Wednesday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

The Perfect Strategy for the Cloud -CloudComputing

With the evolution of the cloud, it's not hard to see why so many young startups are jumping into the arena. The key for many companies looking to implement effective cloud computing/storage solutions is how to differentiate one from another within a crowded space. A hot button topic within the market place is the debate of public vs. private clouds, which is better? Which is more cost-effective?

Forrester Backs Private Clouds — Will Others Follow Suit? -GIGaom

Rather than talk about cloud computing as an all-or-nothing proposition where the only options are the status quo or Amazon EC2, Staten actually recommends deploying an internal cloud, leveraging public clouds either as part of a virtual private (hybrid) cloud strategy or for cloud bursting.

Adobe Wants to Reshape Online Video -NYTimes

Today, the content within an online video cannot be searched. Unless someone manually inserts keyword metadata, there’s no way to find a particular part of a clip or to fast forward to a certain spot.
At the National Association of Broadcasters convention last week, Adobe showed a beta version of a tool that will automate that process.

Online Ad Effectiveness Depends on Time of Day -AdvertisingAge

A study by the U.K. Internet Advertising Bureau with Lightspeed Research found that online consumers of all ages believe they are more likely to pay attention to ads from the early evening onward. Younger audiences in particular showed more interest in commercial messages as the day progressed, while older age groups had distinct peaks in attention between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

IBM, Brocade boost ties as Cisco rivalry heats up -Reuters

International Business Machines Corp will rebrand ethernet switching and routing products made by Brocade as IBM products and sell them to mutual corporate customers, the companies said on Tuesday.

As Oracle readies takeover, Sun's loss widens -AP

The deal, announced last week, was a surprise because Oracle hasn't made hardware. More than half of Sun's sales come from its hardware division, primarily servers and data storage machines. And Sun's software properties, like the Java programming language and Solaris operating system, haven't been big moneymakers. Oracle thinks it can change that.

Personal E-Health Records: A Cautionary Tale -SFGate

All's well and good, but how many other hospitals are sending potentially inaccurate billing data to personal health records? And how many other patients could discover major errors in their electronic medical history? Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum in San Diego, doesn't think the Boston case is an isolated incident. ''There is a real trend to pull all of your data into one big melting pot, and this is just the tip of the iceberg,'' she said. That's the stuff e-health nightmares are made of.

State lets Prosper.com resume raising money -SFGate

Now the Department of Corporations, which had already authorized Prosper's bid-based lending process, has used its separate state authority over investments to let the company raise money in California. Prosper can loan money across state lines under previous agreements with other states.

Former eBay chief faces skeptical tech leaders -SFGate

Listing education as a top priority along with job creation and making government more efficient, Whitman said charter schools that are free of many state regulations are "the way forward," and said she would like to revisit Schwarzenegger's proposal to extend teacher tenure, which was part of his failed 2005 special election.

Google Hypes Cloud Computing Over Virtualization Alone -InformationWeek

The McKinsey study, Sheth argued, only considers hardware costs. He explains that Google's cloud not only offers economies of scale most companies can't match, but also lets companies adapt to service demand and innovate more easily.

Online gambling bill coming: Frank -Reuters

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said on Tuesday he would introduce a bill next week to overturn a three-year-old U.S. ban on Internet gambling.

Nokia to tackle Apple with leaner services push -Reuters

To cope with slowing phone demand Nokia is building a new business from mobile Internet services -- like games or maps -- but is scaling back separate investment plans due to the slowdown, and focusing on merging the delivery of services.

U.S. Justice Department looks into Google books deal -Reuters

"There are legitimate antitrust issues related to Google's ability to solely commercialize this content," Brantley said, adding he hoped the settlement agreement would be rejected by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin.

'Harry Potter' among those missing from e-library -AP

No e-books are available from such living authors as Thomas Pynchon, Guenter Grass and Cynthia Ozick, or from the late Studs Terkel, Roberto Bolano and Saul Bellow. Only a handful, or less, have come out from Paul Bowles, Hunter S. Thompson and James Baldwin.
The reasons are legal, financial, technical and philosophical.

AOL Deploys Socialthing Across the Web -ReadWriteWeb

However, now that Facebook has opened up their data streams to developers, it's clear that the battle for conversation control is just getting started. Despite Socialthing's open nature, it's possible they'll still have a tough time competing considering the Facebook revolution currently underway.

Why We Don’t Believe Rumors of an Apple/Verizon Love Child -GIGaom

Apple and Verizon are in talks for the carrier to distribute an “iPhone-lite” device and a “media pad,” with one of the devices to be launched sometime this summer, BusinessWeek is reporting.

The Supreme Court Backs F.C.C. Procedures in Dirty-Words Case -NYTimes

The Supreme Court Tuesday backed Mr. Martin’s approach to procedures in a 5-4 vote. The case relates to a 2004 decision by the commission to toughen its policy against the TV networks broadcasting expletives before 10 p.m. It eliminated an exemption for the “fleeting” use of a single dirty word. Two years later, that policy was challenged in court by Fox Television Stations, with the backing of other media companies. A lower court said that the commission didn’t follow proper procedures.

U.S. Steps Up Effort on Digital Defenses -NYTimes

Because so many aspects of the American effort to develop cyberweapons and define their proper use remain classified, many of those officials declined to speak on the record. The White House declined several requests for interviews or to say whether Mr. Obama as a matter of policy supports or opposes the use of American cyberweapons.

Apple and Verizon Wireless reportedly prepping two devices -SFGate

Apple has prototypes of two devices. The first is a smaller iPhone-like phone that is cheaper due to different architecture including a system-on-a-chip design. The second device is a media pad, somewhere between an iPod Touch and a Kindle ebook reader that could offer music listening, photo viewing, high-definition video and phone calls over Wi-Fi.