Thursday, May 28, 2015

(E N M I O P I N I O N Ricardo Tribín Acosta)

(Mayo 20, 2015)
Yo deseo pero…. 

Una de las cosas que más dificulta el bajar de peso tiene mucho que ver con aquella frase que se repiten a diario los comelones “Yo deseo pero……no puedo”, cuando por el contrario este solo podrá ver su esfuerzo convertido en una realidad cuando se diga con firmeza “Yo quiero”, lo cual constituye el primer paso para dejar atrás la adicción a la comida lo cual, no es fácil pero tampoco  imposible.


Lo anterior implica que hasta que uno no le ponga acción a su deseo por dejar la glotonería o cualquier exceso similar, no será nada sencillo el lograrlo. Sin embargo en lo que aquí manifiesto no se trata de hacer una dieta más en la que con gran esfuerzo el individuo baja de peso en pocas semanas, el cual recupera después y con creces, si no ha quedado con la convicción de no comer sanamente.


Otros factores como el metabolismo lento se interponen a veces por la edad de las personas pero ante ello hay que decir con firmeza aquello de que “si otros pueden pues también yo puedo”. Es entonces un cambio de pensamiento el que finalmente nos librará del exceso de peso, decisión que podremos tomar y aplicar en nuestras vidas, un día a la vez.

Miami, Mayo 20 de 2015

(Mayo 27, 2015)
Las repercusiones 

No es muy común este término, verdad? Sin embargo su ocurrencia si lo es. Repercusión es el resultado de algo, esto es la consecuencia, lo cual se acopla muy bien con el concepto físico de Sir Isaac Newton que expresa que " a toda acción corresponde una reacción"


El mentir, para citar algo, trae pésimos resultados cuando el ocurrente se cae o mejor dicho, cuando lo pillan en su propia ausencia de veracidad, lo cual confirma aquel sabio refrán que dice que " primero cae un mentiroso que un cojo", reflexión que invita a ser siempre veraces.


Por lo anterior se hace preciso concluir que cuando actuamos, ello no solo se refleja en nuestras propias vidas , sino que su influencia en muchos casos alcanza también a otras personas, motivo por el cual resulta más que conveniente tener en cuenta el modo de actuar y  por consiguiente, cuando lo hagamos, resultará preferible que este sea bien.

Miami, Mayo 27 de 2015

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Can Tesla's Battery Hit $1 Billion Faster Than the iPhone? (BusinessWeek)

Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk Unveils New Generation Of Batteries
Elon Musk's battery launch could be even bigger than Viagra's
Tesla’s new line of big, stackable batteries for homes and businesses started with a bang. The reservations reported in the first week are valued at roughly $800 million, according to numbers crunched by Bloomberg. If Tesla converts even a fraction of those reservations into actual sales, the battery roll-out could measure up as one of the biggest ever for a new product category.

The chart below compares the estimated value of Tesla battery reservations—these are not ironclad commitments to buy—with the early sales of three breakthrough products: the original iPhone, released in 2007; Viagra's debut in 1998; and the introduction of the Tesla Model S battery-powered car in 2012. The iPhone surpassed $1 billion in sales by its third quarter on the market, while Viagra and the Model S needed a bit longer. 

The new line of storage batteries is designed to extend solar power into the night and save companies money on its electric bills during expensive peak hours. Any comparison of batteries to smartphones and erection pills is, of course, a stretch. Most of Tesla’s battery revenue will come from utilities, not the consumers who snapped up iPhones and Viagra. The price of the new batteries is also much higher. Tesla’s Powerwall units designed for home users cost $3,000 to $3,500 per unit, not including installation, while the commercial batteries are sold in roughly $25,000 incremental blocks.

Tesla hasn’t even defined what qualifies as a "reservation" at this point. Of the $800 million in reservations from the first week, almost $625 million came from businesses and utilities that would seem likely to complete the transaction. The remaining reservations from home users are little more than expressions of interest made through a no-strings online reservation system.

Manufacturing giant batteries will also be much more difficult to scale than Pfizer’s little blue pill, which was filling 46,000 prescriptions a day by the end of its first month on the market. Tesla won't begin shipping batteries until this summer, and it’s already sold out through mid-2016.

