Why Your Data Won't Mix
"Why Are Tech Gizmos So Hard to Figure out?"
In response to the proliferation of features embedded in gadgets that are often poorly explained by instruction manuals and counter-intuitive to use, an emerging body of usability advocates is attempting to influence the way technology companies design their products. The Usability Professionals' ...
[read more] to the top
"Internet Postings Targeted in Court"
Today a Maryland appeals court will hear testimony concerning whether an Internet user's identity could be unveiled if he makes disparaging remarks in chat rooms or on message boards in a case that may add to the growing raft of legal discourse concerning free speech and the Internet. The case ...
[read more] to the top
"Sony CD Protection Sparks Security Concerns"
Sony uses a cloaking tool known as a rootkit to shield its copy protection software on its CDs, a technique that is not inherently dangerous, but is often used by virus writers to obscure their activities on a computer. While the threat rootkits on CDs pose to computers is still largely ...
[read more] to the top
"Computer Scientists Create 'Light Field Camera' Banishing Fuzzy Photos"
A team of Stanford researchers has developed a light field camera that can create photographs whose subjects universally appear in sharp focus, regardless of their depth. Presented at the 2005 ACM SIGGRAPH conference in August, the light field camera is a modified version of traditional ...
[read more] to the top
"A Not-So-Simple Matter of Software"
Despite the numerous and significant achievements of computer science throughout the 20th century, the field is still in its infancy. The software and algorithms at the core of the discipline are the most ripe for growth, and will require the attention of the community, despite the ...
[read more] to the top
"Data Security Laws Seem Likely, So Consumers and Businesses Vie to Shape Them"
In response to a rise in data security breaches this year, more than a dozen bills have been introduced in Congress, but the data brokering industry and consumer and data privacy groups disagree about how far-reaching any new federal regulations should be. Companies that ...
[read more] to the top
"Broadcast Flag Bill Writers Run Drafts Up the Pole"
The authors of broadcast flag legislation that would prohibit the uploading of digital content onto the Internet and regulate its conversion to analog format are circulating drafts of three bills authorizing federal agencies to impose the proposed restrictions among the House Judiciary Committee. ...
[read more] to the top
"GMU's Harry Wechsler"
IEEE Fellow and director of George Mason University's Distributed and Intelligence Computation Center Harry Wechsler is interested in increasing computer intelligence by training machines to recognize patterns, often through learning by example. He foresees both positive and negative trends ...
[read more] to the top
"U.S. Mulls New Digital Signature Standard"
A shockwave reverberated throughout the data security community earlier this year when a team of Chinese researchers exposed a flaw in the 10-year-old Secure Hashing Algorithm, or SHA-1, which has long served as the official standard for creating and verifying digital signatures. The ...
[read more] to the top
"Rensselaer Researcher Awarded DARPA Funding to Improve Terrain Maps"
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Rensselaer associate professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering W. Randolph Franklin $845,000 to produce better terrain models of the Earth and other surfaces, with a broad variety of potential ...
[read more] to the top
"Q&A: Kris Pister"
While current RFID technologies only indicate the location of an item the last time it was checked, Dust Networks co-founder Kris Pister believes that instant-identification RFID sensors are only a few years away, and with them will come a torrent of attention from the business community that ...
[read more] to the top
"IRC Channel as Startup Incubator"
The Instant Relay Chat channel #Winprog has spawned some of the most cutting edge software created in recent years. The channel helped Shawn Fanning refine preliminary versions of Napster, and served as a consultancy for Gnutella's Justin Frankel as he wrote Winamp. Many involved with the ...
[read more] to the top
"The Computer of the Future"
Computer experts believe the home depicted in the 1960s cartoon "The Jetsons" could soon become the norm, considering the rapid growth of computer power and miniaturization. "Imagine all sorts of appliances that know when to turn themselves on and off, toasters that respond to a spoken ...
[read more] to the top
"Google Will Return to Scanning Copyrighted Library Books"
Google will return to scanning copyrighted library books despite opposition from several publishers, after suspending its scanning operations in August in order to give publishers a chance to ask that their works not be scanned. The move has created tension and controversy over how copyright ...
[read more] to the top
"Diversification of the IT Department"
The number of racial minorities and women filling information technology-related positions remains low, but companies are still actively looking for such candidates to join their workforce. Media company Scripps Network introduced a policy last year that ties 5 percent of the bonuses of ...
[read more] to the top
"Attack of the Quantum Worms"
Researchers say the emergence of quantum malware is an inevitability, but only recently has serious debate about protecting computers from such programs started, compared to the decades of research and billions of dollars already committed to quantum computer development. Quantum ...
[read more] to the top
"DARPA Scientists Seek Next Generation of Wireless Data Networking"
The high-tech industry has until November 2, 2005, to submit proposals to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., regarding the development of a control-based wireless network. Such next-generation networking would enable users to access wireless resources ...
[read more] to the top
"Using Machine Learning to Support Quality Judgments"
Myra Custard and Tamara Sumner of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Department of Computer Science outline a methodology to automate quality assessments of digital library resources and collections using machine-learning techniques. The authors undertook a pilot study to devise ...
[read more] to the top
"Why Your Data Won't Mix"
A critical step in building applications that share data is the resolution of semantic heterogeneity among multiple database systems, a problem compounded by the presence of semi-structured data. Reasons for this include the fact that applications that involve such data usually involve ...
[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.
