Chapter 1: ITProject Management Overview
Defining a Project
What makes a new assignment a project? How do you know if you are working on a project? What distinguishes a project from an ongoing operational activity? Both new project managers and team members frequently ask these questions. Projects involve a team of people, but so does day-to-day business. Projects and ongoing operations often fight for the same limited resources. They both involve following a plan or a process with consequences for actions taken. So what is so special about a project?
A project is a temporary work effort that delivers an exclusive product or service. A project always has a designated start and finish—thus it is temporary. A project has clearly defined and measurable goals, which are used to determine project completion and success. A project brings about a unique product or service—something that has not existed in the organization heretofore.
| Tip |
The word “service” is tricky in this definition because, obviously, there is a difference between ongoing service (operations) and a one-time or specified period of time service (project). Providing janitorial services on contract is operations; providing contract JAVA coders for 18 months to work on an IT project (providing programming services) is a project . |
Another project management term you may have heard is program. A program is a grouping of related projects, that are managed together in some sort of harmonized fashion. Programs are often used in the defense industry or large government contracts. From an IT perspective, a large customer support application can be set up as a program, with separate projects representing billing, sales, and repair.
Let’s take a closer look at the criteria that defines a project.
A project is typically undertaken to meet a specific business objective. It involves doing something new, which means that the end result should be a unique product or service. These products may be marketed to external clients, or they may be used internally.
A project is always temporary. In addition to a unique end result, it has a defined start and a defined finish. Projects can vary in length from a few weeks to several years, depending on the complexity of the product, but they are not an ongoing set of daily activities.
A project must begin with a clear goal and stakeholders. A project starts when the goal is clearly defined and the appropriate stakeholders have provided approval. A project ends when those goals have been met. A project can also end by being canceled if it is determined that the goal can no longer be met.
With this information under our belts, let’s take a look at some IT scenarios to determine whether they are projects or an ongoing operations.
Defining an IT Project
The activities associated with an IT project cross the entire genre of things typically categorized as projects, whether large or small. The reason is in almost every project, some component of IT must be included in the project plan.
For example, if you were building a submarine, you’d need to provide a datacenter, servers, infrastructure wiring, and many other IT elements associated with the project. If your project was to create a manufacturing facility, again, you would need to consider how computers and IT fall into such an effort.
Setting up a vineyard and winery? Again, the scientific basis behind today’s wineries is completely enveloped in the things that IT can offer—any great winery would also have a great facility for ascertaining when those grapes are precisely ready for the crush.
You would probably agree that you could come up with very few projects that do not in some way involve aspects of IT.
So What Is an IT Project?
While an IT project can and should closely follow the regimen of the project management guidelines PMI set, how closely you follow that regimen, of course, depends on the complexity of the project before you. All of the characteristics of any well-managed project, no matter how large or small, are embodied within the Guide to the PMBOK . The size and complexity of the project will dictate the level of detail that you go to in order to bring about the project’s deliverables.
Let’s take a minute to discuss some of the different IT projects you may find before you.
Software Development
When working on a software development project, not only must you follow high-quality project management techniques, but also be conscious of the software development methodology that you use. You will learn the project phases specific to software development later in this chapter.
Infrastructure—Old or New
When we say infrastructure , generally we’re talking about the cabling, wide area network (WAN) connectivity, and routing/switching plant. In many cases the infrastructure also includes the telephone wiring and switching infrastructure as well.
You might, for example, be moving into a new building with virtually no infrastructure— your project is to come up with the design and deployment of that infrastructure. Or, you may have projects in which you rewire the building, upgrade the switches and routers, or upgrade the WAN connectivity you have between sites. All of these kinds of projects involve the infrastructure.
The primary room where most of the cabling terminates, typically called the datacenter (see the following), is usually referred to as the Main Data Facility (MDF) . Wiring then flows from the MDF to switchgear and routers in other closets within your campus or building. These other closets are called Intermediate Data Facilities (IDF) . A building may have many IDF closets spread throughout but generally speaking there is only one MDF per building.
Datacenter Creation/Improvements
The datacenter is the place where the servers, mid-range computers, mainframes, large tapebackup devices, and telephony equipment such as Post Branch Exchanges (PBXs — telephone switchgear) live. The WAN connections coming into a building, be they T1 Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM — a WAN protocol), Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN — a telecommunications protocol), or other are demarcated at the datacenter (MDF) location. As a general rule, the datacenter and demarcation location (or “demark”) are usually one and the same, though some companies may have a demark at a different spot in the building than the datacenter. In any event, you should think about a datacenter as the place where the hub of your computing business gets done.
Datacenters include elements such as a raised floor (for air-conditioning airflow under the servers as opposed to above), commercial quality power- and air-conditioning units, security systems for secure entry into the datacenter, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), and often a power generator in the event that the power fails to the datacenter.
