text:
Click here to view Figure 1.
Juniper Research released a white paper today listing its Top 10 Tech Leaders, Influencers and Visionaries of 2015. Who doesn't love a top 10 list? Of course, the best thing about a top 10 list is that you get to argue endlessly about the rankings, who belongs on the list, and who is overrated. And this list gives us plenty of fodder for debate -- including the utter lack of women in the top 10.
Before we dissect the list as we would the pre-season football polls, let's look at the criteria Juniper chose for compling the rankings. The first thing to understand is that Juniper Research decided to make it harder on itself: The firm isn't recognizing the most influential people of last year. Rather, it's attempting to predict who will be most influential in the 12 months ahead. Predicting the future and then making a top 10 list out of it doubles the fun.
Executives are ranked based on eight criteria: Innovation, scalability, reach, business model, personal capital (personal influence), outside impact, end-user impact, and vision. For the most part, the criteria seem aimed at going beyond growth or results inside a company. Juniper Research wanted to measure impact across a variety of sectors. That makes sense, because we're not judging "best CEO" or "Wall St. MVP." Juniper Research is measuring the impact these execs are having on technology, and tech is a bigger game than the bottom line.
Juniper Research's analyst team created a short list of 20 tech leaders it thought were most likely to score well on the list. Then, the team assigned a score ranking in each category. The total scores were tallied to come up with the list. Out of respect for the leaders on the list, Juniper Research did not make the individual scores public.
One of the most interesting things about the list (I promise, no spoilers), is that it includes traditional tech "leaders" as well as those with design responsibilities. It is clear that Juniper Research took the idea of who imagines and envisions the technology very seriously when putting together the rankings. Some traditional movers and shakers are nowhere to be found, while other names will surprise you.
Check out the list, counted down like any good top 10, and tell us what you think. Who is overrated? Who did Juniper miss? Who should have been No. 1? Let's debate in the comments section below.]]>
Google presented a preview of the next version of Android, an Android offshoot for the Internet of Things, and a new version of Google Photos, among other announcements, during the keynote session at its Google I/O 2015 developers conference in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday. The event is taking place May 28-29 at the Moscone Center under noticeably tighter security than in recent years.
Google highlighted its interest in virtual reality through wrap-around projection screen graphics in the keynote auditorium. The animation depicted a rain of ones and zeros similar to the iconic torrent of alphanumeric characters in the title sequence of The Matrix.
Sundar Pichai, SVP of products, presided over the event, noting that Google Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail, Android, and Chrome all have more than 1 billion users.
Various Google executives described features in Android M Developer Preview, the next version of Android. Available to developers now, the software is expected to be available to the general public in Q3 2015.
Android M is focused on polish and quality, which, coincidentally, is what Apple has chosen to focus on for its upcoming OS releases – haste to market has a price.
"The central theme of M is improving the core user experience," said Dave Burke, VP of engineering.
New Android M features include:
Android M will also include an expanded version of Google Now, the company's automated assistant application. Soon, Google Now will have a feature called Now on Tap that allows users to invoke Google Now based on the app context following a tap. This technique allows Google Now, for example, to provide information about a movie mentioned in an email on screen at the time of the tap event.
Developers will be able to integrate this functionality into their own apps, to encourage users to re-engage with their apps.
Android Pay represents a second attempt to turn mobile payments into a meaningful business. In 2011, the company launched Google Wallet, a mobile payments app designed to store multiple credit cards, in partnership with Citi, MasterCard, First Data, and Sprint. But the product never won wide support from consumers, and suffered from personnel departures. What's more, it earned active antagonism from other mobile carriers, which pushed their own Isis payment service and blocked Google Wallet.
AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA, and Verizon Wireless changed the name of their service from Isis to Softcard in 2014 to avoid the undesirable association with the acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Then, in February 2015, Google acquired Softcard from the mobile carriers, and a truce of sorts was formed out of the practical need to respond to the emergence of Apple Pay, which has reinvigorated the mobile payments market and may see further enhancements at Apple's developer conference in June.
Click here to view Figure 1.
In an email to InformationWeek, John Haro, CTO of Vibes, a mobile marketing company, characterized Android Pay as an effort to play nice with the major payment networks and banks. "What Google showed us this morning is the result of this focus and acknowledgement that reducing friction and removing roadblocks for the customer is critical to gain adoption," he said. "Including better support for fingerprint scanning will further improve this experience and bring it in line with what consumers on the iPhone are becoming accustomed to."
Haro suggested the similarities in Android Pay and Apple Pay indicate the standardization of mobile payments, and predicts that consumers will soon see mobile payments as a compelling alternative to traditional credit cards.
Pichai offered an overview of a version of the Android operating system for the Internet of Things called Project Brillo. "Brillio is derived from Android, but we have taken Android and polished it down," said Pichai. "Hence the name 'Brillo.'"
Brillo will be supported by a JSON-like communication schema called Weave that provides a common format devices can use to communicate. Brillio is due in Q3 2015, while Weave is due in Q4.
A renovated version of Google Photos, a cloud photo storage service, debuted, now separate from Google+. The mobile app includes the ability to view images by day, month, or year, a new editing interface, and support for gestures like pinch-to-zoom. Most significantly, Google Photos offers unlimited free storage of photos up to 16MP and of videos up to 1080p.
Clay Bavor, VP product management, took a moment to provide an update on Google's virtual reality efforts. With more than 1 million Google Cardboard VR viewers distributed since last year, Google is updating Cardboard to support larger phones.
"Phones, it turns out, got a lot bigger in the past year," said Bavor.
Google is introducing an educational program called Expeditions that allows teachers to take classes on VR field trips. And it is developing a VR program called JUMP to promote the construction and use of 360 cameras – to encourage the creation of 3D stereoscopic imagery for VR viewing – and to provide a platform for processing and viewing the content. GoPro has committed to creating such a camera. And this summer, YouTube will support JUMP content.
Google previewed various developer tool enhancements. Android Studio 1.3 will include faster build speeds, a new memory profiler, and support for full C++ editing and debugging support.
Polymer, Google's JavaScript library for creating modular web components, has reached its 1.0 milestone. Introduced last year, Polymer offers web developers an easy way to implement reusable interface and design elements.
And Google made numerous improvements to the Google Play Store, such as visitor analytics and the ability to create a vendor-specific home page for multiple apps.
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During this week's Google I/O developer's conference in San Francisco, the search giant revealed statistics that cement its status as a global tech powerhouse.
Sundar Pichai, Google's SVP of products, announced Thursday that there are 900 million users on Gmail. This marks a massive increase from 2012, when the company last refreshed the data on its email service and found it had 425 million users.
Three-quarters of Gmail users access their email via mobile devices, Pichai noted. Google is working alongside the global mobile trend with a new email service called Inbox, which exists on top of Gmail to help users with organization.
[Google: Your Password Security Questions Are Terrible]
Basic functions of Inbox include highlighting important information like documents and photos before the email is opened, and grouping related messages like receipts and bank statements so they can be easily viewed and deleted. Users can create tasks, snooze reminders, and view information that isn't in an email; for example, the status of a package on its way.
The service was only available to invitees for testing when it launched back in October 2014, writes USA Today. Now Inbox boasts a few new features and is open to all Gmail users.
With the new features added to Inbox, users can group travel notifications and easily view data like hotel reservation numbers and departure times. They can also add custom email signatures and, perhaps best of all, retract an email if they regret hitting "send."
It should be noted that, according to Google, the Gmail and Inbox services are different in nature. The company plans to move forward with Gmail development. This initiative is more of an indication that Google is experimenting with how it wants its email service to evolve in the future.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Pichai also highlighted the remarkable growth of Android. The mobile platform now has one billion users and runs on eight out of ten smartphones around the world.
The skyrocketing popularity of Android could prove a boost to Android Pay over the coming months. Google also announced that customers of 700,000 stores and services like Bloomingdale's, Lyft, Macy's, and Grubhub will be able to pay via Android Pay, reports CNET.
Android Wear has also evolved. Google originally launched two iterations of the wearable and has now broadened its collection to seven smartwatches. There are now 4,000 apps for Android Wear, another key statistic mentioned at Google I/O.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]
Kate Johnson becomes the CEO of GE Intelligent Platforms Software just as the Internet of Things is altering the landscape for industrial software. GE sells about $4 billion worth of software a year, but since that software is spread across its industrial businesses, the business has been fairly low-profile.
GE expects that profile -- and revenue -- to rise as industrial companies see the chance to collect more data from networked equipment, and analyze that data better to improve their operations, such as predictive analytics that can spot a looming breakdown so workers can prevent it. "You're starting to see a GE software footprint," Johnson said.
As more companies become digital businesses, and embed some kind of technology in their product or customer experience, they're going to face the decision GE did: Do we sell software as its own product, or do we bundle in software as part of the product? Whether you're selling a car, annuity, or amusement park ticket, software will become an increasingly important part of the experience.
GE does sell software as its own product, thought it does so largely to its installed base of customers in power, water, aircraft, locomotives, and other mostly industrial products.
