US heads for open Internet showdown

US regulators are set for a showdown over rules to ensure an open Internet, reports the BBC.

The rules are intended to prohibit phone and cable companies blocking or discriminating against Internet traffic over their broadband networks. Net neutrality was one of the Obama administration's top campaign pledges to the technology industry.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, sent draft rules to its members. Two Republican commissioners have already said they oppose the chairman's “reckless” proposal, which they will be asked to vote on when the Commission meets on 21 December.

Apple has embraced Hadoop, the open source distributed-computing platform, based on Google's famously proprietary backend infrastructure, reveals the Register.

According to a recent Apple job listing, entitled: “Senior Software Engineer - Hadoop”, the company is using or planning to use the entire Hadoop stack, from the HDFS file system and the Hadoop MapReduce distributed number-crunching platform to the HBase distributed database, the Hive query language, and the Oozie workflow system. The stack is used or will be used for the company's iAds mobile-advertising platform.

"Apple advertising provides an opportunity to redefine the advertising on mobile devices," the job listing reads. "It's an exciting environment and a fast-paced development organisation. We are looking for senior Hadoop engineer to be part of a dynamic team, building highly-performant and scalable applications."

Microsoft has begun rolling out test versions of several new add-ons and services to its Azure cloud platform, states Computing.co.uk.

The new enhancements are designed to deliver improved remote desktop functionality; Window Server 2008 R2 Roles, which allows users to take advantage of IIS 7.5 Applocker among other features; multiple service administrators - Windows Azure now supports multiple Windows Live IDs to have administrator privileges on the same Windows Azure account; and a better developer and IT professional experience.

At the Professional Developer's Conference, earlier this year, the company said it would deliver these services by the end of 2010. However, some services that Microsoft promised would be available have yet to be released.

After more than a year of hype, Verizon is finally unveiling its so-called 4G wireless network that uses a network technology known as long-term evolution, or LTE, writes CNet.

Starting on 5 December, the new network will go live in a number of markets, including New York, Chicago, LA, and San Francisco, among others.

About 70% of the 38 markets that Verizon is rolling out initially will get the service starting on Sunday. The company will have street view maps available on its Web site starting on Sunday to show exact locations where the network is available.