If you were a software engineer with Drakontas, the tactical, collaborative communications shop with offices in Glenside and Camden, you would be a licensed firearm owner. It’s part of the job — and they’re looking to hire someone else now.

When building tools for high-pressure units like SWAT teams, it’s of particular use for developers to know how the customer will be using each product, says Drakontas co-founder and COO James Sim.

“The software engineering team embeds with tactical teams for trials. We put on our pants and goggles and go out into the field,” he said. “Our people have been partnered with a sniper in the mud and freezing cold, getting shot at in simulations with flash bangs and tear gas. It’s a different kind of software engineering experience.”

Following military space research from Drexel University professors Moshe Kam and William Regli and other researchers, Drakontas was founded in 2004 by Sim and Regli’s brother and company CEO Brian.

With nine full time employees, the company is working to roll out in Q3 2012 the latest full version of its DragonForce team collaboration software, built for small tactical groups like SWAT or hazardous waste response or others in security, law enforcement or disaster management, said CTO Alan Kaplan.

Above, watch a video demo of a Drakontas-made social mobile app for collaboration.

A key enhancement of the next DragonForce version is its flexibility to create groups that can share some projects and hide others. Put in action, think of Drakontas customer the York County government. Police, fire and ambulance leaders could visit the web application via a shared VPN to create and share tools and information assets. During a large event (hurricane, snow storm or terrorist attack), team leaders could be coordinating escape routes or location planning on blueprints or maps, allowing all disaster teams to be directed smartly and in a coordinated effort. During smaller events, police units could keep their materials private from other agencies.

“This is one way to solve the interoperability problem that governments and their first responders so often have,” said Sim. “This is one software package that otherwise can function autonomously, but can be used to inter-operate across users.”

The company will also roll out two native applications, one for Windows Mobile — which Kaplan says tends to be used on devices popular with disaster management leaders because of their ruggedness and battery life — and later another for Android devices, though iOS apps may follow as iPhones and iPads reach the enterprise, he adds. Some large partnerships could be named next year as well, Kaplan said.

When asked about differentiation in the competitive security communications space, which is dominated by big players, Sim is firm: “We make it a point to know what the client needs to be able to do. This is a group of individuals that if they make a mistake, someone can get killed. Software doesn’t get much more serious than that.”

"Who you going to call?" is what PredictiveEdge CEO asked when discussing how the Proactive Parenting Network compares to safety features on Facebook and other social media websites.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods Program, the capstone class for the Temple Journalism Department.

Hanging from one of the cabinets of PredictiveEdge CEO Bill Thompson’s desk is a piece of paper that reads, “Parenting Problems? Who You Going To Call?”

Under the text are two pictures: the first of Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the second is the logo for PredictiveEdge’s behavioral social media program, called ‘the Proactive Parenting Network.’

With more than 500 million active users, children of all ages are increasingly influenced by Facebook and other social networking websites, many of which don’t go beyond basic safety features for users.

“The Internet’s not going away. Facebook’s not going away. It’s going to continue to become more and more dominant in our kids’ lives. We’re the generation that has to adapt to that,” Thompson said.

The newly launched Proactive Parenting Network serves as a resource for parents to better understand and protect their kids in the digital realm. It’s a package of resources to help combat the internet-age old problem of safe browsing for kids, including more adaptive and advanced tools like a keyword-driven firewall and more powerful browsing history and data collection.

But is it sapping away privacy?

“The child a lot of times is the more technically proficient member of the household. When the child is more technically proficient, parents are sometimes afraid of getting involved in those types of discussions,” said Keith Harry, PredictiveEdge’s vice president of product development.

The network, which has exclusive partnerships with Internet education distributor i-SAFE, and the Mayo Clinic helps bridge this gap by providing resources for parents to better understand the digital landscapes their children are encountering.

“We took all of the content i-SAFE is delivering to kids in the classroom and deliver it to parents online,” Thompson said. “What we’re trying to do is give the parent a lot of great information and encourage them to go to their child and engage with them.”

