UPDATE:

AOL will be trying to reduce its workforce next month by one-third through a voluntary layoff program that will be open to all employees, including 400 people in its Advertising.com office in Baltimore, according to a company spokeswoman.

The voluntary layoff program will begin Dec. 4 and last through Dec. 11. AOL's owner, Time Warner Inc., is expected to spin off AOL into an independent entity on Dec. 9.

The company is looking for 2,500 volunteers to leave, and if they don't reach that number, they will need to do an involuntary layoff, according to Tricia Primrose, the AOL spokeswoman.

[I am seeking tips and insight from anyone who knows what may happen to workers at AOL's Advertising.com division here in Baltimore. Email me at gus.sentementes@baltsun.com.]

News: The New York Times (via Reuters) is reporting this morning that AOL plans to cut one-third of its workforce, or about 2,500 jobs
AOL's owner, Time Warner, plans to spinoff the company on Dec. 9, and expects to take restructuring charges of up to $200 million.

Advertising.com is the company's advertising network and considered to be one of the "crown jewels" of AOL. It remains to be seen if any of Advertising.com's 400 employees in Baltimore will face the cuts.

I pondered these potential cuts in a blog post in June, when an AOL spokeswoman called Advertising.com "a jewel in our advertising portfolio."

According to the Reuters report, AOL has asked for volunteers and if enough people don't step up, they'll resort to involuntary terminations.

Anybody know what's gonna happen in Baltimore????

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*, Jobs & Recruiting
        

Researchers at Towson University and the National Federation of the Blind, based here in Baltimore, have come up with a new and more accessible twist on the CAPTCHA services -- you know, those squiggly, hard-to-read letters us humans are forced to enter in a Web application to verify that we're human and not malicious bots.

CAPTCHA technology has been around for more than 10 years and its history has been a sort of arms race between security geeks and hackers. New types of CAPTCHAs are devised, but hackers can write programs that can "read" the letters and numbers. Meanwhile, people with disabilities can struggle with trying to get past the CAPTCHA security, because they have trouble seeing or hearing the CAPTCHA codes.

Computer viruses have an easier time than people with disabilities in getting past some CAPTCHA systems, according to Towson professor Jonathan Lazar, who worked on the new system with the NFB.

"Unfortunately what happens is it becomes very often not a test of if you're human, but a test of whether you can see," Lazar said. "Basically, computer viruses are twice as successful as blind people on the old captchas. It's a problem, and that's why we've been working on building this."

Here's how the Towson system works: The user is shown both a picture and a sound of an easy to identify object. In the case above, we see birds, drums, lion.

Corresponding sounds for each object are then played for the user, who types in what she hears. Lazar said their algorithms can accept variations of the user input, such as plurals, i.e. bird/birds, drum/drums, lion/lions. This type of security approach works because humans are still far better than computers at recognizing sounds and putting names to them, according to Lazar.

The Towson researchers recently filed a patent application for their system, which they call HIPUU (Human Interacting Proof Universally Usable.)

Who knows -- maybe sometime soon this will become the new standard.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: *NEWS*, University Tech, Web Dev & Apps
        

The formation of new businesses, in the form of corporations and limited liability companies, has been in decline in recent years, according to state figures.

New corporate charters were at a five-year high, back in fiscal 2005, with 16,127 filings, but have declined to 10,882 through fiscal 2009. (The fiscal year starts July 1 and ends June 30.)

New limited liability companies (LLCs) climbed to more than 29,000 in 2006 through 2008, but declined to 25,442 in fiscal 2009, the statistics show. The LLC is the preferred type of business entity in Maryland by filers.

These figures, which come from the state Department of Assessments and Taxation, show the impact that the recession has had on the formation of new businesses in Maryland.

Some may argue that the figures help prove the oft-mentioned point that Maryland has an anti-business climate. But the LLC figures, which reflect the preferred type of entity for business owners, really just took a dive in the last year after cresting the previous three years. 

What do you think?

UPDATE: I'm still unearthing similar new-business data from other neighboring states, which don't appear to offer such information on their websites. So, it's taking some phone calls. For Maryland, I got 2008 and 2009 via a telephone conversation with an SDAT official, and 2005-07 figures from the SDAT annual report, which is available online.

