Jobs of the Future

Biomedical engineer, network systems and data communications analyst, home health aide: those are the top three career fields expected to hire workers between now and 2018, says a story tucked into The New York Times Education Life supplement last Sunday. The Times pulled data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics once every two years. This list comes from November 2009, so it’s not exactly current, but it nevertheless provides some rough guidance for young people trying to plan their studies and career direction. The BLS will put out a fresh list in November of this year.
The Times piece includes a link to the BLS’s table, which you can find here. There are also links to lists of the fields with the largest job growth here, and the occupations with the greatest declines, here. The top three professions adding the most jobs: registered nurses, home health aides and customer service representatives. The fields with the biggest job drops, perhaps not surprisingly: farmers and ranchers, sewing machines operators, and office order clerks.
Helpfully, the Times lists approximate salaries and brief explanations of why the top fields are growing, and also the necessary education required. Biomedical engineers, for instance, are in great demand by device makers who produce things like artificial limbs and imagining machines, and companies looking to do gene testing and to make new drugs. The BLS says workers need only earn a bachelor’s degree but the Times finds that a master’s degrees is required. The median salary in this profession: $82,550. Network and data analysts make an average of $76,560 and will be working on the explosion in mobile data, tablets and cloud computing apps, and the need for managing ever greater swaths of data. The BLS says you can go into this field with a bachelor’s degree. Given the aging baby boom generation, it’s not surprising that home health aides come in third, and that the salary isn’t high, a median of $21,620, says the Times, though it can be higher in more affluent areas. You don’t need a college degree for this field.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2011/04/20/jobs-of-the-future/

Have you made up your mind? What do you want to become in the future? Tell me in 200words.

Hailo - cabbies and capitalists

It's hard to think of many UK tech firms that have gone global in recent years - but a business started by three entrepreneurs and three London cab drivers may well be the cream of the crop.

Hailo, a mobile phone app which allows you to virtually hail a cab, has unveiled a major new investment and plans to launch in New York and Tokyo.
The app was launched in London in November 2011. Its success was by no means guaranteed, as at least half a dozen similar ideas were already on offer to the capital's taxi and minicab users.
I've been chatting to Hailo's chairman, American entrepreneur Ron Zeghibe, and to Russell Hall, one of the three cabbies involved from the start, about what really made a difference.
Ron, who's spent 20 years outside the US launching various businesses, explains that he and two other entrepreneurs had come up with an idea for a taxi app. But they realised that the key to success would be an intimate knowledge of the cab trade, and that's when they met up with Russell Hall and his two colleagues.
The cabbies had already been operating their own web-based service, Taxilight, for a couple of years but wanted to move it on to a new level. The two groups clicked.
"We sat in a cafe in Charlotte Street," says Russell, "and chatted for hours on end about the moans and groans of cabbies and customers, and after endless cups of teas and rounds of toast we shook hands on a new concept."

The key appears to have been making the Hailo app work first as a useful tool for cabbies, even before it was launched to consumers. Ron says what they came up with was "a working tool for drivers, with a whole series of aspects which made their working day more useful and effective".
This meant that when they did launch to customers, they already had hundreds of drivers signed up - so when you clicked to request a taxi there was a fair chance of getting one.
Today, more than 10,000 London cabbies are using the app - that's probably at least half of those who are actually out on any one day.

Tell me about your favourite apps in your mobile phone. 200 words

New York Times 'hit by hackers from China'

Hackers from China have "persistently" infiltrated the New York Times for the last four months, the US paper says.

It said the attacks coincided with its report into claims that the family of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had amassed a multi-billion dollar fortune.
The hackers used methods which have been "associated with the Chinese military" to target the emails of the report's writer, the paper said.
China's foreign ministry dismissed the accusations as "groundless".
"To arbitrarily assert and to conclude without hard evidence that China participated in such hacking attacks is totally irresponsible," said spokesman Hong Lei.
"China is also a victim of hacking attacks. Chinese laws clearly forbid hacking attacks, and we hope relevant parties takes a responsible attitude on this issue."
Beijing has been accused by several governments, foreign companies and organisations of carrying out extensive cyber espionage for many years, seeking to gather information and to control China's image.
'China-based subterfuge' According to the Times, the hackers first broke into their computer system in September, as the report on Mr Wen was nearing completion.
The report, which was dismissed as a "smear" by the Chinese government, said Mr Wen's relatives had amassed assets worth at least $2.7bn (£1.7bn) through business dealings. It did not accuse the Chinese premier of wrongdoing.
China is sensitive about reports on its leaders, particularly when it comes to their wealth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21271849

Would you like break into someone´s personal  computer? Don´t be shy, tell me whose and why in 200 words. What would you like to get to know?