Greek Complexity

Resolving the contradictions between web services, clouds, and open source

Snip: "Predicting trends in computer technology is an easy way to get into trouble, but two developments have been hyped so much over the past decade that there's little risk in jumping on their bandwagons: free software and cloud computing. What's odd is that both are so beloved of crystal-gazers, because on the surface they seem incompatible. The first trend promises freedom, the second convenience."

More: http://ift.tt/1kqgnT4

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list.

Eye-watering returns from public Chinese tech companies

What. The.

Look: http://pandodaily.com/2013/10/07/the-staggering-recovery-of-chinas-public-tech-companies-in-charts/

Disclosure: my firm was an early investor in Tudou, one of the companies named in this piece.

Why the Largest Social Network in 2015 Won’t be Facebook, and Will Be From Asia

Excerpt: "We’re all familiar with the major social networks in the U.S. (FB, Twitter, etc.) as well as which ones are up and coming (Vine, Snapchat, Kik, WhatsApp). But what are not talked about a lot, are the social networks out in Asia that are growing insanely fast — like WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE."

More here: http://www.wired.com/insights/2013/04/why-the-largest-social-network-in-2015-wont-be-facebook-and-will-be-from-asia-2/

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Facebook Shatters the Computer Server Into Tiny Pieces

Excerpt:

When you sit down with the burly Texan, inside Facebook’s Northern California headquarters, he takes the Open Compute philosophy to new extremes, revealing the blueprint for a computer server that doesn’t even look like a computer server. This design lets you add or remove a server’s primary part — the processor — whenever you like. Nowadays, if you want a new processor, you need, well, a new server. But Frankovksy and the Open Compute Project aim to change that, sharing the new design with anyone who wants it.

“By modularizing the design, you can rip and place the bits that need to be upgraded, but you can leave the stuff that’s still good,” Frankovsky says, pointing to memory and flash storage as hardware that you don’t have to replace as often as the processor. “Plus, you can better match your hardware to the software that it’s going to run.”

More here: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/01/facebook-server-pieces/

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

HP’s Project Moonshot and its competition

HP has announced "a new server designed for high-volume internet data centres, the result of something it immodestly termed Project Moonshot."

However, "some potential customers for the HPs and Dells of the world now prefer to buy the components and build their own machines" and software-defined datacentres are coming soon.

All interesting stuff. More here.

DBS online banking password security restrictions are puzzling

A few days ago, I logged in to my Internet banking account with DBS, South East Asia's largest bank by assets, and decided to change my login password.

Take a look at the password page:

Click to zoom

See anything strange? (POSB is owned by DBS, so I'm not referring to the branding here.)

Why RSS still matters

Excerpt: "Google's bombshell last night that it would be shutting down the Google Reader RSS client hit the web, well, like a bomb. Just as with any major tech event, it spurred a raft of reactions on what is currently our best real-time conversation broadcasting network, Twitter."

More here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/14/4105006/why-rss-still-matters

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Heavenly networker Pertino pockets $20m to take on Cisco Meraki

Interesting piece from my reading list. Not written by me.

Excerpt: "If you want to take on Cisco Systems in the nascent cloud networking-as-a-service market, you are going to need money. Lots of money."

More here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/pertino_sdn_nabs_funding/

This is an auto-generated post courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com .

Amazon ‘robo-pricing’ sparks fears

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/26c5bb7a-c12f-11e1-8179-00144feabdc0.html#axzz203wH4FvI

Not good: “[Product] pricing is becoming like equity trading, with real-time reflection of supply and demand, increasingly sophisticated rules, and all the consequences for unexpected results.”

Job opportunities

Looking to hire technical writers (product documentation and some marketing material), QA and testing personnel, and pre-sales engineers for an established yet fast-growing software company in Singapore. Great opportunity for future entrepreneurs.

Leave me a comment here with contact info and a link to your Linkedin profile if interested.