Articles by Andrew K. Burger

As our reliance on smartphones continues to grow, so does the fear of losing all the information they contain -- and for good reason. Fierce competition among handset manufacturers and carriers has resulted in a chaotic, seemingly impenetrable jungle of incompatible makes and models with backup and recovery functionality that often proves complicated to use...

The word "footprint" has gained a lot of currency of late, particularly when talking about carbon consumption and emissions, but also within the IT world. Seen in its original and primary form, a footprint contains lots of information about the identity and nature of the beast that made it Looking to improve on ways of determining the value of IT i...

Part 1 of this series looked at advances in nanotechnology and the threats it presents Advances in nanotechnology have given flight to some seemingly fanciful, and also alarming, projections and fictional scenarios. Yet the applications of nanotech are so diverse and far-reaching that scientists agree that the widespread ability to manipulate matte...

There's probably no field of applied scientific research with applications as diverse and implications as profound as nanotechnology. Advances are coming fast and the research environment is heady as billions of dollars each year go into nanotech research and development "When the nanotech wave comes to shore, it will bring rapid, monumental, inesc...

Perhaps like no other industry before it, the IT industry has come to thrive on continuous innovation coupled with rapid and widespread product introduction. In the competitive -- at times mad -- rush to be first or early to market key things are sometimes overlooked. When it comes to security, it is impossible to identify every vulnerability, much less foretell just how hackers will try to exploit them...

As the number of identity theft victims continues to mount, so has the amount of data and information related to such events -- and the time and resources devoted to better understanding, analyzing and devising measures that can better prevent such occurrences, as is seen in Part 1 of this series "The stakes are already quite high when it comes to ...

Private, personally identifying information is everywhere, from portable computers and digital devices, to the Internet and private networks. This data can be obtained so easily -- either through technology or more mundane means -- and its theft is so often glamorized on film, that it is starting to attract a younger generation to criminal ranks Th...

Recruiting and what has more broadly come to be known as "human capital management" is an area rife with IT activity, as was seen in Part 1 of this series Database vendors, as well as human resources (HR), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and specialist recruitment management systems (RMS) developers are al...

Software as a Service (SaaS), service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web 2.0 technology are fundamentally changing the way people and organizations work, enabling greater degrees of collaboration and restructuring everything from business and operational processes to the way software is licensed and priced, according to recently released research from Forrester Research...

2007 turned out to be "one of the most remarkable years in the history of malware," according to the recently released "ESET Global Threat Report 2007." The movement of new digital devices, social networking channels, operating systems and platforms into the mainstream is providing malware creators with a broader canvas on which to work. Yet relati...

It's long been a management axiom that the knowledge and abilities of employees are among the -- if not the -- most valuable of an organization's resources. While this is generally held to be true -- even in capital-intensive industries -- it is particularly valid for knowledge-intensive businesses Every year, companies spend and invest large sums ...

Peer-to-peer consumer lending sites are shaking up the world of Internet finance. Be it the Internet or broadband wide-area networks, growing capabilities and increasing standardization are changing the way finance organizations do business, as Part 1 of this series discusses The Net is also a key enabler facilitating the rising prominence of the m...

Part 1 of this series looks into the issue of PC recycling and following the course of a hypothetical laptop through the recycling process. Continuing down this path, this part will consider another situation: Laptop owner Joe Verdi doesn't own a laptop from a brand name OEM with a take-back program He wants to recycle it and he gets lucky, or is c...

Internet banking and stock trading was all the rage during the late 1990s. Now, two emerging areas of e-finance -- peer-to-peer lending and microfinance -- are disrupting the status quo even further and moving their markets into a new stage of development Facilitators of peer-to-peer borrowing and lending, such as Prosper.com, GlobeFunder and Lendi...

Of the Web's many attractions, the potential to tap into a global marketplace, has perhaps been first and foremost for businesses. If you are a manufacturer, distributor or merchant, designing and launching a Web site is but one piece of putting together and solving the e-commerce puzzle, however. Before you start taking orders, you'd best be sure that you can deliver -- literally...

While they are instrumental in disseminating information and raising environmental consciousness, our dependence on digital electronics is also putting ever greater strains on us and our environment "Manufacturing a desktop computer and 17-inch CRT monitor uses at least 240 kg (530 lbs) of fossil fuels, 22 kg (50 lbs) of chemicals and 1,500 kg (3,...

Major IT companies are fashioning themselves into leading worldwide proponents of clean technology as they put into use a growing battery of tools that can reduce organizations' carbon footprint -- while at the same time increasing the power, efficiency and flexibility of IT systems' architecture While virtualization and more energy-efficient heati...

Leading IT companies are crafting ambitious green technology programs and enacting them throughout their own transnational organizations and along their supply chains, as well as promoting them to customers, as Part 1 of this series discusses Going green costs capital, time and effort, but by finding ways to reduce energy and materials usage, save ...

There's a lot to "green" in the global IT industry. A growing number of leading IT companies active in business lines spanning the entire industry value chain -- from chip fabrication and equipment manufacturing to retailing consumer electronics -- are now putting themselves at the forefront of the green tech wave For years, tech companies have bee...

An investigation into the latest version of "gpicode.ai" -- a Trojan horse carrier of malware that encrypts recipients' data -- put security researchers on to a trail of clues that provides new insights into the ongoing evolution of spam-driven malware and its use by botnet operators based in Russia Prompted by outbreaks of virus incidents -- inclu...