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The Office of Personnel Management processed more retirement claims in September than in August, after receiving thousands more applications last month.

OPM completed 12,563 retirement claims in September -- the most claims processed in a single month so far this year and 1,063 more than it expected to complete last month. The agency received 11,952 new claims in September, 4,952 more than it anticipated, and 2,979 more than it received in August. The backlog now stands at 41,176 claims, down 33 percent since January.

A growing influx of new retirement claims this past summer, however, has slowed OPMs progress in tackling the backlog. The current inventory is down just 1.4 percent since August, partly because OPM received more new retirement applications in September than it has since January when it was hit with 21,479 new claims. Still, the agency is slightly ahead of its backlog projections: OPM estimated an inventory of 42,978 as of September.

Despite the slow and steady progress OPM has made tackling the backlog, many federal retirees still wait several months for their applications to be fully processed. On average, it takes 156 days to process a claim, but many retirees wait much longer than that for their full annuity checks.

After the influx of claims in January, the number of applications filed this year started to increase steadily in May. Since the beginning of 2012, OPM has received 86,676 new retirement claims. In the last nine months, the agency has processed a total of 93,878 retirement claims. During fiscal 2011, the agency processed 82,837 applications.

OPM administers benefits for 2.5 million federal retirees and processes about 100,000 new claims annually.

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Federal Worker Retirement Claims Surge in September

SAN FRANCISCOIntel Corp. is pushing some of its latest Atom processors for use in network-attached storage (NAS) devices that deliver "personal cloud" storage to small businesses and consumers.

Intel Thursday (Oct. 4) launched an Atom-based storage platform combining multimedia capabilities, energy efficiency and performance for NAS devices. The platform, based on the Atom D2550 or Atom D2500, is billed as a solution for small businesses and consumers grappling with exploding storage needs in a secure, accessible way.

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"With the huge number of devices coming out, from traditional laptopswhich have been with us for decadesto tablets to smartphones, the opportunities for consuming data are huge," said David Tuhy, general manager of Intel's storage division, at a briefing here Thursday.

There are already NAS devices using previous generations of Atom on the market. But with the launch of its Atom-based storage platform Thursday, Intel trotted out new NAS systems using it made by customers Asustor, QNAP and Thecus. More firms are expected to launch systems based on the platform in the near future, Intel said.

Source: Intel

Intel markets its higher-end Xeon processors for bigger data storage applications like servers. But, for NAS devices, which typically have two or four hard drives, Atom offers sufficient capability, Tuhy said.

"We think we have a really compelling price point solution with Atom in this category," Tuhy said.

The market for NAS devices is expected to be worth more than $6 billion by 2014, according to IDC.

Intel said its Atom-based storage solution features built-in hardware acceleration for HD content (video surveillance and playback as well as media playback), support for multiple operating sytems, including Microsoft Windows and Linux, and support for software-based RAID data safeguards so that files are recoverable even if a hard-drive fails. The solution also offers scalable I/O connectivity to support four to six SATA drives with hot-plug capability of up to 14 USB ports and integrated support for digital display and dual display, as well as up to 4 GB of main memory.

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Intel pushes Atom for 'personal cloud'

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Fresh off a debate performance he spent highlighting American stories, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Friday peppered his campaign stump speech with those same kinds of personal anecdotes.

During his speech, he pointed to a 14-year-old facing leukemia, a quadriplegic friend who spent his life working for spinal injury research and a woman, Jane Horton whose husband Spec. Chris was a sniper in the Oklahoma National Guard and died last year who now works to help other Gold Star families that have lost someone in battle.

This is a time when some very misguided people were protesting at the funerals of our service men and women, you recall that? And they came to the funeral for her husband, and she was asked, what do you think about this? Mr. Romney recounted. She said, Chris died for them to be able to protest. This is quite a nation we live in, with extraordinary people.

Throughout much of the campaign, Mr. Romney has struggled to connect with voters. In the most recent Washington Times/Zogby Poll released earlier this week, voters were far less likely to say they felt they knew Mr. Romney than they were to say they knew President Obama.

But in Wednesdays debate, Mr. Romney went in with a strategy of trying to exude personal warmth and it worked.

Early on, he talked about meeting a man who owns an electronics business in St. Louis who calculated he pays more than 50 percent of his revenue in federal, state and local taxes.

He then pivoted to talk about a mom he met in New Hampshire who said she couldnt afford health insurance for her son, and another couple in Wisconsin who ran a business but said they were considering dropping their insurance coverage because they could no longer afford it.

Such personal stories had been the trademark of Mr. Obamas speeches. But Mr. Romney won rave reviews for his own foray into those kinds of anecdotes at the debate, and on Friday in Florida used them to make a connection with his crowd.

