me critical in three to five years. Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital, said its current big focus areas include data centers and cloud computing, which allows companies to run programs and store information remotely; handheld devices; consumer Internet companies; and security providers. "There is sizzling growth in those areas," Sodhani said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. "Those areas are going through the roof in their usage and the innovation needed to be able to manage them." Intel Capital on Monday said it has provided funding to CrowdStar, a developer of social games on Facebook Inc. and mobile platforms; iStreamPlanet, a provider of live Web videos; Music Mastermind, a developer of an audio processing program that allows users to create music; and PerspecSys, a cloud data security provider. Intel's venture arm has long focused on developing ecosystems to help build out products it is working on, such as WiFi, and Sodhani says one of the current areas being funded by Intel Capital is the ecosystem for smart TVs. The Internet-connected devices have struggled to gain traction, but Sodhani says that advancements should result in all flat-panel TVs having computer capabilities within three to five years "The entire ecosystem for smart TV needs to be developed, and we're in the process of doing investments across the board in that space," he said. "We're going to be investing in a number of different areas." Intel Capital typically invests $300 million to $500 million each year in companies, many of which are outside the U.S. Indonesia is a new area the company is exploring, Sodhani said, and it rre legally authorized to work in the United States. Specifically, the Social Security numbers and alien identification numbers of new hires are checked against Social Security Administration (SSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records in order to weed out fraudulent numbers and help ensure that new hires are genuinely eligible to work. The program quickly confirms 99.5 percent of work-eligible employees. Over 250,000 American employers voluntarily use E-Verify and an average of 1,300 new businesses sign up each week (sign up at www.dhs.gov/everify). While the program is voluntary, federal contractors and some employers in the agricultural industry have been required to use it. In 2009, a rule went into effect requiring all employees working for the federal government, including Congress, be screened by E-Verify. Taxpayers should not be forced to fund illegal workers and the federal government must be sure to follow the law, down to the letter. Part of the success of E-Verify is that participating employers are happy with the results. Outside evaluations have found that the vast majority of employers using E-Verify believe it to be an effective and reliable tool for checking the legal status of their employees. And E-Verify recently received an exceptionally high overall customer satisfaction score – 82 out of 100 the American Customer Satisfaction Index scale. In comparison, the government’s overall satisfaction score is 69. The program continues to expand and improve. Last year, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services implemented a photo matching tool. This allows an employer to view a picture of the employee – from a green card, an employment authorization document or a passport – to determine that the employee is in fact the person to whom that Social Security number or alien identification number was issued. We should continue to add photo-matching capabilities to E-Verify to enhance the program’s reliability. It is also important that DHS and SSA work together to investigate any suspicious overuse of Social Security numbers through E-Verify, as these may indicate possible identity theft. It's estimated that seven million people are working in