Oracle’s Next Cloud Moves

In a couple of days, Oracle is going to go all in on the cloud, with many new products and features, and a “the customer gets to choose” strategy for how rapidly its buyers make the biggest step in tech in over the last two decades.

“We won’t force a binary call” between internal computer servers or software running in another company’s cloud, said Mark V. Hurd, Oracle’s co-president. If people want to keep applications behind their corporate firewall for now and migrate to the cloud later, he said, that is fine.

For a company that still counts on the “behind the firewall” software for most of its revenue, that long view that applications will go to the cloud is a big deal. It is also another sign from the big enterprise technology incumbents that times have changed.

On Sunday, Oracle will kick off its annual customer conference, with an expected attendance of 60,000 people, with a speech from its founder and chief executive, Lawrence J. Ellison. Mr. Hurd will speak on Monday.

Among the announcements: All of Oracle’s applications have been streamlined to run within advanced in-memory computers. “In some cases, they are 100 times faster,” Mr. Hurd said in an interview.

Software developers will also be able to use both databases and Java programming tools in the Oracle cloud. That means they will be able to develop new applications more cheaply and easily than in the past, when they had to work with local servers, then upload the software to the cloud.

This builds on a June announcement with Microsoft that Oracle software, Java, Oracle’s database and its WebLogic server would all run on Microsoft’s Azure cloud and on Microsoft’s server virtualization software.

“We’ve changed a lot of things bringing business transformation to the cloud,” said Mr. Hurd. “We’ve spend a lot on research and development.”

There will also be updates and product releases from Taleo, a personnel-management, cloud-software company that Oracle bought; a new e-business suite of products; and better integration of communications and social media interactions from Eloqua and Acme Packet, two other Oracle acquisitions. Oracle will also discuss new versions and performance metrics in Exalytics, its data analytics product, and Endeca, a personalized retail application.

The bands Maroon 5 and The Black Keys will also perform on Wednesday, but don’t expect much new there. This crowd likes the standards.

Many more spending and product announcements are likely, as Oracle presents its new face and raises its competitive game against pure cloud software companies like Salesforce.com and Workday, which not coincidentally announced an alliance on the eve of the Oracle show.

“We’ve invested in separate global business units” capable of moving companies to cloud software at different speeds, depending on geography, industry, and regulatory needs, Mr. Hurd said. “We’re still in the early innings of this stuff. Suites of capabilities will be important.”

Like never before, though, the competition is coming at Oracle from even the smallest places, Mr. Hurd acknowledged. “Markets like Brazil have their own apps companies selling into the cloud,” he said. “China has apps companies for midmarket companies.” The largest companies in China still like the more expensive Oracle products, he said, both for reliability and the status of having a well-known provider.

They do for now, anyway.

Today’s Scuttlebot: As iPhones Go on Sale, Tim Cook Tweets

Every day, The New York Times’s staff scours the Web for interesting and peculiar items.

Today, Applemania surged as the new iPhones went on sale to the public. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, commemorated the occasion by issuing his first post on Twitter.

The Price of Precious - Photo Gallery
National Geographic |  As new iPhones come out, National Geographic has great photos and story on the children mining their minerals in Congo. - Quentin Hardy

Can the Government Access iPhone Fingerprint Data?
Franken.senate.gov |  Senator Al Franken questions Apple on privacy implications of new iPhone fingerprint technology. - Ashwin Seshagiri

Homeless Used to Buy iPhones in Pasadena
Los Angeles Times |  Homeless people, hired to stand in line for iPhones, go unpaid and a fight ensues. The downside of Apple mania. - Quentin Hardy

Jony & Craig
Parislemon.com |  Insightful take on the strategy behind Apple’s P.R. push this week, because with Apple P.R., there’s always a strategy. - Claire Cain Miller

Here’s what we noticed today:

Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins
Wired |  “We’re kind of the homeless geeks. We all got laptops and smartphones.” - Jenna Wortham

Google Revamps Logo and Search Page
BBC NEWS |  Did anyone notice? - Victoria Shannon

Joy Covey, 1963-2013
Clusterstock |  A touching tribute to Joy Covey, the former Amazon executive who died, from Henry Blodget. - Victoria Shannon

Today’s Scuttlebot: As iPhones Go on Sale, Tim Cook Tweets

Every day, The New York Times’s staff scours the Web for interesting and peculiar items.

