Moroccan F16 : F-16D Flies In Fort Worth

 

Morocco, the twenty-fifth nation to operate the F-16, ordered twenty-four Block 52 aircraft in 2009. The two-tone light brown scheme with gray underside is unique to the Moroccan Air Force.

By YAS

copyright code one

Phosphate: Morocco's White Gold

 

Phosphate is used in everything from fertilizer to rechargeable batteries. And Morocco's King Mohammed VI has cornered the market

In Moroccan Sahara, phosphate goes to port via a 62-mile-long conveyor belt Michael Fay/National Geographic/Getty Images

By Brendan Borrell and Daniel Grushkin

Dwight Eschliman/Apostrophe

In May 2009 a petite brunette from Paris wearing black heels scrambled up a pile of mine tailings on the outskirts of the Moroccan town of Khouribga. From up there, Béatrice Montagnier, a hotel specialist with the hospitality consulting firm Horwath, took in the view: parched plains scoured by bulldozers; an old warehouse baking in the sun; a jumble of two-story concrete block homes with a rectangular minaret beyond them. She spun around 360 degrees snapping photos with her pink cell phone and imagining the future: a planned 800-acre resort project that would attract visitors from around the world. How many hotel rooms would they need? she wondered. Should it be three stars or four? And where would the museum be going? There was one issue—project funding—about which Montagnier had no questions. The estimated $1 billion needed to build the resort would come from the ground beneath her feet.

Miners have been working in Khouribga for almost a century, but only now is the area poised to become central to the global economy. Back in the 1920s pioneers started tunneling through the earth here, digging through layers of sediment formed under an ancient sea, looking for phosphate-rich rock and occasionally plucking out the tooth of a 30-million-year-old shark. The phosphate extracted from the rock, used in fertilizer, detergent, food additives, and more recently lithium-ion batteries, sold for decades in its raw state for less than $40 per metric ton. Those days are gone. It's currently trading at about $130.

This is good news for King Mohammed VI, 47, who owns more than half the world's phosphate reserves. James Prokopanko, chief executive officer of Plymouth (Minn.)-based fertilizer giant Mosaic (MOS), has called Morocco the Saudi Arabia of phosphate, with all that implies about the King's power to influence prices and economies. Mohammed's strategy, by most accounts, is to drive the commodity's price higher yet—which means the cost of making everything from corn syrup to iPads will be going up as well.

Mohammed VI is the unofficial overseer of the state-owned phosphate monopoly, Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), Morocco's largest industrial company. He is also the power behind Montagnier's visit to Khouribga, which lies on the Plateau des Phosphates, halfway between the modern city of Casablanca and the salmon-colored souks of Marrakech. Today it is a scrappy mining town of 160,000 that doesn't even merit a mention in Fodor's. That's about to change, says Montagnier, repeating the words of her client: "It's time to give back to Khouribga what the earth gave to us."

The project will be called the Mine Verte, or "green mine," and it will be a fantasyland glorifying the country's mineral inheritance. The plans are grand, in the Dubai style. As is the fashion these days in Arab monarchies, the Mine Verte will be environmentally sustainable, thus the "green." Fossils hidden in OCP warehouses will be displayed in a sparkling museum powered by wind and sun. A depleted mine will be transformed into gardens, performance spaces, and housing for OCP employees and other visitors, all designed by top French and Moroccan architects working with London-based environmental consultants BDSP. Plans for a "mega-amusement park" on the premises include an equestrian center, a cable car, and an indoor ski slope on a pile of mine waste. Even bungee jumping made the list; the King is a thrill-seeker, fond of jet-skis and sports cars, who once flew his Aston Martin DB7 to London for repair. In all, the Mine Verte will be a glittering monument to geologic good fortune.

Phosphate: Morocco's White Gold - BusinessWeek

Dell Inspiron M5010 AMD 2.1GHz, 3GB, 320GB

 

For more detailed configuration and pricing feel free to  Contact Vendor

Two billion-transistor beasts: POWER7 and Niagara 3

     By Jon Stokes |

A 300mm Power 7 processor wafer

In years past, an ISSCC presentation on a new processor would consist of detailed discussion of the chip's microarchitecture (pipeline, instruction fetch and decode, execution units, etc.), along with at least one shot of a floorplan that marked out the location of major functional blocks (the decoder, the floating-point unit, the load-store unit, etc.). This year's ISSCC is well into the many-core era, though, and with single-chip core counts ranging from six to 16, the only elements you're likely to see in a floorplan like the two below are cores, interfaces, and switches. Most of the discussion focuses on power-related arcana, but most folks are interested in the chips themselves.

In this short article, I'll walk you through the floorplan of two chips with similar transistor counts—the Sun's Niagara 3 and IBM's POWER7. Most CPU geeks will already know a lot of the information I'll give below, but many readers will appreciate having it all together in one place.

Niagara 3: threads and I/O

Sun's Niagara 3

Sun's 1 billion-transistor, 16-core Niagara 3 processor is a great example of modern multiprocessor-turned-SoC (system on a chip). Everything about this design is focused on pushing large numbers of parallel instruction streams and data streams through the processor socket at once. The shared cache is small, the shared pipes are wide, and the end result is a chip that's all about maintaining a high rate of flow, and not one that's aimed at collecting a large pile of data and chipping away at it with heavy equipment.

Each of the 16 individual SPARC cores that make up Niagara 3 support up to eight simultaneous threads of execution, for a total of 128 threads per chip. Logically, the chip is laid out so that all of the cores communicate with a unified 6MB L2 cache via a crossbar switch that's placed in the middle of the chip. This combination of cores and L2 connected via a switch forms the basic compute architecture of the SoC.

So that the chip can talk to the outside world, the L2 caches are connected to a variety of I/O interfaces: memory, PCIe, 1G/10G Ethernet, and coherency links. All told, those links can push a total of 2.4Tb/s worth of data through a single Niagara 3 socket—that's a lot of bandwidth, but you need it to feed that many threads. Let's take a quick look at each of these I/O links in turn.

Coherence: Niagra 3's coherence links are the equivalent of the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) on Intel's Nehalem parts, or of HyperTransport for AMD. These links can be used to connect up to four of the chips together without any additional routing chips (this is what's meant by saying Niagara 3 can be used in a four-socket glueless configuration). Each Niagara 3 chip has two 1.6GHz coherence controllers, which are connected to six coherence links. Each individual link consists of 14 unidirectional lanes that give the link a total bandwidth of 9.6Gb/s.

Memory: Also attached to the L2 is are two DDR3 memory controllers, each of which hosts two memory channels, for a total of four channels of DDR3.

PCIe and Ethernet: A PCIe controller supports two 5Gb/s PCIe ports, and an Ethernet controller supports two 1G/10G Ethernet ports.

IBM's POWER7

IBM's POWER7

At 1.2 billion transistors, IBM's new 45nm POWER7 processor is only a little bigger than Niagara 3, but it couldn't be more different. If Niagara 3 is an army of guys with shovels, POWER7 is a giant bulldozer.

POWER7 has only half the cores (eight) and one quarter of the threads (32) of Sun's chip, but that doesn't mean it falls short in the horsepower department. Each POWER7 core has a ton of very fast execution hardware, and the overall layout of the machine's very wide execution core is a straightforward evolution of the design that I first described in a series of articles on the PowerPC 970. (I talked more about POWER7's execution core in an earlier article comparing it to Intel's Tukwila Itanium.)

Where Niagra 3 keeps a large number of relatively weak cores busy by moving data onto and off of the chip using ample I/O resources, POWER7's approach to feeding a smaller number of much more robust cores is to cache large amounts of data on-chip so that the cores can grind through it in batches. This being the case, POWER7 has the most remarkable on-chip cache hardware of any processor on the market.

First in the chain is the 32KB L1 data cache, which has seen its latency cut in half, from four cycles in the POWER6 to two cycles in POWER7. Then there's the 256KB L2, the latency of which has dropped from 26 cycles in POWER6 to eight cycles in POWER7—that's quite a reduction, and will help greatly to mitigate the impact of the shared L3's increased latency.

The POWER7's L3 is its most unique feature, and, at 32MB, it's positively gigantic. IBM was able to cram such a large L3 onto the chip by making it out of embedded DRAM (eDRAM) instead of the usual SRAM. This decision cost the cache a few cycles of latency, but in exchange IBM got a 3.5x improvement in power efficiency and a 3x improvement in cache density. IBM has actually been talking up the use of eDRAM for on-chip cache since at least 2002, so in this regard POWER7 represents the fruition of years of work on this approach.