"What 'good' looks like is when Power & Water sells more software to their installed base, to drive more value out of those assets," Johnson said. GE sells a portfolio of industry-specific software for managing and analyzing industrial data, much of it built on its Predix development platform.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Johnson wears two hats -- CEO of GE Intelligent Platforms, and Chief Commercial Officer, reporting to CMO Beth Comstock, where she's been working to improve GE's ability to commercialize software. Johnson comes from tech, most recently as a senior VP for Oracle's North American consulting business. Here are some insights from our recent interview with Johnson as she takes the CEO role:
Why now for GE to push its software business more?
Two reasons, one external and one internal, Johnson said. Externally, would-be customers are ready to embrace analytics in a much bigger way to wring more value out of their industrial equipment.
Internally, GE is farther along on its own transformation, better integrating the role of analytics and a digital experience in the design and operation of industrial gear. Johnson has been focused since joining GE on helping the company hone its software selling.
"Selling industrial equipment and selling software is different. … Software is about selling an outcome -- there's nothing the customer can hold," Johnson said.
Are CIOs leading this digital industrial push, or getting pushed aside?
GE Intelligent Platforms is targeting CIOs directly with this message of analytics and digital business, Johnson said, "so you can be the hero."
Companies across industries face the same problem -- keep assets running, get more productivity from existing infrastructure. But digital business could get companies -- and IT -- out of pure cost-cutting mode. CIOs can be the person to bridge the information technology and operational technology worlds, since CIOs understand the data and how to drive cross-company projects.
"There's a digital revolution out there, and we have to figure out how to take advantage of that, not just by driving efficiencies but by finding new revenue opportunities," Johnson said.
So what's holding companies back from embracing the industrial Internet?
Complexity, Johnson said, and in particular knowing where to start. That's another area CIO experience helps -- knowing how to take an incremental approach to a potentially big project. Johnson recommends starting by getting one key asset networked, and running some time series analysis against it to start getting insight into its operations.
[Tear down the silos. See How Corporate Culture Impedes Data Innovation.]
"If you start with connecting one asset, it's addictive," she said.
Is the software group a spin-off play down the road for GE, like American Airlines' Sabre reservation tech business became many years ago?
Johnson says no: "We see our software as inextricably tied to our equipment." GE's competitive advantage in software comes from its knowledge of the industrial gear itself, combined with its new and growing software talent that includes a major software center in San Ramon, Calif.
"That's why we've been successful so far -- no one knows that pump as well as us," Johnson said.
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Buying is an emotional act. That's why you need machines.
Persado, a machine learning company, claims its algorithmic copywriting produces better direct marketing response rates than ad copy penned by humans. The company was founded on December 12, 2012, a date associated with a trinity of dozens because, "We're all about math," said director of marketing Julia Spano.
Machines already write prosaic financial news and sports reports, with the help of companies like Automated Insights and Narrative Science. But writing compelling ad copy, arguably a creative endeavor, ought to be difficult for machines.
David Atlas, chief marketing officer at Persado, insists otherwise. "We're seeing about a 75% average improvement in performance," he said, specifically in reference to short, direct marketing messages sent via SMS and email.
The company's clients include: Best Buy, Ci6, LivingSocial, MetLife, Neiman Marcus, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and ZipCar.
As an example of what Persado does, consider two Verizon Wireless email campaign messages. One opened with, "Stay connected in a whole new way. Upgrade to a smartphone today." Another opened with, "Congrats, we're pleased to reward you for your loyalty. You've earned it, now enjoy it."
Click here to view Figure 1.
The first message generated a click-through rate of 8.2% and a conversion rate of 13.7%. The second message generated a click-through rate of 24.6% and a conversation rate of 20.75%. This second, optimal message was the top performer among over half a million ad permutations and resulted in an order rate increase of 51%.
Whether people respond to marketing messages is often a matter of emotion, according to Atlas. By encoding and categorizing the terms used in marketing pitches, Persado has constructed an emotional classification system -- a taxonomy -- that it can use to assess the sentiment evoked by specific ad copy and the relative likelihood those feelings will prompt an ad recipient to respond.
Atlas describes the algorithm developed by his company as "a math problem that solves for the most persuasive message."
"You now have the mathematical insights at a word and phrase level about which emotions are driving response," said Atlas.
Nonetheless, Atlas doesn't believe Persado will factor humans out of the copywriting equation. He likens his company's system to a spell-checker that frees marketers from details, allowing them to focus on the bigger picture. AI can also stand for augmented intelligence.
Persado makes a persuasive case for automation as a way to increase revenue, and for the general value of machine learning to IT organizations.]]>
Siri, Apple's iOS-based personal assistant, has been the butt of more jokes than it has been the subject of praise. Siri may be functional for some voice-activated tasks, but it doesn't offer the powerful predictive assistance offered by Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana.
A new report suggests Apple is hoping to change that with iOS 9.
Apple has been quietly working on a project called Proactive for several years. Proactive bundles together the powers of Siri with the contacts, calendar, and Passbook apps, in addition to third-party apps to challenge Google Now, reports 9to5Mac.
Google Now and Cortana are able to search through users' inboxes and calendars to generate alerts for upcoming calendar appointments, flights, or commute times. The just-in-time information is truly helpful -- if you own an Android or Windows Phone handset.
Proactive is seen as the next step in the evolution of Apple's Spotlight Search, according to 9to5Mac. It will dive much deeper into the user's personal data, and, as such, will exist as a new layer within the operating system -- replacing Spotlight on the home screen. Apparently Apple has been looking for ways to cut down on its reliance on Google. Spotlight's current position on the home screen, which is hidden, has reduced use of the Apple-made search tool.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Moving Proactive back to the main screen is seen as a way boost adoption.
The tool will have its own screen and user interface for presenting calendar details, daily news stories, and other content. Proactive will be able to automatically push relevant information and/or notifications based on the iPhone owner's usage patterns.
Like Google Now and Cortana, it may tell people that it's time to head to the airport in order to catch a flight, or use real-time traffic data to suggest they leave the office a bit early to avoid an accident. Proactive may also make suggestions based on what people normally do over the course of the day, such as phoning relatives.
A big part of Proactive will entail integration with Apple Maps.
For example, Proactive will be able to surface points of interest relevant to a user, such as the location of the next meeting on the calendar. Moreover, 9to5Mac's sources say Apple Maps may gain some augmented reality features for displaying this content. Rather than work with third-party companies like Foursquare or Yelp, Apple is going it alone to develop this augmented reality data.
The last piece of the puzzle here is Siri itself. Apple has a limited API on deck called Breadcrumbs that will give third-party apps some access to Siri's features. Apple is worried about customer privacy, which is why the API will be restricted from accessing all of Siri's powers.
[Read about how Office is coming to Android.]
With a modicum of voice assistance and maps, calendar, and app integration, Proactive sounds like a much more complete vision for Siri and Spotlight Search.
Proactive's place in iOS 9 is not assured. Some executives have reservations about launching such an ambitious feature. It may go live on a smaller scale, with other features to arrive later down the road.
Apple is expected to reveal iOS 9, with new HomeKit powers, and the next version of OS X at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8.
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New giants of the global economy are being born and maturing on the Internet, companies like Alibaba, Google, and Amazon. To a surprising degree, what used to be mix of international companies is now a more uniform pattern of ownership: the top 15 are all owned by businesses in either the US or China.
In her annual report on Internet Trends for 2015, Mary Meeker highlights how much has changed since the Internet's take-off point 20 years ago. In 1995, publicly owned companies with a strong business presence on the Internet, such as Netscape, Apple, and the German-owned Axel Springer, amounted to $17 billion in market capitalization.
Twenty years later, Apple remains on the list and is bigger than ever, but Netscape and Axel Springer have dropped off it. The top 15 Internet companies represent a market valuation that has increased 141-fold to $2.4 trillion, reflecting the explosive growth of Internet adoption and use as a platform for business around the world.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Meeker is the former Morgan Stanley analyst who is now a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers. Her voice has become respected for her ability year after year to paint in broad strokes how the Internet is changing business and our lives. Her 2015 report starkly lays out the owners of the future online economy, and it's a picture that will give many in other parts of the world pause.
[Want to learn more about how Facebook provides new user services? See Facebook Breaks New Ground In Cold Storage.]
Apple, worth $3.9 billion in 1995, leads the list at $764 billion in market value today, followed by Google, not on 1995's list but now worth $373 billion. No. 3 is Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce and payment engine, worth $233 billion. Other companies with ownership in China include No. 6 , Tencent Holdings, the online entertainment and social network worth $190 billion, and search engine, Baidu, No. 8, just behind eBay and worth $72 billion. Also, No. 11, online retailer JD.com, is worth $48 billion.
In addition to Apple and Google, the other nine are all relatively young US companies who have seen a meteoric rise in value as the Internet spreads around the world. They include (4) Facebook, at $226 billion; (5) Amazon, $199 billion; (7) eBay, $73 billion; (9) Priceline.com, $63 billion; (10) Salesforce, $49 billion; (12) Yahoo, $41 billion; (13) Netflix, $38 billion; (14) Linkedin, $25 billion; and (15) Twitter, $24 billion.
