Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the March 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 475 Date: March 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, March 28, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "New Voting Systems Assailed" "Responding to Iraq, Hackers Shut Web Sites, Post Graffiti" "Senator Calls for Copy-Protection Tags" "When War and IT Collide" "The Next Big Thing (Is Practically Invisible)" "Soldier Toys Today, Civilian Toys Tomorrow" "3D Holo Video Arrives" "Scanning the Future of Privacy" "Synapse Chip Taps Into Brain Chemistry" "Will Server Clusters Swarm the Mainstream?" "Super-Cheap Supercomputing?" "Your Brake Pads May Have Something to Say (By E-Mail)" "Putting the Blinders Back on Big Brother" "PC Forum Delves Into Future of Tech" "Nanotechnology Research Priorities, Challenges" "Outsourcing Debate" "Will Parallel Chips Pay Off?" "Servers on the Edge" "Making Machines See" ******************* News Stories *********************** "New Voting Systems Assailed" Over 300 computer scientists and experts have joined a campaign that disputes the reliability and security of new touch-screen voting machines that have been installed throughout several U.S. states in response to election reforms. They argue that such ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item1 "Responding to Iraq, Hackers Shut Web Sites, Post Graffiti" Hackers around the world are defacing and shutting down Web sites to express their support for or opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Experts reckon that reported incidents of Web hacking have increased by up to a factor of 10 since Iraq was invaded by ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item2 "Senator Calls for Copy-Protection Tags" Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced the Digital Consumer Right to Know Act this week, in which copyright holders who enhance their digital content with anti-copying schemes would be required to warn consumers that such measures are in place by clearly ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item3 "When War and IT Collide" Only about 25 out of 1,700 Gartner ITxpo conference attendees showed up for a recent presentation by a dozen top experts on the relationship between war and IT opportunities. Nevertheless, analyst Dan Milklovic spoke and predicted a rise in hacking and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item4 "The Next Big Thing (Is Practically Invisible)" Nanotechnology is booming, both as a research area and as a business: The Bush administration has upped the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) budget by 9.5 percent for 2004, bringing it to $847 million, while the National Science ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item5 "Soldier Toys Today, Civilian Toys Tomorrow" Many technologies originally developed for military applications trickle down to the civilian sector, duct tape and the Global Positioning System (GPS) being just a few examples. Innovations currently being tested on the battlefields of Iraq that could be ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item6 "3D Holo Video Arrives" By integrating a chip that contains 800,000 tiny mirrors with computer-generated holograms, University of Texas researchers have devised a method to create three-dimensional video, a breakthrough whose potential applications include heads-up ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item7 "Scanning the Future of Privacy" Developers of authentication systems, including those based on passwords, ID cards, key cards, and biometrics, should work to safeguard the privacy of users, urges a newly released study by the National Research Council. The study says that in a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item8 "Synapse Chip Taps Into Brain Chemistry" Stanford University researchers Harvey Fishman and Mark Peterman have developed an artificial synapse that can deliver chemical signals, more commonly known as neurotransmitters, to neurons, thus stimulating electrical impulses. The scientists told ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item9 "Will Server Clusters Swarm the Mainstream?" Smaller enterprises that previously could not afford clustering technology have started to embrace it, thanks to price reductions spurred by the use of Linux-based Commodity Off The Shelf (COTS) systems as cluster nodes. Accompanying clustering's wider ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item10 "Super-Cheap Supercomputing?" A small supercomputing firm in Utah is building relatively cheap machines that harness chains of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Star Bridge Systems founder and chief technologist Kent Gilson is regarded with skepticism in the general computer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item11 "Your Brake Pads May Have Something to Say (By E-Mail)" Car owners, fleet operators, automotive manufacturers, and dealers could be alerted to potential vehicle problems early thanks to in-vehicle computers that collect data from sensor arrays and transmit them to a central database. Such systems ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item12 "Putting the Blinders Back on Big Brother" As is often the case in wartime, civil liberties are scaled back in favor of government surveillance in order to promote security, and this has been happening in the United States as a result of the wars against terrorism and, more recently, Iraq. Since Sept. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item13 "PC Forum Delves Into Future of Tech" Topics discussed at the recent 26th annual PC Forum, organized by EDventure Holdings chair Esther Dyson, included privacy, security, and open-source software as well as the industry's future, morality, and machine intelligence. But the war on Iraq ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item14 "Nanotechnology Research Priorities, Challenges" The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) 2003, a conference being held April 2-4 in Washington, D.C., will see attendees from the nanoscale science and engineering sectors, who will discuss research priorities and challenges, while speakers will report on ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item15 "Outsourcing Debate" New Jersey State Sen. Shirley Turner (D-N.J.) has not given up her fight for a bill that seeks to ban the outsourcing of IT and other local jobs to offshore companies, despite the fact that it was tabled thanks to the efforts of technology lobbying groups, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item16 "Will Parallel Chips Pay Off?" Manufacturing ability is outstripping that of design and verification, so that semiconductor firms are trying to find uses for the millions of transistors they can build on a chip. A number of small British and U.S. firms are hoping to find the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item17 "Servers on the Edge" Among blade servers' expected benefits are greater storage density and power-efficiency, improved reliability via hot-swapping, universal interfaces that can simplify administration, and less heat output, all of which can hopefully ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item18 "Making Machines See" The long-term target of machine vision vendors and developers is to enable machines to see in three dimensions, while near-term goals include seeing around corners using mirrors and prisms (a key component of semiconductor part inspection) and seeing in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0328f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0326w.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.