Virginia governor's race to test Tea Party Republicans' allure

By Gary Robertson

RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - The most nail-biting U.S. governor's race this year is centering on whether a Tea Party Republican can win Virginia, the southern state that has twice backed Democratic President Barack Obama.

So far, the answer is: maybe.

Republican state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, known for his anti-abortion and tax-cutting positions, is in a tight race with Terry McAuliffe, a former national Democratic Party chairman. The election will take place in November.

With Cuccinelli set to be nominated formally at a state party convention on Saturday, a Quinnipiac University poll this week showed him with 38 percent support, behind McAuliffe's 43 percent.

"The 17 percent of voters who say they are undecided will determine the Commonwealth's next governor," Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement. "At this point, neither man seems to have much of an edge."

More than $11 million has poured into a race seen as crucial to reviving national fortunes for Republicans, and especially its Tea Party right wing, after Obama's re-election last year and the loss of two seats in the Senate.

Robert Holsworth, a political analyst who has worked for governors from both parties, said Republicans saw Cuccinelli's candidacy as a national test case.

"Would Republicans be better off running someone with clear principles like Cuccinelli or someone in the mushy middle?" Holsworth said. "Some people will read these elections as an early signal about 2014" midterm congressional elections.

More than anything else, Cuccinelli, 44, has been known for sticking to the conservative principles that have made him a darling of the anti-tax, anti-government Tea Party movement.

Cuccinelli set off a storm in Virginia by pushing through rules mandating that abortion clinics meet the same standards as hospitals. Abortion rights supporters said it could lead some clinics to close.

Cuccinelli also opposed a bipartisan transportation package Republican Governor Bob McDonnell got through the legislature because it would bring in $880 million a year from new taxes.

"WE WERE BEAT"

At a Chesterfield County Republican Party gathering in late April, Cuccinelli urged the crowd to shake off the "depression" that had set in since Obama won the state in November for the second time.

"We were beat, and we have a lot of ground to make up," he said.

With jobs and the slow-growing economy the top issues for voters, McAuliffe, a 56-year-old millionaire who headed President Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996, told supporters when he kicked off his campaign this month that he woke up every morning thinking about "training a good work force."

Virginia's unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in March, more than 2 percentage points below the national average. But the state is one of the biggest recipients of federal outlays, and officials fear it could be hit hard as the U.S. government cuts spending.

Besides indicating a tight race, polls point to an electorate that is at odds with Cuccinelli and Virginia Republicans' positions on social issues.

Although Cuccinelli opposes gay marriage, a Washington Post poll this week showed 56 percent of Virginians were in favor of it. Fifty-five percent also support keeping abortion legal, the poll said.

CRITICISM

McAuliffe has been criticized because of his connection with GreenTech, a struggling Mississippi-based electric car manufacturer that he helped launch. He later quit as chairman, saying he wanted to focus on his race for governor.

Critics have said the company failed to live up to its promise and undermines McAuliffe's claim to be a successful entrepreneur.

Cuccinelli has come under fire following news stories questioning his relationship with nutritional supplement company Star Scientific and Chief Executive Officer Jonnie Williams Sr. Cuccinelli has acknowledged that he took gifts from Williams, including a catered $1,500 Thanksgiving dinner.

McAuliffe is ahead in fundraising, generating $6.7 million to Cuccinelli's $4.4 million as of March 31. By comparison, almost $41 million was spent in the 2009 governor's race McDonnell won.

In a sign of the national interest in the contest, much of the money for this year's race is from outside Virginia. McAuliffe's top donors are Robert Johnson of Monroe, Connecticut, and media entrepreneur Haim Saban of Beverly Hills, California, who both gave $250,000.

Cuccinelli's backers include the Republican Governors Association, which has given $1 million; investor Foster Friess, who backed Republican Rick Santorum's presidential bid last year; and conservative political activist David Koch.

In New Jersey, the only other state with a gubernatorial race this year, incumbent Republican Chris Christie holds a double-digit lead over his Democratic opponent, state Senator Barbara Buono, in early polling.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Arlene Getz and Lisa Von Ahn)

(This story is corrected to show that Johnson, Saban are top McAuliffe donors, not that McAuliffe is his own top donor in 22nd paragraph, . Removes reference to McAuliffe giving almost $300,000, as that was for a previous fundraising cycle.)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/virginia-governors-race-test-tea-party-republicans-allure-140538580.html

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Report: Yahoo nearing $1.1B acquisition of Tumblr

NEW YORK (AP) ? Yahoo may be on the verge of closing its biggest acquisition during the 10-month reign of CEO Marissa Mayer as she tries to attract more traffic and advertisers to the Internet company's website and mobile applications.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company's board of directors will meet Sunday evening to consider approving a $1.1 billion acquisition of online content-sharing site Tumblr in a deal Mayer negotiated, according to the technology news site All Things D. The story posted late Friday cited anonymous sources.