Still, approaching $1 billion of interest, just days after introducing path-breaking product, marks a significant achievement. Tesla is going to need that battery revenue as soon as it can get it: The company is burning through cash to invest in the Model X electric SUV due later this year, the more affordable Model 3 slated to arrive 2017, and a $5 billion battery factory to power it all.  In a call with analysts last week, Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the battery business could someday exceed electric-car revenue.  

"We too easily forget that Tesla is much more than just the Model S,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas in a note to investors on Monday. "In the past week, I have been asked by more friends, colleagues, clients and relatives about the virtues of the residential Powerwall product for their own personal household use than I’ve been asked about any vehicle manufactured by any auto company I’ve covered in my 18 years as an auto analyst." 

Electricity storage products aren't new. But Tesla’s price, power, and packaging set these batteries apart in a way that echoes the gap between the first iPhone and the smartphones that came before it. Now Musk has brought an Apple-launch level of public interest to what's essentially a infrastructure product, albeit one with potential to transform the way electrical grids are managed and the speed that solar power is adopted. 

The next daunting challenge will be to turn that interest into bookable revenue for Tesla. 
Watch Next: Why Tesla Is Building Batteries for Your Home 

Why Tesla Is Building Batteries for Your Home

Friday, May 22, 2015

Low Rates Mean You Can Now Get a Mercedes With a Chevy Income

Low Rates Mean You Can Now Get a Mercedes With a Chevy Income



A Mercedes-Benz SLK 250, now a bit more within reach of the average driver.

This is a tempting time to be a lover of cool cars. Thanks to lease offers, low interest rates, and low gas prices, it’s gotten dangerously easy to drive off the dealer lot with a brand new luxury car.
Buying a used car is almost always a better deal over the long term than buying or leasing a new one. That’s the classic personal finance advice, and it still applies. But in recent years the irresponsible choice has gotten a lot more enticing.
Low interest rates make it possible to afford pricier cars for the same monthly cost. In the past five years, the average vehicle’s cost is up about $5,000, to almost $33,000. Despite this, the monthly payment on that car is up only about $30, an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence shows. That’s because the interest rate on the average five-year auto loan is now only about 3 percent per year, down more than four points since 2009.
Gas prices have also tumbled. That has little direct impact on car buyers, but it has a psychological one, says Bloomberg Intelligence senior auto analyst Kevin Tynan. When prices are high, consumers tend to be more conservative. Now that they’re low, drivers can feel like using their savings to upgrade their wheels.
Finally, luxury automakers such as BMW and Mercedes are eager to get young buyers to try their cars. They’ve come out with lower-priced models, and they’re offering big incentives for those who lease them. The strategy is working: About 60 percent of U.S. “entry luxury” cars are leased, up from 43 percent five years ago, according to Edmunds.com. That’s more than twice the lease rate for all vehicles. When leasing a luxury car costs about the same per month as buying a used, low-mileage Chevrolet, who can resist?
Leasing a car isn’t necessarily the dumbest move a driver can make. There are practical reasons a lease can make sense. You might need a certain kind of vehicle for only a short amount of time, says Kelley Long, a Chicago-based CPA financial planner who serves on the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission. For example, a family might need a minivan for only a few years before the children grow up.
Also, a lease may make sense for people who temporarily need to hoard cash or avoid taking on debt, says financial adviser Matt Haghighi of Amity Capital. Consider people who are about to buy a home: Leasing might let them save more for a home downpayment, while also reducing their debt load and making them eligible for a lower mortgage rate. 
Then there are those who just love driving a new, expensive car. “If driving a luxury car is important to you, this is an excellent opportunity,” Long says. Her warning: Just because you can afford a luxury car, don’t let yourself upgrade other aspects of your lifestyle above your budget. And realize that it can be hard to go back to a lower-quality car when the lease is up. You may need to do so, though. In a few years, leases and auto loans may be far more expensive.
Price-conscious car lovers might consider another strategy. With so many luxury cars being leased these days, there may be a glut of expiring leases in a few years. So if you can wait until 2017 or so, Tynan says, you can expect to find many more low-mileage, attractively priced luxury cars out on used-car lots.


Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Four in Rhode Island charged with stealing $1.6 million in checks


Four people in Rhode Island, including two post office employees, have been charged with stealing $1.6 million worth of checks from the U.S. government, according to federal prosecutors.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Providence said late Tuesday that it cracked a ring that stole benefit payments to military veterans and other federal checks from a mail-sorting facility in Providence, then deposited the money into fraudulent bank accounts.

The four people were arraigned in federal court in Providence, according to court papers unsealed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The arrests grew out of an inquiry that began in September when U.S. Postal Service investigators and other law enforcement began examining reports of an unusually large number of checks from the U.S. Treasury Department disappearing after being sent through Providence.

"Mail theft is always a crime, but when it is perpetrated by Postal Service employees and it impacts our veterans and our most vulnerable customers who depend on these checks, it is beyond disgraceful," Rafael Medina, a postal investigator, said in a statement.

The USPS employees charged were Joan Manuel Mustafa, 36, and Erick Vera Garzon, 35, both of whom had worked nights at the Providence facility. Brenda Canuelas, 39, and Secundino Velazquez Tirado, 45, were also charged.

The four defendants could not be immediately reached for comment.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

E N M I O P I N I O N: Ricardo Tribín Acosta

El juego del turmequé

Luis Carlos Palacio es un muy querido compañero de nuestra facultad de Ingeniería Industrial de la Universidad Tecnológica de Pereira de la cual me honro en haberme graduado en 1970, época en la cual la carrera hacia sus primeros pinitos en Colombia. El, junto con Pachito Jiménez, conocieron la afición de mi padre Carlos Tribín Biester por el juego del Turmequé, más comúnmente conocido como el del tejo, el cual sentó sus pilares en la provincia cundí-boyacense, en donde se ha practicado por mucho tiempo.
 
Las "agrias", esto es las cervezas ingeridas, más el entusiasmo gestado al hacer una "moñona", "embocinada", o el “reventar una mecha o papeleta”, le dan a tal juego un colorido de alegría impresionante. Mi viejo, divirtiéndose cual más, repetía con frecuencia un pequeño verso que él había compuesto y que a la letra decía " Y tú con el tejo dabas y yo con el tejo di", usando su "calambour" santafereño que con tanta gracia y frecuencia utilizaba, heredado de sus orígenes bogotanos y facatativeños.
 
Al recordar a mis queridos compañeros de la UTP y a mi padre, no puedo dejar de traer a la memoria a su gran amigo, Don Fernando Bedoya, con quien iba religiosamente los sábados a practicar el tejo y quien junto con Carlitos, dieron origen al nombre de una famosa cancha que sus amigos decidieron en su honor bautizarla en ese entonces, por los años sesenta, como la de "Los abuelos"


 

Miami, Mayo 14 de 2015

Monday, May 18, 2015

Un líder efectivo (Edwin Conrado Rivera, M.P.H)


Si eres o cuentas con un espíritu de liderazgo, debes asegurarte de ser efectivo al máximo.  Esa es la mayor satisfacción de un líder, saber que puede ser agente de transformación hacia el éxito.

En el pasado escrito hablamos de las 12 funciones o roles que cada persona necesita desarrollar para convertirse en un líder efectivo con mentalidad mundial. De estos quisiera, en esta edición profundizar en el primero:
     
                          La declaración de visión y compartir los valores.

Sobre la Declaración de Visión ¿Qué es?  Es el cuadro mental de lo que queremos  SER;  a lo que aspiramos convertirnos como persona a largo plazo.  Siempre estamos en constante evolución como persona, no obstante, si sabemos el norte que deseamos para nosotros y le ordenamos eso a nuestro equipo mental, de seguro comenzamos a actuar para conseguirlo.

Cuando hablamos de SER, no tan solo nos referimos a la clase de persona que queremos ser, también los Valores a tono con los principios de ese ser al que aspiramos y  que regirá nuestro diario vivir.

¿Cuál es el Valor por el cual usted va a vivir? Como ejercicio para esto, piense en tres personas o personajes de nuestra historia en el que usted se ve reflejado, como persona y que admira.  Identifique cual es el valor o valores que lo definen. 

Por ejemplo: honesto, justo, optimista, una persona de palabra, puntual, sincero, carismático, positivo, vertical, que escucha, respetuoso, con buen sentido del humor, o cualquier otra virtud que usted admira y siente que es vital para su sana convivencia etc…

Otra manera de entender nuestros Valores lo es cuando la gente nos identifica constantemente con una característica de Valor específica. Si gustas, pregúntele    a su gente lo siguiente: ¿Cuándo tú me ves, en que característica como persona piensas que soy?
  
Algunos nombres pueden ser: Jesús, Gandhi, Hellen Keller, John Paul Getty, Winston Churchill, Platón, Aristóteles o Albert Einstein.  Igual puede ser su maestra de 3er grado o su madre o padre o un amigo, o aquel que se encontró casualmente y le brindó una sonrisa y un pensamiento positivo cuando más lo necesitaba. No tienen que ser personas famosas, uno aprende y es marcado por quien uno menos lo piensa. En el fondo todos somos grandes.

Me acuerdo de una experiencia personal con un niño, “menos valido” que me enseño que el jabón nunca se ensucia.  ¿Qué aprendí con esta experiencia?,  el Valor del Conocimiento.

Piense en una lección de vida que aprendió de alguien.  Cual fue el Valor para usted en ese momento.

Escoja su candidato o candidatos y piense que tienen estos en común con usted.  Identifique dos aspectos fundamentales: ¿Cuáles fueron su Visión y los Valores que lo representan?

Entonces, escriba su Declaración de Visión y determine por cuales Valores usted va a desarrollar su vida.

Cuando haya hecho esta asignación, el próximo paso es pensar, cuál es la mejor manera de que el mundo conozca su Visión y los Valores por los cuales usted va vivir.

¿Cómo puedo ser más efectivo en informar y comunicar mi visión a esas personas que deseo impactar?

Si no sabe cómo comenzar a hacerlo, permítame ayudarle.

En el programa de Consultor en Ventas, desarrollamos Líderes en ventas, hombres y mujeres con el deseo de servir a los demás mediante sus ideas, productos y servicios.

Dentro del programa trabajamos el desarrollo de la Declaración de Visión y repasamos una lista de valores para que determine cual o cuales le identifican como persona.

Cuando se tiene el plano de construcción de un edificio bien diseñado, es cuando se puede comenzar a construir.  Hace falta preparar una zapata o base que sustente el edificio que quiere construir. Así mismo es la transferencia de ideas. 

La transferencia de ideas es compleja y puede parecer difícil pero no imposible. Algunos líderes piensan que por el mero hecho de que son jefes, la gente les va a seguir y hacer todo el caso del mundo; nada más lejos de la verdad.

También, presentamos una estructura para trabajar lo que son objeciones ocultas, un método eficaz para descubrir las resistencias de las personas.  En esta categoría están nuestros empleados, nuestros pares, amigos y familiares.

Me acuerdo de un caso del Sr. Bigio, que él estaba presentando una propuesta de tecnología para cambiar una red inalámbrica para una empresa de ventas de autos con un valor de $250,000.  Mediante el descubrir la objeción oculta,             el Sr. Bigio pudo saber y entender la mayor resistencia de compra del prospecto   y poder definir su respuesta para el cierre de venta.  De hecho, personalmente fui contratado por el Sr. Bigio para asistirle en dicho proyecto, ya que en ese tiempo, era técnico en reparación de computadoras y administrador de una red de puntos de venta.

Todo líder que necesite vender o transferir ideas para que la gente cambie de comportamiento  o que adopten nuevos cambios, debe tener una estructura de transferencia de ideas concretas y definidas. En el programa, le proveemos de los pasos a seguir en cada situación de ventas manteniendo el control de la conversación en todo momento.

Le invito a que me visite en el 36 Congreso Hemisférico de Camacol que será  los días 01 al 04 de junio de 2015 en el Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave, Coral Gables, Florida 33134.


