open source

Mortar Data, Hadoop for the Rest of Us, Gets Seed Funding

Arik Hesseldahl in News on April 2 at 1:47 pm PT

A new player in the Hadoop Big Data ecosystem aims to make the software more readily usable by programmers.

Hoping Others Will Drink the Kool-Aid, Yahoo Offers Its Mojito for Free

Ina Fried in Mobile on April 2 at 8:00 am PT

The Web giant hopes others will use its mobile Web app development tools, or at least come up with something even better.

Seven Questions for Nathaniel Borenstein, Who Made Email Attachments Easy

Arik Hesseldahl in News on March 7 at 2:58 pm PT

You probably never think about the MIME standard for email attachments, and yet you probably use it every day. Its 20th anniversary is next week. One of the men who created it looks back, and forward.

HP to Cut 275 in webOS Division as Part of Refocus on Software

Arik Hesseldahl in News on February 28 at 3:25 pm PT

Hewlett-Packard has cut another batch of employees from the division that used to be the smartphone company Palm.

Yet Another Departure From HP’s webOS Business

Arik Hesseldahl in News on January 31 at 9:51 am PT

Brian Hernacki, chief architect of HP’s webOS business, is just the latest from that group to head for the exits.

HP Starts Process of Making webOS Open Source; Full Release Due in September

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 25 at 2:00 pm PT

The key question remains just how interested anyone outside HP is in using the mobile operating system.

Yahoo’s Product Runway: Are You In or Out?

Kara Swisher in Media on November 2, 2011 at 10:41 am PT

I am here at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., to check out “Product Runway,” which is the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s attempt to show that it can still innovate.

Former Sun CEO Schwartz Joins Board of Moxie Software

Arik Hesseldahl in News on October 26, 2011 at 4:50 am PT

Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO who saw Sun Microsystems through to its acquisition by Oracle, isn’t sitting still. He has taken three board seats and runs a health-focused start-up.

Diaspora Prepares to Launch Open Source Social Network

Liz Gannes in Social on October 13, 2011 at 3:21 pm PT

The Diaspora team is young, smart and, most of all, tiny, considering the scope of what they’re trying to do: They’re busy preparing for a mid-November launch.

News Byte

Blabby Former Facebook Engineer Says He Joined Google Over Facebook iPad App Frustration

Liz Gannes in Social on September 26, 2011 at 11:21 am PT

Swimming against the Silicon Valley current, Facebook engineer Jeff Verkoeyen wrote today that he has taken a job on Google’s mobile team out of frustration over Facebook’s failure to release its iPad app — for which he led development. In a passage since removed from his personal blog (but still available in its feed, and reprinted elsewhere), Verkoeyen wrote that the app (which Facebook has never official acknowledged) has been complete for five months. Verkoeyen — who interestingly appears to have been based in Toronto while working at Facebook until he left in August — said he would continue his personal work on open source iOS projects.