Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the September 25, 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 the latest on ACM activities, member benefits, and industry issues, 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 403 Date: September 25, 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 Wednesday, September 25, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Big Risks on a Minuscule Scale" "Standards Chief Caught in Patent Storm" "P2P Pugilists Put Up Their Dukes" "The Thin Gray Line" "Attention Early Adopters..." "Join Cyber Corps, Get Paid to Go to School" "Nanosize Chips are not Nanotech, But the Industry Benefits, Anyway" "US Government Tightens the Leash on ICANN" "1s and 0s and the Order of Everything" "Designing the Century's First Digital City" "Human-Free Kick" "North Carolina Universities Attempt to Cash In on Nanoscience" "Hollywood vs. the Internet" "Q&A: Talking Research With Microsoft's Rick Rashid" "Building the Underground Computer Railroad" "Demand for U.S. IT Workers Remains Soft, Survey Shows" "Shakin' on the SALT" "Open Source Software: Is it Really Secure?" "The Next MPEG Step" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Big Risks on a Minuscule Scale" Concerns from environmentalists and other factions threaten to hamper the progress of nanotechnology, the science of manipulating materials on the molecular level. For instance, the Science and Environmental Health Network wants the U.S. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item1 "Standards Chief Caught in Patent Storm" World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) staff member Danny Weitzner is leading a working group that will assess a RAND task force's proposal to allow working groups to add technologies that possess intellectual property claims under certain circumstances; the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item2 "P2P Pugilists Put Up Their Dukes" Advocates and opponents of peer-to-peer (P2P) file trading squared off last week at a lunch hosted by the Cato Institute, where a central area of focus was a bill from Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) that would grant copyright owners the authority to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item3 "The Thin Gray Line" "Gray hat" hackers are being forced to reconsider their actions, which walk the razor's edge between acceptable and unacceptable activities, in light of new legislation, increased law enforcement, and the ever-changing definition of what constitutes ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item4 "Attention Early Adopters..." Last week's DemoMobile event in La Jolla, Calif., was a platform for companies to demonstrate the latest consumer technologies. Among the products on display was a computing system from Shazam that can identify songs by audio; a "next-generation interface" ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item5 "Join Cyber Corps, Get Paid to Go to School" Eleven U.S. colleges currently host the Federal Cyber Corps Scholarship for Service, a program that offers participating students free tuition, books, and accommodations, as well as a $1,000 monthly stipend. In return, students major in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item6 "Nanosize Chips are not Nanotech, But the Industry Benefits, Anyway" Intel and a joint venture between Motorola, STMicroelectronics, and Philips will soon produce chips with 90-nm-sized features, and experts say such developments, although not true nanotechnology, could indirectly have a positive effect on the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item7 "US Government Tightens the Leash on ICANN" The Department of Commerce (DoC) extended ICANN's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for another year, but has pledged to monitor ICANN more closely. Commerce assistant secretary Nancy Victory wrote on Friday that DoC "views the one-year term of this ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item8 "1s and 0s and the Order of Everything" The Internet and other complex networks run on the same basic principles, according to a recent paper from a Notre Dame computer science team. Notre Dame computer science researcher Albert Laszlo-Barabasi says that the weighted nature of the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item9 "Designing the Century's First Digital City" Officials in Seoul have contracted with a New York University academic to design a new digital city from the ground up on the outskirts of the South Korean capital. Anthony Townsend, of NYU's Taub Urban Research Center, has already received a grant ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item10 "Human-Free Kick" Nearly 200 international teams squared off at the RoboCup 2002 event in June, where their efforts in robotics and artificial intelligence competed in a soccer game. RoboCup has come a long way since its inception: Whereas the first competition involved ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item11 "North Carolina Universities Attempt to Cash In on Nanoscience" The enormous, almost limitless potential of nanoscience is prompting universities in North Carolina to build new facilities dedicated to its study in order to gain a competitive edge. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) Chancellor ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item12 "Hollywood vs. the Internet" Content providers such as movie studios and record companies are battling with IT industries over proposals designed to force digital transmission technology to incorporate digital rights management (DRM) that prevents copyright infringement. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item13 "Q&A: Talking Research With Microsoft's Rick Rashid" Microsoft's research chief, Rick Rashid, oversees 700 employees working in five laboratories around the world, including a Fields Medallist, a Wolf Prize winner, and a Godel Prize winner. Rashid says the labs are run "much more like a university computer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item14 "Building the Underground Computer Railroad" Anti-globalization protesters in Oakland, Los Angeles, and Portland are building computers out of the recycled parts of old ones, and planning to ship them to poor communities in Ecuador, the Amazon, and elsewhere. The activists hope to put together ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item15 "Demand for U.S. IT Workers Remains Soft, Survey Shows" The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and Dice will issue a report today that maintains a gloomy short-term IT hiring forecast, despite the addition of 85,000 jobs since the year began. Dice CEO Scot Melland says the survey illustrates ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item16 "Shakin' on the SALT" The proposed Speech Language Application Language Tags (SALT) standard promises to improve self-service, call center, and similar applications. SALT is being developed by the SALT Forum, which aims to build a royalty-free, open source standard ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item17 "Open Source Software: Is it Really Secure?" Open-source is becoming a recognized source of secure and stable software, but users need to be aware of potential dangers--such as backdoor programs--and how to avoid them, writes independent security consultant Rik Farrow. When downloading open-source ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item18 "The Next MPEG Step" The MPEG-4 video standard promises improved compression and more interactive images; potential benefits include lower bandwidth costs and video transmission on just about any device, but the technology may not necessarily spark the same spectacular ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0925w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0923m.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.