Edwin Conrado Rivera, M.P.H. – Es Autor de varios libros de autoayuda en adición del curso de ventas para lideres, “Consultor en Ventas.  
                                 
Lo pueden contactar en: EdwinConradoRivera@gmail.com

Friday, May 15, 2015

The Secret Air Force Space Drone Heads Back Into Orbit (BusinessWeek)



A classified Air Force space drone is returning to orbit again, and this time NASA will use the flight to see how 100 or so “materials of interest” hold up in the murderous environment of space.
Space stresses materials with temperature extremes, debris, micrometeoroids, direct sunlight, and atomic oxygen and can erode many of the paints, polymers, and composites that NASA and private space companies use as protective coatings on their craft. Such research becomes only more critical as the agency contemplates longer, deep-space explorations, such as amission to Mars in the 2030s. NASA now has some space in the 29-foot-long Air Force drone to carry out the testing—which involves samples about the size of a quarter and extends research that began in 2001—for possible use in future spacecraft. 

The Air Force X-37B on April 21, 2010, at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is an autonomous spacecraft, about 20 percent of the size of the retired Space Shuttle, that can remain in orbit for extended periods. Over the first three missions, it spent 1,367 days, or nearly four years, in space, 33 days more than the Space Shuttle logged over 135 missions. The Air Force has progressively extended the length of each flight; the last one stretched to 674 days before the craft landed in mid-October at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The fourth mission is scheduled to launch May 20 aboard an Atlas V rocket  from Cape Canaveral, Fla., weather permitting. 
“With the demonstrated success of the first three missions, we’re able to shift our focus from initial checkouts of the vehicle to testing of experimental payloads,” Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said in a statement. 
“The materials flown in space are potential candidates to replace obsolescent materials with environmentally friendly options,” NASA said. Some coatings used to dissipate static charges, which had been exposed on earlier space station missions, have been used on the Mars Curiosity rover and on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Besides the materials research, the Air Force plans to test an experimental propulsion system.
That's all for now. It's a secret space drone. 


Thursday, May 14, 2015

The US ranks last in the world for paid parental leave (TechRepublic)

10 things you need to know about maternity leave in the US

Here are 10 things to know about how that negatively affects economy, and why it's time to fix it. 
istock000037152406small.jpg

The US is one of only three countries left in the world that do not guarantee paid maternity leave. The others are Papua New Guinea and Oman.
The closest thing we have is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which became law in 1993 and allows qualified employees to take 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for specific family and medical reasons. Having a baby, or caring for an adopted child, falls under this category.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 12% of Americans have access to the paid parental leave, which is considered a benefit by employers. Only 5% of low-wage earners receive paid maternity leave. Paid parental leave policies remain up to individual employers.
Let's take a look at some important facts about maternity and paternity leave in the US.

1. Women are struggling because of these policies

When women don't receive paid maternity leave, research has shown that they are more likely to drop out of the workforce, therefore losing income for themselves and their families. About 43% of women with children leave work voluntarily at some point in their careers. A 2014 New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of nonworking adults aged 25 to 54 in the United States showed that 61% of women said family responsibilities were why they weren't working, compared to 37% of men.
Or, on the other hand, a mother can go back to work too quickly, which could be harmful to her or her baby's health. That gives her less time to bond with her child, increases her risk of postpartum depression, and also makes breastfeeding -- which is incredibly beneficial for the baby's health -- much more difficult. About 25% of women go back to work 10 days after having a baby.

2. Only four states have publicly funded paid maternity leave

California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island now have paid maternity leave laws. California offers new mothers up to six weeks, at 55% of their salary. New Jersey offers six weeks and two-thirds of salary. Rhode Island pays four weeks at 60%.
The Department of Labor recently expanded its program to promote more paid leave, and awarded $500,000 in grants to Washington D.C., Massachusetts, and Montana to implement and assess public funding for paid leave. It gave more money to Rhode Island to evaluate its existing program. The Department of Labor also has a social media campaign for paid leave: #LeadonLeave.

