Embedded App Dev at the
Crossroads
'Spear Phishing' Tests
Educate People About Online Scams
To raise user awareness of online scams designed to trick
them into revealing sensitive information to data thieves and
other miscreants, organizations such as the U.S. Military
Academy are conducting exercises in which people are sent
phony emails disguised as official requests to link ...
[read more]
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Diving Deep Into the
Web
The bulk of the documents comprising the Web cannot be
retrieved by most search engines because they reside in
databases that are inaccessible to Web crawlers, but Glenbrook
Networks claims to have developed a search engine that can
successfully mine this "deep Web." Julia Komissarchik, who ...
[read more]
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New Law May Tighten Power
Plant Security
The energy bill that President Bush signed last week
authorizes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to
establish mandatory standards to shield electric power systems
from cyberattacks and other disturbances that could lead to
instability or failures. FERC is required to set up an ...
[read more]
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Drive for Robot Autonomy
Key Trend in Global Emerging Robotics
Technology
Companies' decision to move robots from indoor to outdoor
environments is spurring a global trend to develop machines
with greater autonomy so they can arrive at more logical
decisions independently. Robotics is a critical element of
ground warfare and other defense applications, where autonomy
is ...
[read more]
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Electronic Skin to Give
Robots Human-Like Touch
University of Tokyo researchers led by Takao Someya have
developed a thin plastic film embedded with sensors that could
serve as a flexible electronic skin for robots that imparts
human-like tactile sensations. Pressure- and
temperature-sensitive transistors are arrayed in a matrix, ...
[read more]
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Academia's Quest for the
Ultimate Search Tool
Many issues that have cropped up in the wake of Internet
search's explosive growth are a focus of academic research,
and the University of California at Berkeley is launching an
interdisciplinary facility for advanced search technologies.
The center will involve the participation of approximately ...
[read more]
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Virtual Facilitator Could
Help Teams Solve Problems Faster, Say UMR
Researchers
University of Missouri-Rolla professors Ray Luechtefeld and
Steve Watkins have developed a virtual facilitator that could
improve team performance by encouraging the sharing of ideas
and adherence to an agenda. Luechtefeld says a trial involving
100 student teams demonstrated significant ...
[read more]
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Web Access May Be as Close
as an Electrical Outlet
As an alternative to the cable and phone companies, the
established network of electrical wires, which reaches
virtually every home in the United States, may be the vehicle
to achieve universal Internet connectivity. IBM, Google, and
other corporate backers have been leading trial projects ...
[read more]
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Email Authentication: Holy
Grail or Lost Cause
Email began innocently enough as a simple tool to send text
messages between networked computers; now, like so much else
about the Internet, its use has become corrupted by hackers
and scammers who seek to use email for their own profit
through schemes to steal unsuspecting users' identities. ...
[read more]
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Electronic U.S. Passports
Coming in December
The U.S. State Department recently announced that
electronic passports will start being issued in December. Each
passport will be outfitted with a chip in its cover: The chip
will contain all the information about the bearer held in
current paper passports, along with a digital signature and
...
[read more]
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Becker on Linux,
Clustering, Grid
Don Becker, founder and chief scientist of Scyld Software,
recently expressed his beliefs that Linux needs improvement at
the operating system level, that grids are still only
marginally accepted, and that small and large companies need
to move toward an embrace of clustering software. ...
[read more]
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Graduate Enrollment in
Science and Engineering Rises Over All, But Drops for Foreign
Students
A National Science Foundation report issued on Aug. 10
concludes that graduate enrollment in science and engineering
at U.S. colleges rose 4 percent overall between fall 2002 and
fall 2003, although there was a notable decrease in foreign
student enrollments. Whereas annual foreign ...
[read more]
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I.T. Staff Shortage
Looming
As the perception of careers in IT has been tarnished by
the dot-com collapse and widespread offshoring of jobs to
India and China, many IT positions at home may go unfilled.
The approaching retirement of baby boomers and declining
enrollment in IT worry Phil Zweig with the Society ...
[read more]
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Johns Hopkins-Led Center
Will Study, Develop Voting Technologies
The National Science Foundation announced on Aug. 15 that
it would pledge $7.5 million over five years to establish A
Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and
Transparent Elections (ACCURATE), a facility for a
multidisciplinary effort to make e-voting technology more
trustworthy and ...
[read more]
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User-Process Model
Approach to Improve User Interface
Usability
Boryung Ju of Louisiana State University's School of
Library and Information Science and Myke Gluck of the Virginia
Military Institute's department of math and computer science
propose a reorganized software menu interface based on users'
direct input. Their study yields important ...
[read more]
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Embedded App Dev at the
Crossroads
Commercial and open-source IDEs are emerging as the
preferred programming environment for embedded programmers and
enterprise codejockeys, two software development groups that
are often at odds. Borland Software's Raj Seghal reports that
"now [programmers] typically have more resources, in ...
[read more]
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