Computer Forensics

Construction Industry

Dodge economist: Recession may be ‘fairly short’

Dive Brief:

New York City-based data consortium Dodge Construction Network revealed a new quarterly report on Tuesday morning that’s focused on the state of the construction industry in the broader economy.
The new report details the economic turmoil gripping the construction industry, caused by sky-high inflation and rising interest rates.
It’s not all bad news: The report notes that the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be a vehicle for significant investment into the nonresidential construction industry, and will create opportunities for contractors to gain work.

Dive Insight:

Richard Branch, the chief economist for Dodge Construction Network, said the industry could see a recession like the one in 2001, which lasted less than a year. Normally, Branch told Construction Dive, before an economic downturn the housing market begins to flail as a signal to the rest of the industry.

However, Branch emphasized that because of high contractor backlog and money funneled to builders from the infrastructure act, the market for civil builders will be different as these jobs and funds act as a buffer from some of the downsides of a recession.

“I do think, because of the nature of how this recession would play out, it would probably be fairly short,” Branch said.

Strong markets

Certain geographic markets are demonstrating growth, such as Virginia, Texas and Arizona, while construction is weaker in the Great Lakes area and in the Northeast. Branch said that the Southwest was gaining ground due to strong demographic growth and less expensive real estate.

Strong sectors include data centers, which have boomed in places like Henrico County, Virginia, along with broadband internet infrastructure. The $65 billion set aside for broadband growth in the infrastructure act will likely trigger evolution in technology that contractors in rural areas can use, the report said.

Branch

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Technology Business

Business and technology park planned for Columbia

A big economic development project is coming to Columbia, Lancaster County.The McGinness Innovation Park on Manor Street was one of the winning applications for state money. “This could mean everything to Columbia,” Mayor Leo Lutz said.The borough bought more than 50 acres of property that was once McGinness airfield for nearly $1.5 million.”This is huge for Columbia. This is the last biggest piece of undeveloped, developable land here in Columbia Borough,” borough manager Mark Stivers said.Community leaders had a plan in mind, and it took teamwork to put it all together.The Economic Development Company of Lancaster County applied for and won more than $8 million in grants and loans to build the park.”It will be redeveloped into commercial businesses that will be generating tax revenue for the borough,” organization president Lisa Riggs said.Since the land was home to an airfield, the vision is for the focus to remain on transportation. The innovation park will be developed into a hub for drone technology.”The catalyst for all of this has been the idea of a drone technology center where the use of drones can be advanced here in Pennsylvania. This would be a training center, to research and development, to learn how to do it, to learn how to fly long-distance and hopefully we can attract some other businesses,” Stivers said.It’s also expected to create 114 jobs.State Sen. Ryan Aument (R-36) helped push the project across the finish line.”We’re seeing a resurgence. I think this is going to spur further resurgence in Columbia,” he said.It will take at least another year before the groundbreaking, and it could be at least five years before businesses could move in.Eighteen acres will be set aside for a park.

COLUMBIA, Pa. —

A big economic development project is coming to Columbia, Lancaster County.

The McGinness Innovation

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Computer Forensics

How are forensics used by police to match bullets to guns?

Engraved on every bullet is a story about the gun that fired it.

In a bunker under a police forensic facility, a ballistics officer aims a sawn-off shotgun down a firing range. It’s one of the hundreds of sawn-offs seized or handed over to police every year.

“Firing!” yells Leading Senior Constable Steve Batten. He squeezes the trigger and 50 metal pellets exit the barrel, spraying outwards and burying themselves in a pile of sand. The shockwave is intense. The scent of gunpowder fills the room. Batten holds up a blackened shell.

Leading Senior Constable Steve Batten reaches for a shotgun shell at the police firing range. — Leading Senior Constable Steve Batten reaches for a shotgun shell at the police firing range.Credit:Scott McNaughton

There are about 3.5 million registered firearms in Australia and about a quarter of a million illicit ones. Sawn-off shotguns are now criminals’ weapons of choice in drive-by shootings. In small towns, crooks cruise around looking for trucks parked in driveways that bear the bumper stickers of gun makers like Winchester or Remington – revealing the likely contents of the car owner’s gun safe.

When crooks come back to crack the safe, if they find a shotgun they’ll often cut down the barrel and handle, both illegal modifications. In this way, a hunting tool becomes an urban weapon that can be tucked into a belt and quickly withdrawn.

But the shotgun shell cooling in Batten’s hand could be a crook’s undoing. If police match it to a shell from a crime scene, they’ll know that the shotgun Batten just fired is the very gun used in that crime.

