[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

TechNews Alert for Friday, March 12, 2004



Title: ACM TechNews (HTML)
Read the TechNews Online at: http://www.acm.org/technews/
ACM TechNews
March 12, 2004

Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber:

Welcome to the March 12, 2004 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

Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion magazine, Ubiquity.

Sponsored by
AutoChoice Advisor Logo

Looking for a NEW vehicle? Discover which ones are right for you from over 250 different makes and models. Your unbiased list of vehicles is based on your preferences and years of consumer input. [try it]


HEADLINES AT A GLANCE:

  • Firms Push to Expand Visa Program
  • Legislators Urge E-Voting Halt
  • DARPA Takes Aim at IT Sacred Cows
  • Autonomous Vehicles to Put Embedded Technology to the Test
  • Java Stewards Announce New Version of Java Community Process
  • In Search of the Deep Web
  • Hebrew University Scientist Co-Directing European Research Project for Internet of Future
  • Robotic Skeleton Takes Load Off Humans
  • Invasion of the Robots
  • Brain Circuitry Findings Could Influence Computer Design
  • Robots That Build (But Still Won't Do Windows)
  • Productivity's Technology Iceberg
  • Alliance Sets Blade Standards in Motion
  • For Rural Pennsylvania, Wireless Is the Ticket to the 21st Century
  • Physics: "Putting the Weirdness to Work"
  • Stay Just a Little Bit Longer
  • Should Embedded Linux Be Standardized?
  • The 100-Million-Mile Network
  • The World Is Your Perimeter

     

    Firms Push to Expand Visa Program

    Although chances for approval are slim, U.S. manufacturers and high-tech firms are lobbying Congress to authorize an exception to current H1-B visa policy in order to work around the 65,000 yearly visa cap, which was reached by February. The exception would grant H1-Bs to foreign applicants ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Legislators Urge E-Voting Halt

    California Sens. Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) sent a letter to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley urging him to declare a moratorium on paperless electronic voting systems, arguing that a debacle akin to Florida's woes in the 2000 election could be in the offing if the ...

    [read more]      to the top


    DARPA Takes Aim at IT Sacred Cows

    In its push to usher in the age of network-driven warfare, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is considering upgrading some of the key elements of IT, or scrapping them altogether. Program managers at the DARPATech conference such as Col. Tim Gibson of ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Autonomous Vehicles to Put Embedded Technology to the Test

    The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Grand Challenge, a March 13 off-road race between driverless vehicles stretching about 250 miles between Barstow, Calif., and Las Vegas, will serve as a testbed for embedded technology that could be applied to defense, agriculture, ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Java Stewards Announce New Version of Java Community Process

    A new version of the Java Community Process (JCP), JCP 2.6, was announced on March 9 by the committees that oversee Java: JCP executive relations manager Aaron Williams stated that JCP 2.6 will offer more transparency and earlier developer involvement than before by making the first draft review ...

    [read more]      to the top


    In Search of the Deep Web

    Google, Yahoo!, and many other companies are working to make search Engines capable of mining the deep Web--a vast, largely untapped reservoir of structured or semi-structured data; this approach should not only yield more focused search results, but also break the control over customer ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Hebrew University Scientist Co-Directing European Research Project for Internet of Future

    Scientists are working on ways to measure the growth of the Internet and make future networking more efficient. The European Union-funded EVERGROW project involves IT companies, 25 universities, and more than 100 scientists. The four-year program started at the beginning of the year and ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Robotic Skeleton Takes Load Off Humans

    Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a self-powered, robotic skeleton that is designed to frame the human body, called Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX). Homayoon Kazerooni, a mechanical engineering professor who is the director of the Robotics and Human Engineering ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Invasion of the Robots

    Innovations in robot technology are expected to spark a revolution in health care, domestic assistance, military operations, and other areas that will foster the creation of a multibillion-dollar market within several years. Companies making notable strides include iRobot, which developed ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Brain Circuitry Findings Could Influence Computer Design

    Using funding from the National Institutes of Health and the RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center, neuroscientist Guosong Liu has uncovered new data about neurons that could have a bearing on future computer design. Liu has learned that neurons use a trinary systems of zeros, ones, and ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Robots That Build (But Still Won't Do Windows)

    The brainchild of University of Southern California engineering professor Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis is a computer-controlled robotic gantry that can build concrete walls layer by inch-thick layer, and Khoshnevis believes such technology could pave the way for completely automated construction. ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Productivity's Technology Iceberg

    Director of MIT's Center for eBusiness Erik Brynjolfsson says the tremendous growth in U.S. productivity is directly related to the way companies use information technology, but dismisses the notion that technology alone can boost efficiency. Innovations introduced half a ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Alliance Sets Blade Standards in Motion

    Blade server technology is getting a further boost from the joint efforts of two standards bodies: The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and Blade System Alliance (BladeS) partnership, which focuses on server management and utility computing standards. The DMTF's Web Based ...

    [read more]      to the top


    For Rural Pennsylvania, Wireless Is the Ticket to the 21st Century

    Lehigh University electrical and computer engineering professor Shalinee Kishore has won a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to develop multitier wireless networks and demonstrate their viability in Pennsylvania's Susquehanna County, which extends across 823 square ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Physics: "Putting the Weirdness to Work"

    Government and corporate scientists are working to understand the laws of physics at the atomic scale, where a single atom is able to exist in many places at once and can be strangely "entangled" with another atom even at far distances: Researchers theorize that these bizarre quantum effects can ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Stay Just a Little Bit Longer

    Bob Morison of The Concours Group cites Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the United States will suffer a shortage of 10 million workers by the end of the decade, but even more detrimental will be a paucity of skilled labor stemming from the mass retirement of aging baby ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Should Embedded Linux Be Standardized?

    Embedded Linux system developers are weighing the costs and benefits of standardization, and their ultimate decision could drastically affect future embedded development. The Embedded Linux Consortium's Platform Specification (ELCPS) 1.0, published more than two years ago, was touted as ...

    [read more]      to the top


    The 100-Million-Mile Network

    The Deep Space Network extends across more than 100 million miles of space as the means of communication between the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars and their controllers on Earth. The robot explorers usually send their data to the orbiting Mars Odyssey and Global Surveyor probes, which ...

    [read more]      to the top


    The World Is Your Perimeter

    Corporate security perimeters are becoming less protective as more and more corporate information systems employ tools and processes outside the conventional firewall, and as employees, partners, and customers use multiple devices to access corporate data; coping with this trend requires ...

    [read more]      to the top


    To submit feedback about ACM TechNews, contact:

  • technews@xxxxxxxxxx

    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.

    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

  • to the top

    © Copyright 2004 Information, Inc.


  • © 2004 ACM, Inc. All rights reserved.
  • ACM Privacy Policy.