Such innovations — and a number of smart acquisitions — have led to hits like Google Earth, Gmail, Picasa, Google Docs, Blogger, YouTube, Google Calendar and others.But they have also cultivated a vast jungle of lesser-known features. Unfortunately, it’s so vast, you’d need a professional tour guide to help you find the gems.State of the Art - Google Geniuses at Work on Free Goodies - NYTimes.com
Mr. Freeland is part of what he calls a revolutionary movement to close the “chasm in higher education between the liberal arts and sciences and professional programs.” The Association of American Colleges and Universities recently issued a report arguing the humanities should abandon the “old Ivory Tower view of liberal education” and instead emphasize its practical and economic value.In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth - NYTimes.com
The energy delivered by the sun is both intermittent and changes during the day and with the seasons. When this power density is averaged over the surface of the earth's sphere, it is reduced by a factor of 4. A further reduction by a factor of 2 is due to losses in passing through the earth's atmosphere. Thus, the annual average horizontal surface irradiance is approximately 170 W/m2. When 170 W/m2 is integrated over 1 year, the resulting 5.4 GJ that is incident on 1 m2 at ground level is approximately the energy that can be extracted from one barrel of oil, 200 kg of coal, or 140 m3 of natural gas.World Energy Council
The Santelli rant instantly made him a right-wing hero. His video went viral, and Dickensian news aggregator Matt Drudge labeled it "The Rant Heard Round The World," featuring it in a screaming all-red headline. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs felt obliged to rebut Santelli (while, characteristically, inviting him for coffee). National Review online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez raved, "The reaction to Rick Santelli's Chicago-trading-floor incident this morning echoes the emotional reaction my inbox had to Sarah Palin's convention speech this summer."TRB: Mad Men
Ratings over all for broadcast networks continue to decline, making it harder for them to justify their high prices for advertising. Cable channels are spending more on original shows, which bring in new viewers and dampen their appetites for buying repeats of broadcast shows.Broadcast Networks Battling Uphill for Profit and Audience - NYTimes.com
Roughly one-quarter -- 27%-- of U.S. adults are not Internet users.The Digital Divide - washingtonpost.com
43% of those who don't surf are over the age of 65.
43% have household incomes under $30,000 a year.
In comparison, 85% of households with incomes over $100,000 have broadband at home.
TdS: What are the advantages of a single global currency?E-Commerce News: Business: Would a Single Global Currency Have Helped Cool the Meltdown?
MB: In addition to eliminating currency risk and currency fluctuations, a single global currency would eliminate the need for foreign exchange reserves, which now total more than (US)$4 trillion in underutilized assets. It would eliminate approximately $400 billion spent annually in foreign exchange transactions. A single global currency would increase the global value of assets by tens of trillions due to the elimination of currency risk, and global inflation would be reduced by the management of inflation by a Global Central Bank, whose primary objective is monetary stability. Even in today's economy, that's "real money," as the late U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen would say.
Two disclosures on Thursday hit Goodwin like a jab and an uppercut. RBS, which Goodwin led for a decade, lost $34.2 billion last year -- a staggering national record. And the British learned that when Goodwin, 50, was forced out last fall he engineered a pension of more than $980,000 a year -- for life -- to be paid largely by British taxpayers.'Fred the Shred' Puts Face on British Banking Crisis - washingtonpost.com
He called for a massive stimulus plan, "not because I believe in bigger government, I don't," but because failing to do so would have "cost more jobs and caused more hardships." But he also promised that his energetic approach to government would continue. In particular, he argued that health care reform was an economic and fiscal necessity, not simply a moral imperative on behalf of the uninsured. Presidential aides said that the new math of health care creates new possibilities, rooted in a new consensus for reform across ideological lines.The Era of Bashing Big Government Is Over
Roughly 67 percent of those who acknowledged taking company data from their old employer said they did so in order to leverage a new job. But Gavin Manes, chief executive of Avansic, a digital forensics company that often is hired to investigate employee data theft, said individuals who hand confidential data over to a new employer or competitor are putting themselves -- as well as their former and prospective employers -- at grave legal risk.Data Theft Common By Departing Employees - washingtonpost.com
The proposal, included in yesterday's budget outline, would end a program that pays government subsidies to private student loan companies. The administration said the shift, which would mean that all federal loans would come directly through the government, would save $4 billion annually and $47.5 billion over the next decade.White House Plan Would End Subsidies to Student Lenders - washingtonpost.com
President Obama delivered to Congress yesterday a $3.6 trillion spending plan that would finance vast new investments in health care, energy independence and education by raising taxes on the oil and gas industry, hedge fund managers, multinational corporations and nearly 3 million of the nation's top earners.In $3.6 Trillion Budget, Obama Signals Broad Shift in Priorities - washingtonpost.com
"We have to ensure what they (US) are doing is WTO compatible when we are talking about trade, movement of goods, movement of people and movement of services," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said here.India may contest Obama's move against outsourcing in WTO - Foreign Trade-Economy-News-The Economic Times
India today said it would try to ascertain whether US President Barack Obama’s moves against job outsourcing violated the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Business | Nath WTO threat to Obama
Symantec officials are calling the bug Trojan.Mdropper.AC. A malicious Excel file creates a Trojan-horse binary when the user opens the file. At the same time, a regular Excel document opens, masking the problem, according to the blog.Microsoft issues advisory for Excel bug -- Government Computer News
The law requires that judges dismiss suits by people claiming that the companies violated their privacy rights, as long as the attorney general certifies that the firms were helping an anti-terrorism program that the president authorized.Obama administration backs telecom immunity
