Is Silicon Valley's youth movement really just age discrimination?

The alarming turn of events at one of Silicon Valley's stalwart, iconic companies leaves many older Silicon Valley techies with more evidence in support of a legitimate gripe: They're losing their jobs to younger people.

Earlier this summer, Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager of the collaboration technology group at Cisco Systems, told a crowd at a Commonwealth Club event in San Francisco that Cisco will hire 2,000 Millennials this year.

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Four weeks later, Cisco said it will cut 4,000 workers on top of the nearly 8,000 workers it let go over the past two years. "We just have too much in the middle of the organization," Cisco CEO John Chambers said. "We've got to speed time to market. Small teams move much faster."

It's a fair assumption to say that the middle layer Chambers speaks of are older workers. Even if Trollope spoke while not knowing about looming layoffs, the message is clear: Out with the old, in with the new.

Related: CIOs Look Ahead: Millennials, Consumer Tech and the Future

In truth, Silicon Valley is undergoing an age crisis. Older tech engineers have complained to me over the last couple of years about age discrimination and their inability to get hired. At the same time, tech companies claim to have tens of thousands of jobs begging to be filled, according to an SFGate story from this weekend.

But they're looking for younger workers.

Tech executives have been dropping hints about the kind of job candidate they're seeking for quite some time now. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg told a Y Combinator Startup event at Stanford University a few years ago, "I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30?"

At the recent Commonwealth Club event, Melissa Daimler, head of organizational effectiveness and learning at Twitter, said she really couldn't comment on what older-generation workers want in the workplace in order to make them happier and more productive because they don't work at Twitter. Nor does Twitter target them for hire. The average age of a Twitter employee is 30.

Silicon Valley setting another IT hiring trend?
Accusations of age discrimination in Silicon Valley, of course, are nothing new. In many ways, Silicon Valley is the bellwether of trends in the tech jobs market.

In early 2000s, for instance, Silicon Valley was awash in angry protests from techies decrying the rising practice of offshore outsourcing and the hiring of H-1B workers. Tech companies said they needed the tech talent because of a looming skills gap; tech workers accused companies of taking advantage of cheap labor and depressing salaries.

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What wearable computing is really all about

Computerworld - Most of the criticism about wearable computing technology is about social acceptability. "Nobody wears a watch anymore." "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing Google Glass."

The rest is about utility. "Smartwatches and Google Glass can't do anything that a smartphone can't do."

These arguments are based on a misunderstanding of what the wearable computing revolution is all about.

It's not about devices. And it's not about the convenience of leaving your phone in your pocket.

Wearable computing is nothing less than a fundamental shift in our relationship to computers and the Internet.

A "personal area network," or PAN, is a network centered around an individual person. And, of course, a wireless PAN, or "WPAN" is such a network that uses Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or NFC (near-field communication).

In the past, the PAN concept involved a central connected laptop. It was portable (movable from place to place) as opposed to mobile (usable while moving). The wireless computing revolution will give every user his or her own mobile WPAN.

The WPAN model is comparable to a LAN, or local area network, which emerged as a normal way to connect in the '80s and '90s. Under the simplest version of that model, devices were connected to a nearby server via Ethernet, mostly -- PCs, printers -- and that server was connected to the Internet.

The future of personal computing, if you will, can be compared to the LAN. The smartphone is the Internet-connected server. Wearable devices are the primary user devices where most input and output occurs.

Just as the adoption of LAN was driven in part by the evolution and standards formation around Ethernet technologies, the wearable movement's WPAN adoption will be driven by the new Bluetooth Low Energy standard (the wireless specification formerly known as Bluetooth 4.0). The new Bluetooth, first adopted by iOS and recently integrated into Android, will enable power-sipping devices with very small batteries to function, wake each other up and exchange rich data.

That means wearable devices will be able to receive not only words, pictures and sound, but video.

Prognosticating pundits say the wearables market will get huge fast. The UK research company Visiongain says wearables are a $4.6 billion market this year with "explosive growth and high adoption rates" over the next five years.

Juniper Research predicts that nearly 70 million wearable devices will ship in the year 2017 (up from 15 million this year).

ABI Research disagrees, and projects that the sports and health wearables market alone will see 170 million devices in 2017.

The wearable movement will be dominated in early days by health, fitness and "quantified self" applications. The reason is simple: It's less complicated.

Health monitoring involves measuring things like heart rate and activity level from a wristwatch or chest strap and uploading that data to a central place where changes can be tracked over time. Fitness fans, doctors and patients are all highly motivated to embrace this kind of self-monitoring, and are therefore already willing to spend big for new devices.

