7 steps to stronger, more secure passwords

A story from AP Mobile:

7 steps to stronger, more secure passwords

NEW YORK (AP) - Rarely does a week go by without news of another hacking incident. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that a Russian crime ring had amassed some 1.2 billion username and password combinations.  The Times report, based on information from Milwaukee-based Hold Security, called the data "the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials." Hold's researchers did ...

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The Patent Process: An Overview for Jurors

Here's an excellent patent process video used for jurors in the Apple/Samsung smartphone patents trial.   This is an introduction to how patents work and the different areas of a patent to apply in the assessment of infringement.

The Patent Process: An Overview for Jurors

What Does the Mobile Phone Unlocking Bill Really Mean?

Many mobile operators in the United States add restrictions to every phone they sell. These "locks" prevent you from being able to use your phone on other networks. If you put an AT&T SIM inside a locked T-Mobile phone, the only phone calls you'll be able to make will be to 911. This lock also applies to international carriers, so travelers will be hit with extensive roaming fees for data, text messages and phone calls.

The vast majority of US carriers have policies that, under specific conditions, will grant you a code to unlock your device. This usually only happens when you're a long-term customer in good standing who has a valid reason for unlocking it (such as military service or lengthy international trips). Problem is, these operators are still in charge and they can decide whether or not they want to give you the code. Under current law, this is your only legal option; if AT&T declines your request, you're out of luck.

Fortunately this Friday, President Obama will sign the bill passed by congress that provides an extension for the policy of unlocking your mobile phone.  This needs to become permanent law but will not be so for now. However, there is general agreement that "the question of locked cell phones has implications for telecommunications policy and that it would benefit from review and resolution in that context."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/29/phone-unlocking-bill/

The Secret System Controlling Your Facebook News Feed

No one really knows exactly how Facebook decides what we see when we log in. Reverse-engineering the algorithm behind it could help us find out

WHO controls your Facebook News Feed? We are fed a specially selected diet of jokes, photos and gossip from our Facebook friends, but not by a person. Instead an algorithm does the work – giving it the power to influence us.

 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329804.200-the-secret-system-controlling-your-facebook-news-feed.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Conline-news#.U9pP_Ha9Kc0

Citizens Lab - A White Hat group protecting us from spy agencies corrupting the Internet

When it comes to what a "people's intelligence agency" might look like, it's hard to find a better template than the one created by Citizen Lab. And its hacker ethos is reflected in those it calls its allies.

"When you think about hacking as a civic ethic—this idea of lifting the lid and seeing what's beneath the surface—this all comes together," says Deibert. "The idea of hacking and hacktivism seemed to me a really powerful way of motivating people; not hacking and breaking the law, but hacking as the spirit of curiosity about technological systems."

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/inside-citizen-lab-the-hacker-hothouse-protecting-you-from-big-brother/

The 'right to be forgotten' on Google

http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/02/right-to-be-forgotten-explainer/

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Keep the Internet Open, by Vinton Cerf

​Here's the viewpoint from one of the fathers of the Internet:

The Internet stands at a crossroads. Built from the bottom up, powered by the people, it has become a powerful economic engine and a positive social force. But its success has generated a worrying backlash. Around the world, repressive regimes are putting in place or proposing measures that restrict free expression and affect fundamental rights. The number of governments that censor Internet content has grown to 40 today from about four in 2002. And this number is still growing, threatening to take away the Internet as you and I know it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/opinion/keep-the-internet-open.html

Mobile Malware Is On The Rise, McAfee Report Reveals - Forbes

When it comes to security, mobile threats are on the rise, according to the June 2014 McAfee Labs Threat Report released today. New mobile malware has increased for five straight quarters, with a total mobile malware growth of 167 percent in the past year alone. Total mobile malware has increased steadily since the first quarter of 2012.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2014/06/24/mobile-malware-is-on-the-rise-mcafee-report-reveals/

