"Git Haversall" tried to present the Corporate Power Tool Award to USTR Ron Kirk

TX Corporate Power Partnership

The scene last week at the]]> http://www.itleader.info/2012/05/18/exporting-copyright-inside-the-secretive-trans-pacific-partnership/feed/ 0 http://www.itleader.info/2012/05/17/those-22600-w-virginia-routers-were-economical/ http://www.itleader.info/2012/05/17/those-22600-w-virginia-routers-were-economical/#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 12:49:40 +0000 Loyd Case http://www.itleader.info/2012/05/17/those-22600-w-virginia-routers-were-economical/

Rep. Walden gives NTIA his "face of skepticism."

At a House Energy and Commerce Committee oversight hearing yesterday, Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) wanted to know why the state of West Virginia bought hundreds of $22,000 enterprise-grade routers from Cisco, only to place some of them into tiny rural libraries with a couple computers. Hundreds more sit in warehouses, still awaiting installation.

The routers, each of which can serve a branch office or campus of more than 500 computers, were purchased as part of a $24 million contract paid for with federal stimulus money doled out by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The state stuck the same Cisco 3945 series router into every public facility on its list, regardless of size. Some needed routers of this size; others could have used models that cost a few hundred dollars.

"It seems pretty disturbing," Walden said.

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As police departments around the country are increasingly caught up in tussles with members of the public who record their activities, the U.S. Justice Department has come out with a strong statement supporting the First Amendment right of individuals to record police officers in the public discharge of their duties.

In a surprising letter (PDF) sent on Monday to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department, the Justice Department also strongly asserted that officers who seize and destroy such recordings without a warrant or without due process are in strict violation of the individual’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The letter was sent to the police department as it prepares for meetings to discuss a settlement over a civil lawsuit brought by a citizen who sued the department after his camera was seized by police.

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Ruh-roh! Being an early adopter of technology often means putting up with headaches while a product's kinks get worked out, and it seems that's holding true for at least some early GTX 670 buyers. EVGA apparently forgot to quality test a small batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards and is recalling them as a result.

HardOCP's Kyle Bennett heard the first whispers and asked EVGA what was going on. Here's what the company told him:

EVGA has isolated this problem to an early batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards (P/N: 02G-P3-2672-KR) that were not properly screened during QA/QC procedure. We have already been working with our partners to retest this particular batch. In the meantime, our R&D has also done numerous tests, burn in and component quality verification to confirm that the EVGA GTX 670 Superclock is a well designed product.

The rep didn't mention whether there were specific defect concerns or a way to identify potentially untested cards. Several threads in EVGA's GTX 600-series subforum mention GTX 670s crashing shortly after installation; maybe the cause is related? In any case, those forum users report that the RMA process is painless, and EVGA told Bennett that they'd be replacing customers' recalled GTX 670 Superclocks with GTX 670 FTW cards to help make up for the headache.

Is your EVGA GTX 670 Superclock acting up? The company told HardOCP that customers should contact Jacob Freeman at jacobf@evga.com to get the RMA ball rolling.

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One in four people will regularly use interactive TV - something we're dubbing iTV-Commerce - to shop by the end of 2014, generating direct sales worth nearly £750m.

The rise of the Internet connected TV will make it the most influential of five emerging new technologies identified in an eBay-commissioned study carried out by retail experts Conlumino.

Conlumino has identified five new technologies that it expects could boost the retail industry by £2.4bn by 2014. The technologies; interactive TV, augmented reality, in-store technologies, image recognition and smart devices have been nicknamed "third-wave technologies" and are also anticipated to indirectly influence £9.1bn in retail sales in the same period.

"We are entering a period of transformation in the retail sector," said Angus McCarey, UK retail director for eBay. "Consumers are driving this as they demand more choice, more interactivity, specialist knowledge and price transparency."

"Third-wave technologies are about meeting those demands and presenting information back to consumers in ways that haven't been possible before: using virtual reality to try clothes on, or watching your favourite show on TV and buying the box set at the same time.

Of the five technologies Interactive TV will have the most influence, and by the end of 2014 one in four (25%) people will regularly use interactive television to shop generating nearly £750m worth of direct sales by the end of 2014.

The other technologies that will come to the fore over the next two years in order of influence are:

Augmented Reality — enables consumers to bring the real and virtual worlds together by overlaying digital information onto real products, spaces and places. This will range from allowing shoppers to view 3D projections of products that aren't physically present or allowing them to virtually try on clothes.

In-store technologies — this cluster of technologies will enrich the consumer experience and improve store efficiency. Innovations such as iPads replacing tills and electronic shelf labelling will boost productivity.

Image recognition — allows devices to identify consumers or objects based on their attributes. Consumers could perform visual searches for products they point their devices at, and more significantly micro QR codes could replace barcodes and help retailers bridge the gap between tracking on and offline behaviour.

Smart devices — everyday appliances become intelligent and empowered, for example a fridge making recommendations on what food to order. Retailers could develop greater personalisation and gather deeper insight into their customers.

Despite the worst recession in 60 years, and Greece almost bringing the downfall of the Euro, there are currently 4000 businesses demonstrating high levels of growth across the UK, according to the government-backed Business Growth Fund (BGF)

These "high growth" companies - all with turnovers of between £2.5m and £100m - have each expanded by at least 33 percent over the last three years and are demonstrating an underlying and surprising resilience to the dire UK economy.

