MaSSSoftech

Gangs know what encryption is. They are using it in force at the street level, let alone at the very top. Rim’s BlackBerries are the ultimate in security for them. Everything is secured and impossible to monitor by police.
Rim’s Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) is one of the most sophisticated platforms for email and PIN messages. This system used to be the domain of big corporations. No longer. One of the reasons many financial brokerage institutions ban the use of PIN messages is because they can’t be tracked. In 2005 this was big news and was reported widely. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) banned its use. Organized crime picked up where the banks left off.

RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head of biker gang investigations in B.C., said BlackBerries are “extremely common” among the criminals his unit investigates.“For a lot of groups, it’s standard practice,” he said.

The RCMP legendary motto maybe heading to the delete bin and may not be able to always get their man after all…

The IT industry is exiting its worst year ever, as worldwide IT spending is on
pace to decline 5.2 percent, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide enterprise IT
spending will struggle more with IT spending dropping 6.9 percent. The IT
industry will return to growth with 2010 IT spending forecast to total $3.3
trillion, a 3.3 percent increase from 2009.

Gartner provided the latest outlook for the IT industry during Gartner
Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through October 22. While IT
spending will increase next year, Gartner cautioned IT leaders to be overly
optimistic.

"While the IT industry will return to growth in 2010, the market will not
recover to 2008 revenue levels before 2012," said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice
president at Gartner and global head of Research. "2010 is about balancing the
focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50 percent of CIOs the IT budget
will be 0 percent or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011."


The computing hardware market has struggled more than other segments with
worldwide hardware spending forecast to total $317 billion in 2009, a 16.5
percent decline. In 2010, spending on hardware spending will be flat. Worldwide
telecom spending is on pace to decline 4 percent in 2009 with revenue of nearly
$1.9 trillion. In 2010, telecom spending is forecast to grow 3.2 percent.
Worldwide IT services spending is expected to total $781 billion in 2009, and it
is forecast to grow 4.5 percent in 2010. Worldwide software spending is forecast
to decline 2.1 percent in 2009, and the segment is projected to grow 4.8 percent
in 2010.

On a regional basis, emerging regions will resume strong growth. "By 2012, the
accelerated IT spending and culturally different approach to IT in these
economies will directly influence product features, service structures, and the
overall IT industry. Silicon Valley will not be in the driver`s seat anymore,"
Mr. Sondergaard said.

From a budget perspective, there are three important items that IT leaders must
consider in 2010:

1 A Shift from Capital Expenditure to Operational Expenditure in the
IT Budget — Concepts such as cloud services will accelerate this
shift. IT costs become scaleable and elastic. CIOs need to model the
economic impact of IT on the overall financial performance of an
organization. For public companies, they must show how IT improves
earnings per share (EPS).
2 Impact of the Increased Age of IT Hardware — With delayed
purchases of servers, PCs and printers likely to continue into 2010,
organizations must start to assess the impact of increased equipment
failure rates, and if current financial write-off periods are still
appropriate. Approximately 1 million servers have had their
replacement delayed by a year. That is 3 percent of the global
installed base. In 2010, it will be at least 2 million. “If
replacement cycles do not change, almost 10 percent of the server
installed base will be beyond scheduled replacement be 2011,” Mr.
Sondergaard said. “That will impact enterprise risk. CFOs need to
understand this dynamic, and it’s the responsibility of the CIO to
convey this in a way the CFO understands.”
3 IT Must Learn to Build Compelling Business Cases — 2010 marks
the year in which IT needs to demonstrate true line of sight to
business objectives for every investment decision. IT leaders can no
longer look at IT as a percentage of revenue. CIOs must benchmark IT
according to business impact.

Mr. Sondergaard said three additional topics that were important in 2009 will
continue to dominate IT leaders` agendas in 2010. These three topics include

* Business Intelligence - Users will continue to expand their investments in
this area with the focus moving from "in here" to "out there"
* Virtualization - IT leaders should not just invest in the server and data
center environment, but in the entire infrastructure. In 2010, users will create
the cornerstone for the cloud infrastructure. They will enable the
infrastructure to move from owned to shared.
* Social Media - Organizations are starting to scale their efforts in this
space. The technologies are improving and organizations realize this is not only
about digital natives. It`s about all client segments including the most
significant: the population in the next 10 years, the above 60 year old
generations.