IBM's $3 Billion Investment In Synthetic Brains And Quantum Computing

IBM thinks the future belongs to computers that mimic the human brain and use quantum physics... and they're betting $3 billion on it.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3032872/fast-feed/ibms-3-billion-investment-in-synthetic-brains-and-quantum-computing

CEO's view: Microsoft is the productivity and platform company

An interesting view of technology's future by the new Microsoft CEO:  "At our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company" says .  His full speech given to Microsoft employees is available below:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/ceo/index.html

The Value of Good Communications in I.T. Projects

Strong communication skills are always an important area to emphasize for project success. Not to be underestimated.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/06/27/communicating-effectively-in-projects/


Sent from my iPhone

The Next Thing Silicon Valley needs to Disrupt Big Time: Its Own Culture!

Excellent discussion about the failings of Silicon Valley's hiring and work culture. Having experienced that culture myself during my tenure there, I am in whole-hearted agreement:


http://qz.com/225782/the-next-thing-silicon-valley-needs-to-disrupt-big-time-its-own-culture/

The Business Value of SIP Trunking

An excellent explanation of the business case for SIP TRUNKING in PBX configurations:

 

http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/lhollmeyer15/atc-businessvalueofsiptrunking/2

History of Android O/S -- an Amazing Evolution and Development Strategy

Quite interesting to look at the history and amazing evolution of this O/S.  See the link below for full article.

"Ron Amadeo - June 15 2014, 6:00pm PDT   Android has been with us in one form or another for more than six years. During that time, we've seen an absolutely breathtaking rate of change unlike any other development cycle that has ever existed. When it came time for Google to dive in to the smartphone wars, the company took its rapid-iteration, Web-style update cycle and applied it to an operating system, and the result has been an onslaught of continual improvement. Lately, Android has even been running on a previously unheard of six-month development cycle, and that's slower than it used to be. For the first year of Android’s commercial existence, Google was putting out a new version every two-and-a-half months.

The rest of the industry, by comparison, moves at a snail's pace. Microsoft updates its desktop OS every three to five years, and Apple is on a yearly update cycle for OS X and iOS. Not every update is created equal, either. iOS has one major design revision in seven years, and the newest version of Windows Phone 8 looks very similar to Windows Phone 7. On Android, however, users are lucky if anything looks the same this year as it did last year. The Play Store, for instance, has had five major redesigns in five years. For Android, that's normal..."

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/building-android-a-40000-word-history-of-googles-mobile-os/

Apple Unveils iOS 8

The latest edition of this amazing O/S is described as the biggest release since the launch of their App Store. Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"SAN FRANCISCO―June 2, 2014―Apple® today unveiled iOS 8, the biggest release since the launch of the App Store℠, giving users incredible new features and developers the tools to create amazing new apps. iOS 8 delivers a simpler, faster and more intuitive user experience, including iCloud® Photo Library, allowing you to enjoy your photos and videos more easily across your devices; new Messages features to easily share voice, video or photos with just a swipe; and an entirely new Health app that gives you a clear overview of your health and fitness data all in one place. iOS 8 also includes predictive typing for Apple’s QuickType™ keyboard; Family Sharing, the easiest way to share purchases, photos and calendars within the same household; and iCloud Drive™, so you can store files and access them from anywhere..."

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/06/02Apple-Unveils-iOS-8-the-Biggest-Release-Since-the-Launch-of-the-App-Store.html

Wi-Fi networks are wasting a gigabit—but new multi-user beamforming will triple the current speeds

We will soon be seeing triple the current high speeds of the WiFi standard.   Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"Jon Brodkin - May 20 2014, 6:00am PDT -- Wi-Fi equipment based on the new 802.11ac standard—often called Gigabit Wi-Fi—has been on the market for nearly two years. These products offer greater bandwidth and other improvements over gear based on the older 802.11n specification, but they don’t implement one of the most impressive features of 11ac.

