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• Dimension Data Buys Telecom Expense Management Software Maker Xigo

  TechCrunch » Enterprise

  Robin Wauters

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:24 am

  Telecom expense management (TEM) solutions company Xigo, which Greg likened to a Billshrink for large companies, has been acquired by one of its partners, IT services and solutions provider Dimension Data for an undisclosed sum. Dimension Data says the acquisition of Xigo, formerly known as Invoice Insight, will enable them to offer enterprise customers an integrated cost optimization solution for spend analysis, sourcing, provisioning and invoice processing. The company adds that it will focus on increasing Xigo’s market share in the United States and roll out the services to other…

• Nintendo and Converse collaborate on an amazing sneaker

  Holy Kaw!

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:25 pm

  Clear out room in your closets, gamers. Converse is releasing their ‘One Star Super Mario Bros.’ shoe this March! Via Like Cool. Get your Nintendo fix. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Citizen gateway gov.uk runs on Amazon

  Software as Services Blog RSS | ZDNet

  Phil Wainewright

  1 Feb 2012 | 6:39 am

  One notable nugget buried deep inside Alex Howard’s O’Reilly Radar write-up of the UK’s new online government platform is that it runs on Amazon EC2. Not hosted on some private government cloud but on the same public AWS servers that everyone else has access to. That’s a vote of confidence in the robustness of public cloud platforms that deserves attention. UK citizens will use gov.uk to do things like find out how to pay local taxes or report a lost passport, ultimately replacing the current Directgov website as well as adding extra services (also see FT Tech Hub…

• Driving Storage Costs Down for AWS Customers

  All Things Distributed

  Werner Vogels

  6 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm

  One of the things that differentiates Amazon Web Services from other technology providers is its commitment to let customers benefits from continuous cost-cutting innovations and from the economies of scale AWS is able to achieve. As we showed last week one of the services that is growing rapidly is the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). AWS today announced a substantial price drop per February 1, 2012 for Amazon S3 standard storage to help customers drive their storage cost down. A customer storing 50TB will see on average a 12% drop in cost when they get their Amazon S3 bill for February.

• Research: 2012 State of Cloud Computing - InformationWeek

  CLOUD COMPUTING NEWS - Google News

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:54 pm

  Research: 2012 State of Cloud ComputingInformationWeek"Everything" has already changed, say the 511 business IT professionals, all from companies with 50 or more employees, responding to our InformationWeek 2012 State of Cloud Computing Survey. Adoption of public cloud services has been on a consistent Cloud Computing Set To Revolutionise African IT IndustryHostReview.com (press release)Cloud Adoption Now Common, but Not Always SmartInfoboomall 4 news articles »

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  TechCrunch » Enterprise

• Dimension Data Buys Telecom Expense Management Software Maker Xigo

  Robin Wauters

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:24 am

  Telecom expense management (TEM) solutions company Xigo, which Greg likened to a Billshrink for large companies, has been acquired by one of its partners, IT services and solutions provider Dimension Data for an undisclosed sum. Dimension Data says the acquisition of Xigo, formerly known as Invoice Insight, will enable them to offer enterprise customers an integrated cost optimization solution for spend analysis, sourcing, provisioning and invoice processing. The company adds that it will focus on increasing Xigo’s market share in the United States and roll out the services to other…

• Microsoft Invests In 24/7 For Customer Service Software

  Sarah Perez

  7 Feb 2012 | 7:03 am

  Microsoft announced this morning a new agreement with 24/7 Inc. , a company that designs intuitive customer experiences. As a part of the deal, Microsoft will merge its interactive self-service assets (meaning people, clients and technologies), into 24/7 Inc. The deal also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7, Inc. According to the companies, the purpose of the new partnership is to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service businesses.

• SocialFlow Opens The Floodgates

  Erick Schonfeld

  7 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am

  Brands love marketing across social media, but it is a little like TV advertising in that it is hard to measure how effective it is. Sure, you can count retweets, likes, and Klout scores, but how does that translate into real engagement with a brand or actual spending? SocialFlow is trying to answer these questions, and in the process is growing like crazy. “I don’t know who put the call out to put money into social media, but it is out there,” says CEO Frank Speiser. A year ago, Socialflow had two employees. Today, it has 34. “We have 5,500 leads active and…

