News

Cheap, cool, and dangerous

Something had been bothering Peter Johnson ever since last November, when the announcement of security flaws in the standards used for wireless LANs boomeranged his wireless project for the U.S. Army back to the drawing board. It wasn't that the initiative was delayed several months while Johnson bought encryption technology. It was those ads in the Sunday newspaper fliers for cheap wireless LAN hardware on sale at your local electronics store.
"The average person buys it because they say, 'Hey, I can run my computers off of one network'" and one Internet connection, says Johnson, former CIO of the Army's Program Executive Office of Enterprise Information Systems in Fort Belvoir, Va. "The technology is great. It's inexpensive. But this technology that's being sold for a couple hundred dollars doesn't come with a big red sticker that says, 'Warning, this is really insecure.'"

Written by Sarah D. Scalet03 Oct. 02 22:00

Terror transactions bedevil banks

Banks are keeping a careful eye on the money flowing in and out of their doors. In October 2001, President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act into law, a measure that introduces a new wave of regulations to fight money laundering and organizations funneling funds to terrorist groups. The burdens the new law places on banks and financial institutions are creating a surge of interest in technologies designed to help companies identify potentially suspicious activity. TowerGroup, a financial services research company based in Needham, Mass., estimates the increased demand for anti-money-laundering (AML) technology will extend well into 2003, and that spending by U.S. banking institutions on such technologies will reach US$60 million this year.
The AML provisions of the Patriot Act do not mandate the use of specific technologies, but banks and other financial institutions would be hard-pressed to obey the new laws without them. Among other things, banks face a greater responsibility to verify customer identity. They must also produce all documentation related to specific accounts within five days of a regulator's request. There's also the complex and critical task of identifying suspicious transactions that can occur across multiple accounts and over long periods of time, making it difficult for a human to detect any pattern.

Written by Daintry Duffy03 Oct. 02 22:00

Knowledge management: The right way

When Tom Rossi, director of the Innovation Lab at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., began a knowledge management initiative in 1999, he thought he knew everything. Rossi and his team were charged with creating a futuristic environment for computerized war games. The games, held annually for more than 20 years, have about 500 senior military and civilian players who need to share real-time information about troop deployments, battle readiness and the battlefield environment. Prior to Rossi's KM project, the gamer commanders had to gather information via phone calls, memos, e-mails and game books none of which encouraged the kind of instantaneous decision-making necessary in combat situations.
Rossi and his team put together a KM system that integrated a collaborative software suite, a naval war games software tool and Microsoft Corp. Exchange's Conferencing Server for Internet video and chat capabilities. In the year between games, Rossi worked with engineers and a metrics team to fine-tune the system. They tailored the command and control databases so that various commanders had access to the same information; as one group of officers plotted troop positions and battle tactics, other participants lower down the chain of command could see the plans as they formed and anticipate what their own tasks would be.

Written by Simone Kaplan03 Oct. 02 22:00

GIS goes worldwide

The modern citizens of the medieval, canal-dissected town of Brugge, Belgium, must have thought it strange to see packs of businesspeople following the dim green glow of cell phone screens through the city at twilight. What they were witnessing was a demonstration of one of the latest innovations in geographic information systems technology by Tele Atlas North America, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based digital data provider.
The first night in Brugge, the Tele Atlas conference participants divided into groups of 10 to 12 people, with each team given a cell phone into which they entered a code. What followed was dinner, entertainment and a tour of the city -- guided by the GPS-enabled cell phone. Instructions appeared on the screen, telling the participants to follow different streets and alleys as they made their way through the town. At certain destinations, the teams would enter location-specific information, such as the date on a 15th century guild house, to find out where the next course of their meal could be found.

Written by Daintry Duffy03 Oct. 02 22:00

Glass battery: All gain, no pane

As far as inventions go, a glass battery sounds about as promising as a concrete basketball or an oatmeal telephone. But Roy Baldwin claims that his unique power source could someday energize everything from mobile phones to automobiles.
Baldwin's battery is based on Dynaglass, an inorganic polymer that's allegedly stronger than steel, yet flexible enough to wrap food. Baldwin, a retired mechanical engineer, says Dynaglass was developed in the mid-1990s, but some of the technology is based on research by the Soviet military and space programs. He learned about the material while helping a friend ship medical supplies to Russia. "Later on, we discovered that the material could be used to store energy," says Baldwin, who then formed a company Columbus, Ohio-based Dynelec to explore the technology's potential.

Written by John Edwards03 Oct. 02 22:00

Busting crime by decoding phone bills

Gabby criminals beware: There's a new technology out there to help the good guys catch you.
PatternTracer TCA, telephone call analysis software from Springfield, Va.-based i2 Technologies helps law enforcement agencies decipher complex relationships buried in billing records. The software identifies repetitive groups of calls to help establish patterns linking, for example, Butch the jewel thief, Lefty the safe-cracker and Wanda the getaway driver.

