Mediaboss Marketing

By: New York Times | Seattle | Published: December 18, 2019 4:13:50 pm While cloud computing may appear obscure, it has grown into one of the technology industrys largest and most lucrative businesses, offering computing power and software to companies. And Amazon is its single-biggest provider.

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

Elastic, a software startup in Amsterdam, was rapidly building its business and had grown to 100 employees. Then Amazon came along.

In October 2015, Amazons cloud computing arm announced it was copying Elastics free software tool, which people use to search and analyze data, and would sell it as a paid service. Amazon went ahead even though Elastics product, called Elasticsearch, was already available on Amazon.

Within a year, Amazon was generating more money from what Elastic had built than the startup by making it easy for people to use the tool with its other offerings. So Elastic added premium features last year and limited what companies like Amazon could do with them. Amazon duplicated many of those features anyway and provided them free.

In September, Elastic fired back. It sued Amazon in federal court in California for violating its trademark because Amazon had called its product by the exact same name: Elasticsearch. Amazon misleads consumers, the startup said in its complaint. Amazon denied it had done anything wrong. The case is pending.

Not since the mid-1990s, when Microsoft dominated the personal computer industry with Windows, has a technology platform instilled such fear in competitors as Amazon is now doing with its cloud computing arm.

While cloud computing may appear obscure, it has grown into one of the technology industrys largest and most lucrative businesses, offering computing power and software to companies. And Amazon is its single-biggest provider.

Amazon has used its cloud computing arm called Amazon Web Services, or AWS to copy and integrate software that other tech companies pioneered. It has given an edge to its own services by making them more convenient to use, burying rival offerings and bundling discounts to make its products less expensive. The moves drive customers toward Amazon, while those responsible for the software may not see a cent.

Even so, smaller rivals said they have little choice but to work with Amazon. Given the companys broad reach with customers, startups often agree to its restrictions on promoting their own products and voluntarily share client and product information with it. For the privilege of selling through AWS, startups pay a cut of their sales back to Amazon.

Some of the companies have a phrase for what Amazon is doing: strip-mining software. By lifting other peoples innovations, trying to poach their engineers and profiting off what they made, Amazon is choking off the growth of would-be competitors and forcing them to reorient how they do business, the companies said.

All of this has fueled scrutiny of Amazon and whether it is abusing its market dominance and engaging in anti-competitive behavior. The companys tactics have led several rivals to discuss bringing antitrust complaints against it. And regulators and lawmakers are examining its clout in the industry.

AWS is just one prong of Amazons push to dominate large swaths of the US industry. The company has transformed retailing, logistics, book publishing and Hollywood.

But what Amazon is doing through AWS is arguably more consequential. The company is the unquestioned market leader triple the size of its nearest competitor, Microsoft in the seismic shift to cloud computing. Millions of people unknowingly interact with AWS every day when they stream movies on Netflix or store photos on Apples iCloud, services that run off Amazons machines.

Jeff Bezos, Amazons chief executive, once called AWS an idea no one asked for. The service began in the early 2000s when the retailer struggled to assemble computer systems to start new projects and features. Once it built a common computer infrastructure, Amazon realized other companies needed similar capabilities.

Now companies like Airbnb and General Electric essentially rent computing from Amazon otherwise known as using the cloud instead of buying and running their own systems. Businesses can then store their information on Amazon machines, pluck data from them and analyze it.

For Amazon itself, AWS has become crucial. The division generated $25 billion in sales last year and is Amazons most profitable business.

But in interviews with more than 40 current and former Amazon employees and those of rivals, many said the costs of what the company was doing with AWS were hidden. They said it was hard to measure how much business they had lost to Amazon or how the threat of Amazon had turned off would-be investors. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the company.

Now regulators are approaching some of Amazons software rivals. The House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the big tech companies, asked Amazon in a September letter about AWS practices. The Federal Trade Commission, which is also investigating Amazon, has questioned AWS competitors, according to officials.

When Amazon Web Services began last decade, Amazon was struggling to turn a consistent profit.

Startups embraced AWS. They saved money because they did not need to buy their own computing equipment, spending only on what they used. Soon more companies flocked to Amazon for computing infrastructure and, eventually, the software that ran on its machines.

In 2009, Amazon established a template for accelerating AWS growth. That year, it introduced a service for managing a database, which is critical software to help companies organize information.

The AWS database service, an instant hit with customers, did not run software that Amazon created. Instead, the company plucked from a freely shared option known as open source.

Technologists initially paid little attention to what Amazon had done with database software. Then in 2015, Amazon copied Elasticsearch and offered its competing service.

This time, heads turned.

