Donna's Blog

Augmented reality has potential to reshape our lives

2011-05-19T21:31:00.001-04:00

TV football fans are used to seeing

augmented reality in action.

That virtual yellow first-down line

superimposed on an actual football field is

one of the more visible examples of a

technology that is still not well known. But

augmented reality is quickly emerging from

obscurity and could soon dramatically

reshape how we shop, learn, play and

discover what is around us.

This is cool stuff and I agree it will reshape the way we do things. Get ready!

Amazon glitch raises questions on cloud

2011-04-23T08:43:00.000-04:00

As technical problems interrupted offsite data storage provided by Amazon for a second day yesterday, industry analysts said the troubles will prompt many companies to reconsider relying on remote computers beyond their control.

“This is a wake-up call for cloud computing,’’ said Matthew Eastwood, an analyst for the research firm IDC, who used the term for accessing services and information in big data centers remotely over the Internet from anywhere, as if the services were in a cloud. “It will force a conversation in the industry.’’

That discussion, he said, will likely center around what data and computer operations to send off to the cloud and what to keep inside the corporate walls...

follow link read the rest... the article does make an excellent point.

Cuban at MIT: Video revolution needs some work

2011-02-05T09:31:00.001-05:00

The outspoken Mark Cuban told a crowd at MIT last night that the amount of video content on either the Internet or TV is going to explode and drive innovation.

“Our consumption and creation and utilization of video is going to grow faster than the Verizon’s or the Comcast’s and the rest can support,” he told a sold-out audience of more than 300 during the MIT Enterprise Forum’s event “IPTV, The Scrum for the Last 6 Feet.”

The evening started with a fireside chat between Prism VentureWorks partner Woody Benson and Cuban, the founder of Broadcast.com andHDNet, and the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. After the chat the evening moved on to a panel discussion with panelists Cuban; Avner Ronen, CEO and founder of Boxee; Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai Technologies Inc., and Will Richmond of VideoNuze.

Cuban took a fairly contrary position to the other panelists when it came to behavioral changes happening because of the rapid growth in the amount of video content, mainly because parsing the huge amount of available content is beyond any current cable or IPTV interface, at least in any easy way. And easy is what TV watching is all about, Cuban said.

to read the rest follow the link:

http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2011/01/31/daily53-Cuban-at-MIT-Video-revolution-needs-some-work.html

Google Chrome ditches popular format for web video

2011-01-13T19:03:00.000-05:00

WOW, check this out...

The jockeying to see which tech giant controls the future of video on the Internet has hit another flash point.

Google's decision to dump a widely-used video standard, called H.264, from its Chrome browser, in favor of a format it has created, called WebM, is drawinghowls of derision in the tech community.

The H.264 format is used on about 66% of the video on the Web. It is royalty free as long as the video is distributed for free; otherwise, companies have to pay a licensing fee to the patent owner, MPEG LA.

Google's WebM format at this point in time is free -- no licensing fees of any kind. It's supporters includes Adobe, Mozilla and Opera, among others.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft are huge supporters of H.264, as is Abode, whose ubiquitous Flash video player works on H.264, but not yet on WebM.

Last October, Apple dumped support for Flash from its Mac OS X computer operating system, drawing criticism from cybersecurity experts. Users of OS X no longer get Flash player, or its security updates, by default.

IDC tech industry analyst Al Hilwa tells Technology Live that Goolge's move boils down to a dollars and cents calculation.

"Google made a business decision about licensing money that it had to pay for using what has become an industry standard video format, namely H.264," says Hilwa.

Google product manager Mike Jazayeri says the company's goal in dumping H.264 is to enable "open innovation." But that claim rings hollow, says Hilwa.

"It is hypocritical, but not untypical of either Google or other companies who use Open Source software for financial gain," observes Hilwa. "Google spent over $100 million a year ago onacquisition of On2, which owns the video technology they used to put into WebM."

Hilwa says the rate of adoption of Google's Chrome browser could actually decline. He says the search giant has "upset a lot of developers and web-content owners" by putting all of its chips on WebM.

Google is locked in a high stakes poker tournament against Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla and Opera. Each covets a dominant share of the browser market, going forward.

"No one knows how this will all turn out, but the tech giants are playing their hands," says Hilwa. "Whoever controls video on the Internet could be in the best position to dominate video on mobile devices."

