ACM TechNews - Monday, January 6, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 442
Date: January 6, 2003

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Top Stories for Monday, January 6, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Experts See Vulnerability As Outsiders Code Software"
"DVD Copying Case Stalls"
"Cyberthreats Not to be Dismissed, Warns Clarke"
"Time to Peer Into the Flat-Screen, Wireless Future"
"'Gadget Nirvana' at Las Vegas Show"
"Interface Gets the Point"
"Robots Just Their Cup of Tea"
"Research Spending Going Up"
"Feeling Blue? This Robot Knows It"
"Internet Users Find Barriers to Sites at School, Work, Library"
"IT Engineers Swimming Against Economic Tide"
"What's Up for the Internet in 2003?"
"Even the Unconnected Have High Expectations for Net, Survey Finds"
"So Many Holes, So Few Hacks"
"Organic Displays Near Critical Mass"
"Eyes in the Back of Your Mouth"
"Micromachines for the Birds; Motes Monitor Shy Wildlife"
"Speech and the Automobile"
"Corporate R&D Set Free"

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

"Experts See Vulnerability As Outsiders Code Software"
Analysts and others say the growing trend of outsourcing, in
which American companies transfer their software coding processes
overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor, carries with it the
risk of lessening security.  Programmers such as Ken O'Neil of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item1

"DVD Copying Case Stalls"
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has vacated a temporary
stay requested by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA),
which would have kept a Purdue University student from posting
DeCSS code on a Web site.  The DVD CCA lost a suit against ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item2

"Cyberthreats Not to be Dismissed, Warns Clarke"
Chairman of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection
Board Richard Clarke devotes most of his time to raising
awareness of the threat of cyberterrorism and the need to prevent
it by eliminating security holes in widely deployed software, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item3

"Time to Peer Into the Flat-Screen, Wireless Future"
NewsFactor writer Bill Husted makes several predictions for
technological advancements that should emerge in the next year or
so.  Rising sales of widescreen monitors and the growing
popularity of high-definition television is fostering the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item4

"'Gadget Nirvana' at Las Vegas Show"
The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week will
host over 2,000 technology companies that will showcase tools and
gadgetry that integrate PC functionality and advanced displays,
among other things.  The merger of cell phones and handheld ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item5

"Interface Gets the Point"
Scientists at Pennsylvania State University and Advanced
Interface Technologies are developing a computer interface that
can recognize the relationship between prosody and gestures in an
attempt to make human-computer interaction more natural.  Penn ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item6

"Robots Just Their Cup of Tea"
The second annual First Lego League Rhode Island State Robotics
Tournament was notable for the number of pre-teen and teenage
female participants.  A late 1990s report from the Department of
Commerce's Office of Technology Policy found that women received ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item7

"Research Spending Going Up"
Research spending will be up this year, according to a joint
survey from R&D Magazine and analysis group Battelle.  At the
University of Dayton (UD), for example, sponsored research monies
are set to grow 8 percent from 2002 to total more than $50 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item8

"Feeling Blue? This Robot Knows It"
A research team at Vanderbilt University's Department of
Mechanical Engineering is developing a robot equipped with
sensors that are used to determine people's emotions by picking
up physiological cues.  The machine is designed to approach a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item9

"Internet Users Find Barriers to Sites at School, Work, Library"
Roadblocks to Internet access are being set up for a variety of
reasons:  To block junk email, filter out pornographic and other
objectionable sites, protect networks and content from hackers or
digital pirates, and boost corporate productivity by keeping ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item10

"IT Engineers Swimming Against Economic Tide"
Canadian IT engineering graduates and students have been hit hard
by the economic recession, especially when combined with a
government-sponsored surge in enrollments through initiatives
such as Ontario's Access to Opportunities Program.  As a result, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item11

"What's Up for the Internet in 2003?"
The Internet in 2003 will become faster, cheaper, and more useful
for many people as they migrate to broadband and employ wireless
technology in their everyday lives.  EMarketer says that
broadband connections will total 23.3 million U.S. households by ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item12

"Even the Unconnected Have High Expectations for Net, Survey Finds"
A survey of American Internet users and non-users conducted by
the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that 64 percent of
non-users expect that they can find the information they want
online in at least one of the following categories:  health care, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item13

"So Many Holes, So Few Hacks"
Despite heavy emphasis on the many network security holes
reported in 2002, there have been few actual exploits of such
flaws.  In fact, security experts such as consultant Richard
Smith think they and their peers may be spending too much time ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item14

"Organic Displays Near Critical Mass"
The market for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays is
expected to grow quickly and present a viable challenge to rival
thin-film transistor (TFT) display technology.  OLED displays
already on the market are small and limited in function, showing ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item15

"Eyes in the Back of Your Mouth"
University of Wisconsin professor Paul Bach-y-Rita is
experimenting with sensory input devices that can send visual and
other kinds of signals to the brain through alternate pathways.
The foundation of such a concept is plasticity, the human brain's ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item16

"Micromachines for the Birds; Motes Monitor Shy Wildlife"
Ecologists off the coast of Maine are using a network of wireless
miniaturized sensors to study the breeding habits and needs of a
reclusive seabird that migrates from South Africa, Antarctica,
and other regions every spring.  Researchers at Intel and the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item17

"Speech and the Automobile"
Telematics, the incorporation of voice recognition technology in
vehicles, promises to usher in a new era of driver-vehicle
interaction.  Both businesses and consumers have started to
recognize the value of telematics, and this has encouraged the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item18

"Corporate R&D Set Free"
Intel is pioneering a new form of corporate research by
collaborating openly with university researchers in "lablets."
These facilities are located near major universities--Carnegie
Mellon in Pittsburgh, the University of Washington in Seattle, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0106m.html#item19


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