Cognizant Supports Citizen Schools as National Leadership Partner - MarketWatch (press release)

Cognizant Supports Citizen Schools as National Leadership Partner - MarketWatch (press release)

Cognizant Supports subject Schools as National activity Partner MarketWatch (press release) Funding for Citizen Schools is made through the Cognizant Technology Solutions gift Fund at the army unit Charitable Endowment Program. subject Schools is a star national education initiative that partners with middle schools to expand the ... WATCH FOR SHARES OF COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS ( CTSH ) TO plan of attack ... Zacks.com all xi news articles

Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple

Tim Cook Named CEO and Jobs Elected Chairman of the Board 

CUPERTINO, California—August 24, 2011—Apple’s Board of Directors today announced that Steve Jobs has resigned as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board has named Tim Cook, previously Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, as the company’s new CEO. Jobs has been elected Chairman of the Board and Cook will join the Board, effective immediately.

“Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company,” said Art Levinson, Chairman of Genentech, on behalf of Apple's Board. “Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team. In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration.”

“The Board has complete confidence that Tim is the right person to be our next CEO,” added Levinson. “Tim’s 13 years of service to Apple have been marked by outstanding performance, and he has demonstrated remarkable talent and sound judgment in everything he does.”

Jobs submitted his resignation to the Board today and strongly recommended that the Board implement its succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO.

As COO, Cook was previously responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and played a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

HP: Where is it going?

It is clear HP is in trouble. But what of that? How bad is it and what should any of us do who follow this company?

I am gobsmacked at the amount of back channel conversations I’ve been hefting around HP. Mostly from people that truly want to understand what the heck is going on at this beleaguered company. I cannot provide direct insight except to the limited extent I receive Twitter DM’s on this topic from people who claim special knowledge. That usually means they’ve had coffee with a pissed off VP. It does include well placed HP insiders who are scrambling for position. Be that as it may be and understand that stress does odd things to otherwise rational people.

Let’s make no mistake. HP is the first in what could be a who’s who of Silicon Valley titans that are/will be blasted by the chill wind of change. Unlike the past where temporary hiccups could be overcome, even the usually intellectually challenged Wall Street analysts are smelling blood in the water as they scramble to realise their models are not what Excel was telling them. As for the rest, it feels as though everyone has an opinion about HP. But then everyone has an a$$hole. And most of them stink. Can we all please step back and think for more than the required attention span of a passing Tweet?

Let’s get it out on the table - HP is a mess. Are they alone? Not at all. I can count at least Microsoft and Cisco that are on PR disguised life support. Dell likes to quip at HP’s expense but I sense its CEO needs to take a long hard look at its defensible business before getting a cheap laugh at anyone else’s expense. There are many others. But let’s deal with what we see.

When Leo Apotheker, CEO HP was appointed who else was there to pick up the poisoned chalice Mark Hurd left behind? No-one. Hurd had done exactly what the financial markets expected of him without thinking for one nanosecond about the long term future or viability of this once great company.

Six big trends to watch in 2011

1. Mainstream means mobile

For many years, mobile has been a peripheral afterthought when developing enterprise applications. Even when running in a browser, the laptop or desktop PC has been the primary user platform, and a mobile client was always an option at best. In 2011, there’s going to be seismic shift. Significant numbers of enterprise software vendors will upend their development priorities and develop for mobile first, desktop second.

2. Fake cloud #fails the crowd

It should be no surprise to find me predicting that so-called ‘private cloud’ will disappoint. Cloud computing has ridden to the peak of the Gartner hype cycle, and fake cloud is now leading the way into the trough of disillusionment. Vendors and enterprises seeking to capture the benefits of cloud computing without understanding the core principles will come a cropper, and cloud’s reputation will suffer accordingly, even if undeservedly.

3. IT management gets wired to the cloud

The days when cloud computing came in an unaccountable black box are drawing to an end. Enterprise buyers rightly demand oversight and governance of their computing, even if hosted by a provider. Instead of take-it-or-leave it service levels, there’s a new trend towards visibility and accountability. Examples include RightNow’s Cloud Services Portal or the detailed reporting and governance built into managed cloud offerings from the likes of OpSource and Rackspace. 2011 will see instrumentation bringing new depth and detail to cloud and SaaS offerings.

4. Data just wants to be mined

The volume of data being accumulated every day is exploding, and it’s yielding huge new value for those who know how to mine and refine it. This emerging new value equation is changing the relationship between data and security, as Wikileaks has shown. Governments and corporations today (not to mention consumers) are sitting on rich seams of data whose value they have barely realized. Others are mining that wealth, whether openly or surreptitiously. I can’t put it better than I wrote back in 2006: “Value comes from the views that you create to filter, join and represent data — whether it’s your data or someone else’s (more often the latter).”

