Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the May 29, 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 354 Date: May 29, 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 29, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Instant Messaging at Work Can Open Door to Hackers" "Supreme Court Bolsters Protections for Patents" "ITAA's Job Stats Doubted, Questions Raised About H1-B Quotas" "Tech Companies Vie for Billions in Homeland Security Deals" "Down in the Valley" "A Changed IT World" "A Sudden Host of Questions on Bell Labs Breakthroughs" "From Junkie to, Well, Junkman" "Lieberman to Visit Bay Area in Push for Broadband Strategy" "From Database to 3D, a New Vision Thing" "More Wireless Trends in the Making" "Waiting for Wi-Fi: Europeans Trail U.S. in Wireless Net Hubs" "Venture Capitalists Still on the Lookout for New Technologies" "Talking Heads Get Real Mouths" "The Incredible Shrinking PC" "Graduate Tech Classes Slump As Creative Writing Courses Gain: Survey" "Passwords: The Weakest Link" "The Incredible Shrinking Form Factor" "Workforce Glass Half Full and Half Empty" "Economic Bust, Patent Boom" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Instant Messaging at Work Can Open Door to Hackers" Free instant messaging (IM) systems pose a security risk for corporate computer networks, especially since employees may use them to send and receive messages of a sensitive nature. Such systems lack fundamental security components in order to promote ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item1 "Supreme Court Bolsters Protections for Patents" The Supreme Court on Monday unamiously overturned a 1999 appeals court ruling that did not allow investors to amend their patent applications and still retain access to protection from the "doctrine of equivalents," which prevents the creation of a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item2 "ITAA's Job Stats Doubted, Questions Raised About H1-B Quotas" American IT professionals are criticizing the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) of providing false statistical projections as evidence of the need to maintain or raise the cap of H1-B visas granted to foreign workers. The ITAA ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item3 "Tech Companies Vie for Billions in Homeland Security Deals" Technology companies want a piece of the homeland security pie by developing and marketing new technologies designed to aid the war on terrorism. Such technologies include facial recognition systems currently being used in about a dozen airports; biometric ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item4 "Down in the Valley" Silicon Valley's business model may not recover from the current tech slump, which has led to a precipitous tumble in sales, venture capital, and new businesses. The factors that previously made Silicon Valley an unrivaled financial success and center for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item5 "A Changed IT World" The technology job market in Minneapolis has changed significantly as a result of the dot-com and telecom meltdowns, as well as Sept. 11: Salaries have fallen, finding a job takes longer, and employers now call the shots in terms of negotiation. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item6 "A Sudden Host of Questions on Bell Labs Breakthroughs" Bell Labs scientist Dr. J. Hendrik Schon is under investigation for scientific misconduct because several papers detailing different experiments feature graphs with nearly identical data; this has prompted researchers to call into question Dr. Schon's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item7 "From Junkie to, Well, Junkman" James Burgett heads the Alameda County Computer Resource Center, one of the country's biggest nonprofit computer recycling facilities. His company is refurbishing computers and freely distributing them to needy people worldwide, as well as building ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item8 "Lieberman to Visit Bay Area in Push for Broadband Strategy" Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) will visit Silicon Valley this week to release a "white paper" report on the importance of broadband, and the need for government to help make high-speed Internet access available to all Americans. A draft copy of the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item9 "From Database to 3D, a New Vision Thing" Boston University has developed a large 3D display system that allows researchers to see their experiments before actually testing them out. The Deep Vision Display Wall, which costs less than $3 million, uses a massive amount of supercomputing power, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item10 "More Wireless Trends in the Making" Experts and analysts predict that the coming decade will see wireless become more personalized and mobile devices evolve into natural extensions of consumers. Datacomm Research's Ira Brodsky foresees wireless local area networks (WLANs) proliferating ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item11 "Waiting for Wi-Fi: Europeans Trail U.S. in Wireless Net Hubs" European telecommunications firms and Internet service providers are taking the lead in that region's fledgling Wi-Fi access market, having set up about 600 hot spots throughout the continent, while operators in the United States set up 1,000 hot ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item12 "Venture Capitalists Still on the Lookout for New Technologies" Venture capital investments in new Internet technologies may no longer be proceeding at the breakneck pace that characterized the years 1998 to 2000, but experts such as Polaris Ventures partner Robert M. Metcalfe say the slowdown reflects a return to normal ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item13 "Talking Heads Get Real Mouths" To increase the realism of computer-generated talking heads, MIT researchers are teaching a computer to simulate mouth movements by studying and recreating digitized video images of a woman speaking. Software enables the computer to select and recombine ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item14 "The Incredible Shrinking PC" Antelope Technologies' plan to build a handheld-sized PC based on IBM's Meta Pad illustrates what boosters call a growing market for small computing. Another startup, OQO, unveiled a PC the size of a PDA that it plans to market by year's end for less than ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item15 "Graduate Tech Classes Slump As Creative Writing Courses Gain: Survey" Creative writing has emerged as the hottest graduate course today, according to a new survey from Gradschools.com, while interest in information systems is down significantly, followed by information technology and mechanical engineering. The survey ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item16 "Passwords: The Weakest Link" It can take less than a minute for hackers to crack most passwords, since so many users share the same habits when it comes to choosing them: Picking them from Webster's dictionary and using personal information such as lovers' or pets' names are ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item17 "The Incredible Shrinking Form Factor" Vendors are working to make personal digital assistants (PDAs) evolve from their square, flat-box model into much more flexible, customizable designs to accommodate the almost 100 million mobile workers that analysts expect to be around by 2007. Each worker ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item18 "Workforce Glass Half Full and Half Empty" A report from the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) published in May finds that 500,000 IT workers were laid off last year, reducing the workforce from 10.4 million to 9.9 million between 2000 and 2001. The study found that tech workers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item19 "Economic Bust, Patent Boom" Patent activity in the high-technology industry shows no signs of a downturn despite the economic recession, according to the latest Patent Scorecard from Technology Review. Semiconductor companies, telecoms, and computing firms applied for more new ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0529w.html#item20 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue (there was no issue on Monday, May 27 [Memorial Day observed]), please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0524f.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.