This year in Victoria there have been seven fatal shootings and 11 non-fatal. In 32 homicide investigations for the year, those involving firearms account for less than 22 per cent. In NSW

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Construction Industry

Foresite Technology Solutions Partners with Lilt to Break

The partnership will integrate Lilt’s translation capabilities into Foresite’s offering

COSTA MESA, Calif., July 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Foresite Technology Solutions, LLC, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) construction company, today announced a partnership with Lilt, the leading global experience platform, to integrate multilingual content into Foresite’s platform for increased accessibility and improved Foresite user experience.

With this new capability, Foresite seeks to eliminate the barriers that foreign language can have in communication-based safety issues in construction. A 2019 report from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages highlights the importance of multilingual capabilities in construction, reporting that 42% of construction industry employers rely heavily on employees for whom English is a second or third language.

Foresite solves some of the biggest challenges builders and trade contractors face, including increasing productivity, safety, and efficiency at the jobsite, while supporting upskilling of the labor force with learning in the flow of work. With the integration of Lilt, Foresite incorporates cost-effective multilingual content to support its efforts to break down language barriers, an imperative software capability in the construction industry.

“From the start, we envisioned Foresite as the open platform of choice, connecting strategic partners to drive innovation for our customers,” said John Gillett, founder and CEO of Foresite. “Our partnership with Lilt highlights how we use leading technology partners, such as Lilt, to improve the construction industry labor force with multilingual upskilling content. This partnership represents the leading edge of our strategy to reimagine and re-equip the labor force and bring a range of partners to the Foresite ecosystem.”

Lilt leverages experienced human linguists and its AI-powered platform to translate websites, product manuals, compliance materials, technical documentation, e-learning content, and more for their customers, providing end-to-end multilingual support. The Lilt platform utilizes AI and automation to maintain quality and keep

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Software

PE firms complete over $74B in software deals through Q2

Private equity deal activity in the software sector remained strong through the first half of 2022, despite much of the technology space grappling with falling valuations, dropping stock prices and macroeconomic headwinds.

Through Q2 of this year, PE firms have completed 378 deals within the software sector, totaling $74.4 billion, compared to 407 deals totaling $60.6 billion in the same period last year. The second half of 2021 saw a surge in software deals, as the year finished out with $173.1 billion in deals, according to our latest US PE Breakdown.

Unlike many other sectors this year, the software industry has not been hit as hard by rising interest rates, surging inflation and geopolitical tensions, as PE firms look to pounce on falling valuations, according to our report.

PE deals within the information technology software sub-sector have performed notably well, with firms so far completing 256 deals totaling $24.7 billion—accounting for 27.7% of total PE deals across all sectors in the second quarter.

Analysts expect that IT deal activity will remain strong this year, thanks to PE’s focus on digitalization and technological innovation.

Thoma Bravo completed one of the quarter’s largest software deals with its $2.6 billion acquisition of Bottomline Technologies, a provider of financial technology. Like investments within the IT space, the fintech software sub-sector has been one of the industry’s most popular investment spaces.

PE firms have targeted fintech companies in greater numbers as ecommerce’s dominance has increased the demand for companies that can provide secure and fast digital transactions, according to our report.

Integrum Holdings landed one of the quarter’s largest fintech deals, with its $290 million acquisition of Merchant eSolutions, a fintech payment platform developer, from Cielo.

Featured image by Oselote/Getty Images

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Technology Business

Genoa Ventures Announces Second Fund to Expand Investing in

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Genoa Ventures, the pioneering venture firm investing in the convergence of biology and technology, today announced the successful close of $84 million for Genoa Ventures Fund II. The new fund will continue Genoa’s investing focus on startups innovating in markets as diverse as research tools, diagnostics, Agri/Food Bio, and industrial bio. Genoa’s first fund proved this intersection can transform industries and achieve top-tier venture returns – as seen through portfolio company growth and acquisitions, including the acquisition of Intabio by SCIEX in 2021.

Genoa’s oversubscribed fund nearly tripled Fund I raised in 2018 while maintaining the early-stage focus and small incremental investing in Seed and Series A companies. The Genoa philosophy centers on strategic guidance and staged investing to ensure institutional best practices during the earliest stages of a company’s journey, while also promoting portfolio diversity and fund sizes that align with top-tier venture capital returns.

Until Genoa, most venture funds with life sciences expertise invested mainly in therapeutics companies, leaving a gap in the venture capital marketplace for startups that are bio-based but not therapeutics-focused. Jenny Rooke, Ph.D., Genoa’s Founder and Managing Director, believed there was an opportunity to invest in different kinds of companies, leveraging technological advances to solve big biological problems and the advancements of engineered biology to become powerful technologies themselves.

“Early in my career, I realized the potential of convergent product-based companies to create entirely new solutions that are bigger than the sum of their parts, with the potential to transform industries. I saw the limitations of traditional, siloed life science investing and firms’ hyperfocus on drug development companies. The venture community was missing transformative companies outside the traditional biotherapeutic and technology markets with solutions that didn’t fit into existing categories,” said Dr. Rooke.

