they need to make money,” he says, “but they don’t need to make 100 percent of the money.” In the end, Dave says that he believes Twitter will continue to grow and lots of people will use it — and even developers like him will continue to integrate with it. But the whole time, they will be looking for an alternative, and that will be damaging in the long term:
“Everyone keeps making parallels to Apple to explain Twitter’s attempts at control. The real historical analogy is Microsoft. Think back to the early Nineties, and you’ll remember the universal hatred for Microsoft, even though 95 percent of people used their products constantly. When the web appeared, it was viewed by developers as a way to escape Microsoft. Vicious bullies always lose. It just takes time.”
Post and thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr users Rosaura Ochoa and See-ming Lee


from GigaOM http://gigaom.com/2012/09/07/twitter-killed-my-business-an-inside-look-at-the...
Social TV remote startup Dijit is reinventing itself with a new iPad app that squarely aims at the TV guide space: Dijit’s new NextGuide app presents users with viewing recommendations for live television as well as Netflix and Hulu without resorting to the traditional channel grid. Instead, it organizes viewing through customized categories, which can include your home town, your favorite baseball team or even more niche interests like “German shepherds” or “deep sea diving.”
NextGuide isn’t Dijit’s first stab at this space. The company first launched its remote control app, dubbed Dijit and capable of controlling TVs and set-top boxes through a custom IR blaster, last summer. It added some basic social programming guide functionality to Dijit earlier this year, and the company signed up more than 100,000 users. Still, Dijit CEO Jeremy Toeman told me recently that he never saw it take off, and so the company realized that it had to refocus.
One key lesson learned with the Dijit app was that remote control functionality wasn’t used as much as the team initially thought. That’s why NextGuide squarely focuses on content recommendations. The app pulls in social data from Facebook and recommends content to you in a variety of channels, with the ability to add and customize the channels you’re interested in most, and even combine various filters. Only want live TV results about dogs in your home city? NextGuide can deliver.
There is also a time grid that mixes live and on-demand recommendations, which can be a bit confusing: It’s not easily understandable why NextGuide would recommend one Netflix title Thursday at 9 p.m. and another Friday at noon. Toeman acknowledged that the personalization could still be improved.
What’s interesting about NextGuide is that it’s not your classic throwing old ideas out of the window and starting over from scratch move. Instead, NextGuide and Dijit are joined by the hip: Dijit logins work on both apps, and comments posted on one of them are also displayed on the other.
Of course, NextGuide isn’t the first company to take a stab at the next-generation TV guide. Fanhattan, Peel, Boxfish and a bunch of others are also trying to apply new ideas to content recommendations on the second screen, and TVGuide.com itself recently published an app that tries to combine the traditional grid guide with more personalized recommendations. Still, NextGuide definitely looks interesting, and the personalized channel idea might just be what the company needs to succeed the second time around.


from GigaOM http://gigaom.com/video/dijit-nextguide/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=fee...
Physics and computer games have a long, beautiful friendship, starting with Spacewar! in 1962, its play based on spacecraft maneuvering in the gravitational field of a star. Many modern games have extensive physics engines to create realistic play. (Your mileage may vary in terms of "realism"—I'm looking at you, entire Mario franchise!) For an explicit merging of realistic physics and classic arcade game play, it's hard to beat Plasma Pong, Steve Taylor's 2007 browser-based game that was named by Wired as one of the best independent titles.

Enlarge / Screencap of your author getting beaten by the AI on "Fluid Ping Pong"
Plasma Pong, alas, suffered an early death via a cease-and-desist from Atari, which owns the PONG™ trademark. However, Australian developer Anirudh Joshi revamped the title and changed its name to Fluid Ping-Pong, giving it an HTML5 flourish along the way. While PONG™ had very simple physics—just a ball bouncing back and forth, with no need to model forces—Fluid Ping-Pong uses a real-time fluid dynamics engine, with code and concepts from Jos Stam, Oliver Hunt, and RJ Marsan. The extra dynamics are evident from the name: the ball moves in a somewhat viscous fluid. In addition to moving the paddles PONG™-style, players can send jets into the ambient fluid, or "suck" the fluid back.
Because the gameplay is based on real fluid dynamics, the motion of the ball can be unpredictable, at least on the level of human reaction times. Having two players (one AI in my case—I haven't tested the two-player mode) means there could be two competing streams of fluid colliding, with turbulence at the boundary. While it's realistic and based on modeling of the fluids using the Navier-Stokes equation, anyone who has used a ping-pong gun knows how erratically the ball can move even in fairly still air. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
from Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/09/pong-gets-a-physics-boost-by-way-of-ht...