• WWJD? The CEO Every Healthcare Leader Should Learn From

  Dave Chase

  6 Feb 2012 | 11:30 am

  Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Dave Chase, the CEO of Avado.com, a patient portal & relationship management company that was a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist. Previously he was a management consultant for Accenture’s healthcare practice and founder of Microsoft’s Health platform business. You can follow him on Twitter @chasedave As healthcare goes through massive changes, health system CEOs would be well advised to study what newspaper industry leaders did (or perhaps more appropriately, didn’t do) when faced with a similar situation. In the late 90′s, the…

• Keep It Simple, Stupid: The Enterprise Version

  Leena Rao

  5 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pm

  Back in 2009, my colleague MG Siegler wrote a brilliant piece titled ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid,‘ which delved into how having a simple and easy to use product is a key formula for winning in the consumer tech space. A few days ago, Greylock Partner John Lilly echoed MG’s thoughts, explaining that simplicity is quite simply very hard to beat. While this doctrine has been applied to consumer technology products like Dropbox, Gmail, Twitter and most famously, Apple; reinforcing simplicity in the product thought process is becoming an ever-present part of enterprise technology as…

• 

  Holy Kaw!

• Nintendo and Converse collaborate on an amazing sneaker

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:25 pm

  Clear out room in your closets, gamers. Converse is releasing their ‘One Star Super Mario Bros.’ shoe this March! Via Like Cool. Get your Nintendo fix. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Why Congress is way richer than you [infographic]

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:28 pm

  Via Online Schools. Depressing infographics. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• The bookcase that’s always ready for more

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:19 pm

  The thing about bibliophiles is that, before you know it, the bookcase is full and it’s time to drag in a few more boards and cinder blocks to accommodate the newcomers. With the REK, such worries are a thing of the past, as the system accordions out when more space is needed and collapses into a handy rectangle when it’s time to pack up shop and move on to greener pastures. Unfortunately, the price is listed as “on request” meaning the 99% is out of luck, but perhaps it’ll inspire you to hit the workshop for a little DIY action if you can drag your nose out of…

• How Harvard spends student tuition [infographic]

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:24 pm

  Via Online Universities. (H/T Muhammad Saleem) The scoop on education. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

• Lizard shortage offers rare evolution test

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:01 pm

  A devastating 2004 hurricane that wiped out a Caribbean lizard population offered an unprecedented opportunity to put an evolutionary theory known as the “founder effect” to the test. The founder effect describes the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. “Founder effects are very hard to study,” says Thomas Schoener, a professor of evolution and ecology at University of California, Davis and a co-author of the study. “One must be in exactly the right place at the…

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  Software as Services Blog RSS | ZDNet

• Citizen gateway gov.uk runs on Amazon

  Phil Wainewright

  1 Feb 2012 | 6:39 am

  One notable nugget buried deep inside Alex Howard’s O’Reilly Radar write-up of the UK’s new online government platform is that it runs on Amazon EC2. Not hosted on some private government cloud but on the same public AWS servers that everyone else has access to. That’s a vote of confidence in the robustness of public cloud platforms that deserves attention. UK citizens will use gov.uk to do things like find out how to pay local taxes or report a lost passport, ultimately replacing the current Directgov website as well as adding extra services (also see FT Tech Hub…

• A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

  1 Feb 2012 | 6:39 am

• Planetary-scale computing

  Phil Wainewright

  31 Jan 2012 | 11:56 am

  One of the fundamental principles when implementing cloud computing is the concept of repeatable scale. There was a great illustration of that principle in operation in last week’s Wired report on Google’s data center built in an abandoned paper mill in Finland. Repeatable scale starts at the hardware layer, by kitting out the data center with identikit server building blocks that can be virtualized without having to take account of individual physical servers because they’re all the same. Google calls this ‘warehouse-scale computing‘. Except that with Google, it…

• Why you can't afford to resist the cloud

  Phil Wainewright

  27 Jan 2012 | 1:48 pm

  While many are still digging in their heels against moving to the cloud, they’re finding it harder and harder to do so. Not only because the business case becomes stronger every day, but also because cloud platform providers are acting to address the objections that used to slow or stymie adoption. This week saw Amazon provide another hook between its AWS cloud and enterprise data centers with the launch of its Storage Gateway appliance, which makes S3 storage look like just another iSCSI interface in the data center. Yesterday VMWare announced multi-cloud capability for its Cloud…