It was simply too complicated to deploy all the upgrades at once, hardware makers say. As a result, 11ac networks actually waste a lot of capacity when serving devices like smartphones and tablets. This shortcoming should be fixed over the next year with new networking equipment and upgrades to end-user devices. Once everything is in place, Wi-Fi networks will be better able to serve lots of devices at once, particularly the mobile devices that every single person in the US seemingly has in his or her hands every minute of the day.

It's hard to imagine a single smartphone or tablet needing to receive more than 433Mbps of data. But the fact that MU-MIMO-powered Wi-Fi will be able to serve more users simultaneously could bring huge benefits to large-scale wireless networks, like those in airports, convention centers, and sports stadiums. Real-world throughput will end up being something lower than 433Mbps to each user because of networking overhead and other limitations.

'Traditionally, access points have been equipped with omnidirectional antennas, which are so named because they send energy in all directions,' wrote Wi-Fi expert Matthew Gast in the book, 802.11ac: A Survival Guide. (Gast also oversees development of the software that powers Aerohive Networks’ equipment.) 'An alternative method of transmission is to focus energy toward a receiver, a process called beamforming. Provided the AP [access point] has sufficient information to send the radio energy preferentially in one direction, it is possible to reach farther.'

The first 11ac products implemented single-user beamforming, sending one transmission to a single receiver. Multi-user beamforming, coming in the next wave of 11ac products this year and next year, enables MU-MIMO and its simultaneous transmission to multiple devices.

'Don’t get me wrong, 433Mbps is nice,” Gast told Ars in a phone interview. “But there's an unused capacity because the AP is capable of transmitting three 433Mbps streams, but my phone can only receive one. You lose two-thirds of the capacity when this happens.'”

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/05/wi-fi-networks-are-wasting-a-gigabit-but-multi-user-beamforming-will-save-the-day/

SociBot: the 'social robot' that knows how you feel

This is an interesting adaptation of social design for user interfaces -- although there may be a backlash put-off reaction from many.  Capable of mimicking human expressions and emotions, the SociBot is designed to bring a human touch to teleconferencing – or to imitate your friends.  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"Oliver Wainwright, April 2014 -- If Skype and FaceTime aren't giving you enough of the human touch, you could soon be talking face to rubbery face with your loved ones, thanks to SociBot, a creepy “social robot” that can imitate your friends.

'It's like having a real presence in the room,' says Nic Carey, research co-ordinator at Engineered Arts, the Cornish company behind the device. “You simply upload a static photo of the face you want it to mimic and our software does the rest, animating the features down to subtle mouth twitches and eyes that follow you around the room. Even when they're not speaking, it really feels like there's someone there, keeping an eye on you.”

The face of a disembodied colleague staring out from a silvery helmet might not be what you'd expect at your average teleconference, but the company thinks it could transform the way we interact over long distances by simulating the subtleties of human expression, recreating the things that are lost on a flat screen.

Designed to be gender and ethnically neutral, the translucent mask is projected on from within, the chosen face 3D-mapped on to its surface and speech perfectly lip-synched, while the head turns and tilts as it talks.

While capable of mimicking others, the SociBot's slightly sinister side comes from the fact that it is also watching you. Equipped with two cameras in its head and a depth sensor in its chest, it can detect gestures and movements, as well as judge your emotions by mapping the position of your features over a series of internal templates.

'It knows when you're there and can tell how you're feeling, and it knows how to respond accordingly,” says Carey. “We've tried to make it as human as possible, down to the smallest details, like its pupils dilating when a new person comes into the room.'

The SociBot, which retails at £14,500, is a slimmed-down version of the company's RoboThespian, a full-sized all-singing all-dancing robot designed for visitor attractions. It contains the same technology as its older brother, only chopped off at the torso, while a mini-me version is also available for desktop use and “playing around with at home” – yours for £9,500.  The company sees its potential in shopping centres and theme parks, airports and tourist information centres..."

