Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the August 5, 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 382 Date: August 5, 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by Hewlett Packard Company ( ) HP is the premier source for computing services, products and solutions. Responding to customers' requirements for quality and reliability at aggressive prices, HP offers performance-packed products and comprehensive services. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Stories for Monday, August 5, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Broadband Deregulation Urged" "Legislators Eye PC Recycling" "What are the Theories Behind Computer Technology Gender Gap?" "Computers Under Attack Can Hack Back, Expert Says" "DARPA Researcher Pursues 'Nanomemory'" "More Memory On the Way" "A New Wrinkle in Communication May Be in Your Clothes" "A Device to Track Missing People" "'Cambridge Phenomenon' Threatened by IP Changes" "Creative Coding" "Taking the Web to Infinity and Beyond" "Wireless 'Cloud' May Offer Silver Lining" "China Set to be World's No. 2 Market for Web and PCs" "The High Hurdles Facing Wi-Fi" "Virtual People Help Bridge Digital Divide" "Hearing Is Believing" "Moving Into the Real World" "Are Vendors Doing Enough to Improve Software?" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Broadband Deregulation Urged" A new bill from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would deregulate the broadband market and hopefully boost broadband usage is being reviewed by the Senate Commerce Committee. McCain says his bill addresses the issue more comprehensively than others, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item1 "Legislators Eye PC Recycling" Electronic waste recycling has captured the attention of federal and state legislatures. For instance, the Electronic Industries Alliance notes that 24 states are mulling over technology recycling bills. Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item2 "What are the Theories Behind Computer Technology Gender Gap?" The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has documented a decline in the percentage of female IT professionals over the last 10 to 15 years; for instance, women accounted for 36.6 percent of U.S. computer programmers in 1987, whereas in 2001 they accounted for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item3 "Computers Under Attack Can Hack Back, Expert Says" AnchorIS CIO and SecurityFocus.com columnist Timothy Mullen told attendees at the annual DefCon hacker conference that an even more devastating computer-worm attack is inevitable, and noted that simply notifying administrators of such attacks is not ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item4 "DARPA Researcher Pursues 'Nanomemory'" Scientists at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are developing nanotechnology especially for computing memory purposes. DARPA program manager Kwan Kwok says he expects to have a working moletronic device by 2004, offering four to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item5 "More Memory On the Way" Data IntensiVe Architecture (DIVA), developed by scientists from the University of Southern California School of Engineering, places four reduced instruction-set computing (RISC) processors on a DRAM chip, allowing 256 bits of information to be stored on ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item6 "A New Wrinkle in Communication May Be in Your Clothes" Clothes infused with a variety of electronic functions could be manufactured thanks to the development of a radical "smart thread" from Santa Fe Science and Technology. The thread, which is fabricated from a patented plastic-like polymer, has the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item7 "A Device to Track Missing People" Several patents have been approved for global positioning system (GPS)-based tracking devices that keep tabs on people's location. Single mother Jennifer Durst originally thought up a GPS transceiver as a way to keep track of runaway pets, and together ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item8 "'Cambridge Phenomenon' Threatened by IP Changes" Cambridge University has decided to assert ownership of intellectual property (IP) generated by researchers and employees starting on Jan. 1, 2003, if IP work is created during "the normal course of [an employee's] duties," according to report ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item9 "Creative Coding" Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analyst Karim Lakhani says open source software programmers undertake programming because they enjoy it. According to a BCG survey, 57 percent of open source software programmers are IT professionals and 20 percent are ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item10 "Taking the Web to Infinity and Beyond" Internet pioneer Vincent Cerf, along with other engineers and NASA scientists, are working to develop the Interplanetary Internet, or IPN. His team is working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop the interplanetary network that Cerf ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item11 "Wireless 'Cloud' May Offer Silver Lining" The University of Georgia and the city of Athens, Ga., have joined forces to create WAG, or the Wireless Athens Group. The group plans to a develop a "cloud" of wireless network connectivity over a limited area in the city's downtown so that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item12 "China Set to be World's No. 2 Market for Web and PCs" China now ranks as the second most active Internet population, passing Japan in its share of global Internet traffic. Still, Japan retains a lead in the number of individual Internet users, largely because of strong growth in mobile phone connections. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item13 "The High Hurdles Facing Wi-Fi" Rapidly growing Wi-Fi connectivity could face a spectrum bottleneck if it spreads too fast, unless technological improvements are made or the FCC can come up with a new spectrum allocation model. One alternative is spread-spectrum technology, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item14 "Virtual People Help Bridge Digital Divide" Lewisham in London and three other European cities hope avatars can help bridge the digital divide for residents who are not so computer savvy. The borough is currently testing avatars, or computer-generated people, as part of its effort to bring its ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item15 "Hearing Is Believing" American Technology CEO Elwood "Woody" Norris's newest invention, the Hyper-Sonic Sound System (HSS), can reportedly convert audio signals into an ultrasonic frequency that can be focused onto a target as far off as 100 yards. The technology foregoes the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item16 "Moving Into the Real World" European research labs are branching out from their government customer bases and establishing relationships with industry, and some of these relationships extend beyond national boundaries. A 2000 survey conducted by England's Higher Education Funding ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item17 "Are Vendors Doing Enough to Improve Software?" Bob Parker of AMR Research and William Guttman of Carnegie Mellon University's Sustainable Computing Consortium (SCC) offer differing opinions about whether enterprise software vendors are making enough of an effort to improve the quality of their ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0805m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0802f.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 Hewlett Packard Company.