3. FMLA isn't helping very many people

FMLA only covers 59% of US workers. The 12 weeks of unpaid family leave offered by this program is for women who worked 1,250 hours during a year for a company that employs 50 or more people. Two in five women do not qualify for leave under FMLA,according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. That's any level job -- low-wage or high.
And, there are a high number of workers who are eligible for FMLA leave and don't take it -- 64% of women and 36% of men, according to the Department of Labor. As of the end of March 2015, FMLA now includes same-sex couples, after a long battle over the issue.

4. Our maternity leave policies contribute to the gender pay gap

There is a much smaller wage gap when women and men first enter the workforce right after college. But, it is widely documented that as women move through the workforce, get married, and have children, the gap widens.
The average age for an American woman to have her first child is 26. About 47% of the workforce is women, and women comprise two-thirds of the low-wage workforce. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 64% of mothers with children under six worked in 2013. In 40% of households with children under 18, women are the primary breadwinners. And more often, women are delaying marriage and children to have a career.
When it comes down to it, a woman's childbearing years and peak earning years coincide, and that has a big effect on her earnings. A University of Massachusetts studyfound that for every child a woman has, her salary decreases by 4% -- and that penalty is worse for low-wage workers. But for men, fatherhood increases earnings by more than 6%.

5. The policies are also contributing to the income gap

Because maternity leave policies are left up to private corporations and not the government, a specific population is benefitting from them, and low-income workers are being left out. When it comes down to it, the ability to adjust to motherhood (or fatherhood) and learn to care for a child is a luxury only some people can afford.
Some high-dollar markets, like the tech industry seem to be making strides with leave policies, but low-income workers don't have access to the same types of policies. And even with FMLA, at least 40% of workers are excluded from the small benefits it offers,according to the Council of Economic Advisors.

6. The policies need to be inclusive

The US is far behind the 78 countries with paid paternity leave laws, and many policies don't include parents who adopt children or have a surrogate. In an in-depth look at this issue in early January, Bloomberg Businessweek found that when companies offer leave to fathers, it decreases the likelihood that employers will stigmatize young women and not hire them, and the requests from men to take that leave increase -- in California, 26% of men use it.

7. Paid leave is good for business

According to a 2011 study by California's Center for Economic and Policy Researchafter the state implemented paid leave, 91% of businesses said it had a positive effect on profitability or no effect at all -- that is, it didn't show any disadvantages whatsoever. It just makes good economic sense, and not just for women. Economists have foundthat when people are offered paid leave, they take it, which lessens their likelihood to drop out of the workforce completely. And this is especially true for low-income parents, who can't afford to take unpaid leave (if they're even afforded it under FMLA). Research shows that women who have paid maternity leave have a higher chance of returning to work.

8. Tech giants have some of the best maternity leave policies in the US

Google is one of the leaders in this realm. Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, wrote about her experience in the Wall Street Journal last year, detailing that she was the first employee to go on paid maternity leave at Google. In 2007, Google increased paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 18, and she said "the rate at which new moms left Google fell by 50%." They also increased paternity leave to 12 weeks.
Other research shows that other tech companies have decent maternity leave policies as well. Facebook, for instance, offers equal time off for all parents, and a $4,000 bonus for baby care. Apple offers four weeks off before birth and 16 weeks after, and fathers and adoptive parents can take six weeks off. Yahoo offers 16 weeks of paid time off for mothers, and eight weeks for fathers and parents of adopted children. Instagram and Reddit offer 17 weeks to mothers, and Twitter offers 20, and all offer paid time off to fathers and adoptive parents.

9. President Obama is trying to make it national policy

At the end of 2014, Obama gave federal employees six weeks of paid leave when they become parents, and has touted paid parental leave as an economic matter for the country. But, his plan of six weeks still offers much less than other industrialized nations. Denmark offers a year. Italy offers five months. France offers 16 weeks. Mexico offers 12. Afghanistan offers 13. A Pew research report in 2013 looked at 38 countries and found that the average fully-paid time off for new mothers is five to six months.

