Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the February 28, 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 463 Date: February 28, 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 Friday, February 28, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "It's Open Season on Spammers" "Inventor of Swarming Robots Wins Prize" "Rivals Chip Away at Microsoft's Dominance" "Handhelds Gain Space" "Are the Feds Reading Your E-Mail?" "Turning the Desktop Into a Meeting Place" "Congress Targets P2P Piracy on Campus" "Santa Clara County OKs Touch-Screen Voting" "Microsoft-Backed Bill Would Dilute Spam Law, State Says" "Genetic IT: Systems With Evolving Value" "Telematics Spec Delivered Amidst Growing Doubts" "With 6 Degrees of Separation, Computers Stay in Sync" "Many Laid-Off Silicon Valley Techies Work for Free to Brush Up on Skills" "Links Adding Up for Grid Computing" "NSF Expands Cyber Corps Program" "Cyber Plan's Future Bleak" "The Linux Uprising" "Wireless Mesh Networks" ******************* News Stories *********************** "It's Open Season on Spammers" Legislators, regulators, and security specialists flocked to this week's Data Security Summit in Washington, D.C., where a hot-button topic was the growing problem of unsolicited commercial email (spam) and ways to control it so that consumer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item1 "Inventor of Swarming Robots Wins Prize" MIT doctoral candidate James McLurkin received this year's Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for creating robots that are programmed to swarm like bees. The machines are equipped with sensors and radio gear that enable them to scan for environmental ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item2 "Rivals Chip Away at Microsoft's Dominance" Governments, educational institutions, and even businesses are switching from Microsoft products to open-source solutions, which offer comparable computing capabilities at a much cheaper price. As a result, open source is gaining on flagship Microsoft tools ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item3 "Handhelds Gain Space" University of California at Berkeley researcher Ka-Ping Yee has turned a handheld computer display into a window that allows users to work in a much larger virtual workspace more easily. Instead of using the pen to scroll over a larger document or ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item4 "Are the Feds Reading Your E-Mail?" Senate Judiciary Committee members Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) are sponsoring the Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act, which requires that the FBI and the Department of Justice disclose how ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item5 "Turning the Desktop Into a Meeting Place" Software engineer Robb Beal's Spring computer interface differs from traditional desktop interfaces by using hypertext representations of people, places, and things instead of icons for applications and Web sites, thus simplifying frequent user ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item6 "Congress Targets P2P Piracy on Campus" A House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees copyright law held a hearing on the issue of peer-to-peer (P2P) piracy on college campuses on Wednesday under new subcommittee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and during the hearing a bipartisan slate ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item7 "Santa Clara County OKs Touch-Screen Voting" Heeding the advice of computer experts and voting advocates, California's Santa Clara County on Tuesday became the first U.S. county to agree to purchase touch-screen voting systems that provide a "voter-verified" paper record for each ballot. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item8 "Microsoft-Backed Bill Would Dilute Spam Law, State Says" An amendment to Washington state's anti-spam law that was backed by Microsoft and which would have weakened Washington state's anti-spam protections will die in a Senate committee, partially due to the work of the state's Attorney General's Office that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item9 "Genetic IT: Systems With Evolving Value" Businesses need to think about how to align their IT capabilities with future software evolution, which currently is heading toward systems that evolve rather than overlap one another. With automation as the first wave of IT innovation in business, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item10 "Telematics Spec Delivered Amidst Growing Doubts" After four years of development, the Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration (AMI-C) presented an approximately 2,000-page multimedia interface standard to the worldwide auto industry on Feb. 26. "This gives a common baseline for everyone ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item11 "With 6 Degrees of Separation, Computers Stay in Sync" A team of scientists have developed a mathematical model demonstrating that the "six degrees of separation" theory, which speculates that any two people can be connected through no more than six other people, also applies to synchronized computing. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item12 "Many Laid-Off Silicon Valley Techies Work for Free to Brush Up on Skills" Technology workers in Silicon Valley are increasingly accepting jobs with no pay in an effort to boost their knowledge and improve their chances for future employment, according to employers and recruiters. Some companies offer potential ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item13 "Links Adding Up for Grid Computing" Grid computing, in which unused computing capacity is tapped to handle complex calculations, has started to migrate out of the academic sector and into the corporate arena. Moreover, the relative simplicity of grid computing can be a boon to users who ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item14 "NSF Expands Cyber Corps Program" The National Science Foundation (NSF) doled out 13 more awards to U.S. universities and colleges in order to boost the capacity of its Scholarship for Service program, also known as the Cyber Corps. President Bush promoted the program after the Sept. 11 ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item15 "Cyber Plan's Future Bleak" Security experts and Washington insiders doubt that many of the initiatives contained in the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace will be deployed, owing to a vacant leadership position and few specifics on how the private sector, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item16 "The Linux Uprising" The open-source Linux operating system has exceeded the vision of its creator, Linus Torvalds, by penetrating the business sector and emerging as a threat to Microsoft's dominion over the server industry. Companies such as DaimlerChrysler are finding it ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item17 "Wireless Mesh Networks" Point-to-point or point-to-multipoint networks typical of industrial wireless communications systems have limited scalability and reliability, respectively, and can be impacted by unfavorable environmental conditions. Wireless multihop mesh ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0228f.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0226w.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.