Electronics firm Sony is to shed 10,000 jobs as part of a major reorganisation, chief executive Kazuo Hirai has said.
The cuts, which represent 6% of the global workforce, will be made over the next 12 months.
The reduction includes staff working in businesses that are being sold, such as its chemicals division.
Sony has been struggling to compete in the television business with South Korea's Samsung and LG, while Apple has challenged it in audio gear and phones.
On Tuesday, Sony forecast a record annual loss of $6.4bn (£4bn), double its previous estimate. Its share price has fallen 40% over the past 12 months.
Entrepreneurial spirit
Sony says it will focus its business on three areas - digital imaging, games consoles and mobile devices.
It hopes the changes will help to generate sales of $10.5bn by the financial year ending in March 2015, with a profit margin of 5%.
In the last financial year, Sony reported sales of $7.9bn.
"We have heard a multitude of investor voices calling for change. Sony will change," Mr Hirai - who took over as chief executive earlier this month - said at a press conference.
"Sony has always been an entrepreneurial company. That spirit has not changed," he said.
The reorganisation will cost Sony $926m (£581m) during the current financial year.
But analysts have been underwhelmed by Mr Hirai's announcement.
"I for one was expecting more," said Pelham Smithers, who runs his own consultancy specialising in the electronics industry.
Continue reading the main story
Sony Corp
Last Updated at 17 Apr 2012, 20:57 Sony Corp twelve month chart
price change %
17.50 -
-0.01
-
-0.06
"This presentation has the same feel as a presentation made three to four years ago when the previous chief executive, Howard Stringer, tried to restructure."
"But back then Samsung and Apple were not as powerful as they are today," he said.
Toshiyuki Kanayama, senior market analyst at Monex, said: "I don't see anything new here. They've talked before about bringing the TV business back to profits. The comments about the electronics business are the same."
"Nothing has changed from what they've flagged in the past, including the M&A plans in the medical field," he said.
Sony's television business has lost money for the past eight years. Analysts say that while it sells about 20 million TV sets a year, it is still not big enough to be profitable.
To tackle that problem Sony is planning to cut costs in the business by 60% by March 2014.
"If they're planning to cut fixed costs by 60%, that signifies the closure of one factory, and the business can shrink. That's not necessarily a bad thing," said Kikuchi Makoto, chief executive at Myojo Asset Management.
"The problem is that the plan is lacking in specifics on the plus side."
The BBC's Tokyo Correspondent, Roland Buerk, said: "Mr Hirai wants Sony to find a new path by creating products that are really going to wow people."
"But saying that is one thing, doing it is another."
Rival Japanese TV maker Sharp is also forecasting hefty losses. It expects an annual loss of $4.7bn this year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17686681
Apple has said it is developing a tool to "detect and remove" a Trojan that is said to have infected more than half a million Mac computers.
It said it is working with internet service providers (ISPs) to disrupt the command network being used by hackers to exploit the malware.
Trojans are infections that can expose computers to control by hackers.
It is Apple's first statement on the threat. It issued patches to prevent the malware's installation last week.
The two security updates were released eight weeks after Java's developer Oracle issued a fix for other computer systems.
In a message posted on Apple's website's support section, the company said it had fixed a "Java security flaw for systems running OS X v10.7 and Mac OS X v10.6".
It suggested users of Macs running earlier versions of its system software should disable Java in their web browser preferences.
In addition, Apple said it was working with ISPs to shut down networks of servers hosted by the malware authors, which the code - known as Flashback - relies on "to perform many of its critical functions".
Macs 'being targeted'
Russian anti-virus firm Dr Web, which has tracked the scale of the botnet, said it believed around 650,000 machines had now been infected.
The company's chief executive, Boris Sharov, told the BBC that since the Trojan was publicised, they have seen downloads of their anti-virus software increase by 28,000%.
"The thing that we have proven to the community is that people should care about their security, even on Macs," he said.
According to a timeline of events posted on its website, Dr Web said activity surrounding the virus began as far back as February.
Traditionally, Apple has promoted the fact that its Macintosh line is largely free from viruses and other similar threats due to the fact almost all malicious software is designed to exploit computers running on Microsoft Windows.
McAfee Labs' Dave Marcus told the AFP news agency: "All the stuff the bad guys have learned for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world."
"Mac has said for a long time that they are not vulnerable to PC malware, which is true: they are vulnerable to Mac malware."
The security firm F-Secure has posted detailed instructions about how to confirm if a machine is infected and how to manually remove the Trojan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17675314
The number of personal computers shipped worldwide rose more than expected in the first quarter, but the bump did little to mask the larger challenges for the industry.
Gartner Inc. said Wednesday that there were 89 million PCs shipped in the first three months of the year, an increase of 1.9 percent from a year earlier. That's above the research firm's earlier expectations of 1.2 percent.
Another research group, IDC, also announced Wednesday that shipments were up 2.3 percent, above its expectations of a 0.9 percent decline.
The reports may have beat expectations, but confirmed that the PC industry is in a state of flux.
Personal computers have taken a backseat to tablet computers such as the iPad in the U.S. and other industrialized nations. But Gartner found that PCs also are falling short of expectations in other markets worldwide, including China and India, where computer ownership is low.
Gartner says the quarter serves as a warning to the industry that PC makers cannot rely heavily on growth in these regions.