A datacenter project might involve installing a datacenter in a new building, replacing old power- or air-conditioning equipment, adding server racks to accommodate new servers, or upgrading the power distribution units (PDUs) that provide breakers and power for different systems. Note that a datacenter project isn’t necessarily about servers—it’s about the place where you’re keeping the servers.
Server/System Deployment
With the exception of regular file servers, which store user files, you will seldom deploy servers without planning on some sort of system for running on them. For example, you might have a large database system that you need to deploy. Or you might have a Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) program that your company purchased to fulfill a business requirement and it needs a place to run. Or, you might have a combination of some code that your company’s software development shop wrote, coupled with a database and other systems in the enterprise. A deployment that relies on the components of several disparate systems is called an integrated system and requires careful dexterity on the part of the project manager so that all the parts work together harmoniously.
It’s not unreasonable to expect that your telephony systems might need to interact with a server system. For example, perhaps you have a project to install some call-routing software that handles call-center traffic, making sure that customer calls are answered as quickly as possible.
Generally speaking, most system deployments are going to require, at a minimum, server(s), the network operating system (NOS) to run on them, any required software applications, network connections, and testing. A system may be deployed across several campuses, greatly increasing the complexity and requirements of the project.
Storage Area Network (SAN)
Another unique IT project is the installation of a Storage Area Network (SAN) . This installation is specialized and may involve fiber-channel switches, fiber-optic cabling, big SAN arrays, WAN connectivity, and so forth. To set up a moderately sized SAN you’re facing a fairly complex project that’s going to consume several months of your project team’s time. A big SAN installation is one in which you’re very likely to require contract assistance from the manufacturer for deployment.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
The largest and most complex of IT projects centers on the installation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software such as that offered by SAP, Siebel, PeopleSoft, Oracle, Great Plains, Lawson, or other ERP manufacturers. ERP software is designed to handle most of an enterprise’s business computing needs from human resources to accounting and payroll and even manufacturing. As a result, the systems can be complex and esoteric in nature, requiring significant contract expertise to deploy.
ERP rollouts generally require massive server power, coupled with large-scale enterprise databases such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. Additionally, because an ERP rollout can create diversity of roles—including the implementation of a portal—no one individual can know it all about the deployment. Many different business functions must be involved, requiring the participation of several different managers and stakeholders, encompassing the notion of matrix management of a project.
| Note |
When we talk about matrix management—the notion that you’re deriving workers from various departments and thus you and their supervisor must jointly manage their time—you should keep in mind that an ERP rollout probably represents most fully the notion of matrix management within the realm of IT projects. |
Automated Systems
Some systems can be migrated from a manual process to a more automated approach. Think of an assembly line where cars are built. In the early days of automobile production, people assembled cars by hand. Today, robots do much of the welding and assembly of the components of the cars.
The same is true of many systems within industry; electronic pharmaceutical delivery systems count pills and put them in bottles, freeing pharmacists to do other things, for example. An IT project in which you’re going to replace a formerly manual process with an automated one will require robust understanding of the business function that you’re augmenting and may include plenty of training.
IT Project Considerations
IT projects rely on expertise, process, and communication in order to be successful. For all IT projects you put together the necessary hardware and software components, utilizing expertise in each area in order to make things work. Think about a building engineer responsible for managing a project to erect a high-rise building. The engineer doesn’t necessarily have to understand how the hundreds of sinks and toilets in the building operate, but the engineer must understand that they are connected to a big piping system. So it is with your IT project—you may not understand absolutely every nuance of the system you’re putting together, but you’re far better off if you can put in context how all the pieces interoperate.
The key to understanding IT projects is to think about the process of getting from point A to point B and the highway that got you there. How does, for example, an Internet user navigate a screen that in turn communicates with a database? By moving through servers and security processes over cabling, routing, and switching components. All of these elements, whether germane to your particular project or not, are part of the end-to-end process that you must consider.
Finally, it’s important that IT project teams are highly communicative. You can’t afford to have a rogue programmer miscommunicate the way that he or she designed the system, for example. When you have live business personnel testing it (called a pilot test ), you don’t want to run into any programming surprises.
Common Job Roles for the IT Project Manager
IT project managers have a difficult job. They must fit into a variety of molds in order to fully comprehend the project and to bring it in on time and under budget. Following are some of the hats that an IT project manager wears:
Project manager (PM) As the project manager (PM) it is your primary responsibility to formulate the project team, develop and assign tasks, and manage the project in such a way that the deliverables are built and deployed on time, with the required quality, and within budget.
Business analyst (BA) While the business unit may donate a Subject Matter Expert (SME) or two to help you flesh out the project’s requirements, as the business analyst (BA) you must have some understanding of what the business entity does. You must have a robust comprehension of the various departments in your company, the job functions of each department, the constraints and obstacles that for each job, the type of people who work in the business unit, how they’re managed, and the impact that they have on meeting corporate objectives. You must, in essence, be a corporate department SME of sorts, well able to describe all of the departments (at least the major ones) in your organization.