Update 2: Here's a link to some Virginia data that I did find online, for years 2007 and 2008: http://www.scc.state.va.us/comm/anrept/2008_AR.pdf

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Bilski vs. Kappos -- a critical case that could decide the future of how patents are issued in the 21st century as the Internet plays a larger role in technology and innovation.

At the heart of the issue is whether a patent can be issued for software, and business methods and processes that are part of the software. Dozens of big companies have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case.

The Christian Science Monitor does a nice job of fleshing out the details of this story. Stay tuned.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

* Martin L. Johnson at the CityPaper last week had a good overview of the budding tech/events scene in Baltimore. Several local techies I've written about (and two of whom guest-posted on this blog a few weeks ago, Dave Troy and Mike Subelsky) were featured. Take a look.

* Mike Musgrove, the WashPost's tech reporter, profiled a North Baltimore video-game startup: Kalypso Media USA . They just launched a new strategy game called Tropico 3.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

I'm back!

Yes, I survived my week-long staycation, where I played a lot with my kid and did some home-improvement projects. ("Project" may be too strong of a word, actually.) The tech news, however, does not take a break.

In catching up on my Google Reader RSS feeds, de-cluttering my inbox, and mulling over some tech tidbits I discovered last week, I thought I'd share a couple items with you.

:: The Maryland Technology Development Corp., the state agency that guides tech development, said Friday that its president and executive director, Renee M. Winsky, was stepping down Aug. 28 (Here's The Baltimore Sun story). John Wasilisin, TEDCCO's current vice president and chief operating officer, will be the acting president and executive director upon Winsky’s departure next month. Today, we got word from the Washington Post's Kim Hart that Winsky will be the new executive director at the Tech Council of Maryland (which has been executive-director-less for nearly eight months.)

:: The blogosphere got fired up about the awarding of an $18 million government contract for a Maryland tech firm (Smartronix Inc.) to redesign Recovery.gov -- a site that will track federal stimulus spending under the Obama administration. Many are questioning why the government is spending so much on the project.

:: On my break, I read one book: The Accidental Billionaires, by Ben Mezrich, which purports to tell the tale -- with dramatic flourish -- of the founding of Facebook. I found it to be a good, quick read, though I -- along with others -- are still trying to figure out how to really categorize the book, either as non-fiction or fiction. (The Baltimore Sun's Jill Rosen has a good story on the book.) Mezrich is up front in talking about some of the artistic liberties he took to make the book readable. And a prime mover of the tale -- Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's principal founder -- didn't grant Mezrich an interview. Do I think it's the definitive story of Facebook? No. Actually, of all the real-life characters in the book, I found Sean Parker to be the most interesting. Parker, a co-founder of free music-sharing site Napster (which was shut down due to lawsuits), is depicted as a sparkling force of nature moving through Silicon Valley. The guy sounds like he's worthy of his own book and movie.

:: I also started reading another book. Free, by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired. I downloaded the book, for free, via Amazon.com straight to my iPhone. You still have to pay for a hard copy. I'm at the point where Anderson talks about the psychology of free vs charging even one penny for a product. Just by introducing a cost -- even if it's just one cent -- throws up a psychological hurdle for most consumers. A cautionary lesson for those businesses contemplating "micropayments" on the Web?

:: Change your passwords. A Twitter employee's Google account got hacked and the hacker dumped 300+ internal company documents to the tech press. TechCrunch has been publishing some of them, causing some furor. TechCrunch also questioned Twitter about its security practices for its server, whose password was allegedly, simply, "password." Yikes.

:: Lots of people went wiggy over Amazon.com deleting illegal copies of George Orwell's 1984 from their pricey Kindles. Amazon said it won't delete ebooks again. Lots of healthy debate right now on how far a company that sells digital content can go to pull back illegal versions of it it may inadvertently sell (as Amazon claims it did.) It seems we all have a long way to go in crafting privacy and commercial best practices and laws for these new gadgets in our lives.

What else did I miss, Balt techies??

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

 I continue to giggle at all the online news and blog-post headlines that we see thrown at us whenever "big tech news" breaks.

If something truly major (at least for the geekarati) happens, we inevitability see headlines tinged with violence and military analogies. Sometimes, they're just ridiculous and fun.