“We are enormously grateful to our Limited

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Computer Forensics

Amanda Todd case: Crown notes deleted computer bookmark

New Westminster, B.C. –

A hard drive seized from the home of the Dutch man accused of harassing British Columbia teenager Amanda Todd contained a deleted bookmark to child pornography depicting her, a Crown attorney told B.C. Supreme Court on Friday.

Louise Kenworthy told the jury trial of Aydin Coban that previous expert testimony showed Todd’s name and several of the online aliases used to harass her were also found on a second hard drive seized when Dutch police arrested Coban in 2014.

Coban has pleaded not guilty to extortion, harassment, communication with a young person to commit a sexual offence and possessing child pornography.

Kenworthy said she expects to finish the Crown’s closing arguments on Tuesday, when she said she would talk about an online account that was active on a computer just five minutes before police arrested Coban at his home and then seized the device.

She said evidence has shown the account was operated by the same person behind another account, under the guise of a young woman, that harassed Todd.

There was no witness to say, “I saw Aydin Coban typing messages on his computer to Amanda Todd” or that they saw Coban in possession of child pornography depicting the teen, Kenworthy told the jury on Friday.

But his guilt was the only inference the jury could draw from the testimony of more than 30 witnesses and binders full of 80 exhibits, she said.

She took the jury to testimony from a B.C. RCMP expert in digital forensics, who last month told the court about finding a folder bearing Todd’s name that had been deleted from a web browser on one of the seized devices.

The folder had contained links to the profiles of a number of

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Branding

Employer Branding Is the New Marketing Imperative

CMOs and their teams are uniquely well positioned to take a lead role in companies’ efforts to attract and retain both customers and top talent.

Dipanjan Chatterjee, Melissa Bongarzone, and Alex Schanne

July 21, 2022

Reading Time: 6 min

Brands are now knee-deep in social and political issues that, until recently, they wouldn’t have touched with a barge pole. Conventional wisdom has it that the increasing number of consumers motivated by social values is goading brands to support the greater social good. While there is some merit to that claim, there is arguably another equally powerful vector of change: the employee. For instance, after much waffling, Disney’s position against the state of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law was spurred on by pressure from its employees.

Employees are not only empowered and agitated; they are restless. More than a third of all employees (41%, according to Forrester’s 2021 Future of Work Survey) expect to look for other opportunities in the next 12 months. As companies face an employee exodus, talent acquisition and retention concerns have burst into the C-suite from the confines of human resources.

Building a brand that attracts and retains talent — employer branding — is at the top of the C-suite agenda and is the most critical priority among CMOs, according to a 2022 Forrester CMO Pulse Survey. “Now is the time,” the CMO at a $28 billion commercial real estate company told us, when “talent is the No. 1 priority among our leaders.”

Marketing’s Next Frontier

Given marketers’ inherent expertise in building brands, there is no group better suited to contribute significantly

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Construction Industry

South Africa Construction Market Report 2022: Future

DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The “South Africa Construction Market Report” report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering.

South Africa has the third-largest economy in Africa. Additionally, it is Africa’s most industrialized, technologically advanced, and diversified economy.

The country’s relative macroeconomic stability, stable democratic government, and well-developed infrastructure have given rise to a dynamic investment environment and established its position as a strategic gateway to other markets in the Southern African region and the rest of the African continent. Infrastructure investment is a central pillar of the South African government’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans.

The 2022 budget allocated R812.5 billion (circa US$51.7 billion) over the next three years for infrastructure investment. The government’s massive spending on major infrastructure projects is expected to drive a construction boom in the country. This report provides an overview of the South African construction market.

Summary

The country’s construction industry was also one of the hardest hits by the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions in terms of employment, losing 259,118 jobs at the end of Q3 2020.

As part of efforts to revive the economy following the devastations of the COVID crisis, the South African government is implementing an economic reconstruction and recovery plan underpinned by massive investment in infrastructure – with a construction project pipeline worth R340 billion in industries such as energy, water, transport and telecommunications.

The government is also implementing a National Infrastructure Plan 2050 (NIP 2050). It aims to achieve an investment/GDP ratio of 30% to meet the infrastructure finance gap for public infrastructure, which is estimated at R2.15 trillion (circa US$140 billion) up to the year 2040. The NIP 2050 emphasises blended project finance and public-private cooperation to finance the delivery of public infrastructure.

The 2022 budget presented on 23 February 2022 allocated an amount of R812.5 billion (circa US$45.3 billion) to public-sector infrastructure

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Software

Hackers Target Ukrainian Software Company Using GoMet

A large software development company whose software is used by different state entities in Ukraine was at the receiving end of an “uncommon” piece of malware, new research has found.

