Can We Count on It?
Study: Linux May Infringe on 283 Patents
A study commissioned by Open Source Risk Management (OSRM) has found that the Linux kernel could potentially infringe on 283 registered software patents, 27 of which are owned by Microsoft. Free Software Foundation senior counsel and patent attorney Dan Ravicher, who ...
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Cyberterror Impact, Defense Under Scrutiny
Government officials and security experts say that a coordinated cyberattack against the United States could do a great deal of damage to infrastructure, government, and business. However, it is not clear who would launch such an attack--al Qaeda, for instance, is focused more on ...
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Innovative Partnership to Revolutionize NASA Supercomputing
Project Columbia is a joint venture between NASA, SGI, and Intel to increase NASA's current supercomputing capacity by a factor of 10 and provide an integrated computing, visualization, and data storage environment known as the "Space Exploration Simulator." The project will ...
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In Competitive Move, IBM Puts Code in Public Domain
In an effort to help simplify the writing of Java applications, IBM will today announce a contribution of over 500,000 lines of proprietary software code to an open source software group. "We hope to spur the further development of the Java community," declares Janet Perna, IBM's general ...
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Preview: LinuxWorld to Highlight Desktop Linux, Security
Approximately 11,000 people are expected to attend the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco this week, where a chief topic will be Linux's penetration of desktop systems. Linux products and implementation strategies will be showcased by over 190 exhibitors, including IBM, Red ...
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Fingerprinting Your Files
Cryptographic hash functions are one of the most useful mathematical tools in computing today, because they allow people to easily protect passwords, stored files, and even database information. One of the most recent applications comes from three Stanford University researchers, who created ...
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Power Up With the Human Body
Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) have been working for two years on a system to power portable devices such as MP3 players and cell phones by harnessing electricity generated by the human body. NUS assistant ...
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Animated Face Helps Deaf With Phone Chat
Researchers at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, University College London, the Viataal software company in the Netherlands, and the Belgium-based Babletech voice analysis firm have developed a prototype system that supplies an animated face to help people with hearing ...
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P2P Drag on Nets Getting Worse
Organizations are increasingly burdened by peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic because it cuts into employee productivity, network bandwidth, and enterprise security. P2P traffic is at an all-time high across the Internet, consuming anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent of ISP ...
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Three Minutes With the MIT Lab Director
In an interview, Michael Bove, director of MIT's new Consumer Electronics Lab, says the facility is focusing on five key areas: Power efficiency and tapping new sources of power; sensors and communicating the information collected by sensors; cooperative wireless communications systems; ...
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Virtual Twin Always Happy to Chat
University of Wollongong accountancy lecturer George Mickhail is now available to students anytime and anywhere--as a Web-based version of himself driven by artificial intelligence. Virtual George, as the program is called, started life in 2003 as a text interface, but has evolved into a ...
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9/11 Report Iffy on Tech
The bulk of the 9/11 Commission's 567-page report focuses on the failings of structure and intelligence agencies, but the document does contain advisories for technology improvements, most notably a total back-office renovation of information sharing. The report recommends that "information ...
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John Kerry's Real Tech Agenda
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Democratic presidential nominee, has had a mixed history in regards to his position on technology issues, writes Declan McCullagh. In 2002, Kerry ignored Intel executive VP Leslie Vadasz's warning to the Senate Commerce committee that a bill proposed by Sen. Fritz ...
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Robots, Robots Everywhere
Robotics Trends President Dan Kara projects that 4 million personal robots will ship in 2006, while the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe forecasts that over 2.1 million personal robots will be sold between 2003 and 2006. Many of these machines will only function to entertain, but the ...
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Tune in to the Net's Untapped Power
Computer security consultant Dan Kaminsky blew the lid off of the domain name service's (DNS) true abilities at the recent DefCon hacker conference. Kaminsky illustrated how DNS can be used to broadcast audio clips across the Internet or as hacker tunnels into otherwise secure networks. Roughly ...
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Career Watch: Q&A: Linda Beck
Linda Beck, Earthlink's executive VP of operations, believes women make ideal managers in tech organizations based on the strength of their communication and social skills, and she has pursued her role as a mentor to other women in IT careers with enthusiasm. Beck explains that IT ...
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A Renaissance for Russian Science
Russia will see 11 percent more science graduates this year amidst a resurgence in student interest, according to Auriga research. Russian computer programmers are well-known for their creativity and grasp of complex mathematical algorithms, and they are unique in that many have ...
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Talking Computer Security
In a roundtable discussion with CyberDefense Magazine, eBay VP and former White House Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security Howard Schmidt, PatchLink Chairman Sean Moshir, and Foundstone President Stuart McClure talk about the current status of the computer security industry as well as ...
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Can We Count on It?
Electronic voting systems touted as the solution to the election debacle of 2000 have come under fire by local governments, special interest organizations, and others who cite their lack of reliability and security, and are particularly distrustful of the machines' source code. The move to ...
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