Postmodern Software
Development
High-Tech Tension Over
Illegal Uses
In March, the Supreme Court will hear the case of the
Grokster file-trading service to determine whether the service
has any liability for digital piracy committed by its users.
The entertainment industry argues that this piracy is
Grokster's key means of revenue, as evidenced by the service's
...
[read more]
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OASIS Patent Policy Sparks
Boycott
In response to the Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards' (OASIS) revised patent
policy, which the organization has hyped as a compromise to
make its system more accommodating of open-source software
developers, leading open-source and ...
[read more]
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Added Reliability for
Safety-Critical Software
The IST-funded ATASDAS project has developed a toolkit for
enhancing the reliability of safety-critical software. Project
coordinator David Escorial of Spacebel says the tools identify
the key software elements of the system architecture and
facilitate analysis of software-hardware ...
[read more]
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Software Gives Descriptive
Directions
MIT researchers have developed software that automatically
generates directions by modeling the geographical
relationships between spaces and their functions, and
incorporates landmarks into the directions as well. The
Location Awareness Information Representation (Lair) software
taps a ...
[read more]
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Cornell Scientists Tackle
'Hard' Problems by Teaching Computers to Solve Tough Tasks the
Human Way
Cornell University Intelligent Information Systems
Institute director Carla Gomes and associate computer science
professor Bart Selman have developed new methods for solving
hard "combinatorial" computer problems, which were detailed on
Feb. 21 at the annual meeting of the American Association for
...
[read more]
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Computer Vulnerabilities
Given Unified Rating System
A group of software and security companies that includes
Microsoft, Qualys, Cisco Systems, and Symantec has developed
the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) as part of
their responsibilities to the Homeland Security Department's
U.S. National Infrastructure Advisory Council. CVSS, which ...
[read more]
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Health Industry Under
Pressure to Computerize
Speaking at the Healthcare Information and Management
Systems Society conference, national health information
technology coordinator David Brailer told health industry
officials and technology vendors that they faced a government
mandate if they could not voluntarily agree on ...
[read more]
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Two UO Professors Study
Multi-Tasking, Computer Efficiency
University of Oregon professor Ulrich Mayr notes that
multi-tasking leads to diminished productivity, and he and
computer and information science assistant professor Anthony
Hornof have researched the problem in detail. "As soon as the
computer starts giving you tasks and you start accepting ...
[read more]
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Virtual Reality in the
Round
The Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and
Software Technology (FIRST) will exhibit a cylindrical display
system at the upcoming CeBIT 2005 event, showcasing a
breakthrough in virtual reality technology. "When modeling
virtual objects, designers, architects and engineers will no
...
[read more]
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He Paved the Way for the
PC Revolution
Douglas Engelbart, who is credited with the creation of PC
workstations that directly birthed the computer mouse, video
conferencing, email, and hyperlinks, has earned a place in the
Silicon Valley Engineers Hall of Fame, into which he will be
formally inducted on Feb. 23. In a recent ...
[read more]
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Fight Over 'Forms' Clouds
Future of Net Applications
A breakaway working group of the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) is nearly finished with the Web Forms 2.0 specification
and will soon submit the draft to the W3C membership, forcing
discussion on the difficult issue of electronic forms. The Web
Hypertext Application Technology Working Group ...
[read more]
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California Researchers
Collaborate With Perlegen Sciences on Map of Human Genetic
Variation Across Populations
Detailed in the Feb. 18 issue of Science is a study carried
out by researchers at Perlegen Sciences, the University of
California San Diego's California Institute for
Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), and
the UC Berkeley-affiliated International Computer Science ...
[read more]
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Researchers Find Security
Flaw in SHA-1 Algorithm
Chinese university researchers have discovered a technique
that significantly improves the chances of cracking the data
encryption algorithm SHA-1. SHA-1 (secure hash algorithm) is
used by a wide range of companies and generates unique strings
of values to both encrypt and ...
[read more]
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Bridging the Digital
Divide
MIT Media Lab director Nicholas Negroponte and colleagues
want to create a $100 laptop that would provide computer and
Internet access to schoolchildren in the developing world.
Negroponte has extensive experience providing IT access to
impoverished areas such as Costa Rica, ...
[read more]
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U.N. to Control Use of
Internet?
A panel created by the United Nations is addressing the
issue of Internet governance ahead of the World Summit on the
Information Society, which is slated to be held in Tunis in
November. Cybercrime, spam, and other issues are on the
panel's agenda. On Monday, members of the panel expressed hope
...
[read more]
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New-Look
Passports
The United States seeks to improve homeland security by
mandating the distribution of biometric passports equipped
with digital photos, digitized fingerprints, and iris scans,
but concerns about privacy infringement, reliability and
interoperability issues, and a rushed implementation raise ...
[read more]
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New Way of
Wireless
The latest iterations of the global system for mobile
communications (GSM) and code division multiple access (CDMA)
cellular networks deliver significant speed increases, while
other wireless broadband offerings promise even higher
throughput; but sorting through the morass of ...
[read more]
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Postmodern Software
Development
Robert Filman with the NASA/RIACS Ames Center draws
parallels between the evolution of art and the evolution of
software development, with object-oriented programming
representing the computer science equivalent of modernism. He
says the programming equivalent of postmodernism could ...
[read more]
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