• Opening enterprise collaboration to the world

  Phil Wainewright

  24 Jan 2012 | 3:06 pm

  Cloud collaboration platform Huddle is seeking to cement its enterprise appeal with the launch today of a new unlimited user edition and a 99.9% total uptime guarantee. The UK-headquartered, venture-backed start-up is less well known than US rivals such as Box, Dropbox, Jive and Yammer but it believes it has a unique market opportunity because of its focus on external enterprise collaboration.“Traditional collaboration was very inward-looking,” CEO Alastair Mitchell told me when we met last week in Huddle’s offices overlooking London’s ‘Silicon Roundabout‘…

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  All Things Distributed

• Driving Storage Costs Down for AWS Customers

  Werner Vogels

  6 Feb 2012 | 9:00 pm

  One of the things that differentiates Amazon Web Services from other technology providers is its commitment to let customers benefits from continuous cost-cutting innovations and from the economies of scale AWS is able to achieve. As we showed last week one of the services that is growing rapidly is the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). AWS today announced a substantial price drop per February 1, 2012 for Amazon S3 standard storage to help customers drive their storage cost down. A customer storing 50TB will see on average a 12% drop in cost when they get their Amazon S3 bill for February.

• Expanding the Cloud - The AWS Storage Gateway

  Werner Vogels

  23 Jan 2012 | 12:01 am

  Today Amazon Web Services has launched the AWS Storage Gateway, making the power of secure and reliable cloud storage accessible from customers’ on-premises applications. We have been working closely with our customers on their requests to bring the power of the Amazon Web Services cloud closer to their existing on-premises compute infrastructures. The Amazon Virtual Private Cloud extends on-premises compute with all the power of AWS, making it elastic, scalable and highly reliable. AWS Identity and Access Management brings together on-premises and cloud identity management. VM Import…

• Amazon DynamoDB – a Fast and Scalable NoSQL Database Service Designed for Internet Scale Applications

  Werner Vogels

  18 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

  Today is a very exciting day as we release Amazon DynamoDB, a fast, highly reliable and cost-effective NoSQL database service designed for internet scale applications. DynamoDB is the result of 15 years of learning in the areas of large scale non-relational databases and cloud services. Several years ago we published a paper on the details of Amazon’s Dynamo technology, which was one of the first non-relational databases developed at Amazon. The original Dynamo design was based on a core set of strong distributed systems principles resulting in an ultra-scalable and highly reliable database…

• Countdown to What is Next in AWS

  Werner Vogels

  13 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  Join me at 9AM PST on Wednesday January 18, 2012 to find out what is next in the AWS Cloud. Registration required.

• Expanding the Cloud – Introducing the AWS South America (Sao Paulo) Region

  Werner Vogels

  14 Dec 2011 | 7:00 pm

  Today, Amazon Web Services is expanding its worldwide coverage with the launch of a new AWS Region in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This new Region has been highly requested by companies worldwide, and it provides low-latency access to AWS services for those who target customers in South America. South America is one of the fastest growing economic regions in the world. In particular, South American IT-oriented companies are seeing very rapid growth. Case in point: over the past 10 years IT has risen to become 7% of the GDP in Brazil. With the launch of the South America (Sao Paolo) Region, AWS now…

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  CLOUD COMPUTING NEWS - Google News

• Research: 2012 State of Cloud Computing - InformationWeek

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:54 pm

  Research: 2012 State of Cloud ComputingInformationWeek"Everything" has already changed, say the 511 business IT professionals, all from companies with 50 or more employees, responding to our InformationWeek 2012 State of Cloud Computing Survey. Adoption of public cloud services has been on a consistent Cloud Computing Set To Revolutionise African IT IndustryHostReview.com (press release)Cloud Adoption Now Common, but Not Always SmartInfoboomall 4 news articles »

• The rise of cloud computing: adapt or fail - ABC Online

  8 Feb 2012 | 12:46 pm

  ABC OnlineThe rise of cloud computing: adapt or failABC OnlineThe latest force for revolution, the rise of cloud computing, has so far been seemingly embraced by all, even those who might have been expected to be in histories cross hairs. Phone companies, IT equipment builders and software developers from the Telstra adds 958000 mobile customers in six monthsARNnetall 196 news articles »

• GSA Details Federal Cloud Security Program - InformationWeek

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:42 am

  GSA Details Federal Cloud Security ProgramInformationWeekThe General Services Administration on Tuesday released extensive new details on FedRAMP, a program the Obama administration hopes will accelerate the adoption of cloud computing and cut security costs. By J. Nicholas Hoover InformationWeek The General FedRAMP CONOPS calls for big DHS roleFierceGovernmentITall 4 news articles »