Meeker presented both her 1995 and 2015 lists to make the point that the Internet is changing the economy and those changes are redistributing the relative value of global businesses around the world. Axel Springer, the German media giant, is scrambling to shift its businesses online. The Canadian broadcaster and wireless service supplier, iStar Internet, No. 11 on the 1995 list, is still in business but didn't show up on this year's listing.
In the 20 years she's been doing the report, the number of Internet users has risen from 35 million in 1995 to 2.8 billion in 2015. That's a change from .6% of the world's population to 39%. India is on track to become the second largest consumer of the Internet by number of users in the world over the next few years. The addition of new users is growing at a rate of 33% there. China already leads with 23% of all Internet users but is now growing at a slower rate of 7%. The US is adding 2% to its user total and accounts for 10% of users. In Brazil growth in users is 4%. In Japan, the pace has leveled off and stopped growing.
Meeker aired the results of her latest findings at CodeCon May 27, an annual technology conference for tech enthusiasts in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Her annual presentation was a whirlwind tour of data, as she clicked through 197 slides. One of the primary things to emerge from her Internet Trends report is the unmistakable growth in mobile computing as the way people are interacting with the Internet.
The use of mobile phones has grown faster than Internet usage itself. In 1995, there were 80 million mobile users; by the end of 2014, there were 5.2 billion -- a shift form 1% of the population to 73%. About 40% of the mobile phones in use qualify as smartphones. The increase in smartphone use is still "strong but slowing," Meeker said in her report. The growth rate was 27% in 2013 and slowed to 23% in 2014.
New consumers continue coming to the Internet around the world, even if the rate of expansion is slowing. Consumer usage grew 31% in 2012, 24% in 2013, and 21% in 2014. Video makes for an enormous amount of the data they wish to find there. Downloads and viewing of posted Netflix and Amazon Prime videos accounted for 64% of traffic in 2014, was 62% in 2013, and 57% in 2012.
Time spent with digital media per day has shown regular growth -- from 2.7 hours a day in 2008 to 5.6 hours today. Mobile computing is almost entirely responsible for that growth. Use of a desktop or a laptop computer as the means of access has remained basically steady at 2.4 hours a day. Access via mobile device has increased from .3 hours to 2.8 hours, now accounting for 51% of the total, Meeker said.
The growing use of mobile opens the door for more mobile advertising. Mobile users account for 24% of the time spent on the Internet but just 8% of the $50 billion in advertising dollars spent trying to reach Internet consumers. That means there's a $25 billion opportunity remaining for new mobile advertising, Meeker said. Mobile advertising is likely to grow at a rate of 34% a year, while the amount spent on desktop advertising will decline 11% a year, Meeker predicted.
Mobile advertising is likely to become more tuned in to what the user is doing, such as Google's ability to show products in a story close to where the mobile user is located. Facebook is offering carousel ads that let a user scroll through many images of a product sought. New advertising is appearing as short videos that are fun to watch. Pinterest cinematic pins offer video related to pins a person has scrolled through, marking content of interest on the Internet.
Many sites, including Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Google, are adding "buy" buttons that minimize the friction to buying at the moment that it sparks an interest. If the user's ID has already been established and credit card information is on file, then the buy button lowers many barriers to impulse purchasing. DocuSign and other electronic signature generators are making it possible to bypass paper and do business remotely with legally recognized name signings.
Personal communications and messaging dominate the top 10 applications in use on the Internet. Facebook leads the pack, followed by WhatsApp , Messenger, Instagram, Line, Viber, Kakao Talk, Clash of Clans, WeChat, and Twitter. "Mobile messenging leaders may evolve into central communication hubs," Meeker said.
Content creation on the Internet continues to accelerate, with users producing, sharing, and curating the biggest share of new content. They do so on such familiar sites as Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Twitter.
Millennials are now the largest group in the workforce. Their expectations of what the work environment will be and the ways they will thrive in it are different from the generations that have gone before. When it comes to collaboration, they clearly prefer to do it online through automated systems, not in meetings. They want to bring their own devices to work and have them supported.
All in all, from the perspective of two decades, the Internet's evolution appears to have come a long ways. But "it's stil early," Meeker warned. This process of empowering the consumer, changing business processes, and substituting new patterns of consumption has only just begun.]]>
This week, Lenovo unveiled a host of new products and demonstrated several conceptual designs, including the Magic View smartwatch concept, which features dual screens.
The Magic View's second screen serves as a virtual interactive display and frees users from the limitations of the physical dimensions of the main screen.
The smartwatch uses optical reflection to create a virtual image and allows users to see a virtual display more than 20 times larger than the watch face display, allowing users to follow a map, view photos, or watch a video.
The Magic View was one of several new products or concepts Lenovo detailed on May 27 and 28 at its Tech World conference in Beijing. Like other PC makers, the Chinese tech giant is looking to move beyond conventional laptops and desktops into wearables and other Internet of Things devices, where the Apple Watch has an early lead.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Besides the smartwatch, a different kind of wearable technology was on hand with Smart Shoes, one of the company's IoT products that leverage the cloud to tie together hardware, software, and applications -- but this time on your feet and not your wrist.
The shoes, which come with a screen, can display a person's mood on its screen, and also track and analyze fitness data, including heart beats and caloric consumption. They can even provide maps and directions to places.
Beyond wearables, Lenovo also unveiled the Smart Cast concept product, which boasts a built-in laser projector, an infrared motion detector, and high-performance algorithms.
This combination of technologies allows users to project a large virtual touchscreen onto a table in order to type with a virtual keyboard and work with specific productivity apps for calculating, drawing, note-taking, or editing in Microsoft PowerPoint.
Click here to view Figure 2.
By deploying the projector, users can change a wall into a movie theatre, give a presentation, or play games using hand gestures on the table or cast onto the wall.
For video chat, they can project content onto the wall while viewing different content simultaneously on the smartphone's screen.
Lenovo also showed off a new software feature that ties together speech and writing technology for the eight-inch Yoga Tablet 2 Android with AnyPen for Mandarin.
With the company's WRITEit and Fusion Input technology, users can use gestures and context to define and correct voice recognition results on-screen -- previously a difficult task for a written language that has 7,000 commonly used characters.
[Read about Microsoft Office and Android.]
During the keynote, Yang Yuanqing, the company's chairman and CEO, reaffirmed Lenovo's commitment to creating more natural ways to connect people with devices, to building reliable and ubiquitous device and network connections, and to giving customers the power of big data and their own personal cloud.
In advance of the company's conference, Lenovo also announced the Z41, Z51, and the entry-level IdeaPad 100 laptops. The Z51 features an optional Intel RealSense 3D camera, featuring full 1080p color and a depth sensor, allows users to scan objects to print, to play games in 3D, and to use gestures to control the laptop.
The 14-inch Z41 and 15-inch Z51 will be available through the company's website and will hit retail shelves starting in June, with prices for both laptops starting at $499. The Z51 with the RealSense 3D camera comes with an Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB memory. It starts at $599.
The Lenovo IdeaPad 100 14 and 15-inch notebooks, which feature Intel BayTrail-M N3540 processors, up to 500 GB HDD storage, and integrated Intel Graphics, will be available in June for just $249.
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In the world of in-memory computing, SAP's HANA has the big name, but it's not the only game in town. Other databases can do all or part of their work in memory, though the definitions can get a little fuzzy around the edges of the market.
Let's be clear: Whenever the phrase "in-memory computing" comes up, the more accurate phrase might be "in-memory database."
Compact applications running against limited data sets aren't a big problem. When the application sits on top of an enterprise database, that's when the data's location starts to matter in a most significant way.
Microsoft's SQL Server 2014 provides in-memory computing … sort of.
Redmond is careful not to call what they do in-memory computing, referring to it as "In-Memory OLTP." (OLTP is on-line transaction processing.) According to a page on the MSDN website, "In-Memory OLTP is a memory-optimized database engine integrated into the SQL Server engine, optimized for OLTP."
What this means is that you can define part of the application data as being specifically for transactions -- typically, the high-speed, intensive reads and writes that come with market segments like retail and banking.
The defined parts of the database are kept in memory, where they benefit from low latency and high overall performance. On a regular basis, though, the transaction records will be rolled into a portion of the database that's reserved for analysis -- analysis that is typically performed through pre-defined reports run on a scheduled basis.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Oracle in-memory database, available with Oracle Database 12c, takes an approach much more like that of SAP's HANA. It is, according to Oracle, designed to run both OLTP and OLAP (on-line analytics procession) from the same database. From the database application perspective this is important because it boosts performance and capabilities in two critical ways.
First, the single-database approach eliminates the need to move data from one database (or part of a database) to another before analysis can be performed. Since the data movement is generally a performance-sapping process run at times when the OLTP needs are smaller, this means that queries can be made and reports run at any time, rather than on the next business day after database been moved.
