Hybrid technology degrees emerging

As demand for college graduates with technical degrees soars, new majors are emerging that are hybrids of computer science, information systems and computer engineering.

Penn State University, for example, created the College of Information Science and Technology a decade ago as an interdisciplinary program that combines engineering and business courses. The college offers three bachelor's degrees: a B.S. and a B.A. in Information Sciences and Technology (IST) and a B.S. in Security and Risk Analysis (SRA).

[TECH MAJORS: Which tech degrees pay the most from day one?]

Demand for students who complete the more rigorous B.S. degrees is high.

"Around 78% of last year's graduates were placed in May 2012," says Mary Beth Rosson, associate dean for undergraduate studies at Penn State's College of Information Science and Technology. "Starting salaries for IST majors averaged $60,500 and $59,200 for SRA majors. The placement rate for students who did the dual major - IST and SRA, which is easy to do - was 91.6%, definitely giving them a high value. Around 40% of our students did get a signing bonus."

Rosson sees less demand for the B.A. program both from students and recruiters.

"It's an experimental program. We have had it for a few years, but we haven't gotten much uptake on it," Rosson says. "We designed it to be flexible, so you could double major in biology or history and IST. But it's been difficult to get it going."

Recruiting for Penn State's IST grads is strong this year, with 50 companies trekking out to the main University Park campus for interviews. Altogether, Penn State has about 800 undergraduates pursuing IST and SRA degrees.

"Our top companies in terms of numbers of hires are Price Waterhouse Coopers, Delloitte, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One, Cognizant, Freddie Mac and Northrup Grumman," Rosson says. "A lot of our students go into consulting type of positions. Our students are very business savvy because they have two or three internships."

Rosson says techie teens who love math, algorithms and mastering computer processes should focus on computer science, while those who like working with people should consider a major like information sciences and technology.

"If you want to work with computing technology in the context of people and problems, that's why you want to come here," Rosson says. "Our programs emphasize the human, social and cultural context of computing....Recruiters love our students because they are ready to work. They're problem solvers, they're good in groups, and they have good communications skills."

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.

Read more »

Seagate upgrades hybrid drive family, adds desktop model

Seagate today announced upgrades to its 2.5-in. laptop hybrid drives and released its first 3.5-in. desktop hybrid drive.

Hybrid drives combine a relatively small amount of NAND flash with traditional spinning disks along with firmware that determines where data resides on the disk based on application performance requirements.

Because the hybrid drives use spinning disk, they can provide terabyte-plus capacities, but because of the NAND flash, they can offer performance similar to solid-state drives (SSDs) with price points approaching traditional hard disk drives.

As part of today's release, Seagate also announced it will no longer sell its hybrid drives under the Momentus XT name and will now use the brand SSHD (solid-state hybrid drives) to better reflect the technology.

Seagate's SSHD hybrid drive family.

The drives represent Seagate's third generation of 2.5-in. hybrid drives. The release includes a new version of its standard laptop hybrid drive and 7mm-high "Thin" SSHD, designed to fit smaller laptops, such as ultrathin notebooks.

One notable change to the 2.5-in. line is that Seagate is now using 5400 rpm spinning disk, versus the 7200 rpm spindles of its previous generation drives. But, even with the slower spindle speeds, the new Seagate Laptop and Laptop Thin SSHDs boast performance that's as much as 40% faster than previous generations, and can add as much as 30% to total system performance -- regardless of the processor inside the system, according to David Burks, Seagate's director of global marketing.

To boost performance in the slower spindle speed drives, Seagate deployed a new NAND flash subsystem, using upgraded write caching algorithms that automatically write all high-priority data directly to flash. In past generations, all data was initially written to spinning disk and then migrated to flash as performance metrics required, Burks said.

"[The firmware] constantly monitors every block of data and evaluates it as to whether it's boot information or data frequently used by the operating system or an application. At the same time, we also evaluate the data based on what its impact is on system performance if it's stored on hard disks versus the SSD portion of the drive," Burks said.