• In the Cloud We Trust: Cloud Computing Is Tech Shift - CIO Today

  8 Feb 2012 | 9:45 am

  CIO TodayIn the Cloud We Trust: Cloud Computing Is Tech ShiftCIO TodayThe success of cloud computing systems comes down to trust and security. Cloud service providers all claim enhanced security because data is replicated across multiple machines. While trust in the cloud seems present and growing, some of the qualities Trust in cloud services on the riseCenterBeamApple iCloud vs Google Cloud – the tech battle of the futurePluggedInall 19 news articles »

• 6 universities to teach cloud computing, mobile tech - Times of India

  8 Feb 2012 | 7:53 am

  CloudTweaks News6 universities to teach cloud computing, mobile techTimes of IndiaThe technology, part of Microsoft's Azure for Cloud computing, will be included in the July and August curriculum of the universities, and is intended to give an edge to students from the region looking to make a career in this burgeoning field.Cloud Computing, Mobile Technologies Key to Small Business SuccesseWeekCloud Computing: Its Implications on EducationCloudTweaks NewsCloud computing 'levels the playing field'Kroll Ontrackall 4 news articles »

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  Amazon Web Services Blog

• Amazon S3 Price Reduction

  AWS Evangelist

  6 Feb 2012 | 9:46 pm

  As you can tell from my recent post on Amazon S3 Growth for 2011, our customers are uploading new objects to Amazon S3 at an incredible rate. We continue to innovate on your behalf to drive down storage costs and pass along the resultant savings to you at every possible opportunity. We are now happy (some would even say excited) to announce another in a series of price reductions. With this price change, all Amazon S3 standard storage customers will see a significant reduction in their storage costs. For instance, if you store 50 TB of data on average you will see a 12% reduction in your…

• Amazon DynamoDB - Two Videos and a Webinar

  AWS Evangelist

  6 Feb 2012 | 1:06 pm

  We launched Amazon DynamoDB with a live video feed that was very well-attended. If you didn't get a chance to watch at the time, you can do so now: You may also enjoy this short video featuring Werner Vogels, James Hamilton, Dave Lang, and Swami Sivasubramanian: The Introducing Amazon DynamoDB Webinar will take place on February 15th at 10:00 AM PST. Stefano Stefani (Principal Software Engineer) and Dave Lang (Product Manager) will be presenting and fielding questions from the audience.The webinar is free but you do need to sign up. -- Jeff;

• Amazon CloudFront: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Making Plans

  AWS Evangelist

  2 Feb 2012 | 7:59 pm

  Looking BackIn 2011 we added a total of seven edge locations to Amazon CloudFront and Route 53. We also added lots of new features, as I documented last year. Looking ForwardOur newest edge locations are located in Milan, Italy and Osaka, Japan. This brings our total worldwide location count to 26 (see the CloudFront page for a complete list). Each new edge location helps lower latency and improves performance for your end users. Making Plans We have additional locations in the pipeline for 2012 and beyond. Our planning process takes a number of factors in to account including notes from our…

• New Elastic MapReduce Features: Metrics, Updates, VPC, and Cluster Compute Support (Guest Post)

  AWS Evangelist

  31 Jan 2012 | 3:52 pm

  Today's guest blogger is Adam Gray. Adam is a Product Manager on the Elastic MapReduce Team. -- Jeff; We’re always excited when we can bring features to our customers that make it easier for them to derive value from their data—so it’s been a fun month for the EMR team. Here is a sampling of the things we’ve been working on. Free CloudWatch MetricsStarting today customers can view graphs of 23 job flow metrics within the EMR Console by selecting the Monitoring tab in the Job Flow Details page. These metrics are pushed CloudWatch every five minutes at no cost to you and include…

• Amazon S3 Growth for 2011 - Now 762 Billion Objects

  AWS Evangelist

  30 Jan 2012 | 7:15 pm

  As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion (762,000,000,000) objects in Amazon S3. We process over 500,000 requests per second for these objects at peak times. Here's the annual growth chart: This represents year-over-year growth of 192%; S3 grew faster last year than it did in any year since it launched in 2006. Where are all of these objects coming from? Although we definitely made it easier for you to delete objects using Multi-Object Deletion and Object Expiration, we also gave you plenty of ways to upload new objects using Multipart upload, AWS Direct Connect, and AWS…

