General

Systems crash troubles Medicaid plan holders

Medicaid patients are taking heat from glitches in Washington’s new computer system. It’s supposed to process Medicaid payments, and with its failure comes several physicians and clinics refusing to accept further Medicaid members until they receive payment for patients they have treated earlier. Other medical practitioners are planning on following suite by likewise rejecting Medicaid beneficiaries until such time that they’ve received payment for earlier treatments. Medicaid’s online program called ProviderOne proved to be quite expensive and is three years later than what was previously planned when it got launched back in May.

Director of Patient Financial Services for Valley Medical Center Andrea Gannon says that Medicaid claims are in fact now being processed and thus they are not receiving their dues. Valley Medical Center alone is awaiting around US$3.8 million dollars in pending payments from ProviderOne. Valley is big enough to wait for pending payments, but other small time health care providers won’t be able to afford having their daily cash flow interrupted. Meanwhile, health care providers are repeatedly frustrated over receiving no human response over Medicaid hotlines.

Rural Health Clinic Association of Washington and administrator at Lake Chilean Clinic Dr. Barbara Berg says that her town is extremely rural and small, thus any disruption to the cash flow will greatly take its toll on business. Medicaid is currently being co-funded by both federal and state governments, and has a customer base of commonly low-income families as well as disabled Americans. Federal government is now pushing states into investing in new computer technology to prevent such mishaps from recurring.

Fresh news publication exclusively for iPad

Soon, Apple will be holding a press release early in December to announce their latest iPad feature—a new newspaper and magazine subscription billing option to make it easier for iPad users to get the latest feeds from their favorite sources. This follows speculations that Apple is working with News Corp to create an online newspaper that is exclusive for tablets. The rumored publication shall be named The Daily, according to a online reporter who overheard Apple executives talking with the newspaper outfit.

The reporter says that it will not be like Apple’s current iBooks as there will be no centralized news dispatching unit such as iNews or Newsstand. He says that it will simply be a new billing option for subscriptions that will be payable through clients’ iTunes accounts. News Corp supposedly already has initial documentation of the joint project, and the new software will most likely require iPad users to download the latest iOS version to launch The Daily. There’s also rumors that the publication will be launched for free until Apple is able to fully implement support for its new program.

There were recent reports by The Guardian that News Corp is indeed going to put up an online publication that’s exclusive to tablets. The reports included that News Corp was working closely with Apple on the new project. The new publication will not take stories from the print or online versions currently in circulation, but instead be produced by at least 100 journalists that shall take office on the 26th floor of News Corp’s headquarters in New York.

Samsung Netbook and Computer accessories

Almost all of us have been bitten by technology bug. Almost anywhere you go, you’ll find someone or the other riveted to a Samsung Netbook, a range of digital cameras and handy cams that are taken with them wherever one goes.

It seems as if technology is more of a need than a want in today’s world. Take for example, the time you buy a television. Purchasing a television these days isn’t the same as in the good old days of CRT tubes, and with the flexibility in being able to rotate your television at any angle to suit your viewing needs through a Samsung TV stand, one does not have to crane their necks like they did with previous versions of televisions either.

At another level altogether, printers are another important aspect of any organization’s day to day working, and even though Samsung toner cartridge among several other companies that make this product offer it at an expense that is controversially far more expensive than the printer itself, the bottom line is that the need for good toner that is available consistently has become more apparent than ever, thanks to the ever growing needs of the organization.

Yes, our lives have changed… and while some might consider that technology has literally invaded our homes and our hearts, there are a slew of benefits that come with it too.

The Significance of Backing Up Files

The Internet and our computers have become the hub of business and information. It involves a lot of files and data which are very important and because of this, there are a lot of people who are also trying to hack or steal away precious data from one another. Aside from this, data loss is common sometimes due to hardware failurs and other times software glitches.

This is why backing up of important files and data is very important. There are a lot of things that you can prevent from happening when you back up or keep a copy of your files. First, you can avoid data loss during certain fortuitous events and disasters. Because we are not sure of what is going to happen all the time, it is very important to back up files.

At the same time, when there are sudden data losses like corruption of files and non-workability of certain storage devices and hard drives, making extra copies of your important files come in handy. This will prevent you from repeating your work all over again, and in addition, it will save you a lot of time from repetition of work.

Making a back up file of all the data and information you have is vital for your business. It may require an extra investment on reliable storage devices and a little time for scheduling a back up of all the files, but rest assured, it is more convenient than having to lose valuable information instead.

LinkPartner: visit cscl2002 for latest news and articles in the computer world.

Where will LittleDog Robotic Dog go next?

LittleDog is an appropriately named robotic dog, which stands at only five inches tall. Robot dogs have been appearing quite regularly over the past few years and some models have been turned into electronic pets. So far, LittleDog is not heading towards such an ignominious fate.

The primary purpose of this four legged robot is to successfully traverse and negotiate complex and rugged terrain. Lithium polymer batteries supply the power to the 3 motors in each leg, which enables it to have a fair amount of power at its call. It also surprisingly contains a PC level computer onboard to take care of communication, sensor controls and actuator controls. The sensor controls in particular perform very complex calculations which include measuring joint angles, foot and ground contact, orientation of the body and the motor currents.

Although Boston Dynamics manufactured LittleDog sometime ago, it was recently boosted by the addition of new software. Researchers from the University of California developed software that improved its locomotion. This gave LittleDog increased movement speed, better stability and smooth movement. Demonstrations have shown that the robot displays exceptional skill in picking good footholds on rough terrain as well as navigating difficult obstacles like stairs and chasms.