If Yahoo Inc.'s board signs off, the deal could be announced Monday.

In an invitation sent Friday, Yahoo promised to unveil "something special" Monday evening in New York. The event is being held in a Times Squares lounge located about two miles from Tumblr's headquarters.

Yahoo has only said that Mayer will be on hand to unveil something related to a product. A company spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the potential Tumblr acquisition.

Buying Tumblr would fulfill Mayer's goal of reaching a wider audience on smartphones and tablet computers.

Tumblr serves up a constantly changing collage of stories, photos and other digital content served up by users who are increasingly connecting to the service through its mobile applications. The service is also one of the hottest sites among teens and young adults, a demographic that Mayer, 37, thinks Yahoo needs to do a better job of reaching.

If it's completed, the Tumblr deal would be Mayer's biggest coup ? and, at the same time, the biggest risk ? since she ended her 13-year career as a key executive at Google Inc. to try to snap Yahoo out of a prolonged malaise that had demoralized employees and investors alike.

Since her arrival, Mayer has been focused on redesigning several Yahoo services and bringing in more mobile engineering talent, primarily by buying a series of small startups.

None of those previous acquisitions have required Yahoo to dip too deeply into its bank account. Late last year, Yahoo paid a total of $7 million for two startups called OnTheAir and Stamped. In the first three months of this year, Yahoo snapped up three more startups for a total of $10 million, according to the company's regulatory filings.

Tumblr, founded in 2007 by its CEO David Karp, presumably would become a pivotal part of Mayer's effort to sell more advertising.

Mayer has been winning back investors, even though the company's revenue is still lagging the overall growth of the booming Internet and mobile advertising market. Yahoo's stock price has risen 69 percent under Mayer's leadership.

Yahoo shares fell 6 cents Friday to close at $26.52.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-05-17-US-Yahoo-Event/id-2732516db30f41b4840daf930ade9432

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Political motivations may have evolutionary links to physical strength

Public release date: 15-May-2013
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Contact: Anna Mikulak
amikulak@psychologicalscience.org
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science

Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The principal investigators of the research psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen of Aarhus University and Daniel Sznycer of University of California, Santa Barbara believe that the link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to influence behavior today.

"While many think of politics as a modern phenomenon, it has in a sense always been with our species," says Petersen.

In the days of our early ancestors, decisions about the distribution of resources weren't made in courthouses or legislative offices, but through shows of strength. With this in mind, Petersen, Sznycer and colleagues hypothesized that upper-body strength a proxy for the ability to physically defend or acquire resources would predict men's opinions about economic redistribution.

The researchers collected data on bicep size, socioeconomic status, and support for economic redistribution from hundreds of people in the United States, Argentina, and Denmark.

In line with their hypotheses, the data revealed that wealthy men with high upper-body strength were less likely to support redistribution, while less wealthy men of the same strength were more likely to support it.

"Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that at the psychological level individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way," says Petersen. "In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution."

Men with low upper-body strength, on the other hand, were less likely to support their own self-interest. Wealthy men of this group showed less resistance to redistribution, while poor men showed less support.

"Our results demonstrate that physically weak males are more reluctant than physically strong males to assert their self-interest just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions," says Petersen.

Interestingly, the researchers found no link between upper-body strength and redistribution opinions among women. Petersen argues that this is likely due to the fact that, over the course of evolutionary history, women had less to gain, and also more to lose, from engaging in direct physical aggression.

Together, the results indicate that an evolutionary perspective may help to illuminate political motivations, at least those of men.

"Many previous studies have shown that people's political views cannot be predicted by standard economic models," Petersen explains. "This is among the first studies to show that political views may be rational in another sense, in that they're designed by natural selection to function in the conditions recurrent over human evolutionary history."

###

Co-authors on this research include Aaron Sell, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

This research was supported by a grant from the Danish Research Council and a Director's Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health.

For more information about this study, please contact: Michael Bang Petersen at michael@ps.au.dk or Daniel Sznycer at dsznycer1@gmail.com.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Ancestral Logic of Politics: Upper-Body Strength Regulates Men's Assertion of Self-Interest Over Economic Redistribution" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 15-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Anna Mikulak
amikulak@psychologicalscience.org
202-293-9300
Association for Psychological Science

Men's upper-body strength predicts their political opinions on economic redistribution, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The principal investigators of the research psychological scientists Michael Bang Petersen of Aarhus University and Daniel Sznycer of University of California, Santa Barbara believe that the link may reflect psychological traits that evolved in response to our early ancestral environments and continue to influence behavior today.