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  Thinking Out Cloud

• The Importance of Customer Engagement For Cloud Companies

  Geva Perry

  2 Feb 2012 | 3:36 pm

  In July I wrote about the public beta launch of Totango and how it promised to help increase SaaS sales by better understanding customers, and especially their interaction with online channels, including the SaaS service itself. Now, Totango has announced that it has analyzed and optimized the sales engagement or interaction with over one million prospects and customers of SaaS businesses. That’s a big number. When looking at the research published by Totango here are some important takeaways for SaaS sales: Next best action and next best channel for each customer If you can, use a zero…

• BlazeMeter: Launching the JMeter Testing Cloud

  Geva Perry

  6 Dec 2011 | 8:55 am

  Today, BlazeMeter is publicly launching its cloud load testing service and announcing its $1.2 million funding round led by YL Ventures. I joined the BlazeMeter board of directors back in July and we've been preparing for this launch since, so it's exciting seeing it all come together. Like several other startups that I've been involved with, BlazeMeter leverages open source software in a cloud service, making web application development a whole lot easier. Specifically, BlazeMeter uses Apache JMeter, the popular open source performance testingframework, to create massive volumes of…

• Public Vs. Private Cloud (yes, that old debate)

  Geva Perry

  28 Nov 2011 | 9:00 am

  Hope everyone in the U.S. had a great Thanksgiving. This is a quick follow up on my previous post, 10 Predictions About Cloud Computing, which received quite a bit of attention in the cloudosphere. Specifically, my second point there, which stated: Public Rules: Internal clouds will be niche. In the long-run, Internal Clouds (clouds operated in a company's own data centers, aka "private clouds") don't make sense. The economies of scale, specialization (an aspect of economies of scale, really) and outsourcing benefits of public clouds are so overwhelming that it will not make sense for any…

• 10 Predictions About Cloud Computing

  Geva Perry

  25 Oct 2011 | 10:31 am

  Next week in Tel Aviv I'm going to participate in a panel about "the future of clouds", moderated by the legendary Yossi Vardi. In preperation, I wrote down a few of the concepts I've been thinking about for the past several years and I thought I would share them with my readers to get some feedback. Keep in mind these are long-term predicitions and trends (in no particular order). PaaS Rules :IaaS becomes niche. In the long-run, IaaS doesn't make sense, except for a limited set of scenarios. All IaaS providers want to be PaaS when they grow up. Public Rules: Internal clouds will be niche.

• Java PaaS

  Geva Perry

  17 Oct 2011 | 4:12 pm

  A couple of weeks ago during OracleWorld/JavaOne, Oracle announced its public cloud offering, including its Oracle Java Cloud Service -- the latest entrant into the increasingly crowded Java Platform-as-a-Service space. Despite being the most popular programming language, PaaS offerings for Java were not adopted as quickly as those for Ruby, Python and PHP. Not surprisingly, however, once Java PaaS arrived at the scene, many of the big players now have PaaS offerings -- given Java's popularity in the enterprise.  Here's the list I compiled (in alphabetical order). If I have overlooked…

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  Total Film News

• The Bourne Legacy gets a first trailer

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:07 pm

  A first teaser trailer has been released online for The Bourne Legacy, and mighty exciting it is too, as Jeremy Renner sets about kicking arse and taking names.The footage doesn’t give much away in terms of plot, asides from showing Renner’s character Kenneth Kitson committing to “the programme” and becoming “Aaron Cross”.Ed Norton is on hand to grill Renner as to his suitability, whilst Bourne regular Albert Finney drops in to welcome his new recruit. And most tantalising of all? The proclamation that, “Jason Bourne was just the tip of the…

• Kermit the Frog on Quentin Tarantino

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:44 pm

  [brightcove]1437787036001[/brightcove]When we sat down with the Muppets last week, we didn't just ask them awkward questions.We also took the opportunity to find out what Kermit really thinks of his The Muppets' Wizard Of Oz co-star, one of Total Film's favourite people, Quentin Tarantino.So, hit play on the video above to hear Kermit talk about the movies of Tarantino, and what he thinks of the man himself.What he says may surprise you...And if you in a Muppets mood, why not check out this brand-new clip from the movie, which is in cinemas Friday. [brightcove]1439275563001[/brightcove]

• New trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:42 pm

  Following yesterday’s sneak peek footage of The Amazing Spider-Man, a new trailer has now gone online showing off Pete and Gwen’s chemistry, web-slinging galore and a big, green monster…The new trailer fleshes out the character of Peter Parker a little, touching on his daddy issues (Curt Connors, Ben Parker and to a lesser extent, Captain Stacy all appear to represent certain aspects of that missing father figure) and his burgeoning relationship with Gwen Stacy.Check out the new trailer below… Yesterday we told you that director Marc Webb was looking to play up…