For example, Burks said, if the data consists of long, sequential blocks, there is no benefit in storing it on the NAND flash, whereas random data consisting of short -- 4KB and 8KB -- blocks can benefit from the low search latency of the solid-state memory.

The new Seagate Laptop and Laptop Thin SSHDs come with 8GB of NAND flash. The drives come in single-platter 500GB or dual-platter 1TB capacities.

Burks said Seagate is working with Intel, which created the specifications for ultrabooks, in order to get their hybrid drives into more models of the ultrathin laptops. Currently, some ultrabooks contain separate NAND flash and hard disk drives in order to achieve Intel's low threshholds for fast boot-up and data sleep-to-active-mode times.

Seagate's new 3.5-in. desktop SSHD

Seagate's first desktop hybrid drives will come in 1TB and 2TB capacities and will use a 7200rpm spindle speed. Other than size, everything else about the Desktop SSHD line is the same as Seagate's notebook SSHDs.

"What we're trying to do here is simplify the number of platforms we have to engineer and support," Burks said.

As with the 2.5-in laptop drives, the new Desktop SSHD line will use Seagate's Adaptive Memory software to identify and store only the most critical data a system needs to go fast. The Desktop SSHD serves up high performance without a high price tag.

Seagate's 2.5-in. laptops will mainly be sold to system manufacturers, with some sales coming from channel distributors. In contrast, the 3.5-in. Desktop SSHDs will be sold exclusively through channel distribution partners, Burks said.

Desktop system manufacturers like to see a new technology proved out in the market before incorporating the technology into their computers, an issue that affected Segate's first and second-generation hybrid drives, Burks said.

"We expect a similar reaction with our desktop hybrid drives, and because we'll be the only ones with them for at least a year, we believe the channel is probably the best venue for them, and a lot of healthy business exists in channel for desktops," Burks said.

"Our customers want the highest storage capacity with the ability to access their data easily and quickly," Fredrik Hamberger, vice president of Hewlett-Packard's consumer PC business, said in a statement. "Integrating Seagate's SSHD solution into our rapidly growing portfolio of industry-leading PCs will offer our customers a superior experience while running multiple applications."

Without releasing pricing, Burks said the SSHDs would carry a $15 to $20 price premium over standard hard drives of similar capacity. For some idea of pricing, Seagate's second generation Momentus XT hybrid drive with 750GB of capacity retailed for $245.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian, or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed. His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com.

See more by Lucas Mearian on Computerworld.com.

Read more about data storage in Computerworld's Data Storage Topic Center.

Read more »

Academy Cube aims to tackle IT skills shortage with online learning platform

Software vendors, academic institutions and government agencies united on Tuesday to tackle European youth unemployment and the IT skills shortage with a new online education platform.

Academy Cube, developed by SAP with the support of the European Commission, will focus on teaching IT skills and matching students with job vacancies. It runs on a learning management system developed by SuccessFactors, a company SAP acquired last year.

"The real issue we have to tackle is not the financial crisis, but youth unemployment," said Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, at a launch event for the platform at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany. In some European Union member states, the youth unemployment rate is almost 60 percent, she said.

Paradoxically, at the same time there are between 700,000 and 1 million job vacancies in Europe, estimated SAP co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe. They can't be filled because young people lack the required IT skills, he said.

"We are creating, with partners, a digital learning system so they can become more skilled," he said. "This is open to all companies."

Initial partners include Microsoft, LinkedIn, Software AG, ThyssenKrupp, Robert Bosch, the German Federal Employment Agency and a number of academic institutions and training providers.

Students who create an account on the platform will see a range of courses and the job opportunities they open up, or they can consult job vacancies and see which courses they need to follow in order to apply. They can follow the courses at their own pace, returning automatically to where they left off the next time they log in.

The website is now live, and a handful of students are already enrolled, Snabe said.

SAP has invested "a few million euros to get the platform up and running," said Snabe. "The costs now will be adding the content and recruiting people."

Those costs will mostly be borne by the companies contributing training or seeking skilled employees: At least at first, the enrollment and training will be free for students. Snabe did not rule out a fee later, but did say the platform's purpose is not to make a profit.

