Yahoo s grid-computing team announced that Apache Hadoop broke world records in the annual GraySort contest in the Gray and Minute sorts in the general-purpose Daytona category.

Hadoop is the only OPEN-source software to ever win the GraySort competition, adding another notch to last year s win at the Terasort competition, where Hadoop sorted 1 terabyte of data in 209 seconds. That beat the previous record of 297 seconds in the terabyte sort benchmark.

Within the rules for the 2009 Gray sort, our 500 GB sort set a new record for the minute sort and the 100 TB sort set a new record of 0.578 TB/minute. The 1 PB sort ran after the 2009 deadline, but improves the speed to 1.03 TB/minute. The 62 second terabyte sort would have set a new record, but the terabyte benchmark that we won last year has been retired.

Canonical has begun beta-testing a file-synchronization service called Ubuntu One for its Ubuntu Linux desktop operating system.

The closed beta test began Monday for invited members of the Ubuntu user community, with further testers able to sign up by requesting an invitation, Canonical said.

Ubuntu One offers file synchronization for systems running Ubuntu 9.04, code-named Jaunty Jackalope, and is intended to be available to the general public in time for the launch of Ubuntu 9.10, code-named Karmic Koala, in October, Canonical said.

The system is integrated into Ubuntu’s Gnome desktop software via a downloadable client, and once installed creates an Ubuntu One folder in the user’s home directory, Canonical said.

When modifications are made to any of the files stored in this folder, the modifications are automatically uploaded to the Web service and propagated to the user’s other computers, according to the company.

Users currently get 2GB of storage for free, or 10GB for $10 per month, although Canonical said this pricing could change.

Windows 7 pricing is potentially an obstacle to Windows 7 adoption for some users, though in just about every other aspect the operating system is beating Vista, according to a Dell marketing executive.

If there s one thing that may influence adoption, make things slower or cause customers to pause, it s that generally the ASPs average selling price of the operating systems are higher than they were for Vista and XP, Darrel Ward, director of product management for Dell s business client product group, said in a phone interview, referring to the various versions of the Windows 7 operating system that are expected to appear.

Ward continued. In tough economic times, I think it s naive to believe that you can increase your prices on average and then still see a strong swell than if you held prices flat or even lowered them. I can tell you that the licensing tiers at retail are more expensive than they were for Vista.

In the business market, Windows 7 Professional is expected to be more expensive than Windows Vista Business, the version that Professional is replacing, he said.

Some schools and smaller businesses may not be early adopters due to price. Schools and government agencies may not be able to afford the additional cost . Some of the smaller businesses may not be able to enjoy the software as soon as they d like, Ward said.