Nearly two out of three business technology leaders in a recent survey feel the United States is losing or has already lost its position as a global leader in IT innovation. One of the main causes of the American slump, according to the "Research: Innovation Mandate" report by InformationWeek Analytics, is offshoring of technology jobs overseas.

Right on schedule, federal CIO Vivek Kundra on Aug. 23 released a roster of 26 troubled government IT projects worth a total of nearly $30 billion that will be reevaluated and brought back on track or, potentially, face reduced funding in next year's budget in a process to be completed by year's end.

Your company is likely already deep and getting deeper into using social media to better understand and communicate with customers and prospects. And you are probably not perceived as leading that effort.

In May 2010 regulators fined investment firm Piper Jaffray $700,000 for failing to retain 4.3 million e-mails dating from November 2002 through December 2008. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) wanted the e-mails for an investigation. Piper Jaffray paid the fine without admitting any fault.

Today's release of the Dell Streak is a watershed event for the hybrid smartphone-tablet niche. Incorporating elements of both Apple's iPad table and the HTC EVO smartphone while duplicating neither, it announces the creation of an entirely new device category.

The cost of cyber crime is a murky topic. Unlike flashier transgressions like, say, bursting into a bank waving a machine gun, cyber crime happens far from public view. Some image-conscious companies like it that way and don't report cyber crimes. Sometimes, the only people who ever know about these crimes are the victims.