News round-up... online campaign financing, engineer woes, and more

An aside... I just got a new Blackberry -- the Blackberry 8700 series. I will review it for the magazine... and here. I got it today and just have not had time to play with it yet... and it comes after I met with the Blackberry folks last week, which I will also report on later this week.

Anyway, there were a bunch of stories of note today that I just don't have time to comment on further but which I found interesting. One of my favorite stories of the day, if only because this seems like the way campaign finance rules should be done:

Campaigns to file online [SJMN, 11.28.2005]
Fundraising reports will be easily accessible on Web

With the fundraising season for San Jose elections fast approaching, the city is on the verge of finally casting aside paper documents in favor of using the Internet to report who contributes how much to which candidates.

Electronic filing combined with online disclosure is ``digital sunlight,'' said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, whose mission is to advance the responsible use of technology in the democratic process.

U.S. Engineers Are a Worried Bunch
Engineers nationally are worried about job security and fearful that the country may be losing its technological lead over foreign rivals, according to a survey of electronics design professionals. The study, conducted by the trade publication EE Times and the Oregon communications firm McClenahanBruer, and reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, also found widespread movement to work centers overseas of such engineering tasks as hardware and software design. The survey is based on responses from roughly 4,000 of the 150,000 engineers who receive EE Times. Respondents opted to fill out a Web-based survey on topics ranging from product preferences to national technology policy. Only 1 in 10 respondents felt that "the U.S. will always maintain its technology leadership position." And competition from overseas engineers was of foremost concern.

Engineers nervous about future [SFChron via Seattle PI]
Foreign rivals doing design work cheaper

Engineers nationally are worried about job security and fearful that the country may be losing its technological lead over foreign rivals, according to a survey of electronics design professionals.

Tech Notebook: Web crawler gets deep pages [SJMN, 11.28.2005]

In a world where everyone is waiting for the next Google, Dipsie has to be one of the most-anticipated Internet search companies in some time.

New application lets you manage all media files in Web browser [SJMN, 11.28.2005]

Every once in a while, a new technology comes along that makes you stop and wonder -- why didn't anyone think of this before?

This is one of those times.

Glide Effortless lets you store, organize and share every piece of media you own -- every digital photo, every song, every piece of video and every document -- through a Web browser.