• New Dredd images arrive

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:32 pm

  A new batch of images have arrived online from 2000AD to promote new comic-book adaptation, Dredd, and from the looks of them, Karl Urban is going to make one badass Judge.Set in the dystopian conurbation of Mega City One, the last outpost of civilization on Cursed Earth, Dredd follows the exploits of Judge Dredd, a notorious Street Judge afforded the power to arrest, try and execute offenders on the spot.As you can see from the new images, Karl Urban has got the Judge’s lantern-jawed scowl down to a tee, and already looks a far better representation of the character than Sly Stallone…

• New release date for The Wolverine

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:31 pm

  Given the off-again on-again nature of X-Men Origins sequel The Wolverine, we’d almost given up on seeing Hugh Jackman don the claws again for another big screen outing.Indeed, The Wolverine has undergone so many false starts that it must surely be regarded as the new go-to example for explaining the phrase “development hell”.Adverse weather conditions, directors with cold feet, scheduling conflicts… you name it, The Wolverine has endured it. However, there does finally seem to be some light at the end of the tunnel, with Fox announcing an official release date for…

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  ScienceDaily: Popular Culture News

• Online dating research shows Cupid's arrow is turning digital

  6 Feb 2012 | 6:25 am

  Online dating has not only shed its stigma, it has surpassed all forms of matchmaking in the United States other than meeting through friends, according to a new analysis of research on the burgeoning relationship industry.

• Partisans not locked in media 'echo chambers,' study finds

  31 Jan 2012 | 12:00 pm

  Despite the fears of some scholars and pundits, most political partisans don’t avoid news and opinion sources that contradict their own beliefs, according to a new study.

• For a winning ad at Super Bowl: Less shock and more sophisticated storyline

  31 Jan 2012 | 6:24 am

  Research shows a storyline that really makes the viewer pay attention may score the highest. Marketing narratives are more likely to trigger a positive response when following the storyline requires some mental work.

• Neurologists should ask patients about abuse: New position statement from American Academy of Neurology

  25 Jan 2012 | 1:26 pm

  A new position statement issued by the American Academy of Neurology calls on neurologists to begin screening their patients for abusive or violent treatment by family, caretakers or others. Types of abuse include elder abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, emotional abuse, bullying, cyberbullying and violence.

• The perils of 'bite-size' science

  29 Dec 2011 | 6:20 am

  Short, fast, and frequent: Those 21st-century demands on publication have radically changed the news, politics, and culture -- for the worse, many say. Now a new article aims a critique at a similar trend in psychological research.

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  The Frisky

• Evening Quickies: Maya Rudolph To Host “Saturday Night Live” February 18

  Jessica Wakeman

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:00 pm

  Maya Rudolph is hosting “Saturday Night Live” on February 18 with Sleigh Bells as the musical guest. Yay! [Pitchfork] Kim Kardashian and LeAnn Rimes are in a Bible study group together. Boy, would I like to be a fly on that wall. [The Superficial] Alana “Honey Boo Boo Child” Thompson’s pageant mom appeared on “GMA” [...]

• Today’s Lady News: Judge Orders Abusive Husband To Take Wife To Red Lobster

  Jessica Wakeman

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:40 pm

  Oh, Florida. A judge in the WTF-is-going-on-here state sentenced a man accused of shoving his wife against a sofa and grabbing her neck to take her on a date to Red Lobster and a bowling alley. No jail time! Cheddar biscuits instead! The judge called this incident “very, very minor” without any serious violence. I [...]

• Hot Links: Tons Of Celeb PDA & Printable V-Day Cards For All!

  Amelia McDonell-Parry

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:20 pm

  Here are 38 photos of celeb couples indulging in serious PDA. [theBERRY] Another random dude has asked Mila Kunis on a date, this time to his prom. When will it end? [TruTV] Catherine Hardwicke, the director of the first “Twilight” film, admits the original script “sucked.” Just the original? [The Celebrity Cafe] These are cool [...]

• February 8: What Are We Wearing Today?

  Amelia McDonell-Parry

  8 Feb 2012 | 2:00 pm

  Happy Hump Day! I have nothing witty to say! Click onward to see what wearing, hooray!

• Cute Animal Alert: Siku The Baby Polar Bear Plays In The Snow For The First Time

  Amelia McDonell-Parry

  8 Feb 2012 | 1:40 pm

  We’re a little bit obsessed with Siku, the baby polar bear, here at The Frisky. So we were thrilled to find out that the little guy, who’s only 74 days old, finally got to spend some quality time reveling in his essence — i.e. playing in the snow. He looks so happy! Check out a [...]

