State of the Union could touch on several key tech topics
Observers are watching for a variety of tech issues to be mentioned during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address tonight, but it's anyone's guess just how broad the offering will be. Immigration, a critical factor for the high-tech industry, is expected to receive a mention, and lawmakers have been lobbying the president on tech-related subjects they'd like to see addressed, including the status of efforts to boost financing for entrepreneurs, according to this article. The Hill/Hillicon Valley blog (2/11)
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Emerging Tools

New breed of management tools offers insight into hybrid clouds
Enterprise IT administrators often find they are working blind when it comes to managing the field of hybrid cloud solutions, but that may soon change, thanks to a new family of management tools designed to provide real-time, end-to-end oversight of hybrid environments. New scalable hybrid cloud management platforms promise to offer IT administrators a bird's-eye view of internal resources and external services, enabling them to eliminate network strain and head off problems before they occur. InformationWeek (2/11)
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Security Update

Oracle leads increase in software vulnerabilities in 2012
The software industry saw an increase in the number of reported vulnerabilities in 2012, with Oracle, Apple and Google topping the list of the companies with the most discovered flaws, according to a report from the National Vulnerability Database. The report identified 5,225 individual weaknesses last year -- a year-over-year increase of 26%, ending a five-year period of decline in reported flaw totals. eWeek (2/11)
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Tech Business

Critics decry EU plan to reduce broadband investment
The EU has approved a budget that slashes investment in broadband on the continent, with underserved areas expected to suffer the biggest hit. Critics of the measure say the budget -- which includes about $11 billion in cuts to a fund to develop rural broadband -- threatens to undermine the EU's Connecting Europe Facility, including a plan to greatly expand access speeds through 2020. The Guardian (London) (2/11)
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Managing IT

Companies discovering the benefits of in-house app stores
Employees looking for the latest smartphone application will soon be able to find it in a repository of approved apps hosted by their own company, according to analysts, who predict that in four years, 25% of all IT workers will have access to a corporate app store. Offering employees an internal, one-stop shop for accessing pre-approved software tools will boost security and streamline app procurement, says Gartner Research Vice President Ian Finley. "When successful, they can increase the value delivered by the application portfolio and reduce the associated risks, license fees and administration expenses," he said. IT PRO (London) (2/12)
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2 questions to ask before you start problem-solving
Approaching innovation as a manager requires asking two questions to get a better idea of the problem, writes Greg Satell, a consultant and author of the Digital Tonto blog. Try asking, "How well is the problem defined?" and "Who is best-placed to solve it?" to get at the heart of your innovation issues. "Once we've asked the framing questions, we can determine which approach to innovation makes the most sense," Satell writes. Harvard Business Review online/HBR Blog Network (2/11)
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Geeking Out

Largest prime number found is more than 17M digits long
A mathematician at the University of Central Missouri has discovered the largest known prime number, which is 17,425,170 digits long. The number, 2 raised to the 57,885,161th power minus 1, was found using a network of computers making 150 trillion calculations per second. It is also the 48th example of an uncommon type known as Mersenne primes. The last largest prime number was found in 2008 and contained 12,978,189 digits. LiveScience.com (2/5)
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SmartQuote

[Security] is a battle between market forces and expertise, and somewhere we find the balance." -- Stefan Frei, research director with NSS Labs, as quoted by eWeek Share: