Category Archives: Cloud

Google I/O Event

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Programming

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Google’s I/O Event kicks off today https://events.google.com/io2015/Google10

Lots of session subjects available being streamed a few minutes behind the actual conference.

May 28, 8 PM

8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Anyone can do it! Easy ways to evaluate your App’s Accessibility
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Finding success with family-friendly apps on Play
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Help your users live better with Google Fit
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Improving urban mobility by connecting citizens
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Mobile app install attribution with Google Analytics
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Notifications, Interruptions and Volumes: Coming Attractions
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Smarter approaches to app testing
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Video chat for Web, iOS and Android

May 28, 9 PM
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Apps for kids and families: Get discovered
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Asking for permission
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Containers to back your mobile app
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Gaming on Android TV
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Promote your mobile app in minutes
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM The Gold Standard: Accessible Web Components
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM reCAPTCHA: Tough on bots, Easy on Humans, Great on Mobile
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Google Cloud Messaging 3.0
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Material Design Reviews
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM What’s new in Android
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Achieving Maps zen on Android
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Battery Performance & Tooling
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Building a successful subscription business on Google Play
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Getting your app on the road with Android Auto
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Grow your (app) user base with Search
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Make Believe
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Mobile app quality leaps to the cloud
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM gRPC: Efficient and idiomatic communication libraries for cloud and mobile

May 28, 10 PM
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Apps installing channels on TVs
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Building location aware apps using the Android Location and Places APIs
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Creating calendar events: Quick, easy, and good for your users
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Designing for Driving
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Designing for Google Cast
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Get your app into the Google index
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Leanback support library
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Smarter and personalized device authentication with Smart Lock
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM What’s new in the Google Play Developer Console
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Material Design Reviews
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Smarter monetization with AdMob and Analytics
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM What’s New in Android Development Tools
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM App discovery on Google Play
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Building voice actions for your Android app
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Data driven Android UI development
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Optimizing your game’s first impression on Play
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Project Volta: Android battery life
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Simplifying app development using the wearable support library
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM The Earth in real time

May 28, 11 PM
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Building a real-time app in 5 minutes with Firebase
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Building fitness apps on wearable devices
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Finding your way with the Google Maps SDK for iOS
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Making great products for education
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Material Design Reviews
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Performance on RAILs
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Rendering Performance & Tooling
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM Self-paced Code Labs
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM The next generation mobile web
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM What’s new in Google Play services
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Chrome DevTools and RAIL
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Espresso: UI-testing for Android
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Expressing brand in Material
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM How to create apps that families love
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Memory Performance & Tooling
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Mobilizing the Maps Data APIs
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Working with Nest to build a thoughtful home together

May 29, 12 AM
12:00 AM – 12:30 AM Data driven online learning with Course Builder
12:00 AM – 12:30 AM Kickstart your web app with Web Starter Kit
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM Growing games with Google
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM Making apps context aware: Opportunities, tools, lessons and the future
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM Material Now
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM Self-paced Code Labs
12:30 AM – 1:00 AM AdMob Cross-platform Showdown
12:30 AM – 1:00 AM Network Performance & Tooling

May 29, 2 AM
2:30 AM – 6:00 AM After Hours May 29, 5 PM
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Adaptive UI with Material Design
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Android application architecture
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Designing games for Google Cast
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Real-time analytics for mobile and IoT
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Security Key: Make your login unphishable
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Unit testing on Android
5:00 PM – 5:30 PM Video actions and movie reviews
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Polymer and modern web APIs: In production at Google scale
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Smarter user acquisition with App Indexing, AdWords and Google Analytics
5:00 PM – 6:15 PM A little badass. Beautiful. Tech and human. Work and love. ATAP.
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Bringing Material Design to life on Android
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Building a successful subscription business on Google Play
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Creating games with the Google Cast SDK
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Get users into your app with Google’s newest identity tools
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Grow your app via new word-of-mouth tools from Google
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Integrating with Global Search on Android TV
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Material Design year one
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Push notifications on the Web: Re-engaging your users

May 29, 6 PM
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Android Developer Tools: Deep dive into Performance & Build Tools
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Android Testing Support Library: The next generation of Android Testing APIs
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Anyone can do it! Easy ways to evaluate your App’s Accessibility
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Finding success with family-friendly apps on Play
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Get your app into the Google index
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Introduction to light-weight Material design
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Mobile app install attribution with Google Analytics
6:00 PM – 6:30 PM Mobile games to the big screen with Google Cast
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Project Tango – Mobile 3D tracking and perception
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM Tech for a better world, faster: A discussion with Google.org’s social innovators
6:30 PM – 7:00 PM How to create apps that families love
6:30 PM – 7:00 PM Lovefield – Simple, offline SQL-like data store for the web
6:30 PM – 7:00 PM Promote your mobile app in minutes
6:30 PM – 7:00 PM Reach more gamers by going local
6:30 PM – 7:00 PM Smarter approaches to app testing