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  BEER NEWS - Google News

• Finally! Hockey, beer coming to Michigan Stadium for Red Wings' Winter Classic - Detroit Free Press

  Google Inc.

  8 Feb 2012 | 10:56 am

  Globe and MailFinally! Hockey, beer coming to Michigan Stadium for Red Wings' Winter ClassicDetroit Free PressAnd there will be beer. After all, it's Canada's game, eh? The NHL will make official Thursday one of its worst-kept secrets: The Winter Classic will be held Jan. 1 at the Big House, and a series of hockey events will be held at Comerica Park in Winter Classic 2013: Michigan Regents Approve Use Of Stadium For EventSB Nationall 396 news articles »

• Beer calendar: show your love for beer at these heart-y beer events - Westword (blog)

  Google Inc.

  8 Feb 2012 | 11:15 am

  Mountain XpressBeer calendar: show your love for beer at these heart-y beer eventsWestword (blog)8 2012 at 12:12 PM ​The resumes were long and detailed, the qualifications extreme, but the ten finalists in the Wynkoop Brewing Company's annual Beerdrinker of the Year contest have been whittled down to three -- and these guys know their beer.Brews News: On the beerdarMountain Xpressall 135 news articles »

• Quench: Our beer guy tastes Noble Rot, Dogfish Head's beer/wine hybrid - The News Journal (blog)

  Google Inc.

  8 Feb 2012 | 8:03 am

  The News Journal (blog)Quench: Our beer guy tastes Noble Rot, Dogfish Head's beer/wine hybridThe News Journal (blog)By DAVE WHITE You might notice these days that the flavor and character of beer is being discussed in the carefully nuanced terms once reserved for wine. Dig a little deeper and you will find an enthusiastic community of collectors who seek out and more »

• Beer today, gone tomorrow - The Sun

  Google Inc.

  8 Feb 2012 | 4:32 pm

  The SunBeer today, gone tomorrowThe SunShe said: "I worked as a barmaid for over 20 years and I saw the prices go up up and up and the beer get worse and worse." KrishnaKris cannot believe how much beer prices have increased: "Blimey, what a hike. When I first went to pubs in '73, and more »

• In China, broadening Cancon beyond a can of beer - Globe and Mail

  Google Inc.

  8 Feb 2012 | 3:48 pm

  Globe and MailIn China, broadening Cancon beyond a can of beerGlobe and MailPick up a beer in China and there's a good chance it contains a bit of Canada. The world's largest beer-brewing country, producing more than 43 billion litres a year, is also the world's largest importer of Canadian malt barley, an average of 386000 and more »

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  A Good Beer Blog

• Do New Beer Styles Just Reflect New Ways... And Stuff?

  Alan McLeod

  8 Feb 2012 | 5:04 pm

  The other day I read one of the more interesting passages of beery thought that I had read in some time. It's from a response to a post at Jeff's Beervana about the wonky less than linear history of beer styles:While it’s entirely possible that malt bills and hopping rates of many of craft brewing’s “new” styles might have had occurrences in the past for which records are poor, incomplete or just plain lost, historically brewers could NOT have brewed beers that we’d be able to directly compare to some of the popular craft brewing styles today. Why? Ingredients. There are simply…

• My New Favorite Beer Fib, Lie Or Utter Falsehood

  Alan McLeod

  7 Feb 2012 | 4:34 pm

  This is one of the funnier quotes I have read from someone whose livelihood involves getting people to buy more good beer:The beer belly myth is also something McClelland would like to help dispel. "A lot of Canadians perceive that beer is high in calories, or fattening," he said. "That's one of the reasons many females shy away from beer." But beer is actually low in calories, McClelland said. "It's probably just somewhere above water and tea."Tea? TEA??? I am sure Guy McClelland, president of Ontario's McClelland Premium Imports, is a real nice guy but that is just about the stunnedest idea…

• Can I Run A Beer Tasting Session Without Tasting?