5. Social technologies remake enterprise apps

The ability to collaborate in real time, to instantly initiate conversations or to develop a thread across follow-the-sun timezones — all these capabilities are bringing people together in new ways that cut across the old business processes of industrial-era enterprise applications. The old way was to put the organization and its process automation first. Now applications are being remade to put people at the center of process and have automation serve their needs. The outcome will break down the old silos of resource-centric process management, to replace them with new, people-centric automation stacks.

6. Business transformation becomes the big story

The tech industry is obsessed with its pursuit of the new, new thing. In 2011 the new, new thing is not a technology at all, but a new way of doing business that’s enabled by all of the above. The new year’s most telling innovations will not be in mobile, cloud or social technologies but in how smart, entrepreneurial business people adapt to the potential that blossoms from those technologies.

Govt Can't Access Encrypted Data: RIM

Research In Motion (RIM), the Canadian parent company of BlackBerry, has rubbished recent media reports which said RIM will allow Indian Government access to messages and e-mails sent by India's 400,000 BlackBerry users. It said that only an account holder has the necessary key to decrypt the messages. However, it revealed that security authorities and mobile operators would be granted "lawful access" to the popular BlackBerry Messenger chats. RIM has a January 31st deadline to provide the security agencies with keys to lawfully access its e-mail and messaging service. The Government has become strict in its pursuit for a solution after reports appeared that Mumbai attacks were plotted using BlackBerrys.

Hacktivists Attack Zimbabwe Govt Website

Cyber activists have brought down Zimbabwean Government websites after their President Robert Mugabe's wife sued a newspaper for publishing a WikiLeaks cable linking her with illicit diamond trading. The Zimbabwean Government Web portal (www.gta.gov.zw) was unreachable on Thursday while the Finance Ministry's website (www.zimtreasury.gov.zw) displayed a message saying it was under maintenance, as reported by the Register. The president’s wife Grace is suing a private newspaper for $15 million for publishing details from US cables on WikiLeaks which reported that she gained tremendous profits from illicit diamonds. The activists, acting under the name Anonymous, are targeting Mugabe as they feel he has outlawed the free press by suing the newspaper. Anonymous previously shut down the sites of Visa and Mastercard after they restricted payments to WikiLeaks.

Mukesh Ambani, India's Steve Jobs?

Probably not as charasmatic on stage but when it comes to revolutionary mobile products for India, Mukesh Ambani sure seems to be getting it right.

Reliance Industries under Mukesh Ambani redefined the Indian telecom market with their affordable CDMA-based mobile call rates, what followed was Mukesh Ambani having to relinquish rights to his telecom venture to younger brother Anil Ambani as part of a peace treaty between the two.

The battle between the brothers was fought in the media with each camp making statements. Much like Hindi cinema, their mother stepped in and arranged truce. Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocom) was Mukesh Ambani’s brainchild and he had to give it up. Soon after, Mukesh Ambani invested in Infotel Broadband ensuring that he planned to stay in the telecommunications arena.

A while back there was news that Reliance was testing their 4G network and a new wireless broadband benchmark in the market is expected. According to reports, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Infotel is planning to release an affordable tablet PC. The tablet is rumored to be priced at Rs. 8,000 INR (~$177) and will run on Android.

One of the most important features of the tablet PC is the user interface and it will be interesting to see what the engineers at Reliance come up with. Reliance’s approach is reduce the price to as low as possible and sell to as many as possible. The upside is very much like the mobile phone market explosion is the remote areas of India, 4G and possibly tablet PCs will reach a wider audience.

Be born to a businessman, drop out of college to work, a big family feud after a tragedy, give up your (successful) brainchild, restart it in a new form and all set to define mobile computing in India, I’d say we have a visionary in the consumer technology space with as a good a story to tell as Steve Jobs.

Scientists harvest solar power - in the dark

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls are harnessing infrared radiation to produce a solar cell that will work even in the dark of night, UPI reports.

The energy of electromagnetic radiation surrounds us, but is only light is visible to the human eye. The full electromagnetic spectrum includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma rays.

Yet, most existing solar panels have only effectively harnessed light energy while allowing nearly half of the energy in the spectrum (in the form of infrared waves) to pass by mostly unused. It took the nation’s top nuclear laboratory to fully comprehend the potential of radiation.

Idaho National Laboratory scientist Steven Novack first announced its intention to utilize both infrared radiation and visible light in 2008. The capture of infrared radiation is made possible by specially designed nano-antennae that are grafted onto the surface of photovoltaic solar panels.