If long-suffering Dunkin' Donuts franchise owner Fred the Baker had decided to get an office job, chances are his early morning grumble would have been "Time to make the PowerPoint." Doing decks is part of every organization, from the military to not-for-profits to businesses of all sizes; even if you make the chore easier with Keynote, it's still a chore.
Creating something that doesn't look like every other presentation is possible, but if you aren't gifted with design acumen it might not turn out like you hope. PowerPoint's automatic templating helps somewhat, but how about using your iPad to spice up a slide or two?
Giant Thinkwell's free iPad app Haiku Deck may prove to be the spice rack for your flavorless decks. The idea is straightforward: use one of Haiku Deck's provided two-line templates for your slides, and the app will search Creative Commons-licensed photos to provide a fitting visual complement to your verbiage. You can swap in your own local photos from the iPad or ones from social services; to share, upload your deck to the Haiku Deck site or export it to a PowerPoint file.
The app is beautifully designed and easy to use; some of the free supplied templates are lovely, and there's a $14.99 optional pack of additional looks (or $1.99 per template, bought solo) if you're not thrilled with the built-in options.
Yes, you can only use two lines of text per slide, so it's not ideal for bullet-heavy fiscal briefings. Yes, the results have a tendency to wander into Demotivators territory. But you can certainly use Haiku Deck to inspire a theme for a longer presentation built in a desktop app, or pull one or two key concept slides into a presentation that's begging for some creative zing.
[hat tip AllThingsD] Friday Favorite: Haiku Deck for iPad concocts instant presentations originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2012/09/07/friday-favorite-haiku-deck-for-ipad-concocts-i...
I lead the life of a digital nomad. I have a MacBook, and iPhone and iPad. To coin a phrase: I don’t need to access all of my data all of the time, but I do need to access some of my data all of the time. Central to this is Apple’s Documents in the Cloud feature, which is much improved in Mountain Lion. Basically, applications can store files in their own sandbox in iCloud, and OS X and iOS versions of the app can access (and change) the files. This means you can have a central repository for files.
There were three main goals to moving most of my data into Documents in the Cloud: ease of finding it, and ease of recovery if my hard drive fails; and the ability to work on a file on both my iPad and MacBook. A secondary goal is to have my research materials, notes, calendar and reading material available across my devices. It’s also important to note that the type of work I do on these devices is very portable. For the most part, I deal in text files that are easy to fling between devices. These are also the files I need access to for editing on the iPad. It’s not uncommon for me to do some writing when all I have is my iPad.
That said, my corporate job is very Windows-centric, and our security policy is very anti-Cloud. So, it’s easy for me to define realistic goals for cloud computing and find tools that work for me. In this case, “work” for me defines my writing business; not my day job. That said, depending on your job, you might be able to integrate some of my findings in your work life.
Productivity apps
As I mentioned, my main activity on my MacBook is writing. The one requirement I have for an editor is it has to work with Documents in the Cloud and have an iOS partner. I’ve been floating between Pages ($19.99 Mac/$9.99 iOS) and Byword ($4.99 Mac/$2.99 iOS), but have settled on Pages. While overall I liked the interface better on Byword (especially on the iPhone), I’ve found it’s slightly fewer taps to send a file from Pages. As you’d expect from the thesis of this post, I solely use the cloud storage options in Pages (and, while not used as often, the rest of the iWork suite). There are three main reasons I use Documents in the Cloud: ease of finding files; the ability to access files on both OS X and iOS; and quickly get up and running on a new piece of gear.
I’ve accumulated a ton of files over the years. Some of them are half-finished projects. Some are archived old writings. I’m at the point where remembering where I put a new file, and drilling down to get it, was becoming a bother. I set up Smart Folders to find Pages documents, came up with different folder naming schemes, but, in the end, the simple fact remained: I hated the Finder. So, I declared writing bankruptcy and started saving all my iWork documents in the cloud.

