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Here’s a look at Hyve Solutions’ model 1500 server, which adopts the Open Compute 2.0 “Windmill” two-wide server design to a 19-inch rack (Photo: Colleen Miller)

You’ve probably heard of Facebook’s custom server designs, which were unveiled when the company opened its first data center and launched the Open Compute project in 2011. You may be less familiar with Hyve Solutions, but the Fremont, Calif. company has been a significant player in building server hardware for Facebook. Hyve is a business unit of Synnex Corporation, which does contract assembly work for OEMs and large end users, and is part of a growing ecosystem of original design manufacturers and custom server specialists that have supported Facebook. Hyve has taken the lead in developing products based on Open Compute designs, so that other companies can begin to take advantage of some of the latest innovations in open hardware. At the recent Open Compute Summit in Santa Clara, Steve Ichinaga and Howard Cohen from the Hyve team gave Data Center Knowledge a look at hardware optimized for existing 19-inch racks, as well as the 21-inch wide Open Rack standard.

For additional video on data centers, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

According to a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, AT&T has agreed to acquire spectrum licenses from Verizon Wireless for $1.9 billion. The 700 MHz Block B licenses will cover 42 million people in California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

The deal also includes AT&T handing over to Verizon Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum licenses in markets such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, Fresno, and Portland, Oregon.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), but AT&T expects the transaction to be completed sometime in the second half of 2013.

The transaction is part of a 700 MHz spectrum sale that Verizon announced last year. The sale is part of an agreement made with U.S. regulators so that Verizon could acquire spectrum from cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner.

This spectrum acquisition comes just after AT&T announced this week that it will buy Alltel for $780 million. Alltel is a smaller wireless carrier that serves around 585,000 subscribers in the rural areas of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, and Idaho. AT&T announced last year that its goal is to provide 300 million Americans with access to its 4G LTE network by 2014.

Last week Chen Demin, China’s commerce minister, offered an upbeat outlook for China’s overall 2013 economy, forecasting steady improvement in domestic consumption and investment, and predicting that foreign direct investment over the coming year would also remain stable. In his remarks, Chen emphasized that foreign investors should look favorably upon the opportunities in China, notably those connected to China’s construction of many new small and medium-sized cities and towns.

We agree. Robust new construction in China and a soaring rate of urbanization promise unprecedented levels of consumption and overall GDP growth that should only invite greater confidence among foreign investors.

As we stress in The $10 Trillion Dollar Prize, urbanization is one of the most powerful transformative economic forces in China today. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, 51 per cent of China’s population, or 691 million people, are currently living in urban areas. Research suggests that by 2020, some 824 million people will be living in cities, an increase of 188 million. That’s one and a half million new urban residents every month for the rest of this decade. By 2030, according to our analysis, there will be around 270 million more new urban residents in China.

But the distribution of China’s urban population is vastly different from that of many other nations, with the majority of that population located in midsize cities ranging between 500,000 and 5 million people.

Typically, and perhaps not surprisingly, U.S. and European companies entering China have focused on the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. But we tell them that this is a mistake. There are pockets of wealth all across the country, and the wealth is spreading deep into the country’s western provinces.

By our calculations, a company had to be in 60 cities to reach 80 percent of the country’s middle class in 2005. Today, they have to be in 340 of them. And by 2020, they will need to be in 550 urban locations to reach that same percentage of the middle class population.