On the I/O side, POWER7 features two DDR3 memory controllers that can do up to 100GB/s total. The chip's SMP links (the same as Niagara's coherence links) can do 360GB/s (or almost 2.9Tb/s) of bandwidth, but this amount appears to be divided between internal and external SMP links. The chip doesn't contain the other I/O options—PCIe or Ethernet—that Niagara has.

Ultimately, these two server-class processors show that there are two very different ways to spend a billion transistors, and each design will be good for different applications. Sun's Niagara is aimed at networked server operations where lots of simultaneous, lightweight requests have to be serviced—databases, Web servers, and the like. In contrast, POWER7 has the horsepower to grind through a smaller number of more compute-intensive tasks at a high rate of speed. Both parts have their place in the server ecosystem of 2010.

 

 

The New Segregation Debate

 

Can educating girls and boys separately fix our public schools, or does it reinforce outmoded gender stereotypes?

(Page 1 of 3)

Peter M. Fisher / Corbis

If you thought charter schools and ending teacher tenure were controversial fixes for the American school system, see what happens you bring up the idea of educating boys and girls separately. With male academic achievement declining by almost every measure, and their scores possibly dragging down national averages, administrators are taking a fresh look at same-sex classrooms and the concept that boys and girls might do better when they’re apart. Why is it such a hot-button topic? Well, because it goes against 30 years of thinking, and smacks of “separate but equal” education.

The advocates of the single-sex approach are surprising, as are the foes. Among many liberal thinkers, gender segregation sounds like regressing to a time when girls were educated in finishing schools and had access to neither the number, nor caliber of schools available to boys. Plus, the notion that boys and girls learn differently—touted by some as the primary rational for gender separation—goes against one of feminism’s (at least the 1970s version) main messages. To say that there is something inherently different between boys and girls is, for many, tantamount to saying that women are the weaker sex.

For these reasons, Democratic politicians spent decades fighting vehemently against loosening legislation to allow public schools to offer same-sex classes. But in 2001, Sen. Hillary Clinton linked the issue to class—citing an unfairness in the fact that single-sex education is available as a choice only to those who can afford private-school tuition. Clinton, a graduate of all-women’s Wellesley College, joined forces with Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to successfully bring about legislative change. Since then, the number of public schools offering same-sex classes has grown from 11 to 540—still a relatively small figure in the big picture, but a jump of more than 4,000 percent nonetheless.

Related: America's Best High Schools 2010 »

This number would be even bigger were it not for the ACLU, which has successfully convinced dozens of districts not to adopt single-gender classrooms. “Our concern is that once you separate boys and girls you are telling them that there is some inherent difference such that they need to be educated separately,” says Lenora Lapidus, head of the women’s-rights arm, which is spearheading the investigation. “When public schools do this, it’s the government reinforcing gender stereotypes.” Lapidus’s division also has open cases against districts they believe are violating the admittedly loose terms of the ammended legislation—in those cases, their beef is that single-sex classes are being forced on children, and parents aren’t being given a legitimate coed option. But Lapidus says that she believes public schools shouldn’t offer single-sex classes under any circumstances—whether it’s a choice or not.

The ACLU’s opposition perplexes advocates of separate classrooms. “The ACLU has become increasingly deranged over the years,” says Leonard Sax, the head of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. “And by deranged I mean out of touch with reality.” Sax also can’t understand why the National Organization of Women (NOW), which advocates choice in reproductive rights, would be against giving parents more options when it comes to education. “We are the pro-choice movement in this debate—we don’t believe that every child should be in same-sex classrooms, but every parent should have a choice.”

But what are parents choosing exactly? In some cases they’re getting not just separate rooms for girls and boys, they’re getting a modified curriculum and even classroom structure based on what proponents see as gender differences in learning. And that’s where things get thorny. According to Sax, some of the most successful all-boys classrooms have been those in which boys are allowed to move around. He cites one classroom that uses desks that can be raised or lowered, so boys can lie on the floor, sit, or stand up while they work. Girls’ classrooms, meanwhile can encourage quiet study, which some say is intrinsic to female behavior and caters to girls’ strengths. The question is whether this is catering to strengths or encouraging old-school stereotypes.

Sax and others will hasten to add that while the crisis among boys may have gotten the most media attention in recent years, there continue to be areas in which girls lag behind, particularly in math and science. In computer science, the divide has increased in the last few decades—only 18 percent of those taking the AP computer science test are female, down from 34 percent in 1987. According to Sax, separating boys and girls in those subject areas can be beneficial to both genders, and that’s, in part, the source of his frustration with the ACLU. “If the single-sex format offends her delicate political sensibilities, what would she recommend?” he says of Lapidus’s position. “Or is she content that boys outnumber girls four to one in this country in the sciences?”

Whether or not it works is a contentious issue—those in favor cite research supporting it, those opposed dismiss that evidence as junk science. Pedro Noguera, a professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School, recently completed a study on same-sex education for boys of color and found no evidence that separating them was better. Noguera is critical of advocates like Sax, saying that their theories are “far-fetched” since they rely more on observations of student behavior, than hard science proving that childrens’ brains work differently depending on their gender. “The schools that developed for girls had a clear theory: girls needed to be empowered, needed to express themselves,” he says. “There’s no theory about why [same-sex education] is good for boys … It’s a lot of pseudoscience that is not rooted in anything.”

But Sax and others cite some compelling statistics: in one three-year pilot project in Florida, boys in a coed class scored 37 percent on the state standardized test, while those in a boys-only class scored 85 percent. The girls’ scores jumped too: from 59 percent to 75 percent. And teachers, by and large, seem to love it. They say they spend less time on discipline, and are better able to engage their students. Lapidus argues that such studies can be attributed to other factors, like smaller classrooms and better teacher training, and that teachers who advocate for gender-segregation are just “parroting back” what they’ve learned from Sax and others.

Regardless of the mixed research, the interest in single-sex classrooms shows just how desperate teachers and administrators are to find a cure to the oft-lamented "problem with boys." By just about every metric, boys are, and have been for perhaps a decade, lagging tremendously behind girls in terms of academic achievement. They consistently score lower GPAs, college-admissions rates, and fare worse in reading and writing. And it’s not just a problem for them; their scores aren’t helping the country’s plummeting academic ranking as compared to the rest of the developed world.

The gender gap goes far beyond high school. Today, women make up nearly 60 percent of college students and they’re much more likely to go on to pursue advanced degrees. In fact, higher education has become so tipped in favor of females that in November, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission launched a probe into whether colleges and universities were discriminating against women in favor of men in order to even out the balance.

Some blame female success itself for boys’ lagging achievement, arguing that girls have gotten ahead at the expense of boys. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Christina Hoff Sommers recently put it, “feminists are constantly trying to knock down doors that are already open. And it’s young men who pay the price.” Others, of course, argue against this kind of zero-sum thinking. Where boys might be falling behind by academic metrics, girls are more likely to report high stress levels, eating disorders, and behaviors like cutting. “Boys have problems, girls have problems,” Sax says. “Both are disadvantaged, but they’re disadvantaged in different ways.”

After seeing the same gender issues in Milford, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, Gary Knell began looking into possible solutions for his school district—which has 6,200 students enrolled in kindergarten through high school. Last year, Knell organized a “gender survey” of students, teachers, and community members, measuring their feelings about how to treat the issue. Seventy percent of the 232 parents who responded agreed that gender differences should be addressed at the schools, but less than a quarter said that the district should consider single-sex classrooms. In contrast, 34 percent of the 232 middle-school students who responded said they would participate more and at a higher level in a single-sex classroom. That parents are less amenable than their kids isn’t entirely surprising. “Whenever we talk about differences, there’s a politically correct mode that differences mean someone is inferior and someone superior,” Knell says. “[But] boys and girls are different. We should recognize that and modify our teaching approaches.”

Ultimately, figuring out what method is best for boys and girls may mean identifying and tearing down gender stereotypes where they begin—with the kids themselves. And figuring out what a boy thinks it means to be a man, and what a girl thinks it means to be a woman, are questions that are probably too big for most public school to take on. But even if some adults are hesitant on the topic, the kids aren’t afraid to speak bluntly. “Boys want attention,” a sixth-grade boy in Milford says. “And they don’t really want an education. They want a cool job when they grow up. Like being a rock star or a basketball player.” His female classmate agrees. “For guys I think that if you’re really smart and you get good grades, it’ll be like, ‘Oh you’re a nerd!’ But girls, you’ll get like a pat on the back if you get all As. I dunno, guys just don’t think it’s that cool.” Therein lies a problem for which there may be no quick fix.

Find the author on the Web at The Equality Myth.

The New Segregation Debate - Newsweek

Project Success Factors

 

Before we begin, let’s take a look at the factors that can make or break projects. As you
move forward, keep these factors in mind so that your project will start out on a positive
note. If these success factors do not exist in your organization, perhaps more up front work
will be needed before you begin your project management journey.

