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ACM Technews for Wednesday, September 21, 2005

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ACM TechNews
September 21, 2005

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HEADLINES AT A GLANCE:

  • "Commission Recommends Voting Safeguards"
    Federal Computer Week (09/19/05); Hardy, Michael

    The Commission on Federal Election Reform issued a nine-page report on Sept. 19 listing recommendations designed to safeguard the voting process. The commission calls for interoperability between state voter databases in order to allow the easy exchange of information on voters who have... more

  • "NSF, Iowa State to Launch Cybersecurity Center"
    IDG News Service (09/19/05); Gross, Grant

    The Center for Information Protection is a joint effort between Iowa State University, the National Science Foundation, and private businesses to address short-term cybersecurity issues, says Iowa State engineering professor Doug Jacobson. The Iowa State-based center will be dissimilar... more

  • "Restoring the Popularity of Computer Science"
    ZDNet (09/20/05); Windley, Phil

    ACM President David Patterson wrote in the September issue of Communications of the ACM about the waning popularity of computer science among students. Patterson identified the last six years as a period of steady decline in students' embrace of computer science as a field of study, with women demonstrating the lowest levels of interest ever. Citing ... more

  • "Writers Sue Google, Accusing It of Copyright Violation"
    New York Times (09/21/05) P. C3; Wyatt, Edward

    Google's Print Library program has been targeted by a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by three authors and the Authors Guild trade group yesterday. Google's project seeks to digitize library collections into a searchable archive, and each plaintiff claims copyright of at least one literary work contained in one of the libraries participating in the program. Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken said the plaintiffs... more

  • "Where Jobs Are and Students Aren't"
    Globe and Mail (CAN) (09/21/05) P. C1; Akkad, Omar El

    Increasing numbers of North American students and graduates are turning away from tech industry careers, under the impression that job opportunities are scarce due to the industry bubble's implosion. But industry experts contend that the sector is recovering and facing a workforce shortfall as colleges churn out fewer tech employees and more current workers approach retirement age. CNC Global reports that demand... more

  • "Telling You What You Like"
    Los Angeles Times (09/20/05); Pham, Alex; Healey, Jon

    The sheer volume of product available online is so great that consumers are relying on "preference engines" to find other items that might appeal to them, and the accuracy of the engines' recommendations has improved with technological advancements and the inclusion of human feedback. The most commonplace recommendation tools use collaborative filtering, a method designed to boost sales by taking products bought by people with similar... more

  • "Computer Science Prof Wins MacArthur 'Genius Award'"
    Cornell Daily Sun (NY) (09/21/05); Gura, David Austin

    Cornell University professor Jon Kleinberg has won a $500,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, partly on the strength of his research into network theory. The MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "Genius Award," is given to researchers who stand out in terms of accomplishment, creativity, potential, and prominence. Kleinberg... more

  • "Closing the Gender Gap"
    Computer Weekly (09/20/05); Hall, Wendy

    University of Southampton computer science professor Wendy Hall cites a British Computer Society (BCS) survey of U.K. schoolgirls concluding that girls' interest in computing and IT is being discouraged by their perception of IT careers as tedious and unrewarding, indicating the failure of career advisors and the IT profession to communicate to girls that IT careers are more exciting, diverse, and fulfilling than they think. Gender... more

  • "From Ape to 'Homo Digitas'?"
    CNet (09/20/05); Olsen, Stephanie

    Jonathan Zittrain of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School has dubbed the modern, computer-driven human "Homo digitas," though there is scarce evidence that this modern man is any more intelligent than the Homo sapien from which he evolved. It is easy to point to the staggering progress that has been made in such areas as software development, where a few programmers can now create systems at a fraction of the cost and much more quickly than large corporations could in... more

  • "Bot Builders Scramble for Cash"
    Wired News (09/21/05); Grebb, Michael

    Despite an abundance of innovative robots developed by U.S. institutions at a National Science Foundation conference on Friday, a report from the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC) announced at the event finds America's robotics research lagging behind Asia and Europe. University of Southern California computer science professor George Bekey said funding for robotics research has been declining in the United States for at least the... more

  • "Harnessing Supercomputer Power"
    Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) (09/20/05); Meredith, Helen

