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Today brings news that Sun has acquired MySQL AB, the corporate entity that develops the open-source relational database management system MySQL. I don't have much to say about this because I'm not sure what to think. I know that MySQL AB has been slowed since Oracle acquired Innobase, a company that provided the InnoDB database engine for MySQL that featured capabilities such as referential integrity that allowed MySQL to compete against the likes of Oracle's database offerings. MySQL AB itself had spurned Oracle's advances before, which makes this acquisition a little surprising. I have worked and continue to work on projects using MySQL. It will be interesting to see what unfolds.

Side view of the new "Macbook Air"

The MacWorld San Francisco keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs came and went yesterday. I have to admit that I'm left pretty unimpressed. I haven't watched the full keynote, but judging from the announcements that came out, nothing really blew me away. Of course, I bring higher than reasonable expectations into each keynote. Here are my impressions of the high points.

Top: Old Design. Bottom: New design.

For almost ten years, my church's Web site has gone relatively unchanged. The design had become dated and so had the process to add and update the content on it. Shortly after joining the church about two and a half years ago, I volunteered to take on or assist in a makeover project. It took a while for the stars to align, but after starting work a few months ago, we finally launched the redesign this week.

c|net's News.com has posted an interview with Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor regarding the release of songs from his collaboration with Saul Williams on the album "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust." The album, similar to the Radiohead release of "In Rainbows", was made available for $5 or free to see who was really willing to pay for high-quality, non-DRM music.

Wired has published an in depth article on the iPhone development process and it's long-term impact on the wireless phone industry. It speaks on the efforts, trials, and money that it took Apple to come out with the device. In the end it proclaims that despite some of the obvious knocks on the device it "...cracked open the carrier-centric structure of the wireless industry and unlocked a host of benefits for consumers, developers, manufacturers — and potentially the carriers themselves. Consumers get an easy-to-use handheld computer. And, as with the advent of the PC, the iPhone is sparking a wave of development that will make it even more powerful."

Read the full article here.

In his Business 2.0 blog, Erick Schonfeld speculates that at the upcoming Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Steve Jobs may announce that Apple's .Mac Web service will become fully integrated with Google's "Webtop" apps or possibly be replaced by them altogether.

I'm a little late on this, but last week the folks at London-based Last.fm announced that they had been acquired by CBS. Most "social networking" sites don't really appeal to me, but Last.fm hits me in my soft spot: music + cool tech + obsessive data collection & reporting.

Last.fm is all based around "scrobbling" the songs you play in iTunes, on your iPod, or however you listen to digital music. Scrobbling reports song plays to a Web server. Last.fm was born out of AudioScobbler, but where Last.fm takes off is in connection of it's users based on play history. They've branched out recently to provide nice Flash-based playlists (see right column) and player. Anyway, their approach to social networking is especially cool.

Anyway, with CBS acquiring Last.fm, it will be interesting to see what direction they go. Congrats to the Last.fm team.

Outside of my normal obsessions, I'm also strangely fascinated with marketing, branding and advertising campaigns. When SBC bought AT&T, rebranded itself with the latter, and then bought BellSouth, I was very curious to see how they would fold all of these brands, which include Cingular Wireless, into one 150-year-old name. You've probably noticed that they've beaten us over head to make clear that "Cingular is the New AT&T." Thankfully it appears that they are ready to move into a new phase of the marketing transition.

A week after the Pope made comments supporting bishops in Mexico who have threatened legislators who support abortion rights with refusal of Communion, 18 U.S. House Democrats have chosen to make a statement to defend their pro-infanticidal politics. They released the following joint statement: