InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Slideshow: HP Tablet Announced
We are here at beautiful Fort Mason in San Francisco on a spectacular day. The Bay is sparkling, Alcatraz beckons (for some of us), and somewhere inside the theater HP is making all the final preparations. The line to get in is already pretty long, and growing. We are about to see the launch of a new lineup of HP mobile products based on the company's WebOS platform.
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10 Tenets Of Enterprise Data Management
Data quality, master data management, metadata management, data warehousing architecture and data integration: These are all pieces of the data management puzzle, but rare is the enterprise that has assembled these pieces into a cohesive and coherent picture. Get it right and you can count on clean and consistent data from transaction systems and reliable insight from business intelligence systems. It doesn't end there. Your data management strategy must also consider business processes and business rules. Then, consider the people factor: How do you harness the expertise of your subject-matter experts and data stewards? Lastly, where do you draw the line on competency centers? This image gallery presents ten tenets of enterprise data management -- best practices illustrated by conceptual images -- that will get you headed in the right direction.
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Slideshow: LIVE: VERIZON IPHONE 4 TEARDOWN
BYTE's colleagues at UBM TechInsights are tearing down the Verizon iPhone 4, the CDMA version of the iPhone that Verizon began shipping to its own customers late last week. Beginning from the out of the box experience, the following photos show the process of taking this baby apart, step by step. This is a full tear down, so you can get a real look at the ICs and the design decisions engineers made. In this case, we were particularly interested in the CDMA aspect of the phone, comparing the design with the AT&T GSM iPhone version. As you check out this gallery -- and we're posting it live as we tear it down -- pay particular attention to the presence of the Qualcomm chip. You'll see why. Enjoy.
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15 Influential Tech Board Members
The board of directors' primary responsibility is to protect the assets of shareholders, trying to ensure they receive a strong return on their investments. In some cases, directors include venture capitalists or angel investors who have invested in a technology business. In others, directors are selected from outside the IT industry, perhaps because of their connections or success in complementary businesses. A board of directors can be a big asset. After all, the board gives a business the opportunity to pick the brains of executives from other organizations -- from companies involved in similar yet non-competing lines of work, complementary markets, and unrelated industries. Whether a firm is grappling with start-up issues such as capital, branding, and building a market, or challenges -- including mergers and acquisitions, re-branding, and expansion -- facing a well-established company, a board gives executive management access to more than a sounding board. A strong board provides guidance and advice, and helps direct a company's short- and longer-term steps. Here are 15 of the most influential board members in tech.
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Real Time Conversation With Google Translate
Google Translate for Android smartphones offers a unique and compelling new capability. This beta feature, called Conversation Mode, makes it possible to carry out a person-to-person conversation and have the Android device translate and speak each piece of the conversation on the fly. This new conversation model feature only works for conversations between English and Spanish speakers, though the main Google Translate app supports a wide range of languages for standard phrase-by-phrase translation. In tests, the Conversation Mode proved to be surprisingly effective, especially when the English speaker and the Spanish speaker were using their native tongues. However, if pronunciation wasn't very good, the app could make a few amusing mistakes. Luckily, Google Translate's Conversation Mode let's speakers view and manually type in correct phrases when the on-the-fly translation fails.
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12 Advances In Medical Robotics
Robots play a critical -- and growing -- role in modern medicine, from training the next generation of doctors, dentists, and nurses, to comforting and protecting elderly patients in the early stages of dementia. Using robots, medical professionals can make smaller incisions for shorter surgeries, reducing hospital stays and improving patients' prognoses and saving costs. As robots become even smaller and developers continue to further integrate the devices with artificial intelligence, the medical community will continuously expand the ways in which it uses this technology to save patients, improve quality of life and prevent health problems. At the other end of the spectrum, medical schools are turning to robots that mimic live patients' feelings of pain or discomfort to help the next wave of doctors and dentists prepare to treat real people. Of course, dummies and cadavers are not new to medical students, but by giving students access to sensitive patients, healthcare educators hope to hone the bedside manners of soon-to-be doctors and dentists.