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/apr/11/socibot-the-social-robot-that-knows-how-you-feel

Cellular’s open source future is latched to tallest tree in the village

Perhaps this is the future of worldwide cellular deployments for rural areas?  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"Sean Gallagher - Feb 27 2014 -- Deep in the jungles of West Papua’s central highlands, there is a village with its own mobile telecommunications network. That network runs in a box latched to the top of a tree, providing the only reliable cell coverage anywhere within a four-hour drive. This small setup has created a booming local mobile economy—and it could be the harbinger of a whole new class of private and community mobile networks that change the shape of mobile for those who have been underserved or overcharged by traditional phone carriers.

The single “tower” cell network is the work of graduate students from the University of California at Berkeley’s Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) research group, under the direction of Professor Eric Brewer—the founder of the content delivery network Inktomi. The group built its mobile solution with software developed in San Francisco and some off-the-shelf hardware adapted for the task. Working with the Methodist church-owned school Misionaris Sekolahin and local merchants, a TIER team led by graduate students Kurtis Heimerl, Shaddi Hasan and Kashif Ali gave this village of about 1,500 people its first local phone network—and a much-needed connection to the outside world.

And that network runs on open source. OpenBTS, an all-software cellular transceiver, is at the heart of the network running on that box attached to a treetop. Someday, if those working with the technology have their way, it could do for mobile networks what TCP/IP and open source did for the Internet. The dream is to help mobile break free from the confines of telephone providers’ locked-down spectrum, turning it into a platform for the development of a whole new range of applications that use spectrum “white space” to connect mobile devices of every kind. It could also democratize telecommunications around the world in unexpected ways. Startup Range Networks, the company that developed the open-source software powering the network, has much bigger plans for the technology. It wants to adapt the transceiver to use unlicensed spectrum for small-scale cellular networks all over the world without the need to depend on the generosity of incumbent telecom providers or government regulators."

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/cellulars-open-source-future-is-latched-to-tallest-tree-in-the-village/

Can Machine Learning Fix a Broken Patent System?

An insightful discussion of the patent system and new technologies associated with evaluation and policy.  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"Seth Fletcher | December 18, 2013 -- Last month molecular geneticist and crusader for intellectual property reform Richard Jefferson wrote a Forum column for Scientific American in which he explained the concept of “innovation cartography”—the idea that mapping the vast and inscrutable world of patents will enable more players to create more innovations, some of which might end up doing a lot of good. Since then, Jefferson and his colleagues have launched a new version of The Lens, an open resource for searching and analyzing patents issued worldwide; published a paper in Nature Biotechnology on using The Lens to explore global gene patents; and announced a new round of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I suspected Jefferson had more to say than he could fit into that Forum piece, so I gave him a call. Among other things, I learned that patents run in the family: Richard Jefferson is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group)    [An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

What’s wrong with the patent system in the U.S.?

When my great uncle Thomas started the U.S. patent system, he was obsessed with this bargain issue: You wouldn’t get a sanction until you disclosed your invention. But today the idea of patents as teachings has become risible. Companies have become incredibly skilled in hiding the ball. So we’ve repurposed patents. People have come up with ex post facto justifications about securing investment, and so on.

The patent system is in dire straits. The game is set where opacity and mendacity are celebrated. Some people say only solution is to get rid of patent system. There is some validity to that. But the purpose of The Lens is to render so much clarity that we have the tools for looking at policy and figuring out how to change it.

You’ve said that today’s IP system creates huge inefficiencies and ultimately benefits the biggest players. How so?

Let’s say your business is polymer fibers. A polymer company will spend a phenomenal amount of money mapping the world they need to navigate—hundreds of millions of dollars spent mapping the world of fiber chemistry, polymer chemistry, regulations, market research, and so on. But every polymer company does the same thing, and most of them will admit under duress, or the influence of single malt, that 90 percent of what they spend is precompetitive—it’s just knowing the lay of the land. Every one of these companies spends the same kind of money to get the same knowledge. And the expense comes from the opacity of the intellectual property system."