Systems analyst (SA) In larger projects, the systems analyst (SA) function may well wind up being handled by another person, but you still must have a solid grasp of systems analysis and design techniques (see sidebar “Understanding SDLC, Systems Analysis, and Business Processes”). In smaller projects, the SA is also the BA.
Negotiator Not only do you have to negotiate with business unit heads, you must also negotiate with contractors, vendors, and other business unit managers who need to supply you with elements that you require.
Budget analyst As a budget analyst , you also have to keep track of the project’s budget. Generally you’re given a specific pot of money with which to accomplish your goals and you will have some heavy explaining to do if you go over budget.
Legal analyst IT PMs must also understand the legal, ethical, and regulatory ramifications of their projects. This subject has become much more important since the advent of Sarbanes-Oxley document retention mandates, among others.
Technologist IT PMs, while not necessarily heavily technological, must have a modicum of understanding of most things having to do with IT. You can’t be in the middle of a meeting with the network manager, for example, and not know the difference between a switch and a router. All the network manager will have to do is step up to a whiteboard and draw a few diagrams and you’ll be completely snowed! It’s key that you familiarize yourself with all elements of IT related to your project, at least at a conversational level. This is a large thing to say and we’re certainly not mandating that you be an expert in all things IT—it’s not possible even if you’re in IT—but you should be clear in your communications when you’re confronted with a term or concept you don’t understand to try to gain some clarity on the subject.
Visionary and strategist This function is tightly coupled with technologist. You have to read up on the latest trends in IT. For example, you may not want to recommend a fat client/server system when browser-based technologies are all the rage and your new system would benefit from a thin client. That being said, you also don’t want to put your project out on the “bleeding edge” utilizing unproven new technology.
Communicator The most important job of all is to be a precise and thorough communicator. You’ll translate statements from one group to another. You’ll keep people abreast of the project’s status. You’ll be in front of important people telling them what the project is about— seeking their buy in. You’ll communicate with vendors and contractors. You’ll have regular meetings with your project team. You must have highly developed oral and written communications skills, the most important of which is listening .
Time manager IT PMs must keep their finger on the pulse of all of the project’s activities and when there is a task slow-down, find out why. The PM has the clock running against him or her.
Team builder The IT PM must able to manage a highly diversified team of people with significantly different skill sets in order to achieve the project goals. You’ll have project teams that have programmers, networking professionals, server administrators, security analysts, web page designers, and a potential host of other technological folks on your team. Getting these people to relate to one another and to work as a well-oiled team can be very challenging.
Clearly, the IT PM has a broad role, one that is crucial and sometimes unpopular. It’s vital that IT PMs understand the “20-60-20” rule of management. Twenty percent of the people are going to dislike you no matter what you do or don’t do. Sixty percent are neutral about you and have no opinion one way or the other. The remaining 20 percent think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and would swim across the ocean for you. As an IT PM you’re going to hear a wide variety of opinions, dissension, arguments, persuasion, and other kinds of communication. Some of the decisions you make and things you do will not be popular, at least with one or another group of people. But you can’t live in the popularity contest world. You have to operate within the context of producing the finest-quality deliverables possible within the budget and time constraints you’ve been given.
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While the IT Project+ test doesn’t test you on your knowledge of the software development life cycle (SDLC) , when you’re working with software development teams you’re going to have to make sure that you have a solid understanding of it. It’ll be of great benefit to you to understand how SDLC maps to the PMI process groups so that you manage your project according to solid project management standards, while being able to recognize what SDLC phase your software development is in at any given time. The two do not precisely correlate, but they are similar enough that you’ll be able to precisely manage your project and keep your coders happy at the same time.
We strongly suggest that you consider taking a course in systems analysis and design so that you fully augment your understanding of project management with the essential design elements of a technological system. In a systems analysis and design class you’ll learn how Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) , context diagrams, Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs), and other outputs will assist you in rapidly deploying a fully functional, robust system that meets your customer’s needs.
It’s also important to note that in the initial business request and requirement-gathering phases of your project, you do not try to apply any given technology as a solution to the request. Instead, your focus should be on the business process . If you understand the order of flows that users go through to accomplish their tasks, you’ll find that the technology will logically evolve. If you’re heavily technological, you might have a tendency to think in terms of how a given software or hardware solution from a well-known company will meet the business need. But you should reverse that and first think of the business need, then try to apply various technological alternatives to the process that you’ve discovered.
Finally, by paying attention to the business process first, you may find areas where the process can be changed in some way to simplify it, or reduce the complexity of the technologies you’re going to introduce. This is called business process re-engineering (BPR) and is often the first thing a systems analyst will recommend prior to applying any technology.
