Looming crisis.

There’s no denying that the population of the UK is, on average, getting older every year.  The aging population is producing concerns of pressure on the labour market at a time when demand IT workers is increasing. The Work Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation, has called on politicians and policy makers to do more to address the issue.

The Work Foundation has produced a report, Towards a Global Labour Market?, which states that soaring demand for highly skilled workers, along with existing skills shortages and the UK’s ageing population, means businesses must look to source workers from abroad if Britain is to remain competitive.

The report suggests that a points-based immigration system will not be sufficient and politicians must actively make the case for highly skilled migrants.

The report also points out that companies base themselves where there’s a readily available source of skilled workers can influence - especially for companies working at the cutting edge of R&D. A further statement suggests that the hostile view of immigration could harm the hi-tech sector as foreign workers are discouraged from coming to Britain.

It’s an interesting read. Here’s my ‘finger in the pie’: the aging population could be retrained. There are plenty of tech savvy members of the older generation who would love to get some real hands on the IT industry. The government should be doing more to promote technology and sciences in higher education rather than pushing students into useless learning paths - “I want a degree in ‘bed testing!”

One final thought;  recent reports show that a large number of Indian workers are upping sticks and going home. Why? Because they see India as the ‘next big thing’ offering greater opportunities and wealth than Europe or America. Hmm, how are we going to deal with that? Over to you.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Time for the gloves to come off.

Via Technologies have release the Nano, a new energry efficient CPU, in a bid to enter the market currently dominated by Intels Atom processor.  The 64 bit CPU will, initially, power a range of mini-notebooks.

Via has claimed that the Nano will be capable of processing four times as much data per watt as its predecessor, the Via C7 (which powers the HP2133).

The Nano range will come in five flavours: from 1.0GHz (5W) to 1.8GHz (25W) with bus speeds of 800MHz. Via has staked a claim that the 1.8GHz Nano performs around two-and-a-half times faster on browser and standard office tasks compared with a C7 at the same clock speed.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Punched from all angles!

There’s yet another ‘Blu-ray killer’ on the loose. I’m starting to feel sorry for Blu-ray, it looks everyman and his dog is out to bludgeon the format! Enough. Toshiba is working on extending the DVD format in order to offer Blu-ray-like video quality. The new format should be available in Toshiba DVD products in about 6 months time - at a lower price than Blu-ray players (now there’s aggressive marketing!)

According to sources, the new DVD player will be backwards-compatible with standard DVD discs - yeah, if it isn’t expect to see ‘many rats jumping ship’! On top of this, there is a claim circulating that suggests that the new technology would be able produce much higher-resolution images from existing DVDs - hmm, we’ll see.

So, another attempt by a major manufacturers to extend the lifespan of its existing  technologies by adding additional data formats. Will it work? I suppose I’ll have to fork out some cash and let you know - in about 6 months time.

Popularity: 6% [?]

But doesn’t make up for the loss of the NHS!

As you may be aware, Fujitsu have had the NHS contract for the South and South East regions terminated - £800 million worth. Not a good start to the financial year!

Hot on the heels of this loss comes the announcement of a contract win. Fujitsu have picked up a further two year contract with the Environment Agency to continue to develop a managed service that protects the public from the riskof flooding. During this period, Fujitsu will assist the Environment Agency to evolve the system to meet the recommendations of the Pitt Review.

The system, Floodline Warnings Direct (FWD), was designed and developed by Fujitsu in association with the Environment Agency and was opened up to the public at the beginning of 2006. It is a map based application, hosted in Fujitsu. The map based app allows the Environment Agency to determine target areas for pre-defined warning messages.

So, as long as it works, you should have plenty of time to get out before you house slips beneath the waves!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Server hardware on steroids.

The latest additions to Sun’s range of64-bit and x86 servers has been announced. The Sun Fire and Sun Blade will be powered by AMD Opteron quad-core processors. And you get a choice of OS: Solaris 10, OpenSolaris, Linux AND Windows. Ok, nothing new on the MS announcement but it’s good to see Sun catering for all. Maybe some other companies should take a leaf out of Sun’s book.