Indian IT industry body Nasscom has reacted cautiously to US President Barack Obama's remarks on outsourcing, saying global outsourcing had benefited US firms that generate over 50 per cent of their business overseas."American companies generate more than 50 per cent of their business outside the US. Their workforce is global. To be globally competitive, they also depend on globally shared services," Nasscom president Som Mittal told IANS on phone from the US.Global outsourcing benefited US firms: Nasscom- Hindustan Times
Shares of I.B.M. rose 3.7 percent, after the chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, said at a Goldman Sachs technology conference that January’s results were consistent with the company’s forecast for at least $9.20 in earnings a share for 2009.I.B.M. Affirms Its Outlook for the Year - NYTimes.com
The newest initiative was announced late last fall when there was great concern about the ability of college students and their families to get continued financing for education. The most likely size of the program, detailed in the Federal Register on Jan. 15, was $25 billion.Big U.S. Role in Lending to Students - NYTimes.com
Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement that the immunity bill "is the law of the land, and as such the Department of Justice defends it in court."Walker is weighing a challenge to the immunity legislation in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco. Congress crafted the bill after Walker refused to dismiss separate challenges brought by EFF accusing the nation's telecoms of violating the rights of millions of Americans for allegedly funneling electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.Obama Administration Supports Telco Spy Immunity | Threat Level from Wired.com
Social-media sites like Wikipedia and Digg are celebrated as shining examples of Web democracy, places built by millions of Web users who all act as writers, editors, and voters. In reality, a small number of people are running the show. According to researchers in Palo Alto, 1 percent of Wikipedia users are responsible for about half of the site's edits. The site also deploys bots—supervised by a special caste of devoted users—that help standardize format, prevent vandalism, and root out folks who flood the site with obscenities. This is not the wisdom of the crowd. This is the wisdom of the chaperones.Digg, Wikipedia, and the myth of Web 2.0 democracy. - By Chris Wilson - Slate Magazine
"We used lightweight carbon-fiber reinforced plastic throughout the body and frame for its superior collision safety," project manager Tetsuya Kaida said of the 1/X, which is pronounced "one-xth." "But that material is made from oil. In the future, I'm sure we will have access to new and better materials, such as those made from plants, something natural, maybe something like paper. In fact, I want to create such a vehicle from seaweed because Japan is surrounded by the sea."Toyota Wants to Build Car From Seaweed | Autopia from Wired.com
It's been a long time coming, but Federal CIOs now report to the top or second ranking official at their agency, according to a survey by TechAmerica, an IT industry association. Being unable to have one's voice heard by the top decision makers at an agency has been one of the highest complaints by IT executives, especially CIOs.The boss is finally listening to the federal CIO - FierceGovernmentIT
Celeno’s technology would be built into broadband access gateways, and while the company has not yet identified its equipment partners, Cisco is expected to top the list. By making wireless home networks capable of delivering multiple HD streams, the Celeno technology would enable consumers to stream video from the PCs to TV sets and other consumer electronics devices, delivering on a significant portion of the anywhere, anytime video promise.HD WiFi coming this summer?
Though details of how the money will be allocated, spent and monitored remain sketchy, the broadband stimulus fund already is generating controversy for how it is being split between agencies affiliated with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Many industry watchers preferred a stimulus package more organized under a single entity--the Commerce Department--rather than two separate departments, and some have alluded to the Agriculture Department's legacy of mismanagement allegations as reason why that department should not have control over any of the funds (It will have about $2.5 billion of the total $7.2 billion under its roof).Stimulus fun has just begun - FierceTelecom
Alcatel-Lucent is a co-author of the IEEE standard for 10G EPON currently being developed, and it has a significant role in developing the 10G GPON standard too, according to Marcus Weldon, CTO for Alcatel-Lucent's wireline network division. Weldon said significant deployments of 10G PON technologies, both GPON and EPON, likely won't occur in live networks until 2011. He said that even once 10G EPON has been standardized and products have been developed around the standard, uptake could be limited by the success of current deployments of 2.5G GPON.The current industry position for next-gen standards - FierceTelecom
The London summit on April 2 follows a November meeting in Washington where Group of 20 leaders vowed to act to help their economies, conclude stalled trade talks, reform international financial institutions and clean up the financial system.WTO urges G20 to keep up anti-protectionism pledge News - Yahoo!Xtra News
Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal said these comments are signs the language between Yahoo and Microsoft is becoming softer, suggesting the companies could be entering a "more polite negotiation phase."Yahoo CFO Says Not Opposed to Search Sale - NYTimes.com
Online software services like Google's Gmail -- which run on vast computer farms managed by companies like Google and Salesforce.com Inc., rather than businesses installing and operating the software themselves -- are a bright spot for the technology sector: Sales grew 27% in 2008 to $6.4 billion, according to research company Gartner. Such services are also often cheaper to operate and easier to get started on, making them attractive options during a recession.Gmail Glitch Shows Pitfalls - WSJ.com
Quake Live just launched into public beta, likely putting extra strain on your small office network and productivity. The free first-person shooter is based on the classic Quake III Arena, but now it runs inside a web browser. It's perfect for slacking off on nearly any PC, and when I finish this post, I'm going to jump into the fray. But if your employees can't wait to finish their work before playing, here's how to block access to the game.Block Quake Live to Boost Office Productivity - washingtonpost.com
Your Internet connection is full of software ports, virtual strands isolated for specific communications. Email access, FTP, instant messaging, and other Internet activities default to a certain port. Web traffic uses port 80, but Quake Live requires port 5222 even though it lives in a web browser; just block this port to leave other Internet services unaffected.
Potentially at stake is the business model of cable TV operators. They pay networks a per-subscriber fee each month for the right to carry channels. But the cable companies have groused that they are paying for content that programmers are giving away for free on the Web.Cable companies want a way to win with online TV - washingtonpost.com
NASA and climate researchers are weighing their options after yesterday's crash of a new satellite designed to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide with unprecedented accuracy. A malfunction during the rocket ride toward space sent the Orbiting Carbon Observatory plummeting into the Indian Ocean near Antarctica.Satellite Crashes After Its Launch - washingtonpost.com
At issue are annual reports that phone companies, internet telephony concerns, and calling-card companies need to file explaining how they protect individuals' phone records, cellphone location data and personal information from data brokers and over-the-line private investigators.FCC to Telecoms: Explain Privacy Protection or Pay Up | Epicenter from Wired.com
If March 4, 1933, and February 11, 2009, marked the nadirs of public confidence in Wall Street, then the years 1928 and 1999 marked the zeniths, when Goldman Sachs sold shares to the public for the only two times in its history. In December 1928, the partners of Goldman Sachs sold shares in a subsidiary called Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation--for its day, a complex, highly leveraged instrument with many layers that made transparency all but impossible. By the time of Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933, the shares were nearly worthless. For the next 70 years, burned by that experience and FDR's excoriation in 1933, the firm's partners retreated to their roots as a private partnership, using their own personal capital with only modest leverage to advance their role as a financial intermediary.OPM Addiction
Moving off in-house spreadsheet applications and tools provided by its prime brokers, Seasons Capital Management, a hedge fund manager based in San Francisco, has moved onto the Derivatives.com hosted, real-time risk management service offered by Imagine Software.Seasons Capital Management Chooses Imagine Software’s Derivatives.com by Advanced Trading
Unlike a laptop or an iPhone, the screen is not illuminated, so there’s no glare, no eyestrain — and no battery consumption. You use power only when you actually turn the page, causing millions of black particles to realign. The rest of the time, the ink pattern remains on the screen without power. You can set it on your bedside table without worrying about turning it off.State of the Art - Amazon.com’s Kindle Goes From Good to Better - NYTimes.com
The big Kindle breakthrough was its wireless connection. Thanks to Sprint’s cellular Internet service, the Kindle is always online: indoors, outdoors, miles from the nearest Wi-Fi hot spot.
This 2009 edition of the OECD Patent Statistics Manual takes stock of the recent developments in the field. It provides guiding principles for the use of patent data in the context of S&T measurement, and recommendations for the compilation and interpretation of patent indicators in this context. It aims to show what patent statistics can and cannot be used for, and how to count patents in order to maximise information on S&T activities while minimising statistical noise and biases. Finally, it describes how patent data can be used in the analysis of a wide array of topics related to technical change and patenting activity including industry-science linkages, patenting strategies by companies, internationalisation of research, and indicators on the value of patents.OECD Patent Statistics Manual - OECD Online Bookshop
The two credit and debit card issuers are warning financial institutions that malicious software was placed on the network of a payment processor, according to an announcement posted by the Tuscaloosa VA Federal Credit Union. The announcement was uncovered by Databreaches.net.Visa and MasterCard Issue New Breach Warning | Threat Level from Wired.com
This would make it the second payment processor reporting a major breach in a month, following an announcement last month from Heartland Payment Systems that it had been hacked as well.
The breach involves stored information from card-not-present transactions — purchases conducted over the phone or internet. The breach exposed card numbers and expiration dates, but not PINs or personally identifiable information stored on the card's magnetic stripe, such as the account holder's name.
Nobody expected the number-one-with-a-bullet rise of the music videogame—least of all the music industry. Armed with little more than crappy graphics, plastic guitars, and epic hooks, play-along titles like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have become an industry in their own right, raking in more than $2.3 billion over the past three years. Album sales fell 19 percent this past holiday season, but the thrill isn't gone—it just moved to a different platform.Why the Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero
To identify fraud, there are some red flags that all businesses should be aware of. Some of the red flags include the following:E-Commerce News: M-Commerce: Telltale Signs of E-Commerce Fraud
* Order velocities -- Defined as multiple orders placed within the same day, hour or minute, they typically appear from one device, one address, one card or one user ID.
* Risky street addresses -- Often, you can accurately estimate the level of risk of carrying out an order by utilizing the Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) More about Google Maps Street View to determine the location of the shipping address. If the address looks like an abandoned building, making a call to validate the card holder really made the purchase is advised.
* Anonymous/free email accounts -- These email accounts illustrate a higher percentage of fraud activity than those associated with a paid Internet service provider or a company email address.