The robot is part of a project called Learning Locomotion which is funded by DARPA. The LittleDog project could very well translate into larger versions of the robot, which will help in exploration projects both here and on other planets. The researchers at USC are now focusing on humanoid robots as their next project.

Why is My Computer Beeping?

You switched on your computer one morning and beep, beep, beep- beep- beep. Everyone who has owned a PC has at some point in their lives encountered the dreaded beeps. It is scary and annoying at the same time. Scary because you know something on your computer is busted, annoying because you don’t know exactly what it is and the beeps really aren’t helping.

Actually, the beeps are trying to help you. The beeps are designed to tell you where the problem lies in the only way the computer can in that situation – through sound. This makes sense as the sound comes from the motherboard speaker and being built-into the motherboard means that drivers are not necessary. Deciphering them is easy if you know the code. Here are the codes for Phoenix BIOS based motherboards. Phoenix uses three sets of beeps with pauses between them and each set can be comprised of one or four beeps.

4/2/2 – Keyboard error. This means that the keyboard is not connected properly or that the motherboard has difficulty detecting the presence of a keyboard.
3/3/4 – Display error. The motherboard cannot detect the video card.
1/4/2 – Memory error. One or more of the RAM chips are damaged or improperly installed.
1/2/2 – Motherboard error. This probably the worst, as it means that the motherboard has developed a critical fault.
1/1/3 – CMOS error. This indicates that the computer is unable to read the CMOS configuration. This may require a motherboard replacement.

Although the beeps don’t give you a definite identification of the problem, they do point you in the right direction. Even if you can’t fix the problem by yourself, knowing the beep codes can help you avoid being fleeced at the repair shop.

The End of the Company Office – A Microsoft Study

With the increasing popularity of mobile technology, social networking and most importantly, the impact that the recession has had on most of us, the undisputed run of the ‘company office’ is rapidly coming to an end. In a study conducted by Microsoft, a public sector think-tank and the Institute of Directors, IT departments the world over will be impacted greatly by these important changes to the way we work.

Whether it is the ability to work from home, on the move or to operate from shared offices, IT departments are increasingly being requested to support staff that falls into any of these three categories.

With more and more staff utilizing these three options, the concept of using fixed office space is rapidly diminishing in importance as it saves amount of money spent on purchasing office space, of which 45% is left unused at any given point of time.

Not only will this cut expenditure by a large amount, the approach of using shared bureaus will help employees share ideas with people from other companies, creating a win-win situation for both organizations sharing the space. The only thing that remains from the ‘office’ will be the presence of coffee, light, power and the proverbial water-cooler conversations that might not necessarily have anything to do with gossip.
Finally, the study also elicits advantages that social networking sites and collaboration tools can do for businesses and public sector organizations that can benefit from them, rather than blocking their use completely.

The Apple iPhone OS Vs Google’s Android – A Comparison

As of February 2010, Google claims that almost 60,000 cell phones with the Android operating system is shipped everyday. With the vision of building a versatile platform that will power several mobile phones, the Open Handset Alliance unveiled Android, an open source mobile phone platform based on the Linux OS. The first phone to run Android and that was made commercially available was the HTC Dream. Since then, the contrast in approach both by Apple and Google to the cell phone market has been in the news.

Fast forward to 2010, Apple just recently released the iPhone OS 4 in response to the Android’s 2.1, where the ability to ‘multitask’ has been the primary feature offered, and that is already available on phones using Android.

Where the Apple iPhone scores big is in its marketing, target audience and being able to provide the complete package through the iPhone App Store, where the iPhone has almost 100,000 apps for its users while Android has around 11,000 so far. Ideologically speaking, since the Android caters only to open source advocates and developers (which are not necessarily a large part of the market), Apple has successfully targeted its iPod and retail customers and Mac OS X developer base as well for the iPhone.

Another big plus for the iPhone is that virtually all apps will run on any model of the iPhone while the older Android phones cannot install newer versions of Android, and that seems to a big ding.

On one side, you have the ‘openness’ of the Android, and on the other, you have Apple’s strict standards in offering a finished product. Who will win?

Only time will tell, though.

India Placed Fifth in Cybercrime Worldwide Rankings

In completing its Global Internet Security Threat Report on worldwide cybercrime in December 2009, Symantec Corp. has attributed India’s rise to the fifth (as opposed to the seventh place in 2009 and eleventh place in 2008) place due to most of its cybercriminals being able to commit crimes without fear of prosecution in a country as it actively gains broadband access to the World Wide Web. Among the other developing countries on this list are Brazil, Russia, Poland and Vietnam.

In also describing the methods that hackers use to commit cybercrime, the approach has moved away from the email method of acquiring important personal information such as bank account and credit card numbers to social networking sites.

Symantec Vice-President David Freer says that social networking sites are fairly easy to victimize as most of the people in any particular online community (any social networking site) trust each other explicitly, and thus fall prey to malicious ware being downloaded onto a user’s PC once a file has been opened on the social networking site.

India ranks second in the Asia-Pac region, with an average of 788 ‘bots’ every day being deployed for the purpose of cybercrime along with China, Japan and Australia doing their fair share of damage as well.
Interestingly, using information on social networking sites, most hackers are now targeting enterprises from which large financial gains can be made on gaining access to the company’s intellectual property as well.
India only now is behind Brazil, China, US and Germany which hold the top spots for cybercrime worldwide.