ACM TechNews - Wednesday, May 15, 2002

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ACM TechNews
Volume 4, Number 349
Date: May 15, 2002

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Top Stories for Wednesday, May 15, 2002:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Why Hackers Are a Step Ahead of the Law"
"The Trans-Pacific Valley"
"Group Targets Digital TV Piracy"
"The Supreme Court and the Wild, Wild Web"
"Supercomputer Lets Researchers Study Material Failures, Atom by Atom"
"Report Roasts Linux on Mainframes"
"Losing Their Grip"
"Robotics, Medicine Merger Poses Quandary"
"Two Virginia Universities to Join Forces Against Cybercrime"
"Because Little Things Mean a Lot"
"Scientists Get Atoms Ready for a Close-Up"
"Nanostructure Techniques Come Closer to Quantum Dot"
"Why the Network Will Be the Computer"
"INS to Launch Online Foreign-Student Tracking System"
"Web Pioneer Looks at Ground Covered, Future"
"PCs: For Whom the Decibels Toll"
"The Future Is Here"
"The Next (Not So) Big Thing"
"Breaking Down the Language Barrier"

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

"Why Hackers Are a Step Ahead of the Law"
Sophisticated criminal hackers are nearly impossible to catch
online because of the tremendous advantages they have over law
enforcement in terms of concealing evidence, legal bureaucracy,
and technical competence.  The number of online crimes such as ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item1

"The Trans-Pacific Valley"
The Asian technology industry is benefiting from a two-way flow
of IT workers between Silicon Valley and overseas technology
hubs.  In a study of chiefly Chinese and Indian Bay Area
immigrant professionals, AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item2

"Group Targets Digital TV Piracy"
In an effort to stamp out digital TV piracy, the Broadcast
Protection Discussion Group, which includes various technology
companies, consumer electronics manufacturers, and Hollywood
studios, released a draft proposal on Saturday calling for ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item3

"The Supreme Court and the Wild, Wild Web"
In a move that follows the trend to impose Internet governance,
the Supreme Court on Monday refused to strike down the Child
Online Protection Act (COPA).  With this ruling, the court is
saying that the controversial law may not necessarily be ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item4

"Supercomputer Lets Researchers Study Material Failures, Atom by Atom"
Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, IBM, and
the Max Planck Institute for Metal Research in Germany studied
materials failures at the atomic level by running supercomputer
simulations.  Such simulation studies have aided the development ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item5

"Report Roasts Linux on Mainframes"
The Meta Group released a report this week that says Linux on the
mainframe is only a short-term solution as Intel-based servers
continue to drop in price and become more management-capable.
The report states that "Longer term (2005-07), as ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item6

"Losing Their Grip"
Handheld computer companies are crowding a marketplace that may
not be big enough to accommodate them all.  Many firms have
already have had the wind taken out of their sails with the
economic slump, price wars, and marketing blunders, and Gartner ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item7

"Robotics, Medicine Merger Poses Quandary"
Biorobots and cyborgs were an important topic of discussion at
the 2002 International Conference on Robotics and Automation this
week.  "More and more, biological models are used for the design
of biometric robots [and] robots are increasingly used by ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item8

"Two Virginia Universities to Join Forces Against Cybercrime"
George Mason University's National Center for Technology and Law
and James Madison University, both based in Virginia, will
collaborate on a $6.5 million initiative that aims to smooth out
the tangled legal, technical, and policy aspects of the nation's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item9

"Because Little Things Mean a Lot"
The Nanotech Planet Spring 2002 Conference & Expo taking place
this week in San Jose consolidated the many players converging on
this hot field, which promises great advancements in materials
sciences, manufacturing, biomedicine, and computing.  IT ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item10

"Scientists Get Atoms Ready for a Close-Up"
In the April 25 issue of Nature, researchers at Lucent
Technologies' Bell Labs reported that they have devised a new
microscopy technique that can pinpoint individual atoms within a
sheet of silicon.  The method involves a narrow beam of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item11

"Nanostructure Techniques Come Closer to Quantum Dot"
A team of scientists from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona,
the Institute of the Science of Materials in Barcelona, the
Institute of Microstructure Physics in Nizhny Novgorod, and the
Institute of Semiconductor Physics in Kiev have hit upon a new ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item12

"Why the Network Will Be the Computer"
This year's NetWorld+Interop conference shows significant
momentum building for IP-based networks, which many say are the
inevitable future of enterprise computing.  Several factors are
currently holding back migration of corporate IT infrastructure ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item13

"INS to Launch Online Foreign-Student Tracking System"
The Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) will roll out an online tracking system for foreign
students attending U.S. learning instiutions and make sure they
are enrolled in the schools they came to study at.  Officials say ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item14

"Web Pioneer Looks at Ground Covered, Future"
At last week's 11th annual World Wide Web Conference, Internet
visionary and World Wide Web Consortium director Tim Berners-Lee
said the Web has come a long way, although there are still
problems.  He noted that the Internet community has developed ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item15

"PCs: For Whom the Decibels Toll"
The noise computers produce is becoming a significant issue for
more and more PC buyers, and designers are taking note.  Because
newer machines operate faster and produce more heat, the
apparatus needed to cool them down makes more noise.  Solutions ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item16

"The Future Is Here"
The gulf between agencies that possess and are implementing
cutting-edge technology and those that still rely on outdated
systems is illustrated by Sept. 11:  The tragedy was precipitated
by terrorists who used the Internet to coordinate their attacks ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item17

"The Next (Not So) Big Thing"
Nanotechnology promises to usher in world-shaking changes in many
industries, although the field is still in its early stages.
Thus far, nanotech products already on the market are mostly
passive:  They include "pixie dust" woven into fabric to make ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item18

"Breaking Down the Language Barrier"
The SyncML initiative conceived by Douglas Heintzman of IBM aims
to synchronize different computing devices to each other, and the
technology is making rapid gains with leading wireless companies.
The first SyncML protocol facilitated end-to-end linkage between ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0515w.html#item19

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