The Proactive Parenting Network also utilizes a subscription based online monitoring service called inSight, which utilizes a natural language processor to alert parents to possible problems. Unique to the processor is the ability to detect slang and read within context.

“Everything goes through the language processor and we look at everything from keywords to context,” Thompson said.

Thompson also explained how the inSight looks for predatory behavior through its recognition of what are called grooming questions.

The Proactive Parenting Network provides tabs for each child, alerts and information on both digital and health related issues pertaining to each child.

A monitoring system like inSight may seem to be invasive to a child’s privacy but PredictiveEdge took steps in development to alleviate those concerns by bringing in focus groups of both parents and children to come up with a system that benefits parents without violating their children’s privacy.

“We don’t want spying. We want the kids to be safe and for you to be a parent but we understand that kids don’t want parents to see everything that they’re posting,” said Harry, who explained that a child must opt into the program for the system to be able to “scrape” profile information and enable monitoring.

The monitoring system also keeps each individual families’ data private.

“We can see the traffic but not what the traffic is. We have a strict privacy policy, that we don’t look at any of the data. The only people with access to that database are the parents, it’s their data,” Thompson said.

Currently the Proactive Parenting Network targets Facebook primarily, but Thompson says he understands that as websites like Twitter and Tumblr attract younger users, they must expand to other sites and platforms.

Harry explained that Predictive Edge has already extended the network onto mobile technology exclusively on the iPhone with plans to make the technology available in Droid applications as well. He also said that Predictive Edge is looking into expanding to Internet gaming as well as other social media websites.

Senior Vice President of Product Development Keith Harry demonstrated how the Proactive Parenting Network operates.

Thus far feedback to the two-week-old system, which launched on June 2, has been positive especially from parents, Thompson said confidently.

“We’ve received nice letters that say, ‘This is the first time I’ve been able to really talk to my kids about this.’ It’s really building a bridge between parent and child and that’s what we’re trying to do here,” Thompson said.

When it comes down to it, the Proactive Parenting Network offers a service so that parents can continue to parent beyond not just in reality but digitally.

“This is no different than telling your kid to look both ways before crossing the street,” Thompson, a father of four, said. “On the Internet world you have to train them the same way so they don’t get caught in one of the traps that are out there.”

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• An Award, Criticism and Perils for Comcast [New York Times] MSNBC Host Keith Olbermann is openly and regularly critical of, for example, Fox News Host Bill O’Reilly. Will things change when Comcast takes ownership of MSNBC, considering the company’s relationship with Fox and its owner News Corp.?
• Comcast-NBC Universal merger review hits FCC speed bump [Washington Post] — The FCC wants more information by Oct. 18.
• Alms for the Rich and Powerful [New York Times] — Comcast donates money to nonprofits supported from key legislators

Below, how the drop of net neutrality in Congress affects Comcast, offering home security and more.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Do ISPs pay minorities to oppose Net neutrality [CNET News]
• EarthLink argues against Comcast-NBCU merger [Atlanta Business Chronicle]
• FCC Dives Deeper Into the Comcast-NBC Universal Deal [DailyFinance]
• NBC Universal Invests in Addressable-Ad Concern Invidi [AdAge] — The advertising distribution service with engineering offices in Princeton, according to Philly Tech News, will be partially under the Comcast banner if regulation goes through.
• Net neutrality back at FCC, a look at how it can affect Comcast-NBCU merger [Washington Post]
• Comcast Homes In on Security Services [Light Reading] — Comcast has introduced in Houston a home security service.

