Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the February 24, 2003 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 5, Number 461 Date: February 24, 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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, February 24, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "China Serves As Dump Site For Computers" "AU Experts Dampen SSL Break Claim" "Media Copyright Law Put to Unexpected Uses" "Electronics Makers Lead the Charge in Quest for Longer Battery Life" "The Real Computer Chip Speed Barrier" "IDC: Asia to Lead in Developers by 2005" "A Parallel Inventor of the Transistor Has His Moment" "Many Companies Cut Research Budgets" "Tech for Elders Must Have Purpose" "India May Face IT Worker Drought" "FCC Ruling Is a Blow to the Competitive Marketplace" "Hard Lessons in Soft Skills" "Web Is Key Homeland Security Element" "Net Blocking Threatens Legitimate Sites" "Hacking Democracy?" "'Indoor GPS' to Help Droids Find Their Feet in the Home" "The Purr of the Qubit" "The Worm That Turned: A New Approach to Hacker Hunting" ******************* News Stories *********************** "China Serves As Dump Site For Computers" Electronic waste (e-waste) such as old computers is being shipped overseas to China and other Asian countries to be broken down for valuable parts by cheap laborers that put their health and environment at risk because of unregulated and unsanitary working ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item1 "AU Experts Dampen SSL Break Claim" Claims by Swiss researchers that they have successfully broken the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol are being disputed by experts. Various news sources have reported that the Swiss team at the Security and Cryptography Laboratory of EPFL's Department ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item2 "Media Copyright Law Put to Unexpected Uses" The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was originally passed to discourage digital piracy and protect the intellectual property of the U.S. entertainment industry, but the law is being leveraged by other industries as well. For instance, printer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item3 "Electronics Makers Lead the Charge in Quest for Longer Battery Life" Mobile devices are being enhanced with more sophisticated features, and taking full advantage of them depends on extending battery life significantly. Both small and large developers are in a frenzy to boost the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries by ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item4 "The Real Computer Chip Speed Barrier" Personal computer performance is apparent to everyday users, but difficult to trace on the back-end because of the complex relationships between system components. Experts say that design complexity is exacerbated by incongruous efforts on the part of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item5 "IDC: Asia to Lead in Developers by 2005" The Asia-Pacific region will surpass North America in numbers of software developers by 2005, according to a newly released report from International Data (IDC). North America holds the top spot with 2.6 million professional software developers counted in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item6 "A Parallel Inventor of the Transistor Has His Moment" A new book chronicling the history of computing means to give proper credit to Dr. Herbert F. Matare, who was one of a pair of researchers that produced a transistor just two months after the famed AT&T Bell Laboratories did it in 1948. The Belgian ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item7 "Many Companies Cut Research Budgets" Technology companies spent $91 billion on research and development in 2002, according to an analysis of 2,830 public companies followed by Multex, a 9 percent decrease on average from 2001. Overall, over 1,500 companies cut their R&D budgets ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item8 "Tech for Elders Must Have Purpose" Senior citizens would be more receptive to assistive technologies that boast familiarity and ease-of-use and give users a sense of self-reliance, according to researchers. The University of Colorado's cognitive levers (Clever) project has an initiative ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item9 "India May Face IT Worker Drought" India could experience a deficiency of 235,000 IT workers within five years, according to a study by Nasscom, a national IT trade group in India. The study estimates that India will need 1 million IT workers in 2008, but only 885,000 are expected to be ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item10 "FCC Ruling Is a Blow to the Competitive Marketplace" Dan Gillmor writes that the FCC's 3-2 decision on Thursday to allow the Baby Bells to ban rivals' access to wireless high-speed fiber-optic lines and resources severely undercuts the competitive telecommunications marketplace and gives regional ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item11 "Hard Lessons in Soft Skills" Graduates of IT programs in Canada are finding they need business and communications skills in order to differentiate themselves in a crowded technology job market. Those that do find work are often contracted for single projects that are taken on to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item12 "Web Is Key Homeland Security Element" The newly-formed Homeland Security Department (HSD) is planning an Internet-based system designed to spot the early signs of bioterror attacks in order to curb epidemics before they become widespread. The project, which would be part of a larger network ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item13 "Net Blocking Threatens Legitimate Sites" A new study from Harvard University's Berkman Center reveals that over 85 percent of domain names "share their Web servers with one or more additional domains," and that two-thirds of all Web sites are hosted at servers with 50 or more domain names. The study ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item14 "Hacking Democracy?" Electronic voting machines are being eyed with suspicion by activists, technologists, writers, and others because their operations are not accessible to the public, there are documented cases in which they have crashed or tabulated votes incorrectly, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item15 "'Indoor GPS' to Help Droids Find Their Feet in the Home" Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology have developed an indoor version of the Global Positioning System, improving how robots function in homes, shops, and offices. The performance of robots that operate indoors has been plagued by ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item16 "The Purr of the Qubit" The journal Science last week reported that scientists in the Netherlands and Japan have devised a qubit from an electrical current in a superconducting ring. The development, in which the digits of binary arithmetic (0 and 1) flowed simultaneously ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item17 "The Worm That Turned: A New Approach to Hacker Hunting" To beat a super-sophisticated computer worm back in June 2000, Bob Gerber of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center broke new ground in fighting cybercrime by gathering top security experts from government and industry and letting them tackle the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0224m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0221f.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.