Mind Over Machine
Sparks Fly in E-Voting
Debate
With Election Data Services predicting that 50 million
voters--28 percent of the projected U.S. voting populace--will
use paperless electronic voting systems this year, researchers
at the annual conference of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science intensely argued over the ...
[read more]
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U.S. Firms Lament Cutback
in Visas for Foreign Talent
An improving U.S. economy has companies such as Rockwell
Scientific turning to the H-1B visa program again to hire
skilled foreigners to fill their openings. However, Rockwell
Scientific CEO Derek Cheung and other executives believe there
are not enough H-1B visas available now that ...
[read more]
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Passwords to Guard Entry
Aren't Enough to Protect Complex Data
Shielding complex data from unauthorized users with
passwords and other access controls is only part of the
equation; outgoing data must also be protected through
filters, argues Stanford computer science professor Gio
Wiederhold, who will discuss trusted information databases at
the annual ...
[read more]
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Innovation Alive and Well
at Demo
The Demo 2004 conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., showed no
shortage of innovation in the area of business software.
Notable products spotlighted at the gathering include the
USB-based Xkey from KeyComputing, a device that can be plugged
into a home computer or a branch office system and ...
[read more]
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New Anti-Spam Initiative
Gaining Traction
Spammers would no longer be able to send junk email
anonymously if the SMTP protocol was changed so that sending
servers could be authenticated; the SMTP+SPF working group is
developing the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) in the hopes that
the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) will approve it ...
[read more]
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Pittsburgh Scientists
Measure Productivity in Petascale
Supercomputing
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has made it a
priority to boost supercomputing power a thousand-fold to the
petaflop scale by the end of the decade through its
High-Productivity Computing Systems (HPCS) initiative. Funded
under the aegis of the HPCS effort is the Productive, ...
[read more]
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Biology Stirs Software
'Monoculture' Debate
University of New Mexico biologist Stephanie Forrest and
Mike Reiter of Carnegie-Mellon University have received a
$750,000 National Science Foundation grant to explore methods
to automatically diversify software code. The work stems from
the belief that in computer networks, just as in ...
[read more]
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Search for
Tomorrow
Google has established itself as the first Internet search
engine to achieve utility-like status, with the service
handling more than 200 million queries daily; however,
next-generation search engines are likely to make Google seem
medieval in comparison. Google's worth as a navigation ...
[read more]
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Where to Start to Launch
the 'Butterfly Effect'
Cornell University computer science professor Jon Kleinberg
talked about how computer algorithms can be applied to the
problem of determining whether a few influential people can
induce major changes in the thinking of large populations, in
much the same way that the flapping of a ...
[read more]
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Security Still Reigns as
Wireless 'Weakest Link'
Though Amry Junaideen of the Deloitte & Touche Security
Services division reports that wireless devices such as
laptops and personal digital assistants have become more
productive, that productivity is offset by their lack of
security, which means that information could be compromised
...
[read more]
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Spammers Exploit
High-Speed Connections
Spammers are hijacking home computers with high-speed
Internet connections to use as proxy spam relays, and email
security companies estimate that between one-third and
two-thirds of junk email is sent by "spam zombieswhose owners
misconfigure their software or fail to implement or update ...
[read more]
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Hackers for
Hire
It has been a common practice for companies to hire "White
Hat" hackers to test their network security, but some experts
are questioning the wisdom of such an approach, especially as
new, stronger, and more potentially damaging cybersecurity
threats emerge and government regulations about data ...
[read more]
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Congress and
Cybersecurity
In an online discussion of cybersecurity issues, Rep. Adam
Putnam (R-Fla.) raised such points as the need for increased
awareness of such issues, and the progress both the public and
private sectors have made. He acknowledged that there is still
a lot to be done in many areas, such as ...
[read more]
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Privacy Is in the
House
The Defense of Privacy Act would require all government
agencies to study the privacy impact of new rules before
putting them into effect and would complement the E-Government
Act of 2001. The bipartisan congressional coalition that backs
it has been trying for three years to get such ...
[read more]
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For Those Who Can't Wait
for the Future to Arrive
Intel has created a trio of concept PCs to be exhibited at
the upcoming Intel Developer Forum: The machines marry
imaginative designs to state-of-the-art technology in an
effort to "predict, inspire and direct the industry,"
according to Intel mobile chief technology evangelist Mike ...
[read more]
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Pandora's Box for Open
Source
Powerful tech companies are undergoing a shift in sales
strategies as open-source software increasingly impinges on
traditional markets, and many software makers are adopting
open source just to keep abreast of industry trends. "This is
a complex dynamic, because on the one hand, you need ...
[read more]
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Quantum Cryptography:
Security Through Uncertainty
Start-ups MagiQ Technologies and ID Quantique announced
quantum cryptography hardware late last year, but most
enterprise networks will not be able to take advantage of the
technology. However, the continued development of quantum
cryptography over the next few years is expected to ...
[read more]
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'Smart Dust' Is Way
Cool"
Smart dust" has enabled field biologist John Anderson of
the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor to collect
information on thousands of Leach's storm petrels hunkered
down in burrows on Great Duck Island, which is 12 miles off
the coast of Maine. Anderson and his team of researchers make
...
[read more]
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Mind Over
Machine
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has
invested heavily in brain-machine interface research, whose
promised benefits include thought-controlled robots for
military operations and mentally-directed artificial limbs for
paralysis victims. Such projects build upon research ...
[read more]
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