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Is information technology destroying more jobs than it creates? That’s long been the conventional wisdom, of course. Proponents of IT, on the other hand, point to the new types of opportunities created as a result of the march of technology — from programming to analytics to technicians. However, two longtime proponents of IT as an opportunity creator — Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, both with MIT — have taken a darker view of IT’s impact on the economy. In the latest edition of MIT Technology Review, David Talbot reviewed Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s new book: Race Against The Machine: How the...

An “Occupy Cleveland” protester tells police she was raped in her tent over the weekend.

Xerox, whose CEO, Ursula Burns, is advising President Obama on exports, last week told its product engineering employees that it is in outsourcing talks with India-based IT services firm HCL Technologies... Burns was appointed last year as vice chairwoman of the President's Export Council, a panel of CEOs advising the Obama administration on how to increase exports, which would lead to an increase in domestic jobs... Burns is outspoken on the need to improve the pool of math and science graduates in U.S. schools. In a recent video interview on CNN, she warned that if graduation rates in these areas...

When Jennifer Barassa started her business, she did not even have a computer. She thought she saw a gap in the market, set up in her sitting room and spent her first 30 shillings (35 US cents) paying someone to type a letter for her. Fifteen years later, her marketing promotion agency, Top Image, turns over more than $3m a year and employs more than 300 people in three countries, hired to promote everything from mobile phones to bank accounts to the continent’s growing consumer class. Nor does she intend to stop there: next she wants to take on multinational...

The buzz at Pivot25, a conference for mobile-phone software developers and investors held this June, is all about the future of money. Ben Lyon, the 24-year-old business-development VP of Kopo Kopo, wants $250,000 to produce his app for shops to process payments made by text message. Paul Okwalinga, 28, describes his money app — called M-Shop, it allows you to buy travel tickets and takeout via mobile phone — as "not reinventing the wheel but pimping it." Kamal Budhabhatti, 35, claims Elma, the latest product from his company Craft Silicon, lets a phone do and be almost anything financial —...

Skype, the IP telephony company founded and part-owned by Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström, has been bought bought by US software giant Microsoft, the firms confirmed on Tuesday afternoon. The statement confirmed speculation over the deal to buy the firm, whose product allows users to conduct video and telephone calls over the internet. Microsoft confirmed that the deal is worth some $8.5 billion, dwarfing the $6 billion the US firm paid for online advertising firm aQuantive in 2007 and its largest acquisition since its founding in 1975. The news of the pending deal has shocked analysts who consider the price to...

Why is Scandinavia rich? "- Because of oil", some would reply. It's true Norway has oil. Libiya too has. Libiya, in fact, has even more of it than Norway does. More gas too. But Libiya isn't rich like Norway is. A tour in the average Norwegian family's leisure boat and a vacation spent in their "hytte" - summer house - could probably make them Libiyans reflect upon this issue. In fact, Norway has more dollar millionaires than any other country has. Perhaps it's a matter of playing your cards well.. I personally love Germany (and Norge/Norway as well). Germans are...

If you’re an IT manager or senior IT executive in the evaluation phase for turning over some of your infrastructure to the cloud, you’re not alone. Cloud adoption can vary by industry and organization, but cloud computing is rapidly making inroads into most organizations. According to a recent survey of 600 senior IT and business executives by Savvis, 70 percent of IT decision makers are using or plan to use cloud computing in their own enterprises within 24 months. While concerns about security, identity, SLAs, and other topics are still on the minds of many IT pros, those concerns are...

WASHINGTON – An eHealth agreement, promoting a common approach on the interoperability of EHRs and on training the health IT workforce, was signed between Europe and the United States on Friday. Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius signed the Memorandum of Understanding in Washington. The agreement aims to boost the potential of the eHealth market for EU companies wishing to do business in the U.S. and vice-versa. "Nothing makes more of a difference to people's lives than good health," said Kroes. "I warmly welcome today's agreement. It is an excellent basis for the Commission...

