Making it more convenient for Google users to work with Zoho applications indicates that Google is open to or supportive of technologies such as OpenID, or that it doesn’t view Zoho as a threat. It’s most likely a bit of both, and overall, it’s good for their mutual users.

Vembu was impressed by Google’s cooperation and willingness to work with a competitor. Zoho and Google Docs are both trying to replace
Microsoft Office. Google has been willing to contribute code, such as OpenSocial, to the larger community.

Zoho users with a Google username and password will be able to log directly into Zoho applications, according to Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of AdventNet, parent company of Zoho.

There is a key missing piece for cloud computing to really go mainstream–a higher-level programming language to be able to do more advanced logic and functionality.

Maybe Sun just doesn’t get it or care enough? This concept to me is the key to making the cloud a reality–and making Sun relevant again (MySQL was exciting for five minutes, but is almost forgotten already.)

I wonder why Sun hasn’t figured this out and why there isn’t already a “Java-in-the-Cloud” distribution that has the functionality of Java with some level of restrictions or other permission management geared toward SaaS.

Some of the big vendors like HP, Microsoft etc. haven’t even began their real efforts so the game is far from over. Amazon will be forced to deal with the enterprise, which the BigCo’s are already skilled at, where Amazon is not.

Coghead and Bungee Labs offer very cool platforms for application development, but they need to be fully embedded into the SaaS offering for them to be truly valuable. As it stands, it’s not great to have to go through multiple vendors applications and architectures in order to solve one problem. On the positive side, it’s clear that the problem can be solved and those two have gone a long way to make it happen.

The Smoothspan blog notes that Cloud Computing may be perishable, which is an interesting way to think about it–for the moment it’s a one horse race with Amazon as the leader. Google AppEngine only supports Python and you have to upload files, so, while a nice start it has very limited appeal for the moment.

I’m not so sure. Savvy?

Now Jack Sparrow just wouldn’t allow for that, surely. His innate sense of warped fairness might have rebelled just a little against the thought that his piracy could benefit the loaded just as much as the poor.

I fear, in fact, that he would have had a little more sympathy with the Somali skull-and-crossboned than with the Swedes. He wouldn’t have liked the Somalis’ violence. But he might have had some empathy with their predicament.

One can have some sympathy with their service, which some have interestingly likened to Google.

I’ve spent much time this week thinking about Jack Sparrow, pirate of the Caribbean.

But the whole concept of piracy is rather current and vexing. Think of those other fresh-faced pirates, the ones in Somalia. The ones who captured Indians, Filipinos, and Egyptians on the open water for quite some time. The ones who, just like their Swedish counterparts, became famous only when they took on some Americans.

Channeling his inner Keith Richards, Sparrow is a good pirate. Ugly and drunk, but good.

This is why, perhaps, Jack might feel that The Pirate Bay is a slight misnomer.

It’s not as if the recording industry inspires anything that might approach sympathy. But the ways of the pirate are recondite, strangely subtle. It’s almost as if most pirates don’t choose the life. Piracy happens to them.

Jack might look upon the Pirate Bay and feel that it resembles less a pirate organization and more a marketing organization. The Pirate Bay folks do interviews. There’s already a Pirate Political Party that wants to run in European Parliamentary elections.

The Swedish pirates from the Bay are supposed to be good pirates too. You know, the ones who, according to a local court, channel Richards, Mick Jagger, and a whole host of other musical acts in a not quite legal fashion.

The Pirate Bay chaps aren’t about survival. Rather enamored of their ho-ho-ho-and-a bottle-of-rum self-image, they pursue their digital notoriety with their middle digit aggressively poking in the face of the recording industry.

"File sharing? Pirates don't share. We plunder. After a drink or two."

The Somalis, Jack might say, seem to be opportunists, eking out their survival in a mean and hostile land on the mean and hostile seas.

But would Jack Sparrow, a man whose doubts heavily outweigh his certainties, welcome them onto his good ship?

While Jack would have appreciated the Pirate Bay boys’ robust egos, he wouldn’t want anyone remotely associated with him to have ever run in European elections. Not even, one suspects, if their platform had been free grog for everyone over 21.

The Pirate Bay Four, he might say, weren’t rejected by society. They aren’t folks who became pirate heroes. They’re folks who set out to be heroes and thought the word ‘pirate’ was a fine flag to fly. This makes them a little less sympathetic as characters. They seem so certain of their moral rectitude that they don’t merely think they deserve sympathy. They expect it.

(Credit: CC Syasya Akemi/Flickr)

Johnny Depp apparently believed that pirates were the rock stars of their day. But Jack Sparrow, according to the story, was forced by circumstance to become a pirate. He refused to transport slaves, and his ship was sunk by the evil Lord Cutler Beckett.

