US Air Force: New Cyber Command Recruitment Ad
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The United States Air Force is looking for a few good men (and women) to stave off Cybarmageddon. Join the Cyber Command!
The Air Force is going large with a new tech-themed recruitment drive sporting the tagline: “A Changing World.” In this 30-second TV spot, cool headed airmen in the service’s fledgling Cyber Command are seen combating one of the “three million” hacker attacks that target the Pentagon building every day.
UPDATE
Youtube pulled this video off its servers after it was handed a copyright infringement notice by the US Air Force.
But according to Threat Level (Wired), US Air force is a government agency and therefore has no locus standi on trying to project the ad as covered by copyright law. SO they still have it on their servers.
However, I searched the video again on Youtube some days later and I found it.
40 Laid Off At Yahoo! India
More sacking news this season. Yahoo had announced some time back that because of an unhappy economic year, it is going to reduce its numbers and lay off about 1000 employees. Yahoo! India has taken the lead in this it seems by announcing the cuts. About 40 employees were given the pink slip.
Abuse Of Corporate Email
Desicritic has a very well written post on the misuse of corporate email network in India by employees who forward chain emails containing jokes on ethnic stereotypes, gender etc and I totally concur with him. I have received a bunch of such emails and I remember thinking what these guys were up to, working in such high flier companies and passing around emails using company’s account.
TCS Lays Off 500
Close on the heels of IBM India, another heavy duty IT employer has now sacked 500 computer engineers. According to various newspaper reports, TCS has laid off 500 computer engineers for below par performance in the annual appraisal. TCS is India’s largest IT company in terms of revenue and has the highest number of software engineers in India on its pay roll.
IBM To 700 New Recruits - You are Fired
IBM had been on a full throttle drive to hire thousands of Indian engineering graduates when it hit heavy turbulence. Almost 700 newly recruited engineers have been fired by the American computer services behemoth when they failed to measure up to Big Blue’s standards. Read more
TSA Starts A Blog
Transportation Security Administration started a blog few days back called ‘Evolution of Security’ and going by the number of comments it seems they are a bit hit already.
“Terrorists Evole. Threats Evolve. Security must stay ahead. You play a part” is the marketing slogan. Sort of long and winding but considering the bureaucracy that would have probably gone into its making, not at all surprising.
Software Lobby Group Says US Desperately Needs More Foreign Workers
A technology based lobby group in US, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) wants United States Congress to drastically raise the annual cap on H-1B visas and give permanent residency to foreign nationals who graduate from U.S. colleges.
An additional demand they had was related to backing trade policies which give companies unfettered access to the global market but I am not able to make much of it. Why will the US government restrict companies from doing business across the world? Unless of course the country in question is Iran or Cuba etc. (Thats what I thought initially but check out the analysis and answers below).
Google Spotting For Women Engineers
(Pic - Google Girl)
Google India wants to recognize and celebrate women of India in Computer Sciences and related fields. Google thinks Indian women deserve a pat for solving complex engineering problems, doing work that makes an impact, collaborating with smart people, for challenging conventions, and above all for taking risks. What sweetens the whole deal is that the recognition comes along with a cheque for INR 75000 ($1875).
Prototyping Proto.in
(Pic - Proto.in session in Chennai, India)
Few days back I came across this particular group (in India) - Proto.in (www.proto.in) - which provides a platform for interaction between innovators and investors. Google takes them serious enough to be one of their major sponsors. What the group does is play a sort of match-maker between a small company and a prospective investor. Say if you are a startup which is short on monies but has a demonstrable ‘prototype’ capable of hitting pay dirt, then Proto.in is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Dude, Where’s The Prof?!
– Sufia Tippu
The shortage of engineering teachers in India is even more dire than U.S. observers are aware, Indian academics report. “Unfortunately, if you talk about it, you are dubbed a bad guy, so most of us have stopped talking about it,” said Sowmyanarayanan S. Sadagopan, a professor and founding director of International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Bangalore).
The past decade has seen an exponential growth in the number of engineering institutions in India. Today, there are about 1,700 engineering colleges and 1,300 polytechnics, or schools designed to produce technicians. Although it is difficult to ascertain the total number of teachers in India, the shortage is said to be in the range of 30 to 35 percent.
Indian academics cite two main reasons for the gap between engineering students and teachers: a dearth of PhDs and rock-bottom university pay scales.