For Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, his team broke down data silos and moved all the data to a cloud repository. The team built Narwhal, a shared data store interface for all of the campaigns’ application. Narwhal was dubbed “Obama’s White Whale,” because it is almost a mythical technology that federal agencies have been trying to develop for years. While Obama may be hanging out with Queequag and Ishmael, there is a more viable solution for the cloud says GCN’s article, “Big Metadata: 7 Ways To Leverage Your Data In the Cloud.”
Data silo migration may appear to be a daunting task, but it is not impossible to do. The article states:
iRevolution crossed the 1 million hits mark in 2013, so big thanks to iRevolution readers for spending time here during the past 12 months. This year also saw close to 150 new blog posts published on iRevolution. Here is a short selection of the Top 15 iRevolution posts of 2013:
I’ve been invited to give a “very provocative talk” on what humanitarian response will look like in 2025 for the annual Global Policy Forum organized by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in New York. I first explored this question in early 2012 and my colleague Andrej Verity recently wrote up this intriguing piece on the topic, which I highly recommend; intriguing because he focuses a lot on the future of the pre-deployment process, which is often overlooked.
I’m headed to the Philippines this week to collaborate with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on humanitarian crowdsourcing and technology projects. I’ll be based in the OCHA Offices in Manila, working directly with colleagues Andrej Verity and Luis Hernando to support their efforts in response to Typhoon Yolanda. One project I’m exploring in this respect is a novel radio-SMS-computing initiative that my colleagueAnahi Ayala (Internews) and I began drafting during ICCM 2013 in Nairobi last week. I’m sharing the approach here to solicit feedback before I land in Manila.
The “Radio + SMS + Computing” project is firmly grounded in GSMA’s official Code of Conduct for the use of SMS in Disaster Response. I have also drawn on the Bellagio Big Data Principles when writing up the in’s and out’s of this initiative with Anahi. The project is first and foremost a radio-based initiative that seeks to answer the information needs of disaster-affected communities.
China is having a light-bulb moment. Scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics have discovered that a microchip embedded one-watt LED bulb is capable of emitting Wi-Fi, with enough signal strength to provide internet for four computers.
The discovery, aptly named “Li-Fi,” relies on the use of special LED light bulb that operate with light as the carrier instead of traditional radio frequencies.
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Data rates as fast as 150 megabits per second were achieved with the new Li-Fi connection, making it faster, cheaper and more energy efficient than traditional Wi-Fi signals.
Li-Fi apparently only uses five percent of the energy required to power Wi-Fi-emitting devices, which rely on energy cooling systems to supply Internet to cell towers and Wi-Fi stations.
Though the discovery has huge potential in the way we use Internet connection, Li-Fi is still in a crude testing stage, since it doesn't work if the light bulb is turned off or if light bulbs are blocked. That doesn't seem like such a huge burden, though: it just means you'll have to leave your lights on if you want to surf the Web. No more online shopping binges in the dark!
Li-Fi demonstrations will take place on November 5 in Shanghai at the International Industry Fair, where 10 kits will be tested out. A bright future seems to be in store for Li-Fi usage, which could range from using car headlights or focused light to transmit data, among many other potential applications.
People everywhere have been organizing a more ethical economy, but they work in relative isolation, fragmented by geography, sector, and even organizational form.
Many organizations collect information about a small piece of these efforts. In every situation, there is another organization for which that information overlaps. In every case there is an opportunity to share that will strengthen all the organizations participating.
Sharing requires effort, it requires trust, and it requires infrastructure. The Data Commons is a cooperative of organizations that are sharing – sharing the costs of this effort, trusting each other with their information, and building infrastructure to make sharing is easy.
Members of the Data Commons Cooperative are principled economic organizations that want it to be easy to share with each other, and with the world, in the movement for a more ethical economy.
The budget crunch is hitting everyone. IT departments are being asked to slim down and do more with less. Apparently the government is no exception. The affordability of open source has the government’s attention and is changing the content management and enterprise playing field. Read more about the changes in the Information Week article, “Feds Move To Open Source Databases Pressures Oracle.”
The piece begins:
“Under implacable pressure to slash spending, government agencies are increasingly embracing open source, object-relational database software at the expense of costly, proprietary database platforms. That’s putting new pressure on traditional enterprise software providers, including Oracle, to refine their product lineups as well as their licensing arrangements.”
So giants like Oracle are feeling the crunch, and it is trickling down throughout the proprietary world. But many organizations might not feel comfortable going completely open source, as in creating their own customized solution. So many are turning to a smart compromise, a value-added open source solution like LucidWorks. Customers get the affordability and agility of open source, but the support and expertise of an industry leader. Check out their support and services for assurance that going open source does not mean you will be left out on your own.
