Today’s Washington Post article, As smartphones proliferate, some users are cutting the computer cord, describes how smartphones are enabling a “always-on, Internet-on-the-go society”.

“A third of all American adults own a smartphone and for many minority and low income users, those mobile devices have replaced computers for Internet access. The findings released Monday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project highlight the breakneck speed consumers are adopting smartphones — faster than just about any high-tech product in history. … Of those who solely rely on smartphones to surf the Web, most are minorities, younger than 30 and have low incomes. They’ve found mobile devices as a suitable replacement for buying expensive computers and paying DSL or cable modem bills every month, Smith said. Cable and DSL remain faster, but that difference may not be big enough to justify their high costs for some consumers.”

How many UMBC students use a smartphone for a significant part of their access to the Internet? What are you using: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, WebOS? Please share your experience as a comment.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Presenters are leaders in their respective fields, representing industrial, academic and government communities. Leading researchers present their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today’s technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research and engineering.

Past Grace Hopper Celebrations have resulted in collaborative proposals, networking, mentoring, and increased visibility for the contributions of women in computing.

Register today!

Dr. Yelena Yesha is the Associate Director of the National Science Foundation's Center for Hybrid Multicore Productivity and Research (CHMPR) and the site director of the Multicore Computational Center (MC²), and has been doing exciting research with cloud computing through the centers.

To read more about Dr. Yesha's research pursuits, see her full research profile.

Dr. Curtis Menyuk, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, specializes in the theory and simulation of opitcal and photonic systems. A member of UMBC's Computational Photonics Laboratory, he is currently interested in short-pulse lasers and time and frequency transfer networks. "One of the central themes in my career has been an interest in solitons,” says Dr. Menyuk who first became interested in lasers in the early eighties while doing collaborative research with Linn Mollenauer.

To read more about Dr. Menyuk's research pursuits, see his full research profile.

Dr. Tülay Adali, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, specializes in statistical signal processing.Since 1992, Dr. Adali has been the director of the Machine Learning for Signal Processing Lab (MLSP-Lab) at UMBC. Currently, she has been working on diagnosing schizophrenia by analyzing functional MRI and other medical imaging data.

To read more about Dr. Adali's research pursuits, see her full research profile.

The Washington Post had a recent story on how Maryland is positioning itself to take advantage of increased interest in cybersecurity, Maryland sees its moment in cybersecurity. The article discusses the cybersecurity incubator in UMBC’s research Park.

“The state has had no trouble attracting well-known contractors — many of whom are based in Northern Virginia. McLean-based Science Applications International Corp., for instance, has touted the cyber center it built near Fort Meade, while Northrop Grumman — soon to be based in Falls Church — has established a cybersecurity incubator program with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, whose campus is 10 miles from Fort Meade.
…
Ellen Hemmerly is trying to bring the pieces together as executive director of bwtech@UMBC, a research and technology park on UMBC’s campus that is home to incubator and entrepreneurial training programs.

The incubator started in 1989 with a focus on life sciences but saw an increased emphasis on dot-com companies in the early 2000s. Now, cyber companies are springing up; the campus is home to more than 20.

Five Directions, a cybersecurity start-up founded by William Arbaugh, is one of them. Arbaugh, who spent time at the Pentagon and the National Security Agency, sold his first company to Microsoft in 2008. Now using bwtech’s provided office space to host Five Directions, he said Maryland is increasingly developing an environment that supports start-ups.”

CIO magazine has an article that identifies what they think are the the six hottest new IT jobs. They used an admittedly unscientific method of reviewing listing on IT job sites and talking to IT executives to find the types of jobs with good growth potential and are resistant to outsourcing and economic downturns.

“IT job seekers have real reason to hope. No fewer than 10,000 IT jobs were added to payrolls in May alone, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, reflecting a steady month-over-month increase since January. And in a June survey by the IT jobs site Dice.com, 65 percent of hiring managers and recruiters said they will hire more tech professionals in the second half of 2011 than in the previous six months.”

Their six are:

• Business architect
• Data scientist
• Social media architect
• Mobile technology expert
• Enterprise mobile developer
• Cloud architect

While won’t find required courses on most of these in a standard undergraduate program, doing well in any of them needs the foundation you will receive. These include programming, software engineering, statistics, systems, computer architecture, algorithms, databases, etc. UMBC does offer electives that give students the skills that will make students more competitive for these jobs, such as mobile computing, parallel programming, service oriented architectures, machine learning, data mining, security, web technology, etc.

Disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results. Your mileage may vary.

CIO magazine has an article that identifies what they think are the the six hottest new IT jobs. They used an admittedly unscientific method of reviewing listing on IT job sites and talking to IT executives to find the types of jobs with good growth potential and are resistant to outsourcing and economic downturns.

“IT job seekers have real reason to hope. No fewer than 10,000 IT jobs were added to payrolls in May alone, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, reflecting a steady month-over-month increase since January. And in a June survey by the IT jobs site Dice.com, 65 percent of hiring managers and recruiters said they will hire more tech professionals in the second half of 2011 than in the previous six months.”

Their six are:

• Business architect
• Data scientist
• Social media architect
• Mobile technology expert
• Enterprise mobile developer
• Cloud architect

While won’t find required courses on most of these in a standard undergraduate program, doing well in any of them needs the foundation you will receive. These include programming, software engineering, statistics, systems, computer architecture, algorithms, databases, etc. UMBC does offer electives that give students the skills that will make students more competitive for these jobs, such as mobile computing, parallel programming, service oriented architectures, machine learning, data mining, security, web technology, etc.

Disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results. Your mileage may vary.