Next, because the OLTP and OLAP databases are the same, queries can be run against the entire data set at any time. The ability to perform these "ad-hoc queries" has long been a holy grail of application designers -- and the top of data base administrators' nightmare lists.
There are other in-memory databases, as well. According to Wikipedia, there are 47 different in-memory databases currently available.
[Read how big data is scoring big during the NHL playoffs.]
Why all the interest and the options?
For Gary Orenstein, CMO of MemSQL -- one of the 47 listed options -- the answer is straightforward.
"I think that the ability to do transactions and analytics in the same database is critical. The market is betting on the need to do real-time information and answers," Orenstein said during a phone interview. "Companies now have to satisfy that demand for real-time information and more specifically real-time answers, and you simply don't have the option to move data around to reach an answer point," he explained.
The search for high-speed answers is running into the price of RAM in massive quantities. There's no question, though, that a growing number of companies are willing to pay the price for answers at the point of executive need -- whenever and wherever that need might occur.
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Click here to view Figure 1.
When people discuss the IT skills shortage, they're typically talking about the technical chops that set IT pros apart from the rest of the working world: big data and analytics, cloud computing, software development, operations, information security, and so forth.
They're probably not thinking of things like teamwork.
Yet a recent IT employment report from industry association CompTIA suggested that so-called "soft" skills -- non-technical abilities such as effective written and oral communications or project management -- are a big deal for employers, and a big challenge in the IT labor market. Soft skills ranked as the fifth-largest hiring challenge for the 400 human resources professionals surveyed in CompTIA's HR Perceptions of IT Training & Certification Study (registration required), beating out issues such as salary alignment and competition from larger companies. For comparison, hard skills ranked second, with appropriate work experience as the top headache when recruiting and hiring IT pros.
No matter which side you take in the IT skills shortage debate, hiring managers say obstacles to finding and retaining tech talent are real. In that same CompTIA report, 93% of HR respondents reported challenges in finding the right IT job candidates during the previous 12 months, with more than two thirds of them saying it was "very challenging" to fill their IT job openings.
"There is a fairly tight hiring environment for IT positions," said Tim Herbert, VP of research and market intelligence at CompTIA, in an interview. "When you get down into certain skills, it becomes even more acute."
There are a lot of job openings, too, according to CompTIA's IT Employment Snapshot for Q1 2015. There were more than 850,000 open IT positions in the US in Q1, based on data from Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights. And, yes, if you're hiring a Java developer, you're going to need to find someone who knows how to write the code, among other abilities. Chances are you're also going to want someone who can communicate with the rest of the business, derive meaning from data, solve problems as they arise, and adapt to changing business conditions.
For example, if you want to be a viable candidate for this current opening for a Java developer at health insurance giant Aetna, you're going to need experience in Java 1.5 or above, object-oriented design, Web containers such as Tomcat, frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, and Junit, among other technical skills. You'll also find this desired skill right alongside those Java fundamentals: "excellent verbal and written communication skills." The listing also includes foundational business skills such as "creating accountability," "turning data into information," and "communicating for impact."
The underlying challenge with soft skills, for employers and IT pros alike is they're often vaguely defined. There are plenty of ways to determine if your potential Java developer knows her stuff: Check references, give a code test in the interview, check out her Github or other code samples, and so forth. But how do you tell if someone has initiative? We all think we know what the term means, especially in a work context, but our definitions probably differ. It's an inherent abstraction. Even the definition of a seemingly clear-cut ability such as problem-solving will vary based on the organization and other variables and, according to Herbert, may be a proxy for a wider set of business needs and employee attributes. The very phrase "soft skills" could use a rebranding -- it sounds vague and even suggests a lack of importance, which clearly isn't the case for many employers.
Indeed, companies can improve how they define what they really want when it comes to skills such as problem solving or flexibility. Likewise, IT pros can do a better job of developing and showcasing such skills as part of their career trajectory. This can be done in a variety of ways, including taking online courses (many of them free or low-cost); joining local tech associations and networking groups; taking advantage of corporate training and education; or getting involved with work projects that will require you to develop skills and give you new bullet points for the resume. For example, if you've been stuck in a functional IT silo, volunteer for a project that will require working with an interdisciplinary team, especially if it involves working closely with other business units such as finance or customer service. Now, you've got credible evidence of "teamwork" -- one of the soft skills employers are definitely looking for.
Skill Shift
Herbert of CompTIA noted a general shift in the role of IT and the skill set required for the future. The days of corporate IT as a back-office or support function are waning as technology becomes more pervasive throughout organizations. Strategic IT pros can no longer simply "work with the business" -- they need to be an integral part of the business. Whether you're pursuing a strategic priority with the CFO or working face-to-face with external customers, soft skills become critical for success.
"[Companies] are so reliant on technology that they have to make the IT side and the business side work more efficiently than may have been possible [in the past]," Herbert said.
Building the right soft skills will help top IT talent stand out in the modern era and, to use our aforementioned example one more time, avoid being pigeonholed as "just a Java developer," a reductive label that likely doesn't reflect your actual value. Using information supplied by CompTIA, which typically relies on a mix of surveys and interviews, Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and Burning Glass Technologies Labor Insights tracking of job postings, we've identified eight crucial, non-technical skills that companies are looking for in their IT hires.]]>
The Department of Justice doesn't want the US Supreme Court to consider Google's claim that software APIs should not be covered by copyright law.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice argues that the high court should reject Google's appeal of a federal appeals court ruling that sided with Oracle. In 2010, Oracle sued Google for patent and copyright infringement over Google's use of Java in Android.
In 2012, after Google was found not to have infringed Oracle's Java patents, US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that Google could use Oracle's Java APIs in Android because the sequence and structure of APIs are not protected under copyright law.
Just prior to that decision, the Court of Justice of the European Union came to a similar conclusion, ruling that neither the functionality of computer code nor the format of data files are expressive enough to qualify for copyright protection.
[ For more on Google, read about 10 things we expect from its I/O Developer Conference. ]
But in 2014, a Federal Circuit decision reversed Alsup's ruling, prompting Google to petition the Supreme Court to review the case.
The DoJ isn't necessarily siding with Oracle. Rather it contends Google's infringement should be evaluated to see whether it's defensible as fair use -- a determination that deadlocked the original jury.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Google may have a hard time convincing a jury that its actions qualify as fair use. Infringement for the purpose of interoperability may qualify for fair use but, the DoJ filing asserts, "Google purposely designed Android not to be compatible with the Java platform or interoperable with Java programs."
Google expressed dissatisfaction with the DoJ filing. "While we're disappointed, we look forward to supporting the clear language of the law and defending the concepts of interoperability that have traditionally contributed to innovation in the software industry," a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
James Grimmelmann, professor of law at the University of Maryland, said in an email that the DoJ brief offers a "notably poor explanation" of the way software works.
"Contrary to what the brief says, interfaces are meaningfully different from implementations; this is first-semester computer science," said Grimmelmann. "The [Solicitor General's] office didn't have to mush them together to make its argument that this case should be dealt with through fair use rather than through copyrightability. That it did so raises the concern that the DOJ is giving advice on a technology it doesn't understand. And given how important software is to the economy, that's truly frightening."
In its amicus brief supporting Google's appeal and representing 77 prominent computer scientists, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said, "The Federal Circuit's decision poses a significant threat to the technology sector and to the public. If it is allowed to stand, Oracle and others will have an unprecedented and dangerous power over the future of innovation."
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Click here to view Figure 1.
Big data is changing the competitive landscape. Those who are in a position to take advantage of it often get to market faster with products and services that are better aligned with customer needs and desires. A 2014 Gartner survey found that 73% of respondents had invested in -- or planned to invest in -- big data in the next 24 months, up from 64% in 2013. Improving customer experience and process efficiencies are the top two priorities cited by respondents.
Customer experience improvements are happening online and offline, with data being collected from smartphones, mobile apps, POS systems, and e-commerce sites. With the ability to collect and analyze more data, and more types of data, than ever before, businesses are in an unprecedented position to quantify what works, what doesn't work, and why. And, the ones that are the most agile are adjusting their business strategies as necessary to increase or maintain marketshare. When executed well, customer experience improvements can help boost customer loyalty and revenue growth. On the other hand, if a company chooses to disregard what the data is indicating, it may well lose customers and deals to a more agile, data-savvy competitor.
Process improvements continue to focus on efficiency gains, cost savings, and product or service quality. Here, big data can provide more and deeper insights than traditional systems because there are more data points and data sources to analyze.
Whether a company is trying to drive revenue, speed time to market, optimize its workforce, or realize other operational improvements, the goal is to become more proactive and less reactive, which means using predictive analytics to shorten the learning curve.
There are many ways to improve operations using big data. Here are six of them.]]>
Microsoft has announced the availability of SQL Server 2016 in public preview. This is just one of multiple data and storage updates to come from Redmond this week.
