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AFA Congratulates Advancing Teams in CyberPatriot Competition

3 Jan

Finally FastTech News from the Finally Fast Team

The Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot recently announced the top scoring teams who will be advancing to the third and final preliminary round of the nation’s largest high school cyber defense competition.

CyberPatriot, an education initiative produced by AFA in 2008, is a one-of-a-kind cyber defense competition that provides students hands-on learning about cyber security. CyberPatriot IV brought in more than 1,000 team registrations from all 50 states, U.S. Department of Defense Dependent Schools in Europe and the Pacific, and Canada in the two-track competition. Teams have registered from public, private, parochial and home schools in the Open Division, and JROTC units of all Services and Civil Air Patrol squadrons filled the All-Service Division.

 

During the second round of competition, held the first and third weekends of December, teams set out once again to defend virtualized networks of computers. Teams were scored according to how quickly and effectively they established and maintained secure networks. The scores of the first and second preliminary rounds were aggregated to determine which teams moved forward.

“There was a tremendous amount of effort being displayed by all the teams who participated in CyberPatriot IV, and we congratulate them for their hard work,” said Bernie Skoch, CyberPatriot Commissioner. “As these students are competing against their peers and having fun, they are also building skills and key knowledge in an area that is critical to our nation’s success. We are proud to be able to provide such an energetic and exciting venue for learning, and look forward to the remainder of this year’s competition.”

After Round 3, the top 12 qualifying teams of each division receive all-expenses-paid trips to the CyberPatriot National Championship Competition held in the Washington, DC area, in March 2012.

The final preliminary round for the All Service Division teams will be on January 13, while the Open Division competes again onJanuary 27.

CyberPatriot is presented by the Northrop Grumman Foundation, with founding partners SAIC and the CIAS at the University of Texas-San Antonio. CyberPatriot is also a member of the U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC), a national coalition of public-private sector entities collaborating to enhance the workforce with the next generation of cyber security professionals through skill development activities, mentoring, and resources, and the facilitation of scholarship, internship and employment opportunities.

The Air Force Association (AFA) is a 501(c)(3) organization that educates the public about the critical role of aerospace power in the defense of our nation, advocates aerospace power and a strong national defense, and supports the United States Air Force, the Air Force family and aerospace education. AFA has more than 200 chapters nationally and internationally representing more than 119,000 members.

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High School Estimates $100,000.00 in Energy Savings

12 Dec

finallyfast.comBusiness news from the Finally Fast team

In 2007 Adlai E. Stevenson High School inLincolnshire, Ill. set a goal to achieve U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Certification. With the help of Siemens Building Technologies Division, Stevenson recently achieved this goal by becoming the first high school in America to be certified LEED Gold for Existing Buildings (EB).

“Earning LEED Gold status is a validation of our ‘Green Initiative’ to reduce the schools carbon footprint,” said Stevenson High School assistant superintendent for Business Mark Michelini, who coordinated the effort. “Part of its mandate directed staff to embrace best practices—in collaboration with Siemens and support from partners Cannon Design and Sodexo, our facilities team created a master plan to address campus energy and resource consumption. We’ve met and exceeded those targets and the result is our LEED certification—a national benchmark and an achievement we all share—faculty, staff and especially the students.”

Stevenson, one of the largest high schools in the U.S., educates more than 4,500 students each year and has received the President’s Award for Excellence in Education five times. The sprawling campus features all the amenities and encompasses more than 1 million square feet of classroom, athletic, performing arts and administrative facilities.  Through a comprehensive understanding of the technical and operational aspects of the campus’ building automation, HVAC systems, lighting and other elements, Siemens was able to help the Stevenson Green Initiative committee develop a broad operational plan to systematically reduce water consumption and help the school cut back on electricity and natural gas use after hours.

