Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 11, 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 433 Date: December 11, 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 11, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Protecting Cyberspace Takes Teamwork" "New Plan for Spammers: Charge 'Em" "Human or Computer? Take This Test" "Darpa Puts Thought Into Cognitive Computing" "Mesh Networks Trickle Into Civilian Use" "ACM A.M. Turing Award Prize Quadrupled" "Mapping with Math: Creating 3-D Digital Landscapes from 2-D Photos" "Accenture: Reality Going Online" "Shoes and Sheets Get Wired" "Wanted: Successor to Flash Memory" "Learning to Take the Heat of Computer Chips" "Small Tech Gets a Larger Piece of the U.S. Defense Research Pie" "Smart Heat Pipe Efficiently Cools Laptops, Permitting Greater Operation Speed" "Mike Nuttall: Personal Tech Vision" "The Battle to Streamline Business Software" "Qubits Turn Up Trumps" "Trouble in Nanoland" "Internet of Tomorrow: MPLS" "The Bionic Connection" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Protecting Cyberspace Takes Teamwork" Private-sector and government representatives said they are working together more often and more closely in order to secure digital information. The Homeland Security 2002 conference, entitled "Establishing a Culture of Cooperation," emphasized ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item1 "New Plan for Spammers: Charge 'Em" IBM researcher Scott Fahlman recently authored a proposal to charge spammers and telemarketers for sending unsolicited emails or making intrusive phone calls through the deployment of new software and telephones. Familiar correspondents such as friends ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item2 "Human or Computer? Take This Test" Inspired by the work of mathematician Alan Turing, who postulated that an intelligent computer can fool a human interrogator into thinking it is also human, former Yahoo! chief scientist Dr. Udi Manber challenged a group of Carnegie Mellon University ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item3 "Darpa Puts Thought Into Cognitive Computing" The U.S. Defense Department is planning to develop an "enduring personalized cognitive assistant" (Epca) that reasons, uses represented knowledge, has behavioral and functionality awareness, accumulates knowledge, can explain itself, and is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item4 "Mesh Networks Trickle Into Civilian Use" The U.S. military developed mesh networking--the creation of resilient, self-healing, and fast ad hoc wireless networks with no fixed points of failure--to improve battlefield conditions, but plans are underway to apply mesh network technology to the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item5 "ACM A.M. Turing Award Prize Quadrupled" The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has signed an agreement with Intel Corporation to help raise the visibility of the A.M. Turing Award. Intel's support will enable ACM to increase the cash award from $25,000 to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item6 "Mapping with Math: Creating 3-D Digital Landscapes from 2-D Photos" Arjun Heimsath and Hany Farid of Dartmouth University have devised a method to create three-dimensional digital elevation models of geographical regions using two-dimensional digital photos. Computer scientist Heimsath teamed up with Farid, whose ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item7 "Accenture: Reality Going Online" Accenture Technology Labs researchers such as Luke Hughes believe that business will be profoundly changed by the advent of pervasive computers and networked sensors, to the degree that there will be an online copy for every physical object and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item8 "Shoes and Sheets Get Wired" At this week's Materials Research Society meeting, researchers discussed various initiatives to develop "electrotextiles," in which electronic devices and fibers are woven into fabrics. International Fashion Machines (IFM) has developed a denim jacket ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item9 "Wanted: Successor to Flash Memory" One of the topics of discussion at this week's International Electron Devices meeting is a replacement for flash memory, which scientists expect to hit a manufacturing threshold later this decade. Chip manufacturers are gearing up for the transition ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item10 "Learning to Take the Heat of Computer Chips" The speed and performance of computers--be they servers, laptops, or desktops--increases with the addition of transistors, but this generates heat that is becoming more and more difficult to manage, and raising the electricity demands--and costs--of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item11 "Small Tech Gets a Larger Piece of the U.S. Defense Research Pie" The U.S. Defense Department's 2003 budget earmarked approximately $2.78 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), according to the agency's Jan Walker; DARPA will in turn dedicate $124 million to micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item12 "Smart Heat Pipe Efficiently Cools Laptops, Permitting Greater Operation Speed" With upcoming computer chips promising to generate greater amounts of heat--perhaps as high as 100 watts per square centimeter--and proportionally increase the risk of circuit malfunction, engineers must develop more efficient cooling ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item13 "Mike Nuttall: Personal Tech Vision" Ideo cofounder Mike Nuttall has organized his company around integrating design issues with usability issues when developing products, and he has been instrumental in creating the first Microsoft mouse, as well as the Palm V, the Cisco IP Phone, and a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item14 "The Battle to Streamline Business Software" CIOs are increasingly turning to simplification of their business application software as a way to cut costs; they believe that trimming their list of suppliers and software packages means less spending on system integration, notes Gartner. However, this ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item15 "Qubits Turn Up Trumps" Researchers are more optimistic about performing useful computations using quantum computers in the immediate future as a result of new breakthroughs by Australian and Austrian researchers. At a conference at the University of New South ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item16 "Trouble in Nanoland" Dire warnings about the potential perils of nanotechnology, coupled with unrealistic promises of the technology's economic impact, are clouding important issues and could impede the field's progress. Some enthusiastic nanotech advocates claim ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item17 "Internet of Tomorrow: MPLS" Internet Protocol (IP), upon which Internet traffic routing traditionally depends, is limited: Too much traffic can slow it down, while the task of handling multiple types of traffic and their specific network demands can lead to bottlenecks. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item18 "The Bionic Connection" Efforts to develop cyborg technology such as smart chip implants and neural-machine interfaces have yielded breakthroughs that some say could one day help disabled people conquer paralysis and move prosthetic limbs, allow consumers to control machines by ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1211w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1209m.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.