Simulating Ancient Societies
Advocates Urge Election Assistance Commission to Require Verification and Accessibility
Proponents of disabled voting rights and voter-verified paper records (AVVPR) joined forces on July 28 by calling on the Election Assistance Commission to make verifiable and universally accessible voting systems a requirement. "Most people are realizing that there is no need for conflict ...
[read more] to the top
DNS Servers--an Internet Achilles Heel
At last week's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, security researcher Dan Kaminsky presented the results of his survey that found susceptibilities to DNS cache poisoning in almost 10 percent of the 2.5 million Domain Name System machines he scanned. The incentive to attack a DNS server is ...
[read more] to the top
New Rating System Aims to Take Mystery Out of Open-Source Tools
To allay managers' fears over the unpredictability of open source software, Intel, Carnegie Mellon University, and SpikeSource have joined forces to compile a rating system that will help IT departments decide which programs are worth adopting. The Business Readiness Ratings will solicit feedback ...
[read more] to the top
Reddy Awarded 2005 Honda Prize From the Honda Foundation
The Honda Foundation has awarded Carnegie Mellon University professor Raj Reddy with the 2005 Honda Prize for his work in computer science and robotics, particularly as it pertains to "Eco-Technology" that is not only efficient and profitable, but also environmentally friendly. Reddy was ...
[read more] to the top
Initial Report Undersold E-Vote Snafus
The first mass testing of the new Diebold AccuVote TSx electronic voting systems in the United States last month demonstrated fallibility of far greater magnitude than previously reported. During a mock election employing 96 such machines in California, almost one-third of the units had ...
[read more] to the top
Apple Offers a Mouse to Counteract the One-Button Blues
Apple Computer has changed its mouse form factor to accommodate multiple buttons instead of just one with its new Mighty Mouse offering. "The really interesting thing about Apple coming out with a multiple-button mouse now is it shows just how far the goal posts have moved in terms of ...
[read more] to the top
CMU Online Game Will be Used to Teach Computers to See
Carnegie Mellon University researchers are developing online games designed to advance computer technology. One such game is Peekaboom, whose goal is to help train computers to see through the interaction of two players. In Peekaboom, one player receives an image paired with a word that describes ...
[read more] to the top
'Virtual Clay'
University at Buffalo engineering professor Thenkurussi Kesavadas' "virtual clay" system integrates sculpture with 3D computer design through an interface that enables users to shape virtual objects on a computer screen by molding an actual lump of clay or Play-Doh using a sensor-equipped ...
[read more] to the top
Experts Warn on Cyber-Security
Purdue University computer-security professor Eugene Spafford and Akamai Technologies chief scientist Tom Leighton painted a bleak picture of U.S. cybersecurity before a panel of congressional staffers at a Tuesday event sponsored by the Congressional Research and Development Caucus. Leighton ...
[read more] to the top
Hackers Annihilate WiFi Record
The iFiber-Redwire team won the third annual Wi-Fi shootout contest at last week's DefCon hacker conference by sustaining an unamplified WiFi connection between a laptop on Nevada's 8,500-foot Mount Potosi and another on the 18-foot Utah Hill mound in Utah--a distance of almost 125 miles--for ...
[read more] to the top
The Fingerprint of Paper
A new deterrent for forgers and fraudsters could be in the making with British researchers' announcement last week of a relatively cheap method for distinguishing between authentic documents and counterfeits. The technique involves the laser scanning of a document, whose paper, ...
[read more] to the top
The Sniffer vs. the Cybercrooks
As the motivation for hackers shifts from the pursuit of bragging rights to high-stakes economic plundering, many corporations are enlisting the services of sniffers, security analysts who peer through the eyes of a hacker to exploit a system's vulnerabilities in the name of improving its ...
[read more] to the top
Who Should Run the Internet?
In this interview with the Washington Times, ICANN President Paul Twomey reacts to a new report assembled by the United Nations' 40-member Working Group on Internet governance (WGIG). The authors of the report failed to reach a consensus as to how the Internet should be run, but they did offer ...
[read more] to the top
Java Preps Dive Into Real-Time Role
Though still plagued by programming difficulties, real-time Java is making inroads into the mainstream. However, as the language moves to supplant traditional C-based codes, it still struggles for legitimacy, as a recent survey found that 9 percent of embedded developers are including a Java ...
[read more] to the top
HumanML: The Vision
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) is developing the Human markup language (HumanML) specification to more formally represent human traits (cultural, physical, psychological, and so on) and augment the fidelity of human communication by delivering ...
[read more] to the top
Healing Power
Emerging and existing technologies could help the U.S. electric grid become adaptive and more reliable, but cost, security, and other issues are hindering such enhancement. Among the technologies cited by industry experts is software that can predict demand by analyzing patterns of ...
[read more] to the top
Facing an Innovation Deficit
Some U.S. legislators believe a lack of innovation stemming from declining federal IT R&D budgets threatens to enervate America's economy, and they are organizing a National Conference on Science, Technology, Innovation, and Manufacturing to decide what steps should be taken to remedy this ...
[read more] to the top
Engineering EverQuest
Sony Online Entertainment's spectacularly successful EverQuest online role-playing game, which runs on upwards of 1,500 servers worldwide, exemplifies how a company manages accelerated growth and proficiency in scaling up computing technology. The EverQuest universe is made up of ...
[read more] to the top
Simulating Ancient Societies
Archaeologists are using computer simulations to model the forces that shaped the culture and history of ancient societies, one example being the use of agent-based software to simulate how environmental factors might have influenced the Anasazi civilization of the American Southwest. A ...
[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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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 2005 Information, Inc.
