Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the September 13, 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 398 Date: September 13, 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 Friday, September 13, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "GAO to Study Impact of H-1B Program on Hiring" "Nanowire or Nanotube? Intel Looks Ahead" "Digital Rights Outlook: Squishy" "Mind Power" "Quantum Transistor May Put a New Spin on Spintronics" "A Gaze That Dictates, With Intuitive Software as the Scribe" "Months After the Hype: Is Segway Still It?" "'Nintendo-Style' Cars" "Japanese Gadget Makers Aim Smaller, and Smarter" "Laser Blasts Make Cheap Memory" "Surveillance Society" "Warm Party for a Code Group" "New Wearable Computer Helps Blind Navigate" "China Blocks Web Search Engines" "CPUs Cut the Power" "Pocket Sockets" "IT's Generation Gap" "PCs and Speech: A Rocky Marriage" "The Future in Gear" ******************* News Stories *********************** "GAO to Study Impact of H-1B Program on Hiring" Critics have long complained that technology companies are using the H-1B visa program as an excuse to hire foreign tech workers over American candidates because they are willing to work for less, while industry groups claim that the United States is not ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item1 "Nanowire or Nanotube? Intel Looks Ahead" At Intel's Developer Forum on Thursday, the company outlined new technology research it is investing in to drive future chip development; among the products that Intel is focusing on is a Tri-Gate transistor that will reportedly boost the electrical ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item2 "Digital Rights Outlook: Squishy" As media companies continue to push for stringent digital copyright controls, some technology firms are going ahead with less restrictive digital rights management technology. The debate over copy protection controls appears to now preclude the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item3 "Mind Power" The science of bionics has progressed to the point where the effects of certain disabilities can be mitigated to a small degree by neural interfaces. In Australia, 2,000 people boast cochlear implants that transmit audio signals directly to the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item4 "Quantum Transistor May Put a New Spin on Spintronics" McGill University's Hong Guo expects silicon-based microelectronics to quickly reach its miniaturization threshold, and he is leading a team of Canadian and Chinese physicists looking into spintronics--the harnessing of an electron's spin to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item5 "A Gaze That Dictates, With Intuitive Software as the Scribe" Dr. David J.C. MacKay of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory and a fellow physicist have developed an intuitive software program called Dasher that could be particularly helpful to computer users who suffer from physical handicaps. Dasher, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item6 "Months After the Hype: Is Segway Still It?" In the 10 months since its unveiling, Dean Kamen's Segway human transporter has made positive progress, says Segway's Tobe Cohen. He notes that the machine is being used in pilot programs involving law enforcement, emergency medical technicians, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item7 "'Nintendo-Style' Cars" General Motors and other automobile manufacturers are developing prototypes of vehicles with cutting-edge electronic systems designed to enhance the driving experience and support drive-by-wire technologies. GM's Hy-wire prototype incorporates ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item8 "Japanese Gadget Makers Aim Smaller, and Smarter" Matsushita Electric Industrial and other Japanese companies are touting high-tech gadgetry that aims to enhance consumer households. Products that Matsushita recently put on display in its new Tokyo showroom include a fridge that incorporates a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item9 "Laser Blasts Make Cheap Memory" Scientists from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan have streamlined the manufacturing process for memory chip cells by shining lasers directly onto silicon wafers, rather than focusing them through ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item10 "Surveillance Society" Privacy proponents are concerned that the United States has embarked upon a path that could lead to the creation of a "surveillance society" as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks. They cite the significant increase of video camera installations ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item11 "Warm Party for a Code Group" Ten years after the debut of the historically secretive cypherpunk community, which advocates the use of encryption and cryptography to maintain online privacy, its philosophy of limiting the proliferation of data has become popular among the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item12 "New Wearable Computer Helps Blind Navigate" A wearable computer project at the University of Florida aims to give blind people directions using a global positioning system (GPS) device, wireless connection, and spatial database. Users can walk about the university campus and receive voice prompts ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item13 "China Blocks Web Search Engines" The Chinese government has begun blocking access to Web search engines in advance of the upcoming national Congress of the Communist Party, which will select new party leadership. Google, because of its extensive Chinese-language search capability, was ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item14 "CPUs Cut the Power" Advances in mobile processing promise to allow for new uses, according to those in the computer notebook industry. Intel's Banias processor, due out next year, will be the first designed specifically for notebooks and increase performance while ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item15 "Pocket Sockets" The advantages of micro fuel cells include shorter recharge times and longer battery life, and would likely be widely used in laptop computers, cell phones, and other portable electronic devices once safe and reliable products are developed. Allied ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item16 "IT's Generation Gap" IT departments whose members span several generations could complement one another, but getting them to work together is a major challenge. There is resentment between older and younger workers for a variety of reasons: Older workers often view the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item17 "PCs and Speech: A Rocky Marriage" Speech-recognition technology has made significant strides over the past 20 years, but PC dictation programs still suffer from numerous disadvantages, including their tendency to garble words and a lack of automatic sentence punctuation. Consumer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item18 "The Future in Gear" PC Magazine editors showcase 15 innovative prototypes that hold enormous potential, and are expected to become commercially available in one to five years. University of California, Berkeley researchers are developing hybrid nanorod-polymer solar ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0913f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0911w.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.