Microsoft to (involuntarily) enter Medical Industry

Article link:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376070,00.asp

By: Roddy Chung

Summary and effect on business:

Motion capture technology has been around for years, but only in recent years has the technology become advanced enough in both software and hardware to be mass-produced for a larger audience. When technologies start adapting to the video gamer demographic, however, the video gamer demographic has had a tendency of adapting the technology back into the rest of the world.
 
          One such example is seen with a University of Washington student fiddling with his Xbox Kinect, the most recent gaming perhenphial addon that adapts video/motion sensing as a means of user interfacing.
 
 
          A recent story is how precise robotics controls were adapted (though 'hacked' seems the more accurate term) to to the Microsoft Xbox Kinect system. Consisting primarily as a two-sensor camera that plugs into the Xbox and uses the gaming console as a platform, users can use their movement on camera to interact with video games. It is not a new technology, as motion sensor technology has been adapted into the video game field for years now, the most recent additions being the Playstation Move system and the Nintendo Wii's basic control hardware.
 
          The technology is being explored and researched upon by the University of Washington as a control interface for surgical robotics, after a graduate student began tinkering with his own Xbox and began brainstorming on the possibilities of the technology. This isn't the only story of its kind, however - the Kinect has been explored for other possibilities in the medical field, such as a touchless user interface for surgeons in the operating theatre as well as virtual reality surgeries for training.
 
          Microsoft, though notoriously protective of their IP, have in recent years faced stiff competition from open-source development (notably in the form of the Linux operating system), and has since seen the benefit of web community contribution. Microsoft-based hardware and software have had new ideas and open-source applications added to the roster because of it, and as a result, pet projects like this have been possible.
 
          While tech magazines and websites have been focusing on the medical usages of the Kinect in the last five months, it's not a long shot to see other uses be developed from gaming hardware.

Customers Demand Four Things from Your Business Systems!

Article link:

http://www.boxtheorygold.com/blog/bid/24224/Customers-Demand-Four-Things-from-Your-Business-Systems

By: Tana Piotrowski

Summary:

·         This article is about the fact that some businesses do not efficiently listen to the voice of the customer to help make their business more efficient.

·         When a business tries to build their clientele looking at the customer’s needs and opinions are an essential part of making their customers stay as their customers.

·         There are customer expectations that can be listed into four categories:

-high quality: does what its supposed to do, better then the competition

-speed: on schedule, meets deadlines, never delayed

-low cost : good value, competitively priced, occasional bargains

-pleasurable: good buying experience, (clean store, knowledgeable sales people)

·         People in businesses need to abide by these criteria to make the business better then the competetors

Effect on business:

This article states ways that a business can improve their customer’s experience.  It was designed so that businesses can follow these guidelines to potentially build their clientele and bring in new customers.  The main effect this would have on business is that the competition in the industry would be much greater since everyone is listening to their customers.  This would make it potentially harder for new entrants into the industry to make it successfully since customers will already have their “go to” companies for their products and may be unwilling to try new things.  Overall, this criteria is good for existing companies to make it further and make a more productive business then they already have.       

Advantages and disadvantages of control systems in business management

Article link:

http://www.helium.com/items/1811312-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-control-systems-in-business-management

By: Stephanie Mayes

Summary:

·         Types of control systems are:

o    Bureaucratic control – uses rules, standards and authority. Specific tasks for different employees. Lots of businesses use this form of control.

§  Advantages – less confusion about making decisions, very clear management rules and standards

§  Disadvantages – no room for business to change and grow, employee morale, undervalued employees, strictness

o    Market control – uses prices and competition. Tangible control. Not a good choice because it causes security control issues.

§  Advantage – flexible

§  Disadvantages – too much value change because companies are bought and sold, employees are affected

o   Clan control – uses culture, standards, trust, and beliefs. This is good for innovations as each employee is a decision maker. There is no one that is strictly a decision maker

§  Advantages – more chances of innovation, ideas

§  Disadvantages – lack of standard control system and strictness means employees can slack

Impact on business:

                Each business needs to decide which type of control will work best for their processes. Management decision making is very important as well as choice of employees to implement the control systems. Control systems are very valuable and with an understanding of each type, a better choice can be chosen.  

