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ACM TechNews - Monday, March 25, 2002



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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 327
Date: March 25, 2002

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Top Stories for Monday, March 25, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Copyright Protection Bill Creates Furor in High-Tech Industry"
"Makers of PCs Fear Wrath of Microsoft"
"IT Workers Left Out of Economic Rebound"
"Wanted: A Peace Envoy to End Net's Bickering Over Address System"
"Lilith: Geek Music to Girls' Ears"
"Bleak Future Looms If You Don't Take a Stand"
"After College, A High Degree of Job Anxiety"
"Are You Being Served?"
"Neural Network 'In-Jokes' Could Pass Secrets"
"Microsoft Password Research Looks to Images, Not Text"
"New Services Spur Growth of Public Access Wi-Fi"
"Will the Net Save China?"
"Crystals Advance Quest for Photonic Microchip"
"Broadband Bill Misses Senate Panel OK"
"Web Sites Told to Delete Data"
"Funding the Future"
"Java: Potent Security"
"Winners...and Losers"
"The Worldwide Computer"
"ACM SIGCHI Conference to Explore Transforming Technologies"

******************* News Stories ***********************

"Copyright Protection Bill Creates Furor in High-Tech Industry"
Sen. Ernest Hollings' (D-S.C.) Consumer Broadband and Digital
Television Act would require the high-tech industry to create a
technical anti-copying standard to be embedded into hardware and
software within a year, otherwise the FCC will be authorized to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item1

"Makers of PCs Fear Wrath of Microsoft"
Computer manufacturers such as IBM, Dell, and Compaq have shown
reluctance to use the alternative Linux operating system in their
new PCs due to fear of Microsoft, according to Red Hat CTO
Michael Tiemann.  He says that Dell backed off its agreement two ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item2

"IT Workers Left Out of Economic Rebound"
Although the Federal Reserve is more optimistic about the
prospects of the economy and the stock market is improving in
certain segments, IT workers do not have much to smile about
these days.  Large numbers of tech workers have lost their jobs ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item3

"Wanted: A Peace Envoy to End Net's Bickering Over Address System"
ICANN has gone from cacophonous bickering to a stupendous
meltdown, and now needs a peace process to right the organization
responsible for overseeing the Internet's domain name addressing
system.  Some ICANN board members are calling for ICANN's own ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item4

"Lilith: Geek Music to Girls' Ears"
Middle school girls in Madison, Wis., are getting more involved
in computers through the Lilith Computer Group, the brainchild of
student Susannah Camic, which was co-developed by the Madison
Metropolitan School District and the University of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item5

"Bleak Future Looms If You Don't Take a Stand"
Only a few large corporations will end up controlling access to
the Internet, entertainment, and media content in a short while,
if current trends continue, predicts SiliconValley.com columnist
Dan Gillmor.  Even as free speech and technological innovation is ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item6

"After College, A High Degree of Job Anxiety"
Some tech college students facing imminent graduation are not
ready to confront a job market that is less energetic than it was
three or four years ago.  Frustrated that there are fewer
openings because of the recession and employers' preference for ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item7

"Are You Being Served?"
Customer service and digital technology could meld even further
with the advent of virtual agents.  Indeed, "service bots" could
be so helpful as to fool customers into thinking they are flesh
and blood.  The ideal software-hardware hybrid would be capable ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item8

"Neural Network 'In-Jokes' Could Pass Secrets"
Scientists have hit upon a new cryptographic technique involving
neural networks that can train each other to solve problems.  Ido
Kanter of the Minerva Center in Ramat-Gan, Israel, and Wolfgang
Kinzel of the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Wurzburg, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item9

"Microsoft Password Research Looks to Images, Not Text"
Computer users whose memory limits their choice of passwords
could one day use new verification systems that are easier to
recall and are less susceptible to hackers.  Microsoft
researchers are working on such systems, which use images as ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item10

"New Services Spur Growth of Public Access Wi-Fi"
Mobile carriers and wireless Wi-Fi access companies are beginning
to look at the intersection of their user-bases, according to
company representatives at the Cellular Telecommunications and
Internet Association conference.  Voicestream Wireless announced ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item11

"Will the Net Save China?"
Internet access and computer technology will bring social
revolution in China, according to author David Sheff in his book
"China Dawn."  The book follows two Chinese entrepreneurs who see
the Internet as bringing power to the masses and creating wealth ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item12

"Crystals Advance Quest for Photonic Microchip"
University of Toronto researchers are working to create
integrated optical chips by manipulating the formation of
photonic crystals.  The goal is to get the crystals configured on
a microchip together with other optical components such as ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item13

"Broadband Bill Misses Senate Panel OK"
Many members of the Senate Commerce and Science Committee were
unmoved by arguments from Reps. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and John
Dingell (D-Mich.) that their broadband deregulation bill would
boost the number of households with high-speed Internet access, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item14

"Web Sites Told to Delete Data"
The White House has issued a memo to all federal agency heads
that they should remove "sensitive but unclassified" data that
might provide terrorists with information about weapons of mass
destruction or how to carry out biological attacks.  The message ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item15

"Funding the Future"
CTOs could use the U.S. Department of Commerce's Advanced
Technology Program (ATP) as a source of funding for high-risk
projects that their companies are not willing to pursue or
venture capitalists are not willing to support.  The National ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item16

"Java: Potent Security"
IT managers are hesitant to deploy Web services, because existing
and soon-to-be-released versions of the Simple Object Access
Protocol standard have a shortage of integrated security
measures.  This has led to delays in the release of Microsoft's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item17

"Winners...and Losers"
Ziff Davis Smart Business asked a panel of business and
technology experts to consider the life expectancy of certain
technologies over the next 18 months to see which are worth
investing in.  Pagers, Web phones, Linux, XML, and Wi-Fi seem ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item18

"The Worldwide Computer"
Peer-to-peer applications that exploit idle machines connected to
the Internet could make cheap, unrivaled computing power
available to all, but such applications cannot break into the
mainstream until an end-all solution to infrastructure problems ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item19

"ACM SIGCHI Conference to Explore Transforming Technologies"
The upcoming ACM conference on Human Factors in Computing
(SIGCHI) will host a series of technical tracks that range from current
usability and design issues facing today's practitioner, to radical
visions of computing in the future facing generations to come. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0325m.html#item20


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