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The Pentagon has approved a major expansion of its cybersecurity force over the next several years, increasing its size more than fivefold to bolster the nation’s ability to defend critical computer systems and conduct offensive computer operations against foreign adversaries, according to US officials.
The move, requested by the head of the Defense Department’s Cyber Command, is part of an effort to turn an organization that has focused largely on defensive measures into the equivalent of an Internet-era fighting force. The command, made up of about 900 personnel, will expand to include 4,900 troops and civilians. Details of the plan have not been finalized, but the decision to expand the Cyber Command was made by senior Pentagon officials late last year in recognition of a growing threat in cyberspace, said officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the expansion has not been formally announced. The gravity of that threat, they said, has been highlighted by a string of sabotage attacks, including one in which a virus was used to wipe data a from more than 30,000 computers at a Saudi Arabian state oil company last summer.
Pentagon to boost cybersecurity force Pentagon Expanding Cybersecurity Force to Protect Networks Against Attacks (NYTimes)
Charlie Ergen is becoming the financial savior that Clearwire shareholders never expected. And he doesn’t even have to open his wallet.
Ergen, the chairman of Dish Network, made a surprise counteroffer of $3.30 a share for Clearwire, topping a $2.97 bid from Sprint Nextel, which already owns more than 50 percent of the wireless-network operator. Clearwire closed as high as $3.30 last week, reaching the level of Dish’s proposal for the first time since it was disclosed Jan. 8. While a Dish deal is a long shot because it’s subject to conditions that may require Sprint’s approval, it’s enough to embolden Clearwire’s minority investors to push Sprint to at least match the bid. With the stock already at that level, traders are betting Sprint will increase its bid by 11 percent, more than any other similar-sized deal pending in North America. Sprint, which needs backing from more than half of Clearwire’s minority shareholders to succeed, is already facing opposition from owners including Taran Asset Management and Crest Financial Ltd.
Clearwire Investors Use Dish to Demand Sprint Raise Offer
The question that has remained unanswered up until now is: How many people are tracking their health on a regular basis?
In 2010, Pew Internet began to explore the phenomenon of tracking for health, limiting our questions to those who use online tools. We found that 15% of internet users tracked their weight, diet, or exercise routine online and 17% of internet users tracked any other health indicators or symptoms online. Fully 27% of adult internet users said yes to either question, which translates to about one in five U.S. adults who use some form of technology to track a health indicator. In this study, based on a national telephone survey fielded in August-September 2012, Pew Internet widened the scope of the questions to include all adults and all forms of tracking, not just online. Fully 60% of U.S. adults say they track their weight, diet, or exercise routine. One-third of U.S. adults track health indicators or symptoms, like blood pressure, blood sugar, headaches, or sleep patterns. One-third of caregivers — people caring for a loved one, usually an adult family member – say they track a health indicator for their loved one. When looking at this last group as a segment of the total population, 12% of U.S. adults track a health indicator on behalf of someone they care for. Added together, seven in ten U.S. adults say they track at least one health indicator.
Tracking for Health More Using Electronics to Track Their Health (New York Times)
Six years to the month after Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone, the smartphone industry’s go-go years are officially over.
Cautious comments from Samsung Electronics underlined the message conveyed by the latest quarterly results from Apple earlier in the week: even as it scales new heights, the smartphone market is entering a phase in which vaulting growth rates – and high profit margins – will be much harder to come by. In the developed world, “the people who don’t have a smartphone are either making a choice not to have one, or can’t afford one”, said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner. The developing world, meanwhile, is riding a wave of cut-price devices, many of them closer in nature to feature phones than the high-end smartphones that have put Apple and Samsung at the top. Announcing details of its full-year results, Samsung warned that its smartphone business would be hit in 2013 by growing price competition and slowing demand in developed markets, even as it confirmed record earnings for 2012.
Smartphone industry set for slower growth
Our app-driven life: Smart-phone apps are becoming the north star for millions of Americans who use them to navigate through life – shopping, playing, reading, dating, learning, and more with their fingertips.
The app-driven life: How smartphone apps are changing our lives
[Commentary] It is difficult to think of a company of the past 50 years whose influence and ingenuity have been as profound or widespread as the one formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc. Whatever happens to Apple in the future, consumers everywhere will be far better off because of the bolts of energy that have emerged from One Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California.
Perspective on Apple amid the clamor
Education has long played a part in the annual deliberations at Davos, Switzerland. But this time, many participants may have detected “a lot of attention.” The fast rise of massive open online courses, known as MOOCs, is one reason.
Davos Forum Considers Learning’s Next Wave
“Forty years ago, a hacker was someone who took great joy in knowing everything about computers,” said Susan P. Crawford, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. “The word was really used in admiration. Now it is used to describe and condemn both professional cyberattackers and amateurs who are swept together within the broad description of the word.”
The cases of Daniel Spitler and Aaron Swartz are examples of the justice system’s misunderstanding of what a hacker actually is. To many people who understand computers and the law, there is a danger in lumping people who have not sought financial gain with armed robbers. Where people should receive slaps on the wrist, they face decades in prison.
Disruptions: A Fuzzy and Shifting Line Between Hacker and Criminal
Technology companies are holding out hope that high-skilled immigration reform can finally get through Congress, despite previous failed attempts over the years.
Efforts to pass high-skilled immigration reform have generally enjoyed support on both sides of the aisle, but have been thwarted after getting tangled up in the wider immigration debate. Tech lobbyists say the politics this year are different than they were in 2007, when Congress last tried to pass comprehensive immigration reform, adding that the timing is right for a high-skilled immigration measure to reach the finish line.
Technology firms holding out hope for high-skilled immigration reform
A Q&A with President Barack Obama.
Asked about reform with the Republican Party, the President says, “One of the biggest factors is going to be how the media shapes debates. If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you'll see more of them doing it…. The same dynamic happens on the Democratic side. I think the difference is just that the more left-leaning media outlets recognize that compromise is not a dirty word. And I think at least leaders like myself—and I include Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in this—are willing to buck the more absolutist-wing elements in our party to try to get stuff done.”
Barack Obama is Not Pleased