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/12/18/can-machine-learning-fix-a-broken-patent-system/

Learning drugs reawaken grown-up brain's inner child -- Increase brain DNA plasticity with valoporate

Amazing developments in brain plasticity for grown-ups.  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"January 2014 by Helen Thomson -- A drug for perfect pitch is just the start: mastering new skills could become easy if we can restore the brain's youthful ability to create new circuits

A mood-stabilising drug can help you achieve perfect pitch – the ability to identify any note you hear without inferring it from a reference note.

Since this is a skill that is usually acquired only early in life, the discovery is the first evidence that it may be possible to revert the human brain to a childlike state, enabling us to treat disorders and unlock skills that are difficult, if not impossible, to acquire beyond a certain age.

From bilingualism to sporting prowess, many abilities rely on neural circuits that are laid down by our early experiences. Until the age of 7 or so, the brain goes through several "critical periods" during which it can be radically changed by the environment. During these times, the brain is said to have increased plasticity.

In order to take advantage of these critical periods, the brain needs to be stimulated appropriately so it lays down the neuronal circuitry needed for a particular ability. For example, young children with poor sight in one eye may develop lazy eye, or amblyopia. It can be treated by covering the better eye, forcing the child to use the lazy eye – but this strategy only works during the critical period."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24831-learning-drugs-reawaken-grownup-brains-inner-child.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Conline-news

Surviving the Post-Employment Economy

The author argues that in the new economy, it's people, not skills or majors, that have lost value -- this unfortunate view seems to be accurate. Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"Sarah Kendzior, November 2013 (Sarah is a St Louis-based writer who studies politics and media.) --

A lawyer. A computer scientist. A military analyst. A teacher.

What do these people have in common? They are trained professionals who cannot find full-time jobs. Since 2008, they have been tenuously employed - working one-year contracts, consulting on the side, hustling to survive. They spent thousands on undergraduate and graduate training to avoid that hustle. They eschewed dreams - journalism, art, entertainment - for safer bets, only to discover that the safest bet is that your job will be contingent and disposable.

Unemployed graduates are told that their predicament is their own fault. They should have chosen a more "practical" major, like science or engineering, and stayed away from the fickle and loathsome humanities. The reality is that, in the "jobless recovery", nearly every sector of the economy has been decimated. Companies have turned permanent jobs into contingency labour, and entry-level positions into unpaid internships.

Changing your major will not change a broken economy.

People devalued

In the United States, nine percent of computer science graduates are unemployed, and 14.7 percent of those who hold degrees in information systems have no job. Graduates with degrees in STEM - science, technology, engineering and medicine - are facing record joblessness, with unemployment at more than twice pre-recession levels. The job market for law degree holders continues to erode, with only 55 percent of 2011 law graduates in full-time jobs. Even in the military, that behemoth of the national budget, positions are being eliminated or becoming contingent due to the sequester.

It is not skills or majors that are being devalued. It is people.

Academics face particular derision for their choice of profession. "You got a PhD - what did you expect?" they are told when they note that 76 percent of professors work without job security, usually for poverty wages.

It is true that the academic job market has been terrible for decades. But until 2008, PhDs could have expected more. Since 2009, most disciplines have lost roughly 40 percent of their positions, while the backlog of qualified candidates continues to grow. Most PhDs work as adjunct faculty or in the new euphemistic sectors of high-brow impoverishment: "non-stipendiary fellow", "special assistant professor" or "voluntary development opportunity".

Best of bad options

Despite the dire employment conditions of higher education, young people continue to enrol in graduate school. Detractors roll their eyes: Why would a young person spend years earning a degree of questionable value? Why not "go get a job"? To which the 20-something laughs, having graduated into an economy where peers spend years vainly looking for a job, finding only unpaid internships or low-wage contingency labour, often while living at home. A funded graduate programme, with health insurance, seems a welcome escape.