While developers know about and understand the SDLC, they don’t get it when it comes to project management. So, the trick is to translate where you are in the SDLC into the PMI process groups so that you can manage the project utilizing consistent methodologies that have been highly refined and are well understood.
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Communication among the Various IT Job Roles
As an IT PM, you’ll deal with a wide variety of people. When speaking with executives, you’ll have to relate to them on their level so you put on your negotiator or your “businessperson” hat, in order to get your point across. Likewise, when you talk to a software developer, you will rely on your technical skills.With the executive, you probably won’t use heavily technical language or computer acronyms. With the software developer, he or she probably won’t have much tolerance for listening to budget dialog. The point is that you put on the appropriate hat for the person that you’re dealing with. So the IT PM must get into the habit of being able to switch communication hats very quickly in order to accurately convey the message.
Try to make your language as clear as possible for the person you’re dealing with. Avoid acronyms unless they’re likely to be well-understood by the person or group you’re talking to.
| Note |
The IT Project+ exam doesn’t actually test you directly on these elements, but you’ll find a certain indirect flavor in the questions regarding the different hats that the IT PM wears. When a question tells you, for example, that you are speaking with the project sponsor, think about that individual differently than you would a technical team member and see if it doesn’t make a difference in the answer you’d give. |
Wireless: Creating Internet of 'Things': A scary, but exciting
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Miniaturization, the ubiquity of consumer electronics and the global Internet are speeding up the creation of a worldwide "network of things," where cars, phones, turnstiles - even books and clothing - know about us: who we are, where we are, what we are doing.
This vision of a "Star Trek" world, where things like food replicators do our bidding, has been forecast for decades. Today, it looms closer, neither "science fiction nor industry hype," the International Telecommunication Union concluded in a study issued here last week, "but based on solid technological advances."
Never mind the radio tags that already keep track of the location of a pallet of some company's inventory. The favorite hypothetical device on such an "Internet of things," from Nicholas Negroponte, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the doorknob.
"It's a very smart doorknob," he told an ITU conference. "When you approach the door and you're carrying groceries, it opens and lets you in. This doorknob is so smart, it can let the dog out but it won't let six dogs come back in.
"It will take FedEx packages and automatically sign for you when you're not there. If you're standing by the door, and a phone call comes in, the doorknob can tell you that 'you've got a phone call from your son that I think you should take."'
The latest time frame for programming things to communicate with people and other things on the Internet is five or 10 years, predicted Olivier Baujard, chief technology officer of Alcatel, the French telecommunications equipment maker.
Already in Japan and elsewhere, "things" like mobile phones are paying for "things" like subway fare or cosmetics from a Web site. Radio tags are being used to monitor access to VIP clubs, in passes for ski lifts and for tracking medical patents.
Referring to radio frequency identification, Negroponte said: "When we talk about an Internet of things, it's not just putting RFID tags on some dumb thing so we smart people know where that dumb thing is. It's about embedding intelligence so things become smarter and do more than they were proposed to do."
In order to connect things, they need to be recognized on the network, through a technology like RFID. Then, sensor technology needs to be able to detect changes in their physical status, knowing features like temperature and recognizing location and direction.
Finally, the combination of the two technologies and how human beings manipulate them through the Internet gives them intelligence. "Eventually, even particles as small as dust might be tagged and networked," the ITU said.
This assumes each technology is working under a common standard, something that is easier said than done. That and the concerns of privacy and data protection may be the biggest issues holding back an Internet of things, the ITU said. For ordinary consumers, the prospect of a world where not just everyone but everything is linked is just as scary as it is exciting.
When objects are "intelligent," there are few ways to get them to stop talking about us. Also, some experts ask rhetorically, what happens to personal responsibility? If you are in a car connected to a network that has an accident, who is at fault, you or the system? Who is in charge? Such concerns have already stalled some radio-tag trials.
"To promote a more widespread adoption of the technologies underlying the Internet of Things, principles of informed consent, data confidentiality and security must be safeguarded," the ITU report warned. "Unless there are concerted efforts involving all government, civil society and private sector players to protect these values, the development of an Internet of Things will be hampered, if not prevented."
Cellphone world rankings
The ITU also came out with rankings for cellphone subscribers by country last week, updated to the end of 2004.
China remains at the top by number of subscriptions, with 335 million, but most other countries in the top 20 economies outrank it in terms of the number per 100 residents.
Leading that list are Italy (109), Britain (103), Taiwan (100), Spain (94), Germany (86), South Korea (76) and France (74). The United States has 61 percent penetration, and Japan 72 percent. China is at 26 percent.
TUNIS Miniaturization, the ubiquity of consumer electronics and the global Internet are speeding up the creation of a worldwide "network of things," where cars, phones, turnstiles - even books and clothing - know about us: who we are, where we are, what we are doing.
This vision of a "Star Trek" world, where things like food replicators do our bidding, has been forecast for decades. Today, it looms closer, neither "science fiction nor industry hype," the International Telecommunication Union concluded in a study issued here last week, "but based on solid technological advances."