May 29, 7 PM
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM App discoveryon Google Play
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Google Cloud Messaging new APIs deep dive
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Grow your (app) user base with Search
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Improving urban mobility by connecting citizens
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Offline apps with Polymer and Service Worker
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Recommendations with Android TV
7:00 PM – 7:30 PM Unleashing the power of Android Backup
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Designing for virtual reality
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Firebase: An overview
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Helping Moonshots Survive Contact with the Real World
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Material Design Reviews
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Building location aware apps using the Android Location and Places APIs
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Building voice actions for your Android app
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Containers to back your mobile app
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Gaming on Android TV
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Grow your app via new word-of-mouth tools from Google
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Leanback support library
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Project Volta: Android battery life
7:30 PM – 8:00 PM Smarter and personalized device authentication with Smart Lock

May 29, 8 PM
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Achieving Maps zen on Android
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Building fitness apps on wearable devices
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Make Believe
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Rendering Performance & Tooling
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Simplifying app development using the wearable support library
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM The Earth in real time
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM Video chat for Web, iOS and Android
8:00 PM – 8:30 PM What’s new in the Google Play Developer Console
8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Ignite
8:00 PM – 9:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Android Developer Tools: Deep dive into Performance & Build Tools
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Designing for Driving
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Expressing brand in Material
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Finding your way with the Google Maps SDK for iOS
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Memory Performance & Tooling
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM Optimizing your game’s first impression on Play
8:30 PM – 9:00 PM The Gold Standard: Accessible Web Components

May 29, 9 PM
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Android Testing Support Library: The next generation of Android Testing APIs
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Apps installing channels on TVs
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Asking for permission
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Battery Performance & Tooling
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Google Cloud Messaging new APIs deep dive
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Google Developer Expert on hidden treasures within Google Play services
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Mobilizing the Maps Data APIs
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM Push notifications on the Web: Re-engaging your users
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Developers connecting the world through Google Play
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Developing for the living room with Google
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Improve your Android app’s accessibility
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Material Design Reviews
9:00 PM – 10:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM AdMob Cross-platform Showdown
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Adaptive UI with Material Design
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Google Developer Expert on growth hacking on a shoestring
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Integrating with Global Search on Android TV
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Introduction to light-weight Material design
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Network Performance & Tooling
9:30 PM – 10:00 PM Security Key: Make your login unphishable

May 29, 10 PM
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Building a real-time app in 5 minutes with Firebase
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Chrome DevTools and RAIL
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Espresso: UI-testing for Android
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Get users into your app with Google’s newest identity tools
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Help your users live better with Google Fit
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Lovefield – Simple, offline SQL-like data store for the web
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Making great products for education
10:00 PM – 10:30 PM Scale globally: Developer guidelines for Emerging Markets
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Android Wear: Your app and the always-on screen
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Android best practices for data transparency
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Material Design Reviews
10:00 PM – 11:00 PM Self-paced Code Labs
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Apps for kids and families: Get discovered
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Data driven Android UI development
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Designing for Google Cast
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Getting your app on the road with Android Auto
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Kickstart your web app with Web Starter Kit
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Performance on RAILs
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Real-time analytics for mobile and IoT
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM Unit testing on Android
10:30 PM – 11:00 PM reCAPTCHA: Tough on bots, Easy on Humans, Great on Mobile

May 29, 11 PM
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Android application architecture
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Bringing Material Design to life on Android
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Designing games for Google Cast
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Material Design Reviews
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Notifications, Interruptions and Volumes: Coming Attractions
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Offline apps with Polymer and Service Worker
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Scale globally: Developer guidelines for Emerging Markets
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Unleashing the power of Android Backup
11:00 PM – 11:30 PM Video actions and movie reviews
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM Democratizing Education
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM Developing with Google on iOS
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM Engineering for the Stratosphere – Presented by Women Techmakers
11:00 PM – 12:00 AM Self-paced Code Labs
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Creating calendar events: Quick, easy, and good for your users
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Data driven online learning with Course Builder
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Material Design year one
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Mobile app quality leaps to the cloud
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Mobile games to the big screen with Google Cast
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Reach more gamers by going local
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM Recommendations with Android TV
11:30 PM – 12:00 AM gRPC: Efficient and idiomatic communication libraries for cloud and mobile

May 30, 12 AM
12:00 AM – 12:30 AM Creating games with the Google Cast SDK
12:00 AM – 12:30 AM Working with Nest to build a thoughtful home together
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM Self-paced Code Labs
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM Speechless at I/O

Microsoft e-Books on MVA

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Tools

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Microsoft have added a couple of new titles to their collection of e-books on MVA (Microsoft Virtual Academy) this month. These titles add to a good collection of information on Microsoft products.