Yet the Somali teenagers are bad, bad dudes. While the Swedes seem to be embraced by many as hoodie-wearing Hoods. Robin Hoods. Taking from the rich and giving to the, well, rich. At least in some cases.

Through an official partnership with the microblogging service, Current will broadcast “Hack the Debate,” which will live-stream on Current.com as well as air on the network. Twitter updates, or “tweets,” will be shown in real time for all four debates (three with the presidential candidates and one with the vice presidential candidates), which begin on September 26. It makes a whole lot of sense, given Current’s slant toward young and tech-savvy news hounds (i.e., the people who use Twitter) and heavy focus on user-submitted content.

“The debate stage is only set for two candidates, but Current was founded to make room for millions of participants,” Current CEO Joel Hyatt said in a release. “We’re thrilled to work with Twitter and take advantage of their extremely powerful communication platform, giving people a chance to speak directly to Current’s nationwide television audience.”

Last year, MTV featured Twitter as a promotion platform for the Video Music Awards, and featured some popular tweets on-air, but did not incorporate them into a live broadcast.

Current has not said how the tweets will be selected for on-air display, but it’s likely that they will be hand-picked to provide a range of perspectives and serious commentary. So expect more about the candidates’ differing views on the economy…and less about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s hair.

Remember MagicJack, the VoIP phone gizmo that plugs into a USB port and provides unlimited local and long-distance calling? Normally it runs $40 plus shipping (and/or sales tax), but 1 Sale a Day has it for $29.99 (plus $5.99 for ground shipping) — but only through midnight today. Granted, the savings here aren’t huge, but why not save a sawbuck if you can?

I should point out that many commenters have encountered problems with MagicJack’s customer service (or lack thereof). The company lists no address or phone number on its site, and even its message board is down (though just temporarily, according to the site). Clearly they’re experiencing major growing pains (understandable given the nature of the product), but that’s no excuse for shoddy support. So I’m posting this deal with a “buyer beware” caveat.

That said, I think the MagicJack is best used as a second phone line anyway. At the very least you should test it out for a couple weeks before making it your primary line. Mine has never given me a lick of trouble; it continues to work like a charm.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

That’s according to the OpenNet Initiative’s assessment of online censorship after the first week of the Games.

After journalists spent a lot of energy complaining about their inability to reach many Web sites without the use of a proxy, the international and Beijing Olympic committees both seemed to respond, and many restrictions disappeared.

ONI notes that the bulk of the opening occurred for foreign-hosted Chinese-language Web sites, while “the majority of advocacy sites and politically ’sensitive’ organizations remain blocked.”

It may be nice that these sites have come available, but content is still filtered by keyword, if not encrypted during transmission, and there’s no way to know whether this increased availability of Chinese Web sites will outlast the Olympic pageantry.

Get a DVR, and maybe you won't need couples counseling anymore.

(Credit:
NDS)

More than 80 percent of Americans with a DVR can’t live without it, according to a recent survey commissioned by NDS, a provider of technology solutions for digital pay TV.

The survey (PDF) was conducted in July 2008 in the U.S., U.K., Italy, and Australia, with more than 1,000 DVR owners participating. Overall, the device ranked as the third most indispensable household item (62 percent), just after the washing machine (97 percent) and the microwave oven (86 percent). In the U.S., however, a higher number of people (81 percent) cited their DVR as their most crucial gadget. It trailed only the cell phone (91 percent).

DVRs (also called PVRs–personal video recorders) let you record TV in digital format to watch at your convenience. You then can fast-forward, rewind, skip commercials, and even pause live TV, something that was impossible before the birth of the DVR. DVRs include TiVo, other proprietary DVRs, or in my case, a computer running Windows Media Center.

The survey also reveals that owning a DVR can lead to a happier, less stressful life. Eighty-one percent of respondents said their DVR has made life better by allowing for more time to do things together with loved ones and fewer arguments over what to watch. In fact, having a DVR around seems to improve relationships, 79 percent of respondents claimed.

The survey also offers other interesting tidbits. Italian DVR owners care more about their hair than their DVRs, for example, and on average, Americans watch TV 4.5 hours a day, one hour more than people in the U.K.

I’m not surprised by how much people love their DVRs, as personally, without my Media Center, I might not watch any TV at all. However, these results do bring up a question about how a TV show’s popularity should be rated now that a lot of people don’t watch TV the way they did prior to the age of DVR.

Maybe this explains why my colleague Eric Franklin’s favorite show Battlestar Galactica’s Nielsen ratings have dropped as DVRs get more and more popular.

Images of the “Snow Queen” site further support NASA scientists’ assumptions that the area in and around the lander is composed of ice, according to a statement from Uwe Keller, the robotic arm camera’s lead scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

The effort, which came seven days after the lander touched down, is part of NASA’s efforts to scoop up Red Planet specimens for experiments on the lander.

(Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizone)

The Phoenix Mars Lander’s robotic arm touched the planet’s terrain for the first time on Saturday.