Project Success Factor 1

In order for project management to be successful within an organization, it must have top
down, senior-level or executive support. The project owner must support the benefi ts of the
project, accept responsibility for funding and budget status, concur with project and charter
requirements, sign off on risk plans, and be knowledgeable of the status of both planned
and actual results.

Project Success Factor 2

Clients and users must have ownership of the project. This is demonstrated by providing
resources, being involved in the project initiative, signing off on requirements once the plan
is completed, signing off on the schedule, participating in the risk management processes,
and concurring with scope changes.

Project Success Factor 3

Business processes must be fully known. The project manager and the team must demonstrate
knowledge of business processes. Many projects are generated due to a business
problem, and the team must understand that problem and defi ne how the project solution
will change business processes. When there are changes, the impacts should be documented
and fully understood by the client. Process improvement metrics must also be identifi ed so
that it can be determined whether the project has met its intended purpose relative to the
business problem.

Project Success Factor 4

Projects should be chosen based on a sound business plan that is completed for a particular
stage or effort. The infrastructure and business solution units must be identifi ed and
synched with the corporate plan and economically validated.
Introduction xxiii

Project Success Factor 5

The project scope should be clearly defi ned and identifi ed in the project charter. Impact
analysis relative to budget and schedule must be performed when scope changes occur, and
the focus of the team must be limited to approved changes only. Owners must step up to
the risks and benefi ts for all scope changes.

Project Success Factor 6

An effective change control process must exist that is followed by all stakeholders. The
project manager must regularly review all changes and their impacts with the owner, who
must approve change requests and associated funding.

Project Success Factor 7

The business drivers must be fully identifi ed and agreed upon by the owner and user community.
In other words, the project must add value to the business. The solution elements
of the project should be traced back to business drivers, with success criteria defi ned at the
onset and benchmarked at each phase. A means to collect data should be established so
that the metrics can be demonstrated.

Project Success Factor 8

There should be limited experimentation with new technology. Previous use must be demonstrated
prior to commitment for mission-critical projects. Previous industry application
must be demonstrated before application for customer-affecting projects. The appropriate
technology group must agree to support the technology in a deployed state.

Copy Rights :

Project Manager Street Smarts: A Real World Guide to PMP® Skills

Linda Kretz Zaval, PMP

Terri A. Wagner, MA, PMP

 

Abolish Software Patents

 

I spoke on a panel last week at the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program titled “Re-examining The Patent System.”  My panel was the last one and came after a few hours of stimulating discussion about the problems with patents, the problems with patent reform, and the reason our government is struggling so much with what to do.

When I was at MIT in the 1980’s, copyright and patents were just starting to be a major issue in the personal computer software business.  I vividly remember attending a lecture in one of my classes by the general counsel of Lotus who was suing Borland for copyright infringement between Quattro Pro and Lotus 1–2–3.  This was around the same time that Apple vs. Microsoft / Xerox vs. Apple lawsuits appeared, as well as the nonsense Ashton-Tate vs. Fox Software lawsuit.  Forget about patents – this was about copyright! 

Some of the research I did when I was a doctoral student at MIT was around the sources of innovation in the software industry.  In the late 1980’s, the three primary mechanisms for protecting innovation were copyright, patents, and trade secrets.  Copyrights (as evidenced by the legal action above) was the most active area and I – among many others – thought that copyrights were a problematic way to fundamentally protect software innovation, especially around look and feel (which was all the rage at the time.)  Of course, with the widespread emergence of the GPL and open source, the dynamics of software copyright have changed radically in the past decade, which is likely part of the reason the focus has shifted to patents.

I personally think software patents are an abomination.  My simple suggestion on the panel was to simply abolish them entirely.  There was a lot of discussion around patent reform and whether we should consider having different patent rules for different industries.  We all agreed this was impossible – it was already hard enough to manage a single standard in the US – even if we could get all the various lobbyists to shut up for a while and let the government figure out a set of rules.  However, everyone agreed that the fundamental notion of a patent – that the invention needed to be novel and non-obvious – was at the root of the problem in software. 

I’ve skimmed hundreds of software patents in the last decade (and have read a number of them in detail.)  I’ve been involved in four patent lawsuits and a number of “threats” by other parties.  I’ve had many patents granted to companies I’ve been an investor in.  I’ve been involved in patent discussions in every M&A transaction I’ve ever been involved in.  I’ve spent more time than I care to on conference calls with lawyers talking about patent issues.  I’ve always wanted to take a shower after I finished thinking about, discussing, or deciding how to deal with something with regard to a software patent.

I’ll pause for a second, take a deep breath, and remind you that I’m only talking about software patents.  I don’t feel qualified to talk about non-software patents.  However, we you consider the thought that a patent has to be both novel AND non-obvious (e.g. “the claimed subject matter cannot be obvious to someone else skilled in the technical field of invention”), 99% of all software patents should be denied immediately.  I’ve been in several situations where either I or my business partner at the time (Dave Jilk) had created prior art a decade earlier that – if the patent that I was defending against ever went anywhere – would have been used to invalidate the patent. 

When I made the assertion that we should simply abolish software patents entirely, I noticed a lot of lawyers heads moving vertically up and down.  I took this as a good sign, especially since a number of them had gray hair (and a few were on the earlier panels and sounded very intelligent and experienced, especially for lawyers.)

After wrestling with software patents for the past 15 years, I’ve concluded that there simply is no middle ground.  If we continue on the path we are on, patents will continue to increase in their overall expense to the system, everyone will feel compelled to continue to apply for as many (and as broad) patents as possible, if only for defensive reasons (one of Fred’s VC Cliche’s of the Week was “Patents are like nuclear bombs, you just got to have some.”)  Let’s take a page from geopolitical warfare and focus on global disarmament, rather than mutually assured destruction.

 

HP's Lesjak Inherits Slowing Growth, Job-Search Distractions - Bloomberg

 

Cathie Lesjak, seen here in a 2006 portrait, has taken over Hewlett-Packard Co. temporarily after Mark Hurd quit last week. Source: Bite Communications via Bloomberg

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Aaron Rakers, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co., talks with Bloomberg's Lizzie O'Leary and Matt Miller about today's resignation by Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd and the outlook for the company. Hurd resigned as CEO after an investigation found he had a personal relationship with a contractor who received pay from the company that wasn’t business-related. Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak will take over as interim CEO. (Source: Bloomberg)

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. said Mark Hurd has decided with the Board of Directors to resign as chief executive officer immediately. The board has appointed Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak, 51, as CEO on an interim basis. Hurd is stepping down following an investigation by outside legal counsel and the general counsel’s Office surrounding a claim of sexual harassment against Hurd and HP by a former contractor to HP. The investigation determined there was no violation of HP’s sexual harassment policy, but did find violations of HP’s standards of business conduct. Bloomberg's Cris Valerio, Matt Miller, Lizzie O'Leary, Adam Johnson and Dominic Chu report. (Source: Bloomberg)

Cathie Lesjak, who took over Hewlett- Packard Co. temporarily after Mark Hurd quit last week, inherited a growth slowdown and a senior staff who may be distracted by jockeying for the top job.

Lesjak addressed reporters and analysts twice in her three days as interim chief executive, seeking to play down concerns about the shakeup. Hurd resigned after a probe found inaccurate expense reports and a personal relationship with a contractor named Jodie Fisher, who is a former actress and reality TV contestant. The stock fell more than 9 percent on Aug. 6 after the announcement.

Going into what has been HP’s biggest quarter, the computer maker forecast sales of $32.5 billion to $32.7 billion. That would be up about 6 percent from a year earlier, a slower rate than the past three quarters. The CEO search makes running the operations more complicated. Several outsiders will be considered for the CEO post, along with executive vice presidents Todd Bradley, Dave Donatelli, Ann Livermore and Vyomesh Joshi, said Abhey Lamba, an analyst at ISI Group.

“If one of them gets the job, what are the chances the other three stay on? That is the question HP has to deal with,” Lamba said. The New York-based analyst recommends buying the shares, which he doesn’t own himself.

Out of the Running

Lesjak, 51, took herself out of the running for the permanent post. The company’s goal is to find the best candidate for the job, she said.

Hurd’s replacement will have to follow through on his five- year run of dominating the personal-computer market and expanding into new areas. Under his guidance, Palo Alto, California-based HP unseated Dell Inc. in PCs and undertook more than $20 billion in acquisitions, pushing deeper into computer services, networking equipment and smartphones.

Candidates from outside HP include Steve Mills, who has run the software group at International Business Machines Corp. for a decade and recently took over the hardware division, and former Oracle Corp. executive Ray Lane, who’s now a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, according to analysts and recruiters.