"But it is not just about your current earnings," the detractor continues, "It is about the wages you lose while in the programme." To which the 30-something, having spent their adult life in an economy of stagnant wages and eroding opportunities, takes the 20-something aside, and explains that this is a maxim they, too, were told, but from which they never benefitted. They tell the 20-something what they already know: It is hard to plan for what is already gone.

We live in the tunnel at the end of the light.

If you are 35 or younger - and quite often, older - the advice of the old economy does not apply to you. You live in the post-employment economy, where corporations have decided not to pay people. Profits are still high. The money is still there. But not for you. You will work without a pay rise, benefits, or job security. Survival is now a laudable aspiration.

Higher education is merely a symptom of a broader economic disease. As universities boast record endowments and spend millions on lavish infrastructure, administrators justify poor treatment of faculty, or lecturers, by noting that they: 1) "choose" to work for poverty wages, and 2) picked specialisations that give them limited "market value" - ignoring, of course, that almost no one is valued in this market, save those who are reaping its greatest profits."

http://m.aljazeera.com/story/201311373243740811

Emerging markets hold the key to smartphone success for Microsoft-Nokia

An insightful explanation of the Microsoft-Nokia strategic rationale.  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"GSMAintelligence.com, Sept 2013 -- Microsoft announced yesterday that it is acquiring Nokia Devices & Services for $7.2 billion, a bold move by the software giant aimed at strengthening the position of Windows Phone in a smartphone market that continues to be dominated by devices running Android and iOS. This deal is expected to close in Q1 2014 subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

In this analysis, we look at the strategic rationale for the acquisition, focusing on the next wave of mobile growth driven by demand for data services in fast-growing markets, and assess how well Microsoft-Nokia is positioned to benefit from it.

What is the strategic rationale behind Microsoft-Nokia?

From a Microsoft point-of-view, there are two main reasons for the acquisition, which are intricately intertwined. The first is to consolidate its mobile position. For many years it has articulated the importance of being firmly in the mobile space, but has largely been unsuccessful throughout a number of platform iterations, leaving it increasingly irrelevant in the post-PC era (which, of course, it dominated during the 1990s and 2000s). Its share of global smartphone sales (through Windows Phone) languishes under 5%. Nokia has been its principal supporter since the formation of their strategic partnership in February 2011. Both firms have essentially bet their respective futures in consumer mobile on this, so we see the acquisition as a logical extension from partnership to full integration.

The company has positioned itself for the future as a 'devices and services' business. While this can be read a number of ways, we believe the most prescient is in a mobile context where it seeks to control an integrated ecosystem of hardware, software and content/services to challenge the ecosystems of Apple and Google. While it can claim to have control over two of these without Nokia, this deal provides it the missing piece in hardware. In addition, Nokia provides a ready-made, proven capability in supply chain management, marketing and distribution. The alternative (if it was even considered) of investing in all of these on its own would have been extremely difficult and costly, and a particularly unpalatable option for Microsoft given an increasingly impatient investor base looking for clear success in mobile."

https://gsmaintelligence.com/analysis/2013/09/why-emerging-markets-hold-the-key-to-smartphone-success-for-microsoft-nokia/400/

Anthropomorphism of computers: mindful or mindless?

Interesting article that has bearing on the human-computer user interface design methods as well as my prior research in this domain.  Here's the first part of this article (click on the link below for the full text).

"ABSTRACT -- Youjeong Kima and S. Shyam Sundarb.    In analyzing the human tendency to treat computers as social actors (CASA), researchers tend to rule out the anthropomorphism explanation because anthropomorphism is understood to be “a sincere, conscious belief” that computers are human and/or deserving of human attributions. But, does anthropomorphism have to be necessarily mindful? Could it not also be a mindless tendency, especially given that most of us have somewhat long associations with our computers and have built human-like bonds with them? We examined these questions empirically by investigating whether the user tendency to treat computers as human beings is conscious (mindful) or non-conscious (mindless). We manipulated two variables (presence/absence of human-like agent and the low/high interactivity) on a health website and experimentally investigated whether they serve as anthropomorphic cues to trigger mindful attributions of human-ness to the website or mindless evaluations of the site in human terms. We found evidence for mindless anthropomorphism, with implications for user judgments of credibility of information on the site."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563211001993