There was a company that built a business around an open-source product that people like using, and suddenly they have a competitor using their own stuff against them, said Todd Persen, who started a nonopen-source software company this year so there was zero chance that Amazon could lift his creations.

Again and again, the open-source software industry became a well that Amazon turned to. When it copied and integrated that software into AWS, it did not need permission or have to pay the startups for their work.

That left little recourse for many of these companies, which could not suddenly start charging money for what was free software. Some instead changed the rules around how their wares could be used, restricting Amazon and others who want to turn what they have created into a paid service.

Last year, MongoDB, a popular technology for organizing data in documents, announced that it would require any company that manages its software as a web service to freely share the underlying technology. The move was widely viewed as a hedge against AWS, which does not openly share its technology for creating new services.

AWS soon introduced its own technology with the look and feel of MongoDBs older software, which did not fall under the new requirements.

By the time AWS held its first developer conference in 2012, Amazon was no longer the only big player in cloud computing. Microsoft and Google had introduced competing platforms. So Amazon unveiled more software services to make AWS indispensable.

Amazon has since added AWS services at a blistering pace, going from 30 in 2014 to about 175 as of December. It also built in a home-field advantage: simplicity and convenience.

Customers can add new AWS services with one click and use the same system to manage them. The new service is added to the same bill, while using a non-Amazon service on AWS is more complicated.

Saket Saurabh, chief executive of the startup Nexla, said he signed his startup to work with Amazon in September. The reason? Amazons giant sales teams can give his data-processing and monitoring service access to a vast audience.

What choice do we have? he said.

For all the latest Technology News, download Indian Express App

Read this article:
Prime Leverage: How Amazon Wields Power in the Technology World - The Indian Express

Q: Ive been using the free version of Malwarebytes for a few years now. Several days ago the program indicated an upgraded version was available. Every time Ive tried to install it my computer will restart two times and I get a message that there was a problem with this process. How can I fix this?

A: Anytime you install an upgrade for a program that is already installed on your PC there is a chance that the upgrade will fail or present problems.

To troubleshoot this, look for the Malwarebytes program in your Add/Remove programs Control Panel and go ahead and uninstall the application.

Texas Inc.: Get the best of business news sent directly to your inbox

Once the application is uninstalled, reboot your PC and go to the Malwarebytes home page and download the latest version and install it.

This method of troubleshooting software upgrades is usually the most effective and can help with any number of programs you might need to upgrade and is why you should always make sure you can put your hands on the install media for any of your software applications.

On a side note, there is malware out there that will prevent programs like Malwarebytes from working properly. That is why I suggest installing a secondary scanner like the free version of AVG just in case something infected your PC that Malwarebytes didnt block.

Q: I have received both emails and phone calls claiming to be from the IRS telling me that I have problems and that I am facing legal action. While I know these are scams, I was wondering if there was anything I could do about this. What do you suggest?

A: The end of the year is the time when these IRS scams really kick into high gear. Ive had two phone calls this week claiming to be from the IRS telling me I was going to be arrested.

These scams prey upon our ignorance and fear. If all the other warning signs dont tip you off to the fact that this is a scam, the last thing they ask you to do should be the clincher as they usually want you to go buy some gift cards and have you provide them with the numbers so they can extract the cash.

I can pretty much guarantee that the IRS does not accept gift cards as payment.

If you get one of these calls or emails, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission using their Web site at tinyurl.com/helplineftc.

It is important to remain vigilant and spread the word about this type of scam as people fall for it all the time.

helpline@chron.com

See the original post:
When older software gets in the way of upgrades - Houston Chronicle

This eMag is part of our 2019/2020 trends overview. The insights come from our editorial team, all of whom are software engineers, who push the barrier of innovation in their professional lives. Read and reflect on their insights to inspire your tech visions and roadmap for 2020.

At InfoQ we are passionate about software. Our team of regular editors and contributors all have full-time jobs in the software industry, building software and managing software teams. Our mission is to facilitate the spread and change of innovation in professional software development. We do this through the content we publish online via InfoQ and a number of other platforms including YouTube, Apple News, Alexa, as well as in-person through the various QCon conferences we run around the world.

To help guide our content, groups of our editors meet regularly to discuss the global content strategy for InfoQ and the technology trends that significantly impact our industry. During these discussions, we consider the state of practice, emerging ideas and things we hear within our network and at meetups, conferences, analyst events, etc. We also take into account traffic patterns on the site and attendance at sessions at QCon and other industry conferences as well as, where possible, publicly accessible surveys, our own reader surveys and other data.

The output from these discussions is a series of topic graphs, based on a technology adoption curve, which we use to inform our content policy.