We regroup the cities of China into a series of four categories, including megacities, cluster capitals, specialist hubs, and horizon towns, as follows:

• Megacities. China boasts two megacities — Beijing and Shanghai — each with more than 10 million residents. There are also eight cities with more than 10 million people, and another 93 cities with more than 5 million people. To put this into context, the U.S. has only one city with more than 5 million people — New York.
• Cluster Capitals. These include Changshu, Daqing, Dongguan, Fuzhou, Tianjin, Wuxi, and Zhengzhou. These are trade hubs surrounded by smaller “satellite” cities. Wuxi, for example, is the capital of a group of six cities within a 30-mile radius in Jiangsu province: Jingjiang, Zhangjiangang, Changshu, Jiangyin, Changzhou, and Suzhou. On its own, Wuxi has a population of 2.3 million people, including 572,000 middle class consumers. Treated as part of a cluster, however, it becomes the center of a market with 6.9 million people and 1.5 million middle class consumers.
• Specialist hubs. These are cities whose growth is often closely linked to the development of local natural resources or industrial hubs. These include Anyang, Bozhou, Chengdu, Lu’an, Suizhou, Xinxiang, and Yongzhou.
• Horizon towns. Finally, there are also hundreds of small, geographically dispersed emerging-market cities. Although hard to reach, they offer ripe market opportunities — consumers in these towns usually have more basic needs than those of their counterparts in the bigger cities, but they also have a strong willingness selectively to “trade up” to pricier luxury goods.

And take note of one other very promising related trend: as reported by The Wall Street Journal last month, China’s droves of migrant workers (reportedly 252 million strong in 2011) who journey from the country’s remote rural areas into cities to offer their labor to construction and manufacturing firms are increasingly remaining in those cities for longer periods of time. If this phenomenon continues — and especially if China’s new government relaxes the household registration policy (known as “hukou“) that for years has forbidden workers from taking advantage of local benefits (including schools for their children) — these workers will constitute an ever more powerful new urban work force, and a formidable contingent of newly affluent consumers. As they are permitted to participate in the local social welfare system of the cities where they’ve relocated, these workers will feel less pressured to save every yuan they earn. They will feel newly emboldened to spend their income on a broad range of products and services, contributing to what we believe will amount to some $6.2 trillion in annual consumer spending in China by 2020. And that’s a potential milestone that few foreign investors should ignore.

A new solution to a first world problem wants your money.

How often do you find yourself unable to properly text, Facebook, or play Temple Run because you’re forced to use one of your free hands holding a cup of coffee. If this scenario hits home, help may be on the way.

It’s called the UpperCup, and it’s the iPhone/cup holder that you never knew you wanted.

“No more one handed typing. No more spilling coffee. Have your hands free for your optimal texting, gaming and social networking pleasure,” says Dutch marketing agency Natwerk.

Awesome! You want one, right?

Well, you can’t have one – yet. Natwerk is currently crowdfunding the project on indiegogo. They’ve set a goal of $25,000 to get the UpperCup into production and say that if/when it hits the shelves, it will do so with a $35 price tag. As of now, the’ve only managed to collect a little under $800 with 36 days left in the campaign.

This is admittedly a little ridiculous. But I can totally see it selling.

[via BuzzFeed]

By now, despite the massive amount of fans PSY has accrued, some of you may be getting a little tired of hearing “Gangnam Style”. It’s been a web sensation since it premiered last year, with the Korean pop star performing at awards shows and events all over the country and even pairing up with MC Hammer for the AMA’s.

But, seriously, this will probably make your day. Curb your over-itness and take a look.

Groupon announced today that its Breadcrumb POS service has a new overnight emergency parts replacement plan called AirLift, which will will let restaurants and bars using the Breadcrumb iPad POS system pay an extra $100 per terminal purchased for this extra service.

AirLift, Groupon says, protects businesses for two years, by getting them back up and running with parts replacement for accidental damage and hardware defects.The plan protects expensive equipment against things like cracked screens and water damage. The accidental damage claims do require a $50 deductible. Breadcrumb already provides a one year free coverage plan for basic manufacturing defects.

Breadcrumb founder Seth Harris says, “Breadcrumb is more than an iPad POS app. We’re committed to providing our food and beverage clients with the equipment, infrastructure and 24/7 support they need for a critical piece of their business.”

The AirLift plan offers overnight shipping on replacement parts for no additional cost, and covers all parts under the same warranty agreement, with the ability to replace the same part multiple times.

