Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the April 4, 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 478 Date: April 4, 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, April 4, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "TIA Proponents Defend Domestic Spy Plan" "That Championship Season, in Code" "Feds Defend Plan to Secure Cyberspace" "Fears About War, Economy Slow IT Hiring" "Queen's Researchers Invent Computers That 'Pay Attention' to Users" "Feinstein Introduces Privacy Act of 2003" "Software Uses Pictures to Represent Info People Monitor" "Online Phone Monitoring Sticky for FBI" "Pizza Box or IMac? No, an IBox" "Interview With the KDE and Gnome UI/Usability Developers" "Robots Take Dangerous Jobs" "Business Scene: Why Aren't More Women in Tech Fields?" "Microsoft Research Finds Women Take a Wider View" "Ultra-simple Desktop Device Slows Light to a Crawl at Room Temperature" "SIP Fuels Communications Interplay" "Nag-O-Matic" "Gaining Ground" "Mainframe Brain Drain Looms" "The Net's Faltering Democracy" ******************* News Stories *********************** "TIA Proponents Defend Domestic Spy Plan" Critics and supporters of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project voiced their views during a debate at the ACM's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference on Wednesday. Manhattan Institute fellow and lawyer Heather MacDonald argued ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item1 "That Championship Season, in Code" The Association of Computing Machinery's (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest in Beverley Hills, Calif. last week was swept by Eastern European schools. The contest, now in its 27th year, pits teams of university students against complex ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item2 "Feds Defend Plan to Secure Cyberspace" Responding to criticism that President Bush's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace is hobbled by a lack of federal regulation to enforce its recommendations, the White House's special advisor for cybersecurity Howard Schmidt told attendees at the Secure ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item3 "Fears About War, Economy Slow IT Hiring" The employment of IT professionals was impacted considerably by concerns about a war with Iraq and economic doldrums in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to a report co-authored by online recruiting services provider Dice and the Information ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item4 "Queen's Researchers Invent Computers That 'Pay Attention' to Users" Scientists from the Human Media Lab (HML) at Queen's University in Ontario have developed an Attentive User Interface (AUI) designed to relieve users of the morass of messages they receive on their electronic devices by evaluating the user's attention ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item5 "Feinstein Introduces Privacy Act of 2003" A recent FTC report estimates that 43 percent of all registered consumer complaints in 2002 involved identity theft, which incurred $343 million in losses. In an effort to curtail such abuses, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has proposed The Privacy ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item6 "Software Uses Pictures to Represent Info People Monitor" Research at the Georgia Institute of Technology puts personal information updates on a separate networked display in a way that does not distract the user, but provides a comprehensive and eye-pleasing ambiance. Associate professor of computing John ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item7 "Online Phone Monitoring Sticky for FBI" The advent of Web-based telephony opens up a can of legal and technical worms for the FBI, which is trying to establish that such services must be surveillance-enabled under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Surveillance ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item8 "Pizza Box or IMac? No, an IBox" Apple Computer could soon have a competitor in the Macintosh manufacturing business thanks to the efforts of John Fraser, a 21-year-old Minnesota engineer who has designed the iBox, a flat, upgradeable Mac that will be sold for roughly one-third the cost ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item9 "Interview With the KDE and Gnome UI/Usability Developers" It is hoped that the Unix desktop will be revolutionized when the Gnome and KDE user interfaces (UIs) become interoperable; the Gnome project's Havoc Pennington discussed usability issues with Waldo Bastian and Aaron J. Seigo of the KDE project. Seigo ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item10 "Robots Take Dangerous Jobs" A highlight of Japan's Robodex 2003 event this week was robots that can handle tasks too dangerous for humans and assist people in everyday chores. Examples of the former include machines from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Chiba University that are ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item11 "Business Scene: Why Aren't More Women in Tech Fields?" The technology job market is rife with opportunities, yet few women are taking advantage of them. This trend was the subject of a panel hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council last week. A scarcity of training was cited as a major hurdle, but personal ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item12 "Microsoft Research Finds Women Take a Wider View" Microsoft Research has found that women can navigate virtual environments 20 percent better when using optical flow cues built into a program's user interface; such visual clues provide continuous on-screen hints where things are located. Because ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item13 "Ultra-simple Desktop Device Slows Light to a Crawl at Room Temperature" University of Rochester researchers have created a device that can successfully reduce the speed of light by a factor of 5.3 million, using technology that Givens Professor of Optics Robert Boyd calls "ridiculously easy to implement." Boyd and his ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item14 "SIP Fuels Communications Interplay" Major IP-based communications players support Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as a way to tie together instant messaging, voice, and video. Microsoft and IBM both back SIP in their respective Greenwich and Lotus communications platforms. Voice-and-data ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item15 "Nag-O-Matic" Stanford University researcher B.J. Fogg, an experimental psychologist, is leading the way in an emerging discipline he calls captology--using technology to influence people. He is currently working on ways to get people to consume more water and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item16 "Gaining Ground" Indian high-tech companies thriving as IT outsourcers plan to fortify their position in order to maintain their market supremacy in the face of growing competition from China, Russia, Eastern Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. Key to their ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item17 "Mainframe Brain Drain Looms" In an effort to staunch an expected hemorrhage of mainframe expertise, the Association for Computer Operations Management (AFCOM) plans to launch a Data Center Knowledge Initiative that AFCOM's Brian Koma says should spur IT managers "to take some ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item18 "The Net's Faltering Democracy" The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a failed experiment in melding business efficiency and the global will of Internet users, writes Simson Garfinkel. Last December, the ICANN board voted to abolish elections altogether ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0404f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0402w.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.