Bernanke told Congress on Tuesday the recession might end this year, and that regulators aren't planning to nationalize banks. The news alleviated some of investors' worries about the economy and the banking industry, and lifted the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index off their lowest levels since 1997.Stocks up on Bernanke remarks; focus now on Obama - Yahoo! Finance
And investors are hopeful that Tuesday night, Obama will provide specifics about his plans to stabilize the financial system and further stimulate the economy. Anticipation of his remarks helped drive beaten-down financial shares up sharply."
There's growing optimism that Obama can deliver the details that the market is so desperately looking for in his speech," said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management. If it gets those details, Larson added, the market's upward momentum could continue.
The Federal Communications Commission proposed $20,000 fines on more than 650 small phone, pager and wireless providers late Tuesday, accusing them of not filing paperwork that certifies they've put protections in place to protect customer phone data.FCC Slaps Telecoms on Customer Phone Data - WSJ.com
"I have long stressed the importance of protecting the sensitive information that telecommunications carriers collect about their customers," said Michael Copps, the FCC's interim chairman, in a statement. "The broad nature of this enforcement action hopefully will ensure substantial compliance with our (privacy) rules going forward as the Commission continues to make consumer privacy protection a top priority."
For five years, Li's formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels.Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street
Two New Jersey IT services firms allegedly used shell businesses in two small Iowa towns—Coon Rapids and Clive—as part of an elaborate H-1B visa fraud scheme that began to unravel Feb. 11 with the arrests of 11 individuals in seven states. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the scheme involved hiring college-educated foreign workers to allegedly fill high-tech jobs in Iowa when, in fact, the workers were sent to the East and West coasts while being paid the lower prevailing Iowa wage rate.More IT Vendors Make H-1B Scam List
In other cases, the DOJ claims, foreign workers were recruited and H-1B visas were obtained for nonexistent jobs or the workers were placed in jobs and locations not previously certified by the Department of Labor, replacing qualified American workers and violating prevailing wage laws.
The $7.2 billion slice of the $787 billion economic stimulus package set aside to spur investment in high-speed Internet may not live up to its full promise of job creation.U.S. Broadband Investment Offers More Than Just IT Jobs
Instead, the program's success is better calibrated by how it improves productivity and spreads more opportunity to people in rural areas often overlooked by big corporations, according to industry experts at a Thursday conference on the impact of the stimulus.
Smaller carriers with inroads in rural areas are the most likely to seek the funds, Wall Street analysts said. These carriers include CenturyTel Inc, Windstream Corp and Frontier Communications Corp.
As a term, "public diplomacy" came into being with the creation of the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy at Tuft University's Fletcher School. According to one the center's earliest brochures:MediaShift . Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Part 1 | PBSPublic diplomacy...deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies. It encompasses dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy...[including] the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries...[and] the transnational flow of information and ideas.
The practice of public diplomacy has evolved significantly with the emergence of digital media technologies, but based on my conversations with people in this field, the meaning of the term has remained largely intact.
This very easily could have been some tirade about the evils of second-hand games and how the resale market bleeds money from the game development community. After all, a retail chain that makes millions by selling used games and doesn't pay a dime in royalties to the game makers on those sales is slowly killing some game makers. It almost was that rant, but in chatting with developers and executives at the summit, I got to thinking. Between the recession and advances in digital distribution, 2009 will be the year that everything changes. Let me count the ways...4 Signs That Retail Games Are Dying - washingtonpost.com
Most of the stimulus -- $4.7 billion -- will come from a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce called the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The NTIA's share will fund both urban and rural broadband while the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) -- part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- will distribute the remaining $2.5 billion for rural broadband exclusively.Stimulus Broadband Requirements Being Written for Locals
For 2009, the carrier is highlighting its continued investments in: subsea networks; its European data centers in the Netherlands and the U.K.; hosted and managed services; and Ethernet services for corporate customers.Light Reading Europe - Ethernet - AT&T Plans $1B Global Spend - Telecom News Analysis
VeraSMART Communications Management Suite will provide the City of Beaumont’s Communications Division with a number of benefits. The Division will now be able to receive telecom carrier invoices electronically, automatically validate the invoices, track and manage disputes, and allocate approved charges to appropriate City departments and managers.The City of Beaumont Manages Telecom Expenses with Veramark
No it is not related to the stimulus or the bail out. It is the estimated dollar loss that Dennis C. Blair, the Director of National Intelligence referenced in the Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for intellectual property and data theft in 2008 for businesses globally. The methods, tools, techniques, technologies and motivations are all there to place your sensitive corporate data at risk.$1 Trillion
The number of U.S. employees, contractors and business owners who worked remotely at least one day per month increased 17% in the past two years, from approximately 28.7 million in 2006 to 33.7 million in 2008, according to global HR association WorldatWork. In the five-year period since 2003, the total number of once-a-month telecommuters in the U.S. has risen 43%.Telework ranks swell - Network World
TuesdayIn Hindsight: In this stormy economy, 'distressed' is hot - SiliconValley.com
In Denver, President Barack Obama signed a $787 billion economic stimulus bill into law. Obama defended the package of tax cuts and spending as "the beginning of the first steps to set our economy on a firmer foundation, paving the way to long-term growth and prosperity." Congressional Republicans, who would have preferred more tax cuts, criticized the spending in the bill as wasteful. Every Republican in Congress except three moderate GOP senators voted against the bill the week before.