Kroes said she thought the platform could be a win-win proposition for students and industry, a sentiment echoed by Snabe.

"We will never compete on price for an hour of labor here in Europe, but with the right training we might compete on the productivity of an hour of labor," he said.

Although countries such as Greece and Spain have the highest youth unemployment, and German companies are building the platform, the training will be provided in English.

"English gives global access to IT," Snabe said.

Peter Sayer covers open source software, European intellectual property legislation and general technology breaking news for IDG News Service. Send comments and news tips to Peter atpeter_sayer@idg.com.

Read more »

NASA Mars rover Curiosity on road to recovery

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is out of safe mode and back on active status after computer trouble hadsidelined the vehicle for nearly a week.

The space agency reported that Curiosity is now running on its backup computer system, known as its B-side. It's been taken out of its minimal-activity safe mode and ready to return to full operation.

"We are making good progress in the recovery," said Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager Richard Cook in a statement.

"One path of progress is evaluating the A-side with intent to recover it as a backup. Also, we need to go through a series of steps with the B-side, such as informing the computer about the state of the rover -- the position of the arm, the position of the mast, that kind of information," he said.

Jim Erickson, Curiosity's deputy project manager, told Computerworld on Monday that engineers watching the rover's telemetry last week noticed certain applications would terminate mid-sequence. The cause, he noted, appears to be a file corruption.

"We are doing multiple things at the same time," said Erickson. "All we know is the vehicle is telling us that there are multiple errors in the memory. We think it's a hardware error of one type or another but the software did not handle it gracefully. We'd like to have our vehicles withstand hardware trouble and continue to function."

Now that NASA's computer specialists have fully switched the rover over onto its redundant, onboard computer system, they are trying to repair the problem on the main system. They also are attempting to shore up the rover's software so it can better withstand hardware glitches.

At this point, NASA engineers are looking to keep Curiosity running on the B-side system, while repairing the A-side so it can be on stand-by as the new backup.

NASA is on a deadline to get the rover fully functional before April 4, when communication with all Mars rovers and orbiters will end for about a month.

A solar conjunction -- when the Sun will be in the path between the Earth and Mars -- is fast approaching and will keep NASA engineers from sending daily instructions to the rover, or from receiving data and images in return.

NASA will have to send all operational instructions for that month-long span to Curiosity before the solar conjunction begins.

The rover will remain stationary in order to keep it safe while out of contact with Earth.

Curiosity, which landed on the Red Planet last August, is on a two-year mission to find out if Mars has ever had an environment that could support life, even in a microbial form.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

Read more »

EBay develops 'miles per gallon' metric for data centers

There's a maxim in the data center business that you can't manage what you can't measure, and eBay has come up with the mother of all measurement systems for calculating data center efficiency.

The online auction giant has devised a methodology that looks at the cost of its IT operations in dollars, kilowatt hours and carbon emissions, and ties those costs back to a single performance metric -- in eBay's case, the number of buy and sell transactions its customers make at eBay.com.

The result is a set of data that provides the equivalent of a "miles per gallon" metric for data centers, which organizations can use as a baseline to improve on over time, said Dean Nelson, head of eBay's Global Foundation Services, which manages its data centers worldwide.

"EBay is a single system, it's the sum of a million parts, and we needed a way to measure and convey the efficiency of this system," he said Tuesday at the Green Grid Forum, a data center efficiency conference in Santa Clara, California.

EBay has published the methodology in the hope that other companies will adopt it too, much as the industry rallied around Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE, as a general metric for data center efficiency.

EBay's system, which it calls the Digital Service Efficiency (DSE) dashboard, goes further than PUE, measuring its IT infrastructure and relating it to the four metrics its top executives care about most -- revenue, performance, environmental impact and cost.

In the process of sharing its method, eBay took the unusual step of releasing a wealth of data about its own data centers. It operated 52,075 physical servers at the end of last year, and generated 740 metric tons of carbon per million users, or 1.6 tons per server.

It set itself a target of reducing its cost per transaction and carbon emissions per transaction by 10 percent this year, and of increasing its transactions per kilowatt hour by the same amount, Nelson said. It shared those figures too -- apart from the costs in dollar terms, which it views as competitive data.