By Byron Acohido

Raytheon BBN working on real Star Trek tech

2010-12-26T14:39:00.000-05:00

Interesting...

If you thought inventing the Internet was a big enough accomplishment that you can rest on your laurels, you can’t work for Raytheon BBN Technologies – the actual inventors of said Internet. DARPA agrees and is now funding Raytheon BBN in a program to create super high-capacity broadband encrypted communications technology that is all but unbreakable, and super high-resolution long-distance imaging.

Oh, and as a side benefit, it could also give you your messages or images instantly, no matter how far apart the sender and receiver are – five feet or five light years.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is really living up to its name on this one, giving Raytheon BBN $2.1 million for some seriously advanced research. The Cambridge-based deep thinkers will put the funds into two projects, both of which will use a feature of quantum physics known as quantum entanglement and both applied to using quantum-entangled light.

In the first project, given the tasty name of PIECOMM (Photon Information Efficient Communications), Raytheon BBN will try to use quantum physics to reach the limit of data density that can be packed into a stream of light. In a press release about the funding, Raytheon BBN says the applications for such communications could be in “free space optical communication links, including far-field links used in deep space.” Fire up the subspace radio, Lt. Uhura!

The second project hints at the kind of data that might be sent over that crazy-dense laser link. FINESSE (Fundamental Information Capacity of Electromagnetism with Squeezing and Spatial Entanglement) aims to create the ultimate imaging technology, using quantum states of light that don’t normally exist. And that gets to the real science fiction aspect of the projects – the potential uses of the quantum entanglement that will be at their hearts.

With quantum entangled light, each photon is connected at a quantum level to a photon in a second stream of light. If any change happens to the first particle, that change is reflected in the second particle. Because of that, any possible tampering – including simply looking at the first particle – will be known because it will happen to the second particle as well. That is a key to thesuper encryption, because any tampering could be made to change or destroy the data. But the real Star Trek item here is that the change in the light streams will occur in both at the same time, no matter how far apart they have become.

So, say you send a high-power laser pulse to a detected planet in another solar system some 10 light years away, using these systems being thought up by Raytheon BBN. Normally, you would have to wait for 20 years – 10 years out, 10 years back – to get any reflected light back, and the amount of coherent data left in the light stream would be essentially meaningless. No pictures. With a potential technology from these projects, the light stream would be able to carry huge amounts of redundant data, and it would only have to go through 10 years of possible quality degradation, because once it hits the planet in the other solar system, its twin, quantum-entangled light stream back here on Earth would change instantly to mirror what the other light stream detected. Instant Polaroids from deep space. Activate the long-range sensors, Mr. Chekov!

Of course, since the funding is coming from the Defense Department’s crazy ideas unit, and it is going to Raytheon BBN, not the old BBN Technologies that it was before defense giant Raytheon Co. bought it a little more than a year ago, one has to assume there are more terrestrial, military applications in mind for such technologies. How about instantaneous, HD-quality video imaging of any spot on the globe from a satellite, sent over an unbreakable encrypted optical stream? Or an encrypted unbreakable data stream so dense and so fast that it could be used for real-time, full-body virtual control of a combat robot from anywhere on the globe? Voltron powers, activate?

Now, how long do I have to wait for the inevitable commercial offshoots? I would be happy with a data stream fast and dense enough that my recorded TV shows on my cable DVR don’t stutter or artifact when I play them back. But Voltron sure would be cool.

Microsoft’s Push Into Gesture Technology

2010-10-30T13:36:00.002-04:00

This is some cool stuff, Gesture Technology will bring gaming to a whole new level, no more controllers smashing flat screens!

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Prepare for Windows 8: Minority Report Edition.

Microsoft said on Friday that it was buying Canesta, a small Silicon Valley company that specializes in gesture-recognition technology.

Interest in this technology has surged because it lets people control computers and other devices through hand movements and other bodily gyrations, in similar fashion to the systems depicted in futuristic films like “Minority Report.”

Canesta makes chips that, when coupled with a digital camera, give all manner of devices a sense of depth perception for the world around them, letting them “see” in three dimensions.

Neither company disclosed the financial terms.

Next month, Microsoft will begin shipping Kinect, a $150 add-on for its Xbox gaming consoles, which uses gesture recognition to allow people to play games with body motions instead of controllers. Players flick through menus with waves of the hand and then move to make their on-screen avatars run, jump, duck, swing and dance. The 3-D technology in Kinect is from PrimeSense, a Canesta rival...