Groupon acquired Breadcrumb last May, and then launched its Breadcrumb POS system in October.

The Librarian of Congress, though the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) has decided that unauthorized unlocking of cellphones would be illegal and provided a 90-day window for compliance. The window closes tomorrow and with that, we’re curious about the implications for not only consumers, but the unlocking industry. There’s potentially thousands of jobs that are affected by an attempt on the part of the government to shut down the unlocking industry. Is this legislation good for the economy in the long run? We reached out to our friends at unlockcodes.com to get their reaction. Read on for more.

Here is the official legislation:

“Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable a wireless telephone handset originally acquired from the operator of a wireless telecommunications network or retailer no later than ninety days after the effective date of this exemption to connect to a different wireless telecommunications network, if the operator of the wireless communications network to which the handset is locked has failed to unlock it within a reasonable period of time following a request by the owner of the wireless telephone handset, and when circumvention is initiated by the owner, an individual consumer, who is also the owner of the copy of the computer program in such wireless telephone handset, solely in order to connect to a different wireless telecommunications network, and such access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.”

It’s pretty convoluted but it seems like you still have the right to request it to be unlocked and that might help your case if they don’t respond but the government tries to come after you. But all this is legal speak wrapped in so many “ifs” that it makes your eyes cross.

For comment, we reached out to our friends at unlockscodes.com to see what they thought. Here’s their response:

“After reading that unlocking cell phones is becoming illegal in the US, I’m absolutely baffled. It’s like saying after you’ve bought a house can’t redecorate. If you buy a mobile phone, then you’ree the rightful owner. If you want to switch carriers for cheaper service then you should have the option to take yourself to an independent unlocking website such as ours and purchase an unlocking code.

Now, we undertand the carrier’s position that if you opt into a contract with them, you’re getting a deal and you have no option but to stick with the carrier until the contract is up. But what happens if you want to go away on holiday and the plan that the service provider offers is too expensive? It’s important that the consumer be able to use an independent travel SIM with companies that specialize in cheap roaming calls and SMS. To do this, you’ll need to unlock the phone, but this legislation is at odds with this scenario. Even if the carrier is able to compete with independent service providers, this legislation seems bad for the economy as it would make thousands of small businesses illegal.

If you buy a phone you should have the right to tamper with it as you rightfully own that cell phone. Making cell phone unlocking illegal would put thousands of unlocking websites out of business. I the owner of unlockscodes.com and would really struggle as this is my only source of income and I’m not trained in any other sector. The government really needs to rethink the implications of this legislation.”

So like an email, we’ll sign off on this post with “thoughts?”.

NASA announced this week that it has joined the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission. The mission will investigate dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe.

In 2020, the mission will launch the Euclid space telescope, which will spend six years mapping and measuring as many as 2 billion galaxies that cover one-third of the sky. The hope is that Euclid will be able to provide insight into the evolution of the universe and the influence of dark matter and dark energy.

“ESA’s Euclid mission is designed to probe one of the most fundamental questions in modern cosmology, and we welcome NASA’s contribution to this important endeavor, the most recent in a long history of cooperation in space science between our two agencies,” said Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.

Though NASA’s part in the Euclid mission is still being developed, the agency will be providing 16 infrared detectors and four spare detectors for one of Euclid’s science instruments.

The Euclid spacecraft will be launched into orbit around the sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, a point where the gravitational pull of the sun and Earth can help the satellite maintain a stationary position behind the Earth. The spacecraft will map dark matter, using precise measurements of distant galaxies.

Dark Matter makes up around 85% of the universe. It is called dark matter because it does not interact with light, and is made up of unknown particles. It does, however, interact with known matter through gravity, binding galaxies together. Dark energy, on the other hand, is accelerating the expansion of the universe. Even less about dark energy is known than about dark matter.

(Image courtesy ESA/C. Carreau)

Prince has delivered new music unto us, and we are all eternally grateful. He has also delivered catty remarks about celebrities to us, and for that, we are even more grateful.