Hewlett-Packard dropped 5 cents to $46.30 in regular New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 6. The shares have dropped 10 percent this year.

In May, Hurd reported quarterly sales that were about $1 billion more than analysts estimated. Revenue growth accelerated to 13 percent from the year earlier as the company shook off the recession. In the preliminary report for last quarter, which HP will release officially on Aug. 19, the company pegged sales growth at 11 percent.

Lower Forecast?

Its forecast for the current quarter suggests that management is being more conservative, possibly because of the CEO change, Lamba said.

The company investigated Hurd after receiving a letter from Fisher’s lawyer on June 29. Hurd turned the letter over to HP General Counsel Michael Holston within roughly a half-hour, according to a person familiar with the situation.

While the company determined that he didn’t harass Fisher, it found that she received numerous inappropriate payments from HP during her two years as a marketing contractor. Hurd and Fisher settled the case out of court, according to her lawyer, Gloria Allred.

The woman’s job was to organize forums for CEOs and chief information officers that gave customers access to Hurd and other HP executives. She would gather background information on invitees and introduce executives to one another.

Acting Career

Fisher didn’t have “an affair or intimate sexual relationship” with Hurd, she said in a statement released by her lawyer. Allred described Fisher as “a single mom focused on raising her young son. She has a degree in political science from Texas Tech and was recently the vice president of a commercial real estate company.”

Fisher worked on the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, Allred said. Fisher also has appeared as an actress in such films as 1992’s “Intimate Obsession,” “Body of Influence 2” and “Sheer Passion,” according to her Internet Movie Database page, which lists her age as 50.

HP said Hurd submitted inaccurate expense reports that concealed his personal relationship with Fisher. The expenses, which range between $1,000 and $20,000, were for meals and travel, and Hurd intends to pay back the amount, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ethical Guidelines

The investigation was led by Holston, along with outside counsel, under the supervision of the board, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

The board’s nominating and governance committee, which consists of board members Lawrence Babbio, Sari Baldauf, Lucille S. Salhany and G. Kennedy Thompson, is responsible for enforcing HP’s standards of business conduct, a set of ethical guidelines for employees that HP said Hurd violated.

In a conference call yesterday, Lesjak said Hurd’s resignation won’t affect customer relationships and that the depth of the company’s management is the best in its history. HP’s success over the past five years has been a team effort, not just Hurd’s doing, she said.

“There’s no question he did a very good job,” Lesjak said. “But he doesn’t do everything. He was one person.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco at aricadela@bloomberg.net; Peter Burrows in San Francisco at pburrows@bloomberg.net

Observer cette semaine : les étoles filantes des « Perséides » et rassemblement planétaire

 

Posté par Xavier Demeersman le 8/08/10 •

Perséides

Avis à tous les observateurs du ciel à l’oeil nu : maximum de l’essaim météoritiques  »les Perséides » durant les nuits du 12 et 13 août et superbe rassemblement planétaire au crépuscule où Vénus, Saturne, Mars et un fin croissant lunaire sont invités.

Les 6, 7 et 8 août, nombre d’entre nous ont plongés leur regard dans la nuit incommensurable à la rencontre des étoiles, des mondes lointains, de l’Univers et aussi d’astronomes amateurs passionnés … Un événement annuel à l’initiative de l’AFA, qui depuis 20 ans orchestre les « nuits des étoiles » partout en France. Depuis ses débuts, la manifestation se déroule à des dates proches du maximum d’activité de l’essaim météoritique « les Perséides », la très célèbre « pluie » d’étoiles filantes estivales ! C’est, ainsi, des milliers de personnes qui se réunissent, le temps d’une soirée à la belle étoile … Tout cela est promesse de charme, de poésie, de connaissances, de culture et de rencontres …

Il y a une dizaine d’années encore, la « nuit des étoiles » avait droit à une ou deux heures de télévision, notamment sur France 2, or désormais, pour je ne sais quelle raison, l’organisation en a été abandonnée. On ne peut que regretter ce recul de la diffusion et du partage des connaissances !

Les Perséides

On a tous entendu parler des étoiles filantes que l’on peut voir l’été, de ces belles pluies scintillantes illuminant les douces soirées des vacances … Beaucoup oublient que ce n’est pas la seule occasion d’en surprendre dans le ciel nocturne. Tous les mois de l’année comptent leurs essaims météoritiques, certains sont plus denses et intenses que d’autres, comme « les Perséides » (août) et « les Léonides » (novembre). Leur nom provient de la position de leur radient : la région du ciel d’où semble provenir toutes ces « flêches » lumineuses. Ainsi, celles que l’on peut observer par dizaines autour du 12 août chaque année, semblent pour la plupart jaillir de la constellation de Persée …

Les étoiles filantes ont un nom trompeur. En réalité, elles désignent les météorites qui pénètrent dans notre atmosphère par vague de plusieurs dizaines, voire centaines ! Ces poussières ou minuscules fragments rocheux sont laissés dans le sillage des comètes, en l’occurrence la comète 109 P/ Swift-Tuttle pour « les Perséides », et dérivent dans l’espace interplanétaire. Fréquemment et régulièrement, ces nuées de particules cométaires croisent l’orbite terrestre et se laissent alors entrainer vers l’atmosphère de notre planète. En la traversant, ces poussières de comètes sont littéralement désintégrées et nous ne percevons plus que leurs traces lumineuses, parfois intenses, longtemps confondues avec la fuite de certaines étoiles … !

Quelle prévision d’activité pour le cru 2010 ?

L’essaim météoritique « les Perséides » a une activité qui démarre, chaque année, autour du 17 juillet et atteint son maximum le 12 et/ou 13 août. Les toutes dernières prévisions placent le « pic d’activité » le 13 août à 5 h 20 du matin avec, peut-être, un précédent quelques heures avant, à 1 h 40. Cela demeure très difficiles de prévoir avec une grande exactitude le maximum de chaque essaim météoritique. Reste que même si vous n’êtes plus éveillé lors du maximum, les heures qui le précédent ou le suivent peuvent offrir de belles surprises où, pas mois de 100 étoiles filantes par heure peuvent être débusquées … ! En outre, le ciel restera dépourvu tout au long de la nuit, de toute clarté de la Lune offrant ainsi d’excellentes conditions pour observer le ciel, pourvu, bien sûr, que la météo soit de la partie !

Vénus, Mars et Saturne au-dessus de l'horizon ouest au crépuscule

Rassemblement planétaire

Ces jours-ci, il n’y a pas que les étoiles filantes qui font parler d’elles et qui sont capables de nous émerveiller … Tous les soirs, au crépuscule, Vénus s’acoquine avec Mars (planètes très différentes mais partenaires de longues dates dans la mythologie !) sous le regard bienveillant de Saturne, quoique …  et nous gratifient d’un splendide rapprochement visuel ! Les trois planètes se donnent en spectacle en ce début du mois d’août, accomplissant un ballet qui renouvelle chaque soirée leurs dispositions, notament la belle Vénus. Le 13 août prochain, après une longue nuit blanche passée à traquer les « perséides », nous pourrons admirer un jeune croissant lunaire accompagnant le trio planétaire. A vos appareils photos ! La « conjonction géocentrique » promet d’être superbe.

Illustrations et animations des deux phénomènes sur le site Shadow and Substance.

Pour en savoir plus sur « les Perséides » et obtenir d’avantage de prévisions : PGJ Astronomie.

Huge ice sheet breaks from Greenland glacier

 

Thousands of icebergs calve from Greenland's glaciers every year

A giant sheet of ice measuring 260 sq km (100 sq miles) has broken off a glacier in Greenland, according to researchers at a US university.

The block of ice separated from the Petermann Glacier, on the north-west coast of Greenland.

It is the largest Arctic iceberg to calve since 1962, said Prof Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware.

The ice could become frozen in place over winter or escape into the waters between Greenland and Canada.

If the iceberg moves south, it could interfere with shipping, Prof Muenchow said.

Cracks in the Petermann Glacier had been observed last year and it was expected that an iceberg would calve from it soon.

The glacier is 1,000 km (620 miles) south of the North Pole.

A researcher at the Canadian Ice Service detected the calving from Nasa satellite images taken early on Thursday, the professor said.

The images showed that Petermann Glacier lost about one-quarter of its 70km-long (43-mile) floating ice shelf.

There was enough fresh water locked up in the ice island to "keep all US public tap water flowing for 120 days," said Prof Muenchow.

He said it was not clear if the event was due to global warming.

Patrick Lockerby, a UK engineer with a background in material science, told the BBC he had predicted the calve on 22 July, posting images on the science2.0 website.

