ACM TechNews - Friday, December 12, 2003

[technews <technews@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the December 12, 2003 edition of ACM TechNews,
providing timely information for IT professionals three times a
week.  For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this
service, please see below.

ACM's MemberNet is now online. For the latest on ACM
activities, member benefits, and industry issues,
visit http://www.acm.org/membernet

Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion
magazine, Ubiquity, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 582
Date: December 12, 2003

Top Stories for Friday, December 12, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Profiling System Takeoff Delayed"
"Patenting Air or Protecting Property?"
"New Software Helps Supercomputers Think Fast"
"Automated Analysis of Bee Behavior May Yield Better Robots"
"In a Data-Mining Society, Privacy Advocates Shudder"
"E-Mail 'Cluster Bombs' a Disaster Waiting to Happen, Computer
 Scientists Say"
"Buried Treasure?"
"Megabits and Multimedia Specs Await New Bluetooth Road Map"
"First Test of IPv6 Network Goes Well"
"Mining the Vein of Voter Rolls"
"An Electronic Assist for Perilous Driving"
"Where In the World Is the Virtual I.T. Worker?"
"Everyone Wants to Govern the Internet"
"IT Workers Feel Effects of the Long Downturn"
"Why Software Quality Stinks"
"Prepare to Be Scanned"
"Toward a Brain-Internet Link"
"The Taming of the Internet"

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

"Profiling System Takeoff Delayed"
The launch of the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening
System (CAPPS II) has been postponed as industry and federal
Agencies take a closer look at the project, which is designed to
Profile air travelers and determine if they may be criminals based  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item1

"Patenting Air or Protecting Property?"
The deluge of new patents on Internet technologies and software
is impeding innovation, according to industry experts and
proponents of more traditional patents.  A class of small
companies is emerging that claim patents in key technological ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item2

"New Software Helps Supercomputers Think Fast"
MPI for InfiniBand on VAPI Layer (MVAPICH) software developed by
Ohio State University researchers is used to coordinate
communication between the clustered desktops, or nodes, that make
up supercomputers such as Virginia Tech's Macintosh-based ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item3

"Automated Analysis of Bee Behavior May Yield Better Robots"
Georgia Institute of Technology robotics experts led by Tucker
Balch are using a computer vision system to automatically analyze
the movements of social insects--bees especially--in the hopes of
drawing new insights on animal behavior and applying those ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item4

"In a Data-Mining Society, Privacy Advocates Shudder"
Concern is growing among privacy proponents and civil liberties
advocates that our privacy is being stripped away by the
availability of databases listing personal information as well as
the "bread crumbs" left behind by our activities in the networked ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item5

"E-Mail 'Cluster Bombs' a Disaster Waiting to Happen, Computer
 Scientists Say"
The December 2003 issue of ;login: features a report by
researchers at Indiana University Bloomington and RSA
Laboratories in Bedford, Mass., that says miscreants could use
Web sites to bombard the inboxes of Internet users with hundreds ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item6

"Buried Treasure?"
Economists have long dismissed the concept of a causal
relationship between IT investment and productivity growth, but
theorists such as MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson believe one exists, and
over the last several years an unusual trend has ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item7

"Megabits and Multimedia Specs Await New Bluetooth Road Map"
The industry consortium supporting the Bluetooth short-range
wireless standard is setting up a working group to plan the next
iteration:  The newly announced group is in charge of forecasting
market demands and guiding Bluetooth along those lines.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item8

"First Test of IPv6 Network Goes Well"
The results of the first test of a next-generation Internet
powered by Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) were very positive,
according to the University of New Hampshire Interoperability
Laboratory's Ben Schultz at the IPv6 Summit in Arlington, Va.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item9

"Mining the Vein of Voter Rolls"
Registering to vote requires people to list personal information
that by all rights should be kept confidential, yet election
officials are offering this information to political parties,
candidates, and data collectors for the purposes of marketing or ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item10

"An Electronic Assist for Perilous Driving"
Electronic stabilization systems are designed to prevent
rollovers and other skidding-related accidents by having
in-vehicle sensors collate data such as brake pressure, steering
wheel orientation, wheel speed, and acceleration, while a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item11

"Where In the World Is the Virtual IT Worker?"
Telecommuting has stepped out of the limelight at companies for a
number of reasons, most having to do with the trend toward
offshore outsourcing and the economic downturn; companies no
longer feel as pressed to lure the best new hires with perks such ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item12

"Everyone Wants to Govern the Internet"
Discontent over Internet governance is growing as the world
increasingly lays claim to a technology built by consensus.
Begun as a U.S. military project called ARPANET in 1969, the
nascent data network system was soon transferred to academic ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item13

"IT Workers Feel Effects of the Long Downturn"
The downturn in the technology industry continues to have an
enormous impact on information technology workers.  According to
experts across the industry, IT workers are overworked, concerned
about job security, and are not happy with their careers.  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item14

"Why Software Quality Stinks"
The poor quality of software can only be improved by the
deployment of an effective software quality assurance (SQA)
program, yet 38 percent of developers polled by the Cutter
Consortium across more than 150 software development ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item15

"Prepare to Be Scanned"
Despite unresolved issues of intrusiveness and cost, biometrics
system rollouts are accelerating in the wake of the Sept. 11,
2001 terrorist attacks; biometrics security will be standard at
U.S. airports and seaports starting early next year, foreigners ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item16

"Toward a Brain-Internet Link"
MIT scientist Rodney Brooks speculates that brain implants which
connect people wirelessly to the Internet could be a reality by
2020, thanks to technological advances as well as military and
medical research initiatives.  Brooks cites State University of ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item17

"The Taming of the Internet"
The proliferation of spam and the adoption of spamming
methods by virus writers and online fraudsters has delivered
a jolting reality check to Web authorities, and is driving a
migration away from a free-for-all Internet towards a more regulated ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item18


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1210w.html

-- To visit the TechNews home page, point your browser to:
http://www.acm.org/technews/

-- To unsubscribe from the ACM TechNews Early Alert Service:
Please send a separate email to listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
with the line

signoff technews

in the body of your message.

-- Please note that replying directly to this message does not
automatically unsubscribe you from the TechNews list.

-- To submit feedback about ACM TechNews, contact:
technews@xxxxxxxxxx

-- ACM may have a different email address on file for you,
so if you're unable to "unsubscribe" yourself, please direct
your request to: technews-request@xxxxxxx

We will remove your name from the TechNews list on
your behalf.

-- For help with technical problems, including problems with
leaving the list, please write to:  technews-request@xxxxxxx