Transparent Privacy
Into the Future of Computer Graphics
This year's ACM SIGGRAPH conference highlights emerging computer graphics technologies and breakthroughs from a wide spectrum of academic and industrial organizations, including movie studios, 3D gaming companies, digital effects houses, and the research divisions of tech giants such as ...
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U.S. Supercomputer Field Playing Catch-Up
Spurred by what observers say was a "Sputnik moment," the U.S. government and computer industry are launching a concerted effort to regain supercomputing supremacy from Japan, which launched the 41-gigaflop Earth Simulator in 2002. Though the United States claims the vast majority of ...
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Big Business Becoming Big Brother
The government and corporations are working hand-in-hand to collect and use personal information in ways that bypass legal constraints, according to a new ACLU report. The Surveillance-Industrial Complex report was accompanied by a new Web site that helps educate citizens about how ...
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Computer Couture
The development of electronic textiles is an area of concentration for university and industrial laboratories, and such products are nearing practical use thanks to progress in wireless communication, organic electronics, and nanotechnology. France Telecom recently unveiled ...
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Less-Than-Risky Business?
Observers are concerned that the United States is in danger of losing its lead in scientific innovation because of a shift away from basic research and toward applied research. Though the United States spends more money on research and development than any other nation, that spending grew a mere 1 ...
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Mesh Networks to Boost Energy
A consortium that includes General Electric, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and Sensicast Systems has won a $6 million contract from the U.S. Energy Department to employ wireless mesh networks to boost the energy efficiency and lower the energy consumption of industrial motors. ...
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CompSci Expert Wetzel Spots Weaknesses in Wi-Fi Security
Wireless ad hoc networks are vulnerable to stealth attacks that require minimal effort on the part of attackers, warns Stevens Institute of Technology assistant professor of computer science Susanne Wetzel, who runs the Wireless Network Security Center (WiNSeC). Wireless ad hoc networks ...
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Projector Lights Radio Tags
Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab researchers have developed a Radio Frequency Identity and Geometry (RFIG) system that can be used to keep tabs on inventory, locate objects, and enhance gaming with augmented reality, according to Mitsubishi scientist Ramesh Raskar. The user points a radio ...
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Once Upon a Digital Time
The COINE consortium encourages Europeans to tell their personal stories online using a collection of user-friendly multimedia software that enables stories to be composed and published even by those who are not familiar with computers. Twenty-three user groups--including libraries, ...
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Voice Over WiFi: the Great Disrupter
With 3G cellular networks opening up over Europe and Japan, and soon the United States, wireless communication providers and their customers are eyeing new voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications enabled via Wi-Fi, also called VoWi-Fi. Wi-Fi, on the other hand, is limited to just a ...
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Linux May Enter Orbit
The University of South Wales' Mechanical, Electrical, Telecommunications, and Computer Systems engineering departments have teamed up to develop Bluesat, a satellite slated for launch in November 2005 that could run a simplified version of the open-source Linux operating system. The ...
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I, Standard Man
A market is growing for human replicas that can used for medical training. Hospitals, military facilities, and medical schools throughout the United States are using over 850 versions of METI's Stand D. Ardman ("Stan"), a mannequin that can simulate bodily functions such as breathing and ...
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OPIUM Develops Integrated Wireless Communication for the Future
The Information Society Technologies-funded OPIUM project involved trials of third-generation wireless communication in China, Britain, Spain, Germany, Ireland, and Portugal focusing on the protocol and application programming interfaces that enable Internet services to be re-worked into ...
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Auto Safety Systems Focus on Driver Behavior
The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration reports that the number of automotive fatalities is holding steady at roughly 40,000 per year for the increased number of miles that Americans are driving, and a panel of experts convened in Sonoma, Calif., to discuss driver safety ...
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A Few Good Women
Little attention has been paid to the decline of women pursuing degrees in computer science and engineering, but the impending retirement of baby boomers in the tech industry, combined with a smaller stream of foreign brainpower because of homeland security issues and tighter visa rules, has ...
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The Eyes Have It
NASA has committed funding to develop a low-cost system that would enable severely disabled users to control their computers by tracking head and eye movements. NaviGaze, developed by Goddard Space Flight Center officials in conjunction with Cybernet Systems under a Small Business Innovation ...
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User Interfaces: The Next Generation
Freeing users from the limitations of keyboards and mice is the purpose of emergent human-computer interface technologies designed to enable gesture-, movement-, speech-, and facial-based control of computer systems. One such product is a prototype "electronic perception" technology from Canesta that ...
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Crypto Man
Sun Microsystems CSO Whitfield Diffie, co-creator of the Diffie-Hellman key exchange method, believes that cryptography will continue to be a vital component of 21st century computing, although he remarks that he would prefer that cryptography was more visible than it currently is. Diffie ...
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Transparent Privacy
David Brin, author of "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy?," says the years following the book's publication have done nothing to dampen his view that a tradeoff between freedom and security is "dismal and loathsome." He professes his ...
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