GIVE A GLANCE

• Deal P.R. Adviser Joins Comcast [New York Times DealBook] — Adam Miller, a strategic PR adviser consulting on the Comcast-NBC deal, is taking a full-time gig. H/T PTN
• Ideas Forum: A Summit on American Innovation [Comcast blog] — Comcast underwrites an Atlantic magazine innovation conversation event.
• Comcast Asia licenses 400 hours in three months [Hollywood Reporter]
• Comcast Donates Additional IPv6 Open Source Software [Comcast blog] — Read the CNET News take on the move

When there is just too much Comcast news to follow, the Comcast Roundup will be there every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST

• On MinuWireless broadband specialist Craig Settles offered his take on the recent news that the city purchased the rest of the municipal wireless network.

Below, Viddler video says happy holidays from around the country, a new iPhone comic and more.

• Peter Key of the Philadelphia Business Journal goes silly with Rowan University, first reporting that its computer science program now allows students finish a bachelor’s and master’s degree in five years. Then he reported that the National Science Foundation has given a $600,000 grant to the school’s college of engineering for scholarships.
• eSecurity Planet reports that Penn State University has been plagued by security breaches. H/T Philly Tech News
• Geekadelphia reports that artists Johnny Zito and Tony Trov released an iPhone comic.
• The Inquirer runs a profile of a 20-something from Overbrook who has developed a functioning organization around gift giving to the underprivileged.
• See below, the Viddler camp gives holiday wishes from their varied telecommuted headquarters.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn�t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

A year ago, John Biglin, the CEO of Interphase Systems, was talking to the CFO of an emerging Center City pharmaceutical company.

The CFO, intent on keeping in order the financial house of his blue-chip invested life sciences startup, had a problem.

“Is it normal that sometimes you don’t get e-mails, or e-mails take a couple days to arrive or when you do get them, they come in triplicate?” Biglin remembers the CFO asking.

John Biglin

“Our IT has been cobbled together by an employee or by his nephew or uncle,” Biglin recalls the CFO and others in his position saying. “Someone just shows up in a truck and sets stuff up in our office. If the FDA came in here and we say we can’t produce this lab data or that, we are out of business.”

The CFO talked about multiple versions of contracts lost, emergency Best Buy trips for whatever hardware is on sale and documents that are never seen again.

That conversation last January set into motion the long-discussed plans for Interphase, which does 60 percent of its business in the life sciences, to develop a turn-key, managed IT platform targeted for small and medium-sized emerging pharmaceutical and biomedical companies that need top-level security, guaranteed disaster recovery, FDA compliance and flexibility. Biglin says that Ready-IT BioPharma, which launched late last month, just might be the only system of its kind.

“These companies are started by scientists or investors,” Biglin, who founded Interphase in 1995, tells Technically Philly. The stakes are high, deadlines come fast and so all the capital that comes into these startups are thrown at developing that device or that drug or that treatment.

So Interphase wanted to find a more cohesive way for these life science companies to outsource their IT. That solution is Ready-IT.

In addition to disaster recovery support and the guarantee that the system is running in compliance with FDA security demands, the package includes 50 document templates common to companies in the industry. The platform also includes pre-configured industry-standard software, like Microsoft Exchange and a developed SharePoint, which Biglin says can make an emerging firm even more attractive for acquisition.

“You’ll already be using the same systems and technologies of all the big pharmaceutical companies like a Wyeth or a Merck,” Biglin says. The cost varies by expectations and wants of the client but ballparks at “a couple hundred bucks” per user, Biglin says.

Ready-IT, which runs in two separate data centers, makes sense for a company of a dozen to a couple hundred employees, Biglin says, but the “sweet spot” is probably 40-80 employees.

Now, the 50-employee company with offices in Plymouth Meeting and Bedminster, N.J. is seeking pilot partners for January. Ready-IT has early interest from companies in Southern California, Pittsburgh and across the Philadelphia region, Biglin says.

Biglin, who before founding Interphase was a senior IBM consultant working with large pharmaceutical and financial services companies, says now the work is showing off Ready-IT to companies in the region and across the country.

“This product is coming from people who have lived the pharma life. The technology works, it’s best-in-class and ready to serve as a full IT department for a company that wants to focus on other things,” says Biglin, a South Jersey-native with nearly 20 years as a Pennsylvanian. “We built this to be a game-changer.”