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Top Features Absent From Windows 7
From dropping SteadyState to the lack of touch support, universal software updates, or third-party hardware support there's still a great deal missing from the Microsoft operating system. Some, inexplicably, didn't carry over from XP or Vista and others still haven't materialized despite widespread, ongoing demand. Why would Microsoft skimp on offering features that seem in their best interest to provide natively? One possibility is that they don't feel that way -- because they're waiting for someone else to develop their own approach to the same problem. So while the latest OS may be considered a success for Redmond, there remain shortcomings. Here's a look at several notable omissions and a few suggestions for alternatives.
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Inside Watson, IBM's Jeopardy Computer
IBM has spent four years and untold hundreds of millions of dollars developing Watson, a computer that can play Jeopardy. In fact, Watson answers questions so quickly and accurately that IBM challenged Jeopardy and two of the show's all-time champions to a match. Jeopardy's producers and the human contestants agreed. Taping took place January 14, and the three computer-vs.-human episodes will air February 14-16. Cynics may call it a publicity stunt, but the project has brought real advances in computer science. If IBM's previous (chess-playing) Deep Blue and (genetics-studying) Blue Gene supercomputers are any indication, advances in what IBM calls deep question-and-answer analytics could show up in the real world within three to five years. Here's a look inside the architecture, hardware, and advanced analytics that make Watson tick.
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12 Money Saving Tech Tips For SMBs
Smaller companies are under constant pressure to maximize their performance with minimal resources. However, you can't do business without technology -- and tech means spending money, something there never seems to be quite enough of for growing businesses. You keep a vigilant eye on costs as a matter of course. So you need to be creative to get what you and your employees need -- from phone service to software to desks and chairs -- without busting the budget. No matter what your business needs, with a bit of effort and due diligence you'll find that you can have your tech and save on it, too. Here are 12 ideas for reducing the budget burden of the business tools you need to succeed.
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Inside Joomla 1.6: Improved Access Control, Categories
Open-source content management systems, such as Joomla, have proven to be effective options for many Web sites and businesses and can be found running some of the largest and busiest sites on the Web. With strong content features, the open-source Joomla has been a popular choice, despite some traditional weaknesses, especially when it came to controlling user permissions on site and sorting content. But with the recently released Joomla 1.6, the open source content management system has gone a long way towards addressing these limitations. The new Joomla system now features much stronger user access control features that make it possible to define who can access and change content on a site and do so in a very fine grained and detailed manner. And Joomla 1.6 has ditched its old two-level site organization and added a new Categories system that allows for unlimited nested levels of content.
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Top 15 Facebook Apps For Business
While many of Facebook's 500 million users waste part of their days growing virtual crops or committing imaginary crimes, there are many Facebook applications designed to actually improve business productivity. There are more than 550,000 active applications on the Facebook platform, according to the social network, with many designed specifically to improve business practices or better-integrate Facebook into a company's operations. Many business apps are free. Often, fee-based apps offer a basic service at no charge. Frequently, only limited support, usually via Facebook, is available. In addition to general-purpose business applications, there are apps for specific verticals and jobs such as real estate, education, the entertainment industry, Web design, and marketing. These 15 are worth a look.
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CES Top 10 Videos: The Great, the Strange, The Comical and the Cool
Looking at the several dozen videos David Berlind, Fritz Nelson and I shot of products and edgy tech at CES, it strikes me that there's no time. No time for most of you out there to sift through all that for the coolest, strangest and oddest or funniest stuff. Which is the point anyway, right? So I spent the afternoon watching all our videos--throwing me back into that insane maelstrom of our running around like madmen/woman shooting videos--and chose what I thought were the best 10 videos based on coolness, greatness and just plain bizarre and funny. So, if you look at no other short videos from our gigantor CES coverage, here are the 10 I recommend, beginning with the most mild and leading to my No. 1 pick. I don't want to ruin it, but let me tell you. It's the MONEY shot. At least watch that one. Trust me. The Condom People will thank you. Ask Fritz why.