"While many think of politics as a modern phenomenon, it has in a sense always been with our species," says Petersen.

In the days of our early ancestors, decisions about the distribution of resources weren't made in courthouses or legislative offices, but through shows of strength. With this in mind, Petersen, Sznycer and colleagues hypothesized that upper-body strength a proxy for the ability to physically defend or acquire resources would predict men's opinions about economic redistribution.

The researchers collected data on bicep size, socioeconomic status, and support for economic redistribution from hundreds of people in the United States, Argentina, and Denmark.

In line with their hypotheses, the data revealed that wealthy men with high upper-body strength were less likely to support redistribution, while less wealthy men of the same strength were more likely to support it.

"Despite the fact that the United States, Denmark and Argentina have very different welfare systems, we still see that at the psychological level individuals reason about welfare redistribution in the same way," says Petersen. "In all three countries, physically strong males consistently pursue the self-interested position on redistribution."

Men with low upper-body strength, on the other hand, were less likely to support their own self-interest. Wealthy men of this group showed less resistance to redistribution, while poor men showed less support.

"Our results demonstrate that physically weak males are more reluctant than physically strong males to assert their self-interest just as if disputes over national policies were a matter of direct physical confrontation among small numbers of individuals, rather than abstract electoral dynamics among millions," says Petersen.

Interestingly, the researchers found no link between upper-body strength and redistribution opinions among women. Petersen argues that this is likely due to the fact that, over the course of evolutionary history, women had less to gain, and also more to lose, from engaging in direct physical aggression.

Together, the results indicate that an evolutionary perspective may help to illuminate political motivations, at least those of men.

"Many previous studies have shown that people's political views cannot be predicted by standard economic models," Petersen explains. "This is among the first studies to show that political views may be rational in another sense, in that they're designed by natural selection to function in the conditions recurrent over human evolutionary history."

###

Co-authors on this research include Aaron Sell, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

This research was supported by a grant from the Danish Research Council and a Director's Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health.

For more information about this study, please contact: Michael Bang Petersen at michael@ps.au.dk or Daniel Sznycer at dsznycer1@gmail.com.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Ancestral Logic of Politics: Upper-Body Strength Regulates Men's Assertion of Self-Interest Over Economic Redistribution" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/afps-pmm051413.php

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To suppress or to explore? Emotional strategy may influence anxiety

May 13, 2013 ? When trouble approaches, what do you do? Run for the hills? Hide? Pretend it isn't there? Or do you focus on the promise of rain in those looming dark clouds?

New research suggests that the way you regulate your emotions, in bad times and in good, can influence whether -- or how much -- you suffer from anxiety.

The study appears in the journal Emotion.

In a series of questionnaires, researchers asked 179 healthy men and women how they managed their emotions and how anxious they felt in various situations. The team analyzed the results to see if different emotional strategies were associated with more or less anxiety.

The study revealed that those who engage in an emotional regulation strategy called reappraisal tended to also have less social anxiety and less anxiety in general than those who avoid expressing their feelings. Reappraisal involves looking at a problem in a new way, said University of Illinois graduate student Nicole Llewellyn, who led the research with psychology professor Florin Dolcos, an affiliate of the Beckman Institute at Illinois.

"When something happens, you think about it in a more positive light, a glass half full instead of half empty," Llewellyn said. "You sort of reframe and reappraise what's happened and think what are the positives about this? What are the ways I can look at this and think of it as a stimulating challenge rather than a problem?"

Study participants who regularly used this approach reported less severe anxiety than those who tended to suppress their emotions.

Anxiety disorders are a major public health problem in the U.S. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 18 percent of the U.S. adult population is afflicted with general or social anxiety that is so intense that it warrants a diagnosis.

"The World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, anxiety and depression -which tend to co-occur -- will be among the most prevalent causes of disability worldwide, secondary only to cardiovascular disease," Dolcos said. "So it's associated with big costs."

Not all anxiety is bad, however, he said. Low-level anxiety may help you maintain the kind of focus that gets things done. Suppressing or putting a lid on your emotions also can be a good strategy in a short-term situation, such as when your boss yells at you, Dolcos said. Similarly, an always-positive attitude can be dangerous, causing a person to ignore health problems, for example, or to engage in risky behavior.

Previous studies had found that people who were temperamentally inclined to focus on making good things happen were less likely to suffer from anxiety than those who focused on preventing bad things from happening, Llewellyn said. But she could find no earlier research that explained how this difference in focus translated to behaviors that people could change. The new study appears to explain the strategies that contribute to a person having more or less anxiety, she said.