In a recent interview, Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, discussed the company’s plans to advance the gesture technology well beyond video games. “I’m excited to be way out in front and want to push the pedal on that,” Mr. Ballmer said.

Using Canesta’s technology, Microsoft and its partners could equip PCs, televisions, cars, cellphones and other devices with gesture recognition features.

Canesta has spent 11 years building chips that process images and information about distances to give devices some 3-D oomph.

Honda has invested in the company with the hopes of putting 3-D sensors into cars that could help them to detect obstacles. It could also use the technology to see the size and body shape of a person in a seat and adjust the way an air bag inflates.

Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese company that manufactures laptops for many of the major brands, has also invested in Canesta and expects to build laptops this year with 3-D camera modules. Manufacturers use the technology to give robots on their assembly lines some visual smarts.

“We have a really broad mission to enable everyday devices with the ability to see, and enable natural user interfaces across all kinds of devices,” said James Spare, chief executive of Canesta, who is a former Microsoft executive. “There is no other company more committed to natural user interfaces than Microsoft,” Mr. Spare added.

Canesta’s investors have poured about $60 million into the company over the years.

Analysts have described PrimeSense’s technology as cheaper to put in place than that of Canesta. However, they have also said that Canesta should be able to build less expensive and more sophisticated products over time because it designs a very specialized type of chip geared toward the 3-D recognition jobs.

Last year, Microsoft acquired 3DV systems, a company with similar gesture recognition technology. That deal coupled with the Canesta purchase may prevent competitors from acquiring these 3-D abilities and cut off potential intellectual property squabbles. Canesta has secured 44 patents in this area and has more pending.

Historically, Microsoft has worked with chip partners like Intel and Nvidia rather than building its own products, so the Canesta purchase is something of a shift.

Apple has been scooping up chip makers as well so it can improve the engines that power devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Target to sell Facebook Credits gift cards

2010-09-03T05:44:00.001-04:00

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is coming to a Target (TGT) store near you.

The social-network giant is getting into the gift card business, starting Sunday, with Facebook Credits cards.

The new Facebook gift cards will be available in values of $15, $25 and $50 at all of Target's 1,750 retail stores and at Target.com. Two or three more national retailers will start selling the cards in coming months.

This will be the first time Facebook has had any presence in a retail store. Facebook already has an arrangement with online-payment services PayPal and MOL to purchase Facebook Credits.

Facebook is banking that a sizable chunk of its 500 million members will purchase the cards and use them on their favorite social games, applications and virtual goods.

The gift cards, which look and work like Apple's iTunes cards, were created by GMG Entertainment, which also produced iTunes cards. Target carries iTunes cards, too.

More than 200 million people play free social games on Facebook each month, according to Facebook. And many of them are beginning to spend money on premium goods and services associated with those games.

"We think (the cards) will be incredibly popular as a holiday gift," says Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook.

The cards can initially be used on more than 150 social games and applications, including titles from gamemakers such as Zynga (FarmVille, FrontierVille), CrowdStar (Happy Aquarium, HelloCity) and PopCap Games (Bejeweled Blitz). Facebook gift cards do not replace Zynga's existing game cards.

Target — which already sells more than 30 gift cards for online games, such as FarmVille — expects the markets for online gaming and digital music to continue to grow, says Mark Schindele, senior vice president of merchandising at Target. He also noted that Target has more than 1.5 million fans on its Facebook page.

By year's end, Facebook expects to have gift card credits available for its thousands of games. At least 19 games on Facebook have more than 10 million active users a month.

Facebook is expected to rake in an estimated $1.3 billion in online advertising revenue worldwide this year, up 92% from 2009, eMarketer says.

Facebook's entry into the growing prepaid gift card market could prove lucrative. The domestic prepaid gift card market is expected to reach $86.2billion this year, compared with $80.6billion in 2009, according to Mercator Advisory Group.

/// Donna asks?

So, will you purchase facebook credits?

How Steve Jobs beats presentation panic

2010-06-16T09:17:00.002-04:00

Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from CIO.com. Visit CIO’s Macs in the Enterprise page.

