MDA: A Motivated Manifesto
Reining in Tech
The entertainment industry learned its lesson from Napster and is now going after threatening technologies even before they are actually made into real products: The music recording industry is asking the FCC to disallow high-definition digital radio (HD radio) makers from installing automatic ...
[read more] to the top
Battle of the Ballot Heats Up
Despite careful monitoring of elections between now and Nov. 2 by voting watchdogs to avoid the pitfalls that dogged the 2000 presidential election, ElectionLine.org director Doug Chapin is convinced that the 2004 race will be just as quarrelsome, simply by the fact that so many more people are ...
[read more] to the top
Bit by Bit Computers Correct Us
Essays and tests are being graded by computer programs imbued with artificial intelligence that uses pattern recognition techniques, although experts caution that such programs can miss the finer points of writing, such as relevance and context. Designers and advocates counter that ...
[read more] to the top
Computers: Scientific Friend or Foe?
The growing presence of computers and technology is opening up new avenues of scientific research while simultaneously raising the risk of both intentional and unintentional scientific misconduct or fraud. The National Cancer Institute's John Weinstein notes that scientists have become highly ...
[read more] to the top
Humanising the Internet With Virtual Companions
France-based La Cantoche Production has earned a nomination for this year's IST Prize for its Living Actor technology, which eases the creation and implementation of 3D interactive characters to enhance the online experience. The software, based on high performance compression algorithms ...
[read more] to the top
Fab Labs Bring "Personal Fabrication" to People Around the World
MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) is deploying "fab labs" so that people around the world can avail themselves of the technology to fabricate practically anything from cheap and widely available materials in order to tackle local challenges. "Instead of bringing information technology to ...
[read more] to the top
University Challenge
Universities are constantly monitoring industry and technology trends, and struggling to keep their curriculum up to date, according to experts in Australia. Murdoch University professor Duane Varan travels to the United States three times each year to check up on the latest technologies ...
[read more] to the top
The Socialization of Collaboration
Technologies such as email, instant messaging, and Web conferencing have played major roles in the acceleration of business speed, increased competitiveness, and the transformation of communications, writes IBM Fellow Irene Greif. She observes that individuals' reliance on social ...
[read more] to the top
Is Encryption Doomed?
Scientists at the Crypto conference last month announced flaws in the MD5 algorithm, the latest round in a cycle of developing and breaking codes that seems to go on perpetually. But researchers are also looking at a 30-year-old mathematical challenge that could possibly end this cycle by ...
[read more] to the top
Distributive Computing Spreads Out
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) launched by UC Berkeley researchers is an Internet computer program that allows people to divvy up their PCs' idle computing power between as many distributive computing projects as they desire, which can range from the search for ...
[read more] to the top
Interview: Web Standards Need Support
Ilog head of products Jean-Francois Abramatic, who was recently reappointed to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) advisory board, reports that the Internet has changed significantly since the W3C's formation in 1994: Whereas 10 years ago the Web was relatively small and only had a few major ...
[read more] to the top
Computers Add Sophistication, But Don't Resolve Climate Debate
There are many competing computerized climate models that use different techniques, but Ronald J. Stouffer of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory says these models outline the same conclusion: That world temperatures are rising sharply, primarily to human influences such as the ...
[read more] to the top
The Downloading of the President '04
Electronic voting machines are drawing fire because of their vulnerability to tampering, susceptibility to bugs, and their lack of an audit trail. But of more concern to people such as former ACLU Miami President Lida Rodriguez-Taseff are whether solid e-voting procedures and practices will ...
[read more] to the top
Speech Applications Voice New Strengths
The evaluation of interactive voice response (IVR) systems by organizations entails them choosing between Voice XML (VXML) products and Microsoft's Speech Application Language Tag (SALT) products as the basis for their speech application platforms, both of which bundle speech recognition, ...
[read more] to the top
In Search of Better Video Search
TV news broadcasters, PC users, and intelligence analysts are just some of the people who could benefit from video search technologies being developed by IBM, Microsoft, and academic researchers. IBM recently demonstrated Marvel, a prototype computer system that employs statistical methods to ...
[read more] to the top
Tests Reveal E-Passport Security Flaw
The first interoperability test between electronic-passport chips and readers was a terrible muddle, but vendors say future government testing will allow them to polish their products. Last month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) performed the interoperability ...
[read more] to the top
Organized Crime Invades Cyberspace
Antivirus researchers say a surprising increase in virus and worm activity is linked to an underground economy in identity theft and spam. F-Secure antivirus research director Mikko Hypponen says the connection is not very new, though until recently the writers were thought to be only a rogue ...
[read more] to the top
Just a Note to Say...
New location-aware services are emerging thanks to the advent of new global positioning system (GPS)-enabled tools. Natalia Marmasse of the MIT Media Laboratory has developed comMotion, a system that can sift through data collected by the user and relay it in the appropriate location-based ...
[read more] to the top
MDA: A Motivated Manifesto
IBM Fellow and Unified Modeling Language co-founder Grady Booch writes that the increasing need for systems that operate round the clock is boosting the value of Model Driven Architecture (MDA), which offers a way to design and build systems that can continue to function even when components are ...
[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.