Never mind the radio tags that already keep track of the location of a pallet of some company's inventory. The favorite hypothetical device on such an "Internet of things," from Nicholas Negroponte, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the doorknob.
"It's a very smart doorknob," he told an ITU conference. "When you approach the door and you're carrying groceries, it opens and lets you in. This doorknob is so smart, it can let the dog out but it won't let six dogs come back in.
"It will take FedEx packages and automatically sign for you when you're not there. If you're standing by the door, and a phone call comes in, the doorknob can tell you that 'you've got a phone call from your son that I think you should take."'
The latest time frame for programming things to communicate with people and other things on the Internet is five or 10 years, predicted Olivier Baujard, chief technology officer of Alcatel, the French telecommunications equipment maker.
Already in Japan and elsewhere, "things" like mobile phones are paying for "things" like subway fare or cosmetics from a Web site. Radio tags are being used to monitor access to VIP clubs, in passes for ski lifts and for tracking medical patents.
Referring to radio frequency identification, Negroponte said: "When we talk about an Internet of things, it's not just putting RFID tags on some dumb thing so we smart people know where that dumb thing is. It's about embedding intelligence so things become smarter and do more than they were proposed to do."
In order to connect things, they need to be recognized on the network, through a technology like RFID. Then, sensor technology needs to be able to detect changes in their physical status, knowing features like temperature and recognizing location and direction.
Finally, the combination of the two technologies and how human beings manipulate them through the Internet gives them intelligence. "Eventually, even particles as small as dust might be tagged and networked," the ITU said.
This assumes each technology is working under a common standard, something that is easier said than done. That and the concerns of privacy and data protection may be the biggest issues holding back an Internet of things, the ITU said. For ordinary consumers, the prospect of a world where not just everyone but everything is linked is just as scary as it is exciting.
When objects are "intelligent," there are few ways to get them to stop talking about us. Also, some experts ask rhetorically, what happens to personal responsibility? If you are in a car connected to a network that has an accident, who is at fault, you or the system? Who is in charge? Such concerns have already stalled some radio-tag trials.
"To promote a more widespread adoption of the technologies underlying the Internet of Things, principles of informed consent, data confidentiality and security must be safeguarded," the ITU report warned. "Unless there are concerted efforts involving all government, civil society and private sector players to protect these values, the development of an Internet of Things will be hampered, if not prevented."
Cellphone world rankings
The ITU also came out with rankings for cellphone subscribers by country last week, updated to the end of 2004.
China remains at the top by number of subscriptions, with 335 million, but most other countries in the top 20 economies outrank it in terms of the number per 100 residents.
Leading that list are Italy (109), Britain (103), Taiwan (100), Spain (94), Germany (86), South Korea (76) and France (74). The United States has 61 percent penetration, and Japan 72 percent. China is at 26 percent.
TUNIS Miniaturization, the ubiquity of consumer electronics and the global Internet are speeding up the creation of a worldwide "network of things," where cars, phones, turnstiles - even books and clothing - know about us: who we are, where we are, what we are doing.
This vision of a "Star Trek" world, where things like food replicators do our bidding, has been forecast for decades. Today, it looms closer, neither "science fiction nor industry hype," the International Telecommunication Union concluded in a study issued here last week, "but based on solid technological advances."
Never mind the radio tags that already keep track of the location of a pallet of some company's inventory. The favorite hypothetical device on such an "Internet of things," from Nicholas Negroponte, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the doorknob.
"It's a very smart doorknob," he told an ITU conference. "When you approach the door and you're carrying groceries, it opens and lets you in. This doorknob is so smart, it can let the dog out but it won't let six dogs come back in.
"It will take FedEx packages and automatically sign for you when you're not there. If you're standing by the door, and a phone call comes in, the doorknob can tell you that 'you've got a phone call from your son that I think you should take."'
The latest time frame for programming things to communicate with people and other things on the Internet is five or 10 years, predicted Olivier Baujard, chief technology officer of Alcatel, the French telecommunications equipment maker.
Already in Japan and elsewhere, "things" like mobile phones are paying for "things" like subway fare or cosmetics from a Web site. Radio tags are being used to monitor access to VIP clubs, in passes for ski lifts and for tracking medical patents.
Referring to radio frequency identification, Negroponte said: "When we talk about an Internet of things, it's not just putting RFID tags on some dumb thing so we smart people know where that dumb thing is. It's about embedding intelligence so things become smarter and do more than they were proposed to do."
In order to connect things, they need to be recognized on the network, through a technology like RFID. Then, sensor technology needs to be able to detect changes in their physical status, knowing features like temperature and recognizing location and direction.
Finally, the combination of the two technologies and how human beings manipulate them through the Internet gives them intelligence. "Eventually, even particles as small as dust might be tagged and networked," the ITU said.
