ACM TechNews - Wednesday, January 14, 2004

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACM TechNews
Volume 6, Number 594
Date: January 14, 2004

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Top Stories for Wednesday, January 14, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Patents Out of Control?"
"To P2P or Not to P2P?"
"No Safety Net for Programmers"
"Bugs Taking Over Robot Guidance"
"You Are What You Watch"
"Making the Grid Transparent to Users"
"Growing Up With Lucy"
"Is That Customer Service Rep Real or Virtual?"
"Random Acts of Spamness"
"The Roots of Failure in Software Development Management"
"Is the Tide Turning in Battle Against Hackers?"
"Carnegie Mellon University Technology Will Help Prepare Students for
 High-Stakes Tests"
"The Next Big Thing for Wireless?"
"Displays Go For Sharper Image"
"Ultra Wideband's Destiny Up in the Air"
"Get Mean, Go Green"
"Why Machines Should Fear"
"Back to the Future"
"The Web's New Currency"

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

"Patents Out of Control?"
Industry and government officials agree that the clearest sign of a patent
system running amuck is surging numbers of patent lawsuits, which are
becoming problematic for companies large and small and are threatening to
stifle technological innovation.  Critics charge that many patents at the
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item1

"To P2P or Not to P2P?"
Hewlett-Packard principal research scientist Mary Baker argues that
companies could use peer-to-peer (P2P) systems for useful and beneficial
applications beyond the file-sharing or song-swapping that most P2P
services are notorious for; Intel researcher Petros Maniatis lists data  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item2

"No Safety Net for Programmers"
U.S. software programmers may not be eligible for wage insurance and other
assistance that is summarily granted to workers in the manufacturing
sector.  The Trade Adjusted Assistance Reform Act of 2002 was meant to
offset the financial loss to workers whose jobs producing "articles" was
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item3

"Bugs Taking Over Robot Guidance"
Insect vision is the inspiration for a new type of unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) being developed by scientists under the Controlled Biological and
Biomimetic Systems program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency.  The sensor-based navigation systems employed by large-scale,  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item4

"You Are What You Watch"
A recent story in Communications of the ACM indicates that new data
mining software that can build profiles of TV watchers and deliver targeted
advertising to them through digital personal video recorders such as
TiVo is being tested.  These systems would be a boon to a TV industry  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item5

"Making the Grid Transparent to Users"
The IST GridLab project, which consists of 11 collaborating institutions
led by Poland's Poznan Supercomputer and Networking Center, aims to supply
EU Grid users with a simple yet powerful environment for developing Grid
applications by producing a set of Grid services that include dynamic  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item6

"Growing Up With Lucy"
The goal of researcher Steve Grand is to build an android that can develop
a mammal-like intelligence, and his pursuit of this objective thus far is
detailed in his book, "Growing Up With Lucy," in which he discusses, among
other things, the neurological principles that went into the construction
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item7

"Is That Customer Service Rep Real or Virtual?"
Virtual humans (V-humans), which are currently employed as Web site and
call-center customer service reps, are computer programs with a human-like
presence, either visually (with a face and body) or simply audibly (a
disembodied voice).  The catch is that most V-humans are boring, and  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item8

"Random Acts of Spamness"
Inserting gibberish in junk email in an attempt to thwart antispam
filters--especially those that employ Bayesian analysis--has become more
and more commonplace among spammers, though many experts agree that this
technique is more likely to backfire.  Bayesian filters determine whether
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item9

"The Roots of Failure in Software Development Management"
Software development has been compared to many things because managers
cannot adequately explain why they use their current approach without
relying on some abstract analog, writes consultant Bill Walton.  In the mid
1950s, SAGE air-defense system software developer Herbert Benington said
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item10

"Is the Tide Turning in Battle Against Hackers?"
Despite the Internet and computer systems appearing to be under constant
assault by ever craftier hackers, security safeguards are progressing
faster, as demonstrated by a documented slowdown in exponential damage
increases in 2003, compared to previous years.  According to a joint  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item11

"Carnegie Mellon University Technology Will Help Prepare Students for
 High-Stakes Tests"
The U.S. Department of Education has granted $1.4 million to Carnegie
Mellon University, Carnegie Learning, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute
to test a Web-based computer tutor Assistment system designed to help
middle-school students prep for rigorous standardized mathematics tests  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item12

"The Next Big Thing for Wireless?"
IT vendors and network service providers are backing a new wireless
technology that can transmit data at up to 70 Mbps for as far as 30 miles.
IEEE 802.16 or WiMax products are under development at Intel, Nokia,
Alcatel, and a host of other firms that see tremendous opportunity in  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item13

"Displays Go For Sharper Image"
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and 3D display technology offer
improved images, but these new technologies are no threat to the dominance
of CRT and liquid-crystal display (LCD) screens, at least for now.  OLEDs,
which have just begun to show up in small electronic devices and are  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item14

"Ultra Wideband's Destiny Up in the Air"
Progress on a high-speed, physical-layer standard for wireless multimedia
transfer has stalled in a IEEE task group; the technology will allow for
high-speed wireless connections akin to wired USB links.  Participants are
in an approximately 60-40 deadlock over two competing proposals, with  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item15

"Get Mean, Go Green"
A team led by Michael Frank at the University of Florida's College of
Engineering is using a Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) grant to
develop a reversible computing power supply as a step toward an adiabatic
computer system.  In its basic form, reversible computing is computing that
...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item16

"Why Machines Should Fear"
Northwestern University cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman, author of
"Emotional Design," sees value in investing computers and software with
emotional or affective systems so that the machines can be more reliable
and effective.  He notes that people who cannot display emotions due to  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item17

"Back to the Future"
Future domestic appliances will be networked to provide more efficient and
convenient service to owners, as well as cost savings and better
information for manufacturers, according to appliance designer James Dyson.
Political trends will lead to more congested urban areas where living  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item18

"The Web's New Currency"
Firms such as Peppercoin are expecting to hit it big by offering consumers
secure, reliable electronic micropayment systems for low-cost Web content.
MIT computer scientists and Peppercoin founders Ron Rivest and Silvio
Micali have devised an innovative, highly efficient micropayment scheme  ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0114w.html#item19

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