PC vendors typically see a lull in sales during the first quarter following the holiday season. But Gartner's results reveal worse-than-normal shipment growth as consumers and some businesses are opting instead for smaller, sleeker devices.
The industry was also dealing with a shortage of hard drives, which had a limited impact on the period.
Gartner said that PC shipments declined 3.5 percent in the U.S., which is better than the 6.1 percent decline it anticipated. Shipments to Asia rose 2 percent, weighed down by weak demand in India and China. Shipments to Latin American declined 3.2 percent.
Shipments to Japan rose 11.5 percent and those to the larger Europe and Middle East region increased 6.7 percent.
IDC found similar global trends but was slightly more optimistic on the industry's future.
"History has shown that periods of slower growth are followed by recovery as improving technologies make replacements as well as new purchases increasingly compelling," Loren Loverde, IDC's vice president of worldwide consumer device trackers, said in a statement. "As a result, we expect PC shipments to pick up significantly by the fourth quarter."
Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lenovo Group Ltd. were the standouts during the period, according to both firms.
Gartner found that Hewlett-Packard strengthened its position as the market leader, accounting for 17.2 percent of the world's shipments during the quarter. No. 2 Lenovo was a strong performer as well, increasing its shipments by 28.1 percent. It has a market share of 13.1 percent.
Dell Inc., Acer Group and AsusTek Computer Inc. rounded out the Top 5
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/pc-shipments-percent-1st-quarter-16119787#.T4YRfplYurU
Wright Express is a leading provider of ePayment solutions exclusively for B2B commercial payments. With over $20 billion in payments processed annually, our flexible solutions interface with existing systems to promote faster payment processing and increased productivity. Wright Express delivers what traditional banks won't - innovative B2B solutions, and superior service to back them up. Find Out More
“With the advent of the Internet, counterfeiting now threatens nearly every consumer in the nation and it also harms the valuable intellectual property of our manufacturers,” said U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr., Central District of California. “That is why we are working with our partners at HSI to crack down on the illegal sales and distribution of counterfeit products like the software packages seized in this case.”
HSI’s investigation revealed that, as part of the alleged scheme, Harper would contact reputable dealers on eBay and hire them to sell the counterfeit software. According to investigators, the defendant allegedly instructed the sellers how to list the software, describing the product as “new” and authentic. The sellers would provide Harper with the payment and the customers’ addresses, and the defendant would ship the counterfeit software to the unsuspecting buyers. Based on evidence gathered during the probe, investigators believe nearly 1,000 counterfeit software packages were sold.
“The sale of counterfeit goods is not a victimless crime,” said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for HSI Los Angeles. “These activities undermine our economy, rob Americans of jobs, stifle American innovation and promote crime. Intellectual property theft amounts to economic sabotage, which is why HSI will continue to aggressively pursue product counterfeiters and those who sell counterfeit products.”
Investigators estimate, based upon the manufacturer’s suggested retail price, the seized software would have retailed for approximately $150,000 had it been genuine.
http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/west/2012/04/10/204645.htm
Computerworld - Whenever I hear a technical person say, "I just got promoted into management," I know he's in for a rough ride. Because chances are he doesn't understand what he's gotten himself into, and whoever gave him the job hasn't prepared him well. Very rarely do they realize that in technical work, this new role isn't a promotion -- it's a career change.
To get a promotion is generally to receive added responsibilities. There is a sense of continuity: What came before is a part of what is to come. But for technical people, nothing could be further from the truth.
Engineering and management are entirely different careers, with no overlap in required skills, knowledge and behaviors. Technical managers don't need to be great engineers. They need to be skilled at creating the conditions under which others can become great engineers. To move from a technical role to management is to abandon one career for another.
Selecting and growing successful technical managers requires a keen appreciation of both the differences between the roles and the dynamics of the transition, because the shift from one career to another can be rather traumatic. Here are some things you can do to help avoid that trauma.
Try before you buy. A large percentage of engineers who try management don't like it. Too often, they choose to leave the organization rather than suffer the public humiliation of a "demotion" or perceived failure. So the organization loses some of its best engineering talent because it tries to "promote" engineers to jobs they ultimately don't want.
To avoid this, give engineers an opportunity to dabble in management without making any public declarations that are hard to back away from. They need a chance to try on the managerial hat before committing to a major career change.
Use rites of passage. Once a managerial candidate decides to commit to the new career, it's important to make a public statement that symbolizes that he has transitioned to a new career path. This helps the manager recognize the profundity of the shift. It can be classic, like an office party -- but it can be fun too. Maybe you can organize a ceremonial surrendering of the pocket protector.
Expect grief and insecurity. Most new managers resist the idea that they'll have to abandon their former glory to embrace the new role. They try hard to be both technical and managerial but eventually realize that it's not possible. When they recognize that there is no going back to being purely technical, you need to account for the accompanying sadness of loss. They are not only losing the work that they love, but also embracing something so totally new that they will inevitably feel incompetent and insecure for a while.
Offer training and support. Training can be helpful, but it's rarely enough. Becoming a manager is about a lot more than just acquiring new skills. It's about mastering a new way of work and a new understanding of self. Managers need coaching to make the change.
Allow indulgences. New managers need the opportunity to occasionally dabble in their former work. Let them code just a little. But make sure they recognize that such things are indulgences that let them revisit the glory days but don't provide significant value to the organization.
