Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the June 17, 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 362 Date: June 17, 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 Monday, June 17, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Consumer Groups Target Software" "Chip Integration More Sophisticated" "Inexpensive Technology Is Providing Vision to Machines" "Wi-Fi Wants a Few Good 'Hot Spots'" "Bluetooth--Putting the Bite on Wi-Fi?" "As the Tech Economy Goes, So Go Special Visas" "Darpa Awards Next-Generation Computing Contracts" "Skinny Organic LED Displays Set to Grow" "National Research Council Report Says Some Changes Needed in NNI" "Military's Push for Unmanned Vehicles Gives Region Chance to Capitalize on Robotics" "Public's Role in Net Governance Threatened" "Hollow Promise for Fibre Optics" "Government Seeks Accord on XML" "Someday, 3G Will Come to Europe" "New Hopes for a Security Lockdown" "Virtually Human" "Writing in Pen, Ink, and Pixels" "Tech Transfers" "The Internet of the Future: To Control or Be Controlled" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Consumer Groups Target Software" The debate over whether software is a product or a service lies at the heart of a proposal from consumer advocates that software vendors should be held responsible for bad products and the damage they may directly or indirectly cause. The National ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item1 "Chip Integration More Sophisticated" System-on-a-chip integration continues to gain momentum despite last year's industry downturn, leading to significant advancements such as the production of smaller, faster, and cheaper electronic devices. Stuffing more features onto smaller ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item2 "Inexpensive Technology Is Providing Vision to Machines" Tyzx is developing a sophisticated yet inexpensive technology that aims to give computers low-power, real-time 3D vision capability. The technology involves two cameras spaced a few inches apart that simultaneously capture images of the same ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item3 "Wi-Fi Wants a Few Good 'Hot Spots'" Toshiba's John Marston is expected to stress the lack of public Wi-Fi "hot spots" at the 802.11 West conference as a serious obstacle to the growth of the wireless standard. Toshiba estimates that 1,200 public hot spots currently exist, but ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item4 "Bluetooth--Putting the Bite on Wi-Fi?" Some firms and vendors are touting Bluetooth wireless technology as an alternative to Wi-Fi, which has a longer range and faster speed threshold: Stock brokers at Deutsche Bank in London, for example, can now get their desktop stock-tracking applications on ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item5 "As the Tech Economy Goes, So Go Special Visas" Immigration experts say the high-tech downturn has reduced the demand for foreign workers. The INS reports that, for the first six months of fiscal 2002, H-1B visa applications were down 48 percent compared to last year, while approved H-1Bs were down 38 ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item6 "Darpa Awards Next-Generation Computing Contracts" The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) on June 12 awarded contracts to four companies to develop inexpensive and scalable high-end computer systems for public and private needs. Cray, IBM, Silicon Graphics, and Sun Microsystems each were ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item7 "Skinny Organic LED Displays Set to Grow" Two competing manufacturing processes for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are set to square off with the announcement that display maker Seiko Epson and Cambridge Display Technologies have entered into a partnership to make equipment for the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item8 "National Research Council Report Says Some Changes Needed in NNI" The White House-commissioned evaluation of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has found that the effort is progressing well, but that it could prove even more fruitful with some changes. According to the 10 recommendations from the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item9 "Military's Push for Unmanned Vehicles Gives Region Chance to Capitalize on Robotics" The U.S. Army's $34 billion investment in unmanned vehicles could give Pittsburgh's robotics industry a shot in the arm. The Pittsburgh Regional Alliance and Army subcontractor Carnegie Mellon University have joined forces to create the National ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item10 "Public's Role in Net Governance Threatened" ICANN has failed to work so far because it has excluded public input while making decisions in secret and without public interests represented on the ICANN board, writes influential Internet critic Michael Geist. Although ICANN was structured to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item11 "Hollow Promise for Fiber Optics" Bell Laboratories scientist John Rogers and colleagues have devised optical fibers that can both process and carry signals, thus combining the functionality of more expensive devices with cheap conventional fiber-optics. The hollow, microfluidic fibers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item12 "Government Seeks Accord on XML" The federal government is working on ways to head off chaos in its build-out of XML definitions, the meta data that is meant to make government systems interoperable. The General Services Administration is currently investigating how to create a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item13 "Someday, 3G Will Come to Europe" Alcatel is positioning itself to become a major player in the nonexistent European 3G marketplace, first aiming at Sweden. The French telecom equipment maker reasons that if it can find a foothold among the sophisticated Nordic mobile users, then it ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item14 "New Hopes for a Security Lockdown" Common Criteria is an international standard developed in 1996 that the U.S. Department of Defense plans to aggressively enforce in order to secure systems that are vulnerable because of flawed commercial software. In accordance with the National Security ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item15 "Virtually Human" Boston University bioinformatics professor and Human Genome Project founder Charles DeLisi is trying to secure funding for a distributed computing project to create a virtual human whose myriad systems and functions are distributed across research ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item16 "Writing in Pen, Ink, and Pixels" Digital pen technologies that can transfer pen strokes to a computer screen could prove advantageous in a number of scenarios. Seiko's InkLink pen system tracks the writing instrument's position through ultrasound pulses emitted by the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item17 "Tech Transfers" If the proposed Digital Tech Corps Act becomes law, it would allow IT managers from private and public sectors to exchange positions for up to two years. Government IT managers ranked GS-11 to GS-15 would be able to work at private companies for up ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item18 "The Internet of the Future: To Control or Be Controlled" The projected scenario of a Control Web would enable users to regulate access to their personal information as well as make society safer without imposing a totalitarian state. A Control Web has two important aspects: It is controllable, in that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0617m.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0614f.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.