Experts Paint Grim Picture of Infosec Readiness

Article Link:

http://www.govinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=3442

By: Tana Piotrowski

Summary:

-          The government and military don’t have good enough protection when using their computers and keeping from hackers getting into their system.

-          They believe the threats to information systems are evolving and growing.

-          They believe that it is because of their information systems and the way they share their information between groups.

-          They can never get ahead and don’t have a big enough department to deal with the ever changing technological advances that the hackers are involved in.

Effects on business:

                This article is a very important article to U.S society.  Since there is a lot of important documentation in the government and military systems it is imperative that it be kept secure.  It is somewhat surprising that they don’t have extreme measures to help keep all this documentation safe.  They claim that their department is too small to keep up with the everyday changes to the hacker’s ability to get into the systems.  This would affect business greatly, even internationally.  If there is a hacker in another country that can get into the systems and military files it means that they can find out way too much about the country.  They will find out information about the president, military practices, and other private information that can give them a huge advantage over the U.S.  Take the example of a hacker in a foreign country getting into the systems and reading files.  They can find out who the country trades with, how much we pay for certain imports, what our budgets our and our profits.  With that information they can get huge advantages on other countries by lowering their trading prices lower than the U.S, by stopping trading with countries that they believe are charging too much.  Doing this would not only be an effect on U.S business but international, which is HUGE.  That being said, the government and military obviously need to come up with a better team that can ensure documentation stays safe.

System Integration Improves Corporate Campus

By: Valentine George

Article link:

http://www.csemag.com/home/single-article/system-integration-improves-corporate-campus/3b196e132c.html

Report:

The headline of this article tells the reader that how system integration is essential for business and how it helps to improve it.

This article states that Johnson Controls Inc wanted to renovate and expand their two buildings. Before renovating Johnson Controls Inc took some input from customers and project managers. They gave the project team some key insights into the technologies that would provide the best financial investment while having the least impact on the environment. The two newly renovated buildings have a cafeteria, meeting rooms, and a fitness center; and a new four-level parking structure for more than 400 vehicles, including space for plug-in hybrids. By choosing to go green Johnson Controls Inc has almost doubled in size, overall energy usage has been reduced by 21%, and the annual greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by more than 857,200 lbs of carbon dioxide.

The article further focuses on efficient planning, an energy foundation management, renewable technologies, lighting controls and work environment on how these factors of system integrations have a direct impact on the employees who go to these buildings to work. A good example of system integration is, when an employee arrives at his or her desk in the morning, a motion sensor detects the employee’s presence and delivers a signal to turn on nearby task and overhead lighting and HVAC systems. As the sun rises outside and natural light enters the building, the artificial lights are dimmed. If the sun begins to shine too intensely inside the building, the system automatically lowers the window shades. If the employee leaves his or her desk, the motion detector will turn off the lights and HVAC system, as they are not needed.

The Article concludes with Johnson Controls Inc demonstrating that how these energy-related technologies and systems integration continue to be the key components in technology innovation and sustainability.

Interview with Instructional Designer Sue Shick, Lead Engagement and Solution Architect for Second Life, Case Western Reserve University

Article link:

http://www.phoenix.edu/uopx-knowledge-network/articles/expert-voices/interview-with-instructional-designer-sue-shick.html

Electric School Boogaloo:
Schooling in Reality and Virtual Reality

                The University of Phoneix’s online presence goes beyond simply distance education over the Web, but a full-fledged university campus in virtual reality. A teacher and designer from the University of Phoenix talks about their campus in the Second Life environment, what they do, and what they intend to do.
 
