The ‘+’ that matters is that Google’s ‘+’ is web/http and Apple’s ‘+’ is objective c talking over some protocol that is inaccessible outside of Apple’s world. Yes, the user interface matters (a lot), but that is not the key differentiator. Over time, native and web will unify from a user experience perspective (of course standards will always lag innovation, but that is another story).

Traditionally, the term cloud has been associated with the web. Most large cloud implementations are all about the web and web protocols. Amazon (both books and AWS), Google, Flickr, etc all implemented their cloud services using open accessible web standards. They embraced and leveraged the spirit of the web by utilizing well known http protocols along with simple textual APIs. Call it the semantic web, web services, or web 2.0. In the end, it is about the ability of developers (with a wide skill gap) to mash together data and functional services to create completely new and interesting software. Think of it as the world wide middleware. The linkage between web 2.0 and these cloud based services…

Disclaimer: There are no facts after this point. It is all what if scenario / made up / completely unfounded speculation.

What ifs…
What if google had a significant investment in Java, but no license for it?
What if google knew that Java was an important differentiator for themselves?
What if google wanted to grow the Java community to their benefit?
What if google had the biggest names in the Java ecosystem (Gosling, Bloch, Bray, Haase, Russell, Norbye,…)?
What if google realized that Java was open source (GPL)?
What if google forked Java and called it something else (Gava)?
Would the Java community follow?

Oracle owns the rights to the Java brand and the Java TCK (certification). Java’s standards have been the driving force behind holding the community together. There is enormous power in the Java standards from an adoption perspective (think John Nash). Compatibility has been the hallmark of Java…

It only weighs 20lbs.

Essentially, just go to the groovy console in hudson/jenkins (under Manage -> Script Console) and enter what ever groovy you like. The javadoc for the API can be found at: http://hudson-ci.org/javadoc/index.html

In my case, I needed to change the email address for every job’s notification settings. So, I used the following script:

import hudson.model.*

int count=0;
Hudson.instance.items.each{ item ->
  item.each{ job ->
     def configFile = new File(item.getConfigFile().toString())
     def config = configFile.text
     if(!config.indexOf("<recipients>")){
              println "$job Not Updated"
     }else{
         def regex = "</recipients><recipients>[^< ]*</recipients>"
         config = config.replaceAll(regex, "</recipients><recipients>somegroup@nowhere.com</recipients>")
         configFile.write(config)
         count++;
     }
  }
}
println "Updated $count Jobs"

link: Alpha Dog of the Week - Steven Slater - The Colbert Report - 8/10/10 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

There are 2 million miles of paved roads in the United States. Each of those miles has to be resurfaced periodically and the material generally used to pave roads is asphalt which is a petroleum product. So not only do you need to put gas in your family car, but the road you drive on also contributes to this country’s thirst for fossil fuels. But, what if that same road could instead be part of the production of green energy using solar panels. That wonderfully crazy idea is the brainchild of Scott Brusaw who is the CEO of Solar Roadways.

link: Solar Roads: The New Energy/Transport Convergence Device? | GeekBeat.TV

If they can solve the friction coefficient in differing conditions (ice on glass sounds really bad) then this may be a really good idea (something like this would actually be a decent idea for stimulus - as opposed to getting monkey's high).

If you haven't kept up with the advances in robotics, this video shows just how far it has come. Keep in mind, these robots are flying autonomously (no pilot, no remote control).