With a few relatively easy adjustments in language and approach, you can create an environment in which new technical managers grow and your team gets the leadership it needs.
Paul Glen is the CEO of Leading Geeks, an education and consulting firm devoted to unlocking the value of technical people. You can contact him at info@leadinggeeks.com.
Read more about Management and Careers in Computerworld's Management and Careers Topic Center.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224565/Paul_Glen_In_Tech_Management_Is_Not_a_Promotion
A version of the Nook SimpleTouch is now equipped with front-lighting, Barnes & Noble announced Thursday. The new Nook SimpleTouch costs $40 more than the standard version with the light being the only difference; other features remain the same.
Built-in lighting has become the next logical step for e-ink readers. On April 6, TechCrunch found that Amazon had acquired patents for a front-lighting design in 2010. The company has offered Kindle cases with built in lighting for some time, but on this count Barnes & Noble has beaten Amazon to this feature.
The new Nook benefits from "Flex Lighting," a thin LED lighting film that sits like a skin on top of the e-ink display. The lighting relies on one or two LEDs, according to The E-Book Reader, and its brightness is adjustable. The standard battery life estimate for a Nook SimpleTouch is two months of one hour of reading per day. Barnes & Noble states the device will still last "over one month" if the reader is using the lighting.
Hilariously, Barnes & Noble is marketing the Nook SimpleTouch toward couples beleaguered by a specific situation—where one person wants to read later than the other ("End bedtime reading debate—when you want to read & your partner wants to sleep," reads the features list). We expect the Nook SimpleTouch will find a much wider audience, though the $139 price tag is a bit steep compared to the $99 regular Nook SimpleTouch. We'd point out that it's also only $60 less than the Kindle Fire; which reader you'd choose depends on your dedication to e-ink. The device is available for pre-orders today and will ship May 1.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/new-nook-simpletouch-adds-built-in-front-lighting.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
You may recall Samsung's amazing concept video released last December for a mobile device consisting entirely of a flexible AMOLED display. The translucent device translated languages on the spot, projected images in 3D and performed other awesome tasks.
While a super-phone like that one may still be a ways off, flexible displays seems to be just right around the corner -- and Samsung has given theirs a name: "YOUM."
According to The Verge, the company filed an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office on March 16 for YOUM's stylized logo, shown below.
LOOK:In addition, Samsung's YOUM flexible display now has its own page on the Korean Samsung Mobile display website. The site features a diagram (below) demonstrating the differences that exist between Samsung's flexy display, an LCD display, and an OLED display.
Samsung Announces YOUM Flexible Display
The Huffington Post | By Courteney Palis Posted: 04/10/2012 11:31 am Updated: 04/10/2012 1:45 pm
reddit stumble
Share on Google+
73
10
26
69
Get Technology Alerts:
Sign Up
React:
Inspiring
Funny
Obsolete
Scary
Must-Have
Amazing
Innovative
Nerdy
Follow:
Video, Samsung Smartphone, Flexible Display, Flexible Display Youm, Future Technology, Samsung, Samsung Display, Samsung Flexible Amoled, Samsung Flexible Display, Samsung Phone, Samsung Youm, Youm Flexible Display, Youm Samsung, Technology News
Samsung Youm
You may recall Samsung's amazing concept video released last December for a mobile device consisting entirely of a flexible AMOLED display. The translucent device translated languages on the spot, projected images in 3D and performed other awesome tasks.
While a super-phone like that one may still be a ways off, flexible displays seems to be just right around the corner -- and Samsung has given theirs a name: "YOUM."
According to The Verge, the company filed an application to the US Patent and Trademark Office on March 16 for YOUM's stylized logo, shown below.
LOOK:
In addition, Samsung's YOUM flexible display now has its own page on the Korean Samsung Mobile display website. The site features a diagram (below) demonstrating the differences that exist between Samsung's flexy display, an LCD display, and an OLED display.
Slashgear explains that what could make Samsung's YOUM display thinner, lighter and unbreakable, as the company claims, are its "film-based encapsulation and TFT layers," which replace the usual glass layers featured in LCD and OLED displays and "make them more resilient to damage along with allowing more flexibility in device design."
Samsung first showed off a prototype of the display at CES 2011, which, according to CNET, was 4.5 inches wide, less than .33 mm thick and had a screen resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.
And, just a few days after Nokia released a prototype of its bendable Kinetic Device last October, Samsung Investor Relations VP Robert Yi said the following in a quarterly earnings call: "The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from the handset side."
So far it seems Samsung's plans are pretty much on track. Hopefully, we'll be meeting its YOUM displays in person by the end of this year. What do you think of these flexible displays? Would you buy a bendable device? Let us know in the comments!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/samsung-youm-flexible-display_n_1414484.html
Google has announced updates to the Stable and Beta channels of their Chrome browser, fixing several bugs and twelve security vulnerabilities. Seven of the twelve security fixes were classed as high-risk problems and Google paid a total of $6000 to the researchers who discovered the bugs.
The update also includes a new version of the bundled Flash Player. Adobe have revised the Flash Player advisory from the end of March to include fixes for a Chrome/Flash only pair of memory corruption issues listed as CVE-2012-0724 and CVE-2012-0725. Given that these issues only affect Chrome and Chrome manages its own update, it is unlikely that Adobe will be reissuing or updating the advisory or patches for other browsers and platforms.