...What Jobs did next, according to Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, was vintage Jobs (and a model for how presenters should deal with stage crises): He did not panic. He did not look hot under the collar of his trademark turtleneck. Hishours of practice and intimate knowledge of every inch of every slide made him comfortable enough so that he could jump around to another part of the presentation (in this case, to look at photos). Jobs “trouble shooted” his problem by asking the audience (and, presumably, his back-stage engineers) for a little networking assistance. “You know, you could help me out. If you're on Wi-Fi, if you could just get off,” he pleaded, to roaring audience laughter. “I’d appreciate it. We're having a little problem here.”

And he sprinkled in several more bits of humor to diffuse any audience insecurity. “I’ve got time,” he joked, while waiting for the audience to “police each other.”

/// My comment:

Live demonstrations do NOT always go as well as rehearsed, so it's critical for the presenter to be prepared to work around these types of issues. They must be able to retain the audiences attention and get the message across. We all know technology isn't 100% perfect all the time.

Data congestion thwarts Steve Jobs' iPhone demo

2010-06-07T17:08:00.002-04:00

Data congestion thwarts Steve Jobs' iPhone demo

By Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer | June 7, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO --Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs was thwarted Monday in his attempt to show off how clearly the newest iPhone displays Web pages, apparently because too many people were clogging the airwaves at the conference where he was on stage.

Jobs tried three times during his keynote to do a side-by-side comparison of the iPhone 4's screen resolution versus its predecessor's. He was trying to call up The New York Times' Web page, but it wouldn't load because too many devices in the room were operating over Wi-Fi, swamping the frequency.

Jobs switched to backup phones for the demonstration, but he was still stymied.

"Well jeez, I don't like this," Jobs groused. He abandoned the demo while staffers investigated.

Technological glitches at technology conferences are common, but less so at Apple's carefully choreographed events. Last month at a demonstration of Google Inc.'sInternet television technology, Google representatives had trouble showing how easy it was supposed to be to switch back and forth between browsing Web content and TV programming.

Google pleaded with attendees to shut off their wireless connections, as did Jobs on Monday. He asked bloggers and other people in the room to turn off their wireless connections and put their computers on the floor.

"I think bloggers have a right to blog, but if we want to see the demos we're going to have to do it," he said.

The demos immediately after that went smoothly. But a later demo of a video-calling feature that requires a wireless Internet connection was sluggish at times.

FCC's broadband reclassification: What's next?

2010-05-07T06:55:00.002-04:00

FCC's broadband reclassification: What's next?

The U.S. Federal Communications will move quickly to claim some regulatory authority over broadband after Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the agency would reclassify broadband as a regulated service.

The FCC will vote on an item to start the process of reclassifying broadband transmission as a regulated, common-carrier service in the next month or so, Bruce Liang Gottlieb chief counsel to Genachowski said Thursday.

FCC statement on "Third Way" for broadband policy

The FCC announced Wednesday that it would move to reclassify broadband from a largely unregulated information service to a regulated common-carrier service in response to an appeals court decision in April. The court ruled that the agency does not have the authority to enforce informal network neutrality rules in a case involving Comcast's throttling of peer-to-peer traffic.

Follow link for rest of article.

But does this really ensure an open Internet w/ net neutrality rules?

MIT admissions as easy as pi

2010-03-17T19:56:00.002-04:00

By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff

Last Sunday afternoon, at precisely 1:59, every MIT applicant worth their salt logged on to a special admissions website to check their fates. Just 1,611 students got in, a record low admit rate of 9.7 percent. But a weightier number filled students’ minds: 3.14159…, or pi, the Greek letter symbolizing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Yes, in true Geek fashion, MIT released its admissions decisions at a time that would hold a deeper meaning for only those mathematically inclined enough to apply – on Pi Day, March 14, 1:59, as an homage to the mathematical constant.
"We thought it was pretty neat and fitting,'' said Stuart Schmill, dean of admissions and a 1986 MIT graduate. "Pi is a special number. And this is one way for us, as a science and technology centered place, to celebrate it."

Call it MIT’s version of March Madness.
Applicants were e-mailed a clever note last Thursday, instructing them how to check the status of their applications “a minute before 2 p.m.” “Receiving your decision online is as easy as pi,” the message said.
Though there was no explicit reference to Pi Day, Schmill said, "Most of our applicants are clued in."
This is the second year in a row that the university has been able to release its decisions on Pi Day (coincidentally the birthday of Albert Einstein). But MIT is not making Pi Day admissions -- and rejections -- a tradition just yet. It lands on a Monday next year. And, Schmill said, "We won’t release decisions when our applicants are in school."