He commenced telling a story of meeting World War II veterans at an airport in Toledo, Ohio, when a woman in the front of the crowd whooped.

Originally posted here:
Romney tries personal touch on campaign stump

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Mitt Romney got personal tonight in Florida, shifting the attention away from the improving unemployment rates and instead opting to share story after story about people he's met over the years.

There was the woman from Oklahoma whose husband was killed in Afghanistan, the 14-year-old Massachusetts boy who asked him to write his will before he passed away from cancer and a quadriplegic who Romney said spoke with him the day before his death.

What there wasn't was any mention of the better-than-expected jobs report, which found that the nation's unemployment rate had decreased to 7.8 percent last month, the first time it's been under 8 percent in four years.

For Romney, who had been riding a wave of momentum after his strong debate performance earlier this week, tonight served as an opportunity to continue to tackle one of the biggest criticisms against him: that he doesn't connect enough with the average American.

"I've seen America," Romney said. "I've seen the greatness of the human spirit in my fellow Americans. It's what gives me confidence in our future, knowing we can rise to the occasion time and again. I've seen it throughout my life."

"I got to meet Billy Hulse and Bill began a business, was very successful and then was involved in an accident and became quadriplegic," Romney said. "And I just saw him a couple of weeks ago - I think three weeks ago in Atlanta, he came to an event. And, it's not easy for Billy to get around [as a] quadriplegic. But his wife was there and he can't move, of course, his arms and his legs, and he can barely speak. And they brought him forward, a big crowd around him.

"I reached down and I put my hand on Billy's shoulder and I whispered into his ear, and I said, 'Billy, God bless you, I love ya.' And he whispered right back to me - and I couldn't quite hear what he said," said Romney. "He tried to speak loud enough for me to hear. He died the next day."

Next was the story of David Oparowski, the 14-year-old for whom Romney helped write a will before he died of leukemia. Oparowski's story was first told at the Republican National Convention by his mother. Tonight, Romney told it himself for the first time.

"I went to David's bedside and got a piece of legal paper, made it look very official," said Romney, of the day Oparowski summoned him to his bedside. "And then David proceeded to tell me what he wanted to give his friends. Talked about his fishing rod, and who would get that. He talked about his skateboard, who'd get that. And his rifle, that went to his brother. I've seen the character of a young man like David, who wasn't emotional or crying. He had his eyes wide open. There's a saying: clear eyes, full heart, can't lose. David couldn't lose. I loved that young man."

The last story Romney told was about Jane Horton, a woman from Oklahoma the candidate met at the Republican convention. Horton's husband was killed in Afghanistan days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and his funeral was protested by members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

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Mitt Romney Gets Personal in Florida

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Mitt Romney got personal Friday night in Florida, shifting the attention away from the improving unemployment rates and instead opting to share story after story about people he's met over the years.

There was the woman from Oklahoma whose husband was killed in Afghanistan, the 14-year-old Massachusetts boy who asked him to write his will before he passed away from cancer and a quadriplegic who Romney said spoke with him the day before his death.

What there wasn't was any mention of the better-than-expected jobs report, which found that the nation's unemployment rate had decreased to 7.8 percent last month, the first time it's been under 8 percent in four years.

For Romney, who had been riding a wave of momentum after his strong debate performance earlier this week, tonight served as an opportunity to continue to tackle one of the biggest criticisms against him: that he doesn't connect enough with the average American.

"I've seen America," Romney said. "I've seen the greatness of the human spirit in my fellow Americans. It's what gives me confidence in our future, knowing we can rise to the occasion time and again. I've seen it throughout my life."

"I got to meet Billy Hulse and Bill began a business, was very successful and then was involved in an accident and became quadriplegic," Romney said. "And I just saw him a couple of weeks ago - I think three weeks ago in Atlanta, he came to an event. And, it's not easy for Billy to get around [as a] quadriplegic. But his wife was there and he can't move, of course, his arms and his legs, and he can barely speak. And they brought him forward, a big crowd around him.

"I reached down and I put my hand on Billy's shoulder and I whispered into his ear, and I said, 'Billy, God bless you, I love ya.' And he whispered right back to me - and I couldn't quite hear what he said," said Romney. "He tried to speak loud enough for me to hear. He died the next day."

Next was the story of David Oparowski, the 14-year-old for whom Romney helped write a will before he died of leukemia. Oparowski's story was first told at the Republican National Convention by his mother. On Friday, Romney told it himself for the first time.

"I went to David's bedside and got a piece of legal paper, made it look very official," said Romney, of the day Oparowski summoned him to his bedside. "And then David proceeded to tell me what he wanted to give his friends. Talked about his fishing rod, and who would get that. He talked about his skateboard, who'd get that. And his rifle, that went to his brother. I've seen the character of a young man like David, who wasn't emotional or crying. He had his eyes wide open. There's a saying: clear eyes, full heart, can't lose. David couldn't lose. I loved that young man."