The seven high risk vulnerabilities are bugs that left several Chrome components open to being exploited by using memory after it had been freed. Many of these issues are detected using AddressSanitizer. The Chrome developers have also fixed several cross-origin problems and two issues where the browser could be exploited to read from memory where it shouldn't. Details of these vulnerabilities are not available yet as Google usually gives the updates some time to roll out before it publishes further information. This is done to prevent attackers from reverse engineering the vulnerabilities before the updates have a chance to reach all affected systems.
Changes in this update that are not security-related include several graphics and HTML Canvas fixes. The developers have also remedied problems with CSS rendering and bugs in the browser's UI.
http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Google-Chrome-fixes-seven-high-risk-vulnerabilities-1517293.html
Toshiba has introduced its new line of quad-core Android tablets, including a giant 13-inch model with a high-resolution display and quad-core processor. The company is also phasing out its 7- and 10-inch Thrive tablets, which will be replaced with the new Excite line of tablets running Android 4.0.
The 13.3-inch Toshiba Excite sports a high-res display, which at 1,600 by 900 pixels is sharper than typical Android tablets, but still below the third-generation iPad’s display of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. The only comparable resolution in Android land would be the Asus Transformer TF700T, which sports a resolution of 1,900 by 1,200 pixels.
Make no mistake though, the 13-inch model is big: it weighs 2.2 pounds, it’s 0.4 inches thick and is practically the size of a serving tray. But with the size, you get a range of ports, including a full-size SD card slot, a microUSB port and a microHDMI port. Toshiba also claims the battery can last up to 13 hours, and there’s an included (separate) tablet stand for when the tablet gets too heavy for users.
The giant Toshiba tablet also packs some powerful specs inside: it runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on a Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM, and sports dual cameras, 1.3-megapixel on the front and a 5-megapixel on the back. There’s no 3G/4G connectivity on board though, and the Excite 13 is set to arrive on June 10 for $650 for the 32GB model and $750 for the 64GB model -- around $50 more than the equivalent iPad models.
With a 13.3-inch tablet, almost double the size of the popular Amazon Kindle Fire, Toshiba hopes to appeal to those who use their tablet mostly at home. With the large screen and loud SRS Surround speakers, it’s easier on the eye to watch videos (as long as you use the aforementioned stand), and it could be better for video calls as well.
But if you’re looking for some more regular-sized tablets from Toshiba, the company also introduced 7.7- and 10-inch Excite tablets, also running on quad-core processors and Android 4.0. The Excite 10 is set to go on sale in May for $450 for 16GB, $530 for 32GB or $650 for the 64GB model. The Excite 7.7 will arrive in June with the Excite 13, at $500 for 16GB and $580 for 32GB.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253508/toshiba_unveils_133inch_android_tablet.html
Wireless carriers and the Federal Communications Commission are working together on a plan to make stolen cell phones worthless.
Together with law enforcement, they plan to create a database of phones reported as stolen. Wireless carriers would then disable voice and data services for these stolen phones, making them a lot less attractive on the black market.
When a phone is stolen today, users can cancel their service through their wireless carrier, but that doesn't stop thieves from reactivating the device under a separate service plan. Verizon and Sprint already block stolen phones from being reactivated, but GSM-based carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile, whose phones use swappable SIM cards, do not.
The database will consist of Unique Device Identifiers, or UDIDs, so if carriers are blocking a specific UDID, inserting a new SIM card won't work. GSM carriers will roll out their own database by Oct. 31, and a common database for all LTE smartphones will be in place by Nov. 30, 2013. Although thieves can modify a UDID, some lawmakers are working on legislation to outlaw the practice.
For users whose smartphones are stolen, a bigger concern may be what happens to the information on the device. As part of carriers' agreement with the FCC, they'll encourage users to password-protect their devices, and will educate users on the remote wipe features of smartphones.
“Our goal is to make a stolen cellphone as worthless as an empty wallet,” Senator Charles Schumer of New York said, according to the New York Times.
The plan isn't perfect, however. As the Wall Street Journal notes, stolen phones are often shipped overseas. Some countries have their own databases, and the FCC is calling for interoperability, but there's no guarantee that the FCC's plan will be enforceable everywhere. Besides, criminals who sell stolen phones on the black market may not have qualms about modifying UDIDs, even if it's against the law.
There are also other issues to consider, such as what happens if the phone's owner recovers the device after reporting it as stolen. Officials haven't said how long they'll need to clear the database of a recovered phone's UDID, or what safeguards they'll put in place to prevent false claims -- say, by an angry ex-spouse. It's also unclear how much information will be collected in the database beyond UDIDs.
That's not to say the effort isn't worthwhile, but hopefully the FCC and wireless carriers will have more to say on specifics before the database program begins this fall.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253509/fcc_plans_stolen_phone_database_to_discourage_theft.html
Want to unlock your off-contract AT&T iPhone to use with competing GSM carriers such as T-Mobile? As reported last week, now you can, the only hitch is it may take up to a week for AT&T to process the request even though AT&T claims it only takes minutes.
Here are the hassles I'm dealing with trying to unlock my old AT&T iPhone 3GS. And judging from other iPhone owners seeking to unlock their AT&T iPhones I'm far from alone.
