The Future Starts Here
Are Security Threats Really Overhyped?
Gartner principal analyst Lawrence Orans and Gartner vice president John Pescatore recently released a report of the top five most "overhyped IT security threats." The list includes attacks on IP telephony and mobile devices, because warnings about such attacks are significantly ahead of any ...
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Building a Computer-Readable Web
The Web Service Modeling Framework (WSMF) created by researchers working on the IST Semantic Web Enabled Web Services project is overcoming the problem of automated query and analysis of Web page data. "The idea is to enable software applications to carry out a complete instruction such as, say, ...
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DARPA Assailed for Cutting Back Support of Basic Computing Research at U.S. Universities
The computing research community jas joined forces in criticizing the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for reducing funding of basic, open-ended,
blue-sky" computing research at colleges across the country. In a joint ...
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European Commission Mulls Who Should Govern the Internet
The European Commission has published a 13-page communication that calls for a new cooperation model for Internet governance, but does not get very specific about a role for ICANN. "Existing Internet governance mechanisms should be founded on a more solid democratic, transparent, and multilateral ...
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Grey Matter, Blue Matter
IBM and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) of Switzerland are collaborating on an effort to reproduce the human brain using computers. In a project expected to take two to three years to complete, the two will work to build a simulation of a neocortical column of the ...
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How Computers Make Our Kids Stupid
A growing body of evidence suggests that excessive use of computers and the Internet can impair children's learning faculties by distracting them from homework, encouraging compulsive behavior and superficial thinking, and supplanting live student-teacher interaction. Analysis of the results of ...
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Internet Founders Honored With Computing's "Nobel"
The ACM bestowed its highest honor upon Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn at its annual banquet held last weekend in San Francisco. The ACM's 2004 A.M. Turing Award, the computing industry's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, was given to Cerf and Kahn for their ...
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Making IT Women-Friendly
Over 250 women from over 20 nations have descended in Baltimore, Md., this week to attend a symposium put together by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Center for Women and Information Technology. The symposium's goal is to establish a five-year initiative to help women ...
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Microsoft Research Aims to Ease Development
Microsoft Research India in Bangalore is developing new technology that will make it easier for software developers and systems integrators to add new features or modify functionality in enterprise business applications. The effort, called the Rigorous Software Engineering project internally, ...
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Scheme Promoting IT Jobs to Girls
The South East England Development Agency is funding a program that seeks to encourage girls to pursue IT-related careers. The Computer Club for Girls (CC4G) is a government initiative designed to educate school girls that IT jobs are not exclusively for boys. The program is being introduced ...
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Somehow, Usenet Lumbers On
Usenet, founded in 1979 at Duke University and the favorite online hangout for computer buffs for years, is making a comeback after being overwhelmed by spam and piracy since America Online made it easily accessible in 1993. Usenet, a type of peer-to-peer network, is a system comprised of thousands ...
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Sun Builds a Fortress for Scientists
Sun Microsystems is developing a technical language called Fortress that is envisioned as a successor to Fortran, although the new language will not be ready for at least another five years. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is helping fund the development of Fortress in the hope ...
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Xen Getting Multiprocessor Support
Version 3.0 of XenSource's Xen software will likely undergo testing this month and could be ready for release in August or even sooner, according to company founder Ian Pratt. Xen is a type of software known as a "hypervisor," allowing multiple operating systems to run on a single ...
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Poker-Faced
Computer software handed chess legend Garry Kasparov his first professional loss and rewrote 2,000 years of strategy in backgammon, but can it conquer poker? The answer, say experts, is yes but not now and maybe not in the near future as well. Next month, Las Vegas will host the "World Series of ...
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Internet Piracy Sails On
The Supreme Court is soon expected to issue a decision in the MGM vs. Grokster case, a ruling that will have ramifications for the file-sharing and recording industries and the issue of Internet piracy. In advance of the ruling, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ...
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Software a Sight for Sore Eyes
IBM's Web Adaptation Technology software permits people with impaired vision and disabilities to control Web pages to meet their needs. The software can recite out loud what is on the page, enlarge text, block distracting screen backgrounds or animation, and make the keyboard simpler ...
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The Future Starts Here
Popular Science spotlights several research projects with stunning potential as future technologies. The RoboCoaster envisioned by Gino De-Gol aims to take a time-honored thrill ride to a new level by enhancing a traditional roller coaster with virtual-reality simulation and ...
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