The BGF "Growth Companies Barometer" identifies a total of 25,533 UK companies with turnovers of £2.5m - £100m. Of these, 16% are categorised as high growth.

The highest proportion of these high growth companies is located in London and the South East. However the BGF Barometer highlights that fast growing companies can be found in a diverse range of industries and across all regions of the UK.

Stephen Welton, CEO of BGF, commented on the data:

"This data highlights that despite challenging market conditions, there is a steady base of UK SMEs and fast growing UK companies that continue to thrive across the UK and that operate in diverse industry sectors. It demonstrates the resilience of the group and the underlying quality of UK entrepreneurship. This is good news for the overall UK economy as these companies play a significant role in job creation and innovation and are a critical part of the economic recovery.

Key findings of the BGF Growth Companies Barometer include:

• The growth businesses are skewed to London and the South East with 8,626 and 4,332 companies respectively residing in this region.
• Wales and the North East of England show the lowest number of companies with turnover between £2.5m and £100m
• The highest proportion of companies in the BGF Barometer come from the Business Services sector 5,794, followed by Manufacturing 4,982 and Retail 2,891.
• Of the high growth companies identified, those with turnovers of between £2.5m - £10m performed most strongly. 52% of the high growth segment (2,155 companies) had turnovers of less than £10m.

The Olympic flame is on its way to the UK, and so starts the countdown to several months' worth of travel disruption throughout the UK. So why not practice for the disruption during tomorrows National Work from Home day, and to help things along Citrix are offering 90 day free trials to its online collaboration software.

The impending disruption is not just limited to London, it's also anticipated that it will affect other cities hosting Olympic events around the country, and according to research from Sunguard 43% of businesses are expecting supply chains to break down during the Olympics.

In preparation The Work Wise UK initiative- a combination of public and private sectors, professional bodies and trade unions – has declared that tomorrow is national Work from Home day.

To help support businesses through the expected disruption from the Olympics Citrix are offering a free 90-day trial of online meeting software GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC.

Andrew Millard, senior director marketing, EMEA, Citrix Online Service Division, says: "The Work From Home day is an important initiative that can also provide businesses with a valuable opportunity to trial their remote working strategy, ahead of the London 2012 Olympics."

For further information and to register for a free 90-day trial of GoToMeeting or GoToMyPC, visit www.gotomeeting.co.uk or www.gotomypc.co.uk and enter the code GOTOGOLD

For more information on the potential disruption, the rail and road transport agencies have developed a website getaheadofthegames.com, to give support, advice and tools to help businesses reduce the disruption caused by the games.

BrainGate - Cathy Hutchinson's arms and legs have been paralysed for over 15 years but this incredible brain-machine interface allows her to control a robotic arm by thought alone. There's a sensor in the motor cortex part of her brain that picks up nerve signals when Cathy thinks about moving her own limbs and a decoder then translates the signals into commands that the robotic arm carries out. Now that's what we call technology. Amazing. [Reuters]

Pinteresting – Sure, we all thought Pinterest was a flash-in-the-pan fad like Tamagotchis and Pogs, but it may well be here to stay as Japanese ecommerce company Rakuten has invested $100 million in it. Are we going to start being able to buy stuff through Pinterest then? That could get expensive… [TNW]

Star spangled – Remember Eduardo Saverin? Sure you do, he was in The Social Network, the new Superman played him. He's a real person too, one of the original Facebook creators who ended up with a stake in Facebook worth around $5bn. Ever thrifty, he's hoping to avoid $64m in US taxes by renouncing citizenship (although his people say it's actually because he just looooves Singapore). The rub? He probably won't ever be allowed back in to the States. [TNW]

Arrow to the etc – A handy interactive map app for Skyrim has been told to shut up shop and remove the app from the App Store "due to copyright infringement", despite the creator's insistence that he "intentionally didn't use any graphics or wording that would possibly be owned by Bethesda". [Kotaku]

Home sweet homepage – Apple has kicked domain squatters off iPhone5.com after complaining to the World Intellectual Property Organisation. It's no guarantee that Apple will name its next iPhone the iPhone 5 though, so don't get too excited. [TNW]

Nothing to see here - Apparently we British reckon we waste two days a year waiting for slow websites to load, according to a survey by 1&1 Internet. "The overall lesson is that consumers have never been so unforgiving of slow running websites," concludes 1&1 as TechRadar shuffles awkwardly, clears our collective throat and then runs away. [PR]

Episode II – The second instalment of interactive HTML5 web comic Brandon Generator is now live. As well as 69 bits of user-submitted content, the comic uses PNG to SVG translation and the animation power of IE9's SVG engine to mask secret features. Happy hunting. [Brandon Generator]

Your money or your smartphone – 37 per cent of people surveyed by Recombu say they can't physically live without their phone. We don't believe them. [Recombu]

Convenient - Staples has got some new notebooks to sell, so it's handy that it's latest round of research proves that people still want to use notebooks. Only 9 per cent of its respondents said they use electronic devices to take notes these days even though using paper and pen is well old school. [PR]

Kobo dragon – You can now get the Harry Potter ebooks on Kobo ereaders by visiting www.kobobooks.com/harrypotter. Thank goodness. [PR]