    There is a worldwide movement to tap the resources of supercomputers in order to accelerate innovation and improve results across a wide swath of scientific and industrial fields. In Australia, this movement is represented by such organizations as the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing and the Queensland Parallel Supercomputing Foundation (QPSF), which will co-host a conference on the Queensland Gold Coast next week. QPSF is a consortium of a half-dozen local universities and their... more

  • "How Open Source Gave Power to the People"
    Financial Times - FTIT Survey (09/21/05) P. 1; Waters, Richard

    Open source movements have redefined the course of the Internet's development, hinging on collaboration of like-minded people willing to share their ideas and eager to learn from each other. This new mode of innovation is epitomized by Linux and other open source movements that have tapped into a collective brain trust and shaken fee and licensing structures to their core. The Internet holds other examples that are... more

  • "New Program Aims to Woo More Kids Into IT Careers"
    InformationWeek (09/14/05); McGee, Marianne Kolbasuk

    Increasing the appeal of IT careers to kids is the goal of Accelerate IT, a national educational outreach program sponsored by Microsoft and the Society for Information Management (SIM). The program will host half-day seminars for college students, first at Pace University in New York and later at Northwestern University in the Boston area. Microsoft's Mike Maas says local Microsoft executives and regional SIM members will lead the seminars with the aim of debunking various "myths" about the IT profession,... more

  • "Colleges Increasing Study of Computer, Information Ethics"
    Oregon State University News (09/16/05); Stauth, David

    The ethical side of computer science and information technology has its own field at many universities, and Oregon State holds a vanguard position in this discipline largely thanks to the efforts of OSU computer science professor Michael Quinn, author of the popular textbook, "Ethics for the Information Age." Quinn says improvements in computer technology and the Internet over the past two decades have broadened the spectrum of ethical and lifestyle concerns, and students need to carefully explore the various... more

  • "And Now, the War Forecast"
    Economist Technology Quarterly (09/05) Vol. 376, No. 8444, P. 22

    The Tactical Numerical Deterministic Model (TNDM) was designed by the Dupuy Institute to project the likely outcomes of armed conflicts. The software is considerably more accurate than other war-forecasting programs because it relies on actual combat data rather than results from battle simulations, and also has the ability to factor in intangible variables such as cunning, fear, bravery, and especially initiative. The TNDM taps a massive historical combat database. Researchers arduously sift through... more

  • "XRIs Resolve Identity Management Dilemma"
    Network World (09/12/05) Vol. 22, No. 36, P. 43; McAlpin, Dave

    The many benefits of identity management can be undermined by difficulties in their implementation. OASIS has developed a solution to identity management interoperability problems known as the Extensible Resource Identifier (XRI), which creates a commonality among all different types of corporate identifiers, including people, network devices, and corporate assets. XRIs expand on Ubiquitous Resource Identifiers (URIs) and Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs) through the definition of... more

  • "Privacy and Prejudice: Whose ID Is It Anyway?"
    New Scientist (09/17/05) Vol. 187, No. 2517, P. 20; Graham-Rowe, Duncan

    Biometric IDs that establish a quick and secure method for remotely authenticating a person's identity are deemed a necessary step in view of the expanding Internet society, but a study from the European Commission's Joint Research Center warns that this move will bring with it numerous social, legal, and political issues that society is unprepared for. The failure of biometric technology could carry serious consequences: People misidentified by biometric software might be denied access to critical... more

  • "LAMP Lights Enterprise Development Efforts"
    Computer (09/05) Vol. 38, No. 9, P. 18; Lawton, George

    A platform of open-source software development tools known as the LAMP stack is penetrating the enterprise thanks to a wealth of advantages over proprietary application-development tools, including greater flexibility, lower costs, and quicker upgrades to component technologies; ease of use and reliability are also cited as pluses. LAMP is comprised of the Linux operating system, Apache Web server, MySQL database, and the Perl, PHP, and Python scripting languages. Vendors have been improving these technologies... more

  • "Understanding Seeking From Electronic Knowledge Repositories: A Empirical Study"
    Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (2005) Vol. 56, No. 11, P. 1156; Kankanhalli, Atreyi; Tan, Bernard C.Y.; Wei, Kwok-Kee

    Knowledge management (KM) technologies and programs are being utilized by organizations around the world to maintain their competitive advantage, and these organizations store codified knowledge for future reuse in electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs). Despite the importance of EKR usage to fully realizing the benefits of KM, few people understand the impetus behind employees' use of EKRs. Researchers at the National University of Singapore conceived and empirically tested a theoretical model relating... more

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