Among key deliverables, Siemens provided full transparency of CO2, energy consumption and pricing through the company’s cloud-based Energy Monitoring and Control platform. Highly skilled energy technicians using cloud-based tools from Siemens Services group also delivered a comprehensive existing building continuous commissioning program—an essential element of LEED EB certification.

As a result, Stevenson was able to achieve its first set of energy consumption reduction targets set forth in its sustainability mission statement: Seven percent lower electricity use and five percent less natural gas consumption. According to Stevenson officials, those measures have saved the school over $100,000 in electricity and natural gas costs over the 22-month certification process.

“With any collaboration, the key is knowledge sharing on the one hand, and then the practical application of that knowledge on the other,” said Courtney Shoemaker, Energy Services, Siemens Building Technologies Division. “At the center of it was a comprehensive understanding of the interplay and interdependence of the school’s legacy building systems and operational practices, supported by data delivered by Siemens technology.”

Siemens Infrastructure & Cities Sector, with approximately 87,000 employees worldwide, offers sustainable technologies for metropolitan areas and their infrastructures. Its offerings include complete traffic and transportation systems, intelligent logistics, efficient energy supply, environmentally compatible building technologies, modernization of the way power is transmitted and distributed, and smart consumption of electricity.  The sector is comprised of the Rail Systems, Mobility and Logistics, Low and Medium Voltage, Smart Grid and Building Technologies Divisions as well as Osram Sylvania.

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eyeSight raises $4.2M in Funding

28 Nov

finallyfast.comTech news from the Finally Fast team

On Tuesady eyeSight Mobile Technologies, a developer of touch-free interfaces for digital devices, announced that it had completed a $4.2 million Series B round of funding.

The investment round was led by strategic investors CEVA, Inc. (NASDAQ: CEVA) (LSE:CVA), the leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, and Mitsui & Co. Global Investment, the investment arm of Japan’s trading giant Mitsui & Co., Ltd., which invests in medical healthcare, Cleantech, IT and consumer services.

Current investors also participated, including Prof. Eli Talmor, founder and chairman of the Coller Institute of Private Equity at the London Business School, who is the largest investor in eyeSight.

“The addition of proven market leaders such as CEVA and Mitsui emphasizes their strong belief in eyeSight’s innovative Gesture Recognition Technology and our ability to bring it to the mass market,” said Gideon Shmuel, eyeSight’s CEO. “Our investors realize that our software, which can be easily integrated into devices, chipset, operating systems and applications, provides an easy way to extend the normal user interface into new areas, offering greater interaction and user experience.”

CEVA, with its leading position in the DSP IP market and its strong presence across many devices and vendors in the handset and consumer electronic market, will boost eyeSight’s reach. Moreover, Mitsui’s prominent position in the Japanese market will help eyeSight in its attempt to expand its presence in that strategic local market.

eyeSight will offer its advanced portfolio of touch-free interface technologies, including gesture recognition and finger tracking software for users as part of the CEVA-MM3000 image signal processing (ISP) and video platform. The combined offering delivers an ultra-low power, software-based solution enabling the cost-efficient deployment of gesture recognition technologies in mass market devices.

“The combination of the fully programmable CEVA-MM3000 together with eyeSight’s industry-leading gesture technology clearly demonstrates the versatility of our powerful, software-based ISP and video platform significantly,” said Gideon Wertheizer, CEO of CEVA. “This partnership expands the market reach for our CEVA-MM3000 platform to include the burgeoning embedded vision and scene analysis arenas and we are excited to bring the two companies closer together through this equity investment.”

“Mitsui & Co. Global Investment Ltd. is delighted to have invested in eyeSight to support the continued success of its innovative gesture recognition technology that will help transform the way individuals interact with devices,” said Katsuhiko Oizumi, CEO of Mitsui & Co. Global Investment Ltd. “We are excited at the prospect of working with the talented management team and the high quality co-investors to establish eyeSight as a key player in the gesture recognition market.”

eyeSight will showcase its gesture recognition technology for Smart-TVs and digital devices at the 2012 International CES show on January 10-13 in Las Vegas.