CEO Satya Nadella first announced SQL Server 2016 at this year's Microsoft Ignite conference. In his keynote, Nadella promised that the intelligent platform would be available in preview this summer and include better data protection, deeper data insights across on-premises and cloud, and the ability to stretch transactional data to Microsoft Azure.
It's not quite summer yet, but Microsoft is ready to debut the first public Community Technology Preview (CTP2) for SQL Server 2016. Eager adopters can get a sneak peek at the new platform's capabilities and test the preview through virtual machine in Azure or in their environments.
Those who choose to download the preview can expect to see new features including:
[MS Office Coming to 20 More Android Tablets]
In a May 27 blog post on the news, Microsoft highlights additional features of the SQL Server 2016 CTP2 including row-level security, temporal database support, dynamic data masking, query data store, and enhanced hybrid backup to Azure. Testers can opt to receive more frequent updates to their previews instead of waiting for CTP3.
Also available in public preview is Live Encoding for Azure Media Services. This is a cloud-based workflow that lets users send a single high-quality video feed to an Azure data center, where it is encoded into an adaptive bitrate stream. The simplified stream process makes it easier for customers to run live events from remote locations while paying only for a good WiFi or mobile network, Microsoft explains. With Live Encoding, users can also run encoders built into cameras or less expensive encoders that don't require as much power.
Click here to view Figure 2.
Other news from Wednesday includes the StorSimple 8000 Update 1, which is the first major software release for the StorSimple 8000 series, designed to help enterprise customers handle data growth and storage management. The most recent update includes SDK support for Azure PowerShell and Zone Redundant Storage support, as well as data migration tools to assist users in upgrading to the 8000 series.
Microsoft has also released the SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1, Power BI Content Packs, System Center 2012 and R2 Configuration Manager Service Packs, and the Microsoft Intune May Service Update.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]]]>
Microsoft has won over more tabletmakers in its bid to increase adoption of Office on mobile devices. This week, Redmond announced that 20 OEMs have agreed to install Microsoft's productivity apps on their tablets, a sign that the software giant is finally making the right waves in mobile.
Microsoft's new tablet partners come from near and far.
Some of the most prominent include Haier, LG, Prestigio, and Sony. These 20 new firms join 11 others, including Dell, Pegatron, and Samsung, that made similar commitments earlier this year. All 31 of the tablet builders will preload Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and Skype on their hardware in the near future.
More specifically, Microsoft said Sony will put Office on the Xperia Z4 tablet and LG will put Office on a new, soon-to-be-launched tablet both in the next three months.
Microsoft's aggressive push onto competing platforms clearly spells out its goal for Office to be the default productivity tool for mobile workers. The company has systematically improved Office for mobile devices -- including those running Android and iOS -- and now offers feature-rich versions of these core apps for free.
Click here to view Figure 1.
More importantly, Office has been reengineered for touch-based devices. The most recent versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, OneNote, and Skype are touch-friendly and support mobile document creation, editing, and management.
"Our strategic agreements with these partners demonstrate how Microsoft is leveraging the scale of the hardware ecosystem, and working with partners in new ways to deliver rich experiences to our customers," wrote Nick Parker, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Original Equipment Manufacturer Division, in a May 26 blog post. "This is a cornerstone of our cross-platform services strategy, to bring an array of Microsoft services to every person on every device. By pre-installing Microsoft software and services solutions on Android tablets, our partners are able to increase the value of those devices by delivering the rich productivity experiences customers want."
Office is a highly visible product, of that there is no doubt.
Let's not forget, however, that Google has its own productivity apps based around its Google Drive product. Google Docs, Sheets, and Presentations are capable in their own right and are backed by the power of Google's cloud services. Google's productivity suite is also free to Android tablet owners.
[Read about Microsoft Office alternatives.]
Both Office and Drive are available to Apple's iPad and iPhone, as well, but Apple will never consent to preloading them. Apple would prefer owners of its tablets and smartphones use its own iCloud service and Pages, Numbers, and KeyNote -- all of which are available to its mobile and desktop machines.
Microsoft is smart to go after Android tablets.
Android tablets continue to make gains against Apple's iPad in the global market, while Microsoft's own Surface tablets still have a long way to go to match the adoption rates set by Android or iOS. With 31 OEMs prepared to put Office on their devices in the next few months, Microsoft has done what it can to maximize the potential footprint of Office users around the world.
The full list of the 20 partners announced this week includes: Axdia, Cube, DL, General Procurement, Grupo Nucleo, Haier, Inco, Ionik, Iview, LG, Multilaser, Noblex, Pacific Vulcan, Philco, Positivion, Prestigio, Sony, Teclast, TMAX Digital, and Wortmann.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek Conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]]]>
Search giant Google is looking to give its Nexus line of products a boost with the release of two smartphones later this year, according to a report on AndroidPolice.
One device, codenamed Bullhead, would sport a 5.2-inch display and be manufactured by LG, while the second, codenamed Angler, would boast a 5.7-inch screen and will be made by Huawei.
The report makes no mention of the flavor of Android the smartphones would be running, but it appears likely that both will feature the upcoming Android M flavor, which is due to be announced at Google I/O later this week.
Google I/O is slated to kick-off later this week on Thursday, May 28. There are a number of announcements expected, including the new version of Android, details about the company's plans for virtual reality, and even an update on how many women Google plans to hire to help diversify its workforce.
The AndroidPolice report, which claims an unnamed but "reliable" source, said the LG model would run off a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor and feature a battery around 2700mAh, while the Angler will reportedly pack a battery with 3500mAh capacity and run a Snapdragon 810 chip.
The article also claims Google will not add another Nexus tablet to the family of devices, which currently includes six smartphones and four tablet computers.
Although all the devices that run Android and Google manages the design, development, marketing, and support of the smartphones and tablets, additional development and, most notably, all the actual manufacturing are carried out through partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like LG, Huawei, and others.
Click here to view Figure 1.
In its first quarter earnings call in April, Google's chief financial officer Patrick Pichette acknowledged that sales of Nexus devices had slid.
While Pichette did not elaborate as to what was causing the decline, some analysts pointed to the relatively high price of the flagship Nexus 6 model ($649 for 32GB of storage), underwhelming battery life, and a subpar camera as possible factors.
In addition, while larger screen phones have found favor with the consumer market -- and as this report demonstrates, Google is doubling down on prevailing trends -- the Nexus 6's 6-inch screen felt awkwardly large to some critics.
The company can take comfort in the fact that the market for smartphones is still booming. Worldwide sales of the devices to end-users reached 336 million units, up nearly 20% during the first quarter of 2015, according to a report from IT research firm Gartner.
[Read about the Nexus 6 versus the iPhone 6 Plus.]
Huawei and LG, Google's two OEM partners for the upcoming Nexus smartphones, landed in fourth and fifth place, respectively, with 4.8% and 4% marketshare, trailing Samsung, which boasts 30% marketshare; Apple, with 15%; and Lenovo, with just under 6%.
While price points for the two devices haven't yet surfaced, the Gartner report suggests keeping the price tag on the lower end of the scale could be a promising strategy, since emerging markets achieved a 40% increase in sales during the first quarter of 2015.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek Conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]]]>
Imagine if you could be identified with certainty from 40 feet away by anyone with a special camera and your iris scan in a database. Carnegie Mellon researchers at the Cylab Biometrics Center have invented a device that can do that. It should definitely have criminals feeling nervous, but maybe we should all be nervous.
First the good news. According to SRI International, a spinoff of Stanford Research Institute, iris scans are 1,000 times more accurate than fingerprint scans. We're already using handheld iris scanners in high security situations. The new Carnegie Mellon device will work up to 40 feet away -- even in a mirror -- so, for example, a police officer making a traffic stop can safely identify a potentially dangerous suspect before he even exits his vehicle.
The whole system works with fewer false positives than fingerprints, and it's effective at the same general range as facial recognition. (Facial recognition famously failed during the Boston bombings because no pictures were close enough.) Here it is in action:
Here's the bad news. At 40 feet away, the government could now (or soon, because this version looks like it needs some focus time and for you to sit still a bit) scan crowds of people for "irises of interest" and literally troll a city street for "the bad guys." Even the most security-minded person probably feels a little strange about that, especially when you consider that irises can be scanned passively.
For now, this isn't a major threat because if your iris has never been scanned, no one can identify you. The FBI has at least 104 million fingerprints in its database -- 70 million of which are from criminals. It has no known iris database, though it has experimented with the idea.
[ Not everything that helps the government has a dark side. Read 4 DARPA Projects We Love. ]
What if you scanned a city street daily? You may not be able to identify whom all the irises belong to, but you could say, "The same iris, which we now call Iris 543-X, walks by here at roughly the same time every day." The assumption, then, is that Iris 543-X belongs to someone who lives or works in the area. As thousands of irises are scanned and stored, eventually a giant database could be created to track the movements of every iris that walks in front of a camera. Eventually, you're going to identify Iris 543-X, especially if Iris 543-X can be cross-matched to facial recognition software or other forensic databases.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Pretty soon, with a handful of cameras in the right areas, the numer of irises captured and stored could easily surpass the 140 fingerprints in the FBI's database. Sounds scarier now, right?
