Archive for April, 2010

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COLUMBIA – The real vulnerability to our nation’s data is not crime or Web site hacking, but rather it’s the destruction of it that risks the country’s strategic capability.  John “Mike” McConnell, EVP of Booz Allen Hamilton and a former high-ranking White House official, raised the issue and received a presidential directive to enhance the nation’s defensive and offensive capability, even if doing it “takes a Manhattan project” in the words of former President Bush.  The upshot: nearly all the requested $18 billion was received, and the .mil extension is much more secure and the .gov one has added enhancements.  The downside: nearly 98% of Internet activity uses the .com extension.  To underscore the risk, McConnell pointed out that U.S. GDP more than $14 trillion, but he knows of two banks that move $7 trillion a day.

“Extremists are a problem because they can attack the financial system, and we can’t deter them, so we have to be agile and deal with problems in milliseconds.” McConnell also predicted that with its code-breaking capabilities, the government will lead the re-engineering of .com with the help of public-private partnerships.  The venue here was the Baltimore Washington Corridor Chamber’s 63rd annual meeting.

LOS ANGELES – Defense giant Northrop Grumman has bypassed Maryland and narrowed its search for a new HQ down to a few sites in Virginia.  Stated reasons included proximity to the Pentagon and other federal agencies.

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WILMINGTON, Del. — A judge Monday approved Magna Entertainment Corp.’s reorganization plan, which includes the transfer of Maryland’s race tracks to parent company MI Developments Inc.

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HOFFMAN ESTATES, IL – The Sears store in Glen Burnie will participate in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) first national competition among commercial buildings to save energy and fight climate change.  The 13-store “work off the waste” contest will demonstrate improvements in energy efficiency with help from the EPA’s ENERGY STAR program.  The winning building will be recognized in October.

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BWI AIRPORT – Southwest’s previously announced BWI-LAX service that begins May 9th has seen enough bookings that the airline has already extended the availability of the nonstop flights through at least October 30th, about 2.5 months after the originally scheduled stop date.

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BOWIE – WSB Holdings/Washington Savings Bank, F.S.B. reported net earnings of $254,000 or $0.03 per basic and diluted share.  This is an improvement over the net loss of $1.5 million or $(0.20) per basic and diluted share for the comparable period last year.

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EASTON – Shore Bancshares reported a net loss of $1.6 million compared to net income of $1.2 million in the previous quarter, and net income of $1.9 million for Q1 2009.

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RICHMOND – According to Genworth’s 2010 Cost of Care Survey, home care costs in Maryland are rising at a rate above national levels. Statewide, costs have increased 4 percent annually over the past five years, compared to the national rate of 2 percent.   Notable numbers for the following are median rates in Baltimore-Towson, statewide, and then national:

Home Care – $20/hour, $20 and $19

Assisted Living: $36,000/year, $38,100, $38,220

Nursing Home: $92,528/year, $83,585, $75,190

Adult Day Care: $19,500/year, $19,240, $15,600.

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LANHAM – Ultra Electronics Criticom has released AudioSoft Medirva, a for the U.S. government market.  It provides data-mining, visualization and analytics capabilities so users can extract information from volumes of previous data recordings.  Speech detection, speech-to-text, contextual search and speaker identification are some of the features.

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