NBC OlympicsTaps Cisco for IP Video Network

2010-01-11T21:25:00.002-05:00

NBC is partnering with Cicso to provide a “media-aware” IP video network infrastructure during the network’s all HD broadcast of the Winter Olympic Games from Vancouver, Feb. 12-28. The combined solution, which consists of or a private network, Cisco IP video infrastructure and medianet “media aware” technology (Cisco’s brand name for its technology to optimize video over IP), will enable real-time editing NBC content in multiple international and domestic locations and will allow GB-sized files to be transmitted between locations and then delivered to video screens. A high-bandwidth, high performance connection between Vancouver and NBC studios in New York will give shot selectors and editors the ability to edit video as it is being captured in Vancouver.

Cisco Flip Video cameras will also be used by NBC correspondents for shooting on-the-fly video during the Games. NBC will also test the Cisco Media Data Center and Cisco’s Unified Computing System to support production and video archiving. “Cisco is providing all our local data routers for our LAN in and around Vancouver, and for our WAN on the international AT&T data circuits to NY, NJ, Burbank, and Las Vegas,” said Dave Mazza, NBC Olympics’ senior vice president of engineering. “Those circuits are carrying a number of file-based workflow from EVS, Omneon, and Avid and also a large amount of IP-based video from Tandberg.”

Love the media aware IP networking, because yes, we all know that video signals can require very high bandwidths, typically up to 8 Mbits per sec for MPEG 2 encoded HDTV channels and approximately 3 Mbps for MPEG 4. It is imperative that the IP network be optimized so it will deliver the quality of experience (QoE) needed for great picture quality, without degradation.
We all know viewing pixilated images is like being on a cell call with poor quality. I know many of cell phones that learned how to fly & swim because of this, though this might be a bit tougher to toss a 50" flat panel TV into your swimming pool, or out your window. lol!

Raytheon BBN to create 'largest network research center in U.S.'

2009-12-15T20:42:00.002-05:00

Raytheon BBN Technologies has won an $81 million deal from the Army Research Laboratory to establish a collaborative alliance and what the company calls “the nation’s largest network science research center.”The company will create the Interdisciplinary Research Center at its headquarters in Cambridge, which will host network research, as well as Department of Defense technology developments.Called the ARL Network Science Collaborative Technology Alliance, the consortium will use the five-year contract to pull together more than 30 university and industrial labs to address the commone features of communication, information, social and cognitive networks.Raytheon BBN is a Cambridge-based subsidiary of Waltham-based Raytheon Co., which completed its $350 million purchase of BBN in October.Raytheon reported a net income of $490 million on revenue of $6.2 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 27.

Well now, very interesting given BBN was home of the ARPAnet years ago. This sounds like an awesome project. I will be sure to be on the look out for jobs at Raytheon BBN!

Comcast to Buy NBC Universal

2009-12-05T09:28:00.002-05:00

CNBC is reporting that that the deal for GE to sell NBC Universal to Comcast is done.
While we’ve been anticipating a possible deal since rumors started circulating in late September, yesterday’s move by GE (the parent company of NBC) to buy Vivendi’s stake in NBC for $5.8 billion cleared the way for the Comcast deal...

What Will Comcast-NBC Mean for Hulu?

HP to buy Marlborough's 3Com for $2.7 billion

2009-11-12T07:45:00.000-05:00

Interesting times for sure...

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff
Computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co. will buy network equipment maker 3Com Corp. in Marlborough for $2.7 billion in a head-on challenge to Cisco Systems Inc., which dominates the network business. The deal will position HP to attack the heart of Cisco's market, and it comes only a week after Cisco teamed up with data storage titan EMC Corp. of Hopkinton to assault HP's stronghold in server computers and storage. "This is going to rock the networking world," said 3Com president Ronald Sege, adding that HP's global sales force could quickly expand 3Com's market share. 3Com is the second major Massachusetts tech company in the past month to be acquired by a Silicon Valley firm, as the tech sector reacts to decreased business spending with a wave of consolidation deals. In October, Cisco said it will pay $2.9 billion to acquire Tewksbury-based Starent Networks, a maker of network gear for cellular telephone systems. Just last week, Cisco teamed up with EMC in a joint venture to combine their computing, storage, and networking products in a play for HP's core business, enterprise computing equipment. Cisco just started making server computers this year.Tech giants are using mergers and alliances to quickly offer one-stop shopping to companies looking to save money by buying all their network products from a single vendor, instead of assembling corporate data centers one piece at a time. "It improves the efficiency, it improves the speed of deployment, and it drives costs down," said Abner Germanow, a networking analyst at IDC Corp. in Framingham. The purchase of 3Com lets HP fill holes in its product mix far more quickly than it could by developing its own product line from scratch. Although it's one of the world's leading makers of computer servers for big business, HP has so far offered only a limited range of networking hardware. Most of that has been at the "edge" of the network, like the switches that connect a roomful of PCs and printers to a corporate system. Cisco dominates the "core" market -- switches and routers that distribute the massive amounts of data streaming in to the network. With 3Com, HP gets a ready-made line of core network products to sell.
Buying 3Com "gives us critical mass in a very important market," said David Donatelli, a former top EMC executive who made a surprise move to HP in April. Donatelli will oversee 3Com in his new role as HP's executive vice president of enterprise servers and networking, and is slated to take over HP's storage operations next April, when his non-compete agreement with EMC expires. This will put him on the front line of HP's rivalry with the Cisco-EMC joint venture.The deal illustrates 3Com's return to prominence after a dramatic decline earlier in the decade. 3Com was co-founded in 1979 by Bob Metcalfe, one of the inventors of Ethernet, a networking technology that has since become a global standard. Originally based in Santa Clara, Calif., the company's line of Ethernet products made it one of the most successful technology firms of the 1990s, employing as many as 12,000 workers at its peak. Tough competition from Cisco and the 2001 collapse of the first Internet boom devastated 3Com. The company abandoned the enterprise networking market to Cisco and slashed thousands of jobs. 3Com now employs about 5,300 workers worldwide, including about 300 in Massachusetts. Sege said he did not know how the HP acquisition would affect local 3Com workers.In 2003, a much-diminished 3Com relocated to Marlborough. At about the same time, the company launched H3C, a joint venture with Chinese networking company Huawei Technologies. H3C's stable of Chinese engineers developed new high-end networking gear that was embraced by fast-growing Chinese companies, and has since attracted customers in Europe and Latin America. 3Com claims that 300 of China's 500 largest businesses use its products, along with US institutions like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.In 2006, 3Com bought out Huawei's stake in H3C. The following year, investment firm Bain Capital teamed up with Huawei on a $2.2 billion bid to acquire 3Com. But the bid was blocked by federal regulators because 3Com owns TippingPoint, a maker of network security gear used by the US Department of Defense. The regulators noted Huawei's close ties to the Chinese government, and worried that Huawei might help Chinese intelligence officials circumvent TippingPoint technology. After the Bain-Huawei deal fell apart in early 2008, 3Com focused on developing a new line of core switches and routers which it claims will outperform Cisco gear while using much less electricity. HP's Donatelli said that once the deal is consummated, his company's 300,000 workers will exclusively use 3Com gear for its networking needs.

Free Conference: Facing the Holidays While Unemployed Thursday,11/19/09 Merrimack College

2009-11-06T16:42:00.000-05:00

Conference: Facing the Holidays While Unemployed Thursday,11/19/09 Merrimack College No Andover, MA Preregistration is required: http://careerintransitionfall2009.eventbrite.com Limit: 100 people
On Thursday, November 19, 2009 - registration begins at 8 a.m.and conference lasts until 1:00 p.m., Pressed For Success - a job search networking group – is offering a conference at Merrimack College on how to deal with holiday stresses while unemployed. The event, which takes place in Cascia Hall, is sponsored by the Office of Career Services/Cooperative Education and the Office of Alumni and Constituent Relations at Merrimack College. “Keeping It All Together Facing the Holidays” – a Career In Transition Workshop Though the holidays can cause stress for many, the coming season will be especially stressful for the unemployed. Unlike a job fair, the workshop aims to take some stress out the upcoming holidays with empowering presentations, and interactive networking. Speakers:

• Sharon Broussard, Counselor, Merrimack College – “Defining Stress, and How to deal with it”

• Arleen Bradley, Founder/Coordinator, Pressed For Success – “Volunteering as a way to handle stress”

• Al Getler, Publish, Eagle Tribune – “Knowing your self-worth”

• Cindy Loughran, Leadership Coach, CBL Associates – “How to feel as together on the inside as others look on the outside”

Online preregistration is required and will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis for the first 100 registrants at http://careerintransitionfall2009.eventbrite.com , where you can also learn more about the event. *Area businesses have donated goods for the conference.

CONTACT: For more information, email pressedforsuccess@comcast.net. About Pressed for Success Since December 2008, the group meets on Monday evenings at Merrimack College. Guest speakers, member presentations, and job skill workshops are some of the planned weekly objectives.

“Stand Down for our Veterans”

2009-10-22T19:59:00.003-04:00

I had the privilege to work The New England Job Show booth at the job fair, “Stand Down for our Veterans” on Wednesday at Harbor Homes Inc., in Nashua, NH. The event was dedicated to Veterans. This was a great event that offered a wide variety offered to the attendees, a nice selection of coffee and pastries for the morning crowd, live entertainment complete with country western music, a terrific lunch for the afternoon crowd consisting of a Turkey dinner complete with all the fixings, and finally free backpacks, toiletries, clothes and shoes.

The job show was present to explain how we work to help job seekers and meet with local area service organizations.

Harbor Homes serves more than 1,000 clients annually, about half are residential. We serve homeless men, women and families, people living with mental illness and veterans (male, female and family members), HIV/AIDS patients and family members, people overcoming substance abuse, low-income individuals and families, and housebound/disabled senior citizens. http://www.harborhomes.org/

The New England Job Show is an innovative grassroots project engaged in supporting and helping job seekers succeed in their job search. We produce and disseminate quality educational information and services to help unemployed individuals in the New England Region. Visit us on the web at http://www.nejs.org/.

Cisco pays $2.9 billion for Starent Networks

2009-10-13T20:26:00.002-04:00

Most iPhone applications cost a couple of bucks. But Cisco Systems has agreed to pay $2.9 billion for a kind of mega-app of its own as the famously acquisitive San Jose networking colossus expands its stake in the smart-phone phenomenon.

Looks like Verizon will be probably moving to other Cisco networking gear as well.

Detroit firm buys Gomez

2009-10-09T08:19:00.000-04:00

DETROIT - Compuware Corp., whose software improves the performance of computer programs used by companies to run their operations, said yesterday that it is acquiring Gomez Inc., of Lexington, Mass., for $295 million in cash...

Privately held Gomez employs 272 people worldwide. Gomez executives and the rest of the employees are expected to stay with Compuware. In 2008, Gomez recorded revenue of $47 million. Its clients include Google Inc. and Facebook.

LifeSize to Release Passport amid Cisco-Tandberg Deal

2009-10-09T07:30:00.002-04:00

As Cisco looks to extend the reach of its high-definition video conferencing capabilities by buying Tandberg, rival LifeSize Communications is unveiling Passport, a device designed to bring HD video conferencing to small and midsize businesses, teleworkers and mobile employees. The Passport device is sized to fit into a small work environment, and the $2,499 price is designed to attract SMBs. LifeSize is also working with Skype to enable HD audio communications for Skype's 480 million registered users.

It will be interesting to see what HP & Polycomm do.

Video over IP is really helping cut costs by keeping travel expenses down. It will never replace the in person face to face networking that needs to cultivated at the start of a new relationship but is a nice plus over a typical PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) call.

New products that help you to store data, videoconference and even find true love

2009-09-30T06:47:00.000-04:00

What's cookin' at DEMOfall '09

In this slideshow we'll give you a handy preview of the hottest products making their debut at this year's DEMOfall show in San Diego.

Get ready for metered broadband.

2009-09-30T06:31:00.002-04:00

FYI - FTTH (Fiber To The Home) aka Fios, aka fiber-optic Internet service.

Speaking at the FTTH Conference and Expo in Houston Tuesday, Verizon Communications CTO Richard Lynch said the broadband industry is headed toward a pricing paradigm shift that will see it embrace the usage-based pricing common to the wireless broadband industry.
nternet service providers “cannot continue to grow the Internet without passing the cost on to someone,” Lynch said. “At the end of the day the concept of a flat-rate infinitely expandable service is unachievable. We are going to reach a point where we will sell packages of bites. Now I’m not announcing a new pricing plan. But we have already gone this way in wireless because that is where the resource is most constrained.”
So while Lynch may not have announced a new pricing plan, he’s clearly got one in mind. And these, the first public comments from Verizon (VZ) on a transition to metered bandwidth, likely mean the all-you-can-eat days are soon to end and the “will this streaming video put me over my monthly usage cap” days about to begin.
Which, as consumer advocates will tell you, is bad news because charging Internet customers based on how much Web data they consume is likely to stifle innovation by undermining demand for high-bandwidth services such as online video and whatnot.