10. Companies are slowly making better policies

As the conversation about paid maternity leave continues, more companies are starting to make changes. In March, telecommunications company Vodafone announced its 30 companies around the world would have to provide 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, and enact a policy that women can work 30 hours a week for full-time salary for six months after that. That policy is unique, maybe the first of its kind. And it's less odd than Facebook and Apple offering to freeze eggs.
None of the changes companies are making are exactly lush or comforting, or even comparable to other countries' national policies, and only federal and/or state laws for paid maternity leave will help all Americans. But, they are a move in the right direction.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Self-Driving Car Report Card: 4 Accidents in Calif. Since Sept. (PCMagazine)

Three of the accidents involved "souped-up Lexus SUVs" operated by Google, according to the Associated Press.

Google Self-Driving Car

Companies developing driverless cars say their vehicles could eventually make the roads safer by eliminating risks like drunk driving, road rage, and texting while driving. But current models aren't yet infallible.
According to a report from the Associated Press, four of the nearly 50 self-driving cars currently being tested on California roads and highways have gotten into accidents since September. Three of the accidents involved "souped-up Lexus SUVs" operated by Google and the fourth was an Audi retrofitted with self-driving gear by the parts supplier Delphi Automotive.
Only two of the cars were in self-driving mode at the time of the accidents, the report said. The other two times, a person was in control of the vehicle.
"Safety is our highest priority," a Google spokesperson said in a statement to PCMag.com. "Since the start of our program 6 years ago, we've driven nearly a million miles autonomously, on both freeways and city streets, without causing a single accident."
Google told the AP that the accidents were "minor and their cars were not at fault," according to the report. Indeed, the AP said the self-driving cars just got "dinged," so these don't sound like major crashes.
In a statement sent to PCMag.com on Monday, a Delphi spokesperson said the incident occurred in October when its vehicle was stopped at a light when another car crossed the median and hit it. Its vehicle was in manual driving mode, being operated as a conventional car at the time.
"The vehicle that caused the accident lost control, traveled across the median and struck Delphi's vehicle," the company said. "A police report indicates the fault of the accident is with the second vehicle, not Delphi. No one was hurt in the incident."
According to the U.S. Census data released in 2012, there were just over 10.8 million motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. in 2009. In California, crashes resulted in 2,816 deaths in 2012.
News of the crashes comes after the California Department of Motor Vehicles in September started issuing permits that allow for testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads in the state. Google quickly signed on, and the Mountain View search giant reportedly has the highest number of self-driving cars on the road.
The testing period requires that all autonomous vehicles have a driver who is capable of stopping the car if something goes awry.
Google first announced its self-driving car project in 2010 with the goal to "make driving safer, more enjoyable and more efficient." Experts say that self-driving cars, with all their various sensors, can take in a 360-degree view of their surroundings — something humans can't do — and have faster reaction times than us mere mortals. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even recently predicted that we're approaching a time when we'll stop allowing human drivers to operate vehicles on public roads at all, because robot cars will be so much safer.
But fully self-driving cars are still years — if not decades — away from hitting the consumer market. Google says it is well on its way to launching self-driving cars within five years while semiconductor firm Freescale is aiming to power fully automated cars, trucks, and buses within the next decade. IHS Automotive, meanwhile, predicts that fully self-driving cars should be shuttling people around by 2035.
Truck drivers might also be able to shift their 18-wheelers into self-driving mode in the future, too. Daimler last week showed off a huge truck with autonomous controls.

Monday, May 11, 2015

Latest President Obama-requested cyberthreat intelligence agency may be overkill

Some security experts wonder if the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center is the best use of US federal government resources. 



President Obama asked the Director of National Intelligence in February 2015 to create the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC). "The CTIIC will be a national intelligence center focused on 'connecting the dots' regarding malicious foreign cyber threats to the nation and cyber incidents affecting U.S. national interests, and on providing all-source analysis of threats to U.S. policymakers," according to the White House press release. "The CTIIC will also assist relevant departments and agencies in their efforts to identify, investigate, and mitigate those threats."
Since the February announcement, cyberthreat intelligence has catapulted into the topic du jour, including taking up a respectable percentage of the schedule at this year's RSA Conference.

What is cyberthreat intelligence?