Free download

Original post:
The InfoQ eMag - The InfoQ Software Trends Report 2019: Volume 1 - InfoQ.com

The correct answer to the question of whether there is a full free version of DraftSight would be Yes, but or No, but depending on your point of view.

DraftSight is a professional CAD platform that focuses primarily on technical 2D and 3D CAD drawings. Developed by the French software company Dassault Systmes, this high-grade software solution is regularly used by architects, engineers, professional CAD designers, students, and even ambitious hobbyists.

With DraftSight, users can create, edit, view, and revise 3D and 3D DWG files with immense accuracy and speed. It has an easy-to-use interface that can quickly be mastered, allowing for a clean transition from other commonly used CAD programs. DraftSight also enables you to compare designs, add hardware symbols and other features, and append PDFs to the project file.

Depending on your experience level and needs, there are three versions of DraftSight that are available: DraftSight Standard, DraftSight Professional, and DraftSight Premium.

Unsurprisingly, the pricier versions offer greater capabilities and more features, so the best choice really all comes down to how you plan to use DraftSight. Like most professional CAD software, the latest version of DraftSight, which is aptly called DraftSight 2019, is not free. However, it still presents itself as a much more affordable option compared to costly alternatives like AutoCAD.

That doesnt mean you have to spend your hard-earned cash just to give this 2D CAD software a test drive. Thankfully, users can access the full version of DraftSight 2019 through a 30-day free trial. Furthermore, as of December 2019, theres also a Beta version of DraftSight 2019 that Mac and Linux users can use for free at least for the time being. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a free or discounted version for students and teachers.

If you want to learn more about DraftSight and its features before committing to the free trial version, continuing scrolling to find out more about the features. And, if you want to delve further into 2D CAD but the cost of DraftSight is outside of your budget, well also turn you onto three DraftSight alternatives that are completely free.

More here:
2019 DraftSight Free Download: Is There a Full Free Version? - All 3DP

Among the many differences between older social software and post-Facebook social software is the peculiar flatness of the newer platforms. Older tools recognizing that the user of social software is the group, not the individual empowered those invested in health of communities with tools to help keep the community healthy. Effective social software was oriented not toward the average member of a community, but toward the communitys stewards. Thats why, for example, Wikipedia foregrounds to users an array of information useful to making quick judgments about editors, edits, and claims on articles History tab. Its why the bread and butter of community blogging systems was different levels of trusted user status, and why BBS tools showcased moderation features over user capabilities.

Platforms split community management from community activity, and were still feeling the effects of that. Wikipedia has a half dozen different access levels and at least a dozen specialized roles. Twitter has one role: user. But even though specialized formal roles dont exist, different patterns of influence do, and this has been woefully underutilized in the fight against misinformation.

Thats why my prediction for the coming year is that at least one platform will engage with its most influential users, giving them access to special tools and training to identify and contextualize sources and claims in their feeds. This will allow platforms to split the difference between a clutter-free onboarding for Aunt Jane and a full-featured verification and sourcing interface for users whose every retweet goes out to hundreds of thousands of people, or whose page or group serves as an information hub for users and activists. These tools and training will also eventually be released to the general public, though for the general public, they will default to off.

Until recently, most online communities put resources into making sure that those with influence had tools to exercise that influence responsibly, built right into the main interface. Its time for platforms to follow suit.

And heres a bonus prediction, this one for online information literacy. Over the past few years, much of the focus in infolit has been on trustworthiness, truth, and bias. While the truth sometimes is clear cut, and the intentions of those working in media literacy are good, putting these things at the core of any large public initiative can be problematic. Trustworthiness, for example, is often seen through an explicit news agenda, where journalistic processes are seen as a platonic ideal to which other types of information should aspire. Bias, if anything, ends up being too powerful a tool, allowing students to filter out almost any publication as unworthy of their attention.

For the past several years, weve been taking a different tack. Weve been asking students a simple question: What context should you have before engaging with a particular piece of content? And if you share this content, what context should you provide to those with whom you share?

While weve been doing this for its pedagogical benefits, a recent public project has made me realize that it is an approach uniquely sensitive to community values, and, as such may provide a starting point for broad educational initiatives. Truth is a battleground, trustworthiness a minefield. Yet even in these divided times, most people agree that one should know the relevant context of what one reads and shares. Its as close to a universal value as we have these days.

Because these issues will become more salient as broader adoption is pursued, I predict that online information literacy initiatives will begin to pivot from trust as an organizing principle to the reconstruction of missing context.

Mike Caulfield is head of the Digital Polarization Initiative of the American Democracy Project.

Excerpt from:
Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard