A Conversation With Sam
Leffler
EU Approves Software Patent
Changes
Many amendments to the European Union's Software Patents
Directive the European Parliament introduced in 2003 to set
limits on software patents have been overruled by the European
Council's May 18 decision to approve a revised version of the
directive, according to a representative of the ...
[read more]
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Fine-Tuning Spam
Filtering
Unsolicited commercial email has expanded by more than five
times its volume since 2001, and though spam filtering
solutions help mitigate the problem, they are not
foolproof--and worse, they can unintentionally prevent
legitimate email from getting through, often without the user
...
[read more]
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EU Seeks Quantum
Cryptography Response to Echelon
The European Union is launching a four-year project to
develop long-distance quantum cryptography: The aim of the $13
million program is to deter espionage systems, such as the
U.S.-operated Echelon electronic eavesdropping system that
collects intelligence data for the United States, ...
[read more]
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ACM's SIGGRAPH 2004
Emerging Technologies Presents 28 Interactive Installations
That Explore the Theme of Enhancing Life
The enhancement of life is a theme that will be
demonstrated in 28 interactive installations set up by
research labs, independent artists, universities, and industry
for ACM's SIGGRAPH 2004 Emerging Technologies exhibition
scheduled for August 8-12 in Los Angeles. SIGGRAPH 2004 ...
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Panel Urges New Protection
on Federal 'Data Mining'
The Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee recommended
in a report to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that
legislative safeguards be set up to shield Americans' civil
liberties when the government mines data files and computer
records for evidence of terrorist activity. "Our nation ...
[read more]
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Visionary Computers May Put
Hockey on Cell Phones
University of Calgary computer scientist Dr. Jeffrey Boyd
and his team of students have created a prototype "smart
camera" with computer vision technology whose applications are
being developed and tested using hockey. The system converts
on-screen movement to computer language via a ...
[read more]
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IT Is Still It, Grads
Find
Despite dire forecasts of a major migration of IT jobs to
low-wage countries, computer science graduates are finding
that there are still plenty of tech job opportunities,
although the practice of wooing students while still in school
has died down. "The IT industry as a whole will ...
[read more]
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Camera Phones Link World to
Web
Canadian programmer Simon Woodside recently released
Semacode, a free system that allows camera phones to link to
URLs that could be put up anywhere, in theory. Semacodes
consist of standard URLs rendered as two-dimensional Data
Matrix bar codes, while text URLs are converted into ...
[read more]
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Kansas State University
Computer Science Professor Receives NSF Career Award for
Research on Robotic Teams
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given Kansas
State University computer science professor Scott DeLoach a
five-year, $450,000 CAREER Award to be channeled into research
toward the improvement of robotic teamwork. "There are many
applications for cooperative robotic teams, ...
[read more]
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Semantic Web to Take
Center Stage at ACM's WWW2004
ACM's World Wide Web Conference taking place in New York
this week features discussion about the Semantic Web, a
concept that will add intelligence to the Web through the use
of metadata. The Semantic Web would enable computers to not
only identify, but also understand content ...
[read more]
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Language of Science Lags
Behind Nanotech
One of the key challenges of nanotechnology--beyond
creating it--is finding a widely acceptable terminology for
the invention. Often inventors have come up with whimsical
names for nanotech, a tradition that dates back to the use of
the term "buckeyball" to describe complex molecules that ...
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Ex-Dean Aide Gets New Life
in Valley
University of Illinois computer-science student and onetime
aide of former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean
is turning the online collaboration software he co-developed
for the Dean campaign into a "grass-roots organizing tool kit"
for activists through the CivicSpace Labs ...
[read more]
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Teen Techies Engineer the
Future
Over 1,300 students from 40 nations gathered in Portland,
Ore., last week to participate in the 55th annual Intel
International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), which
awards college scholarships in the hopes of motivating
high-school students to pursue careers in science and ...
[read more]
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Makers of White-Box
Supercomputers Hit Their Stride
Small supercomputing firms have started to gain on their
larger rivals and nab high-profile contracts because of their
expertise with building sophisticated clusters relatively
cheaply using standardized components and open-source Linux
software. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's ...
[read more]
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Big Blue Says Breakthrough
Means Millipede May Crawl Out of Lab
IBM has built a working prototype of the Millipede quantum
storage chip, a silicon-based microelectromechanical device
comprised of an array of cantilevers that use heated probes to
"prick" data into the storage medium as well as read it. The
company believes that the heated tip technique ...
[read more]
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Cutter Summit: Update on
Agility
Advocates of agile modeling want agile practices to
encompass management, according to Jim Highsmith, author of
Adaptive Software Development and Agile Software Development
Ecosystems, and a founding member of the AgileAlliance. Agile
modeling is somewhat at a crossroads as its practices ...
[read more]
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IT Alliance: Japan, Korea,
China Aim to Jointly Counter U.S.
Dominance
U.S. information technology standards could face some
challenges from protocols that result from alliances between
Japan, Korea, and China. Representatives from the three
countries are set to gather in July for a communications
policy meeting in which a common fourth-generation ...
[read more]
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Is Nanotech Ready for Its
Close-Up?
Despite heavy funding into nanotechnology projects and
companies from venture capitalists and the federal government,
nanotech's most notable accomplishments are pedestrian in
nature (moisturizer additives, stain-resistant pants, etc.),
and are coming out of firmly established ...
[read more]
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A Conversation With Sam
Leffler
Independent consultant Sam Leffler, who has made valuable
contributions to Unix and the Berkeley Software Distribution,
explains that when comparing the open source software
development model to the closed-source model, it is the people
involved rather than the models themselves that determine the
...
[read more]
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