Twitter Goes for Broke, if Broke Means “A Lot of Money”: New Funding Round at $1 Billion Valuation

2009-09-18T07:22:00.004-04:00

Is Twitter a billion-dollar company? It is now, according to its investors. People familiar with the company tell me it has raised around $50 million in a funding round that values the start-up, which has no real revenue to speak of, at about $1 billion.

There are many businesses that "get" the inbound marketing idea and how it can help build a brand by building a community of loyal followers. They "get" that it's not all about, screaming, here's our product, buy it because we say it's great! It's about, we are a leader in this space and here are our thoughts, and oh by the way, yes, we do pay attention to our customers and their needs.

Looking for a hit device that can revive its struggling cellphone business, Motorola Inc. unveiled its first handset powered by Google Inc.'s Android

2009-09-14T07:05:00.001-04:00

Looking for a hit device that can revive its struggling cellphone business, Motorola Inc. unveiled its first handset powered by Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

Free Tuition for Best Science and Tech Skills

2009-09-11T13:55:00.000-04:00

Just as students are scrambling more than ever to pay for a college education, a four-year full-tuition scholarship (estimated $120,000) to Merrimack College is awaiting the student who can best demonstrate their quantitative, analytical, and critical thinking skills.

Why Gmail went down

2009-09-03T07:28:00.002-04:00

"We had slightly underestimated the load which some recent changes (ironically, some designed to improve service availability) placed on the request routers -- servers which direct web queries to the appropriate Gmail server for response. At about 12:30 pm Pacific a few of the request routers became overloaded and in effect told the rest of the system "stop sending us traffic, we're too slow!".

Wonder why the Google Network Operation Center (NOC) did not catch on that the routers were becoming overloaded. Could be the performance threshold levels were not set properly, or somehow the alerts did not get reported or were just disregarded (someone on the west coast was on coffee break, and ignored their PDA alert?). It could be said that more proactive monitoring is in order. I noticed they didn't mention "who's" routers were at the center of the issue...? I have a feeling Google will be working with their vendor on this. Wonder if my friends from the East Coast Interoperability lab at UNH are in deep discussion over this one.

As Internet turns 40, barriers threaten its growth

2009-09-02T10:51:00.002-04:00

As Internet turns 40, barriers threaten its growth...

A variety of factors are to blame. Spam and hacking attacks force network operators to erect security firewalls. Authoritarian regimes block access to many sites and services within their borders.

I believe deep packet inspection (DPI) and better network monitoring can help cut down the spamming, hacking and malware. Also helpful that many Internet Service Providers (ISP's) get it, and offer free virus protection/firewall/etc.

Raytheon to buy BBN, a firm that helped create Net

2009-09-02T06:42:00.001-04:00

Raytheon to buy BBN, a firm that helped create Net - wow!

The company became famous for its research in computer networking. In the 1960s, it developed the first modem for transmitting digital data over telephone lines and invented a router to accurately relay vast amounts of data to multiple locations.

BBN also played a major role in the invention of electronic mail, including the first use of the “at’’ symbol as a vital part of all e-mail addresses.

BBN was also chosen by the Department of Defense to build a computer network called Arpanet, the forerunner of the modern Internet.

Then Cisco came along and the rest is history.

Nortel's Enterprise Auction Set for 9/11

2009-09-01T07:38:00.001-04:00

Nortel's Enterprise Auction Set for 9/11

Nokia to sell smart phones based on Linux-based sw.

2009-08-31T07:51:00.002-04:00

Linux, Linux, everywhere...

Nokia's move away from Symbian, which some analysts have described as "aged," to the Linux-based Maemo operating system will give the new phone a more "PC-like experience," allowing users to run dozens of application windows at the same time.

I love this!

2009-08-28T21:46:00.001-04:00

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for, and If you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool For love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive..." - The Invitation, Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Interviewing these days

2009-08-28T21:07:00.000-04:00

Not easy...

WMUR Job Fair and Career Expo

2009-08-28T18:52:00.002-04:00

I had a great day with my friends from The New England Job Show. Had some great laughs.