Getting Started
The minute I heard AT&T officially allowed me to unlock my iPhone I wanted to go for it. Better yet, AT&T said it would walk iPhone users through the process, making the entire procedure easy. With AT&T itself unlocking my iPhone this allows me to avoid trying alternative back alley unlock hacks that could open the device to malicious attacks. Better yet, since AT&T sanctions the unlock it does not invalidate my iPhone’s warranty.
To get started, you have three choices to perform the unlock process: you can call customer care, use AT&T’s online support system, or walk into a retail AT&T store.
After AT&T receives your unlock request it confirms the phone is off contract and that your account with AT&T is in good standing. Next, AT&T forwards your unlock request to Apple which activates the unlock command through a restore feature in iTunes. Now, in theory, just plug your iPhone into iTunes and Apple sends an unlock command to the phone, and you're done.
According to an AT&T representative, the unlock should take about two to three minutes to process.
Problems Begin
I first tried a local AT&T store near Philadelphia this past weekend to unlock my phone, but was quickly discouraged when a representative told me he had no clue what I was talking about. Next I turned to the Internet.
I visited AT&T online and waited 45 minutes to talk to an online support representative to ask for the unlock. Once connected to a representative, named Coleen, I was told I needed my phone's IMEI number, a numerical code that identifies your device (you can find yours by tapping Settings > General > About, then scroll down to the bottom).
Coleen then said I would receive directions shortly on how to unlock my iPhone via e-mail. She then told me that she needed to file a "case" and asked for my e-mail. It's unclear what a "case" is. I assumed it was a record of my request. Coleen assured me the entire process would only require a few more steps and I'd soon have an unlocked iPhone.
After disconnecting with Coleen I was shocked to receive an e-mail from AT&T stating it was going to take eight days (not "minutes") to process my request. In the e-mail AT&T stated: “Resolution date is 04/17/2012 in the morning. You will receive an email with the unlock instructions.” That is a full eight days from the time I put in the request last Monday.
Some Wait Days, Others Minutes
A search around the Web indicates I am not the only one. Oddly, however, other AT&T customers are reporting their iPhones are being unlocked almost immediately. Whatever the holdup is, it is not affecting everyone.
Comments in AppleInsider’s forum show others facing similar long wait times. Commenter "itsole" wad told “5-7 business days,” while over on TheNextWeb commenter Joost Schurr was told “3-5 days” after attempting to unlock through AT&T on Sunday.
When I asked AT&T press representatives what was causing the discrepancies in unlock times on Monday I was told no comment.
It's not the end of the world that I have to wait eight days. But it begs the question; is AT&T being flooded with requests and needs to slow the pace of unlocks? Either way, if you are interested in unlocking your AT&T iPhone it will be good to keep your expectations in check. You may want to plan on it taking days, not minutes.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253517/atandt_starts_unlocking_iphones_customers_gripe_over_long_delays.html
Computerworld - There's good news and bad news on the salary front for IT professionals this year. With many businesses enjoying renewed growth following an extended period of economic gloom, IT workers saw another year of modest salary increases, and they reported significantly fewer pay cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that tech professionals are working hard for every penny they bring home -- so hard that in many cases the extra workload outweighs the small boost in pay.
For the second year in a row, salaries and total compensation for IT professionals have inched up. According to Computerworld's Salary Survey 2012, average salaries increased 2.1% this year, and average total compensation rose by 1.8%. In all, 56% of the 4,337 respondents to our survey reported an increase in their base salary this year, while only 9% reported a decrease.
Hiring is also up, with 87% of hiring managers who responded to the survey saying that they expect IT staff head count to increase in the next 12 months or remain the same. Only 25% of the total respondents reported hiring freezes, compared with 39% last year. And other negative indicators, such as salary freezes, budget cuts and layoffs, are all in retreat.
IT, it seems, is finally on the road to recovery. Workers even seem to feel better about the economy: Only 19% listed it as a challenge in the latest survey, compared to 28% the prior year.
Running, but not catching up
However, a closer look reveals IT professionals struggling to accept the fact that they might never regain the salary ground lost during the downturn and grappling with heavy workloads, added responsibilities and demands to learn new skills.
Mark Labby, for one, said he's happy to report a 2% pay increase after years of a salary freeze and a decision by his employer, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, to stop paying for on-call time, which resulted in a 5% reduction in his compensation. The PHEAA is now anticipating "astronomical" growth, says the senior database administrator, and it has even posted new job openings.
Though Labby says he feels fairly compensated, he can't help noting the gap between the recent pay boost and the earlier cut, particularly since the modest raise is more than offset by the rising cost of health benefits.
Survey respondents echo Labby's concerns: Only 20% said that they believe their salary is keeping pace with business growth and demands, and 71% said that they have either stayed flat or lost ground financially in the past two years.
"Technology professionals are being asked to do more for less," says Tom Silver, senior vice president for North America at job search site Dice.com. While demand for IT workers is high -- with an unemployment rate of just 3.8% in this sector compared with the national average of 8.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- continued economic uncertainty is keeping the brakes on salaries. "Employers have begrudgingly increased salaries, but tech pros want more," Silver says.
Some IT workers worry that they will be left behind compensation-wise and skills-wise -- and even energy-wise, as they tackle what appears to be a permanently increased workload.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225689/IT_Picks_Up_the_Pace
Yesterday, mobile darling Instagram launched its Android app and snared one million downloads in 24 hours. The photo-based social juggernaut already boasts 30 million users who pour 5 million photos into the network every day – and with half of all smartphone users in the U.S. now using Android, don’t expect Instagram’s growth to stall. Instead, it’ll be how the company handles its growth spurt that could affect the future of its success.
