Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the June 18, 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 509 Date: June 18, 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 18, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Anti-Spam Proposals Get Tougher" "Music Pirates Should Face Destructive Counterattacks, Hatch Says" "The Cult of Free Software Finds Willing Devotees" "Researchers Create Wireless Sensor Chip the Size of Glitter" "Support for Nanobots Shrinking" "Debate Over Future of "Simplified" Java" "Are Open Source Databases Following in Linux' Footsteps?" "Technology Elite Are Focusing Next On Human Body" "W3C, Unicode Move to Head Off Character Clash" "Allen Claims Success in Work on Computers That Can Reason" "Linux Lab Lands Torvalds" "New Way to Make Realistic Shadows for Computer Images, Animation" "Controversy Surrounds Employees on L-1 Visas" "Nanotube Chip Could Hold 10 Gigabits" "Macs to Drive on HyperTransport Links" "Captchas Eat Spam" "Innovation, Lego-Style" "Thin, Flat, and Low Power" "Spam, Spam, Spam, Lovely Spam" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Anti-Spam Proposals Get Tougher" Lawmakers in both the Senate and House of Representatives are proposing anti-spam bills that impose stricter rules on spammers in response to current proposals that have been criticized as insufficient. A bill introduced in May by Reps. W.J. Tauzin ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item1 "Music Pirates Should Face Destructive Counterattacks, Hatch Says" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) declared at a June 17 hearing that he approves of technology that would remotely destroy the computers of people who download copyrighted music files without authorization, for lack of a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item2 "The Cult of Free Software Finds Willing Devotees" The open-source software movement is growing in the corporate sphere, with a number of core infrastructure projects capitalizing on the success of Linux and gaining the backing of key sponsors. Some early backers of open-source development in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item3 "Researchers Create Wireless Sensor Chip the Size of Glitter" The "smart dust" chip developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, combines sensors and transmitters into a 5-square-millimeter package that will form the basis of Spec, a mote technology that could be used to build self-configuring ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item4 "Support for Nanobots Shrinking" Foresight Institute Chairman Eric Drexler's vision of nanoscale robots that can self-replicate and build cheap yet sophisticated machinery, cure diseases, and increase human longevity seems more like wishful thinking than practical, according to many current ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item5 "Debate Over Future of "Simplified" Java" Panelists at a JavaOne roundtable spoke about the difficulty in producing easy-to-use Java programming interfaces that also ensure scalability and interoperability. Nearly every vendor at the JavaOne conference markets some sort of rapid application ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item6 "Are Open Source Databases Following in Linux' Footsteps?" The open-source database movement led by MySQL is small compared to the Linux push, but some experts predict it will follow a similar developmental path; opinion is split throughout the industry whether MySQL or other open-source database providers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item7 "Technology Elite Are Focusing Next On Human Body" The recent Tedmed conference in Philadelphia was a showcase for advances in biotechnology that aim to give people an unprecedented view of their health, which could translate into a financial windfall for vendors, scientists, and pharmaceutical ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item8 "W3C, Unicode Move to Head Off Character Clash" The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Internationalization Working Group and the Unicode Technical Committee released a joint study on June 13 acknowledging some points of contention between the Unicode and Extensible Markup Language (XML) ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item9 "Allen Claims Success in Work on Computers That Can Reason" Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen continues to believe in the possibility that computers will be able to think and reason. Allen says Project Halo, an AI initiative of his privately held investment arm, Vulcan, has scored a success. Noah Friedland, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item10 "Linux Lab Lands Torvalds" Linux Torvalds, inventor of the open-source Linux operating system, is taking an indefinite leave of absence from Transmeta to work for the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL), where he will make a full-time effort to develop future Linux iterations for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item11 "New Way to Make Realistic Shadows for Computer Images, Animation" Ohio State University doctoral student Caixia Zhang has developed new software algorithms that can produce soft, realistic shadows for translucent 3D objects or substances such as fire, clouds, water, and smoke. The algorithms, which simulate how light ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item12 "Controversy Surrounds Employees on L-1 Visas" The L-1 visa program has drawn criticism following claims that employers are using the program to replace American employees with cheaper foreign labor. Immediate past president of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) LeEarl ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item13 "Nanotube Chip Could Hold 10 Gigabits" Nantero announced that it has fabricated a prototype carbon nanotube chip that can theoretically store up to 10 GB of data and pave the way for nonvolatile nanoscale random access memory (NRAM). NRAM, which would retain data while turned off and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item14 "Macs to Drive on HyperTransport Links" Sources indicate that Apple Computer may discuss plans to embed the HyperTransport high-speed chip-to-chip communications technology into new desktop Macintoshes at the Worldwide Developer Conference in late June. HyperTransport 1.0 boasts a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item15 "Captchas Eat Spam" Researchers have been using tests to block robot programs from exploiting online services since 1997, when Digital Equipment employed character-recognition tests to protect the integrity of its AltaVista searches. Called captchas, for "completely ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item16 "Innovation, Lego-Style" Computers are becoming a commodity resource, but off-the-shelf components are being put together in innovative ways that promise to deliver dramatic gains for users. IBM Deep Computing Institute director William R. Pulleybank explains the situation ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item17 "Thin, Flat, and Low Power" After a prolonged period that has seen little innovation, innovative display technologies are hitting or are about to hit the market. Most leading liquid crystal display (LCD) providers have been boosting the adaptability of their products thanks to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item18 "Spam, Spam, Spam, Lovely Spam" The general view is that spam--defined as unsolicited bulk commercial email--has skyrocketed in the past few years, a conclusion borne out by several surveys: Brightmail estimates that spam accounted for more than 40 percent of email traffic by ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0618w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.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