Novack announced the completion of an infrared ready solar cell today(DEC 20,2010). The system, which can absorb radiation at many angles, has an estimated overall efficiency of 46 percent, he told UPI. Conventional solar cells are 25 percent efficient under optimal light conditions.

Other approaches to overcome darkness have combined solar power with thermal power technologies. SolarReserve has developed a system that uses solar energy to heat molten salts during the daytime, which in turn generate heat that spin turbines at night.

The Future Of... Kitchen Counters

Tablet computers may be the gadget of the moment, but what if you could turn any surface in your home into an interactive hot zone? Intel's Oasis technology recognizes ordinary objects instantly and transforms bathroom or kitchen countertops into touch screens. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das gets a cooking class courtesy of these smart counters.

sensor robots used in rescue mission in military

PARC research scientists Julia Liu and Ying Zhang are developing robots to help soldiers in urban combat and civilians on rescue missions. The sensor robots are equipped with infrared bump and odometry sensors, which make it possible for the robots to create digital maps of any rooms they enter.

Winners and losers of 2010

Now that NetMarketShare’s data for December 2010 is in the can, we can take a look at the winners and losers of 2010 in the browsers and operating systems category.

First browsers. Here the winner is clear - Google Chrome, which saw its usage share more than double, rising from 4.63% in December 2009 to 9.98% in December 2010. A missive rise which has seen the browser leap ahead of Apple’s Safari (which gained a little ground, up from 4.46% in December 2009 to 5.89% in December 2010) and Opera (which lost ground, going from 2.40% in December 2009 to 2.23% in December 2010).

The biggest loser on the browser front was Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. IE saw its usage share fall from 62.69% in December 2009 to 57.08% in December 2010.

Firefox, once the pin-up browser for geeks the world over, saw its usage share fall from 24.61% in December 2009 to 22.81% in December 2010.

Internet Explorer 8 commands a usage share of 33.02%, Firefox 3.6 18.50%, and Internet Explorer 6 (yes, that old dog) still clings on to 13.06%.

Let’s take a look at operating systems. Apple had a mixed year. Usage share for Mac OS fell slightly, down from 5.11% in December 2009 to 5.02% in December 2010. Apple’s mobile platform iOS, did better with it’s usage share climbing from 0.53% to 1.69% over the same period.

Linux dawdled around the 1% mark all year.

Microsoft saw usage share for the behemoth OS Windows fall slightly too, down from 92.21% in December 2009 to 90.29% in December 2010. Windows 7 now commands a usage share of 20.87%, Vista 12.11% and XP a whopping 56.72%.

NetMarketShare uses data captured from the 160 million unique visitors browsing some 40,000 Web sites it monitors for clients.

2011 tech preview: A tour through tablets, mobile, hardware, software and cloud

What does 2011 hold for the technology industry? Mobile will again dominate the headlines as all companies not named Apple will be searching for tablet strategies. Laptop price depreciation will regain steam. On the software front, cloud computing may put the hurt on established enterprise application players.

That microcosm will be evident at the Consumer Electronics Show. Here’s a tour through the key tech themes for 2011.

Tablets….

• Apple’s iPad will continue to have the field to itself. To date, Apple has owned the tablet field with the iPad. Despite a coming onslaught of Android tablets I’m willing to wager that the iPad will continue to dominate. Projections that call for Android will have half of the tablet market by this time next year are too optimistic. Simply put, tablets are a different animal than smartphones. Android tablets that will be really competitive with the iPad won’t arrive until mid-year. Toss in a next-gen iPad and aggressive pricing and it’s likely that Apple will remain top dog.
• Research in Motion’s PlayBook will garner some enterprise traction, but little else. RIM’s PlayBook has been demonstrated, outlined for developers and discussed for months. But there’s something about tethering the PlayBook to a BlackBerry for corporate email that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. As a result, the PlayBook will go where the BlackBerries are—in the enterprise. The catch is that Android and Apple tablets will be there too.
• Microsoft’s refusal to make Windows Phone 7 the dominant tablet operating system (over Windows 7) will be a decision that will haunt the company for years. Microsoft through 2011 will continue to push every OS it has in tablets—also known as slates in Microsoftspeak—over Windows Phone 7. As a result, Microsoft will be a tablet also ran.

Mobile…

• Windows Phone 7 will garner 14 percent of the mobile market by the end of 2011. Android will rule the roost and Apple’s iOS will keeps its market share about where it is. Research in Motion will suffer as other mobile operating systems gain share. RIM’s QNX operating system will generate some buzz, but it’s a case of too-little-too-late for the BlackBerry maker.