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IBM donates computing solution to Union College

26 May

Business news from the Finally Fast team

IBM is donating one of its Intelligent Cluster computing solutions to Union College, providing the school with the greatest computing capability of any undergraduate liberal arts college in the nation. Union College is located in Schenectady, New York.

The announcement was made Saturday afternoon at the dedication of the College’s new Peter Irving Wold Center. Named after Peter Irving Wold, chairman of Union College’s Physics Department from 1920 to 1945, the $22 million, three-story, 35,000-square-foot building housing interdisciplinary research facilities, classroom space and an advanced computing lab is the latest milestone in Union’s long history of integrating engineering with the traditional liberal arts and sciences.

“Union College is a leader in educating students — and performing research — at the intersection of liberal arts, science and engineering,” said Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow and vice president of Innovation. “That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about our collaboration with Union, which is focused on expanding the use of deep analytics and computer driven discovery and helping drive successful education and research projects over several years.”

The high-performance computing cluster, which consists of 88 servers and more than 1,000 individual processors, will be housed in the College’s data center. The college expects to install the computing system this summer.

Initial users of the computing cluster are expected to include faculty and students in biology, chemistry, engineering, classics, geosciences, and physics. Joint research projects between IBM and the college will focus on Neuroscience Imaging as well as installing sensors and collecting environmental data along the Mohawk River.

“We always envisioned the Wold Center as a catalyst for innovation, creativity and the integration of disciplines,” said Union President Stephen C. Ainlay. “The computing cluster not only complements the exciting work going on at the Wold Center, it advances our role as a pioneer in liberal education. Partnerships with global leaders such as IBM give Union students access to the kinds of hands-on opportunities that prepare them to tackle real-world problems.”

“This gift will provide a robust infrastructure to support and enhance current faculty research, enabling faculty to ask broader or deeper questions and work with larger amounts of information,” said Ellen Yu Borkowski, Union’s chief information officer. “It also supports Union’s efforts to integrate computation in creative ways throughout our curriculum.”

Union College, founded in 1795 as the first college chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, offers programs in the liberal arts and engineering to 2,100 undergraduates of high academic promise and strong personal motivation. Union, with its long history of blending disciplines, is a leader in educating students to be engaged, innovative and ethical contributors to an increasingly diverse, global and technologically complex society.

Seeing Green: Ideas for a Better Data Center

30 Mar

From the FinallyFast Help Desk:

While the “Zeronet” data center (that is, a data center that features net zero energy consumption) may be difficult or impossible to achieve with the systems, budget, or logistics you have in place, IT administrators at all points in the “legacy system” spectrum can take positive steps toward greening up IT infrastructure and saving significant energy costs that impact the bottom line. Here are a few strategies to think about:

Get hip to power management – The simple decision of configuring servers to operate at minimum power levels when not in use can save anywhere from 10% to 20% in data center energy costs. In the green way of doing things, IT admins need to examine downtime as much as they do uptime. Be smart about power management, an essential yet often overlooked tool in your toolbox.

Pay attention to the cooling system – Organizing your server racks according to the hot aisle/cold aisle containment system is a very important step toward exceptional energy efficiency. This involves server racks facing each other (creating “hot aisles”), and an air-conditioning system (complete with raised floor) that takes advantage of this concentration of heat. While it may be a significant expense if your server room is not set up for this configuration, the return of investment can be realized within a few short years.

Junk the legacy systems – The idea of “junking” doesn’t really do your cherished legacy system justice—it’s delivered the company many years of admirable service, and it may in fact be working just fine at the moment. It’s also, of course, a royal pain to think about the massive data transfer to be undertaken with any upgrade. But a generation of new and greener technology is achieving a level of energy efficiency that legacy systems can only dream about. Server upgrade is perhaps the single most impactful item on your list.