"We're not going to show our detailed profit and loss numbers to everyone; we're devising a metric to show how much we're improving efficiency each year," said Rohini Jain, finance lead for eBay's technology infrastructure.

Still, it's more data than most other companies provide. For instance, Google doesn't disclose how many servers it operates or how much power its data centers consume, though it does publishefficiency data.

It may not be easy for other companies to replicate eBay's methodology. EBay has a straightforward metric against which to measure performance -- the number of transactions its customers make, which it measures in URLs -- while many other firms have more complex business models.

It also helps that it is a technology-driven company willing to invest in energy-saving ideas. It brought its first solar farm online in December, generating 650 kilowatts of power, and it plans to install Bloom fuel cells later this year that will provide up to 6 megawatts of power.

The software, hardware, operations and finance teams at eBay are working together on the project, Nelson said. In one experiment, its software developers adjusted the memory utilization for a pool of servers, allowing it to eliminate 400 machines and save a megawatt of power, he said.

PUE was controversial when it was introduced by the Green Grid Forum six years ago, Nelson said, but it has since been adopted widely.

Like PUE, the "miles per gallon" data isn't necessarily useful in and of itself, but it could give companies a benchmark to measure progress moving forward.

"We averaged 46,000 transactions per kilowatt hour last year. Was that good? We don't know, we have nothing to baseline it against," Nelson said.

This year, eBay -- and everyone else -- will be able to see how it's doing.

James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com

Read more »

Computer History Museum to induct Pixar co-founder not named Steve Jobs into Hall of Fellows

The Computer History Museum on Monday announced its Class of 2013 includes Ed Catmull, a computer scientist and Pixar co-founder, along with two PC pioneers: Harry Huskey and Robert W. Taylor.

These accomplished technology industry professionals will be inducted into the museum's Hall of Fellows on April 27 in Mountain View. While their names might not be household ones, they join a roster of technology bigwigs from Web creator Tim Berners-Lee to Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe.

[ RELATED: Why There's No Nobel Prize in Computing

SLIDESHOW: Whirlwind tour of technology's top honors, awards and prizes ]

Catmull not only started up Pixar, along with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Alvy Ray Smith, but is currently president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. The museum officially recognizes Catmull for: "His pioneering work in computer graphics, animation and filmmaking." Catmull is one of the architects of the RenderMan rendering software, which has been used in 44 of the last 47 films nominated for an Academy Award in the Visual Effects category, according to the museum. Catmull has received five Academy Awards.

Huskey earned his entry into the Hall of Fellows "for his seminal work on early and important computing systems, and a lifetime of service to computer education." Huskey's claims to fame include working on the famed ENIAC computer, working alongside computer industry legend Alan Turing, and as a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, developing the G15, called by some the first true personal computer.

The third new fellow, Taylor, enters the Hall of Fellows "For his leadership in the development of computer networking, online information and communications systems, and modern personal computing." 

His career included working closely with Doug Engelbart ("father of the computer mouse"), leading the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and founding the Computer Science Laboratory at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), where Ethernet, the laser printer and other important network and computer technologies arose.

"The Fellows program recognizes the leading figures of the information age -- men and women who have shaped the computing revolution and changed the world forever," said John Hollar, museum president and CEO. "Catmull, Huskey and Taylor are a tremendously distinguished group, and we are honored to celebrate their work and achievements." 

Bob Brown tracks network research in his Alpha Doggs blog and Facebook page, as well on Twitter and Google +. 

Read more about data center in Network World's Data Center section.

Read more »

Facebook legal notice could get you cash, so don't trash it

Facebook recently sent a legal notice to users that may appear daunting at first glance, but before you relegate it to the trash bin you ought to take a look at it -- it could mean cash in your pocket.

The notice is meant to notify some of its U.S. members that their names, profile pictures, photographs, likenesses, and identities were unlawfully used to advertise or sell products and services through Sponsored Stories without obtaining those members' consent.

"Sponsored Stories" is targeted advertising that uses information about your friends to sell stuff to you.