Today, Applemania surged as the new iPhones went on sale to the public. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, commemorated the occasion by issuing his first post on Twitter.

The Price of Precious - Photo Gallery
National Geographic |  As new iPhones come out, National Geographic has great photos and story on the children mining their minerals in Congo. - Quentin Hardy

Can the Government Access iPhone Fingerprint Data?
Franken.senate.gov |  Senator Al Franken questions Apple on privacy implications of new iPhone fingerprint technology. - Ashwin Seshagiri

Homeless Used to Buy iPhones in Pasadena
Los Angeles Times |  Homeless people, hired to stand in line for iPhones, go unpaid and a fight ensues. The downside of Apple mania. - Quentin Hardy

Jony & Craig
Parislemon.com |  Insightful take on the strategy behind Apple’s P.R. push this week, because with Apple P.R., there’s always a strategy. - Claire Cain Miller

Here’s what we noticed today:

Homeless, Unemployed, and Surviving on Bitcoins
Wired |  “We’re kind of the homeless geeks. We all got laptops and smartphones.” - Jenna Wortham

Google Revamps Logo and Search Page
BBC NEWS |  Did anyone notice? - Victoria Shannon

Joy Covey, 1963-2013
Clusterstock |  A touching tribute to Joy Covey, the former Amazon executive who died, from Henry Blodget. - Victoria Shannon

Tips for Making the Change to iOS 7

In the television show Extreme Home Makeover, people go away for a nice quiet weekend with their family and return to discover that their house has been completely renovated. Their favorite old, ragged, puffy couch has now replaced with a sleek designer slab of gray foam. Their favorite lamp has been swapped out for an obscure designer lighting system. Usually, it’s a shocking transition.

This is what it may feel like when you upgrade to iOS 7, Apple’s latest version of its mobile operating system, on your iPhone and iPad. What was once skeuomorphic is now flat. Textured bookshelves have been replaced with white space. Icons that were round and bubble-shaped look like pancakes.

If you want a good chuckle go, to Twitter and search “what happened to my iPhone?” You will be greeted by a stream of people who have updated to iOS 7 and been completely caught off guard by the changes. Some seem to be in complete shock.

So if you haven’t made the switch yet, or have but don’t know how to deal with the changes, here are a few tips to help you manage the transition.

1. Breathe.

2. Breathe again.

3. Compared with iOS 6, which had a lot of dark colors and heavy icons, the new iOS 7 design is extremely light. Blacks have been replaced with white or muted gray. To increase the contrast of the phone again, try picking a very dark background image for your home screen. You can even go with flat black to start, then gradually change it to something more interesting, and lighter, as you become accustomed to the new design.

4. Studies by Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind,” found that our brains take up to seven days to rewire themselves when learning something new.

The placement of the apps of your smartphone is wired into your brain at this point. You don’t have to think about what the icons look like or decode them. You just put your thumb in the top right corner to open the camera. When you install the new iOS 7, it will move some of your icons around as it places Music in the top left corner and drops the new compass app onto your phone. Before you do anything, put everything back the way you had it before the upgrade. Cognitively, this will help you become accustomed to the new design.

5. Dr. Small and other neuroscientists have found that you can speed up the brain’s learning by performing little exercises. Try doing this every few minutes to help rewrite the way you used to use your phone. For example, rather than pressing the home button to search for something, in iOS 7 you flick upwards in the middle of the screen. Do this over and over to train yourself that this is the new behavior.

While some are shocked by the design changes of iOS 7, my colleague Brian X. Chen wrote on Thursday that most consumers who have jumped to the new operating system seem to be enjoying the new design.

Of course, if none of these tips work and you’re in complete disarray after your upgrade, there is one more option you can try: turn off your phone and go away for a nice quiet weekend with your family.

Tips for Making the Change to iOS 7

In the television show Extreme Home Makeover, people go away for a nice quiet weekend with their family and return to discover that their house has been completely renovated. Their favorite old, ragged, puffy couch has now replaced with a sleek designer slab of gray foam. Their favorite lamp has been swapped out for an obscure designer lighting system. Usually, it’s a shocking transition.

