IT News and Views – the Friday Collection

Atos boss Thierry Breton defends his internal email ban
Company boss has the courage of his convictions in allowing staff to rely on social media techniques rather than internal email. This is a major challenge to a mentality that you copy the world and his labrador on every email to prove you are doing your job. Read the interview, here.

Beware misleading marketing of “private clouds”
Interesting Gartner blog which, horrifyingly, implies that some of the marketing surrounding the Cloud might be a bit iffy. The author identifies 3 porkies told by those trying to get us to float into the Cloud. Read the entry, here.

Made in IBM Labs: Breakthrough Chip Technology Lights the Path to Exascale Computing
IBM unveil a new type of chip that should dramatically increase the speed of computing. In other news, this article has introduced the word ‘Nanophotonics’ which would go a long way to winning any game of Scrabble. Read the IBM article, here.

Martha Lane Fox launches Government Digital Service
Article about the change of mindset in government that will make services ‘digital by default’: or, I suspect, online unless it is simply impossible to achieve. This is broadly a good idea as it could represent huge efficiency savings but I can’t wait to see how they deliver meals on wheels over t’interweb. Read the story, here.

And finally…
Laptops may fry more than just thighs
Report that using your computer might affect you in the downstairs frontal-type trouser area. Is this a co-incidence or another form of Darwinian selection? I’ll let you decide by reading, here.