Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the January 21, 2004 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 6, Number 596 Date: January 21, 2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Site Sponsored by AutoChoice Advisor Looking for a NEW vehicle? Discover which ones are right for you from over 250 different makes and models. Your unbiased list of vehicles is based on your preferences and years of consumer input. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Top Stories for Wednesday, January 21, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Open-Source E-Voting Heads West" "What Will the PC of the Future Look Like?" "New Tech Products Mean New Tech Jobs" "Software Piracy Is in Resurgence, With New Safeguards Eroded by File Sharing" "Of Ants and Online Pirates" "Wireless E-Voting Machines Raise Concern" "Spam Fighters Compare Notes" "Software Gives Cell Customers Say Over Who's Tracking Them" "Is the War on File Sharing Over?" "IT Industry Watches Iowa" "LWM Speaks With Richard Stallman" "Software Repairs Itself on the Go" "Companies Tossing Aside Consumers' Freedoms" "The Forest vs. the Trees" "U.S. Stays on Top" "Linux Looks for New Worlds to Conquer" "Automatons Invade Vegas" "The New Enterprise Portal" "7 Hot Projects" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Open-Source E-Voting Heads West" Open-source software developed in Australia is the basis for a new electronic voting system to be devised by Scott Ritchie at the University of California at Davis. The 19-year-old college student announced the launch of the nonprofit Open Vote Foundation before the California ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item1 "What Will the PC of the Future Look Like?" PC boxes are set to morph in ways similar to how the computer display has changed over the last few years. Bulky CRT monitors have been replaced with sleek flat-screen designs that are larger while taking up less desktop real estate; meanwhile, PC design has mostly changed color from beige to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item2 "New Tech Products Mean New Tech Jobs" The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that roughly 13,000 jobs for computer system designers were filled from September through November 2003, and Quantit economist Mat Johnson says these figures imply that companies are once again planning to re-staff higher-level IT positions after several ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item3 "Software Piracy Is in Resurgence, With New Safeguards Eroded by File Sharing" Software piracy is making a comeback, thanks to the advent of free and convenient peer-to-peer (P2P) file-trading programs and the emergence of high-speed Internet access. The Business Software Alliance reckons that software piracy added up to more than $13 billion in lost revenues ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item4 "Of Ants and Online Pirates" Though peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing has taken a hit thanks to the Recording Industry Association of America's aggressive litigation against suspected online music pirates, programmer Jason Rohrer could conceivably give the practice a shot in the arm with MUTE, a freely available P2P ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item5 "Wireless E-Voting Machines Raise Concern" The potential for Diebold Electronic Voting Systems' AccuVote-TSx machines to wirelessly transmit vote tallies is causing concern among computer scientists. Though the TSx units lack the cards required to establish wireless network connections, they do possess the PCMCIA slots that the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item6 "Spam Fighters Compare Notes" Anti-spam weapons were the focus of the second annual MIT Spam Conference, where topics ranged from the effectiveness of Bayesian spam filters to litigation to user authentication. John Praed of the Internet Law Group explained that strong lawsuits against spammers can only be built through ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item7 "Software Gives Cell Customers Say Over Who's Tracking Them" Bell Labs researchers will detail a network software engine that allows cell phone users to pick and choose when, where, and with whom to share location data, as well as what specific data should be shared, at this week's 2004 IEEE International Conference on Mobile Data Management. This ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item8 "Is the War on File Sharing Over?" Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) officials are confident that the hundreds of lawsuits the organization filed against individual users of file-trading services has led to a significant decrease in song swapping, while growth in legitimate online digital music sales has started ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item9 "IT Industry Watches Iowa" Democratic presidential hopefuls have had little to say on technology issues, but with the Iowa caucuses and the forthcoming New Hampshire primary, lobbyists are keeping a close eye on candidates' positions on IT offshore outsourcing, a hot-button topic that many companies support as a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item10 "LWM Speaks With Richard Stallman" GNU Project founder Richard Stallman says the free software movement is based on the desire for technical and community freedom, and requires an entirely non-proprietary system: That is the fundamental reason for the GNU Project and GNU operating system. Proprietary software inhibits ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item11 "Software Repairs Itself on the Go" MIT researchers have developed an ad-hoc method of data repair that permits a system to continue computing while repairs take place, using funding from the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance. The technique is less costly and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item12 "Companies Tossing Aside Consumers' Freedoms" Dan Gillmor writes that technology companies' fealty to avaricious entertainment cartels that seek to protect intellectual property at the expense of consumer freedoms was evident at this month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), although some consumer-friendly products did stand ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item13 "The Forest vs. the Trees" Economists and academics say current measures of IT-driven productivity do not take into account intangible aspects such as increased value to the customer. Macro-level research that looks at government statistics does not help companies make decisions, according to business observers such as ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item14 "U.S. Stays on Top" Although there is little room for doubt that American IT workers will be in less demand by the end of the decade, there is no evidence to suggest that the entire U.S. IT workforce will be replaced by lower-wage professionals in other countries: Application development, system maintenance, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item15 "Linux Looks for New Worlds to Conquer" Linux will face more challenging business issues than technical ones in the coming year, according to industry experts. The software has established credibility in the data center and has enough implementation references to start really building momentum. A number of independent software vendors ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item16 "Automatons Invade Vegas" The Palo Alto Research Center's (PARC) PolyBot project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was partly conceived as an initiative to build robust, versatile, and reconfigurable robots for disaster recovery. The PolyBots, which are currently in their third ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item17 "The New Enterprise Portal" New kinds of integration and application development are converging at browser-based, business-to-employee (B2E) portals that are quickly assuming the role of enterprise user interface and yielding dramatic increases in worker productivity. Portals have sustained their momentum throughout the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item18 "7 Hot Projects" A diverse number of technologies on the edge of commercialization promise to dramatically improve products and services. IBM's automatic speech translator, which could show up in personal digital assistants or laptops by the middle of next year, is currently in the prototype stage; ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0121w.html#item19 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- To review the Friday, Jan. 16th issue (no issue was sent on Monday, Jan. 19 [Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday]), please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2004-6/0116f.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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (c) 2004 INFORMATION, INC. 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