Though it’s wonderful to read about recent positive trends, there’s no question that the jobless rate has caused concern for some time now. Did you know, however, that in some sectors there are consistently more job openings than there are qualified candidates?

According to a U.S. News blog post by Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, a New Jersey-based charter school founder, fields including computer science, environmental science, medicine, and engineering all need trained professionals. The problem, Bonilla-Santiago says, is that America’s schools don’t provide adequate training in the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—so there aren’t enough prepared people for the available jobs.

Part of the issue, Bonilla-Santiago suggests, is that teachers do not have adequate training in the sciences to effectively teach these subjects. Congress considered solutions that would bring more qualified instructors into the classroom, including encouraging STEM professionals to transition from their industry jobs to teaching positions. But wouldn’t this shift just exacerbate the current vacancy rates in the STEM fields? Read More »

Tags: edchat, edtech, education, education reform, stem, video conferencing, videoconferencing

Today we’re glad to shine the spotlight on our colleagues at Numericable, for taking such a comprehensive step forward in making multi-screen television available to its wide-reaching residential footprint in France.

Specifically, Numericable is deploying our  (3G60) Broadband Processing Engine, a high-density CMTS and uBR10k line card used for DOCSIS 3.0, wideband connectivity, as well as several components in our Videoscape TV family – meaning our CDS (Content Delivery System), for adapting multiple content types to different screen sizes; our Media Processor and Transcode Manager, for adaptive bit rate streaming; and our UCS and Nexus family of data center switches.

The plan augments Numericable’s existing work on its “fiber to the basement” initiative, which can offer up to 4 Gbps of capacity over fiber and coax. Read More »

Tags: 3G60, Cisco, docsis, Numericable, Service Provider, Video On Demand, videoscape

In My  Part 1 of the retail blog series about Las Vegas I wrote about the use of video in Las Vegas to enhance visitor experience in Las Vegas.  In this second blog I’d like to look at the some of the ways Las Vegas using omni channel to reach out across customers across multiple channels to drive loyalty and sales.

Use of Self Service machines

With the high traffic real estate in the casinos, I saw more vending machines than the usual cigarette and soda vending machines.  This one by u*tique at the Cosmopolitan hotel Las Vegas and features a lot of higher end gift items.  Unfortunately my photo did not do it justice but I found the following video

More Read More »

Tags: Cisco, las vegas, omnichannel, retail, retailing, self-service, text messaging, vending machine

As a medical clinic, Valley Sleep Center needs to maintain HIPAA compliance and also allow employees to review confidential patient records. Overhauling its antiquated VPN technology, the company implemented a high-performance Cisco VPN solution.  Learn more in this short video.

Hopefully everyone is back from the Christmas/New Years Holidays by now and already hit the deck running. I know we in the Manufacturing team are already off, well, most of us. I started the New Year by having cataract surgery. So I am going to combine some Healthcare with some Manufacturing in this blog. Consider yourself forewarned!

First, what to expect from us this coming year: much more on the value of mobility and the ability to collaborate across the global workforce, wherever they are (yes, that is Borderless Networks); then a lot on the vast amount of data presenting itself to the factory and from the factory to the enterprise (you will hear the term “data deluge”); also the impact of “the cloud” on the factory; also the growing prevalence of tablets and other smart devices in manufacturing operations. And we will undoubtedly have new areas of concentration throughout the year as new technologies take hold in manufacturing.

So, that is the preview of the year. But now I want to talk about my personal experience with Healthcare and how it relates to Manufacturing. Read More »

Tags: 2012, Borderless Networks, brain, cataract, cloud, collaboration, data deluge, education, eyes, healthcare, machine builders, Manufacturing, mobility, systems