Now imagine using it in retail to track shoppers to offer them "deals," or in education to track students in the name of security. The opportunities are endless, as are the chances to violate someone's privacy and civil liberties.
This is a perfect example of a technology that can save lives if used sparingly, and cost us great freedom if used too much. Who makes the decision how much to use it? Not us.
Are iris scans a wonder weapon against crime and terrorism or a way for the government to invade our privacy and track all of our movements? What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek Conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]]]>
Google's developer conference, Google I/O 2015, begins on Thursday, and much of the agenda has been detailed already or hinted at in articles, leaks, or inadvertent disclosures.
Undoubtedly there will be surprises. But here's what we expect to see at the show.
Android M. Android is arguably Google's most significant consumer-facing product these days, even if it's not the company's main source of revenue. No Google developer conference would be complete without an introduction to the next version of Google's mobile operating system.
Android M follows Android L (Lollipop), last year's flavor, in alphabetical sequence. "M" stands for an unknown dessert – Marshmallow, perhaps. It's likely that Android M will include enterprise-oriented improvements, fine-grained permission controls, and a fingerprint reader API, among other new features.
Google VR. Google has several virtual-reality-related projects and investments and would benefit from a more coherent approach. The company has committed to producing another version of Google Glass and has had success with its Google Cardboard VR headset. So it would make sense to enhance the Cardboard SDK for Android by adding support for Google Glass 2, or to release an entirely new Glass SDK for VR and AR (augmented reality). Google needs to do something to underscore its commitment to VR so that Facebook and Oculus don't dominate whatever market emerges.
Women. USA Today reports that Google has made a conscious effort to increase the number of women attending Google I/O. Women represented only 8% of attendees in 2013, according to Google. So Google has been offering tickets to women-in-technology groups to encourage them to attend. Last year, 20% of Google I/O attendees were women, and this year that figure is expected to reach 23%. Silicon Valley is not known for its diversity.
Google Photos. Google+ previously subtracted Google Hangouts from its portfolio to allow the communications service to stand alone. Now, Google Photos is ready to go solo, according to Bloomberg, though in doing so it is expected to become more integrated with Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. Google is somewhat late to the game. Apple recently released a revised Photos app for iOS and OS X, and Amazon last year launched Prime Photos.
Click here to view Figure 1.
Brillo. Google is developing an operating system for resource-constrained Internet-of-Things devices called Brillo, according to The Information. The software is said to be a version of Android that can fit in as little as 32MB of memory. Android Lollipop presently requires 512MB of memory on 32-bit devices at common screen sizes. That requirement ranges from 416MB (Android Watch) to 1824MB (560dpi or extra large screen on a 64-bit device).
Chromecast 2. Google's Mario Queiroz talked about a new version of Chromecast late last year, and the Google I/O schedule includes a session that deals with developing Chromecast games. Given that it has been two years since Chromecast debuted, it's about time to refresh the hardware with 802.11ac support.
Easier Login. Earlier this month, TechCrunch noted that Google has separated its name and password login form elements so they occupy separate pages. In its product forum, a Google representative explained the change thus: "...we're working toward introducing new authentication solutions that complement traditional passwords." Having already made this separation on Android last year, Google appears to be preparing to allow users to log in to its services more easily, perhaps by making two-factor authentication automatic in some instances.
Polymer 1.0. Last year, Google introduced a JavaScript library called Polymer for making modular Web components, chunks of code that generate familiar Web elements such as sliders. Though there appear to be more JavaScript frameworks and libraries than anyone really needs -- Mozilla has a similar project called X-Tag -- Polymer has attracted significant developer interest because of Google's clout in the industry, and because it promises to make Web code easier to create, manage, and reuse. The presence of a session devoted to Polymer 1.0 indicates that the code library is mature enough to promote more widely.
ATAP Wearable. Google's Advanced Technology and Projects Group (ATAP) teased "wearables that we hope will blow your socks off" in a deliberately cryptic preview of its Google I/O session. That sounds signficant. ATAP is also the group overseeing Project Ara, Google's modular smartphone. At the beginning of the year, Paul Eremenko, head of Project Ara, said that the third iteration of Google's modular phone prototype, Spiral 3, is planned for second quarter 2015. The Spiral 3 endoskeleton, Eremenko said, will support hardware module communication via inductive connections rather than direct electrical contacts.
Live Imagery. There's a session at Google I/O titled "The Earth in Real Time," at which the company intends to discuss Skybox, a satellite imagery company acquired last year. It's too soon for Street View Live (and with luck, we'll never see Google cameras watching everything in real time), but Google may be ready to make live video feeds of certain areas available to corporate clients, perhaps through Google Earth Enterprise.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek Conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]]]>
Lantronix was a vendor partner for InteropNet's SDN Lab at Interop Las Vegas 2015. The SDN Lab explored software defined networking concepts and technologies, and demonstrated interoperability among a variety of vendor products.
Vishal Kakkad, director, product management, at Lantronix, shared the company's experiences in the lab.
Our primary role in the SDN Lab was to provide secure console access to network infrastructure equipment from companies such as Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, and HP. This was accomplished via the Lantronix SLC 8000 advanced modular console manager, which offers secure in-band and out-of-band management.
In several instances, we coordinated with other companies to install their gear in advance, before installing our equipment in the SDN Lab, as our product was the last piece of the puzzle before the lab went live.
In other cases, we installed our devices in advance for others to leverage, since many of the participants were working diligently until the last minute before all systems went live for the event.
In the SDN Lab, the SLC 8000 provided remote access to servers, routers, switches, storage devices, and other equipment in the racks through their console ports. We also offered field-installable USB I/O modules for quick connections to equipment that supported USB console ports.
Out-of-band access provides critical data to operators and allows for central management, monitoring, and troubleshooting of the equipment.
Additionally, an array of our Lantronix Spiders were used to deliver scalable and non-blocking KVM-over-IP access to gain desktop and BiOS level control of headless servers, including VMware servers.
The Spider provided a simple cascading solution for rack deployment, while the vSLM central management software, running on the lab's VM server, aggregated the Spiders onto a single browser for quick access and visibility.
Each Spider was connected via USB and video to the back of the servers to allow access in preparation for any hardware malfunctions or operating system instability at any point in time.
All the participants had two main goals: keep pace with the rapid deployment of the lab, and stay on top of any problems that arose during the show. With many disparate pieces working together in the lab, it was critical to be able to monitor and manage all of the equipment to ensure harmony and prevent chaos.
We were thrilled with the event, the lab, and the response from vendors and attendees alike.]]>
In an ending that is almost "too Hollywood" for such a long and storied career, John Nash, 86, died in an automobile accident returning to his home in New Jersey from Norway after receiving the Abel Prize, math's Nobel Prize. Nash, a diagnosed schizophrenic, was the inspiration for the film A Beautiful Mind. The crash also claimed the life of his wife, Alicia, 82.
There are hardly any computers in A Beautiful Mind. There's a good reason for that. Because of his mental illness, the entire first phase of Nash's career only lasted from 1950 to 1959. Nonetheless, as Nash battled schizophrenia, his work on game theory would spark revolutions in economics and artificial intelligence. It also won him a Nobel Prize in 1994.
[ Nash isn't the only math genius whose work has shaped IT. Read Pi Day: Celebrating the Math Gods Who Made IT Possible. ]
His work on Game Theory includes the eponymous Nash Equilibrium. It is a part of an essential piece of AI called the Minimax Algorithm. Essentially, what Nash did is explain how people behave in a non-zero sum game situation. Sometimes, in a game (or in economics) we try to minimize the maximum damage someone could inflict on us by preserving something for ourselves. That's minimax -- minimize the max. With the concept of minimax in mind, if you make a decision to act in a certain way because you believe I will act in a certain way, and I make the decision to act a given way because I believe you will act in a certain way, and neither of us changes our decision, we are at a Nash Equilibrium.
Click here to view Figure 1.
It sounds trivial, but until Nash pointed it out, and the math behind it, no one knew how to look at the way people made decisions in a mathematical way. It had a profound effect on economics. Until that point, it was assumed all rational actors were attempting to "win everything" or, at the very least, there was no mathematical model for not doing so.
The idea is illustrated, in a rather sexist way, in this scene from A Beautiful Mind. Ignore the 1940s attitude toward women, and you've got an understanding of the way people can make economic decisions.
If you have ever played a game against a computer, you played against an algorithm that used at least some math laid down -- or inspired -- by John Nash. Many of those same algorithms are being extended to cognitive computing outside of game situations. Central banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions all use computer projections which in one way or another likely use some Nash economics and math theories in their projections.
Essentially, what Nash did was quantify the rules behind the way decisions are made, whether by people or computers. Our modern economy runs partially on theories laid down 65 years ago by a beautiful mind indeed.
