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ACM TechNews - Wednesday, September 17, 2003
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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 546
Date: September 17, 2003
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Top Stories for Wednesday, September 17, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Software Quality Is Still a Work in Progress, Offshore and in
the U.S."
"Microsoft's Setback in Patent Case Ripples Through World Wide Web"
"The Risks and Threats Start to Stack Up Fast"
"In PC Design, Harbingers of Shrink"
"Semantic Web: Out of the Theory Realm"
"Big Plans for Smart Tags Also Bring Concerns"
"Australia's Ecommerce Patent Solution Nears"
"Feds Set Up Cyberfighting Group"
"Needed: A Security Blanket for the Net"
"Darpa's Ditziness Dents Budget"
"Internet Worms: Worst Is Yet to Come?"
"Inside the Gadget Labs"
"Net Struggles With Data Overload"
"New Search Algorithm Hears 'People's Voice'"
"Paving the Way for 'Systers'"
"Thinking Outside the Box"
"IT's Global Itinerary: Offshore Outsourcing Is Inevitable"
"In-House Innovation"
"Next-Generation GPS"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Software Quality Is Still a Work in Progress, Offshore and in
the U.S."
Overseas software developers--India especially--are adopting
software quality development certification standards such as the
Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM),
which SEI fellow Watts Humphrey says can reduce faults and boost
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item1
"Microsoft's Setback in Patent Case Ripples Through World Wide Web"
A federal court's August decision that Microsoft should pay $521
million in damages to former University of California researcher
Michael Doyle for supposedly infringing on patented technology he
developed is resonating throughout the software industry. The
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item2
"The Risks and Threats Start to Stack Up Fast"
Some security experts are concerned that enterprise applications
will be the focus of new cyberattacks, especially as corporations
implement Web services. "A lot of the new vulnerabilities will
open up at the business process level, and most of the Internet
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item3
"In PC Design, Harbingers of Shrink"
Industry insiders predict a 2004 market debut for products built
from several technologies designed to reduce the size of
notebooks and desktops, and enable more malleable configurations
of standard PCs. Such technologies include PCI Express, a new
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item4
"Semantic Web: Out of the Theory Realm"
Experts working on the Semantic Web say the pieces of the puzzle
are coming together with standards to guide them. World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) Semantic Web activity lead Eric Miller is
heading the project for that organization and says some Semantic
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item5
"Big Plans for Smart Tags Also Bring Concerns"
This week's Electronic Product Code symposium is supposed to mark
the official commencement of the wide commercial adoption of
radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which would be
affixed to crates and used to track products along their supply
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item6
"Australia's Ecommerce Patent Solution Nears"
Australia's business and technology community is split over the
proliferation of business method patents, especially
software-implemented patents, after late-1990s U.S. court rulings
percolated to that country. Australia's Advisory Council on
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item7
"Feds Set Up Cyberfighting Group"
An organization co-founded by the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) and Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center
aims to spur information sharing between federal agencies,
companies, networks, security researchers, and other parties
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item8
"Needed: A Security Blanket for the Net"
This summer's rash of vulnerabilities, viruses, spam, and worms
has forced even the most fervent Internet boosters to acknowledge
the need for security reforms, and consider dramatic solutions.
Though network traffic has grown steadily and network performance
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item9
"Darpa's Ditziness Dents Budget"
A Senate bill cuts $103 million from the requested $169 million
2004 budget of the Information Awareness Office, part of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), in response to
the questionable value of projects such as the LifeLog and
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item10
"Internet Worms: Worst Is Yet to Come?"
Computer security researchers say Internet worms are becoming
more complex and could cause much more harm than previous
versions: Internet Security Systems' X-Force research engineer
Neel Mehta says the Blaster worm, for example, necessarily had to
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item11
"Inside the Gadget Labs"
Understanding how consumers use technology is becoming more
important as competition tightens and new products can mean
either marketplace victory or disaster. Philips Electronics'
Home Lab in the Netherlands differs from other consumer
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item12
"Net Struggles With Data Overload"
The amount of data generated by certain scientific experiments is
so vast that gigabit-per-second data transfer rates are not
enough, which is prompting researchers to look for speedier
transfer methods and technologies. Europe's Very Long Baseline
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item13
"New Search Algorithm Hears 'People's Voice'"
The Vox Populi Internet search algorithm developed by German
researchers functions by assigning relative weights to search
terms. For instance, Google sends users who type in "free MP3
downloads" to all MP3 download Web sites, while search engines
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item14
"Paving the Way for 'Systers'"
ExecProducer CTO Lynne Greer Jolitz notes a profound lack of
high-tech female professionals of her 1980s generation, and she
attributes this deficit to the dot-com downturn. She observes
that many of these women have moved away from technology, been
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item15
"Thinking Outside the Box"
The construction of data-storage centers and perhaps even
supercomputers could be greatly simplified if the Collective
Intelligent Bricks project of IBM's Almaden Research Center
proves successful. The building block of such machines is a cube
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item16
"IT's Global Itinerary: Offshore Outsourcing Is Inevitable"
The tremendous cost savings posed by outsourcing in today's
economy will prompt 40 percent of companies to shift at least
part of their IT operations overseas by 2004, according to
Gartner; offshoring also enables companies to boost the
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item17
"In-House Innovation"
Despite technology commoditization and IT budget cuts,
proprietary software has not been driven into obsolescence, and
is key to many companies' competitive advantage. Borland
Software's Ted Shelton expects custom software-development
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item18
"Next-Generation GPS"
Third-generation Global Positioning System (GPS III) technology
currently in the planning stage seeks to boost accuracy and
reliability while addressing issues of increasingly sophisticated
applications, alternative geolocation services, and more
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0917w.html#item19
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