Stories by Mark Gibbs

  • LinkedIn open sources its database change capture system

    OK, lots of interesting stuff for you this week. First up, LinkedIn has open sourced a system called Databus, a real-time database change capture system that provides a "timeline-consistent stream of change capture events ... grouped in transactions, in source commit order."

  • Opinion: Big Data, big business, big government, bigger brother

    In his 1990 book "The New Realities," Peter Drucker noted: "Knowledge is information that changes something or somebody - either by becoming grounds for action, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different and more effective action." And that is what Big Data is delivering ... new knowledge, new insights and new actions, all of which will give us new problems to deal with.

  • Opinion: Predicting the tech future

    For my recent column of predictions for 2013 I polled a huge number of IT people to see what they are expecting, and ended up getting more than 400 responses.

  • Android on Everything

    This week is Android week here in Gearhead land, starting with a tool that will let you run pretty much any Android app on your Mac or Windows PC.

  • NuoDB, a new approach to SQL databases

    I feel like some kind of dubious character from a crime movie: "Psst, buddy! Wanna cloud database that's non-stop, geographically and elastically scalable? And it's also ACID compliant, roughly 75% of the cost of using Oracle, good at hybrid workloads, SQL-compliant, ridiculously easy to install, equally easy to manage, and runs on multiple platforms. And did I mention cheap? Oh yeah, I did."

  • Bring Your Own ... and Roll With It, Baby!

    Over the last couple of years a huge buzz has been building around the consumerization of IT, workers using their own PCs, smartphones, tablets and phablets at work, a movement that also goes by the name Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

  • Jailed for jailbreaking: The new law could land you in the slammer

    I know why you're excited: You can't wait for your iDevice to update to iOS 6.1 which was just released. Now Siri will be able to misunderstand what movie you want to see and present you with a link to Fandango. Or she may, as usual, think you want to dial the number of the nearest Chinese restaurant. And thus does technology march onward.

  • Networking air quality measurements

    "Air pollution is a problem for all of us. The average adult breathes over 3,000 gallons of air every day. ... Many air pollutants, such as those that form urban smog and toxic compounds, remain in the environment for long periods of time and are carried by the winds hundreds of miles from their origin. Millions of people live in areas where urban smog, very small particles, and toxic pollutants pose serious health concerns. ... Long-term exposure to air pollution can cause cancer and long-term damage to the immune, neurological, reproductive, and respiratory systems."