The term cyberthreat intelligence surfaced in tech media in 2009-2010 around the same time big dataand data mining were becoming buzzwords. Definitions of cyberthreat intelligence abounded, and most were patterned after military-speak. Eventually, the industry settled on descriptions similar to the following two. The first from Gartner's Rob McMillan:
"Threat intelligence is evidence-based knowledge, including context, mechanisms, indicators, implications and actionable advice, about an existing or emerging menace or hazard to assets that can be used to inform decisions regarding the subject's response to that menace or hazard."
Dave Shackleford in the SANS paper Who's Using Cyberthreat Intelligence and How? offered a slightly different take:
"The idea behind cyber-threat intelligence is to provide the ability to recognize and act upon indicators of attack and compromise scenarios in a timely manner. While bits of information about attacks abound, cyber-threat intelligence recognizes indicators of attacks as they progress, in essence putting these pieces together with shared knowledge about attack methods and processes."
The key takeaways appear to be "actionable advice" and in a "timely manner."

Is the CTIIC needed?

Cyberthreat intelligence is important, we can all agree, but there is some question as to whether the CTIIC will duplicate what an existing agency -- theNational Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) -- already does. The following is an overview of the NCCIC's charter:
"The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) is a 24x7 cyber situational awareness, incident response, and management center that is a national nexus of cyber and communications integration for the Federal Government, intelligence community, and law enforcement.
"The NCCIC shares information among the public and private sectors to provide greater understanding of cybersecurity and communications situational awareness of vulnerabilities, intrusions, incidents, mitigation, and recovery actions.
"Richard Bejtlich, a well-respected security expert, in his Brookings article What are the prospects for the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center? offers to clarify the government's position. "While I am not a proponent of creating more government agencies, I will explain the rationale behind the new agency," he writes. "I will also explain why I think the new agency may have a difficult time establishing legitimacy for itself because of that diminishing its effectiveness."
To start, Bejtlich explains that NCCIC, US-CERT (a subdivision of NCCIC), and now CTIIC will all support cybersecurity by creating information products for government constituents and other consumers. Next, Bejtlich cites President Obama at a recent cybersecurity and consumer protection summit, "Just like we do with terrorist threats, we're going to have a single entity [CTIIC] that's analyzing and integrating and quickly sharing intelligence about cyber threats across government so we can act on all those threats even faster."
Bejtlich then provides a second source by quoting Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, during a speech at the Wilson Center:
"CTIIC will serve a similar function for cyber as the National Counterterrorism Center does for terrorism -- integrating intelligence about cyber threats; providing all-source analysis to policymakers and operators; and supporting the work of the existing Federal government Cyber Centers, network defenders, and local law enforcement communities. The CTIIC will not collect intelligence -- it will analyze and integrate information already collected under existing authorities."
Due to the acronym overload, please keep in mind that Monaco was referring to the National Counterterrorism Center and not the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center we are discussing in this post.

What makes the CTICC different?

Having pointed out the similarities, Bejtlich, then details the difference between the two agencies, referring to this FCW article where Adam Mazmanian writes about a recent meeting of the Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board. At the meeting, Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniels mentions he welcomes CTIIC as a means to relieve pressure on his National Security Council staff, as they will get intelligence instead of raw data.
Mazman quotes Daniels as saying, "There's a degree of integration that's occurring on my staff that really should not be occurring. It needs to come into us that way. I think that [the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center] will be a great force multiplier in this space."

Final thoughts

At this year's RSA Conference there was a session called "Gumshoes Part Deux -- Security Investigative Journalists Speak Out." It was an interesting panel discussion featuring several prominent journalists who cover IT security. Of particular note was a comment by Brian Krebs (Krebs on Security), "Failure to share information in a timely way causes a lot of problems."
Krebs mirrors what President Obama and Ms. Monaco suggest as the reason CTIIC is needed. However, I am curious why creating another government agency is better than re-tasking and adding staff to an existing agency that has most if not all the intelligence pieces in house already.
Bejtlich has an additional concern, "Given that CTIIC will be a coordinating agency, separated from hands-on analysis duties, I worry that it will lack the legitimacy and perhaps the capability to fulfill its mission."