Nash's home page is still active on the Princeton Math Department website. Nash's files and notes from his current work are partially stored there. All these years later, after changing the world and battling an illness, Nash was still working on earth-changing subjects. He was working on the math to demonstrate when matter or fields are present that could generate "gravitation." Nothing like ending a brilliant career with a little cosmology.
I barely understood anything I read. But it was beautiful. There'd be notes like "we thought it would be easy to do [this incredibly hard thing most of us don't understand] but we ran into problems [we couldn't understand], but we're going to try [this other thing no one could understand]. There was a beautiful optimism and simplicity. He was talking about math only a few people in the world understand with the same attitude and clarity you and I would talk about going to the store. I guess, to him, it was just as easy.
My only regret is that someone who taught our machines how to make decisions didn't make the simple decision to wear a seat belt in a taxicab. Let's all buckle up and remember Nash's contributions to our industry.]]>
EMC is acquiring a relatively small cloud service provider, Virtustream, for $1.2 billion to help it convert its storage, security, and other businesses into a set of cloud-delivered services. Virtustream will become the core of EMC's managed cloud services businesses.
Virtustream has technically advanced cloud software and managed services expertise, with a specialty hosting SAP applications, among other things. That expertise will be available to other EMC units in what EMC CEO and Chairman Joe Tucci calls the "EMC Federation of companies," including VMware. This federation also include EMC Mozy cloud backup, Pivotal's big data services, security services supplied by the RSA security division, EMC storage, and VMware compute and network virtualization.
"If you look at everything we're doing, in many cases the things we do need cloud services," said Tucci, during a teleconference announcing the acquisition Tuesday morning.
In managed services, which rivals such as Verizon Terremark, CenturyLink Savvis, and Rackspace specialize in delivering, the customer receives application optimization and operational expertise from the hosting service. It's a service with more human intervention and expert opinion offered by the supplier than that offered in the general-purpose, self-service cloud.
Click here to view Figure 1.
There's multiple areas of overlap between Virtustream (with data centers in Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; London; and the Netherlands) and EMC's 80%-owned subsidiary, VMware. VMware has its vCloud Air infrastructure-as-a-service in Santa Clara, Calif.; Las Vegas; Dallas; Sterling, Va.; Frankfurt, Germany; Slough, England; and Tokyo. In April, it opened a vCloud Air facility in Melbourne.
[ Want to see why InformationWeek called Virtustream "an upstart to watch?" See 6 Cloud Upstarts To Watch. ]
Virtustream was founded in 2009 and has a long history of partnership with SAP. It maintains a sales office in Walldorf, Germany, headquarters of SAP. The company has raised a total in $120 million in venture capital funding, with Intel an early investor in 2010. SAP led a $40 million round of investment in September 2013. The $1.2 billion purchase price represents a tenfold increase in six years in the value of the investor's funding. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter.
Virtustream provides managed SAP applications for Domino Sugar owner Florida Crystals, for example. CIO Don Whittington told InformationWeek that Virtustream runs the applications more economically than Florida Crystals could. A year ago, Virtustream partnered with Onapsis to provide automated scanning of SAP systems, whether on-premises or in the Virtustream cloud.
Both Virtustream and VMware offer basic IaaS with virtual machine self-provisioning and automated management. But Virtustream is more hypervisor-neutral, and it's oriented toward managed applications. Most of its business revolves around providing open source KVM and VMware ESX Server virtual machines to customers. VMware's vCloud Air is an ESX Server-based service only.
Virtustream looks for a different type of workload than VMware's vCloud Air does, said Virtustream cofounder and CEO Rodney Rogers. Virtustream's target "is a highly managed one" compared to the vCloud's emphasis on self-service and self-management, he said during Tuesday's teleconference.
The largest cloud suppliers, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, emphasize customer self-provisioning and management. Virtustream has cut out a niche for itself helping companies optimize the operation of complex applications, such as SAP's.
"We squeeze more juice out of the compute host than any other supplier," Rogers said. "We attempt to be highly additive to what VMware software does," he added later.
Click here to view Figure 2.
Gartner's recent 2015 Magic Quadrant for Infrastructure-as-a-Service placed Virtustream with Rackspace at the top of nine companies in the "niche players" quadrant. Virtustream had a less complete set of services than Rackspace, but ranked at the same level in terms of its ability to execute its cloud strategy.
Gartner's report on the service suppliers included this comment on Virtustream: "It does not have the resources to compete for all workloads against providers whose greater resources allow development of much broader product portfolios. Rather, it provides deep and differentiated capabilities in its focus areas."
Virtustream's founders, Rogers and Kevin Reid, come out of the consulting business, Adjoined Consulting. Both have experience in outsourcing, enterprise technology management "and application integration, one of the next hurdles that will determine which cloud vendors continue to attract workloads and which fall by the wayside," InformationWeek said about the pair in January 2014.
More so than other service providers, Virtustream is "better suited to implementations where an environment will be carefully and consultatively tuned for the needs of particular applications, rather than general-purpose environments," the Gartner report concluded.
"With the addition of Virtustream, we will be able to offer customers a comprehensive set of hybrid cloud offerings, including private, managed, and public cloud solutions," said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware. "As we deliver vCloud Air to our customer base … Virtustream complements and expands our value proposition."
Virtustream, unlike vCloud Air, offers bare metal servers as well as IaaS and managed application hosting. It sells its cloud software, xStream, for installation on-premises if customers wish to use it in their data centers.
[Did you miss any of the InformationWeek Conference in Las Vegas last month? Don't worry: We have you covered. Check out what our speakers had to say and see tweets from the show. Let's keep the conversation going.]]]>


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I am sad to be away from my mother on Mother's Day. I've been thinking back and I don't believe I have been with my mom on Mother's Day for 20 years, which seems so wrong. We talk of course, but it's not the same thing. Ever since I became a mother myself, we have had...
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My Mother, My Son, Myself—Happy Mother's Day
May 13, 2012 | 7:58 am

subset: commoncrawl


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resin questions
Posted 21 March 2012 - 09:46 AM
Posted 21 March 2012 - 10:20 AM
Posted 21 March 2012 - 11:12 AM
Posted 21 March 2012 - 11:21 AM
Posted 21 March 2012 - 02:28 PM
As Pete mentioned, resin is a different animal when it comes to customizing and given the cost of most resin bodies, I personally would be hesitant to chop one up. If you have confidence in your skills and have the extra money, then give it a try.
Best of luck!
Posted 21 March 2012 - 02:59 PM
Posted 22 March 2012 - 01:49 PM
Posted 23 March 2012 - 10:22 AM
Posted 23 March 2012 - 01:11 PM
Posted 29 November 2012 - 12:37 PM
Edited by Gramps2u, 29 November 2012 - 12:42 PM.
Posted 29 November 2012 - 05:08 PM
I've also found different primers will stick better, and it is not as easy as one best primer. What works well from one caster may not work as well as another brand on resin from another caster. In general though I have had pretty good luck with Krylon and Plascote grey or red/brown primers on resin, white not so much for some reason.
Posted 30 November 2012 - 06:10 AM
Thanks Aaron, I did do a tack coat as normal with the prime used the Testors laquer primer. It did etch in where I heavily sanded the 55 chevy suburban JF body shell & not where it was simply 'scuffed', Finding this out by restripping the primer once again
Posted 30 November 2012 - 06:54 AM
I know this IS an age old question "Perhaps" but I have a JF resin body, I have soaked it in Wesley's tire white, Dawn dish soap & a scrub brush hot rinse & last but not least the Yellow can of Easy Off oven cleaner and STILL The blasted primer wants to flake off even after scuffing the surface with a scotch brite pad. I have used 91% isopropyl alcohol too. The first primer job was lifted off by Chameleon paint remover thinking that should do the job as well, But no chance still slick as a slug. Other then backing over it with my Kenworth... What should my next step be to get primer to stick to it & not flake off? I have wondered if Dawn power dissolver would work & also would the krylon Fusion plastic primer be the answer? Guys, I am stumped & I have invested a lot of time on this project to simply just "trash it". ANY suggestions are welcome. Please help?!
Back when I was resin-casting, I used a clear adhesion-promoting surfacer from SEM, which I found in a local dealer for body shop projects. Automotive soft bumper covers are--guess what? Urethane resin. And this is what they use to get paint to stick to those covers, even with the flexing they sustain just in ordinary daily driving (not impacts). I tried it, and it works.
Posted 30 November 2012 - 06:55 AM
I've had issues with JF castings not wanting to hang onto primer before, as well, but I've found that if I wait about 48 hours and let it fully cure, it's no longer a problem. The primer will still want to flake off once it's dry to the touch, but after two days it's just fine. I've had that happen with other resins, too, but I've had it happen most frequently with the Flintstone castings.
Posted 30 November 2012 - 07:36 AM
Thanks Guys! I appreciate the answers. Modeled since 1967 but never with resins. Guess this "Old dawg" is gonna learn some new tricks! I am going to give the surfacer a try as well Thank ya much gents!
