Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the April 2, 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 477 Date: April 2, 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 Wednesday, April 2, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Does Security Mean Sacrificing Privacy?" "'Big Iron' Retains Lustre" "ISMA Pushes DRM for MPEG-4" "DMCA Critics Decry State-Level Proposals" "Proposed Encryption Laws Could Prove Draconian, Many Fear" "High-Performance Computing Clusters Have Gridlike Features" "Are We Doomed Yet?" "First American Open in Robot Soccer" "Big Bang Project Sparks Cosmic Response" "A Vision of Superefficient Displays" "Molecule Toggle Makes Nano Logic" "IBM, Government Talk Big Iron" "Yeast Protein Wires Supercomputers" "Wider-Fi" "Cyber-War Tools Still on the Shelf" "Smart Dust" "The Wired War Has Arrived" "Pushing the Edge" "Surveillance Nation" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Does Security Mean Sacrificing Privacy?" ACM's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (CFP) conference, now underway in New York City, is highlighting how government electronic surveillance efforts have accelerated in the wake of Sept. 11, and topics of discussion will include the Total Information ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item1 "'Big Iron' Retains Lustre" Enterprise applications, scientific research, and other factors are fueling demand for mainframes and supercomputers; Bill Zeitler of IBM Enterprise Systems notes that the mainframe market has remained more or less the same over the last several years, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item2 "ISMA Pushes DRM for MPEG-4" In an effort to develop digital rights management (DRM) capabilities to shield multimedia content formatted in MPEG-4, the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) is moving forward with its Content Protection specification, which provides an ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item3 "DMCA Critics Decry State-Level Proposals" Critics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) are alarmed over indications that state legislators are considering proposals that would place even broader restrictions on the circumvention of digital copy-protection safeguards. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item4 "Proposed Encryption Laws Could Prove Draconian, Many Fear" Critics are decrying Justice Department draft legislation that calls for stiffer penalties on the use of encryption in the commission of a crime, arguing that it would negatively impact legitimate applications of cryptography and make little headway ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item5 "High-Performance Computing Clusters Have Gridlike Features" Enterprise applications will not be suited for high-performance computing clusters (HPCCs) until 2008, but there are several key indicators showing readiness, including processor advances, server density, and application development tools. Unlike grid ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item6 "Are We Doomed Yet?" Sheldon Pacotti writes that the computerization of information and the spread of networking could lead to what Sun Microsystems' Bill Joy terms "knowledge-enabled mass destruction," in which freely disseminated information accessible to anyone could have ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item7 "First American Open in Robot Soccer" Carnegie Mellon University is hosting the International RoboCup Federation's first American Open in late April to early May, where over 150 researchers and their soccer-playing robots will congregate. The goal of the international research and sports ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item8 "Big Bang Project Sparks Cosmic Response" The CERN research institute in Switzerland is the site of the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator designed to test the "big bang" theory by generating particles believed to have existed when the universe was born, if they existed at all. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item9 "A Vision of Superefficient Displays" Ching Tang, who bears the title of Distinguished Inventor at Eastman Kodak, is a pioneer of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology, having found a breakthrough technique in 1985. Tang discovered that sandwiching certain organic compounds ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item10 "Molecule Toggle Makes Nano Logic" Hewlett-Packard Laboratories researcher Pavel Kornilovitch has been working on a toggle switch that can open and close a circuit much like a household light switch--except that this switch exists on the molecular level. For computing, molecular-scale ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item11 "IBM, Government Talk Big Iron" IBM reports that company executives met with representatives from the Homeland Security Department, the Energy Department, the National Science Foundation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and other federal outfits this week to discuss ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item12 "Yeast Protein Wires Supercomputers" Handheld supercomputers equipped with nanoscale wires could one day become a reality thanks to the efforts of researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Such wires could be fashioned from highly durable fibers derived from genetically ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item13 "Wider-Fi" The rapid adoption of the Wi-Fi standard is the sole bright spot in the bleak economic climate hovering over Silicon Valley, but the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently released a new standard, Wider-Fi, that promises to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item14 "Cyber-War Tools Still on the Shelf" Experts from the security and defense sectors say chances are slim that the U.S. military will use cyber-warfare to disrupt Iraq's infrastructure in the current conflict. Mark Rasch of Solutionary says the government has been wrestling with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item15 "Smart Dust" Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) form the basis of "smart dust," a sophisticated wireless sensor network composed of minuscule, autonomous "motes" that could collect data for many diverse operations, including patient and traffic monitoring, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item16 "The Wired War Has Arrived" The U.S. Army expects that communications and computer gear will prove to be beneficial to its Third Infantry Division (3ID) as it spearheads the Army's push to Baghdad. The Army has equipped 3ID armored vehicles with a system designed to provide a real-time ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item17 "Pushing the Edge" Thrifty enterprises are turning to network edge appliances as an efficient, inexpensive alternative to more costly software deployments in order to handle fluid security needs, as well as accommodate incoming XML data and support single networks that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item18 "Surveillance Nation" The era of the surveillance society is rapidly approaching due to increasing technological sophistication--speedier networking, more powerful microprocessors, improved software, cheaper electronics, bigger hard drives, and so on. Unmonitored public ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0331m.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.