Computerworld - A U.S. commercial spacecraft docked with the International Space Station on Friday and history was made. At 9:56 a.m. EDT, astronauts using a robotic arm on board the space station, grabbed hold of the unmanned Dragon cargo spacecraft. The arm is maneuvering the Dragon into a position where it will be attached to the outside of the orbiter around 4:30 p.m. "Looks like we caught a Dragon by the tail," said astronaut Don Pettit after using the robotic arm to capture the Dragon capsule. The cargo ship and the space station were both traveling more than 17,000 miles per hour and 251 miles above Australia when they rendezvoused. The maneuver of moving the cargo ship into position and then one delicate robotic grab ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - It turns out that the phantom cellphone vibration syndrome is fairly common. Ask around. See if you can find someone who believed the smartphone in their pocket was vibrating but found when they checked, there was nothing new. No call. No text. There's a growing body of research on phantom vibrations and many of the other problems associated with technology obsession, all of which is explored by Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in his new book, iDisorder. Rosen, who earned his bachelors degree in mathematics before getting a Ph.D in psychology, examines technology's impact on our lives. His book, which combines the latest research with his own experience, anecdote and observation, warns about obsessive technological use ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - Android and iPhone devices together made up 82% of all smartphones shipped to retailers in the first quarter of 2012, IDC said Thursday. The combined worldwide shipments of Android- and Apple iOS-based devices dwarfs those of other smartphone operating systems, including Research in Motion's BlackBerry, a traditional frontrunner now on a "downward trajectory," IDC said in a statement. Gartner on May 16 had said that Android and iPhone smartphones accounted for nearly 79% of all smartphones shipped in the first quarter, slightly below. Smartphones shipped to retailers are expected to be sold, especially the popular Android and iPhone models. Android phones made by various manufacturers accounted for 59% of first quarter shipments, or 152.3 million devices, while iOS-based iPhones accounted for 23%, IDC ... Continue reading →
From the first pocket scientific calculator through '80s organizers to today's tablets, check out 15 ingenious devices that have driven the handheld computing revolution. Continue reading →
Computerworld - When Matt Goldstein entered medical school at Stanford, his instructors warned him about keeping Facebook or Twitter pages, saying that social media activity could lead to violations of HIPAA patient privacy rules. As he prepares to begin his residency, Goldstein has once again received the now familiar warning. "I actually just got an email from my residency program, and they cautioned us strongly about social media and about using it judiciously." Medical students and physicians face the choice of either not using social media or using pseudonyms that only friends know in order to avoid violating privacy rules and to steer clear of inappropriate contact with patients. "For me, something like Facebook, which started off as a really powerful social tool to interact ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - Even for organizations with a stellar full-time IT staff, situations often arise where temporary outside help is needed. A big Web project might demand a few extra programmers to meet a tough deadline, for example, or a rollout of tools to support a sales force bent on capturing a broader market may require expertise not available in-house. That's when contractors come in. With job losses and uncertain economic times the new norm, independent contractors are on the rise in the U.S. In 2009, the number of U.S. freelancers in all fields stood at 12 million, according to market research firm IDC. That number is expected to reach 14 million by 2015. At the same time, companies, including those in IT, are facing new ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - Yahoo has joined a growing list of companies offering big data analytics as a service with its Genome offering this week. Genome is a service designed to let companies deliver highly targeted online advertising and marketing campaigns. It will let advertisers quickly sift through and analyze terabytes of real-time web data collected from Yahoo's own networks and from those of partners such as Yahoo and AOL. The service, scheduled to become available in July, will let advertisers mash up their own data with Yahoo's data and run analytics on the combined data set. Such instant analysis of real-time big data sets is an emerging trend and something that many companies are moving towards. "It is illustrative of the desire by companies of all ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - After spinning off from Northrop Grumman in 2009, TASC had one year to establish itself as an independent company. That meant the 6,000-employee systems engineering operation needed to deploy a new IT infrastructure. In overseeing that effort, TASC CIO Barbie Bigelow built an IT organization and infrastructure from scratch. Her team spent about eight months working with 64 vendors and partners to design and build an operation that included a new ERP system, more than 4,000 computers, 800 mobile devices, 400 network devices and 134 data circuits across 60 facilities -- and they did it in six weeks. Here, Bigelow discusses the failures and successes that the team experienced as they pursued the aggressive schedule, and she reflects on how TASC's IT unit ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - Microsoft said Friday that it is abandoning the "Aero" user interface with Windows 8, calling the UI that debuted in Vista and continued in Windows 7, "cheesy" and "dated." In a massive 11,300-word blog post, Jensen Harris, the director of program management for Windows 8's user experience team, said that the new operating system's look-and-feel, its graphics user interface, or GUI, would be "clean and crisp," and would do away with the "glass and reflections" that marked Aero. The move was Microsoft's attempt to bring the traditional desktop -- one of two GUIs in Windows 8 -- closer to the new Metro-style interface, said Harris. "In the end, we decided to bring the desktop closer to the Metro aesthetic, while preserving the compatibility ... Continue reading →
Computerworld - NEW ORLEANS -- Attendees at ServiceNow's Knowledge12 user conference here this week were abuzz about the promise of social collaboration and mobile enablement within their service-management tools. But many organizations are still grappling with very basic IT service management (ITSM) process issues. ITSM is about automating, as much as possible, routine IT services, including incident, asset and change management, project management, discovery and related areas. At many companies, the problem is that the processes behind these areas are immature or even chaotic, so throwing automation at a bug-ridden process will only yield more of the same. ServiceNow, the vendor whose user conference is taking place this week, sells a SaaS-only offering that integrates multiple ITSM processes into a single console. The company claims ... Continue reading →