OmniUpdate is the leading Web CMS for higher education

If you are a college or university who is looking to upgrade their web sites and user interfaces for the public, students, faculty, and alumni, it is important that you not miss out on considering OmniUpdate as your recommended system and tool of choice.  OmniUpdate is the leading Web Content Management System (CMS) for the higher education vertical market.  After my investigation of this software system, support, training, product offerings, and new features, I continue to find myself duly impressed.  Not only are they nimble evolving their CMSto maximally meet their customer needs, they continue to match new emerging standards from the W3C, they cultivate new partners, and they hold high standards for customer support and training.  Check out this video from the CEO:

http://omniupdate.com

Skpe-Microsoft Integration will first hit Windows Phone and Xbox. Will Lync be next?

It appears the primary path for Skype integration in Microsoft products will first occur in Windows Phone and Xbox.  Will Microsoft Lync be next on the agenda?


http://allthingsd.com/20120531/skypes-tony-bates-says-the-goal-is-to-get-billions-of-active-users/?mod=obnetwork

Cisco worries about Skype, Microsoft Lync integration

The Microsoft purchase of Skype may present some road map issues for business enterprises planning their future Unified Communications services.   It is expected that Microsoft will seek to integrate Skype with MS Lync and reduce interoperability updates with Cisco and other vendors especially in the video calling standards arena.

http://m.zdnet.com/blog/btl/cisco-worries-about-skype-microsoft-lync-integration/69554

Cisco Unified Communications Integration™ for Microsoft Lync

An outstanding article that summarizes many of the features, specifications, and discussion points from integrating Cisco Unified Communications and Microsoft Lync:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/voicesw/ps6789/ps6836/ps11390/data_sheet_c78-635040_ps11390_Products_Data_Sheet.html

New Internet Taxes from the UN and ITU?

There is a proposal to impose taxes for build out of the Internet infrastructure in remote parts of the globe.  While on the surface this may sound appealing to help those less fortunate, it turns out this is actually an attempt by frustrated international government officials to impose collection of excessive fees for telecom and data usages.  Traditionally, excessive fees and taxes have been charged in the past for phone calls.  But with the advance of Internet and Voice over IP solutions (e.g., Skype) the collection of large usage fees collections have dramatically eroded.  There are a host of problems brought forth by the new proposal to tax Internet usage.  Most fundamental of these are the negative impact on the free flow of information with remote users essentially isolating those who need that free flow to counter the repressive regime in power.

See this article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57449375-83/u.n-could-tax-u.s.-based-web-sites-leaked-docs-show/

Laptop/Tablet Convergence using Windows 8

In Windows 8, the latest version of Microsoft's O/S which is still in beta, it will now be possible to combine a laptop PC and Tablet/iPad functionality inside one device.  Samsung has already accomplished this admirably as is outlined in the attached article.  While this makes sense for laptop/tablets, I still regard as highly unlikely that this kind of convergence can supplant the need for a full-function desktop PC.

See article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57450013-92/windows-8-tweeners-take-on-apple/

Android's one killer feature that trumps iPhone: Alerts!

Android has Apple beat hands down in the usability and methods of their Alerts feature.  This is an area that Apple would be hard pressed to exceed over Android because it would require a full-scale rewrite of their IOS home screen software and operational features.  

I have personally experienced the limitations of the iPhone in the alerts area.  Although the new alerting schema in latest IOS 5.1 release goes a long way towards improvement, it still suffers from severe issues:  inability to delete alerts individually, lack of easy glance-ability to determine overall alerts status, and chronological ordering across all alerts.

See this article for details:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57449969-94/androids-one-killer-feature-that-trumps-the-iphone/?tag=mncol;popPosts