To settle a class action lawsuit (Angel Fraley v. Facebook) resulting from those allegations of unlawful use of its members' content, the social network is proposing to pay $20 million into a fund to be used to pay members who appeared in the sponsored stories.

If you received the legal notice from Facebook, you may be paid up to $10 as part of the settlement.

There's no guarantee you will get the money, however.

As the notice points out: "The amount, if any, paid to each claimant depends upon the number of claims made and other factors detailed in the settlement. No one knows in advance how much each claimant will receive, or whether any money will be paid directly to claimants."

Since as many as 100 million Facebook members may be affected by the settlement, and the fund would be exhausted after paying $10 to 2 million members, there's a good possibility that the alternative distribution scheme outlined in the settlement will be implemented.

That alternative would divvy up the money among a number of non-profit organizations involved in educational outreach that teaches adults and children how to use social media technologies safely, or are involved in research of social media.

According to the long form of the legal notice [PDF], those organizations include the Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard Law School), Information Law Institute (NYU Law School), Berkeley Center for Law and Technology (Berkeley Law School), Center for Internet and Society (Stanford Law School), High Tech Law Institute, (Santa Clara University School of Law), Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, Consumers Federation of America, Consumer Privacy Rights Fund, ConnectSafely.org, and WiredSafety.org.

You can fill out a claim form and see what happens.

The Fraley case began winding its way through the courts in March 2011, when five Facebook members, including two minors, maintained they claimed to represent a class of people injured by the Sponsored Stories.

In June 2012, Facebook and its opponents in the litigation announced a $10 million settlement in the case in which all the money would go to social service organizations and advocacy groups involved in the protection of children in the context of social media.

About a month later, the federal judge presiding over the case -- Judge Lucy Koh, who also presided over Apple's successful intellectual property case against Samsung in the U.S. -- recused herself from the case without an explanation.

Judge Richard Seeborg, who took over the case from Koh, subsequently rejected the $10 million settlement . In denying the proposed settlement, the judge maintained that Facebook did not adequately justify the size of the final deal.

A deal with a new settlement amount was hammered out in October and received preliminary approval from Seeborg in December.

Read more »

Twitter's Vine ripe with users of video sharing service

Twitter launched Vine recently and it appears the video sharing service that lets you post clips up to six seconds long is already a hit with users.

Vine is a completely public and compelling medium that gives you a brief window into what people all over the world are seeing, or the kinds of things they're thinking about. You can share the brief videos on Twitter and Facebook.

Just like Facebook's Instagram turns regular people into creative photographers, Vine encourages anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch to make video montages. And unlike other platforms where it might take minutes or more to get your video fix, Vine makes it simple and fast to create and consume it -- perfect in a world where our digital attention span continues to shrink.

It takes a bit of ingenuity to create a good vine, and that's what Twitter intended, saying last week that "constraint inspires creativity."

Take Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, for example.

He recently posted a clip of a movie in which Owen Wilson is asked "You box?" to which he replies "No. I mean, not really. No." It's food for thought about what message, if any, the billionaire intended.

Search for the term "vine" at Twitter and you'll see them pop up in your feed or go to the websiteVinepeek , which offers a real-time stream of vines from all over the world, and you'll see everything from random scenes at work, a display of what books are on someone's nightstand, a street protest, and other random stuff.

People are filming cats and dogs, not to mention seeming magic tricks and disappearing food thanks to vine's start/stop recording feature that lets you create montages. And here's one getting some traction: Godzilla battles Mr. Hand.

Brands are also getting in on the action and using the platform to engage with their audiences.

For instance, 30 Rock fans can get a whirlwind run through NBC's studio, Gap propped a handful of itsvintage ads and Moose Tracks ice cream shows a close-up of one of its creamy concoctions.

The proof of the popularity is in the numbers. The Apple App Store has named it an Editor's Choicedownload.

Read more »

The iPad mini: 2013's next big business tool?

Not long after the iPad mini launched last fall, Cameron Yuill, the founder of AdGent Digital, started using the device to make business presentations.