  Alan McLeod

  6 Feb 2012 | 5:04 am

  Here's the thing. I don't like to drink all that much on Sunday and really like to avoid drinking on Monday. It's not that I plan when I do but have always liked clear days. And, for other reasons, I have to stay clear anyway. But I was asked to present some IPAs to some good beery people tonight and, well, that's usually too interesting to pass up. So, I am going to get thinking about the stink of beer. I was over in northern NY Friday, bought a bunch of strong if not stenchily aromatic IPAs and plan to do a few experiments in smell-o-logy. I hope to finally prove the speed of smell. I am…

• Session 60: The 64 Ounce Jug Is Considered

  Alan McLeod

  4 Feb 2012 | 10:58 am

  The 64 ounce beer jug - or growler - is sufficiently interesting to the guys as Washington Beer Blog that they made it the topic of this month's edition of The Session:These days people take growlers for granted. In my neck of the woods, growlers are a relatively new phenomenon. I don’t recall exactly when they appeared on the local beer scene but it could not have been more than eight or ten years ago. Maybe they existed in obscurity before. My memory fails me. Today growlers are everywhere. I think. Growlers are very common around the Pacific Northwest, anyway. I cannot speak to their…

• Are There Different Schools Of Beer Thought?

  Alan McLeod

  2 Feb 2012 | 4:40 am

  Stan asked me to elaborate on something:Could you elaborate on what you mean by 'beer thinking'?Hmm... I think there is beer thinking. If there is anything, there is a lot of under-thinking about beer thinking. If I were honest with you, there is a lot of under-thinking about over-thinking, too. Not sure if there is over-thinking about under-thinking but that could be, too. And if there is beer thinking there must be schools of thought. Can we describe them?♦ The School of Aesthetics: As a pleasure trade, beer is concerned with sensory experience and - as with any ideas of beauty, art…

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  Zythophile

• Fine dining. Fine wine. And, surely, fine beer

  Martyn Cornell

  7 Feb 2012 | 10:30 pm

  The beerysphere (it’s like a bathysphere only more pressured, sometimes) has been rocking and bobbing again with attempts to define this drink that we love. Much effort has been put into digging ditches, and insisting that everything THIS side of the ditch, defined by methods of dispense, or size of brewing plant, or attitude of brewer, or some other criterion, is OUR SORT OF THING, while everything the OTHER side of the ditch is, automatically, BEYOND THE PALE (insert your own joke about “beyond the pale ale” here). Over on the left-hand shore of the Atlantic they’re…

• Matching Chinese food and beer

  Martyn Cornell

  23 Jan 2012 | 2:10 am

  One of the opportunities I was looking forward to in Hong Kong was the chance to match beer with Chinese food, a surprisingly under-explored area. I believe strongly that most beers go with most foods: but that doesn’t mean some pairings cannot be particularly felicitous, and that’s especially true with Chinese cuisine. China is easily the biggest beer market in the world, almost twice as large as the US, the next largest, and in 2010 China drank very nearly a quarter of all the world’s beer. But annual consumption per head, at around 30 litres, while rising at some five per…

• The most notorious brewer in history

  Martyn Cornell

  12 Jan 2012 | 8:00 am

  Antoine-Joseph Santerre In the autumn of 1775, Henry Thrale, owner of one of the biggest porter breweries in London, took his family on a trip across the English Channel to Paris. With them went Dr Samuel Johnson, the dictionary-writer and author, and one of the great literary figures of 18th-century England, who had been good friends with Thrale and his wife Hester for 10 years. In Paris the Thrales and Johnson toured the sights, visited palaces, churches and gardens, and educated themselves with a trip to a manufacturer of mirrors. Henry Thrale also called in on Paris’s biggest…

• Caught on the horns of a yard of ale

  Martyn Cornell

  6 Jan 2012 | 5:36 am

  You’ve read the stories, I’m sure: you’ve probably got, as I have, a mental picture. The mailcoach rattles through the arch into the straw-strewn innyard, chickens flying out of the way, the outside passengers ducking to avoid losing their hats – or heads. The ostler and stable-boys, alerted by the sound of the guard’s horn as the coach came down the High Street, rush to unhitch the old, tired, sweat-spattered team of horses and lead them away, at the same time bringing out a fresh team. The red-faced landlord, in tan breeches, black waistcoat, white shirt and white…

• Guidance for 2012

  Martyn Cornell

  31 Dec 2011 | 11:50 pm

  It’s 2012 here in Hong Kong, and has been for some hours. My resolution for this year is not to be such a grumpily aggressive bastard online, although I have at least one rant to get out of the way first. However, I have tried to put together a list of precepts to blog by over the coming 12 months, rules I hope we can all agree on. There are, in fact, just three: 1) It’s only beer. 2) It’s all about the taste. 3) You like what you like. I like what I like. There: who could possibly object to any of that? You agree? Excellent. Now I’m going to test you. Have a brown…