Designing for the Virtual Interactive Classroom
EU Studies Impact of Software Patents on Open Source
University of Maastricht researchers have been enlisted by the European Commission to
study the economic, technical, and legal ramifications of software patents on innovation,
although the results of the analysis may ultimately have little sway on the Commission's
plans to introduce ...
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Domain System Creator Honoured
Nominum chief scientist Dr. Paul Mockapetris has received the a lifetime Achievement award
from ACM's Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) for developing the
Domain Name System (DNS) over 20 years ago. The DNS plays a critical role in the operation
of the Internet ...
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Federal ID Act May Be Flawed
The Real ID Act President Bush signed on May 11 as part of an omnibus spending bill is
supposedly designed to make it harder for impersonators to acquire driver's licenses, but
critics say the act will allow both authorized and unauthorized people to access
considerably more personal ...
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Linux Powers Airborne Bots
University of Essex researchers are building a fleet of miniature robotic helicopters that
exhibit swarm intelligence and cooperative function by running the Linux 2.6 kernel and
communicating wirelessly with each another via Bluetooth. Researcher Owen Holland expects
the UltraSwarm project to ...
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Camera Sees Behind Objects
A digital camera that can see from the point of view of a light source has been developed
by Stanford University and Cornell University researchers. The system includes a digital
projector that beams a series of black and white pixels at a scene, while the camera
captures how the light bounces ...
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EU Highlights Grid Computing as 'Pay-as-You-Use Solution' for Europe
Grid technology adoption in European commercial and public sectors will boost that
region's competitiveness and quality of life by the end of the decade, says European
Commission Information Society head Viviane Reding. European researchers at CERN and other
institutions are leading grid ...
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Maryland Adopts Computer-Recycling Fee
Several U.S. states are attempting to deal with the mounting problem of electronic waste
by implementing computer-recycling programs, and Maryland is the latest participant with
Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr.'s (R) recent signing of a bill requiring computer makers producing
over 1,000 computers annually ...
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Java Sets Sail for the Final Frontier
Java creator and Sun Microsystems vice president James Gosling says the programming
language will enable radical new applications as it becomes more widely deployed on the
edge of the network. Java-coded sensors at the bottom of San Francisco Bay could be used
to build predictive models, or ...
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Setting the Stage for China's Tech Future
Major technology vendors are stepping up research collaborations with Chinese universities
in order to curry favor with government policymakers, tailor products for the local
market, develop the local technology base, and tap local talent. IBM China Research
Laboratory director James Yeh ...
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'Patient Zero' Pinpointed in PC-Worm Outbreak
University of California, Berkeley, researchers Vern Paxson and Nicholas Weaver and
Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Abhishek Kumar detail in a paper how they
applied a "telescope analysis" method to reconstruct the propagation trail of the "Witty
worm" epidemic of March 2004 and find ...
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LinuxWorld Summit: Professor Predicts Open Source Revolution
In the final keynote panel at this year's LinuxWorld Summit, Free Software Foundation
general counsel and Columbia University professor Eben Moglen told attendees that the
SourceForge.net open source software development Web site is an outstanding resource for
free computer-science research and ...
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Machines' Way With Words
Customer support and other services that employ voice recognition systems are benefiting
from research to determine the most effective kinds of voices that automated agents should
possess. Stanford University professor Clifford Nass of the Laboratory for Communication
Between Humans and ...
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AI Draws Stanford Students
Student test subjects at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab responded
favorably to digital avatars that mimicked the subjects as they pitched a notional
university security policy. Half of the sessions, which were conducted in a 3D virtual-
reality environment, involved avatars ...
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Standardizing Middleware: More Than Meets the Eye
Standardizing middleware could simplify the creation of mobile business products for
wireless systems developers and enable business owners to more easily adopt mobile
applications, but not all wireless systems providers agree that such an approach is
viable. Opponents claim a uniform ...
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NASA Looks Beyond Wheels for Rover Locomotion
NASA engineers are working on small robotic vehicles for planetary exploration whose
capabilities should surpass those of wheeled rovers. Under development is the prototype of
a tetrahedral rover that uses a system of telescoping struts in a pyramid configuration to
shift its ...
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Privacy Matters
Privacy proponents' increased emphasis on enhancing the collection, storage, and sharing
of personal information with more protective measures has sparked expectations of a
legislative mandate for more rigorous controls over personal information. However, it
remains uncertain as to ...
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Embedded-System Programmers Must Learn the Fundamentals
Software programmers need to start taking code optimization seriously as Moore's Law
produces less performance gains, writes consultant Randall Hyde, author of "Write Great
Code: Understanding the Machine." Though Moore's Law is likely to continue increasing
transistor density, those ...
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Hacker Hunters
To counter the growing threat of professional, profit-driven cyber-criminals, enforcement
agents or "hacker hunters" are combining the latest cybercrime deterrents with traditional
tactics such as infiltration and the Internet equivalent of wire-tapping to topple and
successfully ...
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Designing for the Virtual Interactive Classroom
Online learning offers flexibility and convenience, but synchronous online collaboration
tools can support richer and more spontaneous, natural, and efficient interaction.
Designing for Learning founder Judith Boettcher recommends that educators choose at least
two to three synchronous ...
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