The following is a conversation we had with co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom last spring that’s gone unpublished until now.
(MORE: Camera Awesome Adds Instagram Support, Loses One Cool Feature)
TIME: So you were really told at the beginning that a photo sharing app couldn’t be successful?
Kevin Systrom: When we launched, photo sharing was not the thing people thought was cool. In fact, I remember being told while we were working on the idea that photo sharing was dead, that it wasn’t exciting. I actually think people kind of wrote it off until they saw what kind of growth can happen on a photo-based social network. That changed a lot of minds, including other investors and folks who decided to enter the space as well.
TIME: Some startups dig their heels in and say they’ll never sell out. Where do you guys stand? Obviously, at some point you’ve got to make money. Are you under a lot of pressure to monetize?
KS: It’s not really on the top of our minds right now. We’re much more focused on scaling the product and building the team than we are trying to sell an app for $.99.
I think people said the same of search back in the day: “Well, this is cool, but how do you make money off of it? I think that’s the perennial question in businesses that invent business models. Traditional businesses can say, “We’re going to sell widgets to people and it will make X amount of profit.” But new business models are hard.
It’s interesting to talk about it because we question it now, but the whole reason we’re in this is to invent a new business model. And if you’re going to do that, your market needs to be very, very large. I believe photos is one of the underlying things in every social network that becomes successful. We can be very large because of that and then find very interesting ways to make money. But now, we’re focused on growth.
TIME: Do you have any plans to build Instagram out over the Web?
KS: We are fully sold on the fact that if we’re going to do big, meaningful stuff we need to take on networks. We believe mobile is that. The iPhone is the first time I felt like mobile really had a chance to scale hundreds of millions of people and be a platform where you can build on that platform. There’s no coincidence that we launched when iPhone 4 launched with its revamped camera. That was not a coincidence at all. It’s the right time for us.
You can’t take a desktop experience and shove it into a 3-by-4-in screen. It’s a very different behavior pattern. It’s a very different browse pattern. People interact with their phones very differently than they do with their PCs and I think that when you design from the ground up with mobile in mind, you create a very different product than going the other way.
TIME: You haven’t won over the entire professional photography community yet. Some have been pretty vocal about it, too. How do you deal with that?
KS: I didn’t start this to be a photo app. It was about communicating visually. Those are two very different things. A photo app is a utility. It’s like comparing Twitter to Microsoft Word. If you want to be an author, you’re not always going to constrain yourself to 140 characters.
TIME: You’ve got a background in photography yourself, right?
KS: Yeah, I grew up as a photo nut. Every Christmas I would get a new camera. It’s a huge part of my life.
When I studied abroad my teacher set what I do know in motion by saying, “Give me that camera of yours.” He took my camera away and gave me a little, plastic camera. I was studying in Florence at the time and he told me that I wasn’t allowed to use my camera for the rest of the class. I had to use this plastic camera with a terrible lens. He said I was too focused on sharpness and “I feel like you’re more artsy than that.” He said, “I want you to use this Holga,” this plastic camera with a plastic lens that had this cult following in the ’80s and ’90. I was blown away by what it could do to photos. My photography teacher was totally right. I was too focused on being meticulous with these really beautiful, complex architectural shots. It helps to see the world through a different lens and that’s what we wanted to do with Instagram. We wanted to give everyone the same feeling of discovering the world around you through a different lens.
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/04/kevin-systrom-interview/?iid=tl-main-lede#ixzz1rG2HcpY9
Sony Mobile has posted a video online showing the new floating touch screen technology on the SM Sola smartphone. The new technology allows you to hover over the screen to move a virtual mouse pointer around and when links (as an example) highlight, you can then tap the screen to click on it.
The new technology allows you to interact with your smartphone up to 20mm away from the screen.
Feature of the Sony Mobile Xperia Sola include a 3.7 inch reality display which runs with the BRAVIA engine that Sony is famous for. It does run Android 2.3 gingerbread and it will come with that OS installed although Sony has promised an update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich although it will technically be close to an Android Jelly Bean launch which will make it about 18 months behind at launch with 2.3 originally being released in December 2010.
The technology is still impressive. Take a look below to see a demonstration of what can be done with Floating Touch technology:
http://www.gadgetvenue.com/floating-touch-screen-technology-from-sony-mobile-demonstrated-03152447/
Whenever I imagine a flying car, which is quite often for some reason, it usually looks like something out of The Jetsons or Back to the Future. Sadly, today’s flying cars look more like lackluster Transformers.
Not that the newly announced PAL-V One isn’t cool. On the ground, the tiny vehicle runs on three wheels like some kind of car/motorcycle hybrid. Once you find some open space, you simply pop out the tail, lift the rotors and voila — instant helicopter.
(MORE: IBM to Help Research and Develop ‘Exascale’ Supercomputing Telescope)
Well, actually it’s a gyrocopter, which is kind of like a helicopter except that its propeller provides the thrust instead of its rotor. This baby can only fly up to altitudes of 4,000 feet, which means it doesn’t have to deal with all the rules for commercial air traffic. I’m not so sure I’d be too happy seeing one of these things zipping over my car at 112mph, but luckily it’s not commercially available yet so I don’t have to worry about it.