"I was watching the floating ice tongue wedged between two walls of a fjord for three quarters if its length with the last part at the outlet end wedged by sea ice. I thought once the sea ice was gone, the pressure would be too great and the tongue would calve."

He said there could be a beneficial outcome if the calving drifts to block the Nares Strait and effectively prevents the loss of more ice from the Lincoln Sea.

The first six months of 2010 have been the hottest on record globally, scientists have said.

From :BBC news . ;)

Solar plasma aurora storm to hit Earth tomorrow!

 

Burst sunspot could see Northern Lights over UK, US

By Lewis Page

Astroboffins are warning that a mighty "eruption" of superhot plasma has been blasted out of the Sun directly at the Earth. The plasma cloud is expected to reach Earth beginning tomorrow, possibly causing strange phenomena - including a mighty geomagnetic storm which could see the Northern Lights aurorae extend as far south as Blighty or the northern USA.

Duck's eye view of the plasma shotgun blast

According to boffins analysing results delivered from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, Sunday saw a massive convulsion involving almost the entire face of the Sun facing Earth. The event was apparently centred on Sunspot 1092, a huge solar pimple so large as to be visible without the aid of a telescope.

It appears that the sunspot may have triggered a huge "coronal mass ejection" in which huge amounts of superhot plasma were spurted towards Earth accompanied by solar flares, tsunamis, magnetic filaments and other sun-wracking upsets across half the sun's surface.

"This eruption is directed right at us, and is expected to get here early in the day on August 4th," says astronomer Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "It's the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time."

Normally a blast of radiation like this could be expected to wipe out much of the human race, but fortunately we are protected by the Earth's magnetic field. Instead the deadly solar plasma is expected to stream down the planetary field lines towards the poles, crashing into oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere and so lighting them up to form aurorae - the so-called Northern Lights.

Golub and his colleagues believe that the aurorae may be so intense as to be visible from the northern United States and other countries such as the UK which are normally too far south to see the Lights.

"We got a beautiful view of this eruption," enthuses the astronomer. "And there might be more beautiful views to come, if it triggers aurorae."

The Sun's activity generally rises and falls on an 11-year cycle: the last peak occurred in 2001, but since then the star has been going through an unusually prolonged calm spell. We've been overdue for some more action for several years, and Golub and his colleagues consider that Sunday's outburst may be a sign that the Sun is "waking up". ®

Man Claims to Own 84 Percent of Facebook

 

A New York man has filed suit, claiming that he contractually owns 84 percent of Facebook.

In a court filing originally unearthed by The Wall Street Journal, Paul Ceglia claimed that he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, owner of TheFacebook.com and later chief executive of Facebook.com to buy 50 percent of the company for $1,000. According to the contract Ceglia alleges Zuckerberg signed, the two agreed to pay Ceglia an additional 1 percent of the company from that day until the Web site was completed.

In a statement to the Journal, Facebook called the suit "frivolous".

The suit, originally filed with the Supreme Court of Allegany County in New York, includes a copy of the work for hire contract allegedly signed by Zuckerberg. It details two business ventures: work performed for the Streetfax database and the related programming language, as well as the continued development and design of "The Face Book".

The contract is allegedly signed by both Ceglia and Zuckerberg.

The alleged contract would require that Ceglia, the purchaser, pay Zuckerberg $1,000 for each of the ventures. In return, Ceglia would own a 50 percent interest in the "software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience," and require Zuckerberg to perform the work for the StreetFax database.

It also includes the stipulation that Ceglia would be due an additional 1 percent of the company for every day past the due date, Jan. 1, 2004, that the Web site was delayed.

The filing also includes what appears to be a photocopy of a receipt for a check made out to a "Mark Zucherberg" [sic] for $1,000.

Lawyers for Zuckerberg and Facebook have attempted to move the hearing to the U.S. District Court in the Western District of New York.

PCmag.com

3D Integrated Water Cooling of a Composite Multilayer Stack of Chips

 

Motivation

The CMOSAIC project is a genuine opportunity to contribute to the realization of arguably the most complicated system that mankind has ever assembled: a 3D stack of computer chips with a functionality per unit volume that nearly parallels the functional density of a human brain. CMOSAIC's aggressive goal is to provide the necessarily 3D integrated cooling system that is the key to compressing almost 1012 nanometer sized functional units (1 Tera) into one cubic centimeter with a 10 to 100 fold higher connectivity than otherwise possible. Even the most advanced air-cooling methods are inadequate for high performance 3D-IC systems where the main challenge is to remove the heat produced by multiple stacked dies in a 1-3 cm³ volume, each layer dissipating 100-150 W/cm². State-of-the-art single phase liquid and two- phase cooling systems, using specifically designed microchannel arrangements, and employing coolants ranging from liquid water and two-phase environmentally friendly refrigerants to novel engineered nano-fluids offer significant advantages in addressing heat removal challenges leading to practical 3D systems. CMOSAIC aims at developing the engineering science base that will enable a new state of the art in high density electronics cooling.

Figure 1: 3D-IC with through-silicon vias (TSVs) and inter-layer cooling channels that is enclosed in a sealed case

Specifically, this project brings together internationally recognized experts of leading Swiss universities and industry (EPFL, ETH Zurich and IBM Research Laboratory in Rüschlikon) to thoroughly investigate this interdisciplinary problem at different levels (architecture, microfabrication, liquid cooling, two-phase cooling, nano-fluids). These experts are joining forces to research the related physics and to develop the necessary thermal/electronic computational tools/methods. The project includes an intensive experimental program, consisting of challenging flow visualizations and heat transfer measurements in microchannel systems of hydraulic diameter often comparable to or smaller than that of a human hair, with complex fluids flowing through them. It also targets the development of novel theoretical models explaining the physics and new electronics packing models together with new micro- manufacturing processes. The verification of the proposed novel approaches coming out of this project will be conducted using several prototypes that will be built and tested. With respect to the Nano-Tera.CH proposal, this project addresses the vertical axis of micro/nanoelectronics, particularly the aspect of system integration. Specifically, the results of this project will be a significant step toward "achieving system complexities that are two-to- three orders of magnitude higher than today's state-of-the-art", by developing the fundamental understanding, methods and tools required for efficient and reliable design of true 3D integrated circuit systems.

There are four main challenges to the continued development of the computer industry with respect to Moore's law that will be resolved here are: power density, interconnect speed, interconnect density and integrated cooling. Electrical interconnect density and communication bandwidth between chips have become highly critical for processors as the number of transistors per layer and the number of layers in a 3D stack increase. There is thus a direct spatial competion among the heat dissipating components (processors, memory, interconnections, etc.) on each layer, the placement of the vias connecting the layers, and the placement of the microchannel cooling channels, whose optimal solution is thus a 3D mosaic. The solution promises to be not only cost effective but also Kyoto friendly.

The Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies (LTNT) at ETH Zurich performs computational modeling of heat and mass-transfer in such microchannel networks. The investigation is conducted in close cooperation with IBM Zurich Research Laboratory which provides experimental data for the model development and validation.

Goals

1) Better understanding of conjugate heat transfer in micro pin array:

• CFD modeling of flow and temperature around representative set of individual pin elements (conjugate heat transfer problem)
• Study the inlet, outlet and wall effect on the heat transfer in micro pin array
• Build an averaged two-dimensional model of the conjugate heat transport in individual layer
• Optimization of heat transport in 3D stack via various arrangement of chips within the individual layers

Figure 2: Simulation of flow around a single pin

2) Modeling of power map optimized fluid network:

• Porous medium approximation of flow in the layer between two wafers
• Modeling of turbulent porous medium flow based on detailed simulations of turbulent flow around pillars. Non-equilibrium temperature models
• Modeling of anisotropic layer porosity as an option to direct the flow to hot spots

Figure 3: Uniform and non-uniform TSV distribution

 

Antenne de l'iPhone 4: la lettre d'Apple décryptée

 

Steve Jobs et un schéma du système d'antennes de l'iPhone 4, le 7 juin (photomontage) P.SAKUMA/AP-SIPA

HIGH-TECH - Selon Apple, l'importance de la baisse apparente du signal est due à un problème d'affichage. Vrai, mais pas seulement, selon les experts...

De notre correspondant à Los Angeles

L'antenne de tous les maux. «Nous avons découvert que la formule que nous utilisons pour calculer le nombre de barres à afficher en fonction de la force du signal est totalement fausse», a expliqué Apple vendredi. Pour l'entreprise, il n'y a donc pas de problème structurel sur son iPhone 4. Simplement, une formule erronée qui affiche trop de barres quand le signal est déjà faible. Conséquence: une prise en main, «qui affecte la réception de tous les téléphones», selon Apple, donne parfois l'impression de perdre quatre ou cinq barres –alors que dans la réalité, la perte n'est pas aussi importante. Un peu comme si un thermomètre affichait 0° alors qu'il fait 18° dehors, et que de le tenir le faisait passer à 20°. Mais s'il y a bien un problème de thermomètre, le patient n'est pas en aussi bonne santé que le dit Apple, selon des tests d'experts. Explications.