Over time, however, fitness and health will take a backseat to personal information management and interaction with everything on the Internet through a voice-based virtual assistant.

Right now, people associate wearable computing with smartwatches, fitness bands and Google Glass. But wearable devices will be worn all over.

We'll see a wide variety of wearable devices that clip onto clothing. Sony, as an early example, will soon ship its Sony Smart Bluetooth Handset SBH52, a clip-on device that relays audio to and from any Bluetooth device. You can use it like a phone (as in hold it up to your ear and talk). It also has an FM radio. Think of this device as a halfway technology between a Bluetooth headset and a clip-on wearable device.

Some wearable devices will be built into clothing, including shirts, shoes, socks and hats. Under Armour even has a vision video showing what it looks like when clothes are wearable touch computers.

Under Armour's vision video on wearable devices. Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

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Is It Really Okay to Wear White To Another Bride's Wedding?

Wearing white at a wedding when you're not the bride? Our writer recounts her tale of trying the color for a friend's big day

By Kristin Booker - August 5, 2013

I grew up in the South, and there are a few things I learned growing up that are just good, old-fashioned manners. Keep your elbows off the table during meal times, don’t stare, and don’t wear white to a wedding if you’re not the bride. I’ve considered myself a well-mannered sort, and I’ve always stuck pretty close to the rules most of the time. Well, except for this one wedding where the color of my dress came into question.

Some good friends of mine were going all out for a destination wedding at the beach, and my then-boyfriend and I received a “couples invite.” This was the kind of wedding invite you don’t turn down: white sands, delicious food, good friends and, let’s face it: the beach. The downfall is that no one lives close to a destination wedding, which means packing your life into a suitcase and hauling whatever you’re wearing with you, no turning back.

Destination weddings are tricky. You have to dress for the occasion as well as the weather, the time of day and the dress code stated on the invitation, which puts considerable fashion pressure on the guests. I racked through my entire closet in search of “Beachy Formal” and came across three dress options: a red dress (which I considered another no-no, especially since I’d previously dated the groom), a black dress that was sort of meh, and a gorgeous strapless cream-colored dress with a beautiful green belt. I tried them all on, avoided the black and red and went with the cream-colored dress. In the J.Crew catalog, I believe they called the color of the dress “Sand” or “Ecru.” Whatever. It was in the cul-de-sac of white, but not in the same house. I was safe. Furthermore, it had a green belt. GREEN. I knew I was safe.

Cut to the evening of the event. I was getting dressed at the hotel. I asked Then Boyfriend to zip me up, and he uttered the wedding-day-dress equivalent of the wrong answer to the does-this-dress-make-me-look-fat question:

“Are you wearing white to the wedding? Isn’t that a big no-no or something?”

I looked at him in shock. “This isn’t white,” I said haughtily. “This is sand, or ecru, or whatever. I’m not wearing white.”

“Looks white to me,” he muttered. Note to self: get back to New York, and find a more fashion-forward man to bring to weddings with me. Clearly, he was mistaken. “Sand” isn’t white. Ugh. Just to be safe, I tossed a baby blue throw over my sand-colored dress and kept it moving.

I didn’t think about the color of my dress again until the bride came out, wearing a champagne-y, sand-hued duchess satin gown. Then Boyfriend looks at me and whispers, “See? White!” as the bride made her way down the aisle. I could feel myself wishing the floor could swallow me. Somewhere, the spirits of Emily Post and my mother were wagging their fingers at me. Oh, the shame of it. I had worn a white-ish dress to a friend’s wedding.

When it came time to do the receiving line, I decided to own up to the mistake immediately. I decided to just admit that I had come a little close to her blessed hue by accident. I sheepishly hugged her and said, “Such a gorgeous wedding and your dress is gorgeous! I, uh, sort of wore the same color as you, and, um, hee hee, it looks like I wore white to your wedding, and...”

The bride looked at me with an amused expression. “You’re not wearing white. That’s Sand or Ecru or whatever. And the belt is green.” After I smiled in relief, she said, “Relax. I didn’t even wear white to my wedding. You’re fine! Enjoy the chicken!”

And that, friends, was my experience wearing “white” to a wedding. Since then, I’ve attended weddings where the bride insisted everyone wear white (another beach-themed wedding, all guests were photographed together in white garb) and I’ve been to weddings where the bride asked a woman to change her clothes because she was wearing a white sundress. It’s a touchy thing, that white dress at a wedding. For my money, I’ll just stick with Sand and Ecru and colored belts.

But what about you? Do you think it’s okay to wear white to another woman’s wedding or is it just something that isn’t done?

Kristin Booker is a contributing writer on iVillage. Follow her on Twitter and Google +.

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