"webcast" entries

Big data, interactive access: How Apache Drill makes it easy

True SQL queries? Yes. Parquet and other complex data structures? Yes. Drill 1.1 is full of surprises.

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Register for the free webcast “Easy, real-time access to data with Apache Drill,” which will be held Thursday, July 30, 2015, at 10 a.m. PT. This panel discussion will explore the major role SQL-on-Hadoop technologies play in organizations.

Big data techniques are becoming mainstream in an increasing number of businesses, but how do people get self-service, interactive access to their big data? And how do they do this without having to train their SQL-literate employees to be advanced developers?

One solution is to take advantage of the rapidly maturing open source, open community software tool known as Apache Drill. Drill is not the first SQL-on-Hadoop tool. It is, however, a new and very sophisticated highly scalable SQL query engine that has been built from the ground up to be appropriate for use even in production settings. Drill extends query capabilities to a variety of new data sources and formats without the requirement for IT intervention that might be expected from a SQL query engine. In short, Drill allows self-exploration of data by providing flexibility along with performance.

As capabilities in the big data world have progressed, our understanding of what is needed for high-performance, enterprise-grade architectures have also increased. A need for a SQL solution for the Hadoop and NoSQL space was recognized fairly early, and it’s not surprising that to meet an urgent need, some of the first tools approached the problem with SQL-like syntax and made compromises that led to limitations in the data sources and formats they could handle well. Read more…

Clearing up a few of bitcoin’s misconceptions

Bitcoin is more than just a currency. Here’s a look at what it is and what it isn’t.

Just what is bitcoin, anyway?

Conrad Barski and Chris Wilmer, authors of Bitcoin for the Befuddled, recently hosted a webcast discussing exactly what bitcoin is (and what it isn’t), how it’s used, how businesses can use it, and some of the disruptive opportunities that bitcoin offers entrepreneurs.

How traditional payment systems work vs how bitcoin works

They presented an overview that clears up some of the misconceptions about bitcoin. Read more…

Bitcoin and blockchain use cases won’t be sexy, but will be essential

Tim Swanson on the blockchain's potential and what the future of crypto-coins might bring.

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Researcher and author Tim Swanson originally built bitcoin mining equipment in China a couple of years ago, but as he explained in a recent interview, he’s moved beyond the trading aspects of bitcoin and now focuses on research and use cases. Swanson, who also works in business development at Melotic, a digital asset exchange, expressed some skepticism about the future of bitcoin as a currency and noted that the greatest potential in the technology lies in the blockchain:

“I’m fairly skeptical that what [bitcoin] can and will do is probably either overstated or overhyped. I think most of the actual use cases, especially with blockchains in general, will be very mundane and will be related to proof of existence, so things like notary services.

“If anyone’s looking for a particular use case, I’d probably talk about one called CAT, Consolidated Audit Trail. It’s related to the SEC requiring traders to put together a way to find out when trades take place. On any given day, there’s about 48 billion trades that take place under their purview, and putting together a system for this, they want to make it centralized. Maybe you can use blockchains in some kind of decentralized fashion for this, but the idea — it’s not a very sexy, headline-getting use case — but it’s something that’s particularly needed to ensure their transparency within the trading aspect of these different financial instruments globally.”

Swanson will host a free webcast — The Continued Existence of Bitcoin, Altcoins, Appcoins, and Commodity Coins — on Tuesday, December 2, to talk about the various coins being created and the legal and technical challenges facing the developer community. Read more…

HTML 5 Geolocation, SharePoint Tech, Strangeloop, and More

Tech events you don't want to miss.

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note.

Intro to Raspberry Pi : Ed Snajder explains what a Raspberry Pi is, how it differs from an Arduino and shows attendees some cool things you can do with a Raspberry Pi. Register for this free webcast.

Date: 10 a.m. PT, June 25 Location: Online webcast

Graphlab Workshop on Large Scale Machine Learning: This workshop is a meeting place for both academia and industry to discuss upcoming challenges of large scale machine learning and solution methods. The main goal for this year’s workshop is to bring together top researchers from academia as well as top data scientists from the industry, with the special focus of large-scale machine learning on sparse graphs. For more information and to register, visit the event page.

