While the insurance industry and high-profile political candidates bow their heads at the altar of global warming (witness the baffling obeisance of Senator McCain), the senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com has published an open letter to the presidential candidates calling for an unbiased looked at the alleged phenomenon.
Two U.S. House of Representatives members reported recently that their computers on Capitol Hill containing information about political dissidents had been hacked by sources "apparently working out of China," several stories said this week.
Continue reading "Lawmakers' Computers Breached By China Hackers" »
Competition to sell technology in the insurance industry is fiercely intensifying, as more players enter the fray and the specter of recession-induced cuts in IT budgets looms on the horizon.
When considering the vendor-dominated steel cage match that the ACORD LOMA Systems Forum has become, however, it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on what the big dogs are doing.
Popular new devices like Apple’s iPhone have reignited the debate over ‘consumerization’--where new technologies are introduced into the consumer market and then brought into the enterprise market--with employees determined to integrate their personal devices with their enterprise applications. However, IT managers are reluctant to take on the responsibility of managing these devices, according to a new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor.
Continue reading "Security Fears Dog Enterprise Wireless Expansion" »
If you were there, or if you've been reading the online news, you may have a fair idea of what went on at this year's ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, but if you've read this blog at all, what you're really after is the underlying trends, secret murmurs and inside scoops that swirled about the conference in Las Vegas. Not being one to disappoint, I will be happy to share.
When strong wind gusts knocked out power to the Reno-Sparks Convention Center on April 14, attendees at the AMS Users’ Group National Conference had every right to complain, but even after some additional body blows from Mother Nature, agents and other guests refused to give up the ghost.
Global warming advocates and opportunists were no doubt shocked and dismayed to learn in recent weeks that, rather than warming up, the Earth's temperature appears to have decreased over the past decade.
Microsoft Corporation stunned the insurance technology industry today with the announcement that it has agreed in principle to purchase the full assets of ACORD, the insurance data standards body headquartered in Pearl River, N.Y.
Continue reading "Microsoft Buys ACORD In Blockbuster Deal" »
InformationWeek reports that in a contest of hackers, a MacBook Air was easily compromised within two minutes using a zero-day vulnerability (a vulnerability that is exploited for hacking before it generally becomes known) in Apple's Safari 3.1 Web browser.
The March 17 issue of Computerworld reports that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates asserted before Congress recently that U.S. companies may lose jobs if they can't bring in "world-class engineers" from abroad via more H-1B visas. That begs the question: What's wrong with U.S.-based engineers?
As someone who deals with language and its vagaries on a daily basis, I am sometimes amazed at the way certain widely-used terms creep into—or unexplainably flee from—the vernacular.
Continue reading "Tech Just Isn't as Cool as It Used to Be" »
IBM has announced the launch of its new System z10 mainframe computer, delivering what the Armonk, N.Y.-based company claims is "up to 100 percent performance increase" and a design that will "drastically increase efficiency."
Continue reading "Just When You Thought the Mainframe Was Dead..." »
In what might be an unexpected bit of common sense, a research firm has found that high-tech and computer firms rank highly on how well they treat their online customers, especially in comparison to other industries.
Continue reading "High-Tech Industry Treats Online Customers Well" »
