Steven Savage

Parts of EC2 are down, PlayStation Network is down – at least the economy is up in places. Oh and look out for Al Franken in your geeky news!

Yes, there are still problems with Amazon’s EC2 cloud service. It’s getting better, but man . . . what a mess. And yes, the messaging is horrible.

Economics/Geekonomics:

Silicon Valley CEO’s added jobs in 2010, plan to continue in 2011. Good news for the area, for business, the unemployed, and Geekery in general – and this fits with what I’ve been seeing out here. There’s also some fascinating research to check out on political attitudes of CEOs which may give you an idea of longer-term changes in Silicon Valley’s future.

Things also look good at startups. May I recommend Startuply.com?

Media:

85 science fiction authors protest the BBC ignoring SF, fantasy, and horror on a day dedicated to fiction. Seems to be sparking some discussion.

Mobile:

Yeah, Android is snooping on you too. This isn’t going away any time soon, and as Al Franken is involved (no jokes, he’s quite a pitbull) this is going to keep getting government attention.

Technology:

Acer posts lowest profit in 6 years. It’s an odd time so this isn’t surprising in general, but is surprising as they’ve done pretty good. Let’s see what happens to them – they do solid product, so it could be “one of those things” due to changing markets.

Video Games:

PlayStation Network is still down – Anonymous denies involvement. Speculation is still continuing that it relates to the EC2 mess. I’m not sure myself, considering Sony and Amazon have lousy messaging. Hint for folks in tech – use that Twitter account, give regular updates. It looks like this thing could last days.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: How would you improve messaging if your vitally important network went down – now, if you have a good idea, wouldn’t you make an awesome consultant . . .

– Steven Savage

Amazon's EC2 is down, and . . . oh hell, Amazon's EC2 is down. There's a bunch of other stuff, but *I* would like to get to HootSuite.

Amazon Cloud Crash brings down several companies – Amazon provides a massive cloud computing service that many companies use – and there was a huge crash last night that affected many big and small. If you didn't know this – welcome to the cloud and the risks inherent, and be aware that many places you work might just be using EC2.

This is another part of the CorpTechPocalypse – the risks of putting things into other people's hands tech-wise. This might be big enough to put a slight dent in the inevitable. If you work in tech now and anyone is going "cloud" you're going to probably have to explain this/talk about it/etc.

However I'd like to note their "availability zones" really didn't work out. Welcome to one painful learning experience.

Media:
That New York Times Subscription? Seems to be working so far.

Interested in journalism? A journalist talks about how 'the sausage gets made'.

Tablets:
Despite problematic reviews, the Playbook sold better than expected. I'm wondering if these are "cult" sales myself, but it might give some hope to the non-iPad tablet crowd after the bad reviews of the Xoom.

It's pretty much a given Amazon is going to try some kind of Tablet, and here's some theories on it. I think it's coming too – everyone wants ecosystems, people. Oh, and look upgraded Kindle for Honeycomb.

Technology:
Surprising no one, Microsoft and Nokia sign their whole agreement on mobile ecosystems ahead of schedule. Now let's see if they can deliver, which I'm a bit unsure about. Details from paidContent are here. Nothing overly surprising.

Educational technology may be worth your attention career-wise judging by this analysis.

Groupon's new Operating Chief is an old Google hand. Most suspicions are this is moving them towards the inevitable IPO (which I figure they need to get to before interest is lost). My guess is this means more hiring period. Oh by the way . . . Google has a competitor.

WebMd is hiring a Programming Manager, so if you have the chops this sounds like a reliable career move.

Video Games:
More details on the 'Wii 2' game controller and a few more insights on what the system may mean. Like it or not if you're in gaming you need to pay attention since you ay be coding for this – or for a competitor – or otherwise having to adapt. There's some possible specs at kotaku also.

My suspicion? The Wii 2 will be a massive integration device (ala the way X-Box is evolving), run a bunch of stuff from previous consoles, and MIGHT be powerful enough that "Wii 2" only software will be made for it.

And then there's the continuing PlayStation Network outage. I don't think it's connected to Amazon's, and they did face hack attacks some time ago. Presented for curiosity's sake. (Maybe some update issues?)

Looks like Big Name actors are now interested in video games according to Bethesda software. Some publicity, cash, and something cool? I can buy it. If you work in gaming this may be a good selling point to your boss – or an actor.

Odd News:
Frank Frazetta was a cover model.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: So how much impact is the Amazon EC2 outage going to have on their rep?

– Steven Savage