study

The US military bets big on open source

While some in private-sector industry drag their feet on open source, it's instructive that arguably the most mission-critical systems in the world are being migrated to open source, namely, the US military's systems.

It's not just a question of cost that drives the US military to buy open source. Indeed, the biggest benefits come down to innovation and flexibility:

...[T]he increasing scope and complexity of military software requirements encourages the use of open source. "If the project is of a sufficient scale, you cannot get there without an open source approach," said Dewey Houck, a senior engineer at Boeing, the lead systems integrator for the Army's FCS.

That is a massively important statement. We may be rapidly approaching the point when it will make little sense to buy proprietary software at all, given the tremendous benefits of open source.

Other benefits? The military cites several:… Read more

Study: Digital watermarking market growing

From 2007 to 2012, the market should more than quadruple for technology called watermarks or fingerprints that can endow photos, video, and audio with unobtrusive digital identifiers, according to a new study.

Digital watermarks modify a digital file slightly so that specific information can be embedded, but the techniques are subtle so people don't notice the change when viewing or listening to the media file. The technology is a less-obtrusive cousin to digital rights management (DRM), which at least in theory encrypts files so they can't be used except by those with authorization.

The market for watermarking technology … Read more

Open Source Business Conference update: CIO case studies

I just heard from Dan Agronow, chief technology officer for The Weather Channel Interactive, who will be speaking at the Open Source Business Conference next year (March 25-26). He's one of a range of IT executives who will be speaking at the event, sharing best practices and digging into the pros (and cons) of open-source adoption.

His session sounds fascinating:

CIO Best Practices: How Weather.com Uses Open Source Software to Deliver a Highly Scalable and Cost Effective Website… Read more

Linux gives the NYSE lower costs and independence

Chip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research recently speculated (and that's all it was) that Red Hat Linux "is gradually being relegated to a position of non-criticality." The implication was that Linux is not ready for mission-critical implementations, a thought so bizarre and contradicted by the facts (and by Jim Zemlin's enthusiasm) that I'm struggling to say anything more polite than "Global Equities Research is not ready for mission-critical equities analysis."

The recent news that the New York Stock Exchange is idling Unix while scaling out Linux is just one more proof point. The reasons behind the shift are illustrative of why savvy CIOs increasingly turn to open source, generally:

The New York Stock Exchange is investing heavily in x86-based Linux systems and blade servers as it builds out the NYSE Hybrid Market trading system that it launched last year. Flexibility and lower cost are among the goals. But one of the things that NYSE Euronext CIO Steve Rubinow says he most wants from the new computing architecture is technology independence.… Read more

New Mac Review: Keep Wikipedia research focused with Pathway

If you've ever done a search on Wikipedia.org, you know that as you read a particular article there are hundreds of links to related items that are incredibly hard not to click on. In my experience, I'll go into Wikipedia with a specific goal in mind only to find myself reading something completely different 20 minutes later. While this could be because of my desire to see it all, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say some of the most interesting Wikipedia pages are the ones you stumble across you never would have known existed otherwise. Unfortunately, clicking around on links is not conducive to getting your originally planned research done.… Read more

Content passes communication in recent internet use study

With the rise of social-networking sites galore, interactive web 2.0 features being incorporated into just about every enterprise and blogs becoming ubiquitous for the young and old, you'd think that internet usage would be moving away from content consumption and towards interactivity, but a recent study by the Center for Media Research shows otherwise.According to the Online Publishers Association, Internet users are spending nearly half their online time visiting content, a 37% increase in share of time from four years ago. The Internet Activity Index, conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings, shows that communications accounted for 46% of consumers' time online in 2003. A dramatic shift has taken place since then, with consumers now spending 47% of their time with content and only 33% with communication.… Read more

America on a media diet?

Today's Boston Herald reports that Americans consumed less media in 2006 than they did the year before. Are we losing interest in media or are we just becoming more efficient consumers?

Motivation management with GradeFix

Gradefix is a Web-based organizational tool aimed at students who want to organize their schoolwork in a virtual assignment book. Users simply add their assignment info, and Gradefix prioritizes the projects that need their attention. Could this be simpler than a hard-copy day planner? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

Gradefix separates schoolwork into four categories: homework, reading, quiz study, and exam study. Sorely lacking is scheduling for lab work and study groups, two activities that most college students likely would add to their schedules. In that regard, Gradefix seems suited more to the high school crowd.

After adding a new … Read more