Recent Blog Posts
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CWDN
From punch cards to speech, our input method methodologies
Where we once considered punch cards to be at the cutting edge of human computer interaction, the years passed and industry innovations brought us forward to a point where speech recognition technology has advanced to a point at which I am writing this blog without touching my keyboard. Note: letters not f...
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Open Source Insider
IT super-brands collude to build the "open web"
Microsoft, SAP, Progress Software and a number of other big names including Citrix Systems have come together to push the Open Data Protocol (OData) towards acceptance by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The rationale here is simple say the vendors... Demand...
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When IT Meets Politics
Is DWP herding the vulnerable on-line, to be fleeced ?
Next week will see the 2012 National Digital Conference with over a thousand delegates exploring "the policy, leadership, innovation and collective action needed to support an inclusive and enterprising digital nation. The state of current debates over electronic identities and payment mechanisms, let alon...
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WITsend
Why I attend the London Hopper Colloquium
This is a guest blog from Dr Hannah Dee a lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University The London Hopper Colloquium is one of the key events in the women-in-computing calendar. For 8 years it's provided a focus and an opportunity for women at the start of their research career, with a poster...
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Read all about IT!
ICO to lift veil on "cookie" warning letter
For at least the past year, the ICO has maintained that its enforcement of the "cookie" law will be complaint-led, but in the past week it has fired of what have been described as "nasty letters". With just days to go before the expiry of the year of grace the ICO gave UK organisations to comply with the l...
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WITsend
Next FDM women in IT advantage session: Thursday 31st May
FDM's next Women in IT event is taking place next Thursday, near London Bridge. The event will include speeches from some very well-known ladies, in the women in IT arena: An introduction from Sheila Flavell, COO of FDM Group, followed by speeches from Gillian Arnold, Founder of Tectre, Maria Ingold, Head ...
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Computer Weekly Editor's Blog
Is HP too big to fail?
What on earth is going on at HP? After three years riven by changes in CEO (three times) and in strategy (lost count), the company seems to barely know what it is or where it is heading. This month alone, it has made three extraordinary decisions. First, the latest CEO, former eBay chief executive Meg Whit...
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Public Sector IT
TfL spends £100m on temporary helpdesk
Transport for London has spent £100m on a temporary contract that is still running after five and half years and will be clocking up more costs until 2014.TfL gave a temporary IT contract to Computer Sciences Corporation in December 2006 after terminating an existing deal with Capgemini, claiming the stop-...
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Inspect-a-Gadget
Can businesses stand to gain from free real-time messaging apps?
The digital marketplace is becoming increasingly flooded with apps in general, making it harder for users and businesses alike to filter and determine the best choice for their needs.iPhone apps Photo credit: dougbelshaw)Here, I'm going to do a quick rundown of some of the biggest real-time, "free" - in th...
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CWDN
Admin gets sexy: ERP without Agile is worthless
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and its allied functions across the administrative backbone are of course the most maverick, exciting and progressive elements of any modern organisation. ERP-related job functions such as IT asset and service management along with supply chain logistics are usually right...
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Downtime
Sky launches Jubilee remote control
Major retailers are stocking special Diamond Jubilee remote controls for Sky boxes. So if you don't think you have been fleeced enough by the Royal family through your taxes you can spend almost £30 on a union Jack controller. WTF?
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Downtime
Never mind the IT, the Jubilee line is my Olympic worry
Downtime went to visit IT supplier Atos at the Technical Operations Centre (TOC) for the London Olympics. There will be 900 servers, 1,000 network and security devices and more than 10,000 computers deployed to support London 2012. There will have been over 200,000 hours of testing of systems before the fi...
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Downtime
What can businesses can learn from foxes?
Does a fox shit in the woods? Yes and we can tell you how many times. Downtime was chatting to the business behind the data analytics carried out in the recent Channel 4 documentary series about the UK fox population. The programme was an example of crowdsourcing with viewers sending in information which w...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
UK is 'third in Europe for Social Networking'
Source: GoogleThe British, apparently, are the third most enthusiastic nation for using social networking tools in Europe,behind the Spanish and the Italians, according to a survey from Google. Other enthusiastic users of social media, the survey claims, include:• Senior managers• High growth companies• Re...
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Downtime
Watch out for Robo-Fish!
You've heard of Robo-cop, now meet Robo-fish - the new aquatic pollution-fighter. The machine is being tested off the cost of Spain to hunt down contamination in the water and feed information back to the shore. "The idea is that we want to have real-time monitoring of pollution, so that if someone is dump...
