Cisco Rolls Out New Cisco Training Program To Help With Unemployment

Cisco has started a pilot program to train for free out-of-work individuals interested in working in the IT field. The program is currently centered in Vallejo, CA. These Cisco training classes are an attempt to lure government investment in the idea in the hopes of scaling it up. On the free market, such Cisco training classes can cost up to $3,000.

Company spokesman David Everette has said, “We could train up to 50,000 people,” and that Cisco simply wants to demonstrate that such training can be done and is effective. Cisco hopes to roll out the program nation-wide by next year.

Vallejo County has an astonishing 11.5% jobless rate. Cisco hopes to impress California Congressman George Miller and gain money from the federal Workforce Investment Act. The Solano Employment Connection, which is a jobsearch and employment resource center, is hosting the classes. Prospects look good on paper for the program. Given a $3,000 cost for the classes, students can better hope to gain employment in the IT field, where average salaries are about $65,000 annually. The program has so far been hugely popular with a second session boasting thirty-seven people on a waiting list.

Hopefully, this pilot program can gain national attention and funding, thereby increasing the number of qualified IT professionals, who are needed in a variety of industries and employment sectors.

Coffee and RFID?

I've heard that coffee and cigarettes go well together, but I've never heard of anyone making a film about coffee and RFID. But an ingenious inventor has found a way to make the pairing nearly as sublime. Chris Hallberg has created an insulated travel coffee mug that houses an RFID tag. The RFID tag allows would-be coffee purchasers simply to wave the cup to pay for that morning cup of joe.

Hallberg’s invention is called the Smug Mug, and it being tested in limited trial by the London Underground and some other coffee shop chains. There are hopes for the Smug Mug to find use by next year in Milwaukee at the coffee chain Stone Creek Coffee, as well. The suggested retail price for the Smug Mug is $15, and that includes a $5 credit for use in the store at which it is purchased.

This seems like a brilliant idea. It promotes re-using your coffee mug, which is good for the environment. And it precludes the need to dig bleary-eyed through your pockets, purse, or wallet to pay for that morning wake-me-up.

Mind-Blowing RFID Video

Check out this video from Timo Arnall of the Touch project and Jack Schulze of BERG. It depicts a technique they've devised to show the functional range of an RFID reader. It is very cool.

Immaterials: the ghost in the field from timo on Vimeo.

New Fujitsu RFID Can Handle The Heat

There’s a new RFID application, driven by an advance in the technology. While RFID tags are already appearing in school uniforms, they are now finding their way into the uniforms of medical supply and semicondunctor manufacturers. A barrier to entering these fields was that their uniforms call for being sterilized regularly with high temperatures. Now, Fujitsu has created a flexible, UHF-band RFID tag that can withstand temperatures of up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

These 1 gram, flexible tags can help track and update the status of batches of up to 100 uniforms, scanable simultaneously. They withstand much more than the 212 degrees Fahrenheit that such uniforms undergo for sterilization.