Hardware….

• The new price point for laptops (ultra light, beefed up netbooks and everything in between) will be $350 or so. The army of cheap, well-powered laptops will lead to the death of netbooks as a category. Sure, there will be a few 10-inch clamshells around, but most will be 12-inches and up.

• The server upgrade cycle will begin to slow for three primary reasons—virtualization means you need less hardware in the long run, data center overhaul fatigue sets in and cloud computing will grab more computing share.
• Hewlett-Packard will become a thorn in Cisco’s side. HP is gunning for Cisco’s market share in switches and routers. Cisco will largely be able to defend its turf, but HP will pressure the company’s profit margins. HP will be the networking player that enterprises bring in to keep Cisco honest. Toss in already tough competition from Juniper Networks and Cisco may have a few rocky quarters ahead.

Software…

• Software as a service becomes widely adopted in the enterprise. This SaaS prediction isn’t much of a stretch, but the stars are lining up for on-demand software. Why? Oracle will launch its Fusion applications and customers will start deciding whether they want to upgrade or not. SAP CEO Bill McDermott has already remarked that his company will benefit from Oracle’s latest software. Why? SAP will be brought in to corporate accounts to keep Oracle honest. Some of those moves will result in sales. However, enterprises are likely to look at Oracle, SAP and SaaS alternatives. SaaS will win its share of deals. Nothing like a new implementation to get companies thinking about cloud computing.

• HP will freak when it realizes that it can’t grow its way into becoming a software player. The solution is to go shopping. HP will acquire Citrix, BMC Software and Teradata in 2011.
• This time next year we still won’t quite know what to do with Google’s Chrome OS. In fact, operating systems will continue to recede to the background when it comes to key themes for 2011. We’ll hear a few nuggets about Windows 8, but Microsoft would have to part the seas to convince me to upgrade from Windows 7. OS cycles now last at least a decade.
• Cloud computing will cease to exist as a term as cloudwashing accelerates. Hardware, software and all sorts of technologies will ride shotgun with the term “cloud.” As a result, cloud computing becomes meaningless and just a term used to sell hardware and software.

Networks…

• AT&T will fare better without the Apple iPhone exclusive. The conventional wisdom dictates that AT&T is so screwed when the iPhone lands at Verizon Wireless. The reality is likely to be vastly different. For starters, many iPhone users are locked in to AT&T for at least another 18 months. And then there are the network realities. If Verizon gets some of those app-happy iPhone users, AT&T’s network will improve. That improvement will mean AT&T won’t be spending money to constantly put out network fires (like the ones in New York and San Francisco). Factor in the end of AT&T’s healthy subsidies to carry the iPhone exclusive and profit margins could improve. And a final point: AT&T isn’t losing the iPhone just the exclusive. Many current customers will stick.

• Verizon won’t rule the world with the iPhone. The addition of the iPhone to Verizon’s network—expected sometime in the first half of 2011—won’t be a boon to Verizon. Verizon will add customers for sure, but the iPhone is likely to strain the network. In addition, the iPhone won’t really put the hurt on AT&T for about two years just based on how wireless contracts work.
• 4G will be a disappointment. We’ve waited for 4G speeds forever. And 2011 will bring blazing fast mobile speeds. The problem? We’re all going to burn through data plan caps. Verizon’s $50 plan will quickly become an $80 one. That extra expense will temper enthusiasm for 4G.
• Net neutrality will die. You’d think that the Federal Communications Commission put the net neutrality issue to rest with last month’s 3-2 vote. Not quite. The FCC adopted open Internet rules, but Congress will ultimately have to move. The problem? There’s a new Congress and net neutrality just isn’t a front-and-center issue. Meanwhile, Rasmussen Reports finds that just 21 percent of voters want the FCC to move on net neutrality. Most folks aren’t paying attention to the issue. Chances are Congress won’t either.

Apple's two-year roadmap: Think cloud services

Apple’s upcoming year is expected to feature upgrades to its existing product line, but the company is expected to prep a bevy of cloud services running into 2012.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple won’t enter new categories in 2011. This year will be about harvesting gains from the iPad, iPhone, App Store, Mac and iPod and upgrades.

In 2011, Apple is expected to launch the iPhone at Verizon in the March quarter with iTunes cloud services also due this year. Munster reckons that the fifth generation iPhone will have NFC (near field communications) technology. NFC allows you to swap data with other devices and use your mobile device for payments.

Munster estimates that a NFC enabled iPhone sets the stage to use your iTunes account as a point-of-purchase tool. Apple has payment information for 160 million active iTunes accounts. That fact means Apple is best suited to turn the iPhone into a wallet.