Pushing the Limit
"CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's"
Sony has announced that it will recall millions of CDs that contain the rootkit vulnerability embedded in its copy protection software. Sony is expected to lose tens of millions of dollars from the recall, and has set up an email address and a toll-free number for inquiries. The company has ...
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"Behind 'Shortage' of Engineers: Employers Grow More Choosy"
While concern over a perceived shortage of engineers has reached a fever pitch, and led to calls for increased government funding for math and science education, some analysts argue that it is a myth, and that in fact there is a surplus of labor in the technology industry. Recruiters report ...
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"A Compromise of Sorts on Internet Control"
Representatives from nations around the world meeting in Tunisia to decide the future of Internet governance reached an agreement that calls for evolutionary change in the control of the network, though it leaves the current situation unchanged in the short term. The central issue of ...
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"Joint Industry and Government Initiative to Demonstrate Long Distance InfiniBand at SC05"
Several computer companies and research groups affiliated with the OpenIB Alliance have announced that they will demonstrate computing devices powered by InfiniBand technology at this week's ACM-sponsored SC05 conference. The use of the interconnect standard will showcase its ability ...
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"Democrats Release Technology Agenda"
House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) disclosed the House Democrats' proposed "innovation agenda" for reinvigorating U.S. competitiveness at a Tuesday news conference. Goals set forth in the agenda include a 100 percent increase in federal funding to expand ...
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"Can Europe Still Compete in Technology?"
CEOs from across Europe recently gathered at the annual European Technology Roundtable (ETRE) to discuss the future of the continent amid the emergence of Asian powers China and India and the continued predominance of the United States. While Europe was once at the forefront of innovation, ...
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"Microsoft Supersizes Windows"
Microsoft is making its first foray into the realm of supercomputing with its Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, to be unveiled at this week's SC05 conference in Seattle. Clusters comprise roughly 10 percent of all server sales, and Microsoft sees a growing market in research-oriented companies, ...
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"Narrowing the Digital Divide"
A movement that uses high-speed Internet connections to help in the treatment of AIDS patients in Africa known as the Digital Solidarity Fund is aligning technology funding with social movements to cure diseases and eliminate poverty and illiteracy, though it is most notable for its ...
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"Linus's World"
When the Australian hacker Andrew Tridgell reverse engineered BitKeeper, Linus Torvalds responded to the ensuing firestorm by creating his own management tool from scratch, apparently resolving the most serious threat the Linux kernel had ever faced. BitMover's BitKeeper had been ...
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"High-Speed College Network Closes"
The Web site of the i2Hub network now reads "R.I.P. 11.14.2005," and service founder Wayne Chang says it was shut down due to legal pressure from the entertainment industry. The file-swapping service was designed to take advantage of the next-generation Internet2 research network and allow ...
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"Supreme Court Poised to Take the Initiative in Patent Law Reform"
As many as four cases will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, the first case as early 2006, to decide the procedure and requirements for granting patents to domestic and foreign businesses, which some say is too lenient and leads to expensive lawsuits. The task of rewriting patent laws was ...
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"Consumers Fight Copy Protection"
The Brussels-based consumer umbrella organization BEUC this week called on the European Commission to strengthen the rights of consumers who use CDs and DVDs. The call comes at a time when the issue of copyright infringement remains unresolved on the continent. Although the European ...
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"Supporting a Vision for the Future of Networked Audovisual Systems"
The Avista program recommends that Europe must focus on standardization and content when producing the next generation of interconnected audiovisual systems. Avista has encouraged collaboration among experts and developed a new platform for Networked and Electronic Media (NEM). The program ...
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"Not Invented Here"
There is a widespread fear in the scientific community that a declining interest in research and innovation throughout the private sector and the government will cause the United States to fall behind its foreign competitors who are increasing their research funding at a time when it is ...
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"Tech Guru O'Reilly Mashes It Up"
In a recent interview, technology expert Tim O'Reilly discussed his thoughts on the open source movement. Proprietary PC software did not emerge until the 1980s with the ascendancy of companies such as Microsoft and Oracle, though Richard Stallman's founding of the Free Software ...
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"Dispiriting Days for EEs"
The recent "Insight 2005" survey conducted by EE Times involving 4,083 online respondents found that engineers are concerned about job outsourcing, reduced pay increases, and a lack of respect. Kerry McClenahan of McClenahan Bruer Communications said insulting labels such as ...
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"Java Meets Its Match"
Scripting languages such as Ajax and PHP could vie for Java's throne in the Web-services application development arena, as they enable faster development and prototyping of applications. Development communities are springing up around scripting languages, whose value is increasing for IT ...
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"Bring Back the Color"
Xerox has developed new technology that would allow a user of a black-and-white printer, fax, or copier to recover the colors of an original image. Normally, the colors are converted to shades of gray, making it difficult to interpret the graphics of pie charts and bar charts, ...
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"Pushing the Limit"
A key ingredient in the reliable transmission of data across the gulf of space as well as more terrestrial environs is superefficient error-correcting codes theorized by scientist Claude Shannon almost 60 years ago. Practical approaches to building such codes, which are known as ...
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