This assumes each technology is working under a common standard, something that is easier said than done. That and the concerns of privacy and data protection may be the biggest issues holding back an Internet of things, the ITU said. For ordinary consumers, the prospect of a world where not just everyone but everything is linked is just as scary as it is exciting.
When objects are "intelligent," there are few ways to get them to stop talking about us. Also, some experts ask rhetorically, what happens to personal responsibility? If you are in a car connected to a network that has an accident, who is at fault, you or the system? Who is in charge? Such concerns have already stalled some radio-tag trials.
"To promote a more widespread adoption of the technologies underlying the Internet of Things, principles of informed consent, data confidentiality and security must be safeguarded," the ITU report warned. "Unless there are concerted efforts involving all government, civil society and private sector players to protect these values, the development of an Internet of Things will be hampered, if not prevented."
Cellphone world rankings
The ITU also came out with rankings for cellphone subscribers by country last week, updated to the end of 2004.
China remains at the top by number of subscriptions, with 335 million, but most other countries in the top 20 economies outrank it in terms of the number per 100 residents.
Leading that list are Italy (109), Britain (103), Taiwan (100), Spain (94), Germany (86), South Korea (76) and France (74). The United States has 61 percent penetration, and Japan 72 percent. China is at 26 percent.
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SaaS and the Open Source Influence: Is Open SaaS on the Way?
Question: Software-as-a-service is becoming increasingly popular. How has open source software or open source development contributed to this trend?Gillin: Open source has revolutionized the software business in general by dramatically lowering the cost of entry for software providers. Development tools and infrastructure components required to deliver software as a service are now inexpensive or free. This has opened the software market to a much wider audience of developers who can now start companies and deliver their products for far less money than was required just a few years ago. In short, open source is making software cheaper in that it lowers barriers to entry and creates a more competitive market.
Question: Along the same lines, how has SaaS impacted the open source space?
Gillin: Others may differ with me, but I do not think the impact has been substantial. Perhaps the greatest contribution of SaaS has been in tools like Google's Gmail and Google Calendar, which make collaboration cheaper and easier. Google and others have also changed the industry by the legitimizing the concept of a public beta test. It used to be that software was not released to the market until it was "ready;" however, SaaS products are typically developed in public long before they are formally released. This new mindset has been a significant change in the way companies develop software and it is the SaaS providers that have really lead this charge. I can't say, though, whether this is a good or bad thing for software overall. There are arguments on both sides of that equation.
Question: Is the same true whether you're talking about the enterprise or the SMB? If not, what differences come into play?
Gillin: I think the issues are quite different. Enterprises are concerned with deployment times, and SaaS has certainly helped to reduce those. I believe SMBs are more interested in the best practices that they acquire when they use SaaS applications. For example, Salesforce.com represents the knowledge not only of its developers but of its customers who have contributed their best practices over years. This access to the experiences of others is something that small businesses find to be of great value, because they could not get it otherwise.
Question: About a year ago, you wrote that if an SMB was forced to choose between SaaS and open source, SaaS was the clear winner. Do you still feel that way? Why or why not?
Gillin: I believe that SaaS is a fundamental shift in software development and delivery and that it will be the defining mechanism for delivering new software applications in the future. Open source is revolutionary, but not for the user as much as for the developer. The user wants simplicity, and SaaS provides that. If you look back through the paradigm shifts in computing history, it is always advances in ease of use that change things. SaaS is a revolutionary development in the user's access to powerful software. It will change everyone's expectations about the complexity and accessibility of applications. That is what is revolutionary about it. Open source is a huge contribution to this shift, but mainly in its role as a development resource. It will not revolutionize user computing the way that SaaS will.
Question: Responding to your article, a blogger said he could see the day when SaaS and open source would combine. Is that a realistic possibility?
Gillin: I'm not sure that's actually a very important issue. As I noted earlier, SaaS and open source are complementary. Many of the tools used to develop and deliver SaaS applications are open source tools. There is a symbiotic relationship, but the two are also exclusive in some ways. Most notably, open source software must be downloaded and installed and maintained on the user's premises. The value proposition for SaaS is that it does not need to be installed for or maintained by the user. People will use both approaches, but I believe that SaaS is the delivery mechanism that will redefine software. It is, essentially, a new platform, and platform shifts are the most dramatic changes in the computing landscape.
How to steal an election by hacking the vote
One bad apple...What if I told you that it would take only one person—one highly motivated, but only moderately skilled bad apple, with either authorized or unauthorized access to the right company's internal computer network—to steal a statewide election? You might think I was crazy, or alarmist, or just talking about something that's only a remote, highly theoretical possibility. You also probably would think I was being really over-the-top if I told you that, without sweeping and very costly changes to the American electoral process, this scenario is almost certain to play out at some point in the future in some county or state in America, and that after it happens not only will we not have a clue as to what has taken place, but if we do get suspicious there will be no way to prove anything. You certainly wouldn't want to believe me, and I don't blame you.