While those topics are key to IT agendas today, Mr. Sondergaard highlighted
three themes that will become important going forward. They include:

* Context-Aware Computing - This is the concept of leveraging information about
the end user to improve the quality of the interaction. Emerging
context-enriched services will use location, presence, social attributes, and
other environmental information to anticipate an end user`s immediate needs,
offering more sophisticated, situation-aware and usable functions.
* Operational Technology (OT) - OT is devices, sensors, and software used to
control or monitor physical assets and processes in real-time to maintain system
integrity. The rapid growth of OT is increasing the need for a unified view of
information covering business process and control systems. OT will become a
mainstream focus for all organizations.
* Pattern-Based Strategy - This is a new model about implementing a framework to
proactively seek, model, and adapt to leading indicators, often termed "weak"
signals, that form patterns in the marketplace, and to exploit them for
competitive advantage. A Pattern-Based Strategy will allow an organization to
not only better understand what`s happening now in terms of demand, but also to
detect leading indicators of change, and to indentify and quantify risks
emerging from new patterns rather than continuing to focus on lagging indicators
of performance.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the industry's largest and most important annual
gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and
objective content with the authority and weight of the world's leading IT
research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions
from key technology providers. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key
components of attendees' annual planning efforts. They rely on Gartner
Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to
address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.

Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include:

October 18-22, Orlando, Florida: www.gartner.com/us/symposium

November 2-5, Cannes, France: www.gartner.com/eu/symposium

November 11-13, Tokyo, Japan: www.gartner.com/jp/symposium

November 17-19, Sydney Australia: www.gartner.com/au/symposium

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research
and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary
for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT
leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in
high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology
investors, Gartner is the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000
distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner
Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with
every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the
context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in
Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,000 associates, including 1,200
research analysts and consultants in 80 countries. For more information, visit
www.gartner.com.

Gartner
Christy Pettey, + 1 408 468 8312
christy.pettey@gartner.com

Even since I have been stalking my high school buddies on Facebook in 2004, I can remember the thrill I got inside: “Man, this site is addictive, and I don’t see it going away any time soon”.

As with any growing engine, you have to make sure it doesn’t get too hot too fast, or it will bust. Facebook isn’t at that point yet, but I get nervous when they shell out $50 million to acquire a company that is striving to do the same thing, but do it better. I get even more nervous when that smaller, better site becomes a ghost town, as MG Siegler puts it on Techcrunch.

I’m talking about Friendfeed, a site that has a great user experience for communicating with people and sharing rich content. They do a better job than Facebook when it comes to presentation and interactivity; ask anyone who uses the two regularly. Friendfeed does “real-time” better (I know, I hate that buzz word). Comments come in as they happen… but the problem is, no one is listening.

Everyone is hanging out on Facebook. No one uses Friendfeed anymore.

Remember that Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant add-on that Microsoft sneaked into Firefox without explicit permission from end users?

Well, the code in that add-on has a serious code execution vulnerability that exposes Firefox users to the “browse and you’re owned” attacks that are typically used in drive-by malware downloads.
The flaw was addressed in the MS09-054 bulletin that covered “critical” holes in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer but, as Redmond’s Security Research & Defense team explains, the drive-by download risk extends beyond Microsoft’s browser.

A browse-and-get-owned attack vector exists. All that is needed is for a user to be lured to a malicious website. Triggering this vulnerability involves the use of a malicious XBAP (XAML Browser Application). Please not that while this attack vector matches one of the attack vectors for MS09-061, the underlying vulnerability is different. Here, the affected process is the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) hosting process, PresentationHost.exe.

While the vulnerability is in an IE component, there is an attack vector for Firefox users as well. The reason is that .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installs a “Windows Presentation Foundation” plug-in in Firefox.

Now, Microsoft’s security folks are actually recommending that Firefox users uninstall the buggy add-on:

For Firefox users with .NET Framework 3.5 installed, you may use “Tools”-> “Add-ons” -> “Plugins”, select “Windows Presentation Foundation”, and click “Disable”.

This introduction of vulnerabilities in a competing browser is a colossal embarrassment for Microsoft. At the time of the surreptitious installs, there were prescient warnings from many in the community about the security implications of introducing new code into browsers without the knowledge — and consent — of end users.

[ SEE: Microsoft says Google Chrome Frame doubles IE attack surface ]

This episode also underscores some of the hypocrisy that has risen to the surface in the new browser wars. When Google announced it would introduce a plug-in that runs Google Chrome inside Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Microsoft whipped out the security card and warned that Google’s move increased IE’s attack surface.

“Given the security issues with plug-ins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plug-in has doubled the attach area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.”

Of course, when it’s Microsoft introducing the security risk to other browsers (Silverlight, anyone?), we should all just grin and take it.

About 10 years ago, health information technology experts were touting speech recognition software as one of the best things to come to health care. About five years ago, the talk was about why adoption of the technology never took off like it was expected.

Physicians' chances to earn incentives from the federal stimulus package have forced many to look at speech recognition as a way of making electronic medical record adoption more palatable to resistant physicians. And because improvements have made speech recognition more reliable and easier to use, some experts and physicians say speech recognition is finally ready to take off.

But will it? Experts say that at least some practices are willing to try it out again.
Megan Hastings, vice president of Health Directions, a Chicago-based consulting firm, said she has seen an increase in practices wanting speech recognition in recent months.