«Tenir n'importe quel téléphone d'une certaine façon va réduire sa réception d'une barre ou plus», dit Apple.

C'est vrai, estime Richard Gaywood, titulaire d'un doctorat en antennes réseau. Les constructeurs ont abandonné l'antenne extérieure. Tenir le téléphone, surtout en recouvrant la zone de l'antenne interne, affecte donc la réception. Selon des tests du site Anandtech, celle de l'iPhone 3GS perd au maximum (en étant tenu fermement) 14,3 dB contre 17,7 au Nexus One et 24,6 à l'iPhone 4.

Les barres ne veulent pas dire grand chose

Le fameux «t'as combien de barres» n'a rien de scientifique. Il n'y a, en effet, pas de système international. Chaque constructeur est libre de faire sa propre cuisine. En clair, quatre barres chez l'un peut être mieux que cinq chez l'autre. Ce qui compte, c'est la force de l'atténuation du signal, en décibels (et ses variantes par milliwatts, en dBm). Attention, elle n'est pas linéaire mais logarithmique. Concrètement, cela signifie qu'un «petit» écart de 10 dBm traduit un facteur 10 dans l'atténuation du signal (et 20 dBm, soit 2 bel, un facteur 10² = 100).

La mauvaise formule d'Apple

Apple dit avoir utilisé la même formule depuis la première génération d'iPhone (certains spéculaient sur un changement avec l'iPhone 4 pour «masquer» artificiellement la mauvaise qualité du réseau de l'opérateur AT&T). Ci-dessous, le graphique réalisé par Richard Gaywood avec les mesures d'Anandtech.com.

On voit que la zone correspondant à cinq barres est très large: de -50 dBm (le meilleur signal) à -91 dBm. Cela signifie donc qu'un utilisateur se situant près d'une antenne-relais, dans le haut de la fourchette, reste à cinq barres, même avec une prise en main et une perte de 20 dBm . En revanche, pour celui dans le bas de la fourchette (ou pire, déjà à quatre barres), perdre 20 dBm l'emmène directement à 1 barre (soit une «baisse de qualité audio» dans le cas de l'iPhone 4, selon Anandtech) voire à perdre le signal. Traduction: ça coupe.

Le vrai problème

Tous les téléphones sont donc sensibles au contact. Certains plus que d'autres. Sauf que dans le cas de l'iPhone 4, les choses s'améliorent grandement quand il est tenu recouvert d'un étui-bumper de protection. Il ne perd plus que 7,2 dBm. Il fait même mieux que le Nexus One (7,7), mais moins bien que le 3GS (3,2). En clair, avec ou sans étui, il ne devrait pas y avoir de différence majeure.  Selon Richard Gaywood (et d'autres experts), c'est là le signe «d'un défaut de conception» de l'iPhone 4, dans lequel l'armature métallique externe joue le rôle d'antenne externe complémentaire. Elle est constituée de deux parties (photo en tête d'article). Toucher la bande noire de jonction, en bas à gauche, semble créer des interférences... Qui disparaissent avec l'isolation d'un étui plastique (ou de scotch et de vernis à ongle, solution adoptée par certains bricoleurs).

La réception de l'iPhone 4 est-elle meilleure que celle du 3GS?

Oui, selon Anandtech. «La performance est bien meilleure avec l'iPhone 4 en cas de signal faible. J'ai pu passer de nombreux appels dans des zones où cela était impossible avec le 3GS», relate le site. En somme, le nouveau design améliore la réception... A condition d'accepter utiliser un étui à plusieurs dizaines d'euros pas vraiment esthétique. La mise à jour logicielle d'Apple ne changera rien au problème: les fameuses «barres» seront juste un peu plus représentatives de l'état du réseau. On revient à la case départ: ne pas couvrir le coin gauche de son iPhone, le protéger par une coque, ou le retourner à l'Apple store dans les 30 jours suivant son achat pour un remboursement intégral. «J'attends mon étui gratuit», raille Richard Gaywood. Un geste pour l'instant exclu par Apple.

par :Philippe Berry

Firefox Home : Mozilla met un pied dans l'App Store

 

Est du feu dans l’app store :)

Quelle que soit la plateforme, Firefox Mobile n'est pas encore disponible en version finale mais Mozilla a trouvé un autre moyen de débarquer dans l'iPhone et l'iPod Touch puisqu'il a soumis au magasin en ligne d'Apple l'application Firefox Home.

(c) CNet Quelle que soit la plateforme, Firefox Mobile n'est pas encore disponible en version finale mais Mozilla a trouvé un autre moyen de débarquer dans l'iPhone et l'iPod Touch puisqu'il a soumis au magasin en ligne d'Apple l'application Firefox Home.

Même si la fondation Mozilla se défend de vouloir développer un navigateur  pour l?iPhone, elle vient de soumettre l?application Firefox Home pour une entrée dans l?App Store.
Derrière cette application se cache en fait un outil de synchronisation qui permet de retrouver ses marque-pages ou son historique sur son téléphone. Cela nécessite d?installer et d?utiliser Firefox Sync sur son ordinateur afin que les données liées au navigateur soient sauvegardées sur les serveurs de Mozilla.
Ensuite, et c?est là, que c?est que c?est cocasse, on peut accéder à des onglets enregistrés sur son PC directement sur son iPhone. Sauf que le navigateur qui se lance n?est pas Firefox mais un navigateur qui utilise le moteur de Safari? Pour le moment, Apple n?a pas encore validé cette application. (EP)

Source : Nouvelobs.com

En Finlande, la connexion haut débit à 1 Mbit/s est devenue un droit

 

Le pays scandinave est le premier à garantir par la loi un accès haut débit à tous ses habitants. Le gouvernement s'est aussi engagé à apporter la fibre optique dans tous les foyers pour 2015.

Législation

Depuis hier, les FAI finlandais ont l'obligation de fournir à chaque citoyen une connexion Internet de 1 Mbit/s minimum. Ce service universel est devenu un droit et c'est une première mondiale.

« Nous avons pris en compte le rôle d'Internet dans la vie quotidienne des Finlandais. Les services Internet ne servent plus seulement au divertissement », explique Suvi Linden, le ministre de la communication.

Pour autant, la tâche des fournisseurs d'accès ne devrait pas être trop ardue puisque 96% de la population est déjà connecté à Internet. Selon la BBC, il ne resterait que 4.000 domiciles à relier pour se conformer à la nouvelle loi.

La fibre optique pour tous dans 5 ans ?

Mais le gouvernement s'est lancé un défi encore plus ambitieux en promettant d'apporter le très haut débit 100 Mbit/s à tous les foyers pour 2015.

« L'objectif de ce projet est que presque la totalité (plus de 99% de la population) des résidences principales, des bureaux et des administrations publiques soient situés à moins de deux kilomètres d'un câble de fibre optique de 100 Mbit/s » indique-t-on dans une dépêche AFP. (Eureka Presse)