Meanwhile, in Detroit, struggling automakers General Motors and Chrysler asked the government for an additional $14 billion in aid and said they would cut a combined 50,000 jobs in an effort to stay afloat.
Why now? Armstrong has three points: The bar has been lowered in terms of Wall Street expectations, both telcos have "an achievable path to growth in 2010," and both offer a big, safe dividend -- about 7% annual payout -- to help you bide your time.Goldman's Bold Call Lifts AT&T, Verizon | Telecom | Financial Articles & Investing News | TheStreet.com
The role of economic development doesn't crop up often, if at all, in discussions centered on public CIOs. But a small group of government IT leaders believe public CIOs have a very important economic role to play. Like Obama, they recognize that economic success depends, more than ever, on the solid underpinning of IT and that government is a key player in the economy.The Economics of Technology for CIOs - Government Technology
It has been more than 35 years since Martin Cooper placed the first call on a mobile phone to his rival at Bell Labs while working at Motorola. Heck, it's been nearly 20 years since Saved by the Bell’s Zack Morris placed a phone call to Kelly Kapowski from his locker. In that time, phones have come a long way.Gallery: From Brick to Slick: A History of Mobile Phones
Communications technologies, mainly the Internet and mobile phones, have dramatically altered the ways in which individuals interact with each other and, in turn, consumers are shifting more of their purchases from the physical world to the virtual. Merchants have adapted by becoming multichannel marketers and banks are following suit by providing new means for consumers to interact with their finances through popular tools such as online bill pay and mobile banking.E-Commerce News: E-Commerce: Alternative Payments: More Ways to Close the Sale
The stimulus bill provides US$7.2 billion for grants, loans and loan guarantees, primarily for areas that lack broadband or are "underserved," though the term is not defined. Some of that money is set aside to expand Internet access at public centers like community colleges and public libraries.E-Commerce News: Cable & Satellite: Will Rural Broadband Goose the Economy?
One reason the money won't likely have much impact is its small size: less than 1 percent of the overall stimulus package, and substantially less per citizen than some countries, like Ireland and Sweden, have spent on improving their networks.
Google's stated mission, after all, is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."This makes it seem like we've become much better at sharing. We share our music (as long as the Recording Industry Association of America doesn't sue us), we blog our thoughts, we pass videos to one another with the ease of a link.On the Net: Does Google inspire sharing or not? - washingtonpost.com
But at the same time, we have no patience when it comes to sharing this information personally. The Internet has essentially made questions from one person to another beginning "Do you know ... ?" somewhat obsolete.
Who needs a smart buddy when you've got Google, the Internet Movie Database and (gulp) Wikipedia?
Obama is set to name Earl Devaney as chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, an administration official said Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending.The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House had not made public the announcement.Devaney, the inspector general of the Interior Department, helped turn up disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings at the department. The department's No. 2 official, Steven Griles, pleaded guilty to charges he lied during congressional testimony based in part on Devaney's investigation.Italia Federici, co-founder of the Council of Republicans for Environmental AOfficial: Investigator to lead stimulus oversight: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
HCM CITY — HCM City’s emegence as a viable outsourcing hub is being attributed to a combination of its low costs and proactive local government measures to attract hi-tech industries, according to a report from global auditing and consultancy firm KPMG issued at the Nasscom outsourcing event in India this week."One of the reasons that HCM City has emerged as a favourable [outsourcing] destination is the proactive measures being taken to improve the city’s infrastructure, including telecommunications, power and transportation," says Tommy Woo, advisory partner of KPMG in Viet Nam.Viet Nam News
She is also redefining herself to some extent. After going to Beijing in 1995 as first lady to deliver an impassioned speech on women’s rights, Mrs. Clinton has sidelined human rights on this trip, saying she does not want the topic to interfere with central issues like climate change or the economic crisis.Clinton Redefines Approach to Being Secretary of State - NYTimes.com
According to the Reuters-University of Michigan Survey of Consumers earlier this month, nearly two-thirds of consumers expected that the present downturn would last for five more years. President Obama, in his first press conference, evoked the Depression in warning of a “negative spiral” that “becomes difficult for us to get out of” and suggested the possibility of a “lost decade,” as in Japan in the 1990s.Economic View - Can Talk of a Depression Lead to One? - News Analysis - NYTimes.com
He said Congress needed to pass an economic stimulus package — as it ultimately did — to prevent this calamity.
The attention paid to the Depression story may seem a logical consequence of our economic situation. But the retelling, in fact, is a cause of the current situation — because the Great Depression serves as a model for our expectations, damping what John Maynard Keynes called our “animal spirits,” reducing consumers’ willingness to spend and businesses’ willingness to hire and expand. The Depression narrative could easily end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Google maintains that its lead in the Web search market is tenuous, saying that with a simple click of a mouse, a user’s loyalty could evaporate at any moment.Digital Domain - Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big - NYTimes.com
But consider this: As recently as July 2005, Google was ahead of Yahoo in market share by just six percentage points, at 36.5 percent to 30.5 percent, according to comScore, the market research company. Today, however, that advantage is much wider, at 63 percent to 21 percent.
