Recent Blog Posts
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When IT Meets Politics
A bottle of Ledaig for the best conspiracy theory related to the non-story that is PRISM
I love a good conspiracy theory. It should have sufficient by way of checkable references to have a veneer of credibility while pandering to the prejudices of the listeners. The more that emerges about "PRISM", the more it appears to be a non-story. If it is correct that under 100,000 req...
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WITsend
Deciding to have children is not career suicide
I recently attended the Everywoman Leadership academy, which I have attended before, but this year one speaker really struck a chord with me. For the first time I heard a successful female in technology say that having children helped her with her career progression. Just to be clear I have never heard a f...
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WITsend
Attracting more women to the sector is the obvious answer
In the last few months I have noticed more and more males banging the women in tech drum to attract more females into technology. And encouragingly today I heard from another one.... "The future of Britain's burgeoning tech sector is dependent upon the careful nurturing of young talent and that needs to be...
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Computer Weekly Editor's Blog
Bringing IT leaders and tech startups together
There's a lot of buzz around the technology startup scene and the Tech City area in east London. There are great strides being made in Bristol, Manchester, Cardiff and Newcastle, where technology startup hubs are developing new organisations. But mostly, we hear about consumer-focused startups building app...
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Inside Outsourcing
Cabinet Office and Capita about to launch company to sell government IP internationally
The UK government has lots of its own intellectual property. A great deal of this is related to IT projects.It has lots of training tools that it sells to UK businesses. These include IP around things like project and ITSM best practice and Prince II training for example.The government's IT project failure...
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Inside Outsourcing
IT critical to rail industry as government instigates cuts
The rail regulator has told Network Rail to save £2bn over the next five years and improve service levels. It has also said that safety levels must not be impacted. At the same time network rail has consolidated the number of IT service providers it deals with. Presumably there is work on its way and by co...
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CWDN
IBM and Microsoft build cloud application lie detector
Microsoft Research and IBM have developed a new project with the aim of verifying computations carried out in cloud environments to provide a higher level of validation. Project Pinocchio for "Nearly Practical Verifiable Computation" exists to address privacy and security concerns for computations carried ...
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Identity, Privacy and Trust
Government Digital Service publishes Identity and Privacy Principles
One of the common concerns about identity-related technologies is the potential for abuse of privacy, and for function creep of the identity system itself: mechanisms which are designed to support authentication end up being used to hoover up personal data about the user's interactions with relying parties...
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CWDN
The birth of the data programmer
The term "data programmer" now appears more readily on job posting boards serving the software application development community. More accurately, the job tends to be referred to as data programmer / data analyst. A random job listing taken today reads: "The Data Programmer / Data Analyst must be a flexibl...
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When IT Meets Politics
Is the EU Network and Information Security Directive a bigger threat than Al Qaeda?
The objectives of the Network and Information Security Directive are laudable but the approach does not fit with the strategy supposedly behind them. Meanwhile the impact assessment is a collection of motherhood statements not an assessment of the cost of incident reporting, let alone the legal cost of dec...
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When IT Meets Politics
What's in a name ... ? Why does DCMS wish to redefine the creative industries?
DCMS has contacted a number of organisations to "clarify" the reasons for its exercise to redefine the creative industries as follows: Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 "DCMS are concerned that our proposals may have been misunderstood. This ...
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Inside Outsourcing
Inside outsourcing interview: MindTree - UK's Silicon roundabout now offshoring app development
I first interviewed MindTree back in May 2010. It is a tier two Indian IT supplier following behind the likes of TCS, Wipro, Infosys and HCL. It was formed in August 1999 as the result of a collaboration between executives of Indian service provider Wipro, US consultancy Cambridge Technology Partners...
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When IT Meets Politics
What questions will the NAO report on BDUK seek to answer ?
I was delighted with the news that the National Audit Office will be investigating whether BDUK gives value for money. One can make a reasonable guess as to some of the questions they might address and those they will shy away from. One question that they are most unlikely to consider is whether it was all...
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Quocirca Insights
Trading Floor Tremors - Big Data To The Rescue
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CWDN
SAP: analytics builds "almost neural" future computer systems
Analytics is one step away from artificial intelligence and advanced analytics will be used to build "almost neural" future computer systems that can learn complex patterns and control our world. This is the visionary view of SAP sales director Rob Coyne who writes on his firm's blog this month in a non-ne...