"This is something you can change," she said. "You can't do much to affect the genetic or environmental factors that contribute to anxiety. But you can change your emotion regulation strategies."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/kBfZE399dDI/130513083314.htm

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Leap in leukemia treatment reported by Dartmouth researchers

Public release date: 13-May-2013
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Contact: Robin Dutcher
robin.dutcher@hitchcock.org
603-653-9056
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) have found a combination of drugs to potentially treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) more effectively. The research was published online on May 3, 2013, and it will appear as a letter in the journal Leukemia, a publication of the prestigious Nature Publishing Group. The study helps address a basic problem of treating CLL.

CLL lives both in the blood in circulation, and in lymph nodes and bone marrow. The former is relatively easy to kill, but the disease recurs because of resistant CLL cells in the lymph nodes and bone marrow. The researchers found an innovative drug combination that targets the stubborn CLL cells.

"We have been studying the mechanism in the cancer cells that causes the resistance to treatment," says Alan Eastman, the senior researcher on the team and a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, "and that in turn, led us to find drugs that target the resistance." Eastman led the team at Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center that also included Ryan Soderquist, Darcy Bates, and Alexey Danilov.

The researchers found a very effective drug combination of gossypol plus navitoclax to kill CLL cells. "Both drugs have been given to patients, but never in combination, because no one had the mechanistic rationale for doing that. Now we have what we think is the most promising drug combination so far for the treatment of CLL," says Eastman.

CLL cells in the lymph nodes have an increased level of a protein known as BCL-X. Gossypol likely inhibits this protein, which allows the navitoclax to work more effectively to kill the cancer cells. Eastman and his team tested this drug combination on CLL immediately after they came out of the patients.

The willingness of the patients to participate was integral to this study," Eastman adds. "After 40 years of research, I think this is the most promising idea I have had that might truly impact patient outcome." The researchers hope a clinical trial will soon follow.

###

This research direction was catalyzed by a Prouty pilot grant from NCCC and is now supported by a Translational Research Grant from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 13-May-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Robin Dutcher
robin.dutcher@hitchcock.org
603-653-9056
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

Doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) have found a combination of drugs to potentially treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) more effectively. The research was published online on May 3, 2013, and it will appear as a letter in the journal Leukemia, a publication of the prestigious Nature Publishing Group. The study helps address a basic problem of treating CLL.

CLL lives both in the blood in circulation, and in lymph nodes and bone marrow. The former is relatively easy to kill, but the disease recurs because of resistant CLL cells in the lymph nodes and bone marrow. The researchers found an innovative drug combination that targets the stubborn CLL cells.

"We have been studying the mechanism in the cancer cells that causes the resistance to treatment," says Alan Eastman, the senior researcher on the team and a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, "and that in turn, led us to find drugs that target the resistance." Eastman led the team at Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center that also included Ryan Soderquist, Darcy Bates, and Alexey Danilov.

The researchers found a very effective drug combination of gossypol plus navitoclax to kill CLL cells. "Both drugs have been given to patients, but never in combination, because no one had the mechanistic rationale for doing that. Now we have what we think is the most promising drug combination so far for the treatment of CLL," says Eastman.

CLL cells in the lymph nodes have an increased level of a protein known as BCL-X. Gossypol likely inhibits this protein, which allows the navitoclax to work more effectively to kill the cancer cells. Eastman and his team tested this drug combination on CLL immediately after they came out of the patients.

The willingness of the patients to participate was integral to this study," Eastman adds. "After 40 years of research, I think this is the most promising idea I have had that might truly impact patient outcome." The researchers hope a clinical trial will soon follow.

###

This research direction was catalyzed by a Prouty pilot grant from NCCC and is now supported by a Translational Research Grant from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/dmc-lil051313.php

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Would You Trust One Company to Oversee All of Your Passwords?

Last Friday at Interop, Paypal's chief information security office, Michael Barrett, let it be known that passwords were dead.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3fflLhyfHyQ/would-you-trust-one-company-to-oversee-all-of-your-pass-500226598

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GM says supercomputers to keep recalls in check

CAPTION INFORMATION : General Motors Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson holds a press conference at the GM Warren Tech Center in Warren, Mich., on May 13, 2013. Akerson, GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott and Michigan Govenor Rick Snyder were at the press conference concerning GM information technology (Daniel Mears / The Detroit News) (AP Photo/Detroit News, Daniel Mears) DETROIT FREE PRESS OUT; HUFFINGTON POST OUT