Every Wednesday,�Shop Talk shows you what goes into a tech product, organization or business in the Philadelphia region. See others�here.

The holiday shopping season is again going to pack — our economy hopes — hordes of consumers into shops, malls and onto roads. The Liberty Bell is going to remain a practical militarized zone.

And while no one thinks the apocalypse is good for business, there is something to be said for having your business ready for disaster.

Wayne-based business continuity services company IDC Partners has built a business on that reality since 1991. They help companies prepare for the worst, and they’re using cool, local technology to do it.

Below, Ginnie Stouffer, vice president of consulting with IDC, takes her 15 years of industry experience to tell us about the cool technologies they implement to keep their clients ready for the worst and just what disaster movie is the favorite of someone who thinks plenty about disaster.

Edited for length and clarity.

Short of building a cement bunker, what do you do for a new business client?

Ginnie Stouffer, vice president of consulting with IDC Partners

We provide services at all levels to help the organization develop or improve their disaster readiness plan. That’s about technical services, retaining your customers, continuing your customer service, managing accounts 24/7 and project management. Everything that IDC does is focused on the resilience of the business and industry.

What we try to do is help them understand their business. What does your business depend on: people and technology, probably a dependency on a physical location. Once they understand that, we can help implement a plan that prepares for when those things aren’t available — those people, that technology or your place — to keep their business moving and reducing the impact of a disaster.

When you say disaster, do we mean, like, Bruce Willis can’t destroy the Texas-sized asteroid that is headed straight for us?

The old-fashioned definition is a sudden calamitous event that causes destruction so that the business can’t work at that location. That’s the old definition. A new definition is any interruption that stops a business from producing whatever it is that business does.

This all changed in the 1990s because before then, PCs weren’t proliferated so we were still using green screens and mainframes. The proliferation of PCs and client software creates a need to think beyond that single piece of technology and instead imagine how HR or accounting or your production line will react when their technology isn’t available. We have a huge dependence on technology and any disaster can remind us just that.

Give us an example of what this looks like in practice.

We work in a broad range of capacities, but we can talk about the hospital environment. What we’ve done for a large, well-known hospital, someplace we’ve been working for four years, the first thing that happens is that someone reports a system outage in that hospital. The system is set up so we’re doing to do troubleshooting to find out, say, maybe a broken pipe or whatever else means that they can no longer have functional technology in that wing. What do you do next? How do you order the new equipment, who configures it, what are the steps for replacing that wing? What if everything was destroyed?

What are some of the technology partnerships you’re leveraging?

The move in the industry today for business resiliency is to decrease the dependence any physical location or system. IDC is pushing on cloud computing, We have hosted VoIP with [Old City-based] Alteva that we manage through a Web interface so we can point lines someplace else for remote officing.

We’re using Web-based ticket service [SaaS application] Salesforce, which offers the tools we use for managing [a customer interface]. Enabling LogMeIn Rescue to work with Salesforce is giving us the opportunity to manage servers and desktops remotely. This is all hosted through the Internet.

All of our systems are hosted in Bethelem at DBSi, a recovery vendor that provides co-location and hosting service like IBM and HP. It’s an independent vendor with multiple locations, and since we are in the Valley Forge-King of Prussia area, their Bethlehem location is just 35 miles drive time but out of the main area.

Update: We selected their Valley Forge location for our Work Recovery seats, it is just 10 minutes from our office.

What company is too small to be preparing for disaster? Do you want me to warn my local corner store?

It sounds outlandish, but even mom and pop companies need to think about this. If you’re dealing with any kind of regulation or an industry that uses regulation, you don’t want to lose that information and need to know how to react without it.

This all started in the mainframe environment in the 1970s, but now, yes, even the corner storefront is probably using a desktop for point of sale equipment. If something happens to that computer, they don’t know how much they have in stock, they can’t produce a report for regulation. You’d be surprised how many times people can’t think before computer age. They just don’t know how to do it, no matter your size, that matters.

