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ACM TechNews - Friday, July 18, 2003
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 521
Date: July 18, 2003
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Top Stories for Friday, July 18, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Congress Questions U.S. Supercomputing Efforts"
"Router Bug Threatens 'Internet Backbone'"
"Why Some Big Spammers Are Backing Spam-Control Laws"
"Bill Aims to Curb Net Censorship"
"Purdue Software Promises Better Animation for Movies, Games"
"Upload a File, Go to Prison"
"Exploding Universe of Web Addresses"
"Feature: In Sensors Smaller May Be Smarter"
"Researchers Delve Into the Human Factor"
"Ralph Etienne-Cummings: Envisioning the Future of Robotics"
"Interview: Torvalds Gets Down to the Kernel"
"Back Together Again"
"Searching for the Kilowatt of Computing"
"Software Is Patently Not to Be Patented"
"The Organizational Model for Open Source"
"DARPA Awards Pacts to Juice Computing"
"The Apple Is Ripening"
"Are You Ready for MAID Technology?"
"Casting the Wireless Sensor Net"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Congress Questions U.S. Supercomputing Efforts"
Witnesses testifying before the House Science Committee on July
16 warned that the United States' supercomputing initiative is
lagging behind that of Japan, which launched the world's fastest
supercomputer, the Earth Simulator, in March 2002. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item1
"Router Bug Threatens 'Internet Backbone'"
Computer experts warn that a major software glitch can affect
Internet routers that run the Cisco IOS operating system. Such
routers essentially comprise the Internet backbone, according to
Internet Security Systems consultant Gunter Ollman. If specially ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item2
"Why Some Big Spammers Are Backing Spam-Control Laws"
In an unusual paradox, bulk commercial emailers such as AOL Time
Warner, Yahoo!, EarthLink, and eBay have come out in support of
antispam legislation, while consumer groups are attempting to
block the passage of such bills. "When you see some of the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item3
"Bill Aims to Curb Net Censorship"
The Global Internet Freedom Act passed by the House of
Representatives on July 16 includes $16 million over two years to
establish the Office of Global Internet Freedom, which would be
responsible for developing technical methods for preventing ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item4
"Purdue Software Promises Better Animation for Movies, Games"
The Swell software program designed by Purdue University
engineering student Joshua Schpok is a tool that artists can use
to more realistically animate volumetric cloud formations, smoke,
steam, fog, explosions, and other gaseous phenomena for movies ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item5
"Upload a File, Go to Prison"
Legislation introduced by Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and
Howard Berman (D-Calif.) aims to penalize users for peer-to-peer
file trading, in the interest of protecting copyrights, and also
would make it possible to file federal charges against those who ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item6
"Exploding Universe of Web Addresses"
Some experts predict that the supply of available Internet
Protocol addresses--the unique numerical combinations used to
represent every device connected to the Net--will be exhausted in
two years. Alex Lightman, who chaired a June conference that ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item7
"Feature: In Sensors Smaller May Be Smarter"
Spec, a low-cost, low-powered sensor technology developed at the
University of California, Berkeley's Center for Information
Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRUS), is a
fourth-generation wireless mote crowning six years of research ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item8
"Researchers Delve Into the Human Factor"
This year's New Paradigms in User Computing conference at IBM's
Almaden Research Center emphasized ways people can better
understand how humans interact with computers rather than
focusing exclusively on new user interface technologies. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item9
"Ralph Etienne-Cummings: Envisioning the Future of Robotics"
"Neuromorphic engineering" is Ralph Etienne-Cummings' domain at
The Johns Hopkins University, where he is associate professor of
electrical and computer engineering. Etienne-Cummings is
studying the ways in which living organisms solve engineering ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item10
"Interview: Torvalds Gets Down to the Kernel"
Linus Torvalds says Linux version 2.6 will probably be finished
up even faster than 2.4, although more parties are involved and
there are challenges related to synchronization. Version 2.6 is
important to corporate users especially, because it deals with ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item11
"Back Together Again"
Recent corporate scandals have raised the profile of
paper-shredding and the technologies that reconstitute destroyed
documents. Such reassembling technology is similar to digital
encryption and hacking in that each side is continually upping ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item12
"Searching for the Kilowatt of Computing"
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and other tech giants are
seeking a unit of measurement for computing consumption
equivalent to the kilowatt used to gauge electricity consumption
or the cubic foot used to measure natural-gas usage. This ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item13
"Software Is Patently Not to Be Patented"
Software can be copyrighted but not patented under European law,
but critics contend that a proposed European Union directive
allows underhanded software patenting that would place a
chokehold on competition and innovation. Software and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item14
"The Organizational Model for Open Source"
Harvard Business School professor Siobhan O'Mahony has made some
interesting conclusions about the open-source organizational
model by studying nonprofit foundations that have coalesced
around a trio of open-source software projects--the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item15
"DARPA Awards Pacts to Juice Computing"
Cray, IBM, and Sun Microsystems have each been awarded tens of
millions of dollars to develop next-generation computing
architectures for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA). With the distribution of over $146 million, the High ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item16
"The Apple Is Ripening"
Apple Computer has a wide range of application development
options that dovetail with the company's merchandising strategy
to hunt niche markets for its products, which include design and
CAD, according to Apple's Richard Kerris. He suggests that if an ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item17
"Are You Ready for MAID Technology?"
The development of new disk-based backup and archival storage
options is proceeding apace, with lower-priced Serial Advanced
Technology Architecture (SATA) disks taking a vanguard position
between online disk storage and Nearline or automated tape ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item18
"Casting the Wireless Sensor Net"
The development of wireless sensor nets--intelligent,
self-organizing networks that act cooperatively to present users
with usable information--is expected to progress to the point
where the technology will be embedded practically everywhere by ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0718f.html#item19
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