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Businesses

The Disconnect Between Management and the Value of IT 333

Posted by Zonk from the grab-some-better-educated-managers dept.
DavidHumus writes "According to a Wall St. Journal article top executives at most companies fail to recognize the value of IT, having a tendency to think of information technology as a basic utility, like plumbing or telephone service. The article lists five primary reasons for 'the wall' between IT and business: 'mind-set differences between management staff and IT staff, language differences, social influences, flaws in IT governance (defined as the specification and control of IT decision rights), and the difficulty of managing rapidly changing technology.' Does this fully explain the extreme lack of understanding of IT at high executive levels? The article is even-handed in apportioning blame but touches on a few good points. In particular, how '[m]ost top executives ... think of IT as an expensive headache that they'd rather not deal with.'"
Microsoft

Microsoft Says Not All Ad Clicks Are Created Equal 186

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the more-tracking-bloat-coming-to-a-site-near-you dept.
kyle6477 writes to share that Microsoft is hoping to change the way advertising is thought of, and ultimately valued, online. Their new Engagement ROI tool tries to track a user's ad clicking habits and distribute the credit over all of the ads that led to an eventual sale as opposed to the last ad clicked getting all the credit. "Say a consumer sees an ad for a product in a video ad one day, and then clicks on a text ad to visit the retailer's site the next day, and then eventually sees a banner ad that leads to a purchase. All of the monetary credit tends to go to the text link that was clicked on."
The Internet

A Proposal For Unionizing Bloggers 259

Posted by Zonk from the lots-of-signs-saying-frist-psot dept.
mikesd81 writes "Coloumbia Journal Review writes about the possibility of unionizing bloggers. Chris Mooney writes 'Yes, dear reader: the Bloggers Guild of America may be on its way. The dispute between screen and television writers and media conglomerates has its roots, after all, in the Web.' He says, then, they get zero compensation for their products being distributed over the Internet. 'Bloggers often earn that same salary. There are exceptions, of course, those fortunate few who have become quasi-celebrities in their own right and found themselves, and their sites, snatched up by major media companies,' he goes on to say. He also adds that a bloggers guild could protect a blogger's intellectual property and help ensure they're compensated for it."
The Military

Pentagon Working on "Human Fear" Weapons 310

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the smells-like-... dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Animals use pheromones to attract each other for sex, and warn each other of danger. Now, Wired reports, military researchers are working to harness the 'human fear' pheromone to create a scent of terror. The pheromone could lead to smell-based terrorist sensors, and new weapons that rely on 'contagious' stress."
Media

Vinyl Gets Its Groove Back 751

Posted by kdawson from the what-goes-around-comes-ariynd dept.
theodp writes "Time reports that vinyl records are suddenly cool again. Vinyl has a warmer, more nuanced sound than CDs or MP3s; records feature large album covers with imaginative graphics, pullout photos, and liner notes. 'Bad sound on an iPod has had an impact on a lot of people going back to vinyl,' says 15-year-old David MacRunnel, who owns more than 1,000 records."
Power

Switchgrass Makes Better Ethanol Than Corn 560

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the seemingly-easy-choice dept.
statemachine writes to mention that the USDA and farmers took part in a 5-year study of switchgrass, a grass native to North America. The study found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver around 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can only yield around 24 percent. "But even a native prairie grass needs a helping hand from scientists and farmers to deliver the yields necessary to help ethanol become a viable alternative to petroleum-derived gasoline, Vogel argues. 'To really maximize their yield potential, you need to provide nitrogen fertilization,' he says, as well as improved breeding techniques and genetic strains. 'Low input systems are just not going to be able to get the energy per acre needed to provide feed, fuel and fiber.'"
Privacy

US Democrats Accidentally Publish Whistleblowers' Email Addresses 352

Posted by CowboyNeal from the oh-whoops-our-bad-honest dept.
iluvcapra writes "The US House Judiciary Committee recently emailed all of its potential whistleblowers information about how it was restructuring its whistleblower program. Unfortunately for its sources, it emailed them this information with their addresses in the "To:" field (and not the Bcc: field) It also cc:'d this email to the Vice President. I'd like to think think this is some sort of ingenious subterfuge, but I'm doubtful."
Communications

The Rise of the Linux-Based Cellphone 151

Posted by Zonk from the doobie-doobie-dooo dept.
mrscotty99 writes with a link to a Linux.com article about the rising star that is the Linux-based cellphone. Author Murry Shohat argues that the transformation of the cell into a mini-PC this summer is a landmark opportunity for Linux. Apple's offering and Motorola's US launch of the RAZR2 V8 (a linux-based device) may be heralds of great things to come for a new OS frontier: "In the cell phone market, consumers will pay for content, and corporations need to deliver secure content to applications in the palm of employees' hands. These trends suggest products that are simultaneously more functional and less expensive than a Treo or BlackBerry and more secure than an iPhone. MontaVista Software claims to have deployed Mobilinux on more than 35 million mobile devices worldwide. CEO Tom Kelley says, 'Linux is growing rapidly on mobile devices because of its solid reliability, its great flexibility, and because it accelerates the development cycle.' Vendors using or contemplating the use of Linux for mobile devices unanimously point to the operating system's footprint, memory usage, and fast growing ecosystem of developers producing software for graphics, multimedia, connectivity, and security." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge.

Police Launch Drones Over LA 496

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the eye-in-the-sky dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that law enforcement officials have launched a new form of drone aircraft to patrol the skies above Los Angeles. From the article: 'Police say the drone, called the SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions. "This technology could be used to find missing children, search for lost hikers, or survey a fire zone," said Commander Sid Heal, head of the Technology Exploration Project of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "The ideal outcome for us is when this technology becomes instrumental in saving lives."'"
Movies

Journal Journal: 'Track Down' DVD set for US release

Journal by santos_douglas
SecurityFocus reports that the Kevin Mitnick DVD "Track Down" is finally going to be released in the US on September 28. The film, shot in 2000, was previously only available in europe (under the title's 'Takedown' or the French 'Cybertraque'). The screenplay is based on the Shimomura and Markoff version of events as described in the controversial book "Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw
Wireless Networking

Journal Journal: Warparking Wireless Retail POS Terminals

Journal by santos_douglas
SecurityFocus is running this article about the recent arrest of two Michigan men who parked their Grand Prix outside a Lowes home improvement store and were able to access and disrupt their unsecured WLAN. The network admin and ITT Tech student were able to intercept 6 credit card transactions, poke around the internal network, attempt to modify some software, and
User Journal

Journal Journal: Rejected!

Journal by santos_douglas
It just occurred to me, I'll post all the articles that the editors rejected in my /. journal! Yay!

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