ACM TechNews - Wednesday, November 5, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 567
Date: November 5, 2003

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

"FCC Approves First Digital Anti-Piracy Measure"
"Intel to Report a Breakthrough in Chip Design"
"Technology Gets in Its Own Way"
"'DDoS' Attacks Still Pose Threat to Internet"
"Building a Crash-Test Internet"
"Burgeoning Russia IT Blasts Government Policies"
"The Computer Mouse Trajectory"
"Charity Challenges Programmers to Code for Society"
"Computer-Enabled Democracy?"
"Smart Software Helps Robots Dodge Collisions"
"IBM, Corning Look Into Supercomputer Optics"
"Adding Style to Substance"
"An Unsanctioned Whois Database"
"MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation Celebrates One
 Year Anniversary of Promoting Innovation and Entrepreneurship"
"Time for UN Intervention?"
"The Animation Game"
"It Only Looks Like Child's Play"
"Labor Pains"

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

"FCC Approves First Digital Anti-Piracy Measure"
The entertainment industry scored a victory with the FCC's Nov. 4
approval of technological safeguards to be built into some
personal computers and consumer electronic devices designed to
prevent digital content from being pirated and replayed over the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item1

"Intel to Report a Breakthrough in Chip Design"
Intel says it has found new chip materials that will help solve
the problem of excessive current leakage as chip features get
smaller and could lead to computers with hundreds of times the
calculating power of today's machines.  Intel says it has ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item2

"Technology Gets in Its Own Way"
A hodgepodge of wireless gadgets that emit radio signals can give
rise to inconvenient and potentially dangerous interference, also
known as signal leakage.  This phenomenon is responsible for
mundane incidents such as the appearance of static on a TV screen ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item3

"'DDoS' Attacks Still Pose Threat to Internet"
The successful repulsion of last October's distributed
denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Internet's 13 root servers
has done nothing to assuage concerns that another siege could
cause even more damage, despite experts' attempts to shore up Net ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item4

"Building a Crash-Test Internet"
A team of researchers at UCLA and the University of California at
Berkeley expects to determine the effects of wide-scale
coordinated cyberattacks on the Internet and how such assaults
could be repelled by building an Internet simulation they will ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item5

"Burgeoning Russia IT Blasts Government Policies"
The Russian government's investment to develop the nation's IT
industry, especially when it comes to landing lucrative offshore
outsourcing contracts, has fallen woefully short of initiatives
undertaken by India and China, bemoan Russian corporate leaders. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item6

"The Computer Mouse Trajectory"
The computer mouse is aging and is long overdue for replacement,
according to some involved in the desktop industry.  Analyst Rob
Enderle says it is now the eve of the mechanical mouse, and he
predicts optical and wireless mouse formats will become standard ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item7

"Charity Challenges Programmers to Code for Society"
The nonprofit mySociety.org recently launched an initiative to
fund low-cost, socially beneficial IT projects that operate over
electronic networks.  The organization has encouraged the online
submission of proposals for the first two projects, and ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item8

"Computer-Enabled Democracy?"
Futurist Jason Tester is floating radical ideas about how
democracy can incorporate technology:  A self-proclaimed
"interaction designer" and graduate of the Interaction Design
Institute in Italy, Tester says his aim is to spur public ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item9

"Smart Software Helps Robots Dodge Collisions"
French researcher Thierry Fraichard and Japanese scientist Hajime
Asama have developed smart software designed to help robots evade
collisions by calculating an exclusion zone based on their
movements and the movements of surrounding objects.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item10

"IBM, Corning Look Into Supercomputer Optics"
A Nov. 4 announcement from IBM is expected to cover a $20 million
grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for IBM and Corning to
jointly develop high-speed, optically switched interconnects for
next-generation supercomputers as a replacement technology for ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item11

"Adding Style to Substance"
Technology companies are designing more aesthetically pleasing
products to satisfy consumer demand and differentiate their wares
from those of competitors.  "As the rate of technological change
levels off, design becomes even more important," remarks Ideo CEO ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item12

"An Unsanctioned Whois Database"
Karl Auerbach critiques a proposal that Mark Jeftovic of easyDNS
Technologies placed on the ICANN GNSO registrars' mailing list
concerning control and publication of domain contact data.
Jeftovic proposes the placement of control and actual publication ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item13

"MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation Celebrates One
 Year Anniversary of Promoting Innovation and Entrepreneurship"
Nearly one year after its launch, the MIT Deshpande Center for
Technological Innovation announced its largest grant round to
date on Oct. 27, approving proof-of-concept funding for 13 out of
45 proposed projects for a total of $1.3 million.  Grant ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item14

"Time for UN Intervention?"
ICANN, which recently held public board meetings in Tunisia, is
confronting difficult issues of change due to shifts in the
Internet sector in the five years since ICANN's establishment.
These changes include the crumbling of the domain name selling ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item15

"The Animation Game"
Machinima is a term used to describe computer-animated movies
that take place in video game environments, an art form that is
gaining in popularity despite its limitations.  Machinimists take
advantage of games such as Doom and Quake, whose code is released ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item16

"It Only Looks Like Child's Play"
MIT researcher Hiroshi Ishii has long explored alternate ways for
people to view and manipulate data that offer more flexibility
and simplicity than keyboards, monitors, and mice.  The
"tangible" interfaces Ishii's team has developed, which ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item17

"Labor Pains"
The total U.S. IT workforce declined from 10.4 million workers in
2000 to 9.9 million workers in 2002, according to a recent
survey; the outlook for IT employment is grim, as more and more
mundane programming and business processes are outsourced to ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1105w.html#item18

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