So what if I told you that one highly motivated and moderately skilled bad apple could cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to America's private sector by unleashing a Windows virus from the safety of his parents' basement, and that many of the victims in the attack would never know that they'd been compromised? Before the rise of the Internet, this scenario also might've been considered alarmist folly by most, but now we know that it's all too real.
Thanks to the recent and rapid adoption of direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines in states and counties across America, the two scenarios that I just outlined have now become siblings (perhaps even fraternal twins) in the same large, unhappy family of information security (infosec) challenges. Our national election infrastructure is now largely an information technology infrastructure, so the problem of keeping our elections free of vote fraud is now an information security problem. If you've been keeping track of the news in the past few years, with its weekly litany of high-profile breaches in public- and private-sector networks, then you know how well we're (not) doing on the infosec front.
Over the course of almost eight years of reporting for Ars Technica, I've followed the merging of the areas of election security and information security, a merging that was accelerated much too rapidly in the wake of the 2000 presidential election. In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.
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Now, I won't be giving you the kind of "push this, pull here" instructions for cracking specific machines that you can find scattered all over the Internet, in alarmingly lengthy PDF reports that detail vulnerability after vulnerability and exploit after exploit. (See the bibliography at the end of this article for that kind of information.) And I certainly won't be linking to any of the leaked Diebold source code, which is available in various corners of the online world. What I'll show you instead is a road map to the brave new world of electronic election manipulation, with just enough nuts-and-bolts detail to help you understand why things work the way they do.
Along the way, I'll also show you just how many different hands touch these electronic voting machines before and after a vote is cast, and I'll lay out just how vulnerable a DRE-based elections system is to what e-voting researchers have dubbed "wholesale fraud," i.e., the ability of an individual or a very small group to steal an entire election by making subtle changes in the right places.
So let's get right down to business and meet the tools that we're going to use to flip a race in favor of our preferred candidate.
Wednesday December 27, 2006
The corpse of Google Answers hasn't even gotten cold yet, having just shut down about a month ago, but Amazon is quietly launching an answering service of its own to compete with Yahoo's answering service.
From what I can see from the beta, it looks like Amazon's Askville service will follow the Yahoo user-driven model, rather than Google's for-pay expert-driven model, which apparently didn't work too well for them. With Yahoo Answers and Askville, users submit questions which are then answered by other users, and the whole thing is free.
Not sure why Amazon's getting into this space, but Askville does have some nifty features. For one, answerers can't see other submitted answers until they submit their own, so every answer will be completely independent, That gives Amazon a more reliable way of ranking and evaluating answerers no matter when they chime in, and also prevents cheating and copying. As answerers prove themselves to be trustworthy, they "level-up" and gain more privileges on the site.
Another facet of Askville is the online currency it's introducing called Quest Coins. These are awarded for performing certain tasks on the site like providing answers (or questions), or rating answers. Quest Coins can also be lost for abusing the service. Amazon says a future site called Questville.com, launching in 2007, will give users a way to use these Quest Coins to enter contests, or exchange them for prizes
Roboreptile
WowWee's angry, aggressive Roboreptile ($120 street) does a lot with just four leg joints and only five motors. It can jump, lunge, hop on its rear legs, turn swiftly left or right, and race forward. By combining these relatively stiff legs—there are no knee or ankle joints—with a fully articulated, six-inch neck, a foot-plus-long tail, and a very reptilian face with a mouthful of rubber teeth, the Roboreptile achieves a startling effect.
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Despite promises to the contrary, WowWee's latest black-and-white robot does come with a remote control. In fact, it's a three-level remote that includes a demo mode, direction controls, a feed button, guard mode, and, most welcome, a three-level volume control. That's right, the Roboreptile is the first WowWee robot that lets users turn down the volume—you can choose from high, low, and mute.
WowWee robots do not learn—though they do accept rudimentary, 20-step programming. Instead, each comes with its own distinct personality. The Roboraptor is alternatively playful and aggressive (a bit like a dog), and the Robosapien V2 is a big goofball. The Roboreptile is, well, kind of irate. From the moment you turn on the 28-inch-long robot, it's screeching, swinging its tail, and whipping its head back and forth and looking for food. Its main interests are running away, checking out its environment, and eating. The Roboreptile uses infrared sensors to see obstacles and objects in front of it and can react to loud sounds thanks to sonic sensors in its ears. Don't bother trying to pet it. The Roboreptile has just one touch sensor on its back (the Roboraptor, in contrast, has mouth, back, and tail touch sensors), and the instructions recommend you touch it only after it has been fed and when its cowl (or hood) is over its face. No kidding, this robot is such an angry beast that you'll want to occasionally slip the included plastic hood over its face to put it in "Subdued" mood—this also serves to cut off its sensors from external stimuli.