The malware, first observed on the morning of May 19, 2022, is a custom variant of the open source backdoor known as GoMet and is designed for maintaining persistent access to the network.

“This access could be leveraged in a variety of ways including deeper access or to launch additional attacks, including the potential for software supply chain compromise,” Cisco Talos said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

CyberSecurity

Although there are no concrete indicators linking the attack to a single actor or group, the cybersecurity firm’s assessment points to Russian nation-state activity.

Public reporting into the use of GoMet in real-world attacks has so far uncovered only two documented cases to date: one in 2020, coinciding with the disclosure of CVE-2020-5902, a critical remote code execution flaw in F5’s BIG-IP networking devices.

The second instance entailed the successful exploitation of CVE-2022-1040, a remote code execution vulnerability in Sophos Firewall, by an unnamed advanced persistent threat (APT) group earlier this year.

“We haven’t seen GoMet deployed across the other organizations we’ve been working closely with and monitoring so that implies it is targeted in some manner but could be in use against additional targets we don’t have visibility into,” Nick Biasini, head of outreach for Cisco Talos, told The Hacker News.

“We have also conducted relatively rigorous historic analysis and see very little use of GoMet historically which further indicates that it is being used in very targeted ways.”

GoMet, as the name implies, is written in Go and comes with features that allow the attacker to remotely commandeer the compromised system, including uploading and downloading files, running arbitrary

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Technology Business

Apple surpasses expectations as tech companies struggle in

Apple reported higher-than-expected profit and sales as demand for iPhones holds steady even amid inflation and the challenges of an economic slowdown.

Sales and profit for the quarter were $83bn and $1.20 a share, according to Apple, surpassing Wall Street expectations. The report is a positive sign for the company, which earlier this year lost its status as the most valuable company in the world to the oil giant Saudi Aramco. The company’s shares rose by 2.6% after hours in response to the news.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, described the quarter as a reflection of the company’s “resilience and optimism” and said it managed to achieve better than expected results despite supply constraints and the effects of the company suspending sales in Russia.

There has been no slowdown in demand for iPhones, Apple’s CFO, Luca Maestri, told Reuters. Apple reported iPhone sales were $40.7bn, up about 3% from a year earlier and well ahead of the overall global smartphone market. The company’s loyal and affluent customer base has in the past allowed it to weather economic dips better than some other companies.

But the slowing economy is hurting sales of advertising, accessories and home products, Maestri said.

“Fortunately, we have a very broad portfolio, so we know we’re going to be able to navigate that,” he said.

Parts shortages will continue to limit Mac and iPad sales, Maestri said, though the impact has been easing.

“As a largely hardware company, Apple is arguably more directly exposed to supply chain issues than the other tech giants reporting earnings this week, but it also has a growing services business that is an important part of its diversification strategy, so it has flex in its model,” Tom Johnson, the global chief digital officer at Mindshare Worldwide, said of Apple’s quarterly earnings.

In April,

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Branding

Custom Logo Stickers for Better Branding

An instantly recognisable logo is one of the few things all highly successful businesses have in common. At a glance, their logo (or even just the colours it contains) tells you exactly which business you are looking at.

As part of a broader branding strategy, coming up with a great business logo is essential. Those who become loyal to your brand will instinctively associate your logo with your company’s main points of appeal.

Of course, coming up with a distinctive and appropriate logo for a business of any kind is easier said than done. It is also something of an ongoing process of refinement and optimisation.

Take a look at any major brand’s logo over the course of the decades and you will note any number of minor (and in some cases major) changes. What resonates with a particular audience today could be considered mundane and outdated in the future.

This is why it is essential to regularly revisit all aspects of your branding strategy, in order to ensure they are in line with the expectations and preferences of your target audience. Once you are happy with your brand logo, it simply makes sense to display it as prominently and prolifically as possible.

Precisely where custom logo stickers can help, but what makes a good logo sticker from a 2022 perspective?

How to Get More Out of Your Custom Logo Stickers

Engaging and influencing today’s sophisticated consumers isn’t easy. They are naturally sceptical (if not slightly cynical) about the branding and marketing efforts of the businesses they encounter.

Even so, research suggests that the purchase decisions of almost 75% of consumers are influenced by the appearance of a product’s packaging. A figure that emphasises the importance of quality labelling, and an attractive brand logo that is instantly recognisable.

Make no

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Construction Industry

Holcim stock surges after cement maker raises sales outlook

The new logo of Swiss cement maker Holcim is seen in a block of concrete during the Holcim Capital Markets Day event in Basel, Switzerland, November 18, 2021. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

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CEO sees no slowdown caused by higher interest rates
Company has fully compensated for higher input costs
Q2 sales, earnings beat forecasts
CEO sees strong growth in the United States
Shares gain 5.25% in early trading

ZURICH, July 27 (Reuters) – Holcim (HOLN.S) was the biggest gainer among European construction stocks on Wednesday after the world’s biggest cement maker beat earnings forecasts and raised its full year sales outlook.

