I didn’t think the complex and lingering flavors of a 16-year-old Lagavulin single malt Scotch could get any better. After all, this is one of the consummate classic whiskys, renowned for its smoky, peaty personality.

But when I poured a dram through the Vinturi Spirit aerator, my skepticism faded. I was astonished by the subtle but distinct enhancement of flavor. It was like jumping from DVD to Blu-ray.

A couple of years ago, Vinturi pioneered the single-glass aeration process with its now-popular red wine Vinturi aerator. It followed it a year later with an aerator specifically engineered for...

EMC dresses up Hadoop for the IT set. Photo: Flickr/On The Go Tours

Like so many others, EMC’s Greenplum unit is dressing up Hadoop for a go at big business.

On Wednesday, EMC announced a data analytics platform that starts with a structured database, adds the Hadoop Big Data software, and wraps them in a social network. Known as the Greenplum Unified Analytics Platform, it handles both structured and unstructured data, incorporating the company’s SQL database and Hadoop implementation and allowing data to flow from one to the other. Organizations can use data stored in Hadoop from the G...