Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 4, 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 430 Date: December 4, 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, December 4, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Patent Holders on the Ropes" "Sun's Microsoft Remedy Praised" "Xerox Says New Material Will Allow Plastic Transistors" "Somewhere Over the Virtual Rainbow" "Video Game College is 'Boot Camp' for Future Designers" "Spy-Sized Gizmos Built Into Clothes and Glasses" "In Switch, HP Announces Support for E-Waste Bill" "Experiment Points to New Spin on Storage" "Schneier: No "Magic Security Dust"" "Fractals Add New Dimension to Study of Tiny Electronics" "Copyright Cartel Still Winning Most of the Time" "'Grid Computing' Is the Next Wave in High-Performance Computing" "Wireless Watchers Eyeing Mesh Networks" "Xerox Hopes Small Technology Copies Innovations of the Past" "Winning the Cybersecurity War" "Growing Smaller" "IT to Fight Terrorism" "IM Means Business" "Received Wisdom" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Patent Holders on the Ropes" Technology standards bodies are writing new rules excluding patented technologies, a change that some see as a recompense for years of abuse by patent holders. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) rejected patented technology that required royalty payments ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item1 "Sun's Microsoft Remedy Praised" Sun Microsystems is seeking a preliminary injunction from a Baltimore court to prevent Microsoft from shipping Windows without including Sun's Java, a programming language that can be used to develop Internet services software much like Microsoft's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item2 "Xerox Says New Material Will Allow Plastic Transistors" Cheap, lightweight, and flexible displays for cell phones, TVs, and laptops could one day become a reality thanks to a new material that facilitates the fabrication of organic transistors on a plastic substrate. The material, developed by Xerox, will ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item3 "Somewhere Over the Virtual Rainbow" An extracurricular project that allows middle school girls to explore the possibilities of the University of Illinois' 3D virtual reality CAVE environment aims to get more girls interested in science and less averse to using technology, among ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item4 "Video Game College is 'Boot Camp' for Future Designers" DigiPen in Vancouver, British Columbia, offers the only accredited four-year degree for people who want to make video games; the school is considered the Harvard for that industry. Other colleges and universities have launched single courses in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item5 "Spy-Sized Gizmos Built Into Clothes and Glasses" Technology forecasters such as Wayne Pethrick of the Futures Lab and Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future expect "wearware"--electronics embedded in apparel--will be a major trend of the coming years. "It's basically the computer as ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item6 "In Switch, HP Announces Support for E-Waste Bill" In a reversal of an earlier position that prompted Gov. Gray Davis (D-Calif.) to kill an e-waste recycling bill in October, leading global PC manufacturer Hewlett-Packard announced its support for the legislation, which encouraged Sen. Byron Sher ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item7 "Experiment Points to New Spin on Storage" Oklahoma University researchers reported in the Oct. 15 issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics that they were able to successfully encode and retrieve a 1,024-bit image of a test pattern onto a liquid crystal molecule by changing the spin ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item8 "Schneier: No "Magic Security Dust"" U.S. security expert and Counterpane Internet Security chief technologist Bruce Schneier believes that the continued migration of infrastructure to the Internet, advances in computer power and usability, and the growing complexity of networking systems will ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item9 "Fractals Add New Dimension to Study of Tiny Electronics" Research at Ohio State University (OSU) and the University of Utah has uncovered an organic material that emits fractal magnetic fields. As digital devices using magnetic fields--such as computer hard drives and magnetic strips on ID cards--become ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item10 "Copyright Cartel Still Winning Most of the Time" Copyright owners are winning most of the battles in their war to control how content is consumed. Adobe Systems is in court this week in the first criminal case for an alleged violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The Russian company ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item11 "'Grid Computing' Is the Next Wave in High-Performance Computing" Research organizations and governments are working to create supercomputing grids that will provide the aggregate computing resources of the group to any connected node. Intel's Rick Herrmann says universities that have for the last few years ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item12 "Wireless Watchers Eyeing Mesh Networks" Wireless mesh networking is gaining in popularity because of the success of the 802.11 wireless standard (Wi-Fi). MeshNetworks in Florida created technology that forms a larger peer-to-peer network from several independent multipoint networks. By ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item13 "Xerox Hopes Small Technology Copies Innovations of the Past" Xerox spun off its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) at the beginning of this year in order to cut costs at the company, but Xerox researchers are still at the cutting-edge of nanotechnology, having developed several new devices that promise ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item14 "Winning the Cybersecurity War" In the post-Sept. 11, 2001 world, cyber-security has become the paramount issue for network administrators. Internet attacks are rising, and CERT reports that while 52,000-plus attacks were documented in 2001, the first six months of this year has seen ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item15 "Growing Smaller" Nanotechnology continues to attract negative publicity, including the recently released Michael Crichton novel "Prey," a story about bacterium-size machines reproducing into a swarm of flesh-eating predators. The concern over nanotechnology even ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item16 "IT to Fight Terrorism" Former Defense Department intelligence analyst and former Network Solutions CTO David Holtzman, now a professor at American University, says the U.S. government views IT as its primary weapon in the war on terror, though he says it may not always be ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item17 "IM Means Business" The market for instant messaging (IM) applications is thriving, and currently consists of a customer base of over 100 million unique home users and 18 million office users; stock brokerages, the military, e-tailers, law enforcement, and customer service ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item18 "Received Wisdom" The use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is much more pronounced than most people realize, because they are unaware of its widespread presence. RFID tags are used to monitor the health of trees and livestock, track the location of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1204w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1202m.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.