Structure News: Apparently, you need cloud computing to know which way the wind blows

Your weekly tech news roundup, with a little bit of Structure. Where We Think The Cloud Is Bigly October 21st, 2016 / by Tom Krazit This week, we'll talk about how our weather forecasters really need to embrace the cloud, why Intel continues to face a changing landscape of computing, and how Apple is planning to make some serious noise in artificial intelligence research. BIG PICTURE Those of us who have been following the rise of cloud computing for years sometimes forget how far most of the world has to go when it comes to adopting the services that have transformed Silicon Valley. The New York Times Magazine published a very interesting article (if you're a weather nerd) about the current state of the National Weather Service, and why it has had problems accurately predicting the path of huge storms like Hurricane Mathew and Superstorm Sandy, which was correctly predicted by European weather services but missed completely by the National Weather Services models. But if you're a cloud computing nerd, the answer should make you a little crazy: because of budget constraints, the National Weather Service is forced to rely on an aging supercomputer cluster and lacks big data expertise. This is kind of insane. Accurate weather forecasts aren't just important to commuters: they help farmers plan for adverse weather, they help airlines save money, and, of course, they have the potential to save lives. When government weather officials get these forecasts laughably wrong, they encourage the public to scoff at future forecasts, no matter how dangerous an incoming storm might really be. The big three of cloud infrastructure services -- Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud -- should be falling over themselves to sign the National Weather Service as a customer. And IBM, which just bought The Weather Channel, is in a very unique position to address this need. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Weather Service, has signed a technology cooperation deal with some of these companies, but it needs to go further: who is better positioned to accommodate the need for a short-term burst in computing power and data analysis than the worlds leading cloud infrastructure providers? Part of the problem, of course, is that the federal government procurement process is a notorious slog. This is something we'll be sure to talk about at Structure 2016: the federal government needs to find more flexible ways to accommodate cloud computing providers, because the upside -- giving our public agencies state-of-the-art computing power at taxpayer-friendly prices -- is just so obvious. STRUCTURE NEWS FOG COMPUTING: BALANCING THE BEST OF LOCAL COMPUTING WITH THE CLOUD Our good friends (and Structure 2016 media partner) ZDNet granted me some space on their website to talk about one of our key Structure 2016 themes: fog computing. Although the name makes me wince, the trend is real: mobile computing and the internet of things are changing the way that datacenter infrastructure is being built in demanding thatcomputing needs to becloser to the end user, in hopes of providing uninterrupted quality of service and performance. This is something we're going to talk about with several of our Structure 2016 speakers, from people like Urs Hlzle of Google and Jay Parikh of Facebook, who have been doing this kind of edge computing for years, to newer players like SnapRoute CEO Jason Forrester (pictured) who are capitalizing on this need for more intelligence edge hardware. Our flagship show will be held November 8th and 9th in San Francisco at the UCSF Mission Bay conference center, and you can register for tickets here. INDUSTRY NEWS MICROSOFT AZURE REVENUE JUMPED 116 PERCENT IN Q1 2017 Slowly but surely, the cloud is becoming the future of the greatest boxed software company ever. Microsoft is still heavily dependent on sales of Windows and Window Server, but as Venturebeat reports, Azure was the shining star in its Intelligent Cloud division during the last quarter, and there's a long way to go. INTEL POSTS SOLID Q3 WITH RECORD REVENUES IN IOT AND DATA CENTER The other half of the fabled Wintel duo also continues to regain its footing, with revenue from its data center group (led by Structure 2016 speaker Raejeanne Skillern) up strongly year over year, according to ZDNet. But as we're about to discuss, there are potential headwinds on Intel's datacenter chip business that bear watching as the cloud continues to grow. GOOGLE PUTS INTEL ON NOTICE; WHY MICROSOFT IS PUTTING THESE CHIPS AT THE CENTER OF THE CLOUD Intel's chips rule cloud datacetners right now, but that might not last forever. Extremetech reports on Google's renewed interest in the Power architecture for some of its datacenter chips, and Fortune notes a big push by Microsoft to design FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) for artificial intelligence applications, a chip design outside of Intel's historical strengths. APPLE HAS HIRED A BIG BRAIN IN AI TO MAKE SIRI LESS DUMB Most consumers are being introduced to basic artificial intelligence by mobile assistants like Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Echo, and Apple's Siri. Despite Apple's efforts to project a serious tone about artificial intelligence, it has lagged behind competitors, and Recode reports that it has now hired Carnegie Mellon's Russ Salakhutdinov as its new head of artificial intelligence research. IBM IS COUNTING ON ITS BET ON WATSON, AND PAYING BIG MONEY FOR IT It's hard to imagine a computer industry without IBM, but it's obvious to anyone watching that Big Blue has struggled to make its way in growing markets. Steve Lohr of The New York Times has a good update on IBM's big bet on Watson, its cognitive computing powerhouse that might just make it a player in an AI-driven cloud market. CLOUD COMPUTING DISRUPTS SOFTWARE ACCOUNTING RULES On the wonky side this week, the Wall Street Journal checks in on how accounting rules have failed to keep up with changes in the way software is developed and sold. Research and development costs are generally considered hardware or infrastructure costs, and research into software development advances is harder to reconcile on a balance sheet, according to current laws. QUOTE OF THE WEEK It's not just the Silicon Valley startups anymore, it is the core enterprise that is also becoming a digital company." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal Click here to unsubscribe from this list. Our mailing address is: 405 El Camino Real, #215 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Copyright (C) 2016 StructureSeries All rights reserved.