ACM TechNews - Monday, March 10, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 467
Date: March 10, 2003

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Top Stories for Monday, March 10, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Military Now Often Enlists Commercial Technology"
"Digital Copyrights Challenged"
"Rising Threat"
"Bridging the Digital Divide"
"HP Tests Mobile Unit as Personal Navigation Tool"
"More Powerful, Longer-Lasting Lithium Batteries on the Horizon"
"Data Mining Software Digs Up Buzzwords"
"Tech to Help Drivers Brake Sooner"
"ACM's CHI03 To Offer Element of Persuasion"
"Internet Traffic to Keep Doubling"
"Tiny Computer Lock Simplifies Security"
"Unleashing the Dogs of Cyber-War on Iraq"
"Farewell to Floppies?"
"A Visa Loophole as Big as a Mainframe"
"Hear My Voice"
"Day of the Smart Mobs"
"Leading By Example"
"Complexity: How to Stave Off Chaos"

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

"Military Now Often Enlists Commercial Technology"
Whereas 20 years ago most information technologies were developed
by the U.S. military and later commercialized for civilian use,
today the flow has reversed, with the military adapting
commercial products such as wearable computers, global phone ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item1

"Digital Copyrights Challenged"
In response to consumers clamoring for exemptions to the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), more than half of whom are
complaining about DVDs bought overseas that will not play on
U.S. players, film and recording industry association lawyers ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item2

"Rising Threat"
As war draws nearer, government and companies responsible for the
nation's critical infrastructure are cooperatively strengthening
their cyber-defenses.  The recent Sendmail vulnerability that put
over 1.5 million email systems around the world at risk is a good ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item3

"Bridging the Digital Divide"
University at Buffalo researchers are working on a optical
character recognition (OCR) tool that would make a vast library
of Sanskrit and other Devanagari-based documents searchable
online.  The Center of Excellence in Document Analysis and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item4

"HP Tests Mobile Unit as Personal Navigation Tool"
Hewlett-Packard's Websign project aims to test the usability of a
palmtop that can allow users to locate places, people, and
services by wirelessly picking up Web pages or "signs" created by
vendors.  These virtual signs could include basic information ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item5

"More Powerful, Longer-Lasting Lithium Batteries on the Horizon"
Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed
silicon/graphite composite anode materials that could
significantly boost the power and longevity of rechargeable
lithium-ion batteries while reducing their size.  Sandia ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item6

"Data Mining Software Digs Up Buzzwords"
Predicting trends by studying the frequency of words or phrases
that appear online could become easier thanks to the work of
innovators such as Cornell University associate professor Jon
Kleinberg, who has devised software that can search documents to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item7

"Tech to Help Drivers Brake Sooner"
Using a $50,000 grant from MIT's Deshpande Center for
Technological Innovation, professor Eric Feron plans to integrate
the Global Positioning System (GPS), in-vehicle wireless
communications technology, and advanced traffic-flow models into ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item8

"ACM's CHI03 To Offer Element of Persuasion"
The upcoming ACM Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference
will spotlight three intertwining themes: persuasion, mass
communication and interaction, and the effectiveness of e-learning.
The annual conference, to be held April 5-10 in Fort Lauderdale,  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item9

"Internet Traffic to Keep Doubling"
The amount of information transmitted over the Internet will go
on doubling each year for the next five years, reaching 5,175
petabits per day by 2007, up from last year's 180 petabits per
day, according to new research from International Data (IDC).  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item10

"Tiny Computer Lock Simplifies Security"
Sandia National Laboratories has unveiled the Recodable Locking
Device, a combination lock about the size of a dime that uses
microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology.  The lock has
six tiny gear wheels that resemble the locking system on a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item11

"Unleashing the Dogs of Cyber-War on Iraq"
If a U.S.-led war with Iraq is imminent, Iraqi Internet
professionals expect the first strike will be against the
country's Internet access via hacking, computer viruses, and
electromagnetic pulse bombs.  However, blocking Iraq's Internet ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item12

"Farewell to Floppies?"
There is a movement among the world's leading computer
manufacturers to phase out floppy drives in desktops by replacing
them with superior alternatives.  The elimination of floppies is
more important than the replacement technology, according to IT ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item13

"A Visa Loophole as Big as a Mainframe"
With Congress prohibiting the replacement of American employees
with foreign workers holding H-1B visas in 2001, more
cost-conscious companies turned to the less well-known L-1 visas
to bring in low-wage labor.  "Is my government telling me that if ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item14

"Hear My Voice"
People who are physically incapacitated to the point where they
cannot perform the slightest communicative gestures, either
because of paralysis or degenerative disease, can use a
thought-controlled interface called the Thought Translation ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item15

"Day of the Smart Mobs"
The White House and Congress learned first hand the power of the
smart mob last Wednesday as more than 400,000 antiwar protesters
flooded their switchboards with phone calls, faxes, and emails,
part of a national virtual demonstration.  Smart mobs have also ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item16

"Leading By Example"
Although federal agencies have suffered notorious security
breaches are often criticized for their weak information security
practices, many federal agencies are now taking cybersecurity
more seriously, and some are on the cutting-edge of computer ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item17

"Complexity: How to Stave Off Chaos"
IT complexity is increasing:  42 percent of nearly 500 IT
executives polled by CIO Insight in January reported that their
IT systems were excessively complex, and added that, on average,
29 percent of their IT budgets were spent on maintenance and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0310m.html#item18


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