This had the secondary bonus of letting me edit files on my iPad. The iPad has become my primary mobile device. Fortunately, the work I do doesn’t really require the full might and power of my MacBook Pro. I’ve got an Incase Origami that I throw in my “it’s a satchel, Indiana Jones had one” bag if I need to work on something hefty. The main advantages to this setup are that I can quickly send a copy of a file to someone on a moment’s notice, and I can write wherever I am. So far, I haven’t really experienced any major downsides. Once, the iPad was having trouble downloading the latest versions of a file, but restarting iCloud fixed that.
As an aside, while it doesn’t have an iOS equivalent, I’ve been using the Documents in the Cloud feature of Pixelmator ($14.99) to easily find my graphics files and to access from a second Mac if necessary.
PDFs
The second major Documents in the Cloud feature I use often is storing PDFs. For that I use PDFPen for Mac ($59) and iOS. I don’t have to edit or markup PDFs, but I do need access to my library of PDFs. All the legal documents from my divorce are stored in PDFPen, as well as author agreements to publishers, the documents to a pen-and-paper game I’m beta testing, some photography magazines that are in PDF form, and a standard model release.

I haven’t run into too many problems. Every now and then PDFPen for iOS gets a little fussy on large files, but the increased memory of the new iPad has reduced the frequency of that. Being able to quickly look something up in my divorce agreement when my ex-wife called with a question was a win for the system.
An iOS version of Preview is one area I’m very surprised isn’t available yet. Maybe it’ll be a feature announced next week, but I’m not holding my breath.
Things to watch out for
Backups
The biggest concern I have is backups. Unlike Dropbox, I can’t go back in time and restore a deleted file. If you delete something from Documents in the Cloud, it’s gone. The good news is, if you are running Time Machine, your ~\Library\Mobile Documents folder is backed up as part of Time Machine. You will need to enable the Finder to show hidden files to easily see them in Time Machine. If the file only resides in iOS and it’s deleted, it’s pretty much toast. Periodically, I’ll copy the entire Mobile Documents folder to a second drive just to have a secondary backup.
Security
Mat Honan’s epic hack was a good wakeup call about the pitfalls of a digital lifestyle. It’s important to remember that anything you have stored in the cloud could end up being accessed without your blessing. Hacks happen. Therefore, it’s important that any information that you consider to be sensitive, or would be embarrassing if shown to the world, never, ever, get stored in the cloud. If your work prohibits files being stored in the cloud, don’t try and work around it and store them up there anyway.


from GigaOM http://gigaom.com/apple/tips-for-integrating-documents-in-the-cloud-into-your...

Did you know earth is that small compared to the sun? Oh you did? Well did you know earth really isn't that close to the sun? You knew that too, huh? Well excuse me for trying to educate, Mr. Smarty Pants. MASSIVE SOLAR ERUPTION!:
This "long filament of solar material," as NASA calls it, was spotted tearing away from the Sun at upwards of 900 miles per second.
"It is hard to easily judge the size of this 3D event with a 2D image at this angle, but this filament is probably on the order of 30 Earths across, 300,000 kilometers or 186,000 miles," explained C. Alex Young, a solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Hit the jump for a video of the action, which I'm still having a hard time believing is real and not just a cutscene from the Mass Effect franchise. Hey, I'm just glad we survived the thing and my satellite television never went out. FUN FACT: Did you know the sun is the ruling sign for Leos like myself? That might explain why I'm so pale. "You get inside and you f***ing stay there!" it's always yelling at me.
Hit the jump for various shots of the eruption taken at different wavelengths, as well as the video. 
from Geekologie - Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome http://www.geekologie.com/2012/09/how-did-we-all-not-die-video-of-massive.php...
 Sky+ has been on a bit of a tear refreshing its set-top boxes, and it's not about to stop now. When ready, a new update for the satellite TV provider's devices will let you undelete recorded programs; deleted shows are now moved to a separate space and only removed permanently either through age or if you really, really don't want to watch. If you're more interested in watching content that's always available, both Anytime and Anytime+ will be rebranded as On Demand, while the Sky Guide is adding a dedicated store tab for movie rentals. Catch Up TV is also nearing with the update and should aggregate the last week's worth of shows from Sky in addition to BBC iPlayer, Demand 5 and ITV Player. The gotcha, as we know all too well from these kinds of firmware revisions, is the timing. You'll have to have either a Sky+ HD 1TB box or the Sky+ HD DRX890 to get the upgrade early on, and Sky is staggering its deployment in a move that could leave some subscribers twiddling their thumbs. Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD Sky+ update allows undeleting recorded shows, more on-demand and future Catch Up TV originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Pocket-lint | Sky | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/06/sky-update-allows-undeleting-recorded-shows/
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