Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the June 11, 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 506 Date: June 11, 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, June 11, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "DOJ Net Surveillance Under Fire" "Who's in the Loop? USC Tool Maps the Email Labyrinth" "Online Service Pairs Students, Mentors" "Should Web Be a Copyright-Free Zone?" "'Biomimetics' Researchers Inspired by the Animal World" "A Passion to Build a Better Robot, One With Social Skills and a Smile" "Attack of the Two-Headed Scientists" "Global Summit on New Internet Protocol" "Beyond WiFi: Airwaves Used in Creative, Lucrative--and Unregulated--Ways" "Bell Tolling for PNG Graphics Format?" "Ex-Cybersecurity Czar Says There's Much Work to Do" "Glass That Glows and Gives Stock Information" "World Radiocommunication Conference Takes Up Fight Over Frequencies" "The Grand Unified Theory of Spam" "Artificial Beings Evolve Realistically" "Bell Labs Eyes Broadband's Future" "Taming the Beast" "A Psychologist in Cyberspace" "Exploring the "Singularity"" ******************* News Stories *********************** "DOJ Net Surveillance Under Fire" Civil liberties groups are criticizing a May 2003 report from the Justice Department and last week's testimony by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft at a congressional hearing as being too vague in regards to the Internet surveillance powers authorized ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item1 "Who's in the Loop? USC Tool Maps the Email Labyrinth" A new tool developed at the University of Southern California could relieve historians, archivists, and other researchers of the burden of painstakingly sifting through huge email databases for specific data by making such collections easy to systematize ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item2 "Online Service Pairs Students, Mentors" MentorNet, based at San Jose State University, is a nonprofit program to help more women penetrate the science and engineering workforce by pairing students with mentors over the Web. The program is the brainchild of veteran educator Carol B. Muller, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item3 "Should Web Be a Copyright-Free Zone?" Speakers at the recent Progress and Freedom Foundation conference, "Promoting Markets in Creativity: Copyright in the Internet Age," aired their views on whether the Internet should or should not be subject to copyright law, and questioned whether ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item4 "'Biomimetics' Researchers Inspired by the Animal World" Biomimetics researchers design robots based on animals in an effort to enhance the machines' versatility, capability, and robustness. Federally-funded biomimetics research efforts currently taking place in the Boston area include BigDog, a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item5 "A Passion to Build a Better Robot, One With Social Skills and a Smile" MIT researcher Dr. Cynthia L. Breazeal has dedicated herself to developing "sociable" robots that appear to respond both physically and emotionally to people. Breazeal notes that many people's attitudes toward real-life robots are rooted in science ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item6 "Attack of the Two-Headed Scientists" The New Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (NLCSAI) announced in May integrates MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Laboratory for Computer Science under the leadership of current AI Lab head Rodney Brooks ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item7 "Global Summit on New Internet Protocol" Computer scientists and technology companies will be able to get an in-depth look at the next-generation Internet Protocol, version 6 (IPv6), and its ramifications for applications and services at the North American IPv6 Global Summit in late June. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item8 "Beyond WiFi: Airwaves Used in Creative, Lucrative--and Unregulated--Ways" A recent FCC report outlines the current situation surrounding the nation's unlicensed spectrum and the technology innovation it has inspired. The FCC has made some adjustments to spectrum allotment rules, allowing license owners to lease and trade ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item9 "Bell Tolling for PNG Graphics Format?" The patent providing the foundation of the highly popular Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) design, the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression algorithm, is scheduled to expire June 20; Unisys is not planning to extend the patent, either in the United ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item10 "Ex-Cybersecurity Czar Says There's Much Work to Do" Former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke applauds the national cybersecurity strategy he helped flesh out, but notes that a lot more needs to be accomplished. Awareness of the country's vulnerability to cyberspace-based attacks has spread ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item11 "Glass That Glows and Gives Stock Information" Researchers and companies are developing unobtrusive display devices that relay general information to users, such as a glass sphere from Ambient Devices that can be programmed to change color to indicate changing stock market conditions, for instance. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item12 "World Radiocommunication Conference Takes Up Fight Over Frequencies" The U.N.-sponsored World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-03), held every three years, will discuss global standardization of Wi-Fi bandwidth allocation, broadband Internet for aircraft, and more powerful GPS satellite signals. The 172-person U.S. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item13 "The Grand Unified Theory of Spam" CipherTrust is in the business of developing hardware and software that counteracts viruses and worms, but chief technology officer Paul Judge acknowledges that early on he may have not fully understood the problem of unsolicited commercial email. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item14 "Artificial Beings Evolve Realistically" University researchers are studying the transmission of genetic code using simple computer programs that self-replicate in a contained environment. Michigan State University associate computer science professor Charles Ofria says the goal is to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item15 "Bell Labs Eyes Broadband's Future" Bell Labs President Jeff Jaffe says many of the presentations at this year's Supercomm 2003 conference ape Lucent's tact of providing end-to-end services for telecom customers. He says that even as Lucent continues to enhance hardware, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item16 "Taming the Beast" Maintaining outmoded systems can devour as much as 80 percent of IT budgets, according to Gartner's Dale Vecchio, and many companies are attempting to overcome the problem by switching from mainframe applications to Web services. However, Web-server ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item17 "A Psychologist in Cyberspace" MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle has become an expert on the deep, emotional connections human beings make with the technology they use. She explains that computers, robotic toys, and other kinds of technology support such connections because they dovetail with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item18 "Exploring the 'Singularity'" Exponential technological development is expected to lead to the Singularity, a point where the results of technological change will become impossible to predict; the projected signs of the Singularity range from the integration of biological and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0611w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0609m.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