If you’re looking for a roomier flying and driving experience, you might want to save up for the Transition from Terrafugia, which will be shown off at the New York Auto Show. The concept is similar to that of the PAL-V, in that you can fill it up with regular gasoline and drive it on the street before taking off.
It’s not exactly a speed demon on the road, but it does look more comfortable than the PAL-V in that you aren’t jammed into a tiny cockpit. Otherwise, it flies in a very similar way, with wings instead of rotors providing the lift. Check out our previous coverage of the Transition here.
Which brings us back to my initial disappointment: We nerds don’t want existing technologies cleverly jammed together; we want cool new flying technology like in Blade Runner and The Fifth Element. Get on it, crazy white-haired scientists of the world.
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/04/03/flying-cars-finally-here-kind-of/?iid=tl-main-lede#ixzz1rAEIMSbi
http://techland.time.com/2012/04/03/flying-cars-finally-here-kind-of/?iid=tl-main-lede
Computerworld - DALLAS -- It's becoming more and more difficult for CIOs to find workers well-versed in ever-changing technologies like wireless networking, cloud computing, mobile security and big data analytics.
Thus, IT managers are looking for people who have training in multiple disciplines. And if they can't find them or can't afford them, they're implementing cross-training programs for the workers they have.
According to several top IT managers at SNW here this week, CIOs are working hard to break down specialization among their staffs.
David Richter, vice president of Infrastructure Solutions at Kimberly-Clark, said he recently revamped the IT titles in his department, cutting the number of job descriptions from more than 350 to about 40.
"We definitely have a skills gap. I need a broader bench. I need people who have two or three areas of expertise," he said.
"Part of our training and individual development plans ... are focused on training people to make them more competent in their current role, and also for their next role," Richter added.
The additional training both adds to the workers skill sets and lets CIOs better deal with constrained IT budgets by not having to hire more people with specific skills, he said.
Kimberly Clark sees problems in hiring experts in security technology. Richter noted that security is difficult because the technology is constantly changing to adapt ever-changing mobile technologies and persistent threats.
"That's a big issue for us," said Richter, who also cited difficult in finding network, database and video expertise. "We provide video conferencing for the business across the globe," he noted.
Theresa Meadows, CIO of Cook Children's Health Care System, Texas, said security is also a looming concern for the Fort Worth firm because of regulatory pressures to keep patient information safe.
"Healthcare is typically five or six years behind the IT curve," she said. "Our use of cloud is minimal because of perceived security concerns."
Meadows said she is also under pressure to take advantage of big data analytics technology, which can be used to segment medical information so it's more useful to physicians, nurses and medical technicians.
The health care firm's IT staff has doubled over the last three or so years because of its rapid expansion. Cook Children's Health Care System has more than 4.000 employees and operates more than 60 pediatric medical and specialty clinic offices throughout Texas..
Meadows said the IT organization has created a "pod" training program that groups three IT employees with different skills.
Meadows places long-tenured employees, mid-term workers and new hires on a team in order to gain confidence in existing and new skills, she said.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225842/IT_skills_gap_forces_CIOs_to_get_creative
TomTom has blamed a "leap year bug" for a fault causing some of its satellite navigation devices to malfunction.
The firm said that a problem with its global positioning system firmware - code embedded into the devices - was causing "a limited number of models" to fail to identify their location.
Affected users are presented with a grey screen and a message saying the machine lacks a GPS signal.
The firm said that it was working on a fix and promised further updates.
The Dutch company said that the issue first emerged on 31 March.
It suggested that customers should reset their devices by holding the on/off button down for 20 seconds, saying the move acted as a temporary fix.
TomTom told the BBC that it would "update customers on which models are affected as soon as we know more".
Frustration
The problem appears to affect devices worldwide, with users in the UK, Australia, Switzerland and Denmark among those complaining of the problem.
One user of the firm's Go Live 1005 model told the BBC that he had encountered the problem on Sunday during a trip from Gatwick Airport to Cornwall.
"It refused to shift its position from Gatwick and kept showing a message saying 'looking for valid GPS signals,'" Graham Pitt said.
"I assumed it had broken but when I went to check TomTom's website I saw there were similar complaints about a range of models on its discussion boards. I feel this should have been made public earlier to alert customers to the problem."
A thread titled "No GPS Signal" on TomTom's site had attracted more than 350 posts by Tuesday afternoon.
A statement from the firm said: "Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17599701
Apple [AAPL] has increased the percentage for the developer using iAds from 60 to 70 percent. The increase is an attempt to make the iAd service more popular than other options that are currently available.
The iAd network allows developers to embed code in to their apps so that banners (iAds) are displayed and when displayed a portion of revenue is given to that developer.
o help get more iAds online, Apple also recently lowered the buy in rate down to $100,000 for those wanting to buy iAd space on iOS devices.
For developers not using iAds at the moment, it could be worth dipping in and out once in a while to see what Apple iAds can actually make for your app. With any ad network, it's all a matter of testing to see which pay best.
http://www.gadgetvenue.com/iad-developer-revenue-increased-from-60-to-70-percent-04023244/
Computerworld - A help desk can be a real lifesaver for employees, not to mention a productivity boost. A keyboard stops working, or Outlook crashes repeatedly, and a technician is just a phone call away. Even complex issues can usually be resolved internally, and relatively quickly, without needing an outside vendor.