Source :Nouvelobs.com

Les 10 qualités du bon chef de projet

Dans nos entreprises l'engouement autour de la gestion de projet n'est pas passée de mode. Bien au contraire, elle se développe et tend à supplanter la manière opérationnelle classique, de travailler. Si c'est une belle reconnaissance pour la méthode projet, c'est malheureusement aussi l'occasion de voir collés à la tête de projets importants des gens qui n'ont rien des qualités du chef de projet.
Et je ne parle pas seulement du manque de connaissance ou de maîtrise des outils et de la philosophie du management de projet, mais tout simplement des qualités que l'on est en droit d'attendre d'un chef de projet.
Quelles sont ces qualités ? Qu'est ce qui fait un bon chef de projet ?
1-La Responsabilité.
Who cares ? YOU care ! Le chef de projet est celui qui, plus que tout autre, croit en son projet, en sa valeur, son bien fondé, son intérêt pour l'entreprise.
S'il ne devait en rester qu'un ce serait lui, le chef de projet.
Cet engagement, cette attention aux choses est la marque primordiale des grands chefs de projet.
2-Initiateur de mouvement.
On arrive à rien tout seul. Plus qu'une maxime en l'air, cette phrase fait partie intégrante de l'identité du bon chef de projet. Il est protecteur de l'équipe, son équipe.
Le succès de chacun des membres du projet et son succès.
La réalisation des besoins des parties prenantes du projet son ses réalisations. Le chef de projet doit être comme une vague qui entraîne une partie de l'entreprise vers un but commun.
3-Humilité.
Il ne fait pas seul. Il a l'humilité de ceux qui sont conscient de l'impact de son engagement. Le résultat du projet est impermanent. Les choses changent (et même de plus en plus vite n'est-ce pas?) Le chef de projet est humble face à sa réalisation.
Enfin, de part l'essence même d'un projet, qui a un début, un milieu et une fin, il est amené à faire de l'humilité un composant essentiel de sa programmation personnelle.
Ceci peut s'étendre d'ailleurs à tous les grands managers, ou grands chefs d'entreprise. Ceux chez qui la réussite s'allie à l'humilité sont les plus grands. Ils ont conscience qu'une multitude de causes sont à l'origine de leurs succès et qu'il ne peuvent pas ne le devoir qu'à eux-même.
4-Confiance en soi.
C'est le corollaire obligatoire du point précédent. Initier un mouvement et le faire vivre demande cette confiance en soi. Rien d'exceptionnel, c'est là aussi une prise de conscience. Nous sommes tous capables de grandes choses, seulement ceux qui réalisent de grandes choses ont, eux, compris qu'ils le pouvaient. Ils ont essayé. Ils y sont arrivés.
Savoir conclure un projet et aller rendre des comptes demande aussi confiance en soi. Confiance en soi qui vient aussi de la confiance que les autres vous donnent parce que vous leur inspirez confiance en vous. L'œuf et la poule.
5-Exemplarité.
Rigoureux. Intègre. (Merci le dico des synonymes) Intransigeant avec soi-même et compréhensif avec les autres, voilà des caractéristiques du bon chef de projet. Moi je vois souvent des gens qui g*** après les autres alors que eux mêmes sont les pires des boulets. Ce qui me fait dire que malgré la multiplication des projets dans les entreprises, rares sont les entreprises qui possèdent de véritables chefs de projet.
6-Lucidité.
Le bon chef de projet sait rester concentré sur les activités réellement importantes. Il ne se perd pas dans les détails et sait emmener tout son monde à considérer l'objectif et les moyens de l'atteindre comme le seul objet d'attention valable. Fini les guéguérres et les rivalités d'ego. Tous ensemble dans la même direction. Voilà ce que sait faire le bon chef de projet.
7-Reconnaissance.
La beauté de ce métier c'est qu'il change tout le temps. Les sujets sont innombrables et les collègues sans cesse renouvelés. Par rapport à ceux qui font de la compta pendant 40 ans (y a-t-il des comptables dans l'audience de ce blog ?!) je trouve que les problématiques, les challenges sont sans cesse renouvelés. Lorsque le changement est choisi et non subi, alors on exerce le plus beau des métiers. Pour cela le bon chef de projet doit être reconnaissant. A qui ? A quoi ? Je n'en sais rien. mais cette reconnaissance est un fondamental de son être professionnel.
8-Curiosité.
Nouveaux sujets, nouvelles techniques. Le chef de projet est sans cesse remis en question par l'environnement professionnel. Le bon chef de projet est celui qui n'attend pas d'être challengé par les circonstances, ou pire, par des difficultés pour évoluer, se former et se perfectionner.
Il a la capacité d'apprendre. D'ailleurs le Project Management Institute ne s'y est pas trompé : il demande à chacun de ses membres ayant obtenu la certification PMP de montrer qu'ils continuent de se former en validant des PDU (Professional Development Units). Sans l'obtention du nombre nécessaire de PDU on perd sa certif'
9- Travailleur.
Le chef de projet est-il forcément celui qui allume la lumière le matin et l'éteint le soir en partant ? non pas forcément. Mais c'est quelqu'un d'extrêmement focalisé sur ses tâches. Qui les fait avec sérieux et rigueur. Comme si sa vie en dépendait (puisque la vie professionnelle de son équipe en dépend.)
Il est néanmoins conscient de l'importance de l'équilibre entre travail et vie privée. S'il ne se l'applique pas à lui-même, comment pourrait-il l'appliquer aux autres ? Or il se doit d'être le protecteur de son équipe.
10-Souriant.
Vous vous ne vous attendiez pas à ce que je finisse avec cette qualité là n'est-ce pas ? Et bien c'est pourtant la plus importante. Le sourire est la marque que les choses vont bien. De la conscience de la chance et de la juste place de son travail. Un chef de projet souriant c'est une équipe qui sourit, c'est un projet qui a toutes les chances de se réaliser, c'est la juste place de son travail dans sa vie. Si vous êtes membres d'une équipe projet regardez votre chef de projet. Sourit-il ? Si vous êtes chef de projet souriez !
Il existe trois types de chef de projet. Le Roi, celui qui donne ses ordres du haut de son trône et qui dispose d'une armée de vassaux pour les exécuter. Le Berger, qui mène son équipe à la réalisation du projet avec attention et professionnalisme. Enfin le Passeur, qui met tout le monde sur son bateau pour atteindre l'autre rive, et qui l'atteint en même temps que son équipe; tout projet l'ayant lui même fait évoluer.
Quel chef de projet êtes-vous ?

Auteur : www.managementetmoi.blogspot.com

Merci MJ :)

Priorities: Your Life Compass

 

Every time-management seminar that you will attend teaches the importance of prioritizing your tasks. Task A is the most important, so plan to do it first. Task B is second in importance, so do it next, etc. Unfortunately, many of these time-management techniques get you so involved in managing the mundane tasks of life, that this is what we focus on. We are stuck in "the thick of thin things" to quote Dr. Stephen R. Covey.

The truth is, no amount of simple task prioritizing will help you achieve your dreams until you first determine the highest priorities of your life, then get those priorities to find their way into your daily tasks and the daily prioritizing process.

The key to successful life management is to pick your priorities. We all juggle a number of balls in the air at all times. We might call them work, family, health, friends, spirit, or education. And we try to get through life without dropping any of the balls. But, many of us never take the time to truly identify what the important balls are for us, and to decide how much we value each. Until we do this, we can never truly prioritize anything else. Here's how you do it . . .

1. Write out a brief statement that describes each of the balls that you try to keep in the air. We'll call them life-priorities. What is it? Why is it important to you? What would you like to accomplish in each area? Be sure to take the time to write this out!! Thinking it through in your mind might be easier, but it loses effectiveness if you do not write it down. Include a brief description of each life-priority, an explanation of why each is important to you, and a list of major objectives that you would like to accomplish for each.

2. Once you have written something about each life-priority, prioritize them. Choose which life-priority is the most important to you, second, third, etc. This is a critical step because, what happens when work and family events collide? If you know where each life-priority stands in relative importance to the others, it will help you to make appropriate decisions in the moment of choice. This doesn't mean that if you prioritize family over work, for example, you will always prioritize family events over work events. This depends on the relative importance of each task in that category. But, it does give you direction when making these important decisions.

3. Make sure each daily "to do" list includes not just the mundane, urgent tasks that constantly fill our lists. Be sure to add tasks that will help you accomplish a major objective for each life-priority. Make a point of adding at least one important task for each life-priority each week.

4. When planning your daily tasks, use your life-priorities as a compass that gives you direction. Determine which task is most important at any given moment, by measuring them against the priorities that you have written. Then do it!

5. Review your life-priority compass each week to be sure you are on track. Remember, what gets your attention, gets you. If you take the time to review and focus on your highest priorities each week, they will naturally point your life in that direction.

6. Dump the guilt. If you have decided to do something based on your life-priority compass, you have earned the right to stuff the guilt. Many people go through life feeling guilty. When they are at home, they feel guilty about not spending more time at the office. When they are at the office, the feel guilty that they are not at home with their family. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Using a life-priority compass takes away the guilt and leaves you free to use your emotions in more constructive ways.

I challenge you to develop your own life-priority compass that will become a scale by which you can measure everything you do. It will help you achieve more while giving you more peace of mind.

By Bill Mansell

Published 02/18/2009

HPS s’offre le français ACP Qualife

 

Les appétits de HPS se co nfirment à l’international. L’acquisition de la société française ACPQualife permettra d’accroître les positions de l’entreprise de monétique sur le marché européen, l’une de ses priorités du moment.

