ACM TechNews - Friday, September 5, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 541
Date: September 5, 2003

Top Stories for Friday, September 5, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Cybersecurity Legislation May Go to Congress"
"Computer Antivirus Strategies in Crisis"
"Valley Minds Take on Grand Challenge"
"It's Tricky, Grafting Brando's Sneer to Bogart's Shrug"
"Many More Worms Will Wriggle Into Our Future"
"New Software May Enliven Digital Images"
"Colleges Crack Down on Viruses"
"DNA Forms Building Block for Next Breed of Computer"
"Virginia Tech Building Power Mac G5 Supercomputer"
"Microsoft's Patent Loss Rattles Tech Community"
"Campaigning for Computerized Voting"
"Email Updates Six Degrees Theory"
"Mice Sign on the Dotted Line"
"Machine-to-Machine Talk Not Stuff of Fiction"
"Networking the Net Lobby"
"Mind-Expanding Machines"
"Outsmarting Spam"
"A Vote for the Future"
"Does IM Have Business Value?"

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

"Cybersecurity Legislation May Go to Congress"
Among the legislation on Congress' slate is a cybersecurity
proposal from Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), chairman of the House
Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Technology,
Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item1

"Computer Antivirus Strategies in Crisis"
Malware such as viruses and worms has overtaken antivirus
software, according to a study that Hewlett-Packard researcher
Matthew Williamson will present at a Toronto conference in
September.  Although most antivirus software that identifies ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item2

"Valley Minds Take on Grand Challenge"
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Grand
Challenge will award $1 million to the engineering team that
builds an autonomous vehicle that successfully travels a 250-mile
off-road course between Barstow, Calif., and Las Vegas, Nev., ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item3

"It's Tricky, Grafting Brando's Sneer to Bogart's Shrug"
Researchers at the University of Southern California are
attempting to dissect human movement and speech in order to
produce software that can generate virtual humans that are
utterly authentic both in appearance and action.  Such a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item4

"Many More Worms Will Wriggle Into Our Future"
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory chief cybersecurity
officer Mark Graff posits that a lack of incentive for software
companies to design secure products means that software and the
Internet will suffer worse virus and worm attacks in the near ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item5

"New Software May Enliven Digital Images"
Online shopping and other digital image-viewing experiences could
be significantly augmented by TensorTextures, texture mapping
software that faithfully renders the true appearance of any
surface from all perspectives and under any lighting conditions. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item6

"Colleges Crack Down on Viruses"
Many universities are scrambling to bolster their computer
networks as the school year begins, in the wake of virus
infections that plagued the Internet in August.  High-speed
college networks are kept open on purpose to better facilitate ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item7

"DNA Forms Building Block for Next Breed of Computer"
Scripps Research Institute chemist Ehud Keinan says DNA computers
cannot be compared to today's silicon-based machines in terms of
speed because they work differently.  He hopes that DNA computing
will be able to solve problems that traditional computers cannot ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item8

"Virginia Tech Building Power Mac G5 Supercomputer"
Virginia Tech University will combine 1,100 dual-processor 2 GHz
Power Mac G5 computers, 64-bit Infiniband semiconductor
technology from Mellanox, Gigabit Ethernet switches from Cisco, a
high-density rack-mounted cooling system from Liebert, and a beta ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item9

"Microsoft's Patent Loss Rattles Tech Community"
Microsoft's recent court loss to Eolas Technologies and the
University of California could mean significant disruption for
companies that incorporate Web browser technology in their
products or services.  Firms such as Apple, Real Networks, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item10

"Campaigning for Computerized Voting"
Many people are opposed to the computerization of voting, arguing
that it will erode the foundations of democracy that accurately
counted free elections have come to represent.  Direct recording
electronic (DRE) voting machines are being criticized by most ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item11

"Email Updates Six Degrees Theory"
Columbia University researchers have validated the small-world
phenomenon first discovered by Stanley Milgram's famous 1967
sociology study, but have shown some of the associated hypotheses
to be wrong.  Rather than starting letter chains aimed at finding ...
<http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item12>

"Mice Sign on the Dotted Line"
A computer scientist at Queen Mary, University of London, has
created a security system that allows people to sign their name
online with a mouse.  Dr. Peter McOwan says the software, which
serves as another biometric layer, allows the mouse to act as a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item13

"Machine-to-Machine Talk Not Stuff of Fiction"
John Pazol's nPhase company develops software that enables
machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, a trend stemming from
pervasive computing.  The Forrester Group predicts that there
could be as many machines talking to each other on wireless ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item14

"Networking the Net Lobby"
In an interview with Australian IT, new ICANN chief Dr. Paul
Twomey says his background in government as the head of the
National Office for the Information Economy and as a businessman
in the incubator Argo Pacific has convinced him that a move to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item15

"Mind-Expanding Machines"
The University of West Florida's Institute for Human and Machine
Cognition (IHMC) is a center for development of cognitive
prostheses designed to augment or expand human perceptions and
intellectual capabilities; such a concept is a core component of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item16

"Outsmarting Spam"
Growing animosity toward unsolicited commercial email and the
productivity losses associated with it is making the battle
against spam a priority for many businesses, although most
respondents to a recent InformationWeek survey report that their ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item17

"A Vote for the Future"
Lessons learned from new voting machine technologies tested by
over 200 U.S. counties in last year's elections include the need
for infallibility, and particularly successful was a Fairfax
County, Va., tryout of Advanced Voting Solutions' (AVS) ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item18

"Does IM Have Business Value?"
Instant messaging is valued among enterprises for its presence,
which allows users to know ahead of time who is available and
unavailable to chat; near-real-time message delivery, which
offers a higher level of interaction than email; and multiple ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0905f.html#item19


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