Too Darned Big to
Test
Virtual-Reality Movies Put
a New Face on 'User-Friendly'
University at Buffalo researchers are developing
increasingly "self-aware" computational agents that can ad-lib
responses to human users' spontaneous actions in order to make
movies and other forms of entertainment more interactive and
user friendly, a breakthrough that is also expected to ...
[read more]
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The GIMP at a
Crossroads
Jozsef Mak contends that the GIMP open-source bitmap editor
will have limited usability unless its graphical user
interface becomes more supportive of fundamental
human-computer interaction standards, and notes that senior
open source proponents are urging for unified user interface
...
[read more]
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Eclipse Lights Up Java
Crowd
The Eclipse software development project has signed on BEA
Systems, Sybase, and Borland International as board members,
solidifying the open source platform's role as the leading
source of innovation for Java tools. Less than one year ago,
IBM rivals painted Eclipse as a Trojan horse meant to ...
[read more]
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Poll: U.S. Has Conservative
Tack on Innovation
An A.T. Kearney survey of over 300 technology executives
finds a prevailing conservative attitude toward innovation
that chiefly emphasizes existing services and products, even
though executives consider innovation to be critical to
sustaining competitiveness. A.T. Kearney's John Ciachella ...
[read more]
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A Visit to the InfoGraphics
Lab
The University of Oregon's InfoGraphics Lab focuses on the
integration of GIS and graphic design tools with cartographic
design. The lab has three areas of concentration: Public
service, such as research and mapping initiatives for state
agencies; support for faculty research; and campus ...
[read more]
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Grand
Ambitions
Institutions and organizations throughout Australia are
identifying and working on grand challenges, which are complex
scientific and engineering problems with wide-ranging societal
effects that can only be solved via high-performance
computing. Quantum computing, nanotechnology, "swarm" ...
[read more]
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No More Crash-Test
Surgery
Surgery could enter a new era with patient computer
modeling techniques being developed by Stanford engineer
Charles Taylor and collaborators. An accurate simulation of
patients would allow surgeons to predict how their systems
would react to surgical procedures and determine which
surgical ...
[read more]
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Women Making Strides in IT
Sector
Canada's association of information technology
professionals plans to address the under-representation of
women in the IT industry during its fifth annual "Women in IT:
Looking Towards the Future" program. The series of nine
Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) events across
the ...
[read more]
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Software Learns to
Translate by Reading Up
Kevin Knight of the University of Southern California's
Information Sciences Institute said his new translation
software is in line with the new direction of machine
learning. Speaking at the American Association for the
Advancement of Science meeting in Washington, D.C., Knight
said the ...
[read more]
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Mobile Networks Seek Turbo
Boost
Third-generation (3G) mobile networks will need to be
dramatically faster if they are to appeal to users of
broadband Internet connectivity that offers 0.5 Mbps of
throughput, which overtakes current 3G networks significantly.
A commercial 1 Gbps system could be up to seven years away,
...
[read more]
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Microsoft Researchers Use
Machine Learning Techniques to Help Advance HIV Vaccine
Research
Microsoft Research is applying computer science algorithms
to HIV vaccine development at the University of Perth in
Australia and the University of Washington. The two
universities are pursuing related approaches to developing an
HIV vaccine based on specific identifying proteins called ...
[read more]
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Thwarting 'Evil
Geniuses'
Blue Water Technologies CEO John Shovic teaches
computer-science majors at Eastern Washington University about
cyberthreats and their perpetrators so that they can shield
themselves against such dangers. He teaches four courses: The
first two detail computer network operations, the deployment
...
[read more]
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VoIP Without
Wires
Office phones are gradually becoming mobile thanks to the
convergence of VoIP telephony and 802.11 wireless local area
networks (LANs), although widespread adoption is currently
impeded by high costs and connectivity issues. The challenges
of wireless VoIP deployment include substantial ...
[read more]
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Meet Me in
Cyberspace
Online collaboration has taken off with new Web
applications that allow geographically dispersed teams to
share information quickly without leaving their normal work
routines. Whereas e-meetings were seen as solutions for
tightened travel budgets a few years ago, they are now
preferred methods ...
[read more]
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More Bits in
Pits
Whereas conventional DVDs that use red lasers to encode
data as pits in the disk's surface have a maximum storage
capacity of 4.7 GB per layer, forthcoming blue-laser DVDs that
use smaller pits will be able to store up to 15 GB or 25 GB
per layer, depending on the format. However, researchers ...
[read more]
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Advances in Voice
Recognition
Voice recognition technology is imperfect, but an essential
tool for people with disabilities that prevent them from using
a keyboard and mouse, writes Hi-Tech Inventions senior partner
Janine Lodato, who has multiple sclerosis and uses IBM's
ViaVoice software. As the technology improves and is ...
[read more]
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The Super Bowl of
Smart
Junior high and high school students from around the world
participate in the annual First (For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition,
in which hundreds of teams assemble machines out of a standard
kit of 300-plus components in six weeks and pit ...
[read more]
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Too Darned Big to
Test
As software grows bigger and more complicated and
concurrency and distributed systems become commonplace,
handcrafted tests become a less reliable means of spotting
bugs, writes Keith Stobie, a test architect in Microsoft's XML
Web Services group. Keeping test methods economical ...
[read more]
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