The web has jumped all over a recent interview Prince did with Billboard Magazine, in which he talks smack about his old rival/former girlfriend Madonna and gets in a dig at Maroon 5 for being gauche enough to cover other people’s songs, even though Prince himself has done numerous covers which went on to be hits.

When talking about his old relationship with Warner Brothers, Prince also called out Madge, sort of:

“It was also about Madonna,” he says. “She was getting paid, but at the time we were selling more records and selling out concerts on multiple nights. It wasn’t about her. This was about business.”

About Maroon 5, who included a cover of his song “Kiss” on their latest album much to his dismay, Prince said:

“I do pay performance royalties on others’ songs I perform live, but I’m not recording these songs and putting them up for sale,” he says. “Why do we need to hear another cover of a song that someone else did? Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what’s already there.” At this point he references Maroon 5′s cover of his “Kiss,” letting it be known that he wasn’t thrilled by it.

Of course, Prince has done covers himself, including the hit “Betcha By Golly Wow!”, “La-La (Means I Love You)”, Joan Osborne’s “One of Us”, and Sheryl Crow’s “Everyday Is a Winding Road.”

The comments about Madonna are what everyone is interested in, however, since the two of them famously dated briefly in the ’80s before turning on one another in the public eye. Madge is quoted in a discussion about their first date as saying Prince was a “little troll” who didn’t eat his dinner.

“He was just sipping tea, very daintily,” Madonna said. “I have this theory about people who don’t eat. They annoy me.”

No word yet from the superstar on what she thinks about his comments or his comeback.

Image: Billboard

Verizon Wireless is making good on its promise to the FCC to return its extraneous 700 MHz to the market, and the principle buyer turns out to be the country’s other mega-carrier, AT&T. Verizon will give AT&T 39 lower-700 MHz licenses in some of the country’s biggest cities in exchange for $1.9 billion in cash and four licenses in an alternate 4G band.

It took some time, but this transaction was destined to happen due to the present state of AT&T’s LTE network. The new 4G network AT&T has launched nationally in most cases utilizes 20 MHz of spectrum, making it a megahertz-for-megahertz Verizon match. But in a several key markets like Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, AT&T had only has licenses adding up to 10 MHz, and has been forced to deploy half-capacity networks in those cities.

So it should come as no surprise that cities topping the sales receipt are Chicago, LA and all of the other markets where AT&T doesn’t have a full complement of 4G airwaves. AT&T will now be able to normalize its LTE bandwidth in all of the country’s major cities before it even has to start thinking about its next stage LTE deployment. Speaking of which, AT&T just closed its purchase of NextWave’s Wireless Communications Service (WCS) airwaves this week, which will give it the frequencies to deploy an entirely new LTE network in the 2.3 GHz band.

Verizon not only comes out of this with almost $2 billion, but it gets some key licenses in the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band, which is where Verizon plans to deploy phase 2 of its own LTE network (the current 4G rollout is in the upper 700 MHz). Specifically it’s getting 10 MHz spectrum in Los Angeles; Phoenix; Fresno, Calif.; and Portland, Ore.

Verizon also announced it is selling 700 MHz licenses to private equity firm Grain Management for $189 million in the North Carolina markets of Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham. It will also lease an AWS license from Grain in Dallas.

While today’s deals were obviously blockbuster sales, Verizon has now closed 35 of them with companies across the company. Back in April, Verizon promised regulators it would sell off its lower 700 MHz holdings in order to coax the FCC and Department of Justice into approving its massive cable spectrum buy. As of today, Verizon said in its policy blog, that sale process is now over.

A mirror with sensors is a signpost of a future where all devices, however mundane and dumb, can use sensors, connectivity and software smarts to turn the mundane into magical. I had that thought earlier this morning when I came across this Sensor Mirror made by simplehuman, a Los Angeles company that is known for making trash cans, soap pumps and sundry other stuff for your kitchen and the bathroom.

