Shaping the Future
Keeping Watch Now Goes Both Ways
Experts at ACM's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Seattle this week discussed the merits of "sousveillance," University of Toronto professor Steve Mann's concept of individual citizens recording their activities on video to counter surveillance ...
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Fate of $25M E-Voting System in Miami-Dade Dangling
Florida's Miami-Dade County spent $25 million to buy and install 7,200 iVotronic touch-screen voting machines from Election Systems & Software, but persistent glitches that led to vote miscounts in local elections--including one in March in which hundreds of votes went ...
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Linux Distribution Tames Chaos
An Australian programmer's Linux distribution links networked computers to perform password cracks or other complex mathematical calculations. The Chaos Linux distribution takes up just 6 MB, and can be booted on a PC either via the network or from a CD-ROM so that the networked machine's ...
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Putting Teeth Into U.S. Cybercrime Policy
Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA) executive director Paul Kurtz, a former member of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, explains in an interview that the CSIA's purpose is to give the federal government all the relevant information it needs when considering new ...
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Tricks on the Eyes
Researchers led by professor Oliver Staadt of the UC Davis Institute for Data Analysis and Visualization are developing a virtual-reality wall that can support 3D imagery using a combination of rear-screen digital projectors, special eyewear, and algorithms. The technology will be used ...
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Prying Eyes Are Everywhere
The commercial availability of high-tech spying tools such as hidden cameras, global positioning system devices, and software that monitors computer activity is allowing average citizens to conduct clandestine surveillance on their spouses, children, friends, and neighbors. And the ...
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New Chips Pose a Challenge to Software Makers
Forthcoming multicore chips from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel will force software companies to repurpose their software to take full advantage of the new semiconductors. Chip manufacturers are moving away from ramping up clock speed to boost processor performance, as such an ...
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Eclipse Project Takes on Parallel Computing
Greg Watson, a scientist with Los Alamos National Laboratory's Advanced Computing Lab, believes it is high time that parallel computing development tools caught up with computing industry development tools, and he has started an Eclipse technology project to help realize this vision. The ...
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Pulling the Plug on Science?
Institutional researchers in the United States worry that cutbacks in funding for basic research could seriously harm the nation's international competitiveness, especially since other regions are quickly building up their research capacity. NASA is pulling support from several projects in ...
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Faster Handoff Between Wi-Fi Networks Promises Near-Seamless 802.11 Roaming
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) researchers have created software that dramatically speeds up connection handoffs between Wi-Fi access points so that the transition is imperceptible to users. The SyncScan software does not require any hardware upgrades or changes to the ...
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China, India Can Lead Global IT, Says Chinese Premier
Chinese political leaders continue to tout the growth opportunities for the IT industries of China and India, if the two markets work more closely together. Wen Jiabao, the premier of China, renewed the theme earlier in the month during his four-day official trip to India, which included a stop ...
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Surveillance Works Both Ways
University of Toronto professor Steve Mann put his concept of "equiveillance through sousveillance" in action when he led about 24 attendees of ACM's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (CFP) conference in Seattle to a local shopping mall to film or take pictures of surveillance ...
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Building the City of Tomorrow
ACM's 2005 Computer-Human Interaction conference sent teams of designers out into different Portland, Ore., neighborhoods to think up ways technology could increase interactivity between the city and residents. The "Engaging the City: Public Interfaces as Civic ...
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In Touch With the Latest Virtual Surroundings
Angelika Peer of the Munich University of Technology says the goal of the IST-funded Touch-Hapsys project is "to create the technological basis for engineers to conceive and build better systems for direct interaction with humans through touch, thus overcoming apparent limitations of existing ...
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Laptop Design Can Be a Pain in the Posture
Laptops, with their closely positioned keyboards and display screens, are forcing users into postures that can lead to back, shoulder, wrist, and neck pain, warn doctors and physical therapists. Tom Albin with Human Factors and Ergonomics Society says it is impossible for a laptop user to ...
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Dot-What Redux--ICANN Still Searching for Answer
ICANN Chairman Vint Cerf says he has some doubts about the organization's ability to add domains to the Internet smoothly, even though ICANN just approved two new top-level domains, .jobs and .travel. Cerf says the organization "ran into a lot of very interesting problems" when it approved ...
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Bulletproof Storage
IBM plans to offer storage systems that IT departments do not have to touch for up to three years. By including redundant software and hardware systems, the storage systems will be able to keep operating smoothly even as software errors are made or discrete components fail. IBM says ...
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A Conversation With Guy Steele Jr.
Association for Computing Machinery 1998 Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient and 1994 ACM Fellow Guy Steele Jr. won the 2005 Dr. Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Award for his numerous contributions to software development. His many credits include co-creation of the Scheme ...
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Shaping the Future
Society's leaders often focus on solving short-term rather than long-term problems because of a paralysis borne out of scientific uncertainty that not even the most cutting-edge assessment can completely overcome. It is difficult for traditional analysis to evaluate near-term steps for ...
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