Written by Todd Datz03 Oct. 02 22:00

You talking to me?

When Nassir Navab talks to inanimate objects, they usually answer him. That's because Navab, a Siemens researcher, helped develop a system that gives industrial equipment the power to vocally answer questions posed by humans.
The technology is designed to provide an easy way of checking on the operational status of various gadgets, including valves, pumps, switches and motors. Equipped with a wearable or mobile computer containing a built-in camera, a user could determine the status of any piece of equipment simply by walking around the factory floor. An 802.11b wireless network transfers data from the equipment to a central server and from the server to the user. A microphone-equipped headset and voice-recognition and synthesis software supply the user interface.

Written by John Edwards03 Oct. 02 22:00

Disappearing DAM?

Digital asset management (DAM) products may be a hot topic now, but a January report by Stamford, Conn.-based Meta Group predicts that by 2004 or 2005, such tools will likely evolve into nothing more than a set of features inside more complete enterprise content management tools.
That said, Meta doesn't think customers should ditch DAM systems. Instead, the report, "An Update on Enterprise Digital Asset Management Systems," indicates that companies should still use DAM systems to manage their unstructured multimedia content, resting safe in the knowledge that existing tools from established players will likely be acquired by more inclusive content management players. That may provide some security despite ongoing consolidation in the marketspace.

Written by Christopher Lindquist03 Oct. 02 22:00

Security superheroes

Think of this as ROTC for security geeks. The U.S. government has started to award millions of dollars in scholarships to computer science students specializing in information assurance ensuring data and systems are secure, private and reliable. In return for the scholarship, recipients agree to work at a federal agency for two years.
Congress allocated more than US$11 million for the Federal Cyber Service program last year and the same amount this year (at press time, the White House is requesting additional funding). Critics of the program say it's far too little to protect the country's vulnerable IT assets. Only 54 students received scholarships last year (this year's scholarship awards have yet to be announced), but some of the funding has also gone toward helping universities develop information assurance courses and train faculty to teach them. "Of course it's too little, and of course it's too late, but that doesn't mean you don't do it," says Andrew Bernat, the program director at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va., and head of the cyberservice program. "Maybe half your cows have escaped the barn, but does that mean you don't close the barn door? Of course not."

Written by Sari Kalin03 Oct. 02 22:00

Value added, value subtracted

By July 2003, if the European Union's finance ministers have their way, Internet sales of digital goods and services to European shoppers will be subject to a value-added tax (VAT). That means if you're selling online content to a consumer in Germany, you have to charge more to include the German VAT rate.
The rub here, according to U.S. officials, is that companies with offices in Europe pay the home-country rate. Vendors outside the E.U. pay the VAT rate based on where the consumer lives. U.S. officials argue these rules will put small U.S. companies seeking to grow global sales at a disadvantage. European online surfers already shopping U.S. websites probably won't be too pleased, either. Most U.S. companies selling digital products don't add VAT.

Written by Michael Goldberg03 Oct. 02 22:00

Nanotech revolution

When it comes to matter, size really does matter. The properties of materials that we notice color, hardness, electrical conductivity and so on all depend on the nature and structure of the constituent atoms and molecules. With increasing ability to design and build on an atomic and molecular scale a reasonable definition of nanotechnology we are becoming better and better at developing materials with entirely new properties. Those materials, in turn, become the building blocks for more complex systems and entirely new products.
But when an emerging technology is the subject of as much hype as nanotech, it's easy to tune out and stop listening. That would be a big mistake. If we ignore the unsupported claims and misguided speculation, especially about what might be achieved in the near term there remain solid reasons to expect significant long-term developments in what the National Science Foundation estimates to be a trillion-dollar-plus industry during the next 10 to 15 years.

Written by Thomas N. Theis03 Oct. 02 22:00

Microsoft gets serious about consulting

You're getting another choice in the contest for your IT consulting dollars: Microsoft. In its move from supporting player to starring role, the software company has created a single consulting organization called Microsoft Worldwide Services that as of Memorial Day had about 12,000 employees.
According to Jim Wilson, group marketing manager for Microsoft Worldwide Services, IT consultants focusing on e-commerce, enterprise application planning and distributed network architectures make up a little more than a third of this group. The rest are IT analysts and a growing legion of customer service representatives.

Written by Geoffrey James03 Oct. 02 22:00

Rx for chicken scratch

Poor physician penmanship is the butt of many jokes, but illegible prescriptions are no laughing matter.
A widely publicized study done by the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., in 1999 concluded that medication errors (many due to poorly scrawled doctors' orders) cause 7,000 deaths annually in the United States at a cost of US$7 billion. To improve accuracy and speed, Giant Food and Pharmacy is providing 35,000 doctors in the mid-Atlantic region with secure access to patient information and the ability to transmit prescriptions to any of the Landover, Md.-based grocery chain's 154 pharmacies--all via a desktop PC, handheld or cell phone.