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Inspect-a-Gadget
Logitech Harmony Hub: bridging wi-fi with infrared
For the last few years I've used a Logitech Harmony 1100 universal infrared remote to control various devices around the house.Logitech is moving away from such remotes due to the popularity of tablet computers and smartphones as universal devices. But tablets and smartphones generally don't include infrar...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
IT & Telecom Spend - Wholesale & Retail Trade
Large companies in wholesale trade and retail trade spend similar amounts on IT & telecom when compared with turnover. For smaller firms the proportions are notably greater in retail. This is especially so for medium sized organisations with 100-999 staff where retailers outgun wholesalers ...
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Open Source Insider
Experimental coding project opens up Sony SmartWatch
Sony has pushed its Bluetooth SmartWatch project to a more open status with an invitation to software application developers to now design, develop and code applications and ancillary firmware and/or other extensions to the device. Reports suggest that "most consumer complaints" relating to the SmartWatch ...
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When IT Meets Politics
Public choose security over privacy: but will the Communications Bill help?
I have just read the summary report of the YouGov survey which shows that twice as many UK adults support prioritising security over privacy in public policy. I am surprised that the majority is not higher. Perhaps the vote was distorted by suspicions that the security of politicians is not the same as the...
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When IT Meets Politics
Only 4 out of 11 former Home Secretaries publicly support the Communications Bill
The headline for this blog is no more misleading than most public debate on the proposals in the Communications Bill. Now that my attempt to put PRISM and the Communications Bill into context, alongside the other current threats to the Internet as we perceive it, has been quoted on national radio: "I do no...
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Inside Outsourcing
The state of IT sourcing mid 2013 - a reflection of Forrester conference - Part one: innovation through outsourcing
I was at the Forrester conference this week following the track focused on outsourcing. I have written an article following the event that looked at the importance of supplier management in today's world of multiple suppliers. This, which you can read here, basically covers the presentations I attende...
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Open Source Insider
Apps & the City from London-based app developer
London-based software development company AppShed has detailed plans to migrate its app development platform towards an Open Source footing. The firm says he announcement acknowledges the growing acceptance and use of open source software amongst commercial organisations. The initial phase will see the web...
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Public Sector IT
Local government software report reopens the case on Microsoft domination
You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't sometimes, when a journalist calls with an awkward question.This is the dilemma Microsoft faced after the publication of a report that illustrated what vast money it was making out of local government in the UK.Local government bodies spent £109.4m on ...
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Inside Outsourcing
Network Rail's supplier consolidation makes sense amid £2bn cost cutting
I recently blogged about Network Rail consolidating its IT service provider roster. TCS, Cognizant, Accenture and CSC all sent press alerts out about being awarded a framework contract.Network rail's CIO Susan Cooklin had talked about her plans to reduce the number of suppliers late last year.The rail regu...
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Computer Weekly Data Bank
System Software Spend - Telecommunications Companies
Telecommunications companies spend on system software per employee increases substantially with size of organisation. The largest firms' expenditure is over twice that for medium sized concerns. For all employee bands the outlay is dramatically greater than for all UK organisations.Source: IT &...
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Downtime
Mobile phone insurance premiums set high for World Cup and Olympic revelers
A bar in Sao Paulo in Brazil has come up with a special glass that only stands upright when placed on a mobile phone. This is an attempt to encourage people to put their working day behind them and relax when they are in the bar. Insurance companies will have a field day rejecting claims. What were you doi...
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Downtime
How will we look in 100,000 years time?
Images of how humans will look in 100,000 years' time have been produced by artist Nickolay Lamm and Computational Genomics PhD Dr. Alan Kwan. According to Mashable, Lamm's interpretations of future humans will have larger foreheads and eyes to facilitate a larger brain to store information. Lamm suggests ...
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Inspect-a-Gadget
InFocus BigTouch: A touch too much?
Technology goes through fads when it comes to size. Just a few years ago we were all competing to have the easiest to lose smartphone, whereas now manufacturers are touting bigger screens than ever, harking back to the days of PDAs. With laptops we want light, flexible and easy to fit in your carry on rath...
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Open Source Insider
Open source HTML5 secure file sync for Android
File sync specialist SpiderOak has bolstered the Google Play Android app market with an open source secure sync tool. SpiderOak is emphasising the secure (no, really, really secure we really mean it) aspect of its technology by detailing the fact that at no point does the company ever store users' password...
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Downtime
Smartphone controlled cockroach the key to our brains
English: High detail closeup of a cockroach. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)The last thing many of us would want to spend our day staring at is a scuttling cockroach. However, neuroscientist Greg Gage is hoping his contraption will make the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh do just that. Gage has created a 'back...