A supposedly game-changing product is usually called an "X slayer" or "Y Killer" -- something that will put down an aggressive competitor with a "death blow." Other verbs and analogies are tossed, like "rocked," "bomb," and "nuke."

Let's take yesterday's news about Google readying a new operating system, based on its Chrome browser, that will supposedly compete with Microsoft.

Here are some fun headlines:

* Five ways Microsoft Will Bring the Hurt to Google Chrome (PCWorld)

* Google drops a nuclear bomb on Microsoft. And it's made of Chrome. (TechCrunch)

* Google Chrome: Microsoft Killer? (CNN)

* Ten reasons why Google Chrome OS is no 'Windows Killer.'(Datamation)

* Google launches frontal attack on Microsoft. (Financial Times)

* Why Google's Chrome OS bomb has minimal fallout on Apple (TechCrunch via WashPost)

* Google to Microsoft: It's on (CNET)

* Google launching Chrome OS, firing torpedo into Microsoft (Silicon Alley Insider) -- My personal fave, btw. I mean, they got "torpedo" into a tech headline!

* Chrome OS: A nuclear death blow to smash Windows? (The Raw Feed)

Can you come up with an attention-grabbing headline for the Google Chrome OS vs. Microsoft story? Leave it in the comments below. I'll tweet my favorite ones later today.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

And now, faithful readers, we receive news that Google is planning its own operating system, in a direct challenge to Microsoft and its Windows hegemony. The New York Times and tech-news site Ars Technica, broke the news on their respective websites. Inquiries from the press forced Google to disclose the news a day earlier, last night, on their official blog, which gives a light rundown on why they're doing what they're doing.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

So what does this all really mean? From a competitive standpoint, some folks, like the guys at TechCrunch, see it as Google dropping "a nuclear bomb" on Microsoft, which dominates the personal computer OS market.

Most netbooks run slimmed down versions of Windows, running the XP platform, or Linux. Some tech watchers seem to think the netbook market is a race to the bottom -- in terms of price point and profitability, which is why many think Apple has shied away from putting one out -- and companies may eventually give them away for free in exchange for a commitment to a wireless Internet provider.

Do you think a Google Chrome OS can really compete against Microsoft Windows?

It appears that Google, at least for now, is mainly targeting the cheap netbook market with some good instincts: on ultra portable computers, people just want them to fire up quickly and get them on the Internet.

Having a fairly small, light Dell laptop running XP myself, it usually takes several minutes -- about 5, really -- to boot up from a cold start and get online. If Google's new OS can chop that time down to a minute or so -- without sacrificing security and functionality -- I think we'd have a contender. And maybe that's the sweet spot for Google -- getting your little laptop/netbook fired up quickly, without hassle. Does the thought of that get you going?

Want to read up on the Google Chrome OS news? Check out these stories.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: *NEWS*
        

I found out this afternoon that the Website for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel was down as a result of a cyber attack -- in what was described to me as the most serious attack to date on its site.

Mary Worth, an APL spokeswoman, was kind and helpful enough to share some early details on what's going on with the facility's external Website.

APL, if you didn't know, has scientists and engineers working closely with the military and NASA on classified and non-classified projects. How often are these cyber attacks happening at Maryland's research and military institutions? (Of which we have a good amount, if you haven't noticed.)

Here's a snippet of my story, followed by a link to it:

The Web site for Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, which works closely with the military and NASA on research projects, was hit with a cyber attack that officials discovered Sunday and which led them to take down the site until they analyze their computer systems, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday.

Officials at APL, which is based in Laurel, discovered "penetration from an unwanted source" on its external Web site over the weekend, prompting them to take the site offline, according to Helen Worth, a spokesman.

Worth said the Web site had been victimized in the past by smaller attacks, but this recent one was the most significant incident to date. The attackers accessed nonclassified information on the external Web site but did not gain access to classified information or the facility's internal network, Worth said.

As part of their internal review, officials are trying to figure out exactly what information was accessed, she said. "Unfortunately in this day and age, what we're experiencing isn't very different from what many others have experienced," Worth said.

Go to the full story.

Posted by Gus Sentementes at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: *NEWS*