                The Internet has vastly expanded our ability to find and access information, be it personal or business. We live in an age where we no longer have to see the Internet as a novelty, even though there are novelties aplenty on the Net.  One of these novelties are Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) environments, and the term is usually linked to video games like Modern Warfare or World of Warcraft, where a large population of computer users are gathered together. It's a rich environment, and games are one common way to bridge anonymous users with one another. 

There's a lot of potential in this technology, of course, and it's already in use in business. However, MMO platforms still a ton of possibilities - even within existing ones.  Distance education has been around for a long time. While the Internet has streamlined and sped up delivery of said education and material, the University of Phoenix had taken a grander approach to this field, turning online schooling into an actual online school. Literally.

 In the virtual reality of Second Life, a 3D MMO (mostly) user-created environment, the University of Phoenix has had a virtual campus for a few years now. Using the Second Life environment it is possible to walk a virtual campus, interact with virtual exhibits, view virtual lessons - but the University takes it a lot further, going so far as to include Second Life as part of class labs and holding online classes complete with visual and vocal interaction. The University of Phoenix talks about Second Life and what they do in this article on their website. While the article is fairly recent, it's interesting to mention that tech circles have mentioned (offhand) the University of Phoenix's work in Second Life some time before its official mention of starting in 2007. 

The University of Phoenix isn't the only organization to do their business in Second Life's virtual reality; there have been articles of concerts being held and other corporate names having virtual branches in Second Life. The potential of virtual reality is definitely staggering, and this article has only touched on one way things can be done in the near future.

 By: Roddy Chung

Google takes position in tourism by offering ITA Software

Article link:

http://www.dailynewsengine.com/608/google-takes-position-in-tourism-by-offering-ita-software/

By: Stephanie Mayes

Summary:

·         Google spent 700 million dollars for a software company specializing in travel agents and airlines

·         The company, ITA, began in 1996 by computer scientists from MIT. It has about 500 employees

·         Google’s goal is to reduce frustration for people finding the right flight at the right price

·         Google’s goal is customize software used by ITA QPX U.S. Airways, Continental Airlines, Kayak, Orbitz, and to incorporate Microsoft’s search engine

·         Google’s competition is Expedia, FareCompare, Hotwire, and Bing Travel

·         The database on air fares and customers (airlines, travel agents, specialist) is very comprehensive

·         ITA Software is very innovative, high performance and developed by experts in the sector

Impact on business:

                Database Software is relevant in all industries, not just accounting! It is a foundation tool to generate business and compete strongly. Knowledge of database information systems is transferable to many industries. Google’s acquisition can have many results. Examples are user friendly internet business, error free transactions, and timeliness of up-to-date information. Increased competition will also affect businesses and consumers. This software is very complex. ITA is a team of aviation sector and software scientist; which means, Google’s database will be very efficient, accurate and reliable. Hopefully, this will increase consumer spending on travel.    

Data Warehouse

Link: http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=2712&p=3#0

By: Valentine George

Introduction: Data warehousing is a systematic form of storage. It allows for useful tools such as data mining, which increase efficiency. A data warehouse is sometimes called a major role player in a decision support system. It helps organizations to make an effective and good decision by looking at facts and trends from previous years.

Entry: Data warehousing is an essential part of an organization. It is used by organizations to come up with facts, trends or relationships that can help them make effective decisions or create effective strategies to accomplish their organizational goals.

There are many types of data warehousing. Online Transaction Processing is one of the data warehousing models. It is built for speed and easy to use. Another model is Online Analytical Processing, this model is difficult to use and it adds an extra step of analysis within the data. This model is slower than the online transaction processing model, as it requires more steps and more data to analyse certain queries. A common model of data warehousing is in which a data warehouse is subject oriented, time variant, non volatile and integrated. Subject oriented means that data is linked together and is organized by relationships. Time variant means that any data that is changed in the data warehouse can be tracked. Non volatile means that the data is never deleted or erased. This is a great way to protect any data, as it can be useful in future. Because this data is retained, it can be used later on as analysis to make important decisions for the organization. Finally, the data is integrated, which means that a data warehouse uses data that is organizational wide instead of from just one department.

