March 29, 2014

Invasion of the body snatchers: Wearable devices are coming for you
The current boom in wearables can be traced back to around 2006 when Nike gave the pedometer a digital twist. Its small Plus device slipped into a running shoe and counted the steps taken and time elapsed on a run. The information was sent to an iPod application and to an online community where people could track and compare their workouts. Other companies followed, and in late 2008 Fitbit attracted considerable attention with its namesake fitness tracker. It captured the imagination of many because it was small, could be worn easily and silently collected data all day long -- no matter what shoes you were wearing.


Argentina's IT Industry Aims to Become Regional Leader
“We need to defy the myth that people here don't speak English, or that there are problems due to the time zone or to cultural differences,” Medica says. In fact, she argues that as a nearshore outsourcing destination, Argentina offers the advantages of cultural and geographic proximity for better cooperation with the client, less travel expenses and lower total cost of engagement. For now, the network consists of five country groups: Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and the US. The US group is the largest with 16 member companies, Colombia and Chile have 11 together, Mexico has six and Brazil has four.


Global Mobile Data Traffic to Surpass 15 Exabytes Per Month by 2018
"Our findings continue to highlight trends around the pervasiveness and continuing demand for mobile connectivity and services," says Thomas Barnett, marketing director for the Cisco Service Provider program. At the end of 2013, more than 4 billion people were mobile users, Barnett says. That number will grow to 5 billion by 2018. By then, the average mobile connection speed will have surpassed 2Mbps, Cisco says. "These numbers really speak to the pervasive nature of mobile technology," Barnett says. "This trend is particularly relevant in emerging markets where the mobile Internet may be some users' only connection to the Internet."


For Swiss Data Industry, NSA Leaks Are Good as Gold
Switzerland isn’t the only country hoping to cash in. Finland’s F-Secure recently released a Dropbox competitor called Younited. And a consortium of German telecoms, ISPs, and e-mail providers has backed an “E-Mail Made in Germany” program that aims to keep communication data routed and stored in-country when possible. In February, German chancellor Angela Merkel attended talks in Paris on building an all-European communications network so that “one shouldn’t have to send e-mails and other information across the Atlantic.”


The Big Data Era: How Should Consumers Deal With the New Definition of Privacy?
So, times are changing and for consumers it is important to be aware of the changed situation. More and more organisations will start using their data in the coming years, and they should if they want to remain competitive. So consumers should get used to the new situation. Of course, this does not mean that organisations can completely forget about the privacy of their customers. On the contrary. Customers should not become the victim of the Big Data era and organisations should stick to the four ethical guidelines to protect their customers.


IT-centrism and real-world enterprise-architecture
IT-centrism is, in essence, an extension of the delusions of Taylorism, that desire or hope or assumption that everything ‘should’ be subject to predictable control, and hence ‘should’ be controllable by certainty-oriented means. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t work in practice: any real-world context will always include elements of inherent uncertainty. In practice, the Taylorist delusion plays out in two distinct forms. The first is an assertion that if the (automated) system can’t handle it, we can safely ignore it.


OS upgrades are a right, not a privilege
Tech reporters who offer buying advice must recognize this. It seems utterly irresponsible for them to ignore the importance of a clear, free and defined upgrade path for the products they get paid to talk about. In the changing technology landscape the price of OS upgrades and the accessibility of those upgrades is as important as the specifications of the device, because software and cloud services will define the future of the industry. People who use devices to do things will want to do the latest things, and for this they will need the latest software.


EA Principles and Policies
If you are involved in business transformation, governance or technology alignment activities, you should access the Enterprise Architecture as a consistent and robust base of knowledge about the Agency. This page will enable you to access guidance and support to help you. The Enterprise Architecture is supported by the Enterprise Architecture Team who can provide detailed advice and assistance to your project as it progresses through the governance process. ... Check out here for Documents relating to the Highways Agency Enterprise Architecture Principles and Policies.


Refactoring tests for better application design
Through the act of writing a test first, we ponder on the interface of the object under test, as well as of other objects that we need but that do not yet exist. We work in small, controllable increments. We do not stop the first time the test passes. We then go back to the implementation and refactor the code to keep it clean, confident that we can change it any way we like because we have a test suite to tell us if the code is still correct. Anyone who’s been doing this has found their code design skills challenged and sharpened. Questions like agh maybe that private code shouldn’t be private or is this class now doing too much are constantly flying through your mind.


The user acceptance testing conversation
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) focuses primarily on verifying that the functionality delivered, and proven in system and system integration testing, meets the end users’ business requirements. An often pressured and compressed phase of the testing lifecycle, UAT represents the final quality gate before delivery to the live environment. As such, it is critical that the testing performed by the business during this phase achieves the appropriate level of coverage and quality demanded by the business sponsor. Below are two fictional conversations between a test manager and a business sponsor, regarding a planned UAT phase.



Quote for the day:

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” -- Eleanor Roosevelt

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