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Submission + - Yes, the CIO still matters -- but the balance of power is shifting (citeworld.com)

Submitted by mattydread23
mattydread23 writes: There's been a lot of hubbub about a recent Gartner study suggesting that marketing officers will control more technology spending than CIOs by 2017. A Forrester researcher debunks that claim, but admits that users and business units have more control and influence than ever before. The old days of vendors bribing CIOs with golf games, and CIOs shoving shelfware down their employees' throats, are happily coming to an end, leaving plenty of opportunity for upstarts.

Submission + - EU court of justice decides in favour of linking to copyrighted material (europa.eu)

Submitted by Bart Smit
Bart Smit writes: In a case brought by a Swedish newspaper against an aggregation site, the court decided for the defendant, making linking to copyrighted material legal in the EU. The reasoning was that offering the link does not open the copyrighted material to a new audience; the original copyright holder had already opened the material up to Internet users.

Submission + - Europe Considers Wholesale Savings Confiscation, Enforced Redistribution (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Everything that the depositors and citizens of Cyprus had to live through, may be on the verge of going continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters' own words, "the savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says." What is left unsaid is that the "usage" will be on a purely involuntary basis, at the discretion of the "union", and can thus best be described as confiscation.

Submission + - Let's Finance College With a Tax on All Graduates

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: As the number of students attending colleges and universities has steadily increased and the cost for most students has climbed even faster, student debt figures (both total and per person) have continued to get bigger. Now Josh Freedman at Forbes Magazine proposes a graduate tax-funded system of higher education, under which students would pay nothing to attend college upfront. Instead, once they graduate and move out of their parents’ basements, they would begin to pay an additional income tax (say, for example, three percent) on their earnings that would fund higher education. "In other words, the current crop of college graduates funds the current crop of college students, and so on down the line. There is no debt taken on by students, which minimizes risk (good); repayment is tied to income, because only people who make income pay the tax (also good); and it is simpler and more easily administrable than plans to make loans easier to pay off (still good)." The main argument for a graduate tax comes from its progressivity. Supporters of a graduate tax point out that most college graduates, particularly those from elite universities that use a greater share of resources, are richer than people who have not graduated from college. The state of Oregon made headlines last year for an innovative proposal called “Pay It Forward” to fund higher education without having students take on any debt. Pay It Forward amounts to a graduate tax: All of the graduates of public colleges in Oregon would pay nothing up front in tuition but would pay back a percentage of their income for a set number of years. These payments would build a fund that would cover the cost for future students to receive the same opportunity to attend college with no upfront costs. "As pressure mounts for more students from all backgrounds to attend college, it will become increasingly difficult to try to stem the rapid tuition inflation under a loan system," concludes Freedman. "Our current student loan system has made college more expensive, turned higher education into an individual, rather than a communal, good, and generated serious negative economic and social risks."

Submission + - Google Maps Hides Offline Map Mode Under Glass-Esque Command (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: The iOS and Android Google Maps mode used to have an easily accessed tool for saving the current mode in an offline view — useful for when you're in a wireless dead spot. In a recent app update, that option seemed to have vanished, but as blogger Keving Purdy notes, it's still there, but has to be invoked with the command "OK Maps". Purdy doesn't draw the connection to Google Glass, but it does seem oddly close to the "OK Glass" prompt that gadget uses, doesn't it?

Comment Internet of Things (Score 3, Informative) 76

by JCHerbsleb (#46209811) Attached to: Hackers Penetrate Top Medical Device Makers
Welcome to the Internet of Things. Now, IT Security is not simply a venue to stop embarrassment (website defacements), disruption (DDoS), and exposure (SQLi), but potentially a life and death issue. Disruption of a pacemaker, insulin pump, etc. can have a very real impact. Perhaps a modern day "Pinto" incident will change the view of IT Security from an expense item to a necessary partner.

Submission + - The North Star is getting Brighter (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by JCHerbsleb
JCHerbsleb writes: Contrary to current scientific theory, the North Star is now 2.5 times brighter than it was in 137BC — reversing two decades of dimming. Scientists are working to investigate further to determine the cause of this change.

Comment Re:What does IBM do anymore then? (Score 3, Informative) 71

by JCHerbsleb (#46032741) Attached to: IBM's x86 Server Business Back On the Market
Technically, they still have mainframes, System i, System P, etc. along with the various software platforms such as DB2, RACF, and the various BMC products. I think they are attempting to transform themselves into a "service" organization (similar to what HP is attempting) and divest the hardware / software while focusing on the consulting and outsourced support services.

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