Posted 30 November 2012 - 08:11 AM
Posted 30 November 2012 - 10:46 AM
I whole heartedly agree with your statement, My question is after all of the proceedures I have used why is it still there? Has it impregnated into the resin? Thats some TOUGH mold release! Its amazing how "slick " it feels after all of this drama. I worked in composites for 13 years and never have I ever seen mold release this entense holy cow! Aint given up the ship yet.
Posted 30 November 2012 - 04:41 PM
If your primer adhered where it was heavily sanded and not where it was lightly sanded, this tells me you did not have all the release agent cleaned off the body, regardless of what you washed it with. There is no other explanation I can think of.
From my resin casting experience (I calculated from my production logs from AAM last winter--just shy of one million individual castings made from January 1989 to early 2000!): Polyurethane resin is impervious to the solvents in lacquers at least from spray painting, so the adhesion can be less than expected, and with enamels, very much the same thing.
This is why I suggested, above, getting some "adhesion promoting primer" (my experience was with the SEM product, which I used on all parts that were headed to the plater--as I was doing several quite delicate antique car bumpers (most notably the rear bumper for my '40 Ford Woodie Station Wagon transkit. I experienced a serious problem early on with the plating simply flaking off that bumper, due to it's delicate, very flexible nature, so I went looking, found the SEM adhesive clear primer.
I used that stuff on a run of bumpers, and when they came back I performed the following test: I simply took a bumper, twisted it almost to a pretzel (the type of resin I used was flexible enough to do that), and let it spring back into shape. Not only did the plating stay put, but when the bumper returned to its original, as-produced shape, there was NO evidence of any flaking--I actually built up the house display woodie with that bumper, and today, 18 years later, it still looks just as good as it did on the plating tree. So, I know that the stuff works. Any really good professional supply house for autobody supplies will have several different brands of this sort of primer.
Posted 01 December 2012 - 01:06 PM
Note to self buy some "adhesion promoting primer" Thank you Art! Being Saturday The true to fact automotive finish supply houses are closed for the week end. Come Monday I will try one shop "Car Color" (PPG products) if not there I will try the Dupont auto finish store. I called The local O Rielly auto jobber whom carries a small amount of auto finishes & to what I expected they didnt have a clue what it was I was asking for but did mention some adhesion promoting primer for ferrous metals & Non ferrous ( aluminum) . Going to invest in some . I have found the same effect with some of my own castings I have popped out recently. I am sold on your cure! Thanks again Neighbor!


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David Wins, Goliath Consults Attorney (Update)
While most Americans spent their time online Thursday arguing over dress color, or watching Llamas on the Lam, the FCC pulled the trigger on new net neutrality rules, designed to maintain equality among all content providers on the Internet.
As expected, the vote fell along party lines. Immediately, the big internet service providers (ISPs) and many government officials condemned the new rules, threatening both legal and legislative challenges, some before the vote was even taken.
At least for now, by a narrow 3-2 vote, all of our websites will continue to be treated equally by services providers; our content will not be slowed down or sped up according to any sort of tiered delivery. Furthermore, ISPs will now be classified as public utilities, much like phone companies, and will be subject to regulations to ensure that all consumers have equal access to their services.
Although not receiving as much attention as net neutrality, the FCC also ruled to lift bans and restrictions which inhibit local municipalities from building their own broadband networks, previously allowing only private cable companies to provide internet access. This ruling gives consumers a choice of service providers for their internet, something many Americans do not currently have.
This victory is historic for net neutrality activists, content providers and tech influencers, whose sustained and vocal protest was actually heard over arguably one of the most powerful and wealthy lobbying interests in America today. Said Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, in celebrating the FCC's decision, "It goes a lot further than net neutrality. Title II regulation means oversight of bad behavior."
Critics of the ruling were quick to point out the FCC has a habit of being over regulatory, which could hurt innovation and ultimately lead to higher prices for consumers. Arizona Senator John McCain tweeted immediately after the ruling, "This is a matter for Congress to carefully consider and correct."
For now, we all get to keep our websites in the fast lane on the information super-highway. But keep an eye on those highway alert signs, as this is just one battle in what could end up being a very long war for control of the Internet.


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Micah Hoffman has been working in the information technology field since 1998 supporting federal government, commercial, and internal customers in their searches to discover and quantify information security weaknesses within their organizations. He leverages years of hands-on, real-world penetration testing and incident response experience to provide unique solutions to his customers. Micah holds GIAC's GAWN, GWAPT, and GPEN certifications as well as the CISSP.
Micah is an active member in the NoVAHackers group, has written Recon-ng and Nmap testing tool modules and enjoys tackling issues with the Python scripting language. When not working, teaching, or learning, Micah can be found hiking or backpacking on Appalachian Trail or the many park trails in Maryland. Catch him on Twitter @WebBreacher.
"Great instructor, well spoken, excitable about the subject." - Gharrett Worku, Paycom
"Micah's delivery was entertaining and engaging." - Paul Ryan, GDIT
"Instructor keeps students engaged. Provides assistance when needed, excellent attitude." - Nathan Peterson
"Good pace - good depth of knowledge." - Robert Smith, Intel Corp
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Ian Sampson
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American Board of Anesthesiology
MD, University of Otago Medical School
Residency, Internal Medicine
Wellington Hospital
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Waikato Hospital
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Dr. Sampson did not report having any of the following types of financial relationships with industry during 2014 and/or 2015: consulting, scientific advisory board, industry-sponsored lectures, service on Board of Directors, participation on industry-sponsored committees, equity ownership valued at greater than 5% of a publicly traded company or any value in a privately held company. Please note that this information may differ from information posted on corporate sites due to timing or classification differences.
Mount Sinai's faculty policies relating to faculty collaboration with industry are posted on our website. Patients may wish to ask their physician about the activities they perform for companies.
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Information regarding insurance participation and billing by this physician may be found on this page or obtained by contacting this provider directly.
Insurance plans that the Mount Sinai Health System hospitals or facilities participate in can be found on the Mount Sinai Health System website.
Klingenstein Clinical Center Floor Dept of Anesthesiology Room 8th Floor Room 8-32
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Explore the Entrepreneurship.org Resource Center to find resources. Designed with entrepreneurs in mind, our resource center allows you to find materials to grow great ideas.
Last month, the Kauffman Foundation announced a grant aimed at curating data on young companies from cities around the world. Our partner in this endeavor is Startup Genome; a free and open platform for collecting, curating and analyzing data about the startups, entrepreneurs, investors and community enablers in a local startup community.
Lately, there's been a lot of talk about these people we call millennials. Namely, the current generation, Generation Y, those "entitled, narcissists who still live with their parents", according to Keith Wagstaff. From complimentary to derisive, countless writers have deemed it their duty to predict exactly what this generation will add or (as most reports warn) detract from our current society. But the truth is, nothing has been said about the "Me, me, me generation" that hasn't been said about every generation before them.
Keeping your talented women executives on board may be tougher than keeping your men. Despite aggressive anti-discrimination efforts and myriad opportunities, women still hold significantly fewer top corporate posts than men. There are clear reasons for it, too, which entrepreneurs need to know.
A strong intellectual property portfolio is key to your healthcare startup. Read how to go about getting a patent for your innovative medical device.
A business model that aims to consolidate in the fragmented tour-packaging industry must rely on the entrepreneurial owners of the local businesses it acquires, according to the writer. A case is made for developing the people who will build the business, rather than, as is practice for many consolidators, putting them out of business.
Non-dilutive funding offers startups a lot of advantages, but some entrepreneurs get caught up chasing too many grants. Read more about choosing which funding sources to pursue.
What would you do if you were promised $24 million in funding – but the venture firm changed its mind?
In the past, Dr. Amy Baxter was able to practice emergency medicine while developing a new medical device that deadens the pain from injections. But working on her startup during the day and picking up night shifts at the hospital could only go on for so long.
Start-ups face special marketing challenges, not the least of which can be the founder's ego. This article is an excellent in-depth review of the big sales problems startups can experience--and how to solve them.
I recently returned from participating in the 2nd Annual Rome Forum of the Harambe Entrepreneurial Alliance, hosted by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
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Monday, March 3rd<br>Value Of Construction Put In Place Hits Record
March 3, 2003
January's "value of construction put in place" jumped to a record seasonally adjusted annual rate of $878 billion, the Census Bureau reported (a href= "http://www.census.gov/const/www/c30index.html"> www.census.gov/const/www/c30index.html). That number was 1.7 percent higher than the upwardly revised figure for December of $863 billion (originally estimated at $858 billion) and 2.1 percent higher than in January 2002.
Private residential building construction (up 2.5 percent for the month and 12 percent over the year-ago month) and public construction (+1 percent for the month and 0.6 percent compared to January 2002) both set records.
Private nonresidential building construction slipped by 0.3 percent for the month and 15 percent relative to January 2002.
Another Commerce Dept. agency, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, estimated that fourth quarter 2002 real (inflation-adjusted) investment in private nonresidential structures was down for the fifth straight quarter, by 10 percent, compared to -21 percent in the third quarter.