The Swiss group successfully offset higher energy costs which have been a worry for other companies, adding it expected demand from the construction industry to be unaffected by rising interest rates.

Chief Executive Jan Jenisch said the company had seen “super growth momentum” which he expected would continue in the second half of the year.

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“We had even better growth in the second quarter than in the first, and if you look where the growth comes from, it’s our Holcim business with cement, aggregates and concrete,” Chief Executive Jan Jenisch told reporters.

“The other half of the growth comes from our newly acquired companies, especially in roofing systems. We don’t see a slowdown in our markets, especially the U.S. where we have record numbers and double-digit sales growth organically.”

Holcim now expects its full-year sales to grow 10% this year on a like-for-like basis which excludes the impact of currencies and portfolio changes. Its previous forecast was 8%.

The brighter outlook and strong performance in the second quarter sent the company’s shares 5.25% higher in early trading, making Holcim the top gainer in

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Software

Apple CarPlay could be a trojan horse into the automotive

Apple is using the iPhone’s popularity to push itself into the auto industry. Automakers are a little unsure how they feel about this.

Apple announced the next generation of its car software CarPlay in June. It takes over the user interface on all interior screens, replacing gas gauges and speed dials with a digital version powered by the driver’s iPhone. It suggested CarPlay helps automakers sell vehicles.

Apple engineering manager Emily Schubert said 98% of new cars in the U.S. come with CarPlay installed. She delivered a shocking stat: 79% of U.S. buyers would only buy a car if it supported CarPlay.

“It’s a must-have feature when shopping for a new vehicle,” Schubert said during a presentation of the new features.

The auto industry faces an unappealing choice: Offer CarPlay and give up potential revenue and the chance to ride a major industry shift, or spend heavily to develop their own infotainment software and cater to an potentially shrinking audience of car buyers who will purchase a new vehicle without CarPlay.

Apple wants a seat at the table

Carmakers sell additional services and features to vehicle owners on a regular, recurring basis as cars connect to the internet, gain self-driving features, and move from being powered by gasoline to powered by electricity and batteries.

The car software market will grow 9% per year through 2030, faster than the overall auto industry, according to a McKinsey report. Car software could account for $50 billion in sales by 2030, McKinsey analysts predict.

Apple wants a piece of the pie.

GM, which wasn’t listed on Apple’s slide, already gets revenue of $2 billion per year from in-car subscriptions and expects it to grow to $25 billion per year by 2030. Tesla, which doesn’t support CarPlay, recently shifted into selling its “FSD” driver-assistance features,

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Technology Business

Why these workers left jobs like Google

Sandy Anuras, the chief technology officer of Sunrun.

Photo courtesy Sandy Anuras, the chief technology officer of Sunrun

Tech workers are walking away from high-paying jobs with great perks to help fight what they believe is the greatest existential problem of our lifetimes: climate change.

In some cases, that has meant taking a pay cut. But Sandy Anuras, who recently joined home solar provider Sunrun as its chief technology officer, says a big paycheck sometimes comes with a price.

“The tech giants have had these huge compensation packages. And it’s hard to say no to a huge compensation package,” Anuras told CNBC. “You just realize there’s a little bit more to life than maxing out your comp package. And I think people are realizing that now — and especially with some of the decisions that their companies have made to prioritize profits over democracy, for example.”

Before starting at Sunrun in March, Anuras worked at Expedia for almost three years. She believes traveling is good for society, as people who travel often experience an expanded perspective and greater compassion toward strangers. But helping people book travel efficiently did not give Anuras the internal satisfaction she had when she worked at Blokable, a startup working to make affordable housing readily available.

There’s a little bit more to life than maxing out your comp package. And I think people are realizing that now.

Sandy Anuras

Chief Technology Officer, Sunrun

When Anuras started looking for new jobs, she wrote an “intention document” expressing her desire to work at a mission-first company.

“What bigger problem is there to solve for our generation than climate change?” Anuras found herself thinking. Not only is climate change an existential-level threat to humanity, it is especially dangerous for the poorest communities around the world. “Spending my time in

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Computer Forensics

Deleted bookmark led to child pornography site depicting

Accused Dutchman Aydin Coban has pleaded not guilty to extortion, harassment, communication with a young person to commit a sexual offence and possessing child pornography

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

Aydin Coban is shown in handout photos from the time of his arrest by Dutch police, entered into an exhibit at his trial in British Columbia Supreme Court in New Westminster. Photo by Dutch Police /The Canadian Press

A hard drive seized from the home of the Dutch man accused of harassing British Columbia teenager Amanda Todd contained a deleted bookmark to child pornography depicting her, a Crown attorney told B.C. Supreme Court on Friday.