Written by Stephanie Overby03 Oct. 02 22:00

Putting the IT in pit crew

The global circus of Formula One motor racing zooms through 17 countries every season. This year, the international spectacle began in Australia in March and finishes in Japan in October. Every race day, 350 million people in 146 different countries tune in.
Ever-shrinking time margins separate the winners from the rest of the pack. In the 2001 Austrian Grand Prix, for example, just nine-tenths of a second separated the first 10 cars on the grid. Technological progress at this level of racing is marked by the accumulated result of hundreds of tiny incremental performance increases. As the search for those improvements intensifies, race teams are increasingly turning to IT.

Written by Malcolm Wheatley03 Oct. 02 22:00

Big picture

While not necessarily a must-have for every corporation, multiscreen video display systems do have their place both for videoconferencing and more esoteric pursuits, such as information walls (think the trading floor of the Nasdaq stock exchange, large-scale network monitoring centers or the military).
To enable such video operations, Imtech offers the Activu control system, a software suite that can securely connect multiple display devices across a network or in the same room. The software can "mirror" the same video data across multiple displays -- from desktop systems to enormous video walls, letting large numbers of users view and interact with identical information simultaneously. Unlike proprietary systems, the Activu software runs on standard servers over a company's existing network, reducing overall implementation costs.

Written by Christopher Lindquist02 Oct. 02 22:00

CIO-100: Strategic alignment

Today's IT executive is now tasked with having to make all these disparate systems work together because competitive pressures and the e-business environment demand it. And custom hardwiring one app to another -- with all the time, money and lack of flexibility that approach entails -- is not going to get you there.
That's why you need a holistic integration strategy, a big-picture view that doesn't focus on the trees, meandering from project to project, but gives you the 40,000-foot view from the skies. Piloting that strategy are the business drivers in your company --things such as speed, getting closer to your customers and collaborating with partners. Because an integration strategy that doesn't march in lockstep to your business strategy is a bit like imbibing too much at your high school reunion --it's going to come back to haunt you.

Written by Todd Datz02 Oct. 02 22:00

Check this out

It seems like anyone shopping at US retailer Home Depot always spends $US25 more than they planned by grabbing last minute items while waiting in line at the register. All that may change in the near future. Home Depot has joined US several grocery chains in piloting self-service checkouts in nine of its 1,400 stores. Using the self-service stations, customers scan and pay for their items at the kiosk.
The technology isn't new—it has been around since the late 1980s—but in the past year there has been an explosion in the number of installations. Kmart and Shaw's Supermarkets have both rolled out installations of FastLane technology from NCR in several of their stores. "These machines don't take sick days; they don't have good days and bad days," says Mike Webster, vice-president of NCR FastLane in Atlanta. Webster says a typical installation of four units and one attendant station is less than $US100,000. He says his customers see payback in terms of managed labor savings in 12 to 18 months. NCR is one of two vendors piloting Home Depot's installation.

Written by Tom Wailgum02 Oct. 02 22:00

It's a buyer's market

This much is true: US companies have slammed the brakes on IT spending in the past year and a half -- a fallout from the recession, 9/11 and a stock market suffering from an onslaught of questionable accounting methods, outright fraud and jittery investors.
The technology engorgement that commenced in the late 1990s has so satiated companies that requests by CIOs for even a few crumbs -- a new Java programmer, a desktop upgrade -- now get as much scrutiny as a request to fly first-class to the Cleveland office. "I don't think there will ever be a return to what happened -- the perfect storm of Y2K, ERP and the Internet," says Paul Hoogenboom, vice president of operations and CIO at Medina, Ohio-based RPM, the maker of Rust-Oleum and other specialty coatings.

Written by Todd Datz02 Oct. 02 22:00

CIO-100: Mergers and acquisitions

Integration during a merger and acquisition (M&A) is a different beast from your typical internal system integration effort. The CIOs who have survived an M&A talk about it with the same heart-quickening cadence an adrenaline junkie uses to describe an extreme sport. If an integration project of the sort discussed in the rest of the CIO-100 issue is the IT equivalent of surfing -- requiring a CIO to stay on top of the project's breaking waves -- then integration during an M&A is like sky surfing: It's riskier and you're traveling much faster.
Integration during an M&A is not a simple IT project but part of a bigger business goal. Too often, companies engaging in mergers or acquisitions ignore the IT scalability of their new business partner or their own systems. It's not that companies should make or break business decisions based on the IT architecture of the company they plan to join or take over, but it is important to have up-front knowledge of how the IT merger is likely to go. A slow or poorly handled IT integration between merging companies can jeopardize the business goals. So once an M&A is set in motion, the CIO's role is to make sure that the IT integration happens fast and smoothly.

Written by Ben Worthen02 Oct. 02 22:00