So what’s really at risk here?

Philadelphia is a target and has always been listed on a terrorist target list because of all the national interest here. So, Philly itself is a whole lot different than Scranton. A terrorist attack could target just one facility, but what happened in New York [on 9/11] closed 10 square blocks for a month, even if they didn’t have a broken window. Those businesses were completely interrupted. Anyone with a business in Philly has to have a fear of that negatively impacting your business.

The Valley Forge and King of Prussia interchange is a big risk, too. The King of Prussia Mall is also a target whenever there is big holiday shopping.

What is your favorite disaster movie?

[laughs] I like them all.

Every Friday, Technically Philly brings you an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia’s technology community. See others here.

Lancaster security cameras on the streets are monitored by civilians working for a nonprofit group. They pan, zoom and call police if they see a crime. Linda Johnson / For The L.A. Times

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

You’re probably being watched in Lancaster.

This city of 54,000 in the middle of a rural county of the same name just may be the most closely scrutinized place in the country, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

As many as 165 closed-circuit TV cameras that will soon bring constant live surveillance of very nearly every street, park and other public space. That would be more outdoor cameras than cities as large as Boston and San Francisco.

Two more things are unique about the camera network, as the L.A. Times story suggests: it was built and maintained by a private nonprofit group and few seem concerned about the privacy implications.

The group, which hires civilians to move and follow the cameras and dispatch police to suspiscious activity, hasn’t found much public outcry.

“Years ago, there’s no way we could do this,” said Lancaster’s police chief Keith Sadler told the Times. “It brings to mind Big Brother, George Orwell and ’1984.’ It’s just funny how Americans have softened on these issues.”

There is some question as to the effectiveness of cameras, though. In what the Times report calls the largest U.S. study, US Berkeley researchers evaluated 71 cameras that San Francisco put in high-crime areas beginning in 2005. In December, they released a report that found “no evidence” of a reduction in violent crime, though it did note “substantial declines” in property crime near the cameras.

Hat Tip Philly Tech News.

After the jump, the continued spat over a state film tax credit, robot-loving high schoolers and eight more of the week’s tech stories you shouldn’t miss, including our best read story of the last seven days.

In order of importance for your ease.

• The San Jose Mercury News reports that a study from the Association for Computing Machinery released last week, says a sizable gap in technology interest remains between boys and girls. Forty-five percent of 13-17 year old boys thought a computer science degree would be “very good,” compared to just one in ten girls.
• Geekadelphia reports on a recently released free iPhone application that helps you find upcoming concerts in Philadelphia. They can be searched by date and venue, and include features that locate venues, offer audio samples from performing bands and sell tickets.
• Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey reports that with the state budget deadline next week and a lingering $3.2 billion deficit, a real debate remains regarding Pennsylvania’s $75 million film industry tax credit. The film credit is never broached in Philadelphia without the mention of Shooters, the tech-savvy Old City production company we profiled earlier this year. Relatedly, the Inquirer reported on the first ever Philadelphia Film Market.
• Information Week rags on Northern Liberties marketing firm Razorfish pretty harshly for what it asserts to be an outdated Web strategy. As Philly Tech News suggested: ouch.
• PE Hub reports on $2 million in new VC funding and what that means for a possible resurgence from RedLasso, the King of Prussia-based video-aggregation site. Check the SEC filing here, and read an interview we did with the firm’s CEO and president in March.
• A pun-heavy press release alerts us to the fact that TastyKake Baking outsourced the hosting and management of its voice and data networks to EvolveIP during their headquarters move to the Naval Yard. We covered EvolveIP last month.
• The Associated Press reports that the Italian trial against four Google executives has been postponed. The executives, who are accused of defamation and violating privacy for hosting a video that showed the abuse of an autistic youth, say the trial a threat to Internet freedom.
• The Inquirer reports on the trend of regional high schools adding FIRST robotics curriculum to encourage the study of engineering and related fields. The acronym FIRST means “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”

• Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: Google confirms Street View tricycle on UPenn campus, reader snaps first pictures

Every Friday morning we make sure you didn’t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

“Philly.com takes seriously the online security of our users, and we go to great efforts to combat issues including malware,” according to a written statement issued to Technically Philly.