Convenience was one reason: The iPad mini has all the capabilities of its bigger predecessor, including wireless AirPlay mirroring that allows him to project the tablet's screen onto a nearby TV. But salesmanship was a factor, too: There's nothing like arriving at a meeting, seemingly empty-handed, only to pull the latest and greatest Apple technology from a jacket pocket.

"I pull it out and people are quite astounded," says Yuill, whose company provides advertising on mobile platforms. "We're in the business, so we're promoting the usage as much as we can."

Months after the iPad mini launched to the public, the device appears to be a hit in the consumer sector, combining with the fourth-generation iPad to sell more than 3 million units in the opening days of the product's life. But analysts have yet to determine whether the new, miniature tablet will follow its larger iOS predecessors from the living room to the boardroom--and if so, what route it will take to get there.

Schools and hospitals

Two institutions likely to be big iPad mini adopters are schools and hospitals. The first is understandable. Schools already use the iPad, but want to cut down on technology costs. At $329, the iPad mini's starting price is $170 less than that of the iPad with Retina display. Lynn University in Florida will distribute the tablet to freshmen next fall, and the East Jordan, Michigan, school district is buying 770 units of the iPad mini. In the meantime, KinderTown--a developer of educational apps aimed at the 3- to 8-year-old set--saw a dramatic rise in iPad mini usage after the holidays. Inside Higher Ed has endorsed the iPad mini's suitability for classroom use.

But why hospitals? For an unexpected reason: The 7.87-inch-long iPad mini is just the right size to fit in the 8.5-inch-deep pocket of a standard medical lab coat.

"It really fits that lab coat pocket," says Marianne Braunstein, vice president of product management atEpocrates, which makes medical apps for iOS devices. A survey that her company conducted ahead of the iPad mini launch found that one in three doctors planned to buy the new, smaller tablet.

"They're moving constantly between exam rooms, around the hospital...they're very, very mobile people in their careers," Braunstein says. "They need to have devices that allow them to be very portable."

The iPad mini might seem to be at a disadvantage in a hospital, since it doesn't offer the high-resolution Retina display of its bigger counterparts. But Dr. Stephen Ferzoco, chief medical officer atMobiquity Inc., agrees that doctors will be seeking out the mini: The bigger iPad, he says, is just too cumbersome.

"From a form factor standpoint, doctors can now carry the mini device around in their coat pockets," he says. "This effectively means that their electronic medical records, order entry, reference materials, and imaging capabilities are within arm's reach at all times."

Even in hospitals, though, Braunstein expects that doctors will have to bring in the iPad mini themselves, rather than using hospital-issued models.

"For the most part, it's going to be the individuals," she says. "These devices make their lives easier, so that's what they're going to be bringing into the workplaces."

The winding path to adoption

Previous iOS devices entered the workplace quickly, but by wildly different routes.

The iPhone, for example, was initially disdained by IT departments that had built their security infrastructure to support the then-dominant Blackberry line of phones from Research in Motion. But the iPhone elbowed its way into the office anyway, initially brought in by top executives and then, increasingly, their underlings--forcing IT departments to adapt. The "bring your own" approach worked for Apple: More than five years later the iPhone is one of the dominant smartphones in the enterprise market.

The iPad, in contrast, was more immediately embraced by institutions--and ended up being distributed in businesses and other workplaces on more of a top-down basis. Within months of its 2010 launch, the tablet was at work in car dealerships, cockpits, and medical schools, as institutions recognized that it could help reduce paperwork and provide more mobility to users than traditional laptop computers.

Analysts say that they expect the iPad mini to follow the iPhone's trail into the workplace, arriving initially as a BYO device before institutions grasp how to use the small tablet to their advantage.

"I think it's hard to say it's going to definitively follow one [route] or the other," says Frank Gillett, a vice president and principal analyst with Forrester Research in Massachusetts. "The mini, because it's so small, will follow an individual approach initially--though some businesses will find a smaller, less expensive screen appealing."

The larger iPad should remain the device of choice for many businesses, Gillett says, since cash register applications such as Square Register and business applications such as SalesForceprobably make more sense on the bigger tablet. But in other instances--particularly where device cost is a major factor--the iPad mini has an advantage. It could also prove advantageous in situations where space is at a premium, particularly for users who spend lots of time on planes and in other cramped locations.