An (I/T) H1B who works at my company is returning to India because his visa expired. When one of my peers asked him if he has a job in India yet, the H1B just waved his hand and said, “there are plenty of jobs in India; I am not worried about that.”. It is amazing how far America has fallen.

News Desk: Breaking News! In a condemnable incident, an unidentified low-profile man ripped pages out of a Quran and burnt them outside the proposed Community Center and Mosque near Ground Zero. Even though Pastor of the Florida Church Terry Jones cancelled his plan to burn the Quran due to international pressure and criticism, the unidentified zealot did not bother and set the Quran pages on fire. "If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Quran. Americans should never be afraid to give their opinion", he said. The news was first reported by the New York Daily News. Even...

The July 2010 Dice Report shows that software development skills in general and C# skills in particular are more in demand this year, making Dice's top 10 list of in-demand skills. In addition, Dice reports that there are more open full-time IT positions this year than last year at this time. But the numbers are still a far cry from the number of open positions in July 2008. The July 2010 Dice Report shows that software development skills in general and C# skills in particular are more in demand this year, making Dice's top 10 list of in-demand skills. In...

U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers $22 million, federally-backed program aims to help outsourcers in South Asia become more fluent in areas like Java programming—and the English language. By Paul McDougall, InformationWeek Aug. 3, 2010 URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226500202 Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $22 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia. Following their training, the tech workers will be placed with outsourcing vendors in the region that provide offshore IT and business...

Despite President Obama's pledge to retain more hi-tech jobs in the U.S., a federal agency run by a hand-picked Obama appointee has launched a $22 million program to train workers, including 3,000 specialists in IT and related functions, in South Asia.

It gets crazier with each passing day. Today we learned that Obama has proclaimed NASA’s new foremost task is to reach out to the Muslim world and make the Muslim people feel good about their historic contribution to science. As far as actual space flight goes, it seems NASA won’t go into space anymore beyond low Earth orbit, although it may form partnerships with other nations for this purpose.

Sweden has the world's most hooked-up economy, according to a new report from the World Economic Ranking (WEF). Nordic countries all performed well on the list in the WEF Global Information Technology report released on Thursday. Sweden displaced Denmark to rank first on the chart, with the Danes sliding to third place. Other Nordic countries were also in the top 10, with Finland in sixth place and Norway in tenth. Singapore crept closer to the top, moving up from fourth place last year to second place now. Fellow Asian economy Hong Kong was in eighth place, also gaining from 12th...

Intimidation of Foreign Workers Now Aimed at Americans: Facebook, Yahoo, Comcast Drawn In Donna Conroy, Director of Bright Future Jobs and John Doe, the administrator of Endh1b.com named in the suit comment on the New Jersey order, Apex Technology Group vs. John Does. Nuisance lawsuits and threats of legal entanglement, long used by Indian H-1b labor contractors to silence Indian tech workers, have now been aimed at an American tech worker website, endh1b.com, for reposting an Indian H-1B worker's testimony of mistreatment by Apex Technology Group, including a link to an employment contract binding the worker to Apex. Bond agreements...

The US government appears to be loosening its grip on the governance of the Internet, a move welcomed by many. But critics see the government shirking its obligations to support free expression and free trade. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the private corporation that coordinates the technical oversight of the Internet's Domain Name System through a longstanding agreement with the U.S. government, on Wednesday announced a new agreement with US Department of Commerce designed to make Internet governance less unilateral and more open to international input. Questioning NTIA's statutory authority, Auerbach suggests that if NTIA can...

US Government recommends weighing laptop before and after each visit. Senior executives in US IT companies have been advised by the US Government to follow extremely strict policies for visits to China which extend far beyond standard software protection. The policies encourage them to leave their standard IT equipment at home and to buy separate gear only for use in China. Mark Bregman, chief technology officer at security firm Symantec said he left his MacBook Pro behind in the US and took his MacBook Air whenever he flew to China. Bregman said he only ever used the Air in...

This is Congressman Eugene Green (HT to an e-mailer), Democrat from Texas, telling the world that if you're not from his District, you're not welcome at his future town hall meetings -- oh, and how he'll enforce his new rule (bold is his):