“You almost feel sorry for Google,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land. “They’re doing a good job and people are turning to them. But when they pass 70 percent share, people are going to be uncomfortable about Google becoming a monopoly.”
Google does not register gains every month. The comScore numbers for January reflect a 0.5 percent drop in its share from December and a 0.5 percent gain for Yahoo. But according to Hitwise, another online measurement service, Google has already surpassed the 70 percent benchmark. It estimates that Google has 72 percent of the United States market, versus 17.9 percent for Yahoo. Microsoft’s two search services, MSN and Live.com, constitute a distant third, at a combined 5.4 percent.
Japan eventually pulled itself out of the Lost Decade of the 1990s, thanks in part to a boom in exports to the United States and China. But even as the economy expanded, shell-shocked consumers refused to spend. Between 2001 and 2007, per-capita consumer spending rose only 0.2 percent.When Consumers Cut Back - A Lesson From Japan - NYTimes.com
Now, as exports dry up amid a worldwide collapse in demand, Japan’s economy is in free-fall because it cannot rely on domestic consumption to pick up the slack.
In the last three months of 2008, Japan’s economy shrank at an annualized rate of 12.7 percent, the sharpest decline since the oil shocks of the 1970s.
Major media companies are pinching pennies because their main source of revenue -- advertising -- has been rapidly drying up.E-Commerce News: Publishing: Journalists Squeezed Out in Media Belt Tightening
The downturn for newspapers began several years ago as Web sites like Craigslist offered free advertising alternatives and Internet search leader Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) More about Google developed a more effective marketing vehicle. The worst recession since the early 1980s has prompted advertisers to curtail spending even further.
The U.S. newspaper industry, as a whole, is expected to collect about $28 billion in ad revenue this year, a 40 percent drop from $46.6 billion in 2006, according to a Barclays Capital analysis.
The president inherited a deficit for 2009 of about $1.2 trillion, which will rise to more than $1.5 trillion, given initial spending from his recently enacted stimulus package. His budget blueprint for the 2010 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, will include a 10-year projection showing the annual deficit declining to $533 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, the last year of his term, officials said.Obama Has Plan to Slash Deficit, Despite Stimulus Bill - NYTimes.com
While that suggests a two-thirds reduction, exceeding Mr. Obama’s goal of at least half, advisers note that the current deficit as a starting point is inflated by one-time expenses to stimulate the economy.
Measured against the size of the economy, the projected $533 billion shortfall for 2013 would mean a reduction from a deficit equal to more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product — larger than any deficit since World War II — to 3 percent, which is the level that economists generally consider sustainable. Mr. Obama will project deficits at about that level through 2019, aides said.
No one thinks that Wall Street is done with the quantitative approach. If anything, there's a new quest underway for better algorithms. Here's how Andrew Lo, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Laboratory for Financial Engineering, puts it: "It's an arms race where no one has an incentive to pull back on their own." It's interesting that more universities--such as Columbia--are already planning to tweak their curricula to help graduates understand the broader dimensions of their trade.Demand for quants still strong, but... - FierceFinance
Most banks no longer hold the loans they make, content to collect interest until the debt comes due. Instead, the loans are bundled into securities that are sold to investors, a process known as securitization.Lending Locked, U.S. Tries Trillion-Dollar Key - NYTimes.com
But the securitization markets broke down last summer after investors suffered steep losses on these investments. So banks and other finance companies can no longer shift loans off their books easily, throttling their ability to lend.
The result has been a drastic contraction of the amount of credit available throughout the economy. By one estimate, as much as $1.9 trillion of lending capacity — the rough equivalent of half of all the money borrowed by businesses and consumers in 2007, before the recession struck — has been sucked out of the system.
Banking chiefs, who have come under sharp criticism for not making more loans even as they have accepted billions of taxpayer dollars to prop themselves up, say it is the markets, not the banks, that are squeezing American borrowers.
The Obama administration hopes to jump-start this crucial machinery by effectively subsidizing the profits of big private investment firms in the bond markets. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve plan to spend as much as $1 trillion to provide low-cost loans and guarantees to hedge funds and private equity firms that buy securities backed by consumer and business loans.
The bill relies on increased competition for development of new services in broadcasting and cable, telecommunications, information and video services while it reasserts Congress' leadership role as the dominant communications policymaker.U.S. Policy: Telecommunications Act of 1996
Papandreou called for an end to "state, federal, and local land use policies that are literally forcing people to have to drive" and told Wired.com we're on the cusp of an inevitable "mode shift" away from individual car ownership toward a greater reliance on mass transit and sustainable transport.It's Time for Cities to Favor People, Not Cars | Autopia from Wired.com
America's transition to over-the-air digital television signals, which netted the government $19 billion in a wireless spectrum auction, was doomed from the start, thanks to a flawed voucher program and a time frame that left the country stranded between administrations.How We Bungled the Digital Television Transition | Epicenter from Wired.com
In January, close to two million people were stuck on the waiting list for $40 coupons that only cover part of the cost of a digital television converter. The converters make new over-the-air digital signals watchable on analog televisions, expire after ninety days, and originally could not be sent to anyone with a P.O. box or nursing home address.
