Nashville Technology Council

The Nashville Tech Story (9/4/2009)

As technology continues to get smarter, faster and even smaller, it always seems that somewhere in the discussion falls nanotechnology.  Researchers are working to reduce the size of computer systems, while making them more reliable and environmentally friendly.  If successful, computer systems would be equipped with data storage that would be completely stable and would require the use of less energy.  How is this possible?

“Spintronics,” is a new technology that is being researched that exploits magnetic ’spin’ properties of individual molecules or atoms and electronic charges.  Combine “spintronics” with nanotechnology and a solution called molecular “nanospintronics” comes to light, which is currently being investigated by researchers.

The initial goal of “spintronic” technology starts out small, with the shrinking of computer systems, but this development has far more potential.  Created through a collaboration between London’s Centre for Nanotechnology and two of the top universities in China, Peking University and Tsinghua University, “spintronics” has begun to take a place in the environmental and wireless communications markets. 

On the wireless communications front, researchers are using “spintronics” to make it possible to develop technology more rapidly and commercialize new wireless communication technologies.  They have also implemented “spintronics” into the environmental discussion with the goal of developing a cleaner fossil fuel program.  This would create multifunctional nanostructures that would capture carbon dioxide and harmful pollutants in coal fire power stations.

The Nashville Tech Story (9/3/2009)

This is just another reason why people, in Nashville, should be flocking to the InfoSec Security conference, on September 17th, at the Nashville Convention Center.  Symantec recently released a news statement issuing a warning about a new malicious software pack that can hack into our VoIP conversations.

The new Trojan horse virus, Trojan.Peskyspy, has mainly targeted to the online VoIP tool, Skype.  Symantec, who will be speaking at our InfoSec conference on Data Loss Prevention, reported that Skype may have been targeted due to its large customer base.

The virus with the ability to travel through Windows APIs, intercepts audio streams and turns them into MP3 files, which is then sent over a remote channel to a remote electronic eavesdropper.  This is one in a list of many attacks hackers have executed on the social media world.

Most recently, Facebook experienced an attack that targeted the contact information of certain users.  If you were one of the many foolish Facebook users that posted your phone number online, your information was made public to all those in your “friends” account.  Currently, the experts at Symantec are not anticipating the malicious code will be used to launch a more significant attack.

Just a couple of helpful hints to avoid being attacked by a virus:

1.  Make sure you have the most up-to-date virus software for your computer.

2.  Don’t open any attachments from email addresses with which you are unfamiliar.

3.  Try to avoid downloading spyware to your computer such as Weatherbug.

To hear from the experts of Symantec, click here for more information on attending our upcoming InfoSec Security conference, on September 17th.

The Nashville Tech Story (9/2/2009)

The Nashville Technology Council got the opportunity to visit the XO Communications offices in downtown Nashville.  We were able to tour their facility and learn more about what XO Communications brings to the Nashville market, what services they offer and what the Nashville Technology Council can provide to better serve their needs.

Owning over 1100 miles of fiber surrounding the Nashville market, XO Communications is a leader in voice, data and Internet, VoIP and managed services for businesses.  XO operates its own private, nationwide, multi-terabit network delivering industry-leading IP solutions at the fastest speeds available.

The company was originally known as NEXTLINK Communications, which was founded by telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw.  After a strategic merger in 2000 with the messaging, collaboration, and web hosting services company Concentric, XO Communications was born.  Today, XO provides services in 62 markets across the United States.

For more information on XO Communications and how they can service your needs, go to www.xo.com

Tennessee State University and Deloitte Consulting recently presented the results of their year-long Business Intelligence partnership at SCUP-44, the annual conference of the Society of College and University Planners.  Deloitte Consulting, with offices in Hermitage, TN, provided pro bono consulting services to help the university develop Business Intelligence dashboards.  The dashboards pull data from the university’s information system (Sungard Banner) and display them graphically for use by decision-makers.

University President Dr. Melvin N. Johnson noted that “This project is the key that unlocked data for use by our administrative team, and we intend to make full, effective use of those data.”  The dashboards allow administrators to track such critical data as enrollment, retention, and class size with “live” numbers and to project trends using a selection of charts, graphs, and other renditions that provide meaningful contexts for data.

With Deloitte’s help, the university identified 26 critical key performance indicators for initial dashboard development, plus an additional 196 non-critical KPI’s.  The institutional strategic planning process added another 200 KPIs to the list for development into the dashboard.

The SCUP annual conference, held this year in Portland, OR, only accepts a select few presentations from several thousand submissions.  The TSU team of presenters consisted of:  Thyrsa Gravely, Senior Manager from Deloitte Consulting; Peter Nwosu, and an American Council on Education fellow on assignment from the California State University system; and Dennis Gendron, Vice President for Communications and Information Technology at TSU.