Newsletter


	Fear, Inc. - When Tom McMillen looks out his 11th-floor office at Fortress America in Arlington, Virginia, he sees lots of opportunities - for baggage screening machines, biological and nuclear sensors, data analysis software, video surveillance, and high tech gear for emergency personnel. McMillen founded Fortress America last winter as a corporate shell, or so-called blank check company. In July, with no product, no revenue, and certainly no profits, he managed to raise $46.8 million in an IPO based on a simple promise: to spend at least $30 million acquiring a company in the business of preventing, deterring, or cleaning up after a disaster. Now he's looking for somewhere to invest the money. The U.S. government will spend billions on homeland security and Mr. McMillen and thousands of others are ready to cash in. A decade ago, optimism about how technology would connect the planet, reinvent commerce, and revolutionize society gave rise to the dotcom boom. When optimism turned into fevered speculation, the economy crashed. Now another mania is taking hold. It's predicated on fear and funded by a drive to defend against, prepare for, and recover from perils both man-made and natural, real and imagined.

	More on Security - You're in an airport headed home for the Holidays and you notice a suitcase unattended against a wall. You call Security to check on it. Since every unattended bag is viewed as being suspicious in these times, Security then decides to evacuate the terminal which is extremely disruptive for commuters. But what if you could better determine if an unattended item was really a security risk? A new computer program is being developed to do just that. In a great leap forward from the ever-present security camera, this new system will actually measure the distance between any given commuter and the objects that they carry. It's key in determining a potential risk, say security experts, to be able to tell if someone has put their bag down to stand in line for a coffee that's just a few feet away and someone who has set a bag down and has then left the terminal entirely. Keeping track of the hundreds of relationships between a commuters and their luggage and carry-ons in an automatic fashion is a monumental task.

	Computer R & D Rocks on - Think computers have become just a commodity? Think again. The computer research agenda is as big as ever before, if not bigger. Experts see important breakthroughs and whole new fields of investigation just opening up. Advances will come in natural-language searches, machine learning, computer vision and speech-to-text, as well as new computing architectures to handle those hefty tasks. Beyond the decade mark, Edward D. Lazowska, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington, expects computers based on quantum physics.

	The New 800 lb Gorilla - 20 years ago, it was IBM, then Microsoft, now the new tech company that is feared is... Google. In less than a decade, Google has gone from guerrilla startup to 800-pound gorilla. In some ways, the company is a gentle giant. Whereas Microsoft infamously smothered new and open standards, Google is famous for supporting them. And the firm is softening its image, launching a philanthropic arm, Google.org, with nearly $1 billion earmarked for social causes. But that doesn't reduce the fear factor, and Google knows it. Omid Kordestani, the company's global sales guru, said at a recent conference, "We're trying to find ways so we are not viewed as a gorilla."

	Hot Ideas For A Cold Week - Have you been wondering about exactly what it is that Menlo does and how we do it? Been intrigued by any of our classes, but haven’t been able to find the time to attend? Take our brand new Agile Boot Camp Week! By combining our High Tech Anthropology 101 class, our Agile Project Management class AND our Agile Explained class you’ll learn everything you need to know about how you and your team can create the right software for the right application. Join us January 9th through the 13th!

	Gifts for Geeks - From game consoles to music players, cell phones to flat panel TVs, Wired News writers Christopher Null and Robert Strohmeyer offer picks and pans to please the choosiest geeks this holiday season. We've divided the list into three categories -- home, mobile and novelties -- each packed with must-haves and surprises to help you in your gift search.

	Wiring up the "Victorian Internet" - The world's first global communications system for exchanging text messages was not the internet nor the mobile phone. It was the great engineering project undertaken 150 years ago to put wires across the globe. In an editorial on 20 April, 1857, the New York Herald commented: "The laying of the telegraph around the world is the great work of the age." "It's worth trying to imagine how fantastic it would have been when that cable was finally completed and instead of taking 45 days for a message to get through from Britain to Australia, it took less than 24 hours," says Mary Godwin, director of the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum in Cornwall.

	Age Avoidance - Kim Nash, of Baseline Magazine, looks at the trend in many IT shops to hire younger workers and not as many older folks. "As companies struggle to align technology with business goals, they're taking a step backward by letting go seasoned staff who not only understand how to deploy systems, but, because of their positions and experience, grasp business and markets. The project manager who delivered software to calculate customer profitability for that difficult VP in the home mortgage department will know better how to approach other projects with that same guy than would a newcomer... Companies that seek out younger, cheaper workers should watch out. They may end up doing less with less."

	Creating the Twentieth Century - Kirk McElhearn talks a look at the excellent book by Vaclav Smil titled Creating the Twentieth Century. Looking at an overview of the technological advances that occurred during this period, many of which we take for granted, is quite astounding. In the years between 1867 and 1880, such devices as the telephone, sound recordings, typewriters, chemical pulp and reinforced concrete saw the light. This latter innovation allowed for the building boom that helped build larger cities in the United States, as it reconstructed after the Civil War. The 1880s, a huge period of scientific advances, brought incandescent electric lights, electric motors and trains, the gramophone, a spread of photography (a technology initially developed decades earlier), internal combustion engines, aluminum production and more.

	Smart ways to Spend a few Days this Winter - On these cold winter mornings, what better way to warm up then with a nice hot coffee, a warm donut, and a Menlo class? Our new class schedule is out, with everything from our Agile Project Management class to our very own Taste of Success seminars. They're the hottest way to learn the real secrets of software success.

	Need a Speaker for an Upcoming Event? - We love public speaking (Rich Sheridan is the best) and are happy to deliver inspiring messages focused on business success with information technology. Call us at (734) 665-1847 to schedule your next event. Look here for a list of some of the topics that we’ve spoken about in the past.