Yet, innovations in the help desk itself are often slow to evolve. Many large organizations still track tickets in complex or age-old systems that are not adept at pinpointing recurring problems, don't work well on the latest smartphones or tablets, and don't provide detailed reports about average call times or how long it takes to resolve issues.
Jarod Greene, a Gartner analyst, says, "Most corporate help desks are outdated." Many organizations are stuck using tools that merely report on the number of calls per day, month and year and do not have a clue about what he calls "feedback loops" -- in other words, the recurring problems within an organization. That's a critical issue, he says, because over 50% of the perceived value of an IT organization comes from the help desk.
"They end up automating bad processes, and fail to gain real efficiencies from the investment," Greene says.
Some organizations have found a way to improve the help desk. Whether it's a "teaching moment" at the University of Georgia, a system that provides more efficient tracking at Peugeot, or a start-up that relies entirely on a Web-based tool for every ticket, the help desk is getting a much-needed assist.
University of Georgia: Education-based support
At the University of Georgia, with 10,000 employees and an enrollment of around 35,000 students, the help desk staff has to perform triage on support requests quickly, resolve them if possible, and then pass the tough cases up to second-level support.
When calls are escalated, the help desk shifts gears. According to Rachel Moorehead, an IT professional assistant and supervisor at the university, calls become more than just a way to resolve problems.
"Every call is a teaching moment," she says, describing how help desk staffers tailor each interaction to the caller's technical expertise. When an IT major calls in about a problem with a login to an Outlook server, for example, staffers might explain how the logging files work. Even if the student is not an IT major, they still pass along tips -- and generally find that every student and faculty member is open to the advice. The university uses BMC Remedy to log the initial call, and then Bomgar for screen-sharing.
Moorehead estimates that almost all of the university's second-level IT support tickets involve some sort of extra instruction.
Because the support calls are focused on training and education, the goal is not necessarily to resolve problems quickly. The average resolution time for support calls is 5.17 hours, and an average screen-sharing session lasts 33 minutes. This compares to an industry average of a day to resolve issues of low to medium severity, according to Gartner's Greene
The university took on 4,395 support calls in the month of November alone, customizing calls for the needs of the user and their specific problem.
"This is the IT help desk equivalent of 'give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,'" says Charles King, an analyst with PUND-IT.
Gartner's Greene says the university is on the right track in how it uses a tiered strategy. The first level roots out problems quickly; the second tier uses remote sessions to provide more thorough support. That's important, he says, because of the average costs involved. Initial calls to IT support can cost a company $1 to $10 per ticket; that's just for initial contact by phone or email to log the issue.
Once the call gets to an actual human for first-level support, the cost rises to between $10 and $37 per transaction. If a more technical staff member becomes involved for second-level or even more complex issues, the costs are $37 to $250 per ticket.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9223748/The_new_help_desk_Agile_educational_efficient
Despite the average person's growing technical acumen, workers still rely on corporate help when systems crash, applications bewilder and any number of other tech-related mishaps occur.
In fact, reliance on the help desk is actually increasing. HDI, the IT service and technical support association, reported in its 2011 Support Center Practices & Salary Report that 68% of support centers saw an increase in ticket volume in 2011.
What those figures don't show are the number of calls that could be handled better. Help desk managers know what we're talking about -- those calls that just won't go away, the kind of persistent questions that bog down support staff and keep more critical problems at the back of the queue.
"Eliminating irritating calls [completely] is never going to happen, so the goal is how do you stop as much of this from happening as you can, because it costs a lot of money to handle these calls," said HDI managing director Craig Baxter.
To help with that quest, Computerworld checked with the experts to compile a list of the five most persistent types of help desk calls and what organizations can do to get them under control.
Password reset
An HDI survey of 339 respondents showed that one-third of support centers reported that more than 30% of their tickets were related to password resets -- despite the fact that 69% of survey respondents allow customers to reset at least some of their passwords without help from the help desk.
That jibes with the experience of Ken Hayes, director of continual service improvement at Technisource Inc., a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., staffing and solutions firm, who says one of his clients had 25% of its calls related to password resets -- even though the firm had a self-service option available.
The problem, as it is in many places, was getting users to actually help themselves, Hayes says. Help desks often don't do enough to educate users that self-help options are available or don't make them easy to use, he says.
"People always look for the path of least resistance," Hayes says. "If a phone call to the help desk is the easiest, quickest way to resolve the problem, that's what they'll do."
To cut down on the volume of password-reset calls, Hayes's team worked with the client company, a financial services firm, to better market its automated password reset function. They actively registered everyone at the company, rather than leaving them to register on their own. And they instructed help desk staff to remind callers -- politely, of course -- that the automated option was a better way to go. As a result, password calls dropped to about 10%, a sizable improvement.
Other help desk supervisors who have successfully cut down these kinds of calls say automated voice systems, which walk callers through the self-service option, can also be effective.
Office suite basics
How do I format my spreadsheet? How do I change the fonts in Word?
Every help desk fields these kinds of questions from users who confuse help with basic application training, says Hayes. Problem is, these mundane app-related questions cause trained technologists to divert time and attention from issues more critical to the mission of the organization, he says
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225704/5_annoying_help_desk_calls_and_how_to_banish_them