The so-called "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act of 2009," or SAFETY Act, was floated in both the House and Senate on Thursday.Feds Propose Storing Internet User Data for 2 Years | Threat Level from Wired.com
Among other things, it demands: "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."
The highly developed analysis and reporting functions of GIS systems facilitates researchers, epidemiologists and emergency response specialists to analyze, report and make solutions for perfect and efficient management of emergency response situations and food quality issues.Geomatics services in India
Geomatics inputs can be used to scrutinize deployment, ground surveillance activities, analysis and reporting of information related to the National Surveillance and Security Operations.
Geospatial services are used in marine responses like scheduling river and port patrols and modeling scenarios to assess the impending spread of various pests under various annihilation and control options.
A key area in which to look for operational improvements is in relations with suppliers. More than half of GM's costs--$50 billion per year--come from parts the company purchases from suppliers. But GM relegated its discussion of suppliers to a two page appendix, which is hardly enough for something with so much effect on both cost and value. GM says it wants to work with healthy suppliers, but that's very incomplete. How are the suppliers, themselves on the edge of bankruptcy, supposed to achieve this?The Grade on Detroit's Bailout Proposals: Incomplete - The Plank
There is no mention of joint efforts to eliminate waste, which is a highly successful method of cost-cutting, or of working together with suppliers so that components interact better in order to produce, say, a smooth, quiet ride, or a pleasing interior. Instead, the report suggests, suppliers are somehow supposed to come up with money to improve technology on their own.
There's a wicked little piece in today's NYT about how college students' somehow, somewhere along the way came to believe that if they put in the effort then they automatically deserve a high grade, regardless of the actual quality of their work.An A for Effort? Talk About a Lousy Idea - The Plank
Alec Ross, a member of Obama's Technology, Innovation and Government Reform Team, said at the Mobile Learning Conference in Washington that the new administration has called on the Federal Communications Commission to create within one year a comprehensive strategy for broadband Internet.Obama Tech Adviser Says More to Come on Broadband Push - Post I.T. - A Technology Blog From The Washington Post - (washingtonpost.com)
The stimulus "is not the puzzle but just a piece of the puzzle," Ross said.
Obama has promised to bring broadband Internet access to remote areas that aren't connected to the Web today. It is part of his strategy to create jobs and bring "21st century" economies to rural and low-income areas.
Yet to understand Obama's vision for technology, one need not look beyond broadband policy, Ross said. The president sees access to the Web as as a key component of modernizing healthcare records, reforming education, and helping reduce global warming.
About $19 billion in stimulus funds will go to health information technology, which would digitize medical records, for example.
Unlike earlier releases, this treasure chest of 3-D cartography doesn't just show what's on the ground today. It includes a collection of overhead views from earlier years and lets you view the majority of the Earth's surface covered by its oceans.Google Earth Goes Into the Past, Underwater--And Deep Into Your Computer's System - Faster Forward
The historical imagery is likely to be the biggest time-suck. To see what a place looked like before, click the clock icon in Google Earth's toolbar, then move a slider back to earlier years. For example, you can see that in 1949, there was only one 14th Street Bridge going over the Potomac (although a second span was under construction). The Las Vegas of 1950, meanwhile, is a barren, lifeless desert.
FCC officials said 421 broadcasters in mostly smaller markets shut off analog signals at midnight on Tuesday. By 11 a.m. yesterday, the FCC had received 6,750 calls from viewers needing help setting up converter boxes to receive signals or scanning for the new digital channels. Since the transition took effect in the early morning hours, the agency was expecting far more calls throughout the week.Some Markets Pull Plug on Analog TV - washingtonpost.com
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is put together by the University of Michigan and ecommerce partner ForeSee Results, online retailers as a whole received an aggregate score of 82 out of 100, higher than online brokerages and travel operators, the other online sectors the Index looked at.US Census Bureau: ecommerce slumped in Q4 2008 | Econsultancy
On an individual company basis, Newegg edged out Amazon.com for the top score (88 to 86, respectively) while eBay's score plummeted to 78. Certainly not good for eBay, but interestingly, despite its drop, eBay still scored higher than online travel operators. The sector's aggregate score was 75.
As times get tougher, it's natural to expect that online retail sales will continue to come under pressure and the winners (and survivors) will be those who excel operationally and deliver high levels of customer satisfaction.