Go virtual – Server virtualization is also a key aspect of any green plan, particularly if you are loaded down with tons of outdated information and a variety of legacy systems. By consolidating data and then running more virtual servers on less physical servers, your data center will get smarter and smarter about gobbling up energy.

Get the bosses on board – Dovetailing off of the last point, it’s essential to get the check-cutters enthusiastic and involved with your green IT strategy. Make it a company-wide initiative to evaluate total energy costs and determine the ROI of implementing a green IT strategy. After all, the best way to go green (for the environment) is to get them to go green (for the money)!

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New Survey Discovers Growth in Phone Gaming

10 Mar

From the FinallyFast Help Desk:

A survey recently conducted by Information Solutions Group found large increases in overall usage and frequency of mobile game playing among U.S. and U.K. adults. The survey also found that among mobile phone gamers, the mobile phone is now the primary gaming device of choice, leapfrogging video game consoles and personal computers in less than two years. Further, “smartphone” owners (the fastest-growing mobile segment) are by far the most avid consumers of mobile phone games. These and other purchase and consumption trends identified in the survey suggest significant growth in the mobile games sector will continue for the foreseeable future.

Overall, more than half (52%) of the 2,425 survey respondents said they had played a game on a mobile phone at some time in the past; 73% of U.K. respondents said they had played a mobile phone game at least once, compared to 44% of U.S. residents surveyed. A portion of those U.K. respondents appear to have been one-time users, as most other usage data found similar activity and trends across the countries. 33.6% of all adults in America and the United Kingdom have played a game on their mobile phone handset in the past month, qualifying them as “mobile phone gamers” for the purposes of the survey, and nearly a quarter (24.6%) have played in the past week, qualifying them as “avid mobile phone gamers.” Fully 83% of mobile phone gamers who own a smartphone said they’d played in the past week.

Among the other survey findings,
• 84% of all mobile phone gamers, and 97% of avid mobile phone gamers say they play games on their phone at least once a week; 92% of smartphone owners who play mobile games say they play at least once a week, and 45% say they play daily (compared to 35% of all mobile phone gamers). In the 2009 survey, only 13% of mobile phone gamers said they played daily, and 40% said they played weekly or more often.
• Among all mobile phone gamers, 50% said that the amount of time they spend playing games on their handset has increased over the past year, and among smartphone owners the figure climbs to 63%; in the 2009 survey, only 20% of mobile gamers indicated their consumption of mobile games had increased.
• Among all mobile phone gamers, 78% indicated that playing mobile phone games had become a regular part of their weekly activities, and more than half (59%) indicated that they saw such games as a regular part of their daily activities; for smartphone owners the figures were 84% and 68%, respectively.
• When asked which gaming-capable device they play games on most often, 44% of mobile phone gamers chose their phones, catapulting handsets past video game consoles (21%) and computers (30%) to the top of the list. 51% of avid mobile gamers and 55% of those mobile gamers who own smartphones indicated they played games most often on their phones. This compares to just 17% of mobile gamers who chose their handset as their most frequently used gaming device in the 2009 survey.
• 43% of all mobile gamers, and 49% of smartphone gamers, said they had upgraded a free trial game to the full (paid) version in the past year; more than a quarter (27%) of all mobile gamers, and a third (34%) of smartphone gamers, said they had paid for additional content for an originally free game in the past year.
• Among mobile phone gamers, the average smartphone owner purchased nearly twice as many games as those with other types of phones (5.4 games vs. 2.9 games) in 2010, and spent almost $10 more ($25.57 vs. $15.70) on phone games.
• 19% of all mobile phone gamers said they played one or more social networking games via their phone daily, and more than a third (37%) said they play a social networking game via their phone at least once a week.
• Among all mobile phone gamers, 23% of all mobile phone device usage time (excluding phone calls) is spent playing games.

The results are based on 2,425 online surveys completed by members of the world’s largest online ePanel (Toluna) in the United States and United Kingdom between January 25 and January 31, 2011.

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