That discussion, he said, will likely center around what data and computer operations to send off to the cloud and what to keep inside the corporate walls...
follow link read the rest... the article does make an excellent point.
WOW, check this out...
The jockeying to see which tech giant controls the future of video on the Internet has hit another flash point.
Google's decision to dump a widely-used video standard, called H.264, from its Chrome browser, in favor of a format it has created, called WebM, is drawinghowls of derision in the tech community.
The H.264 format is used on about 66% of the video on the Web. It is royalty free as long as the video is distributed for free; otherwise, companies have to pay a licensing fee to the patent owner, MPEG LA.
Google's WebM format at this point in time is free -- no licensing fees of any kind. It's supporters includes Adobe, Mozilla and Opera, among others.
Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft are huge supporters of H.264, as is Abode, whose ubiquitous Flash video player works on H.264, but not yet on WebM.
Last October, Apple dumped support for Flash from its Mac OS X computer operating system, drawing criticism from cybersecurity experts. Users of OS X no longer get Flash player, or its security updates, by default.
IDC tech industry analyst Al Hilwa tells Technology Live that Goolge's move boils down to a dollars and cents calculation.
"Google made a business decision about licensing money that it had to pay for using what has become an industry standard video format, namely H.264," says Hilwa.
Google product manager Mike Jazayeri says the company's goal in dumping H.264 is to enable "open innovation." But that claim rings hollow, says Hilwa.
"It is hypocritical, but not untypical of either Google or other companies who use Open Source software for financial gain," observes Hilwa. "Google spent over $100 million a year ago onacquisition of On2, which owns the video technology they used to put into WebM."
Hilwa says the rate of adoption of Google's Chrome browser could actually decline. He says the search giant has "upset a lot of developers and web-content owners" by putting all of its chips on WebM.
Google is locked in a high stakes poker tournament against Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla and Opera. Each covets a dominant share of the browser market, going forward.
"No one knows how this will all turn out, but the tech giants are playing their hands," says Hilwa. "Whoever controls video on the Internet could be in the best position to dominate video on mobile devices."
By Byron Acohido
Microsoft said on Friday that it was buying Canesta, a small Silicon Valley company that specializes in gesture-recognition technology.
Interest in this technology has surged because it lets people control computers and other devices through hand movements and other bodily gyrations, in similar fashion to the systems depicted in futuristic films like “Minority Report.”
Canesta makes chips that, when coupled with a digital camera, give all manner of devices a sense of depth perception for the world around them, letting them “see” in three dimensions.
Neither company disclosed the financial terms.
Next month, Microsoft will begin shipping Kinect, a $150 add-on for its Xbox gaming consoles, which uses gesture recognition to allow people to play games with body motions instead of controllers. Players flick through menus with waves of the hand and then move to make their on-screen avatars run, jump, duck, swing and dance. The 3-D technology in Kinect is from PrimeSense, a Canesta rival...
In a recent interview, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, discussed the company’s plans to advance the gesture technology well beyond video games. “I’m excited to be way out in front and want to push the pedal on that,” Mr. Ballmer said.
Using Canesta’s technology, Microsoft and its partners could equip PCs, televisions, cars, cellphones and other devices with gesture recognition features.
Canesta has spent 11 years building chips that process images and information about distances to give devices some 3-D oomph.
Honda has invested in the company with the hopes of putting 3-D sensors into cars that could help them to detect obstacles. It could also use the technology to see the size and body shape of a person in a seat and adjust the way an air bag inflates.
Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese company that manufactures laptops for many of the major brands, has also invested in Canesta and expects to build laptops this year with 3-D camera modules. Manufacturers use the technology to give robots on their assembly lines some visual smarts.
“We have a really broad mission to enable everyday devices with the ability to see, and enable natural user interfaces across all kinds of devices,” said James Spare, chief executive of Canesta, who is a former Microsoft executive. “There is no other company more committed to natural user interfaces than Microsoft,” Mr. Spare added.
Canesta’s investors have poured about $60 million into the company over the years.
Analysts have described PrimeSense’s technology as cheaper to put in place than that of Canesta. However, they have also said that Canesta should be able to build less expensive and more sophisticated products over time because it designs a very specialized type of chip geared toward the 3-D recognition jobs.
Last year, Microsoft acquired 3DV systems, a company with similar gesture recognition technology. That deal coupled with the Canesta purchase may prevent competitors from acquiring these 3-D abilities and cut off potential intellectual property squabbles. Canesta has secured 44 patents in this area and has more pending.
Historically, Microsoft has worked with chip partners like Intel and Nvidia rather than building its own products, so the Canesta purchase is something of a shift.
Apple has been scooping up chip makers as well so it can improve the engines that power devices like the iPhone and iPad.
The social-network giant is getting into the gift card business, starting Sunday, with Facebook Credits cards.
The new Facebook gift cards will be available in values of $15, $25 and $50 at all of Target's 1,750 retail stores and at Target.com. Two or three more national retailers will start selling the cards in coming months.
This will be the first time Facebook has had any presence in a retail store. Facebook already has an arrangement with online-payment services PayPal and MOL to purchase Facebook Credits.
Facebook is banking that a sizable chunk of its 500 million members will purchase the cards and use them on their favorite social games, applications and virtual goods.
The gift cards, which look and work like Apple's iTunes cards, were created by GMG Entertainment, which also produced iTunes cards. Target carries iTunes cards, too.
More than 200 million people play free social games on Facebook each month, according to Facebook. And many of them are beginning to spend money on premium goods and services associated with those games.
"We think (the cards) will be incredibly popular as a holiday gift," says Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook.
The cards can initially be used on more than 150 social games and applications, including titles from gamemakers such as Zynga (FarmVille, FrontierVille), CrowdStar (Happy Aquarium, HelloCity) and PopCap Games (Bejeweled Blitz). Facebook gift cards do not replace Zynga's existing game cards.
Target — which already sells more than 30 gift cards for online games, such as FarmVille — expects the markets for online gaming and digital music to continue to grow, says Mark Schindele, senior vice president of merchandising at Target. He also noted that Target has more than 1.5 million fans on its Facebook page.
By year's end, Facebook expects to have gift card credits available for its thousands of games. At least 19 games on Facebook have more than 10 million active users a month.
Facebook is expected to rake in an estimated $1.3 billion in online advertising revenue worldwide this year, up 92% from 2009, eMarketer says.
Facebook's entry into the growing prepaid gift card market could prove lucrative. The domestic prepaid gift card market is expected to reach $86.2billion this year, compared with $80.6billion in 2009, according to Mercator Advisory Group.