IBM said this week that it wants to use funds from the recently passed federal economic stimulus package to roll out more BPL — a technology with a history of false starts — in rural parts of Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and Virginia, according to Reuters.Broadband stimulus puzzle
“In the communications sector especially, innovation has been technology-driven,” Morelli said. “Innovation should be driven by shareholder value and not by a technology agenda. The positive impact of having less money is that products will be reviewed for what will really generate in value. In our survey, executives told us they stopped innovation projects because they didn’t manage to generate enough value for each dollar invested in the innovation.”Tough times require different approach to innovation
Big Blue has not missed a step. It has begun to sign up Internet customers in Alabama, Indiana, Michigan and Virginia. It is involved in a venture with International Broadband Electric Communications (IBEC), a company that provides broadband over power line (BPL) services.IBM plans to use stimulus to expand broadband service - FierceCIO
There have been significant advances recently in biogeographic theory and remote sensing imagery that can be applied to provide testable propositions about Bin Laden’s current location (3-4). Distance-decay theory and island biogeography theory are two biogeographic theories associated with the distribution of life and extinction that can be used to identify the location of Bin Laden at global and regional spatial scales.Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan - Study narrows down Osama in Kurram Agency
While the trading community has been reticent thus far, said Niederauer, “CDS is only the first of what I expect will be many OTC derivatives that move toward an exchange clearing model and represent a key area of future growth for us. We are having active dialogue with the new administration’s transition teams and regulators, and we stand ready to provide central clearing, transparent reporting, and anything else that the markets and regulators require.”Launch Imminent for NYSE’s U.S. CDS Clearing Service
NYSE Euronext is clearing European CDS trades through Bclear--the confirmation and processing platform of its Liffe derivatives subsidiary--which feeds trades to LCH.Clearnet. Liffe and LCH.Clearnet announced Dec. 23 that they had received exemptions from the Securities and Exchange Commission to let U.S. users clear through the system. When NYSE Euronext takes its derivatives clearing in-house with the launch of LiffeClear, slated for the second quarter, it will end its relationship in that sector with LCH.Clearnet, which will continue to manage the guarantee fund for Liffe derivatives.
The flap began on Sunday when the Consumerist blog noted the change in Facebook's Terms of Service. That led to stories from the wire services and New York Times and blogs, and thousands of irate Facebook users joined protest groups in Facebook. The media sought out controversy, while the protesters conjured fantasies of Facebook making millions by selling demographic information on users that signed out permanently.Let's Learn From Facebook's Terms-of-Service Flap | Epicenter from Wired.com
All 38 bank failures since the beginning of 2008 are detailed on TheStreet.com's new interactive bank failure map, which debuts today:New: Interactive Bank Failure Map | On the Brink | Financial Articles & Investing News | TheStreet.com
Ontario County's story is still a rarity. A CIO seldom becomes the region's chief technology officer -- a de facto role Hemminger took -- who plans how infrastructure investments can boost economic development. But some experts believe there's a leadership vacuum waiting to be filled by confident and ambitious public-sector CIOs.Economic Development is Growing Task for Government CIOs - Government Technology
"IP continues to be a partial voice solution for most businesses with VoIP, particularly among larger businesses," said David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst. "Therefore, there is significant room for growth even among businesses that have already adopted it."VOIP to Slow, Says Report - Government Technology
For the first time, we polled you on the top five skill sets needed in 2009. Eighty-one percent of you picked project management, making it the No. 1 choice, followed by security, Web services, database management and networking. Interestingly few believed open source to be a necessary skill, perhaps reflecting a focus on building practical skills in these lean times.Here are the findings in more depth.Information Security and Project Management are Top CIO Skills - Government Technology
Who You Are:
Ten years ago, most people who ran a government IT department were called director. Today, the title CIO dominates. It's a clear sign of the rising importance and value of IT in the public sector. At the same time, we're seeing signs that the retirement wave is beginning to hit the ranks of CIOs, as the average years of tenure drop compared to last year.
Title:CIO: 50%
CTO: 5%
Deputy CIO: 11%
IT manager: 10%
Other: 24%
FACT: Use of the CIO title is at its highest level ever in government, up from less than 25 percent just two years ago to 50 percent today
According to the Center for Digital Government and other sources, the legislation includes several technology-focused initiatives:Stimulus Bill to Boost State and Local Information Technology - Government Technology
* $30 billion for a "smart" U.S. power grid, advanced battery technology and energy efficiency in government buildings and schools.
* $20 billion over the next 10 years in tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
* $15 billion for investments in basic research and development to train students for an "innovation" economy, and in deploying new technologies into the marketplace.
* $7 billion for broadband, including build-out in rural areas
* $19 billion to accelerate adoption of health IT, including electronic health records for the public
* $8 billion for high-speed rail projects.
These are rough estimates, and which projects are funded from these pools of money remains to be seen.
The Obama administration and its economic team are pushing for the funds to be spent quickly. But the process could be slowed, observers say, by the procurement processes of state and local government.The Obama administration has launched Recovery.gov to track transparency and spending of the stimulus package. According to the Web site, federal agencies will begin awarding block grants as soon as Thursday.
Global spending on IT services and outsourcing was estimated at $488 billion in 2007 and is predicted to rise an additional 9% in 2008, according to Forrester Research Inc. At $120 billion, IT outsourcing constitutes roughly 25% of this spending. Forrester estimates that clients can expect to save roughly 12% to 17% by outsourcing their operational activities. Learn how to properly strategize your IT outsourcing to achieve the best ROI for your business.A global view of outsourcing | Outsourcing guide for CIOs
State-of-the-art movie-makers are using collaborative virtual environments to ‘enhance’ every phase of filmmaking. It’s been said that instead of enhance; I should use the word ‘homogenize.’ But what good would that do? Sometimes I feel like the new methods are like “design by committee.” Collaborative design by the moderately talented tends to have a smoothing effect, polishing off the edgy parts of narrative. Everything seems to get blended up into a palatable but uninspired bit of entertainment. It’s a safe way to make entertainment, but may not be the most exciting. I, for one, believe there is still a place for the talented lone writer or designer who is willing to take a risk coming up with the fresh and unexpected. Committees don’t do that very often.Filmmaking — Think Globally, Expand Locally | Studio Daily
