Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the April 25, 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 487 Date: April 25, 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - POWERFUL SYSTEMS, POWERFUL SAVINGS IBM offers ACM members discounts on hundreds of products for the home and office including desktops, notebooks, servers, monitors, software, hardware and accessories. Also, ask about additional promotional offers! Call 1-800-426-7235 ext. 3559 to save 10% everyday on purchases. Please visit our Web site at http://www.ibm.com/businesscenter/ACM TURN UP THE VOLUME ON IBM AND SAVE The more you buy, the more you save. Ask about Volume Discounts when you buy multiple select IBM ThinkPadR notebooks and NetVistaTM desktops*. Call 1-800-426-7235 ext. 3559 today. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Stories for Friday, April 25, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Linux Founder Opens Door to DRM" "Firms Call for Open High-Speed Net" "Baby DMCAs Punish Copy Crimes" "To Print or Not to Print: California Studies Electronic Voting Security" "The Eyes and Ears of War" "The PATRIOT Software Bonanza" "Giving PCs the Boot--Responsibly" "Like a Swerving Commuter, a Selfish Router Slows Traffic" "Where Spam Comes From" "Nanocomputer Skips Clock" "Microsoft Research Gives a Glimpse of the Future" "Perspective: A Mosaic of New Opportunities" "Wired by a Kindred Spirit, the Disabled Gain Control" "Engineers Aim to Make Average Singers Sound Like Virtuosos" "Critical Path" "Will Ceiling Fall?" "Wi-Fi Means Business" "TeleLiving: When Virtual Meets Reality" "The State of Desktop Speech" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Linux Founder Opens Door to DRM" Linux founder Linus Torvalds posted a message on the "Linux-kernel" mailing list Thursday indicating that he sees no prohibition against developers deploying digital rights management (DRM) technology, even though some open-source ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item1 "Firms Call for Open High-Speed Net" The Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators, whose members include Walt Disney, Amazon.com, and Microsoft, want the FCC to adopt guidelines that retain the Internet's basic open architecture, without which innovation could suffer. The FCC ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item2 "Baby DMCAs Punish Copy Crimes" State lawmakers are proposing bills that limit digital copying and impose penalties on violators, leading opponents to label them super-DMCAs, after the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Van Stevenson of the Motion Picture Association ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item3 "To Print or Not to Print: California Studies Electronic Voting Security" A special task force appointed by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley in February is studying the security and dependability of touch-screen voting machines to see whether they should provide a printed audit trail to ensure an accurate vote ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item4 "The Eyes and Ears of War" In Iraq, U.S. military technological capabilities have far surpassed any demonstrated in past wars: The United States has brought to bear on the battlefield a lethal menagerie of IT, much of it developed in the commercial sector. Pentagon Office of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item5 "The PATRIOT Software Bonanza" Software vendors are rushing to help financial services firms, universities, and others comply with the USA Patriot Act, which requires, among other things, more robust anti-money laundering efforts. Other markets opened wider by the Patriot Act, as well ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item6 "Giving PCs the Boot--Responsibly" The National Safety Council estimates that discarded computers in the United States will total 315 million by 2004, yet only about 11 percent of computers are being recycled. Manufacturers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard are developing and implementing ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item7 "Like a Swerving Commuter, a Selfish Router Slows Traffic" Cornell University researchers Tim Roughgarden and Eva Tardos have formulated an analogy between Internet traffic and highway traffic that equates motorists with routers: Shortcuts in both systems serve the selfish interests of individuals that result in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item8 "Where Spam Comes From" Researchers at the Center for Democracy and Technology conducted a study to determine how exactly spammers get hold of email addresses. The project, which commenced last summer, involved the establishment of 250 addresses that were posted on Web sites ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item9 "Nanocomputer Skips Clock" Computing power could be ratcheted up tremendously through the advent of nanocomputers that use molecule-sized components, and researchers at Japan's Communications Research Laboratory (CRL) have formulated a low-power, highly reconfigurable nanocomputer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item10 "Microsoft Research Gives a Glimpse of the Future" Microsoft Research has 55 distinct research efforts underway, including those involving machine interface design and software development technologies. Rick Rashid, who started the group in 1991, heads operations in Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item11 "Perspective: A Mosaic of New Opportunities" Groove Networks CEO Ray Ozzie asserts that the potential of what tech visionary Mark Anderson terms the "Global Computer"--a vast network consisting of all worldwide transistors interconnected by the Internet--has barely been tapped. He writes that many people ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item12 "Wired by a Kindred Spirit, the Disabled Gain Control" Farleigh Dickinson University computer scientist Eamon Doherty is integrating computers and robotics into tools that can significantly improve the everyday lives of severely disabled people. Routine tasks that healthy people take for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item13 "Engineers Aim to Make Average Singers Sound Like Virtuosos" Mark J.T. Smith of Purdue University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has teamed up with Georgia Institute of Technology graduate student Matthew Lee to devise computer algorithms for voice analysis and synthesis so that human singing ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item14 "Critical Path" Discouraged by layoffs, increasing outsourcing, and downturns, both employed and unemployed IT professionals are losing faith in the IT career path, and are advising the younger generation to develop more marketable skills; this could lead to a scarcity of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item15 "Will Ceiling Fall?" Tech workers are increasingly incensed over the perceived loss of jobs to foreign companies and workers, and are pressing politicians to lower the ceiling for H-1B visas issued each year. A number of legislators have already responded, including Rep. F. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item16 "Wi-Fi Means Business" Four years after its debut as a tool primarily for enthusiasts on the network fringe, wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) has started to penetrate the corporate sector. Buoyed by its ability to provide cheaper high-speed Internet connections, firms are embracing ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item17 "TeleLiving: When Virtual Meets Reality" New technological trends are bringing TeleLiving--conversational human-machine interaction that facilitates a smoother, more comfortable way to educate, shop, do one's job, and even socialize--closer to reality. High-speed broadband ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item18 "The State of Desktop Speech" The growing sophistication of desktop speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies will open up new markets and boost economic returns for users. Doctors and lawyers represent a steady customer base for desktop dictation products, given their ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0425f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0423w.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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by: IBM personal computers and software Purchase discounted IBM personal computers, servers, and hundreds of additional products and services as an ACM member. *Discount is available directly from IBM on selected products. Savings referenced off regular IBM Web price. Offers cannot be combined with other discounts, rebates or special offers. Offer valid in US only and subject to availability. IBM, NetVista and ThinkPad are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -