Elephants have long memories and, as far as PostgreSQL is concerned, are no longer slow or lumbering. EnterpriseDB's Ed Boyajian and Bruce Momjian discuss the many improvements, benefits and features in PostgreSQL, as well as its success as a commercial database. Alternatively focusing on the business and technical components of the database, Boyajian and Momjian present the new and improving PostgreSQL.

Giving a quick history of MySQL, Tomas Ulin and Duleepa Wijayawardhana explain the changes the system has seen in the editions from MySQL 5.1 to the present MySQL 5.6. Tomas Ulin, Vice President of the MySQL Engineering team, also discusses the current state of affairs for MySQL, recently acquired by Oracle. In terms of past development and current changes, Ulin also predicts future uses of new features being created in MySQL.

Tom Preston-Werner presents GitHub as a site that breaks through barriers that slow collaboration and sharing code. Describing it as a mechanism to prevent wasting time, he notes multiple uses of the site, including file sharing, project creation, and code development.

This week, Jeff and Joel are joined by Greg Wilson, an author, developer, and former university professor, who is also an expert on open source software development. Once make it through the jokes and get his mic sounding great, we can jump in and explore all kinds of interesting topics from favorite Canadian airlines to Microsoft data studies.

Pachube is an on-line database service provider that allows developers to connect sensor data to the Web and to build their own applications on it. Its creator, Usman Haque, discusses it, reviewing what Pachube is, how it can be used, and examples of its value as a way to manage data. He argues that services like Pachube can take advantage of open data to discover and share information.

Open source databases face a variety of challenges as the technological world continues to change. Baron Schwartz, Chief Performance Architect at Percona, observes that database developers must understand the contexts of database usage within the central challenge of increased data. He notes that open source databases are far behind both -- the technological curve and market demand, but that current inefficiencies can be solved by innovation and cooperation.

Ray Kurzweil has spent most of his life imagining what the future might be like, and then inventing it. In this keynote from 2010, Kurzweil shares his vision of the future with Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media. The interview begins with a discussion about the Blio, the future of digital publishing, and finally the Singularity. This interview precedes the September 2010 release of the Blio, a TTS-enabled, full-color, web-enabled eReader.

There are several problems in current database systems, primarily analytics, data capture, and storage. These are not future problems, argues Cloudera CEO Mike Olson, but current struggles within both MySQL and the 'NoSQL' data systems that must be overcome before the industry can have clearly superior software. Mike Olson presents these problems within the context of MySQL's development and the industry's opportunities in the future market.

One of the great aspects of 21st century technology is the ability to use and keep track of public information. Unfortunately, many government agencies choose not to take advantage of the ways to communicate with the public. Micah Sifry returns to Technometria to discuss the status of open government.

While much open source software suffers from poor design and usability, Firefox shines. What makes the Mozilla community different? With great branding, usability backed up by research but tempered by realism, and a powerful extension architecture, the Firefox web browser claims 400 million users. On the eve of the release of Firefox 4, Mozilla designer Alex Faaborg covers the unique challenge of coordinating user experience design in an open source community, important features of past versions, and the future of the Firefox interface.