Hospital trust first to use online
marketplace
An NHS hospital trust in London has become the first
organisation to use the Zanzibar online marketplace set up by
government agency OGCbuying.solutions. The Zanzibar e-procurement
system was created as part of a range of initiatives designed to
cut procurement costs across the public sector. St Mary's Trust is
expecting to save £4m in procurement costs over the next five
years.
Employers could be sued for technology
addictions
Employers who push staff to carry handheld devices at all times
could be sued for encouraging addictions among their staff, US
academics have warned. Rutgers University's associate professor of
management Gayle Porter argues in a forthcoming report that
continual use of devices such as Blackberries can be addictive and
could mean users lose the ability to forget about work and
relax.
Youth pleads guilty to denial of service
attack
An 18-year-old has been curfewed and tagged after a denial of
service attack that crashed a server at his former employer. The
youth flooded insurance group Domestic & General with five
million e-mails. David Lennon of Bedworth, Warwickshire was charged
with violating the Computer Misuse Act of 1990, which prohibits the
unauthorised modification of a computer.
New chip supports faster speech recognition
Researchers at a US university have developed a chip
architecture that can support speech recognition at speeds 10 times
faster than current software-based systems. Demand for faster
speech recognition technology is increasing as more voice and video
digital media goes online because searching voice data for relevant
material is slow and difficult.
Tesco wins two-thirds of online grocery
orders
Tesco is winning two-thirds of all online grocery orders in the
UK, research has revealed. The study of online grocery sales data
by analyst firm comScore Networks found that Tesco's online service
is handling 30,000 orders a day with a value of £2.5m.
Government plans data protection changes
The government is planning to alter data protection principles
from September. Any such change would allow a diverse range of
public agencies to freely share private information on individuals,
rather than having to provide a legal justification each time data
is shared.
Arcadia goes for the max with IBM Websphere
Clothing retailer Arcadia, which owns Topshop and Burton, has
implemented IBM Websphere to allow it to sell its full product
range online as well as in store. Arcadia has created a set of
master data to guarantee online availability of all in-store stock.
Arcadia's approach sets it apart from most clothing retailers that
only make a subset of products available electronically.
Gartner warns of trouble ahead for BPO
users
Half of all companies involved in business process outsourcing
will be hit by cost overruns and unacceptable levels of service
over the next three years, Gartner has warned. The analyst firm
said companies that outsourced their business processes faced this
grim outlook because many had failed to understand the outsourcing
market and were taken in by hype.
Delta Air Lines outsources to IBM for
restructuring
Delta Air Lines has signed a seven-year IT infrastructure
management outsourcing deal with IBM - but the agreement must be
ratified by the bankruptcy courts. The deal, for an unspecified
amount, is aimed at meeting the airline's IT needs as it
restructures its operations to help it get out of bankruptcy.
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