NASA’s photos from this latest event in the Phoenix mission also offer a more philosophical thought about the future of space exploration. Man’s first “footprint” on Mars was made by a robotic swipe, not a human step.

The lander’s camera also took more images of the area under the lander, which has been nicknamed the “Snow Queen” site.

A behemoth “footprint” was left behind by the robotic arm’s touch in the King of Hearts area of Mars. The mark, which was captured by the camera attached to the lander, looks like it could have been made by the mythological Himalayan snowman. In reference to this, NASA dubbed the impression area “Yeti.”

The company received a big bump in late October, after Transmeta announced a $250 million settlement with Intel. Following that announcement, Transmeta soared to $13.93 a share, up from $4.18 a share on the previous day’s close.

Riley Investment, which holds a 6.6 percent stake in Transmeta, also requested Transmeta complete its evaluation of its offer by this coming Friday. But the chip designer said it does expect to meet that timeline.

“Transmeta’s board is focused on enhancing shareholder value,” Les Crudele, Transmeta chief executive, said in a statement. “As part of that mission, we have been engaged in a process to expand our advisory resources and we are pleased to have Piper Jaffray & Co. join our team.”

Riley’s buyout bid, announced before the markets opened on Friday, gave Transmeta shares a minor bump of roughly 3 percent to $13.94 per share that day.

Transmeta has also received a little financial boost from its partners, as well. Last July, Transmeta announced it received a $7.5 million investment from Advanced Micro Devices.

Chip designer Transmeta said Thursday it lined up Piper Jaffray to help it weigh an unsolicited buyout offer from investor Riley Investment Management.

But since the offer was made last week, shares of Transmeta have slipped a bit to $13.89 a share in early morning trading Thursday.

If not, I don’t believe this board will be as patient as HP’s board was with Carly Fiorina. He will be out before the year is up. This time, I trust the board will be more effective at finding the right chief for Yahoo.

Here’s what Yang needs to do to keep his job:
Lead the company through a process that determines a clear vision for the company, including credible strategies for achieving that vision and quantifiable success metrics.

Yang has to crystallize and articulate all of this in appropriate forums for employees, investors, and customers. And he has to sell it. If he can do all of this before the company’s key stakeholders lose their patience, he will survive long enough to see if his efforts are successful.

As part of that process, he needs to determine what barriers to success exist inside and outside the company and implement a plan for overcoming those barriers and achieving the company’s strategic goals. Part of that plan would have to include a process to drive cultural change, including goal alignment and behavior modification.

Vision and strategy
To date, Yang has recommitted the company to its original goal of being the No. 1 portal that delivers the largest audience for advertisers. Fine, but how he plans to achieve that with Google out in front and the Internet continuing to mature and fragment is anybody’s guess. Just slugging it out with Google and all the other sites drawing everyone’s attention isn’t going to cut it.

Operational execution
Internet advertising is a zero-sum game, and it’s not at all clear how Yang intends to win it. Moreover, Yang plans to offset a token layoff with increased spending to further his nebulous plans. In the meantime, growth is slowing and profit margins are declining. The company’s stock is at a four-year low and so is investor confidence.

That’s a tall order, but it can be done. Lou Gerstner did it at IBM, and that was no walk in the park. But Jerry Yang is no Lou Gerstner.

At the time, I thought that Yang–a visionary–wasn’t what Yahoo needed. I thought Yahoo’s problem was largely failed execution and missed opportunities in search advertising that allowed Google to leapfrog its more mature rival.

In all fairness, Yang does appear to be trying to do the right things. He just doesn’t appear to be succeeding. Here’s a summary of the results of his efforts:

Cultural change
Word has it that Yahoo’s once nimble and entrepreneurial culture has turned sluggish and bureaucratic. The company’s organizational structure and compensation system appears to be rewarding silo behavior that inhibits change. Yang’s initial attempt at changing the culture–a program called One Yahoo–has understandably met with resistance and appears to be ineffective.

(Credit:
Yahoo)

At this point, I’m even more convinced that Yang was the wrong choice. But I think the problem is bigger than missed opportunity and failed execution. The company does indeed need a new vision. And it needs a CEO who’s capable of articulating and selling that vision down through the ranks and ensuring everybody’s goals are aligned.

It’s been seven months or so since Yahoo chief and co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel at the helm of the ailing internet giant. At the time, I pondered the obvious question: Can Yang fix Yahoo?

Note: I wrote this on Thursday before Microsoft’s latest bid for Yahoo; it’s a follow-up to a post I wrote six months ago. I have two comments on Microsoft’s offer: 1) It’s aggressive and it’s a sweetheart deal for Yahoo’s shareholders; I think Yahoo’s board will accept it; and 2) nevertheless, the issues I present are the same; it just becomes Microsoft’s problem.

Jerry Yang