CAPTION INFORMATION : General Motors Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson holds a press conference at the GM Warren Tech Center in Warren, Mich., on May 13, 2013. Akerson, GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott and Michigan Govenor Rick Snyder were at the press conference concerning GM information technology (Daniel Mears / The Detroit News) (AP Photo/Detroit News, Daniel Mears) DETROIT FREE PRESS OUT; HUFFINGTON POST OUT

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder speaks at press conference at the GM Warren Tech Center in Warren, Mich.,on Monday, May 13, 2013, with illustration of future IT building. (Daniel Mears / The Detroit News) (AP Photo/Detroit News, Daniel Mears) DETROIT FREE PRESS OUT; HUFFINGTON POST OUT

WARREN, Mich. (AP) ? General Motors Co. says a new supercomputing data center and a fledgling shift to bring software development in-house should help it limit the size of future safety recalls.

The Detroit automaker, which formally opened the giant data storage center in suburban Warren, Mich., on Monday, said the changes are examples of how it is moving faster to cut costs and serve its customers better by bringing more computer technology inside the company.

In the past, GM's regional operations tracked problems by themselves, sometimes without communicating with other regions, even though many of its cars are now sold worldwide. Engineers in one region would check a problem part, but it wasn't studied worldwide, at least not at the early stages.

Now, with new software developed by GM's so-called innovation centers and the data storage, problems are spotted quickly when they crop up across the globe, and they're assigned to the right engineer who can work with parts makers to fix the problem faster, said Randy Mott, the company's chief information officer.

"You'd hope that if there is a problem with a set of components, that you understand which components were potentially susceptible and you would expect your recalls to be smaller," Mott said. "You identify it earlier and you certainly limit it to only the ones affected by whatever the problem was."

GM, which typically sells more than 9 million vehicles worldwide each year, makes cars and trucks in 30 different countries. Many of its parts are common worldwide, so if there is a recall, it can be large and costly. When problems are spotted and fixed early, the size and cost can be held down, Mott said.

GM also said Monday that it will build a duplicate data storage center about 40 miles from Warren at its proving grounds in Milford, Mich. During the next two years, the company will close 23 data centers worldwide and consolidate them into the two new facilities. GM says data centers at Google and Facebook were benchmarked to draw up plans for the state-of-the art facilities. The Warren Center cost $130 million to build, while the Milford center will cost $100 million. GM will spend another $158 million on each center for equipment.

It's all part of a push led by CEO and Chairman Dan Akerson, a former telecommunications executive, who believes it's important for companies to have their own information technology rather than outsource it to other companies. GM had outsourced 85 percent of its software development and computer technology.

By consolidating the data centers and hiring about 9,000 people to staff four U.S. "innovation centers," the company hopes to bring 90 percent of the work in-house within five years, Mott said. Competitors, GM said, already have about 30 percent of their information technology work in-house.

GM, which began the data consolidation in the fall of 2011 and the software efforts last summer, isn't sure how far it has moved toward the 90 percent goal although it has hired 64 percent of the people needed to do it. GM already has added or moved 5,500 people into information technology at centers in Warren; Austin, Texas; Roswell, Ga.; and Chandler, Ariz. The centers all are near colleges that emphasize information technology, GM says.

GM, Akerson said, now has the ability to watch its factories for production and parts supply problems, and perform more accurate virtual crash tests, saving costs and speeding new products to market. In the past, when most computer technology was outsourced, GM couldn't even monitor its own network of computers, he said.

"The responsiveness wasn't there," he said of the outside vendors. "There isn't a company on a global competitive basis that isn't good at I.T., that doesn't control its destiny by virtue of better information in every aspect of the business."

GM also can use high-powered computers to analyze data across the globe to discover sales trends and potential new markets for its vehicles. The company said new crash-test simulations that were made possible by the data centers are cutting down on the number of physical crash tests that are needed. That saves the company roughly $350,000 per test, GM said.

Even though GM is taking on the added capital investment and personnel costs, Mott said it will save money by eliminating the cost of paying outside computer technology vendors.

Bringing computer functions into the company can make it more agile, but there are risks as well, including hiring and keeping people who have many job choices, said Bryan Britz, a vice president with Gartner Inc., a firm that advises companies on information technology issues.

Most companies that outsource computer functions continue to do so and don't try to build them from inside, he said. But he also said GM is large enough to build and maintain a talent pool.

"It really does come down to execution," he said. "That has proven to be, for a lot of organizations, a barrier too big."

GM also needs to make sure that it uses the remaining outsourced work to bring innovation from outside, he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-05-13-General%20Motors-Computers/id-1cf4e4dd1a22471290300a3ae5c5e8fd

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