COMPUTER HISTORY

Computer IT loses more and more women as Gen-X takes over workforce
"...not only are women leaving such jobs, few are showing interest in joining the expanding profession...Stamford, Conn.-based research firm Gartner Inc. predicts that by 2012, 40% of women now in the IT workforce will move away from technical career paths to pursue more flexible business, functional, and research and development careers..."
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9017181&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top

CYBERCRIME

Computer hackers cut power to multiple cities ransom for money
"...Cyber-security experts have long warned of the vulnerability of critical infrastructure like power, transportation and water systems to malicious hackers. Friday, those warnings quietly became a reality: Tom Donahue, a CIA official, revealed at the SANS security trade conference in New Orleans that hackers have penetrated power systems in several regions outside the U.S., and "in at least one case, caused a power outage affecting multiple cities...In the past two years, hackers have in fact successfully penetrated and extorted multiple utility companies that use SCADA systems, says Alan Paller, director of the SANS Institute, an organization that hosts a crisis center for hacked companies. "Hundreds of millions of dollars have been extorted, and possibly more. It's difficult to know, because they pay to keep it a secret," Paller says. "This kind of extortion is the biggest untold story of the cybercrime industry."
http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/18/cyber-attack-utilities-tech-intel-cx_ag_0118attack_print.html

Internet sports betting becomes domain of criminal organizations
"...Declan Hill, a journalist and British expert on the problem, says the amount of corruption in global sports has increased almost 100-fold in the past five years thanks to Internet-based gambling.

"The sector of online gaming is today mostly controlled by criminal groups," the security firm said in the study commissioned by a group of European state lotteries.

Players had been approached and threatened, referees influenced, and matches bought, it found.

This is the form of corruption that threatens the credibility of sport the most but more common is money laundering, which seems to have become almost routine, based on the amounts of money paid through certain less profitable websites, even for sporting events of little significance.

Alarmingly, the amount of money traded on a single website can surpass 100,000 euros for a match in the third division football in Romania, or even the first division of the Czech women's league.

Experts estimate that 85 percent of these websites have been created for the sole purpose of "washing away" dirty money..."
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRJg0gH1j4888jPzeIQQm7QS4UvA

You don't know your market - Video Production

Machinima" and "cinematic" games compete with film

• Movie industry admits it "overstated" movie piracy on campus
  Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong...The math was wrong by a factor of three; the new estimate is down (from 45%) to 15 percent of the industry’s losses.
  http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/movie-industry-admits-it-overstated-piracy-on-campus/
   
• (Feb 2007) Viacom demands YouTube remove 100,000 videos, YouTube complys
  http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/03/BUGJ8NU0FH1.DTL
   
• HDTV AND A GIANT SCREEN DOES NOT improve the TV picture
  http://www.livescience.com/blogs/topic/society/
   
• HDTV no better than regular TV - but consumers can't tell
   
• 100+ inch screens begin manufacture (only 60,000)
  http://www.livescience.com/technology/070131_huge_tvs.html
   
• Machinima - Shooting your film in virtual reality
  http://www.machinima.com/
   
• Music videos tap video games
  http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65140,00.html
   
• YouTube - movies made in the virtual 3D game world of "Second Life"
  http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?name=secondlife
   
• "Bells and Spurs" - an example of Machinima
  http://bellsandspurs.com/
   
• Paul Verhoeven to hold auditions in Second Life for "Black Book 2"
  http://www.3pointd.com/20070423/paul-verhoeven-to-hold-auditions-in-second-life/
   
• Designing the "cinematic" aspect of games
  http://www.microsoft.com/games/riseofnations/behind_wallace.asp
   
• Consumers begin creating their own TV commercials on "social networking" websites (youtube.com example)
  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nestle
   
• Create your own TV commercials for Current TV
  http://www.current.tv/studio/create/vcam
   
• Independent film festival highlights potential of the 2-inch screen
  http://news.com.com/2061-10801_3-6048662.html
   
• Cellphone film contest
  http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-22-cell-movies_x.htm
   
• Cellphone film festival - film for the 1-inch screen
  http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64698,00.html?tw=wn_story_related
  http://www.zoiefilms.com/cellularcinema.html
• Atom films - upload your film
  http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/music/
   
• Automated video editing for the masses
  http://www.forbes.com/columnists/free_forbes/2005/0110/052.html

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