Louise Kenworthy told the jury trial of Aydin Coban that previous expert testimony showed Todd’s name and several of the online aliases used to harass her were also found on a second hard drive seized when Dutch police arrested Coban in 2014.

Coban has pleaded not guilty to extortion, harassment, communication with a young person to commit a sexual offence and possessing child pornography.

Kenworthy said she expects to finish the Crown’s closing arguments on Tuesday, when she said she would talk about an online account that was active on a computer just five minutes before police arrested Coban at his home and then seized the device.

She said evidence has shown the account was operated by the same person behind another account, under the guise of a young woman, that harassed Todd.

There was no witness to say, “I saw Aydin Coban typing messages on his computer to Amanda Todd”

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Branding

Florida Gators QB Anthony Richardson distancing from ‘AR-15’

Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson said in a statement Sunday that he will no longer use the nickname “AR-15” as part of his personal brand because he doesn’t want to be associated with the semi-automatic rifle by the same name, which has been used in mass shootings.

An AR-15 style rifle was used in the shooting deaths of 19 children and two adults at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school in May.

“While a nickname is only a nickname and ‘AR-15’ was simply a representation of my initials combined with my jersey number, it is important to me that my name and brand are no longer associated with the semi-automatic rifle that has been used in mass shootings, which I do not condone in any way or form,” Richardson said in a post to his official website. “My representatives and I are currently working on rebranding, which includes the creation of a new logo and transitioning to simply using ‘AR’ and my name, Anthony Richardson.”

Taking advantage of college athletes’ newfound ability to generate money from name, image and likeness deals, Richardson started an apparel line last year that included jerseys, long-sleeve shirts, wristbands and temporary tattoos.

Richardson said he will also discontinue use of the scope reticle logo.

Richardson emerged as a fan favorite and gifted playmaker as a freshman at Florida last season.

Despite backing up starting quarterback Emory Jones for most of the season and dealing with a knee injury that kept him off the field late in the year, Richardson managed nine total touchdowns — six passing and three rushing.

Jones transferred to Arizona State in the spring, clearing the way for Richardson to become the front-runner to start for the Gators this season under new coach Billy Napier.

Richardson, with only one career start, debuted at No.

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Construction Industry

Entrepreneurs in the construction industry deserve

An optimistic small-business owner in New York, Henry Kaiser’s life changed when he asked his girlfriend’s father for permission to marry her. Kaiser’s future father-in-law said he’d permit no wedding until Kaiser had saved enough money and built a house for his bride. He left Kaiser with one piece of advice: Move west. Kaiser did just that. His company built roads in the Pacific Northwest, created dams in California, and played a key role in the construction of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. Construction is a hard business, but to Henry Kaiser, problems were “only opportunities in work clothes.”

Entrepreneurs continue to play a key role in building America today. General contractors deal directly with the government to build schools, highways and other public works. But general contractors don’t do it all. Instead, they delegate portions of each assignment to subcontractors who have honed their area of specialization — paving, fencing, trucking, or some other niche.

These subcontractors often face racial discrimination when competing for jobs. Government policies (federal, state and local) today require general contractors to devote a percentage of their subcontracts, commonly called “set-asides,” to companies owned by racial minorities. They create an unconstitutional barrier to opportunity.

These set-aside requirements force general contractors to discriminate against subcontractors who are not certified as minority-owned. This can lead non-minority-owned subcontractors in some specialties to be shut out of public jobs altogether. For example, Alameda County has a pair of programs that call for 15 percent of each project to go to minority-owned businesses. A general contractor may do some work and divvy the rest among various subcontractors. Suppose that general contractor routinely employs the same minority-owned subcontractor in trucking to meet a portion of the goal. In that case, non-minority-owned subcontractors in the same field will be prevented from working

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Software

SCDC Inmates receive software development training

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) – Seven female inmates of the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) received full-stack certification in software development on Friday.

The training was provided by Persevere Now, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit built on carrying inmates from prison to prosperity.

Training began in January of 2020 and was originally set to be a 12-month program. But after three prison lockdowns due to COVID-19, the course was extended to 14 nonconsecutive months.

“Even during quarantine, [Persevere Now] would bring out books to us so we could study. It was very challenging, but it taught us to be humble,” said a graduate.

This inmate was incarcerated in 2005 and is set to be released this December. She reportedly starts an apprenticeship in January of 2023.

“Before this program, I was very passive. But it taught me the difference between aggressive and assertive. Now, I choose to be assertive. A leader, not a follower,” continued the graduate.

While the program started with 100 inmates, over 90 percent either dropped out or were released from prison before completion.

Six inmates received their certificate of completion from Preserve Now during a commencement ceremony in the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution. Four former inmates celebrated remotely.