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NRF Big Show 2011: Breakthrough Technologies For Retailing
The National Retail Federation's "Big Show" in New York highlighted scores of cutting-edge retail technologies, from mobile devices and digital signage to point-of-sale systems and store-management applications. Tablet computers were everywhere, of course, though more often featured as a raffle prize designed to draw booth visitors and gather business card leads. Several exhibitors demonstrated iPad-native "clienteling" apps designed to help salespeople demonstrate and explain complicated (or out-of-stock) products. There were plenty of conventional point-of-sale terminals on display, but with smart phones quickly gaining broad use, many retailers and retail technology suppliers are developing apps and peripherals designed to work with iPhones, Android devices, and other mobile platforms.
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Top 10 SMB Predictions For 2011
We dusted off an old piece of tech -- the crystal ball -- to see what the New Year has in store for small and midsize business. 2011 will without a doubt be the year when "trend" becomes "normal" in a variety of business areas, from mobility to virtualization to social marketing. And while certain industry lingo might simply become part of the everyday vocabulary, the term "SMB" itself is likely to be thrown around even more loosely than it was in 2010, by vendors, politicians, and a host of other interested parties. Here's 10 calls about what SMBs should expect to see in the coming year, with some thoughts on how these trends may impact them.
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Slideshow: CES: What Gina Wants For Her Birthday
I love the Showstoppers event my old friend Steve Leon puts on every year. All the hot tech products show up, it's never too crowded and it's an amazing way to catch up with old contacts and colleagues you missed on the show floor. My intrepid CES team -- photog Nevin Berger and ace videographer Matt Conner were with me all week long -- did a lot more than schmooze. We checked out a boatload of tech. Some of them announced right at Showstoppers, such as RealNetworks' Unifi cloud management technology and Monsoon's $99 TV Shifting device, the Vulkano Flow. On the show floor, we grabbed some shots of some stuff I'd want for my birthday. I'm starting the list early. Topping my list: the new BMW Z4 Hot dog, do I want that car, especially with its new QNX technology. Don't buy it for me, though. Journalists can't receive gifts from vendors. Bummer!
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Slideshow: CES 2011: Aliens, Prime Rib And A Digital Experience
I was greeted by an alien at the Digital Experience event here in Las Vegas. And things only got better from there. This event, not aligned with CES but nestled nearby in Caesar's Palace, is for journalists. And the organizers spared no expense on the eats and fancy multicolored martinis. As way too many reporters and bloggers imho wasted their time guzzling vodka and pounding prime rib, my team and I checked out some impressive gear and software. The video for these products will be on YouTube's Techweb channel and site, but check out this slideshow for a quick lowdown on what my little team (video guy Matt Conner and photographer Nevin Berger and me) thought was intriguing, important or just plain cool to look at.
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Slideshow: CES TechWeb Suite Sneak Peek
We spent all day Wednesday getting a sneak peek at some hardware in the Techweb suite. Amtel's technology was standout. The team showed audio technology that dramatically improved speaker sound -- even from cheap, tinny speakers. Also from Amtel -- the Free Motion Remote Control, a free range control device for Internet TVs. The Modlet, from ThinkEco, is the first improvement to wall sockets in 83 years. Plug your appliances into it, and you can monitor where your power problems lie. Check out the videos soon to come of other products we saw today. Well worth watching! For now, here's a quick slideshow.
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Slideshow: CES Unveiled, Cool New Products
The TechWeb/InformationWeek team of editors and producers hit Vegas two days before CES 2011 started. We headed straight for the annual CES Unveiled event, where we got a sneak peek at some gear and gadgets. The lines were long but the results well worth it. Check out this slideshow for an early look at some of the products we liked best. Also inside, find images of this year's innovation and design award winners. We saw the gamut of hardware -- everything from rapid scanning all-in-one printers, next gen ear buds and augmented reality head gear to gesture-controlled phone systems and more.
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