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TechNews Alert, Monday, February 2, 2004



Title: ACM TechNews (HTML)
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ACM TechNews
February 2, 2004

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HEADLINES AT A GLANCE:

  • For Science, Nanotech Poses Big Unknowns
  • Technology and Worker Efficiency
  • IETF Closes in on Linking Geographic Info, Presence
  • Vulnerable Servers Warned
  • Mood Ring Measured in Megahertz
  • Is the Superworm a Mere Myth?
  • More Scary Tales Involving Big Holes in Web-Site Security
  • New Software Helps Lift "Fog of War"
  • Memory Evolution: Survival of the Smallest
  • Flexible Display Screens Readied for Production
  • Giving Robots a Human Face
  • Nanotech's Big Challenge: Getting to Market
  • The Future of U.S. Tech Employment
  • Researchers on a Roll With Flexible Computers
  • Dancing the Quantum Dream
  • Dealing With the Darker Side
  • Software Piracy: A Growing Problem

     

    For Science, Nanotech Poses Big Unknowns

    An anti-nanotechnology movement is brewing, sparked by health and environmental fears that industry advocates claim are mostly fueled by popular fiction. The nanotech industry and the government are trying to understand why the public is so distrustful of nanotech through ...

    [read more]

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    Technology and Worker Efficiency

    Common wisdom dictates that technology is chiefly responsible for the American economy's productivity gains over the last few years. Current research indicates, however, that the productivity gains are not so much attributable to technology but its integration with organization capital, ...

    [read more]

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    IETF Closes in on Linking Geographic Info, Presence

    The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is nearing the final stages for approval of a privacy standard for geography-aware presence technology. Instant messaging first introduced presence technology several years ago, and the concept has matured since then with nuanced status messages such as ...

    [read more]

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    Vulnerable Servers Warned

    The Federal Trade Commission has teamed up with government agencies from 26 countries to press owners of Internet servers to close any open relays or open proxies. As part of Operation Secure Your Server, the government agencies will email tens of thousands of server owners to check their ...

    [read more]

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    Mood Ring Measured in Megahertz

    Sandia National Laboratories' Mentor/PAL program uses off-the-shelf sensors and face-recognition software to provide an environment in which collaborators are kept apprised of their own--and each other's--moods and performance levels in order to optimize decision-making in high-risk ...

    [read more]

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    Is the Superworm a Mere Myth?

    Security experts such as Harvey Mudd College's Geoffrey Kuenning believe a superworm attack against the cyber-infrastructure of the United States is an inevitability, given the growing frequency and extent of worm and virus outbreaks in 2003. Kuenning cited last year's massive blackout as proof ...

    [read more]

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    More Scary Tales Involving Big Holes in Web-Site Security

    The market for Web application security is heating up due to several high-profile security flaws that have been discovered in corporate Web sites. These flaws open the door to incidents of industrial espionage and identity theft, as hackers can use the flaws to gain access to customer ...

    [read more]

    to the top


    New Software Helps Lift "Fog of War"

    The "fog" that often hinders military operations could be lifted with the help of a software system developed by University of Buffalo researchers that integrates and shares data collected by air and ground sensors to monitor and anticipate the movements of friendly and unfriendly forces, ...

    [read more]

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    Memory Evolution: Survival of the Smallest

    Flash memory cards are becoming more spacious, smaller in size, cheaper, and more numerous as their market grows rapidly; but the constitution of that market is expected to change over the coming years as the former frontrunner CompactFlash format falls behind the more technically flexible ...

    [read more]

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    Flexible Display Screens Readied for Production

    Flexible electronic displays are finally starting to edge toward mass production, starting with Royal Philips Electronics' rollable screen that could be fabricated at a rate of 1 million units a year by the end of 2005, according to Bas J.E. van Rens of Philips' Polymer Vision division. The ...

    [read more]

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    Giving Robots a Human Face

    Most robotics experts frown at the idea of building robots that closely resemble human beings, on the grounds that they will not be accepted because of the "Uncanny Valley" maxim, which posits that machines with increasingly human-like features will make people uncomfortable. This ...

    [read more]

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    Nanotech's Big Challenge: Getting to Market

    Julie Chen, director of the National Science Foundation's nanomanufacturing program, must shepherd nanotechnology projects out of the research and development phase and into the business sector. It is a heavy responsibility: Though many nanotech applications may not be ready for the ...

    [read more]

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    The Future of U.S. Tech Employment

    America needs to boost its federal research and development and create regional strategies for countering globalization, says National Innovation Initiative co-chairman Wayne Clough. Along with co-chairman and IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, Clough is charged with formulating ways to keep the United ...

    [read more]

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    Researchers on a Roll With Flexible Computers

    Televisions and screens that can be rolled up instead of folded could become a reality thanks to a flexible organic light emitting device (FOLED) developed by University of Toronto engineers. Materials science professor Zheng-Hong Lu, with the assistance of post-doctoral fellow Sijin Han and ...

    [read more]

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    Dancing the Quantum Dream

    A quantum computer carries such promised capabilities as ultrafast database searches and a "virtual lab" where the behavior of materials can be predicted without actually fabricating them, but a practical quantum computer must be immune to decoherence, in which computations are undone ...

    [read more]

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    Dealing With the Darker Side

    Plans by Benetton and Wal-Mart to monitor inventory with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags were met with strong protest by privacy advocates worried that the technology could be abused by criminals and the government by keeping track of product purchases without consumers' ...

    [read more]

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    Software Piracy: A Growing Problem

    The Business Software Alliance estimates that the illegal copying and distribution of software in the United States added up to 105,000 lost jobs, $2 billion in lost revenue, $5.3 billion in lost salaries, and over $1.4 billion in lost tax revenue in 2002 alone; despite this and worries of ...

    [read more]

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