Our sensor mirror lights up automatically as your face approaches. Its tru-lux light system simulates natural sunlight, allowing you to see full color variation, so you’ll know when your makeup is color-correct and flawless.

Sure, the $200 mirror has a whole lot of features like LED lights and a USB charger, but what I find exciting is what could be done. If simplehuman added a low-power Wi-Fi chip to this mirror they could turn this mirror into an object of daily engagement. About two years ago, I wrote this piece, “Why the future of hardware is services.”

To me, services are a way for hardware owners to increase engagement with their gadgets. When I first got Sonos, I listened to my own library of music. Then I signed up for Internet radio stations, and lately, I’ve been testing Spotify’s streaming service. Result? It’s now playing in the background, pretty much all the time. I think in our device-infested and attention-deprived lives, services — if built well — foster constant and ongoing engagement.

The mirror could connect to the internet and it could also talk to an app that is installed on your iPhone or Android device. The sensor can “sense” your face and instantly offer recommendations (or make-up tips) based on how you look on a given day or evening. Those tips could come from make-up professionals.

For guys, it could just be — dude, you missed shaving that bit in your cleft — notice that could turn them into fanatical fans of the mirror. I know I would love to be reminded that I missed a spot.

The fact is that by offering a uniquely/hyper personal experience, simplehuman can go from being an invisible brand to one that is center stage in our minds. Think of it this way — connectivity and sensors allow us  to turn any large-scale platform into a personal one.

Call me crazy, by when we add a dash of connectivity to those omnipresent sensors then interesting and/or magical things can happen.

Go Daddy has broadcast ads during the Super Bowl for the past nine years. Last year’s ads were not received very well, and we suggested that Go Daddy change its strategy. The company will once again have two ads going up this year, and the first has been revealed. Does it remedy the errors of the past?

The first ad to be revealed this year is called “YourBigIdea.CO.” As you can obviously tell, the ad is trying to sell you Go Daddy’s new .co domains. The ad implicates that .co domains are the new Gold Rush of the Internet age. If you get one, you’ll become incredibly wealthy.

Compared to last year’s ads, this ad is way better. It seems that Go Daddy may be done with trying to exclusively use sex appeal to sell domains. Sure, some of the men watching the game may like the models that Go Daddy employs for its ads, but it doesn’t exactly sell its product. To be fair, however, Super Bowl ads have always been more about entertaining viewers than trying to sell a product.

According to Ad Week, Go Daddy has one more ad that it will reveal soon. The other ad will star supermodel Bar Refaeli alongside longtime Go Daddy spokesperson Danica Patrick.

In other Super Bowl ad news, Hulu recently kicked off its Ad Zone once again. The site will feature all the Super Bowl 2013 ads in real time as they appear during the game. Viewers will then vote on which ads are their favorite. Go Daddy better hope viewers respond more favorably to its ads this time.

It’s been a weird decade for Cisco. After being a dot-com darling in the late 90s (everyone wanted a few Cisco routers for their door-to-door pet food delivery services), the company tried its hand at consumer products with the Flip video camera series and, a little while later, Linksys routers. It seems, then, that Cisco’s grand consumer experiment is over.

The terms of the sale are undisclosed but it should close in March of this year. Belkin has been taking a harder look at networking hardware for the past few years while still maintaining their ties to the computer accessory market that defined the company for years. Their current crop of routers are aimed at home users so Linksys could give Belkin a bit of an edge in the home/small office market.

What’s more interesting, however, is where Cisco hopes to go now that the company has divested itself of all consumer products. Consumer electronics are a horrible business. The margins are low and demand fluctuates depending on what comes out of Cupertino or Redmond. In short, there’s very little incentive to sell hardware to consumers when they’re fickle, hungry for Zappos-esque “You screwed up so give me free stuff” support, and rarely, if ever, upgrade their PCs and peripherals. What electronics manufacturer wants to waste his time with consumers when IT clients sign a nice contract and pay on time?

