Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the November 3, 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 566 Date: November 3, 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 Monday, November 3, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech" "Web Patent Critics Spotlight Old Technology" "A Better Ballot?" "Internet Copyright Law Goes Into Effect" "High-Tech Jobs Are Going Abroad! But That's Okay" "Symposium to Highlight 'Ambient Intelligence'" "A Matter of Milliseconds: Optical Mesh Networks Recover Rapidly" "University of Florida Researcher: 'Reversible' Computers More Energy Efficient, Faster" "Feeding the Need for News" "Needed: A Beefier CAN-SPAM Bill" "Who'll Develop Tech's 'Next Big Thing'?" "Nine Eyes Help Robots to Navigate" "Hardware Today: Standardization, Coming Soon to a Data Center Near You" "Indian Language Computing Makes Impressive Strides" "IP Address Shortage? What IP Address Shortage?" "A Web of Rules" "Mind-Reading Chip Close to Reality" "IP Net Management Could Get Easier" "Building Highly Secure, Reliable Grids" ******************* News Stories *********************** "File Sharing Pits Copyright Against Free Speech" Diebold Election Systems' recent allegations that college students and other grass-roots proponents are violating copyright statutes by posting on the Internet company documents related to the security of their electronic voting machines--and advocates' ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item1 "Web Patent Critics Spotlight Old Technology" Web technology companies and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are rushing to the aid of Microsoft, as the software giant tries fights a critical patent claim that could have ramifications for a wide variety of Internet-related software. The '906 patent ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item2 "A Better Ballot?" Computer scientists argue that costly electronic voting machines being installed in U.S. states--ostensibly to avoid hanging chads and other problems that plagued previous elections--will only make the election process more problematic, because of their ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item3 "Internet Copyright Law Goes Into Effect" A controversial Internet copyright law based on the EU Copyright Directive has gone into effect in the United Kingdom on Oct. 31, making Britain the sixth EU member state to ratify the legislation after Austria, Germany, Denmark, Greece, and Italy. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item4 "High-Tech Jobs Are Going Abroad! But That's Okay" The economy is picking up along with corporate IT spending, but the number of IT jobs remains mired at 20 percent below what the number was in 2000, writes former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich. Ostensibly, the culprit is not only the recent economic ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item5 "Symposium to Highlight 'Ambient Intelligence'" The Netherlands will be the stage for the first European Symposium on Ambient Intelligence (EUSAI), where some 160 European researchers are expected to discuss three major ambient intelligence areas--ubiquitous computing, context awareness, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item6 "A Matter of Milliseconds: Optical Mesh Networks Recover Rapidly" University of Arkansas computer engineer Kazem Sohraby demonstrated at the recent National Fiber Optics Engineers Conference in Orlando, Fla., that mesh networks can boast the same level of reliability as ring-shaped Synchronous Optical ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item7 "University of Florida Researcher: 'Reversible' Computers More Energy Efficient, Faster" By re-capturing the energy used to conduct computer calculations, University of Florida researcher Michael Frank says computer chips can be made to run much cooler, hence faster and more tightly packed together as well. "Reversible computing" works ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item8 "Feeding the Need for News" Rich Site Summary (RSS) technology is being lifted out of obscurity by online aficionados and Web operators to keep Web surfers apprised of new content added to specific Web sites. At the core of RSS is freely available software that enables Web ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item9 "Needed: A Beefier CAN-SPAM Bill" The CAN-SPAM bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Oct. 23 could be more effective at discouraging spammers if certain provisions are added, writes Jane Black. In its current form, CAN-SPAM only permits federal agencies, state attorneys general, and ISPs to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item10 "Who'll Develop Tech's 'Next Big Thing'?" The United States, Canada, and Western Europe are in jeopardy of losing their monopoly on developing innovative technologies, according to Cutter Consortium Fellow Ed Yourdon. Yourdon is calling on the federal government to find a way to boost the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item11 "Nine Eyes Help Robots to Navigate" University of Maryland at College Park computer scientist Yiannis Aloimonos and his colleague Cornelia Fermuller are set to introduce new technology that will give robots "omni-directional" vision. The new device, which will be presented at a robotics ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item12 "Hardware Today: Standardization, Coming Soon to a Data Center Near You" Computer Associates, EDS, Opsware, and over 20 other hardware vendors have set up a consortium to support the development of Data Center Markup Language (DCML), an XML-based programming language that establishes communications between a data center's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item13 "Indian Language Computing Makes Impressive Strides" Indian Linux and several other major groups in India are working to bring Indian languages to the free software world. Nagarjuna of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, Jitendra Shah and colleagues in Mumbai, Tamil, the Government of India ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item14 "IP Address Shortage? What IP Address Shortage?" As Internet Protocol version 6 IPv6 attracts more and more attention and some continue to publicize worries that IPv4 is rapidly running out of space, Richard Jimmerson of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) contends, "There is quite a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item15 "A Web of Rules" Kendall Grant Clark writes that the vision of a sturdy, public Semantic Web can only come to pass if the industrial, academic, and hacker communities are engaged in informal, loosely-coupled collaboration, but notes that hackerdom is, for the most part, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item16 "Mind-Reading Chip Close to Reality" Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) continues to invest heavily in basic research, the fruit of which includes a computer chip that can translate brain signals into machine-readable instructions. NTT chief researcher Keiichi Torimitsu is growing ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item17 "IP Net Management Could Get Easier" The Internet Engineering Task Force is working on a new IP network management standard that would allow more complete traffic-flow data to be gathered at switches and routers, then exported to a management console for analysis. The more detailed ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item18 "Building Highly Secure, Reliable Grids" Grid computing promises to supply computing power on demand like any other utility, but needs better security and reliability in order to succeed, writes United Devices' Sri Mandyam. Computational grids are guessed to be at the same stage of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1103m.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review the Friday's issue (due to technical difficulties we were unable to send out Friday's email message or post the issue on the web), please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1031f.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