ACM TechNews - Wednesday, January 7, 2004

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ACM TechNews
Volume 6, Number 591
Date: January 7, 2004

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Top Stories for Wednesday, January 7, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Mac Founders Push for New Ideas"
"Spam Is Still Flowing Into E-Mail Boxes"
"The Ultimate Global Network"
"Head-Up Displays Get Second Chance"
"Grid Software, Now With the Mac Touch"
"Mobile Robots Take Baby Steps"
"Digital Warfare Adapted for Iraq"
"Bots, Humans Play Together"
"High-Growth Era Seen for Embedded Systems"
"BitTorrent, 'Gi-Fi,' and Other Trends in 2004"
"Open-Source Community Defends GPL Against SCO Attack"
"Getting Unplugged: How Wi-Fi Technology Is Changing the Wireless Future"
"Fiber Optics Takes the Long Way Home"
"10 Tech Trends for 2004"
"Security: From Bad to Worse?"
"Electronics Now Boarding"
"Research Net Set to Fly"
"Can We Talk?"
"5 Commandments"

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

"Mac Founders Push for New Ideas"
Some of the creators and designers of the original Macintosh PC, which
celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, are disappointed that today's
computers are not significantly more advanced than the early Macs, and
blame this lack of innovation on a resistance to radical ideas, at least at
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item1

"Spam Is Still Flowing Into E-Mail Boxes"
A federal antispam law that went into effect on Jan. 1 has done little to
abate the tide of junk email clogging users' inboxes, according to
estimates from various ISPs and spam-filtering companies.  "We're not
seeing the hard-core spammers cleaning up their act in any way," reports
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item2

"The Ultimate Global Network"
British computer scientists Sir Tony Hoare and Robin Milner believe that
within two decades the power and ranks of computers will increase a
hundredfold, and lead to the emergence of a Global Ubiquitous Computer; the
researchers have thrown down the gauntlet to fellow U.K. computer  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item3

"Head-Up Displays Get Second Chance"
Carmakers and suppliers expect head-up display (HUD) technology to get a
new lease on life with the advent of multicolor light-emitting diodes
(LEDs), smaller liquid-crystal displays, and windshield optics innovations.
Steven Stringfellow of General Motors' Electrical Center reports that  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item4

"Grid Software, Now With the Mac Touch"
Scientific research will be the primary focus of Apple Computer's Xgrid
grid computing software, of which a free beta version was officially
introduced on Jan. 6.  Developed by Apple's Advanced Computation Group,
Xgrid is essentially Apple's user-friendly interface adapted for  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item5

"Mobile Robots Take Baby Steps"
Biologically inspired robots designed for military operations are a major
area of focus for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the
Army's Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM), which are funding
research and development into devices that resemble animals such as  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item6

"Digital Warfare Adapted for Iraq"
The apprehension of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and other war
criminals was partially attributed to Army Battle Command Systems, a series
of technologies that have dramatically expedited the process of planning
and coordinating raids and troop mobilization.  Tracking street fighters
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item7

"Bots, Humans Play Together"
Carnegie Mellon University researchers are planning to explore new areas of
human-machine interaction by holding soccer matches of mixed human-robot
teams to probe such issues as the optimal time for people and robots to
communicate and split up tasks, according to CMU computer science professor
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item8

"High-Growth Era Seen for Embedded Systems"
Embedded systems imbue devices with intelligence and allow them to interact
with users and surrounding objects.  The number of embedded systems is
expected to increase as they become more technically sophisticated.
Systems research is increasingly focusing on application-specific instead
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item9

"BitTorrent, 'Gi-Fi,' and Other Trends in 2004"
Regardless of the economic situation, innovation will continue unabated in
2004.  New peer-to-peer technologies such as BitTorrent promise to make
file-transfer much easier by slicing files into small distributed pieces
that can be assembled on the user's computer; unlike some other systems,
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item10

"Open-Source Community Defends GPL Against SCO Attack"
SCO Group CEO Darl McBride's assertion in December that the GNU General
Public License (GPL) is unconstitutional and contravenes patent and
copyright laws has prompted a backlash by open-source advocates.  Rolland
Roseland of The Schwan Food Company reports that McBride's allegations are
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item11

"Getting Unplugged: How Wi-Fi Technology Is Changing the Wireless Future"
Wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology is not only changing how people use
computers to communicate, but how they pay to access the network:  Instead
of signing exclusive contracts with different providers, new wireless
research is working on ways to get devices to communicate directly with  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item12

"Fiber Optics Takes the Long Way Home"
U.S. telecommunications giants are opposing grass-roots efforts to put
fiber-optic connections in the home.  Growing numbers of rural
municipalities and utility companies are building end-to-end fiber-optic
links for their constituents, but they are opposed in court and in  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item13

"10 Tech Trends for 2004"
Personal technology will continue to morph in 2004 with cheaper laptops and
TVs, more capable mobile phones, combination DVD recorders and set-top
boxes, and video in iPod-type devices and on blogs.  Intel's forcefulness
in growing the laptop market means those systems will likely continue to
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item14

"Security: From Bad to Worse?"
A TruSecure study issued Dec. 29 indicates that spyware and peer-to-peer
file-sharing software will make 2004 just as bad as 2003, if not worse, for
businesses beleaguered by cybersecurity woes.  Bruce Hughes of TruSecure's
ISCA Labs reports that "perimeter killer" worms that attack networks  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item15

"Electronics Now Boarding"
Electronics has started to penetrate the primarily mechanical domain of the
aerospace industry with new technologies that promise to make flying safer,
more efficient, and less costly.  Commercial and private aircraft rely on
land-based navigation systems using technology dating back to the Second
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item16

"Research Net Set to Fly"
U.S. university researchers are launching a new network testbed that will
help the U.S. regain international leadership in network research,
according to proponents.  The United States has not had a real-world
environment where network research is the foremost priority since Arpanet
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item17

"Can We Talk?"
Unified Communications (UC) aim to duplicate the experience of functioning
in a common office regardless of where one is, and to eliminate phone tag,
cut message overload, quicken customer response time, and augment remote
collaboration through the integration of corporate wireless and wireline
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item18

"5 Commandments"
A lot of so-called technology "laws" have sprouted in the wake of the first
50 or so years of the solid-state age, when in reality they are actually
rules of thumb.  Moore's Law, which posits that the number of transistors
on a chip doubles annually, is not written in stone:  VLSI Research's G.
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0107w.html#item19

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