Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 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 578 Date: December 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 Wednesday, December 3, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Computer Security in Focus" "Software Patents Face-Off Delayed Until Spring" "IT Job Market: Things Can Only Get Better" "Privacy Concerns Mount Over Retail Use of RFID Technology" "Rules to Address Holes in Software" "A Two-Pronged Approach to Cybersecurity" "ISU Researchers Make Artificial Neural Network Discovery" "Gizmo Puts Cards on the Table" "Panel: U.S. Science Leadership at Risk" "Intel Scientists Find Wall for Moore's Law" "Game Design Initiative Will Use Gaming as Motivation" "Bluetooth and the Quest for a Wireless World" "Internet2 Takes Shape in Michigan" "Think Web's Virtually Government Free? Think Again" "Fighting the Worms of Mass Destruction" "It Came From Hollywood" "Time Warp" "The Trouble With ROI" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Computer Security in Focus" Lobbyists, elected representatives, business leaders, and security experts are worried that the White House has lost focus on the implementation of its National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, and plan to use the National Cyber Security Summit on ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item1 "Software Patents Face-Off Delayed Until Spring" Last week's vote by the European Commission's Competitiveness Council on the European Union's controversial draft Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions has been postponed until April 2004 due to the lobbying efforts of European mobile phone makers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item2 "IT Job Market: Things Can Only Get Better" Despite the current shortage of available and lucrative IT positions, many people inside and outside the IT industry believe the job market is poised for a resurgence, a hope that appears to be borne out by statistical data. A 7.2 percent quarterly ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item3 "Privacy Concerns Mount Over Retail Use of RFID Technology" Privacy concerns could hamper the growth of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in the retail market, warn experts at MIT's RFID Privacy Workshop. Consumer advocacy groups such as Customers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item4 "Rules to Address Holes in Software" Major technology companies, working under the aegis of the Organization for Internet Security (OIS), are formalizing rules to determine the best time for hackers and researchers to publicly disclose software bugs so that vendors should not have ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item5 "A Two-Pronged Approach to Cybersecurity" Amit Yoran, who was recently appointed director of the National Cyber Security Division of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, plans to bolster the security of the United ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item6 "ISU Researchers Make Artificial Neural Network Discovery" A new algorithm was recently discovered by Idaho State University researchers Vitit Kantabutra, Elena Zheleva, Angela Hillier, Batsukh Tsendajv, and Steven Miller that can train artificial neural networks quickly and reliably without getting stuck. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item7 "Gizmo Puts Cards on the Table" MIT Media Lab Europe's Habitat project includes equipping kitchen tables with radio frequency identification (RFID) tag readers, projectors, and computers to establish a two-way, Internet-enabled communications system in which people separated ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item8 "Panel: U.S. Science Leadership at Risk" The United States' leadership in science and innovation is eroding, according to findings from the National Science Board, which recommends that the government devote more funding to the training of science and math teachers and sponsorship of college ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item9 "Intel Scientists Find Wall for Moore's Law" A paper authored by Intel researchers and published in last month's Proceedings of the IEEE theorizes that transistor shrinkage will reach its limit by 2021, which means that chipmakers will have to devise alternate methods to build more ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item10 "Game Design Initiative Will Use Gaming as Motivation" For five semesters, Cornell University professor David Schwartz has been teaching an experimental interdisciplinary course in game design as part of his Computer Game Design Initiative, whose overall goal is to spark interest in science and technology among ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item11 "Bluetooth and the Quest for a Wireless World" Bluetooth is inside about 1 million consumer electronics devices shipped each week, but only a small number of people seem to know what the wireless technology is or what it can do. Bluetooth special interest group executive director Mike McCamon estimates ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item12 "Internet2 Takes Shape in Michigan" A next-generation Internet is being developed by the Internet2 consortium as an antidote for the slowdown of information flow between universities caused by the deluge of commercial traffic online. Some 70 corporations and around 40 organizations and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item13 "Think Web's Virtually Government Free? Think Again" The upcoming World Summit on the Information Society will involve 6,000 delegates and a number of issues, including the contentious one of Internet governance. Many nations would prefer ICANN to turn over administration of the domain name system to all ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item14 "Fighting the Worms of Mass Destruction" A lot of fear is circulating that viruses and worms could be used by terrorists to threaten entire societies with destruction and anarchy, but fewer than 1 percent of recent cyberattacks originated from terrorist-sympathetic nations, and the majority ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item15 "It Came From Hollywood" Oscar-winning special-effects maestro Stan Winston, whose animatronic creations have dazzled movie goers in such films as "Aliens," "Jurassic Park," and the "Terminator" series, teamed up with MIT roboticist Cynthia Breazeal to collaboratively develop ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item16 "Time Warp" An unusual practice of modern timekeeping is the insertion of a "leap second" into the calendar, which occurs less than once a year on average; this is done to make up for the discrepancy between international atomic time and solar time, which is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item17 "The Trouble With ROI" An August roundtable of CIOs, financial executives, and business management experts convened to discuss the problem of measuring IT's return on investment (ROI) and whether alternate ways of determining IT's value to the enterprise are worth pursuing; many ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1203w.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1201m.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