“They’re starting their careers here in prison. Which is amazing considering they ended up here for breaking the law. It’s hopeful for me, hopeful for the department and hopeful for the state,” said SCDC Director Bryan Stirling after the ceremony.

According to SCDC, South Carolinian has a 19.2% recidivism rate which is the lowest in the country.

All but one of the incarcerated graduates will be released from prison and working a computer programming job within the next eight months.

Copyright 2022 WIS. All rights reserved.

Notice a spelling or grammar error in this article? Click or tap here

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Technology Business

So Much Tech. So Few Winners.

We know that in the 15 years since the iPhone went on sale, technology has seeped into every crevice of our lives. Tech has reshaped politics, industries, leisure time, culture and people’s relationships to one another — for better and for worse.

The march of technology has also come with this puzzling reality: Hardly any technologies of the iPhone era have been an unqualified success.

I would argue that just one smartphone-age consumer internet company has emerged as a no-doubt winner in popularity and financial vitality: Meta, with its Facebook and Instagram apps.

(The company was founded in 2004, but I’m classifying it as iPhone age because Facebook really took off when smartphones did.)

Every other consumer internet company of the iPhone epoch gets an incomplete grade because of relatively small numbers of users, questionable finances, uncertain growth prospects, the risk of dying or all of the above. And even Meta is worried that it might not stay healthy, as my colleague Mike Isaac wrote on Tuesday. Also, uh, Meta has contributed to some serious problems in our world.

I know this sounds ridiculous. In the past 15 years tech won everything. How can there be so few tech companies that we can be relatively confident will stick around to middle age?

I’m going to spend the rest of this newsletter making my case. Feel free to agree with me or shout (respectfully!) at [email protected]

First, I’m making a big leap to exclude from my assessment Google web search, e-commerce sites like Amazon and Alibaba, and Netflix streaming video. They are probably long-lasting tech winners, but they belong to the internet’s first generation. I’m also not counting technology used mostly by businesses. I’m looking only at consumer companies that were toddlers or weren’t born yet when smartphones first hit our

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Branding

What is the Difference and Why Does it Matter?

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Successful branding is one of the keys to attracting customers and consistently growing a business. Most marketers would say that their brand strategy is at the core of their marketing strategy.

But are they referring to their corporate branding strategy or personal branding efforts? How will these answers affect the company’s overall strategy? Here are the answers.

Corporate vs. personal branding

Traditionally, the term branding is associated with large companies like Coca-Cola, Apple and Marlboro. These companies are arguably some of the United States’ most recognizable corporate brands. Their brand represents the identity of the company.

In the words of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, a brand is much more than a logo. It is “the set of physical attributes of a product or service, together with the beliefs and expectations surrounding it.” Put simply, successful corporate branding evokes an idea in the audience’s mind that reaches beyond the corporate identity and includes the values and propositions the company stands for.

A personal brand might incorporate the same elements but it stretches to include the person, their skills, their qualifications and the beliefs and expectations their audiences attach to them.

Related: Six Reasons Branding Is More Important Than Ever Before

Connecting personal and corporate branding

Just a few decades ago, very few CEOs of leading brands were widely known to the public. There are only a handful of notable exceptions like Apple founder Steve Jobs, whose personal brand has been inextricably linked to the Apple brand.

The advent of social media and digital marketing has changed the playing field for corporate and personal branding. Traditional company leaders who used to live in relative obscurity have become far more visible to a wider audience. Unintentionally, they developed a personal brand by default, which

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Construction Industry

Company collapses continue in Australia’s “construction

The crisis engulfing Australia’s construction sector has deepened over the past six weeks. A plethora of building companies have been placed into administration and liquidation, owing millions of dollars to owners of unfinished homes, subcontractors, suppliers and workers in entitlements.

This month, Victorian-based building firm Snowdon Developments was ordered by the Supreme Court to go into liquidation on the grounds of insolvency, owing just under $18 million to 250 creditors.

The Snowdon collapse follows similar failures throughout June, including prominent home builders such as Victorian-based Waterford Homes, which went into liquidation with debts so far amounting to $600,000.

House under construction in Manly, Queensland [Photo by Orderinchaos via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Specialist small home builder Affordable Modular Homes collapsed under a mountain of debt, owing $121,000 to creditors, while Statement Builders failed, owing $200,000 in taxes. Other home builders that went to the wall last month included Langford Jones Homes, Pivotal Homes, Solido Builders, Wulfrun Construction and Westernport Constructions.

These failures are part of what media commentary terms “a construction sector bloodbath.” More than 16 building companies had already collapsed since the closing months of 2021. They include well-known names in home building, such as Hotondo Homes, Dyldam Developments, BA Murphy, Home Innovation, ABG Group, New Sensation Homes, Pindan and ABD Group.