This is what it may feel like when you upgrade to iOS 7, Apple’s latest version of its mobile operating system, on your iPhone and iPad. What was once skeuomorphic is now flat. Textured bookshelves have been replaced with white space. Icons that were round and bubble-shaped look like pancakes.

If you want a good chuckle go, to Twitter and search “what happened to my iPhone?” You will be greeted by a stream of people who have updated to iOS 7 and been completely caught off guard by the changes. Some seem to be in complete shock.

So if you haven’t made the switch yet, or have but don’t know how to deal with the changes, here are a few tips to help you manage the transition.

1. Breathe.

2. Breathe again.

3. Compared with iOS 6, which had a lot of dark colors and heavy icons, the new iOS 7 design is extremely light. Blacks have been replaced with white or muted gray. To increase the contrast of the phone again, try picking a very dark background image for your home screen. You can even go with flat black to start, then gradually change it to something more interesting, and lighter, as you become accustomed to the new design.

4. Studies by Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind,” found that our brains take up to seven days to rewire themselves when learning something new.

The placement of the apps of your smartphone is wired into your brain at this point. You don’t have to think about what the icons look like or decode them. You just put your thumb in the top right corner to open the camera. When you install the new iOS 7, it will move some of your icons around as it places Music in the top left corner and drops the new compass app onto your phone. Before you do anything, put everything back the way you had it before the upgrade. Cognitively, this will help you become accustomed to the new design.

5. Dr. Small and other neuroscientists have found that you can speed up the brain’s learning by performing little exercises. Try doing this every few minutes to help rewrite the way you used to use your phone. For example, rather than pressing the home button to search for something, in iOS 7 you flick upwards in the middle of the screen. Do this over and over to train yourself that this is the new behavior.

While some are shocked by the design changes of iOS 7, my colleague Brian X. Chen wrote on Thursday that most consumers who have jumped to the new operating system seem to be enjoying the new design.

Of course, if none of these tips work and you’re in complete disarray after your upgrade, there is one more option you can try: turn off your phone and go away for a nice quiet weekend with your family.

Greenpeace Turns Arctic Face-Off Into Instant Ad

As my colleagues Steven Lee Myers and Andrew Roth reported, Russian security forces seized a ship owned by Greenpeace in remote northern waters on Thursday, a day after two of the environmental group’s activists were detained for boarding an oil rig to protest drilling in the Arctic by the state-controlled energy giant Gazprom.

The media-savvy activists were there to draw attention to the first offshore oil rig in the Arctic. Just hours after their confrontation with the security forces, they capitalized on it by turning footage of the face-off into a dramatic Web advertisement promoting their campaign against drilling there.

A Greenpeace video advertisement showing a confrontation between environmental activists and Russian security forces in the Arctic this week.

Daily Report: A Proposed Reset Button for Children Online

SAN FRANCISCO â€" California legislators, faced with the problem of reckless online behavior by children, and of the sometimes outsize and life-changing repercussions from that behavior, are trying to solve the problem with the first measure in the country to give minors the legal right to scrub away their online indiscretions. The legislation puts the state in the middle of a turbulent debate over how best to protect children and their privacy on the Internet, and whether states should even be trying to tame the Web, Somini Sengupta reports.

The governor, Jerry Brown, has taken no position on the bill. He has until mid-October to sign it, after which, without his signature, the legislation becomes law.

California is often in the vanguard when it comes to digital privacy. It was the first state to require companies to report data breaches, and it requires Web sites and mobile apps to post privacy policies that explain how personal information is used. A recently passed law requires Web sites to tell users whether they honor browsers’ do-not-track signals.

The right-to-delete, or eraser, provision is part of a broader bill that prohibits Web sites, which have “actual knowledge” that a minor is using the site based on a profile and activity on the site, from running ads for a range of products â€" including alcohol, spray paint, tattoos, tanning beds and e-cigarettes. The eraser section compels online sites to let users under 18 delete rants, tweets, pictures, status updates and other material.

Although many companies, including Facebook and Twitter, already offer this option to their users, the California bill would make it a right across the Internet for children who live in that state.

“Kids and teenagers often self-reveal before they self-reflect,” said James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based advocacy group that pushed for the law. “It’s a very important milestone.”