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CWDN
Buggy legacy software is an 'ugly elephant'
Co-founder and CTO of Veracode Inc. Chris Wysopal has recently been interviewed on the subject of how difficult is it to address legacy software in an organisation. While Wysopal's comments make great reading, one has to question whether legacy software is always a "challenge" and therefore a problem. Afte...
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Open Source Insider
Open source market analysis for dummies
The Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco this week has spurred an industry analysis report detailing "findings" which assert that open source technologies are leading innovation in major technology segments including mobile, cloud and big data. Are they serious? Open source innovation an...
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Downtime
Technology attachment gone too far
Apple fan boys are typically very attached to their technology, but some take that a little too far as in the case of David Hurban in the US. Anxious that he should never be far from his iPod nano, he went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that he kept his Apple music player close. Hurban claims to be the...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Where are the high-flying women ? Not in IT that's for sure.
People have been campaigning for decades to make IT a more women-friendly profession. But, despite initiatives like the highly successful Computer Clubs for Girls which is inspiring girls at school with the possibilities of technology, talented women are giving IT a wide berth, the latest research from Ha...
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Open Source Insider
Who Hears Hortonworks? Actuate & Dr Seuss
Open source Business Intelligence (BI) vendor Actuate has gone on the tech dating game and formed a new collaboration to match its BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) with the Hortonworks data platform to enable big data visualisation technologies. The open source iteration of BIRT was the res...
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Computer Weekly Editor's Blog
Your last chance to influence government open standards
After the controversy of the early meetings in the government's consultation on open standards, we're now down to the last few weeks of what is a hugely important process. After a slow start, the open source lobby has engaged more fully with the process, so let's hope this will lead to a more balanced outc...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
CIOs face pay freezes in 2012
Source: Harvey NashSome 61% of CIOs face a salary freeze in 2012 as nervousness over the economic climate and the debate over executive salaries continues.This compares with 50% who experienced a pay freeze in 2011. Despite this, almost a third expect to benefit from a salary increase this year. There is b...
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Open Source Insider
US Army trains in open source 3-D virtual cyber-world
The US Army and associated federal agencies are said to be testing prototype "virtual world" technologies in a secure open source environment. Intended to simulate "in theatre" scenarios to stimulate team building skills and wider training and analysis initiatives, the work to test out as many as 400 use c...
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Cliff Saran’s Enterprise blog
Video tour of the HP EliteBook Folio
In this video recorded at the recent HP Global Influencer Summit in Shanghai, I spoke to HP product manager. Kathy Nielson about the HP EliteBook Folio. This is a new Ultrabook, designed to bridge the gap between consumer and business laptops. HP is banking on the success of Intel's Ultrabook design to woo...
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When IT Meets Politics
Has Cabinet Office given up on trying to dictate ID solutions ?
I am told that the Cabinet Office ID team are going to Washington to look at the Open Identity Exchange . I assume this is linked to the Open Identity Foundation although I see some subtle, and some not so subtle, differences in the backers. I welcome the change of heart. However, if HMG is indeed planning...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
Global tablet sales: what are people buying ?
Apple continues to dominate sales of tablet, with the iPad, and that shows little sign of changing soon, according to projections from Gartner. By 2016, sales of tablets based on Apple's iOS operating system will make up just under half of total tablet sales, while Android tablets will make up about 40% of...
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Computer Weekly Editor's Blog
What the Facebook IPO means for IT leaders
There's a saying in financial circles - one that has been conveniently ignored many times in the past - that says: "If it looks like a bubble, and it feels like a bubble, then it's a bubble."So, does a $100bn valuation for Facebook look like a bubble? Did its purchase of Instagram for $1bn feel like a bubb...
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CWDN
Inventor of the Wiki: what technical debt really means
Ward Cunningham is famously the inventor of the first wiki and also (perhaps less famously) the inventor of Class Responsibility Collaboration (CRC) cards -- a brainstorming tool used in the design of object-oriented software. In a recent interview this month, Cunnigham has expressed his views on the conce...
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When IT Meets Politics
Sir Humphrey 3, Ian Watmore 0 - is this end of the UK Office of the President ?
Iam Watmore played a unique role in the attempt to create a UK equivalent of the Office of President: from the Anderson/Accenture support for the New Labour project through to a return to the centre of power after the transition to a coalition government. However, the idea that the delivery of public servi...
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Inside Outsourcing
Never mind the IT, the Jubilee line is my Olympic worry
I went to visit IT supplier Atos at the Technical Operations Centre (TOC) for the London Olympics this summer. This was an opportunity to get an update and be reminded about how complicated and pressurised the IT environment supporting the Olympics is.There will be 900 servers, 1,000 network and security d...