This year also saw the collapse of major companies, such as Probuild and Condev, that had projects underway or on the books worth billions of dollars. The fate of Australia’s largest home builder Metricon, which had around 4,000 homes under construction last month, remains uncertain despite a $30 million cash injection into the company by its shareholders and promises of government support.

It is widely acknowledged across the industry that these failures are only the tip of the iceberg. Industry market researcher IBISWorld recently projected

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Software

Dell gives hardware, networking and software boost to

Dell EMC is updating its mid-range unified file and block PowerStore array with new and faster hardware and software.

PowerStore was launched in 2020 and Dell says that 12,000 systems have been deployed with multiple exabytes of effective capacity. It competes primarily with NetApp’s ONTAP arrays in the unified file+block market and also with HPE, Hitachi Vantara, IBM (FlashSystem), and Pure Storage (FlashArray) in the block market.

As at April last year the PowerStore hardware consists of the 500 entry-level system, mid-range 1000, 3000, 5000, 7000 models and 9000 high-end array. Now the five models, appliances in Dell EMC-speak, above the 500 are succeeded by the 1200, 3200, 5200, and 9200 products; the 7000 has effectively been replaced.

A PowerStore 3.0 video has Midrange Storage Consultant Marketing Manager Phil Treide presenting the hardware updates in some detail:

The new models have Cascade Lake era Xeon processors and the hardware plus software refresh delivers up to 50 percent more IOPS for mixed workloads, up to 70 percent faster writes, and an up to a 10x improvement in copy operations.

Treide says: “Each PowerStore model offers more cores, larger memory or both relative to the model it replaces.” Here is a table listing the controller changes:

In the video Triede says there is more on the hardware front as “new 100GbitE IO modules expand the scope and performance of PowerStore’s Ethernet-based storage capabilities.” This 100GbitE capability improves NVMe/TCP performance by up to 73 percent at 50 percent lower cost per port.

PowerStore also takes advantage of silicon root-of-trust features in Intel’s Cascade Lake systems. With this, Treide says: “PowerStore OS is able to verify the identity of system hardware components to prevent malicious activity.”

A third hardware advance is a 24-bay by 2-rack unit NVMe expansion chassis. With this and 15.26TB SSDs

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Computer Forensics

FIU helps local high school teachers build cybersecurity

FIU experts are training local high school teachers to develop cybersecurity lesson plans for their students.

The Cybernet Miami Academy is an FIU-led virtual, interactive program about digital forensics, which is the process of interpreting and uncovering electronic data.

In the first phase of the academy this summer, high school teachers met with FIU electrical and computer engineering faculty and cybersecurity professionals to learn skills, gather resources and build lesson plans. They learned how to extract hidden information from hard drives, accumulated free cybersecurity tools and planned activities for their information technology and career-learning classrooms.

The teachers are now preparing for the second phase of the program: implementing their lessons.

“Teachers are leaving with at least one lesson plan that they have customized to best fit their students,” says Alexander Pons, principal investigator of Cybernet Miami Academy and a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at FIU’s College of Engineering and Computing.

The teachers earned $1,000 to complete FIU’s 80-hour training course. They will receive another $1,000 after conducting their lesson plans. The program is funded by a U.S. Department of Education grant and delegated to FIU via Luminary Labs.

FIU customized the program to be effective for high school classrooms. In the first phase, one speaker was a cybersecurity education expert who discussed how teachers might best tailor their lessons for teenagers. Another speaker from the National Initiative for Cyber Education explained the career opportunities in cybersecurity. According to Cyber Seek, there were 714,548 cybersecurity-related job listings in the U.S. from May 2021 through April 2022.

The academy also provided insights into digital forensics techniques. FIU personnel covered computer programming, security issues and information storage. An expert from the Global Forensic and Justice Center at FIU gave teachers an inside look at the industry.

“Since we spent

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Branding

OnePlus 10T will ditch the alert slider and Hasselblad

New reports confirm that the OnePlus 10T will come without an alert slider and Hasselblad branding. Here is why that will be the case with the upcoming smartphone scheduled to launch on August 3.

The OnePlus 10T could feature a design language similar to the OnePlus 10 Pro, but with two key omissions. (Image credit: OnePlus)

Ahead of the OnePlus 10T’s launch on August 3, the company has revealed details about the design and camera of the upcoming phone. The design language makes the phone look very similar to the flagship OnePlus 10 Pro launched earlier this year but with two key omissions: there is no alert slider and the cameras aren’t Hasselblad co-branded. Here is why OnePlus has made these changes.

The alert slider has been a constant feature on OnePlus phones for years and offers users the convenience of easily putting their phone on silent or vibrate mode without having to fiddle with on-screen menus. OnePlus chief designer Hope Liu told The Verge that the company is omitting the slider from the OnePlus 10T to have enough internal space for other components that are essential for “high wattage charging, a large battery capacity, and better antenna signal.”

Liu told The Verge

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