There are lots of other titles available and it is worth checking out the collection.

Microsoft System Center Deploying Hyper-V with Software-Defined Storage & Networking

Microsoft TechNet and the Cloud Platform Team; Series Editor: Mitch Tulloch
March 2015 236 pages
This ebook covers a variety of aspects that make up the foundation of the software-defined datacenter: virtualization, storage, and networking. By the end, you will have a fully operational, small-scale configuration that will enable you to proceed with evaluation of your own key workloads, experiment with additional features and capabilities, and continue to build your knowledge.
Microsoft System Center Software Update Management Field Experience
Andre Della Monica, Chris Shilt, Russ Rimmerman, and Rushi Faldu; Series Editor: Mitch Tulloch
March 2015 160 pages
This ebook addresses some of the gaps and pain points you might encounter when implementing, administering, and troubleshooting Software Updates using Configuration Manager 2012 R2. The advice is based on the authors’ experiences working as Premier Field Engineers and Microsoft Consultants in customer environments on a daily basis. Enjoy this book and the shared experiences from the field.

Race to the largest Raspberry Pi Cluster

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi

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The humble Raspberry Pi has been around for some time and its popularity is growing again with the latest release of the Pi and is a great development platform for the Internet of Things both cost wise and its sheer versatility from basic programming and running Minecraft, to hosting a Docker server.

GCHQ have recently announced the clustering of a 66 node Pi cluster called bramble. They have just pipped the University of Southampton who built a 64 node Pi cluster out of the Pi and Lego.

Some other earlier attempts have seen a 32 Node Cluster Beowulf from the Boise State University.

However it would appear that a 120 node Cluster is currently being developed.

With the 32 node cluster costing roughly the same as a PC, this technology has certainly brought high powered computing into the reach of most people today and the applications going forward are huge for development of solutions.

Data Science in the Cloud ebook

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Data Science

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Microsoft have released a free e-book to download about using Data Science, R and Azure ML (Machine Learning).

Data Science in the Cloud with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and R

The topics in the book cover:

  • Data management with Azure ML.
  • Data transformation with Azure ML and R.
  • Data I/O between Azure ML and the R Scripts.
  • R graphics with Azure ML.
  • Building and evaluating machine learning models with Azure ML and R.
  • Publishing Azure ML models as a web service.

Added to my every increasing pile of things to read.

IoT Cloak of Invisibility

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Innovation, IoT, Security

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With the upsurge in the IoT (Internet of Things), wearable tech and the desire to be constantly connected within the world, there is also now an emerging market of other things to protect yourself as security devices.

Once such item is an RFID Blocking Wallet that protects your debit and credit cards from giving off data or paying for things that you were not aware of – “Contactless ‘charging errors’ at Marks and Spencer”.

Redcoat

Maybe going forward may see a “Cloak of Invisibility” not as a garment to turn is completely invisible to the naked eye, but more a garment that blocks our signals from the IoT providing a high level of personal security or as a “Firewall Blanket” or a “Firewall Coat/Garment” maybe letting certain of your information through. Providing a layer of protection and security to the user.

I see this as maybe working at a thread level within the garment using low level power flows to disrupt the signals of the IoT or being used to broadcast a blocking frequency, only allowing certain frequencies/digital pulses out and in.

As the IoT develops, I’m sure the level of personal security will as well.

Architecture in Practice

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Enterprise Architecture

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Having worked as an Architect for many years its always good to look at different methodologies and practices as they come up and to refresh your thinking on today’s Architecture practices.

One of the recent additions to the Microsoft Virtual Academy is the  “Architecture in Practice” course which brings Microsoft’s latest views on Architecture using their products as a base for some of the demonstrations and topics. Whilst this centers around Microsoft products and standard practices, (to a seasoned architect may not teach them anything new in Architecture practices), taking a course such as this certainly refreshes that thinking in today’s challenging market place of cloud, visualisation and mobile.

One of the underlying foundations that makes a great architect is their willingness to refreshing and renew skills and thinking when ever the opportunity arises.

The diagram below shows the 7 areas that are covered in this course:

Architecture+in+Practice

Further breakdown of the course with topic areas:

arch2

Source of pictures and link to the training: Architecture in Practice.

