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ACM TechNews - Monday, August 8, 2005



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ACM TechNews
August 8, 2005

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HEADLINES AT A GLANCE:

  • SpelBots Score With Technology, Education
  • You Say You Want a Web Revolution
  • Enhancing Employability of ICT Professionals
  • National IDs in Need of a Fix
  • Commercializing Open-Source Stirs Debate
  • A Standards Truce in the Browser War?
  • An Exploratory Assessment of the Pedagogical Effectiveness of a Systems Development Environment
  • A New Way to Authenticate Your Identity?
  • Next Version of GPL Coming in 2007
  • Key Bugs in Core Linux Code Squashed
  • Wireless Sensors Land Anywhere and Everywhere
  • From Push to Pull: The Next Frontier of Innovation
  • Preserving Maps for the Future
  • Development Teams Get Bigger, Richer
  • The State of Surveillance
  • Tomorrow: A Sneak Preview
  • Wide Open Spaces
  • 'Madagascar' Tech Turns Imagination Into Reality

     

    SpelBots Score With Technology, Education

    The participation of Spelman College students in the RoboCup 2005 contest is a major victory against the stereotypical image of technology as a white, all-male field. The Spelman team was comprised of six young African American women who exhibited a close-knit spirit of collaboration. "You ...

    [read more]      to the top


    You Say You Want a Web Revolution

    The emergence of Internet-based software applications, such as Google Maps and Amazon's A9 search engine, could pose a challenge to traditional PC operating systems. These new programs are powered by AJAX, short for asynchronous _javascript_ and XML, which dramatically enhances the ability of ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Enhancing Employability of ICT Professionals

    The IST-funded Indic@tor study concentrated on the working lives of European ICT professionals in small and midsized enterprises (SMEs) and factors that shape their expertise, with the goal of devising a methodology for identifying and enhancing their employability. The four-year project ...

    [read more]      to the top


    National IDs in Need of a Fix

    The nationally standardized ID card created by the Real ID Act of 2005 will require few practical changes, since current government photo ID cards are already used for so many purposes, although cardholders will have to pay more and wait longer for the driver's licenses that will double as national ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Commercializing Open-Source Stirs Debate

    Moves by the Debian Core Consortium (DCC) and Mozilla to commercialize open-source projects are riling members of the open-source community who view such maneuvers as sell-outs, notes Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. "From articles to online discussion boards to even personal 'real world' ...

    [read more]      to the top


    A Standards Truce in the Browser War?

    As tensions have eased between Microsoft and Web standards advocates, industry watchers are optimistic that Microsoft may be softening its stance toward standards compliance: The most visible signal of this trend is the partnership Microsoft forged last month with the Web Standards Project ...

    [read more]      to the top


    An Exploratory Assessment of the Pedagogical Effectiveness of a Systems Development Environment

    Georgia State University information systems professors Peter Meso and Jens Liegle have used the theory of technology acceptance to evaluate the new Visual Studio.NET suite of technologies as a pedagogical tool for teaching a course in technical information systems (IS). A performance-based ...

    [read more]      to the top


    A New Way to Authenticate Your Identity?

    Congressional lawmakers are hoping to improve identity security by restricting access to Social Security numbers, such as eliminating the numbers from inclusion on benefit checks, increasing use of encryption when dealing with Social Security numbers, and decreasing the ways in which the ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Next Version of GPL Coming in 2007

    The General Public License (GPL) will be updated to meet the growing demand for free software. The most popular license for free software was last updated in 1991, and GPL 2 helped make free software accessible to more than a very select community, according Eben Moglen, a member of the board ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Key Bugs in Core Linux Code Squashed

    Six critical defects in the core file system and networking code of Linux version 2.6.9 were discovered in December by Coverity, but a recent scan of Linux version 2.6.12 found no such programming errors, says Coverity CEO Seth Hallem. This indicates the maturation of Linux as an operating system ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Wireless Sensors Land Anywhere and Everywhere

    The commercialization of wireless sensor networks has begun thanks to advances in hardware device miniaturization, lower power consumption levels, and small software operating systems, and wireless sensor-net technology is expected to become a pervasive element of our daily lives ...

    [read more]      to the top


    >From Push to Pull: The Next Frontier of Innovation

    Most companies mistakenly assume that "push" resource mobilization systems marked by top-down, centralized, and inflexible programs of previously specified operations and behavior cultivate efficiency; in fact they impede participation in the distributed networks that are now crucial to ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Preserving Maps for the Future

    Preserving cartographic data is critical, but determining which geographic information is worthy of preservation and managing it is a formidable challenge, according to officials of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS National Geospatial Programs Office was established last August to ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Development Teams Get Bigger, Richer

    Embedded Systems Programming's survey of European and North American embedded systems developers shows a general increase in the size and funding of project-development teams. The average size of respondents' teams was 13.1 people, which was relatively consistent across the military, ...

    [read more]      to the top


    The State of Surveillance

    Future surveillance technologies may be more effective terrorism deterrents, and the public's apparent acceptance of the increased privacy infringement they entail is encouraging research in this area. Scientists at the University at Buffalo and elsewhere are investigating systems that ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Tomorrow: A Sneak Preview

    Emerging technologies are taking shape in centers spread throughout the globe, in states of development ranging from R&D to beta testing to early adoption. Hotspots on the U.S.'s West Coast include Seattle, where a pilot Wi-Max wireless Internet network has been deployed, and Berkeley, home of ...

    [read more]      to the top


    Wide Open Spaces

    University of California at Berkeley political science professor and author Steven Weber says the open-source movement is commoditizing information technology at the software level and eliminating certainty in the belief that tight protection of intellectual property is the only way to build a ...

    [read more]      to the top


    'Madagascar' Tech Turns Imagination Into Reality

    At a recent media conference about the DreamWorks animated film "Madagascar," DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg stressed that technological advances are the key element in translating imaginary worlds into animated reality. He explained that every component of the animation process is ...

    [read more]      to the top


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