Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow was MIA, which points to an early spring in our future. But we’re a little skeptical of wagering our bets on the absent shadow of a groundhog, in spite of his good track record (and what was up with last weekend’s blizzard? Oh, Phil!). Weather, life in general, it’s all unpredictable, and your data can be caught in that unforeseeable cyclone and annihilated before you can say, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

We’ve heard the phrase “one in a million” but how about “one in a quintillion”? Now there’s a term that will make you feel microbial.

Up until about 2 months ago, most people probably thought that fingerprint technology was a lost cause. What was once supposed to be the future of security, seems to have faded off as there hadn’t been many new or groundbreaking developments in the past few years. Other than banks and forensics, can you really name any other places that come to mind immediately that use fingerprint technology? I can’t, and neither can the Google search engine. But that could all come to change in the next 2-3 years. Apple is reportedly planning on countering Samsung’s NFC investment with Fingerprint Technology.

Hurricane Sandy’s destruction has been well documented for the past two weeks, and the damage has added up to over 52 billion dollars.