Democratization of Data: Mass. Shares Transit Info

Massachusetts is planning to "democratize the data" behind its public transportation network. It's providing software developers with all the coding and background data they will need to develop iPhone applications and other high-tech aids incorporating MBTA subway, bus, train and regional transit information.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Democratization-of-Data-Mass-Shares-Transit-Info-67891.html

Fiorina Gears Up for US Senate Race

Former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina on Tuesday took the first formal step toward running for Democrat Barbara Boxer's U.S. Senate seat. Fiorina filed for a tax identification number Tuesday and registered a campaign committee named "Carly for California." The committee will allow her to begin raising money for a potential 2010 run for the Republican nomination.

PayPal's new e-commerce interface

PayPal, eBay's well established but aging mechanism for online payments, is trying to rebuild itself for a new generation of online commerce possibilities.

At an event for press and developers on Thursday, PayPal and its partners described several new programming interfaces that are part of the company's upcoming Adaptive Payments Service and showed what developers can do with them.

One billion video views on Facebook

Facebook has hit another milestone--over one billion video views last month. Since launching Facebook Video in June 2007, video views have steadily grown, and now, there are four times as many video views as actual Facebook members.

In a promotional video that Facebook posted on its Career site Wednesday, two engineers, Soleio Cuervo and Chris Putnam, talk about how they conceived of Facebook Video and then built it out at a "Hackathon" in January 2007.

At Hackathon events, Facebook engineers spend one night, all night, working on ideas that have been simmering for the few months prior. The goal is, "to change the 'That would be hot!' sentiment to something real and live on the site," explains a Facebook engineer, Aditya Agarwal, on the Facebook blog.

Microsoft releases final Windows 7 system requirements

When Microsoft released the Beta of Windows 7 in January, it released a set of recommended system requirements for the Beta (which its officials noted were subject to change). On April 30, concurrent with the beginning of the delivery of the Release Candidate, Microsoft released the final system requirements for Windows 7.
Here are the minimum Windows 7 requirements Microsoft offered in Januarywhen it released the Beta:
1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
1GB of RAM 16 GB of available disk space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)

Here are the minimum Windows 7 system requirements Microsoft released on April 30 when it made available the Release Candidate to MSDN and TechNet testers:
1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
1 GB of RAM (32-bit);
2 GB of RAM (64-bit) 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit);
20 GB of avaiable disk space (64-bit) DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Note: If you are planning to run Windows XP Mode along with Windows 7, Microsoft is recommending a PC with a minimum of 2GB of memory and 15 GB of additional disk space.

“In addition, Windows Virtual PC requires a PC with Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled in the CPU, as it takes advantage of the latest advancements in hardware virtualization,” according to company officials. I asked whether Microsoft had different requirements for the different SKUs of Windows 7 that it is planning to release and was told (via a spokesperson): “The system requirements are final and not SKU-specific.”

If you’re curious how these final Windows 7 requirements compare to Vista’s requirements, they aren’t all that different.

Here are the final Vista system requirements:
1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit) 512 MB of RAM (for Home Basic);
1 GB of RAM for all other versions 15 GB of available disk space Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory (for Home Basic);
128 MB of graphics memory plus WDDM support for all other versions Microsoft also announced on April 30 that it is readying a beta of a new Windows Upgrade Advisor (WUA) designed to support Windows 7.

A spokesperson provided the following information: “Windows Upgrade Advisor will check any devices that are connected to the PC (with the appropriate driver installed) at the time of the scan. WUA will identify any known potential compatibility issues and will communicate this in the report. Our beta tester feedback has been critical in ensuring Windows 7 is a quality OS and we hope our testers can continue to partner with us on testing this software to ensure the best end-user experience.” (I’ve asked Microsoft when it will release the new WUA beta. No word back yet.)