"It's like a lot of other things," Gillett says. "You pick the right tool for the job."

Read more »

Acquisition math: Belkin CTO predicts outcome of Linksys deal will be "1+1=3"

News that Cisco intended to divest its Linksys home-networking business unit broke last December, but Belkin's decision--announced last Thursday--to acquire that division came as a surprise. Belkin's intentions are even more interesting: The company isn't just buying a prestige brand to slap on its existing home-networking product line; it plans to market networking products under both brands.

When I asked Belkin's Chief Technology Officer Brian Van Harlingen how that might benefit consumers, he replied that Belkin's employees "strive to understand user needs, and deliver a good user experience. The philosophy at Linksys isn't fundamentally different, but each company has different strengths. Linksys did [the cloud-based router administration software] Smart Wi-Fi, and we've done great work in terms of quality of service [QoS describes the ability to assign priorities to different data flows, so that gaming and video traffic are given priority over downloads]. Where do those things come together? We think the ultimate outcome of putting the two companies together will be 'one plus one equals three.'"

According to Van Harlingen, Belkin "sees Linksys as a premier brand. They brought wireless networking into the home. But our intention is to maintain both brands in networking; each has a unique appeal to consumers, and we think we can create differentiation for the two product lines."

Van Harlingen says Belkin also sees an opportunity to grab some market share in the small to medium-size business market, a market that Linksys had largely drifted away from while under Cisco's control. "We're still working on long-terms plans and product roadmaps, but Linksys goes back a ways and [the brand] had some real credibility in the SMB space. We see some opportunity there."

Van Harlingen said the Linksys acquisition would also help Belkin grown its budding line of home-automation products, marketed under the WeMo brand. "Those are some of the products we're proudest of, and we are expanding in that area. We announced a new light switch at CES, as well as Android support, and we're integrating video cameras."

"The beauty of the WeMo line using a Wi-Fi network, as opposed to Z-Wave or ZigBee" Van Harlingen continued, "is that you can buy a product that will perform a function without depending on another product. You don't need a gateway [as a master controller that integrates lighting and other home controls, as the Z-Wave and ZigBee protocols generally require]. It's much less confusing for the consumer."

I couldn't resist the opportunity to ask Van Harlingen if Belkin had learned anything from Cisco's poorly conceived decision to proactively install new firmware on some of its high-end Linksys routers that were already in the field without informing the people who had purchased them. The new firmware not only forced users to switch to Cisco's cloud-based admin tool, but it also came with terms of service that many viewed as an egregious invasion of privacy. Cisco eventually reversed its decision.

"I can't criticize them [Linksys] for that," said Van Harlingen. "We've made our own missteps over the years. They were really excited about delivering the benefits of Smart Wi-Fi to as many of their customers as quickly as possible. Our approach will be 'let's listen to our customers very carefully before we take any dramatic actions.'"

Since mergers and acquisitions rarely occur without some job losses, I also asked Van Harlingen if Belkin planned to retain Linksys employees across the board, or if the company wanted only the Linksys engineering teams. "Across the board," he replied. "We intend to merge the two companies. Linksys has incredibly talented people in key roles. But we will be looking for places, where there are opportunities, where it makes sense to leverage--I guess redundancy is the word."

Read more »

Winzip 17 adds integration with Box cloud storage

Winzip has been a household name in file compression for two decades. WinZip 17 takes file compression and management to the cloud with Google Drive, SkyDrive, and Dropbox integration--and now a new update is available that adds Box to the mix.

WinZip was a pioneer of the freemium software business model--basically providing the software for free, and relying on the moral compass of customers to pay for the product if it proved to be useful to them. I used to download a wide variety of shareware applications following a similar strategy, but WinZip was the first one I ever felt compelled to actually pay for.

Over the years, hard drive and flash drives have grown exponentially in size, and the cost of storage has gone down, so the need for a file compression utility has declined. However, the rise of photos and videos--which can be massive files--and the desire to upload information to social networks or cloud storage services has brought it back in vogue. It's much easier and faster to upload a 100Mb file instead of a 1GB file.