The last story Romney told was about Jane Horton, a woman from Oklahoma the candidate met at the Republican convention. Horton's husband was killed in Afghanistan days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and his funeral was protested by members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Continued here:
Mitt Romney gets personal in Florida speech

Intel is diving into the personal cloud storage space with a new Atom-based platform targeted towards both consumers and small businesses.

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel is getting into the personal cloud storage game with the introduction of its own Atom processor-based storage solutions aimed towards both consumers and small businesses.

Essentially, these are network-attached storage appliances powered by either the Intel Atom D2550 or D2500 processors for securing, backing up and sharing content through the cloud. The cloud technology comes in through an exposed HTML IP address (with a secure log-in), and the end user can access that IP address either through a regular desktop browser or it can look like a drive.

Intel said it has been focused on developing reference architectures to meet the costs and performance points they need on both personal and public clouds on systems running on Atom chips.

"Ballooning data is a fact of life," according to David Tuhy, general manager of Intel's Storage Group, while presenting the processor giant's new cloud storage platform during a media briefing yesterday morning.

While this might seem like a bit of an understatement, managing data (whether it be personal data, big data, or any other kind), presents a both major opportunity and challenge for every arm of technology.

Citing recent research from the Aberdeen Group, Intel reports that SMB storage volumes are increasing by 30 percent annually, while consumer digital storage needs will grow from 329 exabytes to 4.1 zettabytes.

One of the things challenging for small businesses are growing requirements and policy driven on them by data retention. Tuhy cited HIPAA, in particular, which has rules that vary by state by state but does require healthcare organizations to retain up to five years worth of data to the life of the patient.

He argued that all of this speaks to fact that both consumers and businesses need a better way to maintain their data integrity.

Tuhy listed what Intel believes SMBs and consumers want most, citing protection and privacy as the two foremost concerns. That includes automated backup functionality but also sharing files across connected devices while being able to selectively grant remote access.

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Intel shows off personal cloud for consumers, small business

Under Sandro Rosell, Barcelona has won titles in La Liga, Cope del Rey, Champions League and the Club World Cup.

Luca Bruno/AP

This is the third installment of Inside the SuperClubs: Barcelona. This week's Sports Illustrated features an in-depth look at the club and its global appeal.

BARCELONA, Spain -- You never know who you might meet on the road. Sam Lardner is (among other things) a Dartmouth alum, a descendant of sportswriting legend Ring Lardner, a professional musician, a former FC Barcelona ice hockey player and a one-time board member of the foundation started by Bara soccer deity Johan Cruyff.

A full-time resident of Barcelona since 1997, Lardner is in an ideal spot to observe the bustling political scene at FC Barcelona, which is "owned" by its 180,000 members who vote in elections for the club president every four years. Lardner took his son to London last year for the Arsenal-Barcelona Champions League game, and on the way back, they saw Bara president Sandro Rosell, the man in charge of the storied club with the most successful soccer team of this era.

"Rosell flew back on easyJet," said Lardner, mentioning the European budget-airline equivalent of Southwest Airlines. "I was very impressed by that. Rosell to me is doing a discreet and serious job. I know what's going on in his mind. He's got to clean up a big old mess."

When Rosell was elected as Bara's 39th president in 2010 with more than 60 percent of the vote, the club had a net debt of $558 million, owing in part to bank loans to help pay for transfers. That figure may not be quite as scary as it looks, in part because Bara is such a big revenue generator (as noted in this excellent Swiss Ramble piece), but the debt was still out of whack compared to what it should be.

"When we won the election, the biggest criticism was the financial aspect of the club," said Rosell, leaning forward in a chair in his office at the club. "We had an enormous debt with the banks outside of the financial ratios that Bara needs. It was a priority getting the debt under control and in relation to revenue. We've worked hard to cut costs and increase revenue in order to repay the bank debt -- and without being less competitive, while still winning trophies, we've reduced our debt by 15.5 percent. In one season we went from being 430 million [$558 million] in the red to a 364 million [$472 million] net debt."

In addition to cutting costs, Rosell worked out a deal with the Qatar Foundation, which became Bara's first paid shirt sponsor in a $225 million transaction.

Rosell, 48, has the air of a big-time politician, which is exactly what you have to be as the Bara president. But he also has a connection to the club that goes back to childhood. Rosell's father, Jaume, was club secretary of Bara in the early 1970s, and young Sandro was a diehard fan who became a club social member at age 4.

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Grant Wahl: Inside Barcelona: Rosell's success as president