In this growing age of technology, there are many types of data warehousing. They are Offline Operational Data Warehouses, Offline Data Warehouse, Real Time Data Warehouses and Integrated Data Warehouses.

·         Offline Operational Data Warehouse: This is the simplest type of data warehouse. All it does is copy and paste data from real time data networks into an offline system where it can be used.

·         Offline Data Warehouse: This data warehouse is updated frequently, daily, weekly or monthly and that data is then stored in an integrated structure, where others can access it and perform reporting.

·         Real Time Data Warehouse: This type of data warehouse is updated every moment, whenever there’s a new occurrence of a data. For example, a Real Time Data Warehouse incorporates data from a Point of Sales system and is updated with each sale that is made.

·         Integrated Data Warehouse: This type of data warehouse is used by other data warehouses, allowing them to process to past reports, as well as look up current data.

Data warehousing is very important in the business world as it helps increase consistency with the data. It also helps making decisions by looking at previous reports and analysis.

Types of Processing on the Mainframe: Batch and Online

Article link:

http://www.suite101.com/content/mainframe-processing-a301390

Diagram:

http://www.suite101.com/view_image_articles.cfm/2542644

By: Stephanie Mayes

Summary:

Batch Processing	Online Processing
·         Punched cards submitted thru card reader machine, Job Control Cards with Job Control Language (JCL) – now extinct	·         Online program that allows users to enter transactions into the program and get real time results
·         Now coded with an editor and stored on disk	·         Online JCL files
·         JCL creates records. JES (Job Entity Subsystem) program will process job based on class and priority	·         Started by a system console by an operator. Control regions to control traffic.
·         Once job is initiated, batch processing begins	·         To display data it must have a map. This map helps to control region for input transactions for online program
·         The program reads the input files and writes the output files	·         Online processing access one or more databases to
·         Errors will terminate jobs	·         Results are then transferred to the transaction processing control region

Mainframe Modernization - This technique leverages the existing assets and makes them more relevant in current business environments. Bell and IBM do this.

Impact on business:

                Online processing allows business to be more competitive by having timeliness as a key factor. Online processing is able to access more than one database allowing it to be more efficient. This is a program many businesses have converted to because of the benefits. Batch Processing is an older technology which has slower processing.

Politicians: Clueless on technology?

Article link:

http://news.cnet.com/Politicians-Clueless-on-technology/2100-1028_3-6130266.html?tag=lia;rcol

By: Tana Piotrowski

Summary:

·         This article states how politicians and members of government should be more informed about the technology we had today.

·         They are not informed enough about technology and information systems but yet they seem to be spending more money on technology schemes

·         Politicians rely on advisors for information on how to implement their broad intentions

·         Getting them more informed themselves on these topics will be much better for the decisions they make

Effect on Business:

                The major effect this has on business is negative.  Politicians aren’t making their own knowledgeable decisions when spending money.  How would this even make them good politicians if they don’t know exactly what the money is being spent on?  Shouldn’t they be informed on the topics in such matters to make the best possible decisions?  This just makes me question what other issues politicians outsource their information to make decisions.   

Without the proper knowledge of technology and information systems the truth is they aren’t making the best decisions that they could.  Since they need to outsource for their information regarding these topics, it could potentially mean people giving them the information can persuade them with their personal opinions on such matters. 

Make Your Small Business Look Bigger With Virtual Services

Article Link:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/216739/make_your_small_business_look_bigger_with_virtual_services.html

By: Roddy Chung

Summary:

Work is no longer constrained by the physical limits of the world. With the Internet, businesses can be much larger than they were before telecommunications became as widespread as they are today. Just think: somewhere, sometime, someone in the world is doing something, contributing to work in one form or another. Businesses today are online - why should it be a surprise that there are businesses online for businesses?

Effect on Business:

Society is no longer constrained by distance or time. If there's one thing that the Internet's done for humanity as a whole, it's brought us closer together. It's also made us busier, thanks to global communications being so prevalent in both home and office. The work day is no longer 9-to-5 on weekdays only, but 24/7, 365 days, always industrious. Imagine: at any time, someone, somewhere, could be working. Right now. With you, or for you, even.

