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Apple iMessage could hurt mobile carriers | TG Daily

October 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When Apple launches iMessage, a free alternative to traditional text messaging, it could have a damaging impact on mobile carriers.

The carriers still charge outrageous fees for texting – as much as 20 cents per message. Of course, anyone who texts regularly most likely has an unlimited texting plan for about $20 per month.

But that $20 is not insignificant when added to all the other line-item charges customers have to deal with these days, and many would prefer to scrap that fee altogether.

After all, there have been alternatives to texting since the last century. Phones with a data plan are able to send instant messages through Google Talk, Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, and others.

And not to be forgotten, it’s simple to send and received e-mails from pretty much any phone these days.

However, texting remains the only real way to send messages to people through a phone number rather than a sceen name or e-mail address, and they can be sent and received without mobile data.

Apple’s iMessage platform, expected to be revealed this week, cannot offer those amenities, but it will allow users to send messages over Wi-Fi and mobile data networks, with an aesthetic that looks like texting on an iPhone, and with technology that can send the messages instantly.

via Apple iMessage could hurt mobile carriers | TG Daily.

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F.B.I. Is Looking at Unabomber in ’82 Tylenol Tampering Case – NYTimes.com

May 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining whether Theodore J. Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was responsible for lacing several bottles of Tylenol with cyanide in 1982, bringing together two of the highest-profile domestic crimes of the late 20th century.

Mr. Kaczynski, who is serving a life sentence at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., recently filed court papers disclosing that the F.B.I.’s Chicago office was looking into whether he could be linked to the unsolved killings of seven people who swallowed the poisoned medicine.

via F.B.I. Is Looking at Unabomber in ’82 Tylenol Tampering Case – NYTimes.com.

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Military Struggles to Harness a Flood of Data – NYTimes.com

January 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Data is among the most potent weapons of the 21st century. Unprecedented amounts of raw information help the military determine what targets to hit and what to avoid. And drone-based sensors have given rise to a new class of wired warriors who must filter the information sea. But sometimes they are drowning.

Research shows that the kind of intense multitasking required in such situations can make it hard to tell good information from bad. The military faces a balancing act: how to help soldiers exploit masses of data without succumbing to overload.

Across the military, the data flow has surged; since the attacks of 9/11, the amount of intelligence gathered by remotely piloted drones and other surveillance technologies has risen 1,600 percent. On the ground, troops increasingly use hand-held devices to communicate, get directions and set bombing coordinates. And the screens in jets can be so packed with data that some pilots call them “drool buckets” because, they say, they can get lost staring into them.

“There is information overload at every level of the military — from the general to the soldier on the ground,” said Art Kramer, a neuroscientist and director of the Beckman Institute, a research lab at the University of Illinois.

via Military Struggles to Harness a Flood of Data – NYTimes.com.

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UK Bribery Act broader than FCPA, but more guidelines needed – Risk.net

May 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Firms in the UK will need more guidance on complying with the Bribery Act’s strict rules

The passing of the Bribery Act 2010 into UK law has created one of the toughest anti-corruption regimes in existence. Firms operating in the UK will no longer be allowed to make “facilitation payments”, which have often been thinly veiled bribes.

Previous UK anti-bribery legislation dated from the nineteenth century, whereas the new legislation goes beyond more modern laws such as the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

The FCPA was primarily aimed at targeting bribes to corrupt foreign government officials, whereas the scope of the UK’s Bribery Act more broadly targets corruption across the corporate gambit.

The UK Bribery Act allows unlimited fines against firms, while individual penalties are up to 10 years' imprisonment, compared with five years under the FCPA.

“All this bad activity has been illegal for a long time, but it’s the ability to prosecute companies and individuals that has been so difficult,” says Bob Hirth, vice-president and head of global internal audit at Protiviti, a financial services consultancy.

“One motive behind this Act was to provide for more effective prosecutions. It is broad and ambitious, but the devil is in the detail,” he says.

The Act requires systems and controls to be put in place to demonstrate compliance with the new regime. Compliance to the FCPA does not guarantee compliance to the Act.

via UK Bribery Act broader than FCPA, but more guidelines needed – Risk.net.

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