But the consumer market is leading the IT market. The story in CE these days is BYOD – I get emails about it nearly every day – and IT managers used to dropping a few thousand on fleet laptops now have to contend with people bringing in iPads, Surfaces, MacBooks, and their own mini-routers. It’s a maddening situation, to be sure.

Big iron isn’t the watchword anymore. Buying a Cisco router for a small home office barely makes sense and, increasingly, it makes even less sense for a bigger office. That is not to say that IT infrastructure isn’t lucrative – it’s just not as lucrative.

Belkin should be able to do good things with Linksys. Cisco clearly couldn’t.

Ah, winter. You so cray.

Personally, I love winter. Everything is dead. No mosquitos, limited allergies, and obviously, it’s not so damn hot. Plus, holidays and the Super Bowl. What’s not to love?

But I understand that winter weather (ice and snow) can be a real nuisance sometimes. Even dangerous. And YouTube is very good for browsing these moments of panic, terror, and hilarity.

What appears below is a beautiful tribute to people who try, but fail to function in wintry conditions. Don’t laugh, though – winter isn’t over. There are still plenty of opportunities for you to fall on your ass or slide your car into a telephone pole.

[The Poke]

There’s a wonderful scene in The Odyssey when Odysseus prepares himself to steer his ship and his men past the treacherous Sirens, creatures who sing a seductive song that can lead a person astray. It’s a great moment in literature — and an extremely useful image for managers intent on ferreting out the feedback they need for career advancement. To prepare for his challenge, Odysseus orders his crew members to put wax in their ears, but to be able to hear the Sirens’ message, he leaves his own ears unplugged. But he asks his men to strap him to the ship’s mast to prevent him from recklessly heeding the Sirens’ call.

Managers, like Odysseus, need to hear what people have to say — and be able to filter the messages. Those who solicit career feedback are likely to hear many, often conflicting messages and need to be astute in sorting out the most critical input to avoid careening off course. To succeed, as Odysseus did, keep three things in mind.

Appreciate the Source’s Perspective — and Potential Bias. If you speak candidly with a manager’s direct reports about his development needs, their comments tend to focus on a fairly predictable set of issues: fairness, delegation, openness to their ideas, the quality of performance feedback, coaching, and career guidance. Staff members also crave clarity regarding the unit’s strategy and consistency in its priorities.

Speak to the manager’s peers and co-workers, and you’re most likely to hear comments about teamwork, collaboration, listening, awareness of peers’ objectives, and the ability to work through strong differences of opinion.

A manager’s superiors — although not immune to her management style and relationships with peers — tend to focus on different issues: quality and speed of decision making, thinking strategically, finding the next breakthrough innovation, and upgrading the caliber of the organization.

Any manager has numerous development needs: areas where she’s not strong or needs to get stronger. The trick is to identify the two or three areas of development most critical to accomplishing your goals. To do so it’s important to filter the feedback carefully with an understanding of the source and any inherent bias stemming from the source’s perspective.

Think Clearly About Potential “Derailers” versus the Factors of Executive Success. Over the last few years excellent work has been done to identify those things that can derail or stall a manager’s career progression. And they are far from trivial. Arrogance, abrasiveness, and insensitivity will come back to haunt an aspiring executive when the troops rebel or his peers tell his manager they’ll go on strike if he’s named as their leader. It’s important to address such issues since they may in fact hinder your career progress.

However, the intensity of people’s feelings about a manager’s flaws tends to drown out other, potentially critical development needs. Also, keep in mind that while a serious deficiency may hold you back, showing improvement in a derailment area won’t necessarily propel you ahead.

Understand the Difference between Development in Your Current Role and “Prospective” Development Needs. If your boss levels with you in your performance review and provides feedback about where you need to improve, consider yourself lucky — such candid input is typically not the norm. And pay attention to the results of a 360-degree feedback review based on surveys from your boss, peers, and subordinates.

