JOB ALERT: NYT: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for the United States

New York Times article is here.

"At a Raytheon facility here south of the Kennedy Space Center, a hub of innovation in an earlier era, rock music blares and empty cans of Mountain Dew pile up as engineers create tools to protect the Pentagon’s computers and crack into the networks of countries that could become adversaries. Prizes like cappuccino machines and stacks of cash spur them on, and a gong heralds each major breakthrough.

The young engineers represent the new face of a war that President Obama described Friday as “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The president said he would appoint a senior White House official to oversee the nation’s cybersecurity strategies.

Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats that are growing more persistent and sophisticated, with thousands of intrusions each day from organized criminals and legions of hackers for nations including Russia and China.

“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run the Raytheon unit here."

NYT: Intel Adopts an Identity in Software

Over the last year I have become convinced that the laptop/desktop computer is going to evolve into the smartphone, that everyone on the planet will have a cellphone, and that eventually all cell phones will become smartphones. I realized this the day I bought a new laptop and when I got it home, all of a sudden wondered why i bought it...since i already had a personal computing device that met 99% of my needs...my smartphone. Remember how most folks just want to check email and browse the internet? how much computing power do you need to do that? now add digital camera, digital camcorder, and portable phone. Can you think of a device that does all those things already? PC's will become a niche product for hobbyists and gamers and students. Why do you think hardware makers like HP and Intel are already investing in phones...and software?

The low-power, low-cost Atom chip sits inside most of the netbooks sold today, and smartphones using the chip could start arriving in the next couple of years.

To make Atom a success, Intel plans to use software for leverage. Its needs Moblin because most of the cellphone software available today runs on chips whose architecture is different from Atom’s. To make Atom a worthwhile choice for phone makers, there must be a supply of good software that runs on it.

“The smartphone is certainly the end goal,” said Doug Fisher, a vice president in Intel’s software group. “It’s absolutely critical for the success of this product.”

Article here