Ready for Technet Online 2015

27 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Cloud, DevOps/OpsDev, Programming

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I am looking forward to this years TechDays Online 2015 which is being run between the 3rd and 5th February 2015. If you cant make the sessions then they normally appear on Microsoft Virtual Academy a few weeks later.

This is being done over 3 days with a packed agenda that you can dip in and out of as needed.

Day One Theme: Client, Devices and Mobility :

  • Day one: Devices and Managing a Mobile-First World

09:30-09:40 Overview of the Day
09:40-10:15 Delighting your business with EMS
10:30-11:05 Devices, Devices Everywhere
11:20-11:55 Windows 10 Client Innovations
12:10-12:45 KEYNOTE: What IT Pros and Devs Need to Know About the New Microsoft
13:30-14:05 Building IoT solutions today
14:20-14:55 Microsoft Azure Remote App
15:10-15:45 Microsoft Azure RMS
16:00-16:35 Azure Active Directory: Much more than a user store
16:50-17:25 Microsoft Intune/SCCM
17:25-17:30 Wrap up of day 1 – Part 1

  • Day one evening: An evening with Office 365

18:30-19:05 Migration of your mailboxes to Office 365
19:15-19:50 Keeping in touch with the online world
20:00-20:35 Building online collaboration inside Office 365
20:35-20:45 Final thoughts for the day

Day Two Theme: Server and Cloud:

  • Day two: The Journey to the Cloud-first World

09:30-09:40 Overview of the Day
09:40-10:15 What’s new Windows Server /Hyper –V – a technical preview
10:30-11:05 How to find out what’s happening in your datacentre with Azure Insights
11:20-11:55 Host your own cloud with the Windows Azure Pack
12:10-12:45 Taking scripting to the next level with Service Management / Azure Automation
13:30-14:05 A new home for your old applications ↓
14:20-14:55 20% + of Azure runs on Linux – why is this important and how to do it well?
15:10-15:45 DevOps in Microsoft Azure with Chef and Puppet for heterogeneous cloud environments
16:00-16:35 Make Azure your DMZ
16:50-17:25 Microsoft Corporate Keynote
17:25-17:35 Wrap up of Day 2

Day Three Theme: Developer

  • Day three: Multi-device, Cross-platform Development

09:30-09:40 Overview of the Day
09:40-10:25 Creating cross-platform apps with Visual Studio
10:40-11:25 How are you going to deploy that?
11:40-12:25 Microsoft Azure Machine Learning without a PhD
13:00-13:45 Debugging and Performance Tuning Web Apps and Sites
14:00-14:45 What is Roslyn and why should you care?
15:00-15:45 Building cross-platform apps with .NET and ASP.NET
16:00-16:45 Creating cross-platform cloud apps for mobile devices
17:00-17:45 Microsoft Corporate Keynote
17:45-17:55 Wrap-up of Tech.Days Online Day 3

Data Science Tools and Cloud Usage

15 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Cloud, Data Science

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At the end of 2014 O’Reilly published a Data Science Salary Survey report. Two areas of the report that caught my attention not because of the Salary side, but because of the other data collected and the trends it shows.

The first of these is the popularity of Tools that help enable Data Scientists. R and Excel seem to be on a par which is interesting to see as R is typically seen as being more powerful than Excel (I’m sure there is a bigger debate around that but wont get into it here!) , although Excel is more graphically pleasing to the user in manipulation of the data. However the data does not show where someone is using both or has a preference between one and the other.

common+tools

The respondents fall into several roles, which is most probably the swing between a Windows and Linux type environment and the tools used:

  • Analyst – includes coding
  • Statistician
  • Software developer
  • Technical lead
  • Manager
  • Product developer
  • Non-coding Analyst
  • Database administrator
  • UI/UX developer

Interesting that there is no one single role for a Data Scientist listed in the roles.

The report also shows the use of amount of cloud computing that is used by Data Scientists that responded to the survey. Approx a third still not moving to cloud, however two thirds are using it or experimenting with it in some way.  As the common tools are now being altered for the cloud, such as R cluster computing which is now available, there will be more shift to a cloud experience for data manipulation. The one thing that lets R down is the use of memory to hold and load data. The bigger the data set the more memory you need. This may change over time as a limitation and R Cluster is one way around this.

common+cloud

Of course this is only a report based on a number of respondents showing a sample of what is being carried out in the field of Data Science.  The trends may be different if run with a bigger data set and different roles responded.

Source: http://www.oreilly.com/data/free/2014-data-science-salary-survey.csp