ACM TechNews - Friday, April 12, 2002

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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 335
Date: April 12, 2002

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Top Stories for Friday, April 12, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"National Academies Study Tempers Call for National ID"
"Software Writers Patently Enraged"
"Are California Students Cyberslackers?"
"New Chips Could Make Everyday Items 'Talk'"
"Statistics Show Fewer Women in IT Careers"
"House Passes Govt.-Industry IT Tech Worker Exchange Bill"
"Nano-Scale Magnets for Petabyte Disk Drives"
"Anti-Trustworthy Computing"
"Future Computers Beat the Clock"
"Net Brings Consumer Savings, Not Corporate Profits, Says Academic"
"FBI's New Cyber Division Quietly Ramps Up"
"Programmable Chips"
"EU Assembly Approves Appliance Recycling Law"
"Free-Space Optics Offer Fast Data with Fewer Physical Links"
"T-Shirt Dye May Improve Telecom"
"Playing Games Can Mean Big Bucks for the Right Employees"
"Power Pool"
"Software Testing: The Internet Changes Everything"
"Taming High-Tech Particles"

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

"National Academies Study Tempers Call for National ID"
Next week Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) will introduce legislation
in Congress calling for the standardization of state drivers'
licenses, but a report endorsed by the National Research
Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board says ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item1

"Software Writers Patently Enraged"
Software developers claim that the Patent and Trademark Office's
patent issue system needs to be seriously retooled in order to
remedy problems with the way patents are examined and approved.
PTO examiners must adhere to strict specifications for approving ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item2

"Are California Students Cyberslackers?"
A study from the California Council on Science and Technology
finds that the state's educational system is not producing enough
science and engineering graduates to fortify the technology
industry.  The report concludes that 30 percent of students quit ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item3

"New Chips Could Make Everyday Items 'Talk'"
Small plastic tags equipped with computer chips could be at the
heart of the next computer-based revolution where things
communicate electronically with other things.  Tags embedded with
computer chips and radio antennas will be able to wirelessly ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item4

"Statistics Show Fewer Women in IT Careers"
A decline in the number of Canadian female IT graduates could
spell trouble for Canada's tech industry, so the Canadian
Information Processing Society (CIPS) and other organizations
hosted IT events across the country in an effort to ignite ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item5

"House Passes Govt.-Industry IT Tech Worker Exchange Bill"
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the Digital Tech Corps
Act of 2002 by voice vote on Wednesday, a bill that outlines an
IT manager exchange program between the government and the
private sector designed to address a predicted shortage of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item6

"Nano-Scale Magnets for Petabyte Disk Drives"
In the Materials Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory,
materials scientist Laura Henderson Lewis' research focus is
nanocrystalline magnets that offer significantly more flexibility
than standard magnets.  The crystals, which are no more than 100 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item7

"Anti-Trustworthy Computing"
As set forth by CEO Bill Gates and elaborated by CTO Craig
Mundie, Microsoft's "Trustworthy Computing" initiative is an
effort to make computer reliability and infallibility so deeply
entrenched that people will routinely put their lives in the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item8

"Future Computers Beat the Clock"
Asynchronous computing is faster, more secure, and uses less
power than computers that run according to timed electronic
pulses emitted by a crystal, according to computer science
professor Alex Yakovlev of Newcastle University in England.  He ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item9

"Net Brings Consumer Savings, Not Corporate Profits, Says Academic"
Although the Internet and advanced communications capabilities
have brought productivity gains and increased savings to
consumers, they have undermined corporate profits, according to
University of California, Los Angeles, professor Edward Leamer.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item10

"FBI's New Cyber Division Quietly Ramps Up"
Many tech industry observers were surprised this week at the
appointment of FBI special agent Larry Mefford as assistant
director of the new Cyber Division.  Tech executives had
discussed with government officials about the creation of such a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item11

"Programmable Chips"
Chips that can be reconfigured for multiple functions are a major
point of focus for designers, and many academic institutions and
startups are researching the technology's possibilities.
Reconfigurable circuits produced by companies such as Altera and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item12

"EU Assembly Approves Appliance Recycling Law"
The European Parliament on Wednesday voted to pass a law
requiring makers of electrical and electronic devices to pay for
the collection and recycling of their scrap equipment.  "[The]
decision is a milestone in European environmental legislation, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item13

"Free-Space Optics Offer Fast Data with Fewer Physical Links"
New free-space optic laser technology is helping businesses and
other organizations bridge the last-mile gap in broadband
connectivity.  Because laying fiber-optic cable is prohibitively
expensive in some circumstances, especially in some downtown ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item14

"T-Shirt Dye May Improve Telecom"
Researchers at Virginia Tech report they have found a chemical
that controls the speed of light waves when an electrical charge
is applied.  Speaking at the American Chemical Society conference
this week, Virginia Tech professor James Heflin said Procion Red, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item15

"Playing Games Can Mean Big Bucks for the Right Employees"
Maryland is home to a thriving gaming software industry,
prompting local schools to build academic tracks in digital
entertainment.  The programs offered range from the University of
Baltimore's doctoral degree in communications design to Carver ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item16

"Power Pool"
Grid computing--the demand-based harnessing of idle computing
power through a network of clustered CPUs--is beginning to move
out of the academic and nonprofit domain and into the commercial
sector.  Cereon Genomics, for example, built a processor grid so ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item17

"Software Testing: The Internet Changes Everything"
The complexity of Internet applications, the fluid,
uncontrollable environment they operate in, and their
contribution to corporate transparency are changing the way
businesses test software.  MetraTech's Jim Culbert explains that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item18

"Taming High-Tech Particles"
Nanomaterials have generated a lot of enthusiasm because of their
industrial potential, but researchers are investigating how they
might interact with the environment and the human body in the
hopes of anticipating problems.  Such discoveries could allow ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0412f.html#item19

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