Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 1, 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 577 Date: December 1, 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, December 1, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Dust-Up Over E-Vote Paper Trail" "Beware the Worm in Your Handset" "Open-Source Community Defends GNU Against SCO Assault" "Bandwidth Challenge Teams Push Networking Performance Envelope at ACM's SC2003 Conference" "U.S. Considers Turning Scooters Into War Robots" "On a Cheap Plastic Grid, Gigabytes Galore" "Internet Mapping Project Weaves Colorful Web" "Smart Auctions" "A 20-Year Plague" "Bridging the Digital Divide, Cheaply" "Come, the Revolution" "Keep Kofi Away From the Internet" "Trouble on the Net" "Remote Possibilities" "ACM Extends Award Nomination Deadline" "The Promise and Pitfalls of Social Networking" "Germs That Build Circuits" "Wireless Wearables--Where's the Technology Headed?" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Dust-Up Over E-Vote Paper Trail" California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has mandated voter-verifiable paper receipts at all e-voting machines in that state by July 1, 2005, or July 1, 2006, depending on when they were purchased. But only a few of California's 58 counties have ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item1 "Beware the Worm in Your Handset" Worms and viruses that proliferate through PCs are commanding most of the attention, but security experts believe increasing numbers of hackers are bound to exploit flaws in Internet-enabled cell phones and other handsets to spread their malware, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item2 "Open-Source Community Defends GNU Against SCO Assault" IBM responded to SCO Group's billion-dollar lawsuit for alleged copyright infringement of its Unix source code by filing a counterclaim arguing that SCO was in violation of the GNU Public License (GPL) by limiting use of and imposing property rights on ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item3 "Bandwidth Challenge Teams Push Networking Performance Envelope at ACM's SC2003 Conference" High-Performance Bandwidth Challenge participants this year achieved record speeds and advanced networking performance, showing that networking technologies are keeping pace with the supercomputing technology also displayed at ACM's SC2003 ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item4 "U.S. Considers Turning Scooters Into War Robots" Researchers at MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University, and elsewhere have received Pentagon funding to modify the self-balancing Segway Human Transporter to autonomously open doors, traverse rough terrain, and chase soccer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item5 "On a Cheap Plastic Grid, Gigabytes Galore" Scientists at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories and Princeton University detail a breakthrough "write once, read many times" memory device they developed from a polymer normally used as an anti-static coating for computer screens in a recent issue of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item6 "Internet Mapping Project Weaves Colorful Web" U.S.-based networking engineer Barrett Lyon believes the Internet can be mapped out within a day using a standard networking program, and he claims his Opte mapping project has both practical and artistic merits. Lyon employs a "traceroute" ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item7 "Smart Auctions" The outcomes of e-commerce transactions could be more efficiently determined through the use of an approach that taps into artificial intelligence and operations research methods patented by Tuomas Sandholm, director of Carnegie Mellon University's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item8 "A 20-Year Plague" The scientific community's failure to convince administrators to seriously consider investigating defenses against computer viruses back when the threat was a possibility rather than a reality--or to realize the extent of the threat--has had a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item9 "Bridging the Digital Divide, Cheaply" America's poor deserve subsidized broadband Internet access, which would cost the government approximately $4 billion if a $300 tax credit was offered to each family with less than $25,000 of annual income. With the cost of PCs hovering around $500 and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item10 "Come, the Revolution" Intel chief strategist and director of strategic initiatives Chris Thomas believes the world is on the cusp of a "mobility inflection point" in which vast numbers of wireless devices and their underlying exigencies will facilitate a dramatic shift in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item11 "Keep Kofi Away From the Internet" Robert Fulford of the National Post comments that while many individuals regard the Internet as one of the best inventions in recent history, the United Nations appears to feel differently. As a result, Fulford states, they want to regulate it, "and they ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item12 "Trouble on the Net" Whether enhancing the Internet's core routing systems with additional intelligence will boost performance and security or inhibit innovation and endanger end-to-end visibility is a subject of intense debate. "The thing that has made the Net most ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item13 "Remote Possibilities" Server-based computing (SBC) can be a boon to businesses because it can lower hardware, software, and support costs, and secure application access. The current SBC workhorse is Citrix's MetaFrame XP Presentation Server, a virtual user interface that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item14 "ACM Extends Deadline for Award Nominations" The deadline for nominations for six of the 12 major ACM awards has been extended to Dec. 31, 2003. The awards are: ACM/AAI Allen Newell (http://www.acm.org/awards/anaward.html); Eugence L. Lawler for Humanitarian Contributions to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item15 "The Promise and Pitfalls of Social Networking" A Working Model managing director Stowe Boyd admits that he is "a strongly biased advocate" for social networking, and has no reservations about investors pouring early-stage capital into social networks. He says the Internet can deepen social ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item16 "Germs That Build Circuits" Scientists are trying to harness biological self-assembly in an attempt to eliminate the cost and space requirements of lithographic fabrication by coaxing viruses, DNA, and other organic materials to construct electronics on the nanoscale ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item17 "Wireless Wearables--Where's the Technology Headed?" Wearable computers, as defined by Venture Development (VDC), are, ideally, "smart fabrics" equipped with sensors to provide geolocation, biophysical monitoring, and other services; they should boast always-accessible computers that can either run ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review the Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1126w.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 ... 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