“We will continue to investigate all claims regarding Philly.com and stand by our pledge to provide our users with a safe and secure online experience.”

Earlier today, city blog Phillyist reported that one of its readers was issued a warning by an employer to stay off Philly.com because the site could contain malware.

Only one mention of the malware allegations appeared in a Twitter search, but it was posted before the Phillyist’s story and was not the blog’s original source. “Whatever you do, don’t go to Philly.com, it’s infected with Malware,” tweeted:

Philly.com Vice President and Editor Wendy Warren told Technically Philly she didn’t know what company was referenced in the Phillyist tip and that no users have contacted Philly.com directly about problems with the site.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month about the growing trend of online advertisements harboring malware, boosted by publishers trying a variety of Web ad solutions with a growing collection of middlemen.

Malware scares have affected a number of high profile Web sites in recent months, including AmericanIdol.com, FoxNews.com, and Major League Baseball’s MLB.com, according to Econsultancy, an industry news site for digital marketers. Solutions are said to be easy, but ad networks that increasingly involve redistribution are seen to pose potential weakness.

Warren said that the site works closely with a select number of advertising networks that screen both ads and publishers to ensure that malware doesn’t affect users.

“We checked with the ad network that we used today, and they have not had any reports of malware on Philly.com,” she said. “I’m certainly not going to say that it’s impossible or that it didn’t happen, but we have not been able to find any evidence of it today.”

Staff reporter Christopher Wink contributed to this story.

9:50 a.m.: This article has been edited to clarify that the City Controller’s press release indicates the possibility of password breaches throughout the city government IT infrastructure, not just the city Web site.

If only a hacker could manage to navigate the city’s Web site, the administration might be in trouble.

That log-in passwords are lax and that fired city employees can still access secure portions of the city’s Web site are just two claims of the 2008 General IT Controls Review of the city’s Division of Technology, released yesterday by City Controller Alan Butkovitz. The review found that some terminated employees and contractors still had active user IDs to one or more of the city’s systems.

�There�s a lack of communication between the DOT and the Office of Human Resources,� said Butkovitz, who is embroiled in a primary race.� �Once an employee or contractor is no longer with the City, all of their user ID and password information must be terminated immediately. The current practice exposes the City to substantial risks by allowing access to important financial data by unauthorized personnel.�

The city also has relatively weak password requirements giving easy access to its applications and services, the report claims. We can only assume this means Butkovitz wouldn’t approve me using “password” for all my passwords, including this one.

This is all asking for hackers or other intruders, Butkovitz said. No word yet on if his report will be as memorable as the time Geraldo Rivera drew future military operations in sand on national TV.

The review recommends that the city’s department of technology establish more stringent password requirements and revoke remote access to people who are no longer on city staffs.

“Strict security measures for computer applications are a necessity to prevent financial theft via the Internet as well as a barrier to identity theft,” he said. “The more difficult the city makes it for a hacker to access information the less likely that data can be stolen through the Internet.�

The review also found that the city’s Web security standards are not formally documented for items like firewall configuration, anti-virus configuration and account lockout settings, in addition to other gripes with the DOT, which is one of at least 26 different city departments responsible for information technology, a press release from the Butkovitz office said.

Butkovitz has tentatively agreed to a panel discussion with the two other Democratic candidates for City Controller before the May 19 primary election. The discussion, to be held by NEastPhilly.com, a community news site for Northeast Philadelphia, and WHYY [Full Disclosure: I helped organize the event as a contributor to both organizations] at the John Perzel Community Center in Mayfair on May 7, will include Brett Mandel and John Braxton.