Putting the hood on the Roboreptile's head is not easy. The instructions recommend you feed the robot first using the "feed" button on the remote—which gives you a 60-second "Satisfied" mood window—-and, even then, you have to put the hood on from behind its head. If you get the hood on, the robot does calm down, but since the hood doesn't snap on, it's apt to slip off; at that point, the Roboreptile goes into a full-scale frenzy. If you can manage to keep the hood on it for at least 40 seconds, the robot will "fall asleep." This is indicated by a heavy breathing sound. When you take off the hood, the Roboreptile is supposed to wake up slowly. In my experience, it woke up instantly, as ravenous as ever.
The remote gives you a fair amount of control over the Roboreptile's actions, but using it can be a bit frustrating. The Roboreptile is always onto the next thing, so you have to work at getting the remote near it and then selecting your choice quickly before the robot has run off. I must've picked it up a dozen times to get it back within range.
Programming worked smoothly, though the instructions do not make it clear that if you want to program actions, you need to exit from the remote level that shows "program" and then reenter it to execute the routine. All other controls worked as promised. I put the Roboreptile on guard mode, and it waited for something to pass in front before attacking. I easily controlled the sweep of its ever-moving tail and its head, mouth, volume, and walking speed. The Roboreptile has four speeds, including walking on its two hind legs, but its front legs do not assist in motion, even when it's walking on all fours. The bottoms of its two front feet have hard, slick plastic pads that slide along the floor while the back legs do all the work. The Roboreptile and its remote take a total of ten double-A batteries. In 45 minutes of play (and additional few-minute-long sessions after that), the robot showed no signs of slowing down.
The Roboreptile doesn't ship with any toys, but you can make it follow the remote if you hold down the "feed" button. Its sensors do help it get around objects: It successfully navigated its way under my dining room table and between chair legs, but because the robot's head is constantly sweeping back and forth and it can really only "see" what's directly in front of it, it often whacks its head into objects and walls over and over again. The Roboreptile is made of pretty tough plastic, so there was no real damage, but its head—and its tail, which is also always sweeping—got scuffed up rather quickly.
The children I showed the Roboreptile to were intrigued, but seemed to expect it to be friendlier—a couple tried to hug it and others petted its head—and tended to jump back a bit when the Roboreptile charged. The robot is not recommended for children under 8, and this makes sense. It could scare young children, and its fast-moving rear legs could catch small fingers.
The Roboreptile is expected to hit retail shelves by September and sell for approximately $120. That's roughly the same as the very popular Roboraptor, though I think the sweet spot for this robot should be between $79 and $99.
WowWee's robots have never had the ability to learn—they actually lose even the short-term programming on power-downs—and usually this isn't a problem. But it could be an issue with the Roboreptile. It's so aggressive that children under 12 may expect and hope that it will someday learn to become a friend. It's the way most children's stories work: The scary lion acts like it wants to bite your head off, until you remove the thorn from its foot and it becomes a pussycat. There'll be no such happy ending for the Roboreptile. It starts angry (WowWee calls it "Hungry") and pretty much stays that way—at least until its batteries run out. This is also part of the cool new robot's charm, but for future versions, I'd suggest the addition of "Always Subdued" and "Always Satisfied" settings.
The I-Tech Virtual Laser Keyboard
What is it?
The Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB) uses both infrared and laser technology to generate an invisible field and project a full-size virtual QWERTY keyboard on any surface.
You can use the VKB (Virtual PC Keyboard) with both your laptop and PC or with a compatible mobile device, Smartphone and PDA.
The I-Tech VKB reacts exactly like a real keyboard.
Direction technology based on optical recognition enables the user to tap the images of the keys, complete with realistic tapping sounds(!), which feeds into the compatible PDA, Smartphone, laptop or PC.
Note:The VKB is both PC and Macintosh compatible...!
Virtual Laser Keyboard Features:
More Features:
The I-Tech Virtual Keyboard uses a light projection of a full-sized computer keyboard on almost any surface. Used with PDA's and Smart Phones, the Virtual Keyboard provides a practical way to do e-mail, word processing and spreadsheet tasks, enabling users to leave laptops and computers at home.
VKB's adaptable technology studies the user's finger movements to interpret and record keystrokes. Because the virtual keyboard is an image projected by light, it disappears completely when not in use.
When using the VKB settings can be changed either via your laptop, your PC or your compatible Smartphone and PDA:
Who is it good for
Project Oxygen
Vision
For over forty years, computation has centered about machines, not people. We have catered to expensive computers, pampering them in air-conditioned rooms or carrying them around with us. Purporting to serve us, they have actually forced us to serve them. They have been difficult to use. They have required us to interact with them on their terms, speaking their languages and manipulating their keyboards or mice. They have not been aware of our needs or even of whether we were in the room with them. Virtual reality only makes matters worse: with it, we do not simply serve computers, but also live in a reality they create.
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