Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 16, 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 435 Date: December 16, 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, December 16, 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Group Is Launching New Types of Licenses" "Digital Pearl Harbor Is More Marketing Ploy Than Real Threat" "IDC: Cyberterror and Other Prophecies" "New Tactics Could Stave Off Digital Pirates" "In the World of the Very Small, Companies Make Big Plans" "Feds Invoked National Security to Speed Key Internet Change" "Life on the Edge" "Designing a Robot That Can Sense Human Emotion" "Nanoparticles Could Aid Biohazard Detection, Computer Industry" "Word to the Wise: Decentralize" "Hollow Promise" "W3C Proposes XML Encryption, Decryption Specs" "ABA to Vote on UCITA Next Year" "Integrating America" "The Robot Evolution" "Multimodality: The Next Wave of Mobile Interaction" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Group Is Launching New Types of Licenses" Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society is helping to launch a new licensing program that aims to increase the amount of intellectual property in the public domain. The Creative Commons will allow content owners to offer three new ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item1 "Digital Pearl Harbor Is More Marketing Ploy Than Real Threat" Both the government and technology companies are issuing warnings about possible cyberterrorism incidents in the hopes that it could spur people into buying and investing in anti-terror products and tools, which would give billions of dollars to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item2 "IDC: Cyberterror and Other Prophecies" International Data (IDC) chief research officer John Gantz made a dire prediction for 2003 at a Thursday teleconference, in which he detailed a cyberterrorist attack that will cripple the Internet for at least 24 hours and wreak economic havoc. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item3 "New Tactics Could Stave Off Digital Pirates" Consumers must increasingly deal with software with built-in usability limitations, which many copyright holders are implementing in an attempt to curb digital piracy and counterfeiting. New versions of products such as Microsoft's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item4 "In the World of the Very Small, Companies Make Big Plans" More and more companies are investing in nanotechnology, with a focus on specially tailored molecules that can be incorporated into other substances. 3M and other manufacturers are marketing paper-thin optical films synthesized from nanoscale crystals that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item5 "Feds Invoked National Security to Speed Key Internet Change" The U.S. Commerce Department approved VeriSign's request to move one of the two VeriSign-managed root servers just two days after the request was made. VeriSign had asked the government to skip routine administrative decision-making procedures in the name of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item6 "Life on the Edge" The Supernova decentralization conference showed the tension between business mindsets and technologists who are committed to building out equalizing, networked systems. Topics included blogs, Web services, and Wi-Fi--all of which are technologies that do ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item7 "Designing a Robot That Can Sense Human Emotion" Vanderbilt University researchers Nilanjan Sarkar and Craig Smith are working on a robot that can determine a person's emotional state from physiological cues, and respond appropriately; they detail their work in the December issue of the journal Robotica. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item8 "Nanoparticles Could Aid Biohazard Detection, Computer Industry" Purdue scientists have discovered a new way of creating metal interconnects on chips that saves money, time, and even has antiterrorism applications. By dipping semiconductor chips into a solution of dissolved metal salts, the researchers are able to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item9 "Word to the Wise: Decentralize" Technology analyst Kevin Werbach says enterprise IT systems will continue to decentralize in the future as centralized systems become too vast and complex to manage. However, better management, provisioning, and automatic features are needed for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item10 "Hollow Promise" Burak Temelkuran and colleagues report in this week's Nature that they have constructed a hollow optical fiber that can transmit light through air rather than glass, a solution that may allow much more data to travel over fiber-optic lines. The interior of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item11 "W3C Proposes XML Encryption, Decryption Specs" The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has given its recommendation to the XML Encryption Syntax Processing specification and the Decryption Transform for XML Signature as ways to secure XML data within documents and aid organizations that are building Web ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item12 "ABA to Vote on UCITA Next Year" An American Bar Association vote on the controversial Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) in February is viewed as a turning point in the fate of the software licensing law. The ABA will on whether UCITA should be adopted by states; ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item13 "Integrating America" IT will be key to the success of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which aims to integrate 22 agencies and programs, and merge 170,000 workers into a cohesive entity. Office of Homeland Security CIO Steve Cooper and Treasury Department CIO ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item14 "The Robot Evolution" MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory director Rodney A. Brooks says intelligent robots will replace humans as a source for low-cost manufacturing labor in the future. In his latest book, "Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us," Brooks writes ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item15 "Multimodality: The Next Wave of Mobile Interaction" Multimodality technology aims to integrate speech, touch, and vision to usher in a new age of mobile interaction that could enable spontaneous, intuitive communications and hasten the spread of value-added services, among other things. Multimodal ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1216m.html#item16 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1213f.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.