Date: 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT, July 1 Location: San Francisco, CA

Read more…

Intro to Raspberry Pi, Wharton Web Conference, Agile 2013, and More

Tech events you don't want to miss

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised webcast: Jonathan Stark discusses the coming wireless wave and how it will profoundly affect every aspect of society—the iPhone will look like a fax machine compared to what’s coming next. Register for this free webcast.
Date: 10 a.m. PT, June 20 Location: Online webcast

Intro to Raspberry Pi : Ed Snajder explains what a Raspberry Pi is, how it differs from an Arduino and shows attendees some cool things you can do with a Raspberry Pi. Register for this free webcast.
Date: 10 a.m. PT, June 25 Location: Online webcast

Read more…

Hadoop Training, OpenStreetMap Sprint, MakersFactory Kids’ Programming Camp, and More

Tech events you don't want to miss

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note.

Twisted Python: the engine of your Internet webcast: Jessica McKellar presents an architectural overview of the Python networking library, Twisted, and instructs on how to build robust clients and servers for popular and custom network protocols. Register for this free webcast.
Date: 10 a.m. PT, June 6 Location: Online webcast

2 Day Hadoop Training June 2013: This course offers a fast-paced technical overview of the Hadoop landscape, targeted toward both technical and non-technical people who want to understand the emerging world of big data. For more information and to register, visit the event page.
Date: June 8–9 Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Read more…

Driving the Momentum of Modern Web App Development

Ido Green on modern web app design considerations and characteristics of great web apps

The rapid pace of improvements in browser technologies and the growith of HTML5 have presented many opportunities and challenges for web app developers. In the following interview, Ido Green, developer advocate for Google Chrome OS, reviews some characteristics of the “modern” web app and covers a few design points and helpful tools developers should keep in mind. Green will expand on these ideas in an upcoming free webcast, “Modern Web Applications Utilizing HTML5 APIs,” on Thursday, May 30 at 10 a.m. PT.

What is a “modern” web app?

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Ido Green

Ido Green: A “modern” web app is an application that utilizes HTML5 APIs and browser technologies to let the users accomplish a certain goal.

In most of the “great” web applications we see several characteristics:

  • They are self contained (maybe from here we got the term “one page application”) with one main goal.
  • They feel “native”: they are leveraging HTML5 APIs that let the app have “native” capabilities, like Offline, Geo, drag and drop, transitions, etc.
  • They are “offline first,” since we wish our users to be productive when there is no connection or when there is a flaky connection. These apps are built from the ground up with the idea of “offline.” It’s similar to a native app that you will “install” first and later fetch the data.
  • They are device aware: the apps are working great on mobile devices as well as on laptops and desktops.
  • They offer great performance: the great modern apps are utilizing CSS3, HTML5 and the mobile browsers to give the users a smooth experience where everything is working fast. The “offline first” methodology is helping here as well.

Read more…

How to Develop for the Mobile Casual Gaming Market

Jesse Freeman talks about designing for the casual gaming market and the role HTML5 will play in the future of game design.

HTML5 is becoming a larger and larger part of game design—so much so that Jesse Freeman (@jessefreeman) expects the future of HTML5 gaming to go beyond the browser. In the following interview, Freeman, a technology evangelist at Microsoft focusing on Windows 8 and HTML5 gaming, talks about the future of game design and the intricacies of designing games for the growing casual gamer market. He will address these topics in more depth in a free webcast, “Mobile Gaming: Are We Casual Enough Yet?,” at 1 p.m. PT on Friday, May 10.

What are some key factors to keep in mind when designing games for the casual market?

jesse_freemanJesse Freeman: It’s hard to nail down what will make a game a success in the casual market, but I am starting to learn a few things about what works and what doesn’t work from my own games. I also watch other successful games in the various mobile stores and keep track of what I feel attributes to their popularity. If you play enough successful casual games, you will start to see a pattern emerge that usually revolves around the same five principles:

  1. The game has mass appeal
  2. There are simple game mechanics
  3. It has a clear reward/motivation system
  4. Great replay value
  5. Low barrier of entry

Read more…

TOC Debate: Amazon vs Apple

Joe Wikert takes on Kassia Krozser in the first TOC Debate webcast.

Which ebook platform is mightier? Find out when Team Bezos (Joe Wikert) takes on Team Jobs (Kassia Krozser) in a free webcast on Thursday, Sept. 15, at 10 am PT.

Go inside Google+ with Tim O'Reilly and Bradley Horowitz

What does social data mean to Google? Find out in a free webcast on August 23.

Join Tim O'Reilly and Google VP of Product Management Bradley Horowitz on August 23 for a free webcast that will go behind Google+ and Google's embrace of social data.