Just realize that both sources of feedback suffer from an inherent bias: they tend to focus on your development needs in your current role and at your current level since that’s the frame of reference most colleagues have. Again, if the issues have to deal with potential derailment factors, that’s extremely useful. However, the feedback may entirely miss skills you’ll need to develop and display to be a top candidate for promotion to a higher level.

For example, imagine that you’ve developed a reputation as a manager who can predictably implement the most complex corporate initiative. You stay close to the work of your troops, and you’re an expert at creating metrics and follow-up mechanisms to make sure “the wash gets out the door” on time. That’s terrific — but it may cause senior executives to question whether you can succeed at a higher level where the priorities shift to building a strong team, delegating accountability, identifying the next big breakthrough, and spending time on high-impact strategic issues. Although not currently leadership deficiencies, these may be the “prospective” development areas you need to exhibit in order to advance.

So how can you sort through the welter of messages you get when you seek out feedback about where you need to improve? It may take the emotional equivalent of strapping yourself to the mast, but try to meet with more-senior managers who know your work to get input. Work hard to convey your sincere interest in candid feedback–and avoid defensiveness (which will quickly shut the executive down) or any hint that you’re simply angling for a promotion. End each productive conversation with a useful summary question: “What one or two things — above all others — would most build confidence in my ability to succeed at higher levels within the organization?” Listen carefully for the consistent themes that emerge. Do they have to do with addressing potential derailers, performance in your current job, or skills that will be needed at higher levels?

In some organizations it’s extremely hard to get others to give you the straight scoop so if you have the chance to work with a third party who’ll interview a number of your colleagues, that can be very helpful. Just make sure that resource has the organizational perspective to help you sort out the wheat from the chaff and fully appreciates the core factors that senior executives use in making promotional decisions — as well as the bias inherent in others’ perspective.

What I’ve described isn’t easy. It demands focus and the ability to listen attentively to often contradictory pieces of feedback. But if you exercise the wisdom of Odysseus, you’ll be well on your way to your career destination.

EA today announced that the Origin client for Mac is coming along, and an alpha test of the software has begun. Gamers with a Mac can download the alpha today, though it will be available to only “a few thousand users” in North American and the U.K. Though it’s kind of odd, the Origin for Mac alpha can be found for download through Origin website, and is found on the site’s demos section.

The alpha client does not yet have access to EA’s store, and the Twitch.tv live-streaming is also disabled. Instead, EA is encouraging Mac gamers to add non-Origin titles to the service and use the Origin overlay in-game.

Of course, a broken client doesn’t sound appealing, so EA is giving away copies of PopCap’s Bookworm with every alpha download. EA promises that the complete version of Origin for Mac will have all of the features of the PC client, including auto-patching, cloud saves, and a friends list.

Though criticized poor customer service and aggressive DRM, Origin has many of the same features of other PC gaming stores. The thing that sets Origin apart is that it is the only place EA games can be downloaded for the PC. Ubisoft’s new Uplay client is similar, and though the publisher does make Uplay necessary for its newer PC titles, it doesn’t restrict the sale of its PC games to its own storefront. Ubisoft titles can still be found through Steam and GOG.

Tiger Woods has the rumor mill grinding away once more as talk spreads across the web that he’s dating Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn.

A “source” says the two have been an item since November and are starting to get serious:

“Their busy schedules mean they don’t get a lot of time together, but they constantly talk on the phone. And Tiger has made more of a commitment to Lindsey lately — he’s pulling out all the stops.”

The source also says the two met on the slopes, as Tiger is an avid skier, and that Vonn has been teaching his two children everything she knows. Obviously, the source says, Vonn is aware of the golfer’s past and it took her a while to trust him.

But this story goes against another one making the rounds that Woods is trying to woo back his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, after a nasty divorce due to his cheating ways. After winning around $100 million in the settlement, she began building a mansion in North Palm Beach and seemed to be moving on.