C’est la première opération concrète de HPS dans le cadre de sa politique de croissance externe. Le chiffre d’affaires réalisé en Europe en 2009 est passé à 26% contre 10% l’année précédente. Aujourd’hui, l’objectif affiché est donc de consolider la position dans cette région. L’opération sera conclue en partie par un apport en cash représentant 40% du capital de ACPQualife. La seconde est une augmentation de capital de près de 37 millions de DH réservés aux actionnaires de la société française. ACPQualife est l’union de deux entités ACP et Qualife qui opèrent dans différents segments. La première est spécialisée dans l’intégration de solutions notamment dans la monétique, mais également l’édition de logiciels. Qualife assure la qualification des logiciels et leur test. Ce rapprochement viendra en support aux activités de HPS Europe. Selon Brahim Berrada, directeur financier de HPS, «cette opération nous permettra de renforcer notre offre d’intégration de solutions notamment. Le rapprochement devrait nous permettre de capitaliser sur l’expertise de ACPQualife afin de réduire les délais de développement». L’entreprise de monétique devrait capitaliser sur la forte présence de ACPQualife sur les marchés financiers. Celle-ci servira de base pour le développement du produit Powercard de HPS en Europe ainsi que le développement du logiciel Vision. D’ailleurs, la diversification de l’offre est l’un des principaux axes stratégiques de l’opérateur, ce qui rend plus pertinent l’acquisition de ACPQualife. La prise de contrôle de cette dernière devrait s’accompagner à court et à moyen terme d’autres acquisitions. «Nous avons certaines sociétés dans le viseur en ce moment», révèle Brahim Berrada. Côté Bourse, le marché est assez réactif face aux orientations stratégiques de la société. Depuis janvier, le cours HPS s’est apprécié de plus de 47%, atteignant un plus haut de 946 DH.

 

Mots clés Google : HPS, ACP Qualife

One Droid X killer feature the iPhone 4 lacks

 

The iPhone 4 is racking up the superlatives and sales numbers, but the Motorola Droid X is coming, packing one killer feature the iPhone lacks.

Verizon will offer the Motorola Droid X with the 3G hotspot feature.

(Credit: Verizon)

Let me begin with a caveat: The Droid X is still untested in the field, so we won't know until after July 15 whether it harbors any serious user issues. That said, it already has me drooling over its impressive feature set and design.

Though the 4.3-inch display (in the case of already-small smartphone displays, bigger is better), the Flash 10.1 support, DLNA streaming, and the Texas Instruments 1GHz ARM processor are nice, the icing on the cake is the built-in Wi-Fi hotspot--or what Verizon calls the 3G Mobile Hotspot.

I've always been surprised at how many technologically savvy laptop toters still tether themselves to Starbucks or scurry around, seeking out the local Wi-Fi hotspot when on the road. Or worse, rely on the invariably abysmal Wi-Fi provided at conferences--and often at airports.

I began using laptop 3G on a regular basis a few years back with an HP 2510p ultraportable business notebook, which integrated the Verizon EVDO-A silicon inside the laptop. To me, putting 3G in a laptop was a godsend. It allowed me to work almost anywhere, anytime.

Eventually I moved to Verizon's MiFi mobile hotspot because I purchased an Apple MacBook Air (Apple doesn't offer any laptops with built-in 3G, which I have lamented in the past). But beyond the Apple issue, MiFi also has a serious upside: It frees you from being tied to one laptop--as current 3G contracts do when 3G is built into the laptop--because MiFi supports up to five devices.

Now the Droid X proposes to do MiFi one better. Instead of carrying around both a MiFi and a 3G smartphone, you have it all in one nice, attractive package. And, like MiFI, it supports up to five devices. Presuming that Motorola and Verizon have implemented this feature relatively well, it makes an already attractive Droid X almost irresistible, even with the extra $20 monthly fee tacked on for a 2GB data plan, as Verizon has stated. (Note that this is cheaper than most 3G data plans.)

After all, this is what true integration is all about. Taking something that was previously a discrete, external device (like a camera) and bringing it inside. And in spite of the media's round-the-clock laserlike focus on the iPhone 4 (which, admittedly, I participate in), I will be taking a good, long look at the Droid X.

 

Utilities try to get smarter about selling smart grid

 

WASHINGTON--It's probably not news to their customers, but utility company executives are now realizing that they're not great at marketing.

For years, the smart grid has been touted by policymakers, tech companies, and utilities as a way to make the grid more reliable, efficient, and cleaner. But for the most part, surveys show that consumers are still struggling to understand how a digital grid and two-way smart meters matter to them.

Having seen the backlash from smart meter installations in California, utilities are now acutely aware of how important it is to convey the benefits of new grid technologies, according to executives at the Kema Utility of the Future conference here on Thursday.

In many discussions, speakers said consumers need to come along for the years-long ride of adding new technology to the grid. To get consumers involved, utilities need to shift from treating them like a monolithic block of ratepayers to customers they want to retain.

"The relationship with homeowners is just beginning," Michael Morris, the CEO of utility AEP, said during a panel discussion. "There is no sex appeal to (playing) around with an electricity meter as there is streaming a baseball game on their iPhone or iPad, so we need to be a bit respectful of what that relationship is."

Utility customers in the U.S. expect reliable service and power when needed. But going forward, consumers will want better ways to manage and reduce their energy use for economic reasons, said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers.

Although electricity prices have dropped significantly in the past two years because of the recession, the pressure on prices is upward given the worldwide demand on energy resources and growing electricity use in general. Helping consumers manage those price increases with efficiency measures is in the interest of utilities, too, since customers will feel more in control, Rogers said.

But just installing smart meters without a good informational and marketing campaign is a mistake, particularly if it's seen as taking choice away from consumers, he said.

"To make smart meters work, you have to follow up quickly with an audit and provide a suite of products that provide some benefit and make clear this isn't a 'Mother knows best' world. You can choose," Rogers said. "That reduces the chance of blowback."

Not about technology
Many of the features promised by smart-grid advocates can be done with existing technologies, but they do require participation from customers, as well as customer education. So rather than rush headlong into the smart grid, some companies are treading lightly and slowing.

Michigan utility Consumers Energy this month will roll out two programs geared at cutting back electricity usage in homes and in both cases, it's using relatively old technology to get it done.

"The intent is not to figure out if the technology works, it's more about the customer marketing message," said Stephen Hirsch, the manager of demand response programs at Consumers Energy. "The biggest barrier was the suspicion on the part of the customer as to why we are doing this. There seems to be a problem with the consumer understanding our business model."

A model of the smart grid, where energy flows in two directions and consumers have more control.

(Credit: EPRI)

In one demand-response program in the Grand Rapids area, the utility will reduce load on the grid during about 10 hot summer days a year by remotely controlling consumers' air conditioners. A signal sent over the utility's existing network will shift central air conditioners from running at 100 percent to 50 percent for four hours in the afternoon, which will result in a one- or two-degree temperature increase, Hirsh explained.

In exchange for shedding load during a time of stress on the grid, the customer gets a rebate. The benefit for the utility is that it does not have to purchase expensive electricity, which is often made with polluting "peaking plants," or have to build new transmission lines to meet peak demand. Cutting the utility's energy accrues to the consumer as it lowers its operating costs, Hirsh said.

Most consumers say they are willing to use a smart device, such as a smart meter, appliance, or thermostat, if it will help them better manage their energy, according to a recent poll by General Electric. And the combined impact of thousands of efficiency events can mean avoiding the construction of new power plants and power lines.

But for these products and programs to work, it has to be simple and easy to use for customers, and there need to be variable pricing that reflects the cost of energy on the wholesale market.

"We've got to make it simple so that it's programmable and you just set it once," said Terry Boston, the CEO of grid operator PJM. "We have to see how well the customer can interface with the grid and how their use patterns can impact the grid."

Finding what works
Emerging smart-grid technologies pave the way for people to have more control over their energy, letting a person, for example, use a smart phone to monitor electricity or turn on the air conditioning just before getting home.

How quickly the utility providers can adapt their businesses to deliver that sort of capability is a big question, said David O'Brien, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service.

Photos: GE's smart grid kitchen of the future

"For a 100 years, utilities have been responsible for running the grid on our behalf. I've seen reticence to go into this very dynamic environment where customers are making thousands of choice on how to use electricity based on information," O'Brien said.

New technologies, such as smart meters, home energy dashboards, or microgrids with community storage, are also expensive and can be difficult to get regulators to sign off on. Baltimore Gas & Electric was shocked this week when the Maryland regulators rejected a smart-grid investment proposal because it did not demonstrate enough benefit.

In the meantime, utilities are experimenting with smart-grid programs, which received a boost from billions of dollar in stimulus spending. Beyond what the technology can do, utilities are eager to see how consumers react to a life where using energy means more than writing a check for a monthly bill.

Municipal utility Chattanooga Electric Power plans to let consumers view their electricity usage on a TV using IPTV, said David Wade, the executive vice president and chief operating officer.

"One of challenges is to understand how to implement software to provide options to customers where they don't have to sacrifice comfort and convenience and help them manage energy costs," he said.

Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.