It's happening today. Business may be using telecommunications already to expand and link their work all across the world, businesses THROUGH telecommunications have the potential to become business unto themselves. It's already happening, in fact. With the virtual world of the World Wide Web mirroring the real world in terms of work and businesses, it should only follow that virtual business also exists. Today, business exist online as they do in a physical location, offering many of the same services, such as accountancy, telemarketing, or even secretarial work.

Globalization means outsourcing is more readily done by businesses today than in the past. With potentially the entire world within reach, the chances of having someone/somewhere/sometime available for any given task at hand has been made a lot better than relying upon a single list of workers restricted to a single organization. While this does go against the traditional structure of work cultures, the obsolescence of old ways is being far outweighed by the many, MANY possible benefits of the new.

This especially applies for small businesses that may otherwise not have the skillsets or manpower to expand much further beyond their physical restrictions of space and time. Online, however, one's reach is expanded much further than in the 'real-life' world.

Examples demonstrating the potential of online effort are many. Examples such as Google (google.com), Facebook (social site), or Wikipedia ("The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit") demonstrate the reach of the World Wide Web and industriousness of Internet-wide effort; all three names started as business with a total number of employees that you could count on one hand - today, all three names are multi-million business entities.

The Internet IS making the world smaller. It's only natural that this also applies to the world of work.

HST fuelling economic growth

Link
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/920012--hst-fuelling-economic-growth-duncan-says

By: Tana Piotrowski

Summary

·         How the HST implementation has been one the main pushes that helped get us out of recession

·         Business spending on machinery and equipment has increased by more than 10 per cent due to the tax reforms

·         Regained 96 per cent of jobs lost during the recession and that last year there were 119,700 net new jobs created

Impact on business

This article deals with the HST tax and how it has affected our society since it has been implemented.  The journalist who wrote the article has stated that because of the combined tax it has made our society better by pushing us out of recession.  This is good for businesses because it means we have made more jobs which is a push for more business.

 To better understand this look at economics.  Since the tax introduction we have been making our way to a better economy.  This means that more people are working and which leads to more people spending money.  This would cause more businesses to have more job availability, because demand is going up, which requires more people to fill those job availabilities.  Overall, the HST has caused a good impact on business thus far.  Although we are still on the border line for our unemployment rate the article states that the HST tax will continue to help make the economy better as long as all other underlying factors remain the same. 

Five Business Benefits of ERP for Small to Mid-size Enterprises

Aritcle link:
http://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2010/09/five-business-benefits-of-erp-for-small-to-mid-size-enterprises/

By: Stephanie Mayes

Summary:

·         ERP’s help small and medium size businesses to grow

·         It is an essential element

o   Cost saving

o   Improves operations

o   Transaction based

·         Out of 578 small/mid size business surveyed, results were:

o   80% growth in revenue anticipation

o   22% operating cost reduced

o   20% reduced administration cost

o   17% reduced inventory

o   19%  improved on time delivery

o   17% improved scheduling

·         Companies that do not use ERP create a performance gap and create risk compared to those that do use one

Impact on business:

                This article supports the use of Enterprise Resource Planning. It has strong facts that are supported by research (survey). Small/mid size businesses that use ERP will benefit by three main reasons; cost saving, operation improvement and transaction ease. These are very strong reasons to convince small/mid size companies to convert to using ERP. The article also explains this by emphasizing the performance gap that is visible between users and non users. This tool is very important during economic downturns.  The benefits of ERP are very evident and this article encourages businesses to use ERP.

                We support the author as it gives small/mid size businesses a competitive edge by improving their business process. ERP will help the “little guys” to increase their revenue and performance. ERP helps to reduce expenses (administration/inventory/operating). This is very important during economic down times. Also, it is important for businesses to be constantly improving their processes.  An ERP will strengthen small/mid size businesses.