Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the May 22, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week. For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this service, please see below. ACM's MemberNet is now online. For discussion (and voting) forums on current industry issues and the latest on ACM activities, visit http://www.acm.org/membernet Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion magazine, Ubiquity, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ACM TechNews Volume 4, Number 352 Date: May 22, 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by Compaq (http://www.compaq.com/smbcatalog) Compaq is the premier source for computing services, products and solutions. Responding to customers' requirements for quality and reliability at aggressive prices, Compaq offers performance-packed products and comprehensive services. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Stories for Wednesday, May 22, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "International Group Eyeing IT Security Principles, Standards" "Bell, Torvalds Usher Next Wave of Supercomputing" "Thinking Big About Nanotechnology" "Nanotech's Development Called Inevitable" "Semiconducting Materials Advance 'Spintronics'" "Dot-Kids Heads a Mess of Regs" "French Researchers Take Step Toward Quantum Computing" "Who Owns the Raw Data?" "Low PC Sales in India Could Hurt IT Ambitions" "IT Workers Poorly Skilled: Report" "New Delhi May Soften Stance on IT with China" "In the Future, We'll Be Seeing the World Differently" "A Knowing Look" "Imagine: World with Unlimited Airwaves" "Radio ID Tags: Beyond Bar Codes" "Making a Digital Government" "Bulgaria: The Next Offshore Frontier" "Where Innovation Lives!: Robot Reality" "Internet2" ******************* News Stories *********************** "International Group Eyeing IT Security Principles, Standards" The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is working on information security guidelines designed to aid the development of IT security specifications, best practices, and security legislation. FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, who leads ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item1 "Bell, Torvalds Usher Next Wave of Supercomputing" On Friday, Los Alamos National Laboratory debuted a supercomputer that uses hundreds of server blades that allow it to be more compact, energy-efficient, and cost effective than most machines of its ilk, according to Wu-chun Feng of Los Alamos' Research And ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item2 "Thinking Big About Nanotechnology" The popular view of nanotechnology envisions tiny machines performing amazing operations, such as molecule-sized robots that can clear blocked arteries, but Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report author Josh Wolfe says the most likely real-world nanotech ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item3 "Nanotech's Development Called Inevitable" Speakers at the NanoBusiness Spring 2002 conference such as inventor Ray Kurzweil said the inevitable advance of nanotechnology will make it pervasive within society by the 2020s. He predicted that the first pervasive nanotech ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item4 "Semiconducting Materials Advance 'Spintronics'" With the help of a $10 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's SpinS program, scientists from the University of Buffalo (UB) have created new semiconducting materials that function at room temperature and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item5 "Dot-Kids Heads a Mess of Regs" There has been a mad dash in the last week to pass or debate Internet regulation proposals before Congress adjourns for Memorial Day. Four Internet bills were approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in two days, including Sen. Fritz Hollings' ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item6 "French Researchers Take Step Toward Quantum Computing" CEA researchers in France have built an electronic element that could form the basic building block of quantum processors. The Quantronium, as it is called, is a circuit composed of an aluminum loop that represents a qubit (quantum bit). It ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item7 "Who Owns the Raw Data?" Internet technology has exacerbated the tension over the rights to raw data. Intellectual property advocates and database compilers say they have no protection against those that would copy wholesale their information on the Internet, and thus, no ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item8 "Low PC Sales in India Could Hurt IT Ambitions" India's PC sales will continue to lag behind those of China, despite forecasts of an upturn by Skoch Consultancy Services. The firm estimates that the economic slowdown and the dampening of IT career ambitions caused Indian PC sales to dip 6.3 percent ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item9 "IT Workers Poorly Skilled: Report" Internet Business Systems in Melbourne, Australia, reports a dramatic dearth of IT skills among job candidates--only two out of 100 can pass a simple evaluation of core programming principles and methods. "When we ask them a question about ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item10 "New Delhi May Soften Stance on IT with China" The Chinese market is ripe with opportunities for Indian IT companies, and a delegation's recent visit to China may help allay security fears that have stood in the way of Indian/Chinese collaboration. China's IT effort focuses on hardware, whereas ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item11 "In the Future, We'll Be Seeing the World Differently" New eyeglass computer displays promise to change the way people work and interact with one another. MicroOptical has been working on such products since 1995 with help from government grants and already has several products on the market. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item12 "A Knowing Look" University of Buffalo computer science professor Venu Govindaraju is pioneering a new type of biometrics based on a person's natural characteristics as they would be described by another person. The aim is to get computers to recognize people using ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item13 "Imagine: World with Unlimited Airwaves" Researcher and consultant David Reed argues that radio spectrum needs to be viewed as a virtually unlimited rather than finite resource, which runs contrary to general wisdom and questions the mission of the FCC. Speaking at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item14 "Radio ID Tags: Beyond Bar Codes" Researchers at MIT's Auto-ID Center are developing the next generation in consumer product identification that will allow computers to "see." Their work, radio ID tags, perform the same function as bar codes, but can be read automatically within five ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item15 "Making a Digital Government" Lawrence Brandt of the National Science Foundation's Digital Government project is looking for emerging technology that can help government do its job better. Notably, Brandt was the person with the NSF that identified and secured funding for the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item16 "Bulgaria: The Next Offshore Frontier" Bulgarian programmers are mixing fast service with cheap labor, a combination that has proven very lucrative for firms such as iConcepts, which operates in Philadelphia. "You could put together a team of [Bulgarian] programmers there for what you ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item17 "Where Innovation Lives!: Robot Reality" Deb Roy of MIT's Cognitive Machines Group is designing machines capable of speech and comprehending natural spoken language. Such machines would discover the meaning of words by interacting with their surrounding environment. "If you want to create a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item18 "Internet2" A collective of over 190 American universities, along with federal agencies and industry collaborators, are working on Internet2--an Internet upgrade designed to primarily serve the science and education community. Internet2 applications director ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0522w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0520m.html -- To visit the TechNews home page, point your browser to: http://www.acm.org/technews/ -- To unsubscribe from the ACM TechNews Early Alert Service: Please send a separate email to listserv@listserv2.acm.org 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. -- To submit feedback about ACM TechNews, contact: technews@hq.acm.org -- 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@acm.org 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@acm.org ---- ACM TechNews is sponsored by Compaq.