Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 8, 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 580 Date: December 8, 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 8, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Nations Chafe at U.S. Influence Over the Internet" "For Some Older IT Workers, Job Prospects Improve" "NASA: Looking Back at Earth" "Wi-Fi to Face Interoperability Challenges" "Linux Guru: Move Quickly to New Kernel" "Robotics Revolution" "Hackers Steal From Pirates, to No Good End" "Smart Assistant Will Cut Driver Distraction" "Gartner Sees "Massive Disruption" to IT Workers" "Japan's Robot Developers Go Linux" "That 1994 Feeling" "Software Paraphrases Sentences" "Technology Facilitates Data Gathering" "Section 508: Built Into Business" "Blueprint for Web Services" "A Look at Telematics" "Malcode Melee" "What Do Users Want From Converged Multimodal Communications?" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Nations Chafe at U.S. Influence Over the Internet" World governments are frustrated at the singular control the United States exerts over Internet governance, and officials at the United Nations are readying a new Internet governance structure that would make it a more multilateral endeavor. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item1 "For Some Older IT Workers, Job Prospects Improve" Older IT professionals have had to face not just the economic recession, shrinking IT budgets, and increased offshore outsourcing, but age discrimination as they struggle to find work. Over-50--sometimes even over-30--IT workers are often cast ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item2 "NASA: Looking Back at Earth" NASA conducts a number of programs designed to model how the Earth works, and develops new computer technologies to help in its task. NASA operates 18 satellites that gather raw data such as ocean current, temperatures, and spread of invasive species ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item3 "Wi-Fi to Face Interoperability Challenges" Industry executives gathered at the recent Wi-Fi Planet show in San Jose stressed that establishing interoperability among an "alphabet soup" of IEEE 802.11 technologies will be a major challenge as the industry embarks on a project to implement ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item4 "Linux Guru: Move Quickly to New Kernel" Marcelo Tosatti, who maintains the 2.4 Linux kernel by the authority of Linux developer Linus Torvalds, announced via a Dec. 1 posting to the Linux Kernel Mailing List that the 2.6 kernel is sufficiently mature to form the basis of new projects; he ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item5 "Robotics Revolution" Lance Ulanoff writes that robotics technology showcased at Comdex was impressive enough to make him consider that the field could one day become the savior of the tech industry. He was particularly taken with Paro, a Japanese robot that resembles a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item6 "Hackers Steal From Pirates, to No Good End" Designers of rogue "Trojan horse" programs are adopting a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) network model that threatens to make the spread of their malware impossible to halt, warn computer experts. LURHQ computer specialist Joe Stewart found ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item7 "Smart Assistant Will Cut Driver Distraction" Laws banning the use of certain devices by drivers in order to reduce the number of accidents attributed to distraction have not halted the flood of in-vehicle electronic devices, so BMW and Robert Bosch engineers, partially funded by the government of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item8 "Gartner Sees "Massive Disruption" to IT Workers" By 2008, the IT industry is expected to experience a "massive disruption to the IT workforce," according to Gartner, which predicts huge changes to the industry over the next few years. Software code will become more modular and reusable by 2008, as ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item9 "Japan's Robot Developers Go Linux" Japanese companies say the robotics industry could outpace the PC industry: In anticipation of this development, firms such as Mitsubishi are designing robots for practical use that are also convenient, inexpensive, ubiquitous, and powered by Linux ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item10 "That 1994 Feeling" Like HTML in 1994, RSS technology today promises to revolutionize the way people receive and distribute information. While RSS has yet to receive an easily understood moniker, such as HTML's World Wide Web title, it is slowly gathering grass-roots support in the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item11 "Software Paraphrases Sentences" Cornell University researchers are developing computer programs that can automatically paraphrase sentences, a capability that could prove useful in machine translation, technologies to help disabled people, and computer processing of natural language. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item12 "Technology Facilitates Data Gathering" Noun-phrase coreference resolution was the subject of a speech at the University of Pennsylvania delivered by Cornell University computer science professor Claire Cardie. A process for identifying nouns or phrases that refer to the same entity, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item13 "Section 508: Built Into Business" Government agencies, contractors, and vendors have normalized Section 508 accessibility requirements as part of their business, said policymakers at the Interagency Disabilities Educational Awareness Showcase (IDEAS) conference last month. White House ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item14 "Blueprint for Web Services" Web services are being planned by companies eager to establish a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that turns applications into services and rolls them into other applications, supporting application reusability and low-cost integration. What is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item15 "A Look at Telematics" Telematics is the integration of location-based information services with two-way wireless communication, and telematics systems have wide applications in automotive services such as customized infotainment, location-based safety, security, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item16 "Malcode Melee" Last August's Welchia worm looked like a "white hat" worm to some because it automatically patched computers and deleted the Blaster worm, released just one week earlier. And despite causing Air Canada flights to be cancelled and disrupting the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item17 "What Do Users Want From Converged Multimodal Communications?" The deployment of unified messaging and unified communications has become possible through the development of a converged voice/data network framework, while the market movement toward instant messaging and IP telephony is driving the vision of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1208m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review the Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1205f.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