Woods hasn’t made a statement regarding the rumors of his relationship with Vonn, but Vonn’s representatives neither confirmed nor denied it.

“Lindsey is currently in the midst of the World Cup season in Europe,” the statement read. “Her focus is solely on competing and on defending her titles and thus she will not participate in any speculation surrounding her personal life at this time.”

The Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet has been anything but shy, leaking all over the place and posing for a few hands-on pics.

But today’s scoop from French blog Frandroid marks the first time we get a real idea of its size, as the latest leaked photos show the Galaxy Note 8.0 next to the Galaxy Note 2.

Context is a beautiful thing.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 is Samsung’s next big tablet venture, according to recent rumors, presumably meant to take on the iPad mini. As you can see in the images, the Galaxy Note 8.0 has very similar design language to the latest Galaxy Note, and even the Galaxy S III to an extent. Perhaps most notable, however, is Samsung’s seeming insistence to keep this tablet in portrait mode, as noted by the home and navigation buttons on the bottom.

In terms of the competition, the GalNote 8.0 bears a striking resemblance to the new Nook HD 7-inch tablets, with curved edges and a relatively thicker bezel.

Today’s leak marks the first time we’ve gotten a glimpse of the 8-incher with its S-Pen, Samsung’s version of a high-quality pressure-sensitive stylus. To me it looks a tad thicker than that of the Galaxy Note, but that’s potentially because it’s pictured next to the much-smaller Galaxy Note II smartphone.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 is rumored to have a 1280×800 resolution display, Android Jelly Bean, a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM along with a 5-megapixel rear camera and a front-facing camera for video chat. We expect to see this bad boy at MWC in February, and by then we’ll be able to confirm all these specs for you fine readers.

Until then, these pics will have to do.

Prepublication Now Available

We live in a changing world with multiple and evolving threats to national security, including terrorism, asymmetrical warfare (conflicts between agents with different military powers or tactics), and social unrest. Visually depicting and assessing these threats using imagery and other geographically-referenced information is the mission of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). As the nature of the threat evolves, so do the tools, knowledge, and skills needed to respond. The challenge for NGA is to maintain a workforce that can deal with evolving threats to national security, ongoing scientific and technological advances, and changing skills and expectations of workers.

Future U.S. Workforce for Geospatial Intelligence assesses the supply of expertise in 10 geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) fields, including 5 traditional areas (geodesy and geophysics, photogrammetry, remote sensing, cartographic science, and geographic information systems and geospatial analysis) and 5 emerging areas that could improve geospatial intelligence (GEOINT fusion, crowdsourcing, human geography, visual analytics, and forecasting). The report also identifies gaps in expertise relative to NGA’s needs and suggests ways to ensure an adequate supply of geospatial intelligence expertise over the next 20 years.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Conflict and Security Issues | Earth Sciences

It’s been a year since a New York Times investigation put the labor practices of Apple’s manufacturing partners under close public scrutiny, and the company is still rooting out human rights violations in its supply chain. In its 2013 Supplier Responsibility Report, Apple revealed that it ended a contract with a circuit board supplier that repeatedly contracted workers younger than 16.

Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co. makes a circuit board component that Apple uses. “Our auditors were dismayed to discover 74 cases of workers under age 16—a core violation of our Code of Conduct. As a result, we terminated our business relationship with PZ,” Apple’s report reads.

It’s not clear which device or devices used the PZ circuit board. Apple said a third-party labor recruiter was bringing in underage workers to PZ. In the report, Apple said it reported the supplier to the proper authorities in China, and also regularly makes suppliers aware of agents or recruiters known to hire underage workers.

PZ is the only company terminated for labor violations named in the report. Apple also noted it “found no cases of underage labor at any of our final assembly suppliers.”

The 2013 report was a wider-ranging audit of its supply chain than Apple has done before. Apple says there were 393 audits (72 percent more than 2011) performed in 14 countries, covering 1.5 million workers.

The full report is available here. (PDF)