WinZip has evolved to be a much more comprehensive file management tool than it once was. It still provides file compression, but now it also includes the ability to convert documents to PDF, add custom watermarks to PDF files, and post files directly to popular social networks.

Another advantage of WinZip 17 is that it ties disparate services together. Rather than dealing with your PC, Google Drive, Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Box as separate entities, WinZip 17 gives you a single tool from which to manage all of your data no matter where it's stored.

There are two flavors of WinZip 17, Standard and Pro. The Pro version includes features that strengthen and speed up file encryption, as well as the ability to view photos within a ZIP file without extracting them first, and features that make it easier to transfer and manage photos from supported cameras and mobile devices, among other things.

You can get WinZip 17 directly from the WinZip site starting at $30. WinZip 17 Pro is $50. WinZip offers volume licensing discounts for businesses that purchase the software in bulk. WinZip 17 is only available for Windows (XP or later), but there are versions available for Mac OS X, iOS, and Android as well.

Customers who already have WinZip 17 can download an update to add integration with Box cloud storage.

Read more »

Pentagon to add thousands of new cybersecurity jobs

The Pentagon is planning to expand its cyber security force nearly five fold over the next several years in a bid to bolster its defensive and offensive computer capabilities.

The plan is to add about 4,000 more troops and civilians to the existing 900 personnel in the Defense Department's Cyber Command, the Washington Post reported today citing several unnamed sources.

The planned expansion is in response to growing threats against critical U.S. assets in cyberspace, a defense official told Computerworld on Monday.

"As Secretary Panetta stated in his cyber speech last October, we are faced with an increasing threat of a cyber attack that could be as destructive as the terrorist attack on 9/11," the official said. "The department recognizes this growing danger and is working with a sense of urgency to put the right policies and structures in place to enable us to carry out our role."p>

The official said the Department of Defense (DoD) will work closely with U.S. Cyber Command and the Combatant Commands to develop an "optimum force structure" for dealing with emerging cyber threats.

The goal is to create three separate types of cyber forces each tasked with specific roles and responsibilities. The cyber force structure will include Cyber National Mission Forces, Cyber Combat Mission Forces and Cyber Protection Forces, the official noted.

The national force and cyber protect force will focus on addressing threats to critical infrastructure targets and DoD networks respectively. Meanwhile, the combat mission force will be responsible for planning and executing offensive operations and attacks in cyberspace.

"While the basic cyber force structure model is clear, the implementation plan to achieve it is still being developed and is pre-decisional at this time," the official said.

The planned expansion comes amid heightening concerns about U.S. vulnerabilities in cyber space. Many believe that the U.S. is already in the midst of an undeclared and mostly unseen cyberwar directed against it by unfriendly nation states and well-funded highly organized criminal gangs and hactivist groups.

Countries like China and Russia are well ahead of the U.S. in terms of having cyber forces of the kind that the Pentagon is trying to build up, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute. The challenge for the DoD will be to find enough qualified cybersecurity professionals to meet its ambitious expansion plans, he said.

"The key to putting the 4,000 in perspective is that every other critical part of the economy also needs the same people -- banks, power companies, telecom, defense contractors, civilian and state government and hospitals."

But while the hunger for cybersecurity professionals with advanced skills is very real, the supply line is near empty, he said. If the DoD wants to meet its expansion goals it will have to find innovative ways to find talent, Paller said.

He pointed to a recently launched program called Cyber Corps Challenge by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as an example of the kind of approach the DoD needs to take to find talent. Under the program, the state invited veterans of the U.S armed services and others to take part in a competition for spots in a community college-based cyber security program and six month residencies at banks, the FBI and other organizations.

"China has been running competitions and training programs that work well in every ... district since at least 2003," Paller said. "Russia set up its first advanced school in 1994. We are way behind in quantity and quality."

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed. His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.

See more by Jaikumar Vijayan on Computerworld.com.

Read more about cybercrime and hacking in Computerworld's Cybercrime and Hacking Topic Center.

Read more »