"When you get into a situation where the physician can't type, or [EMR adoption] is severely impacting their clinical work flow, we often see that institutions and practices will purchase [a speech recognition system] to help those physicians struggling to get on board," she said.

It's also helped that the technology has improved greatly from several years ago, Hastings said.

Larry Garber, MD, an internist and medical director for informatics at Fallon Clinic, which has more than 20 locations in Central Massachusetts, tried the technology in 2004. But he quickly discovered that it wasn't going to work. He stopped plans to roll it out to the entire practice.

"It wasn't ready for prime time," Dr. Garber pointed out. "Now it is. No question."

Dr. Garber's practice adopted the technology last year and found that the nagging problems such as speed and accuracy had been resolved. Using the speech recognition software not only has improved quality but also has saved the practice an average of $7,000 per physician per year in transcription fees. That never would have happened with the old technology, he said.
Technology more accurate

Keith Belton, senior director of product marketing for Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance Communications, which developed Dragon Medical, the most widely used speech recognition system in the medical industry, said he admits the technology was lacking in previous versions. But he said it now boasts an accuracy rate of 99%.

When Robert Frank, MD, a family physician with Aurora Advanced Healthcare in Milwaukee, first used the technology in 2004, he said many physicians felt it actually slowed them down. They were forced to go back and edit all of their notes because of the lagging accuracy, Dr. Frank said.

Newer versions are not only more accurate but also more robust, their vendors say. Systems now can work in concert with EMRs, for example.

Dr. Garber's internal study of how speech recognition was affecting efficiency at his practice found that EMR adoption alone didn't improve the availability of information.

The majority of physicians still were using traditional dictation services, which had about a four-day turnaround time, not including the time it took to do edits, once the transcripts were returned. The addition of speech recognition reduced that time to an average of 46 minutes.

Physicians now dictate clinical notes, which are transcribed directly into the patient's file, he said. Once the notes are complete, physicians check for accuracy, then approve them, and they are automatically saved to the record. The system also allows physicians to enter text, such as lab results or medicine lists, using a voice command shortcut.

That might make physicians faster at getting clinical notes into the system, said Mike Uretz, executive director of EHR Group, a Seattle-based consulting company. But if they want to qualify for incentive money for adopting EMRs, voice recognition used in conjunction with an EMR could be an impediment.

"The problem is when you talk into it, the data is not discrete ... it's still like a Word document," he said.

To meet the stimulus package's "meaningful use" requirements on EMRs, physicians will have to do quality reporting, which requires discrete data, Uretz said. Data are "discrete" when they can be categorized into specific fields.

Dr. Belton said it's likely that future versions voice recognition systems that work with EMRs will have this functionality.

Dolan is a business reporter. She can be reached at 312-464-5412 or by e-mail (pamela.dolan@ama-assn.org).

From staff reports

National College’s Danville campus is offering two free seminars on Thursday and Friday for residents interested in information technology careers, according to a news release.

“The information technology sector continues to see increasing demand,” Danville campus director Mark Evans said via the release. “Computer and networking technology touches every industry and the need for trained professionals to manage information systems isn’t going to disappear any time soon.”

As a Microsoft I.T. Academy, National College provides students with advanced instruction and access to the latest software, the release stated. The Danville Campus offers both an associate’s degree program in information systems engineering or a diploma in desktop support.

Tom Jackson, director of information technology programs for National College’s 25-campus system, will serve as the guest speaker.

Attend the seminars from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday and 10 to 11 a.m. on Friday. Contact the campus at (434) 793-6822 to reserve a spot.

Gearing up for the Windows 7 launch, Toshiba on Wednesday has announced its new notebook and netbook lineup, including new touchscreen models.

Touchscreen capability comes on the new 13.3-in. Satellite U505 (pictured, above), which weighs 5 lbs., retails for $1,049 and will arrive on Nov. 1. Similiarly, the 14.4-in. Satellite M505 carries a price tag of $949 and a date of Oct. 22.

Both are loaded with the LifeSpace software package that includes Bulletin Board, an organizational tool, and ReelTime, a visual search aid.

Also announced were the following, with quick summaries and links:

* Satellite A500: 16-inch HD Edge-to-Edge display on select models, Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion II Ultra processor, discrete graphics options, optional Blu-ray, starts $589.99.
* Satellite L500: 14″ to 17.3″ displays, AMD Turion II and Athlon II processor, up to 500GB HDD, starting from $504.99 to $579.99.
* Satellite P500: 18.4-in. HD TruBrite display, Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion II processors, Blu-ray in some models, starts $799.99.
*
* Qosmio X505: 18.4-in. display, optional 64GB SSD/320GB HDD dual-drive configuration, $1,899.99.
* mini NB205: 10.1-in. netbook, nine-hour battery life, up to 250GB HDD, five colors (brown, white, blue, pink, black), starts $399.99.

Finally, Toshiba also announced sleep-and-resume functionality for the recently announced Satellite T100 ultrathin laptop.