The new x64 systems with quad-core AMD Opteron processors should offer increased performance, scalability and energy efficiency. All this adds up to - more value…theoretically. I haven’t seen the prices yet. That said, there are indications that consumers are already more than happy with Sun’s offerings with statistics showing that Opteron-based Sun Fire servers has been deployed by more than 12,000 customers at over 31,000 locations.

The quad-care Opteron Sun Fire X2200 M2, Sun Fire X4100 M2, Sun Fire X4140, Sun Fire X4200 M2, Sun Fire X4240 and Sun Fire X4440 servers are available now.

The quad-core Opteron Sun Fire X4600 M2 and Sun Blade X8440 servers are expected by the end of the quarter.

Popularity: 14% [?]

What?

Let’s be fair, the tech industry doesn’t have great ‘green’ credentials. Just consider these areas:  power consumption, the use of toxic ubstances, over-packaging, air conditioning and product life cycle. Dismal, eh? But times are changing. More and more, companies recognise the need to go ‘green’ to save the planet (and avoid being taxed to the hilt!).

Unified Threat Management.

What’s that got to do with the environment? More than you think. UTM places a number of security appliances into a single package. This reduces infrastructure requirements thereby reducing power consumption, hardware and all the other bits that go with it. The ability to add futher components to UTM increases its ‘greeness’. Just think, virtualised UTM - save yourself some big bucks.

Will companies ‘get it’?

Probably. The virtualisation of whole environments saves huge sums of money. Add UTM to the mix and any company/person specialising in these areas is onto a winner - time to brush up on your skillset?

Popularity: 6% [?]

White van man knows where you live!

Navevo, the UK’s leading specialist GPS oftware developer, has today unveiled its sat-nav solution for drivers of heavy goods vehicles and vans.

The NAVTEQ Transport, ProNav GPS uses dynamic routing and
navigation optimisation based on a vehicle’s dimensions and legal restrictions
to avoid incidents such as travelling down unsuitable narrow roads or crossing
bridges with vehicles that break weight restrictions.

Key Features:
-    Enhanced GPS navigation for HGVs, vans, horse transporters, caravans or
trailers
-    Dynamic routing and navigation optimisation based on
-    Vehicle dimensions (e.g. height, width, length, weight)
-    Legal restrictions (e.g. no HGVs allowed, carrying hazardous goods)
-    Other warning data (e.g. cross winds, steep hills)
-    London unloading and parking penalties database
-    POI data for professional drivers

Navevo will be extending its ProNav software to work with commercial fleet
mobile market solutions in the near future. Here’s your oppurtunity to set up an outsourced white label tracking system!

Popularity: 6% [?]

It’s not only the UK government having ‘problems’.

It looks like the governments of other countries are experiencing issues with data protection, in this case: Chile. A hacker managed steal personal information relating to 6 million people and post the data onto a technology blog. Details included: ID numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, emails and academic records. A report suggests that the theft was designed to highlight the poor security of Chilean government systems (or maybe the hacker was just having fun!).

The announcemnet prompted Graham Cluely, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, to state;”Chile may be on the other side of the world, but the scale of this data breach should not be ignored,”. “No matter how moral or ethical the motive, this prank was irresponsible and has left almost 40 per cent of Chile’s population at risk of identity theft.”

I wonder who’s next?

Popularity: 5% [?]

That’s a really fat pipe!

Do you remeber the Virgin 40Gb trial? On the back of this success Virgin have announced the launch of a 50Gbps network service.

The test, using Juniper’s routers and Nortel’s Adaptive Optical Engine, was the first of its kind in the UK. No date has bee announced for the launch of the new service but Virgin have stated that there will be four levels of service with corresponding speeds: 2Gbps, 10Gbps, 20Gbps and 50Gbps.

Virgin meda now has about 3.5 million customers with the number growing at about 80,000 - 90,000 per month.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Tech giant in the making.

HP has announced that it’s interested in buying EDS. Now there’s a headline. The acquistion would create a technology company of epic proportions. The deal is expected to cost HP between $12 - $13 billion and would see HP pick up a huge number of outsourced projects that EDS currently has on the books.

The talks are ‘advanced’. This isn’t the biggest buyout for HP - the company paid $20 billion to acquire Compaq back in 2002 but would certainly prove very profitable. Take the UK as an example; EDS has a huge number of projects running for the government.

Popularity: 4% [?]