Google’s BigTable - GQL Reference:
A GQL query cannot perform a SQL-like “join” query.
A Google employee (second post by “ryan”):
We’ve had good results when we take a step back and think about our data models from a different angle. Most app developers are accustomed to designing SQL data models in a certain way, with a normalized schema, foreign keys, fixed column types, etc. With Google App Engine, you can often get good results by loosening the normalization and other restrictions, and often by doing more work in writes instead of queries.
Joins in CouchDB
If you’d be using an SQL database, you’d obviously have two tables with foreign keys and you’d be using joins. But what would the “obvious” approach in CouchDB look like?
CouchDB first impressions:
Joins, of course, are simply not possible… but in the right situations you wouldn’t need ‘em.
Amazon SimpleDB - A different perspective (in the comments):
You are right as far as I can see, that there is no join syntax in SimpleDB.
Normalization and table joins are so 2007.
Update: for more discussion see the reddit comments.
Google is going to allow anyone to run applications in their infrastructure, meaning using their super scalable database system and other server infrastructure. I just signed up to try it out, but was too late (they allow in 10,000 people only, apparently that many signed up already). You can find more information here. The cool thing is that the only way to build applications on it for now is by using Python, which will give Python a huge boost in popularity for web development I think.
Update: Just got an email from Google saying my account was enabled, guess I wasn’t too late then 
I had a little time to test out SlideRocket yesterday, not having high expectations already having tried out other presentation web apps such as Google’s one. However Sliderocket is really cool. It’s implemented with Adobe’s Flex (which I think is flash on the client side and some server-side components). It eats up quite some CPU cycles, but it looks very nice. Very much like Apple’s Keynote, the presentations look stylish too. Here are two sample slides:
SlideRocket is still in private beta right now and very much under construction, but it looks extremely promising. Who would’ve thought that the way to make the most beautiful presentations under Linux would be a web app?
It’s always nice to read about Steve Jobs, although the last 2 pages on the share back-dating or whatever are kind of yawn.
I arrived at work early today so I took some time to read one of the ReadWriteWeb articles, I picked “Why Yahoo! Buzz is a Brilliant Idea” and I agree with its title, Yahoo! has made some pretty interesting and clever choices with Buzz.
Yahoo! Buzz is a social news site, fairly similar to Digg. People can “Buzz” articles and the most buzzed articles end up on the front page. Sounds pretty much like Digg up to here.
The twist is that people don’t get to submit articles. The articles are “submitted” automatically. Where from? From the Yahoo! content network. What’s that? Yahoo!’s Adsense competitor: sites making money by displaying ads from Yahoo!’s text ad network. I agree that this is a quite brilliant move. The thing is that Yahoo! has a massive audience. They intend to show some Buzz top stories on the Yahoo! frontpage, which means that if you are on the Yahoo! content network and write an article that gets very popular on Buzz, you might show up on the frontpage of Yahoo:
“Every day, a few of the top Buzz articles will be bumped onto the Yahoo.com main page, giving the story potentially the widest audience possible on the internet. Reports suggest that, in tests, links to Wired.com received over 2 million unique hits in 2 hours.”
The knife cuts on both sides here (as we say in Dutch): the publisher gets lots of traffic, and both Yahoo! and the publisher earn money from this because the publisher is showing Yahoo! ads. For publishers it might also be an incentive to put Yahoo! ads on their sites rather than Adsense ads.
I’m impressed Yahoo.
Electronista:
Canonical today hoped to preempt all comers today with news of Ubuntu Mobile. Its first Linux variant aimed at handhelds, the software is tailored for the Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) expected to launch in spring based on Intel’s Silverthorne technology and is designed to recognize basic iPhone-like gestures such as swiping to scroll through menus and websites. A scrolling visual front end based on Flash or Clutter replaces the traditional Ubuntu desktop and is designed to be used solely with fingers, including with an on-screen keyboard.
MIDs based on Ubuntu Mobile will also have full feature support once users launch actual programs, Canonical promises. In addition to full web browsing support, any handheld should support 3D through OpenGL and will have support for 3G cellular Internet access, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX through services such as Sprint’s Xohm network. Bluetooth, GPS, USB webcams and other add-ons often used with handheld devices will be supported without needing special support.
I really wonder what kind of devices this will run on. The article mentions it’s for devices with 4-7″ screens — not really mobile phone size. I guess it’s mostly targeted at smaller tablet-like computers.
