Open-Source Users Find Rewards
in Collaborative Development
Want to Increase Retention
of Your Female Students?
National Science Foundation-funded research conducted by a
team of four University of California, Santa Cruz professors
and one Fort Lewis College professor suggests that pair
programming in introductory programming courses can aid the
retention of female students in computer science ...
[read more]
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Innovation: The Next Big
Thing
A 2004 Grand Challenges conference yielded seven computing
milestones that U.K. researchers would strive to realize in
the next several decades, and these milestones were recently
disclosed in the British Computer Society's Grand Challenges
in Computing Research report. The milestones include ...
[read more]
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Schneier: Secure Tokens
Won't Stop Phishing
Strict government regulation is more important for
e-commerce security than technology solutions, says
Counterpane Internet Security founder Bruce Schneier in an
interview. Schneier's article in the April issue of
Communications of the ACM argued that two-factor
authentication and other ...
[read more]
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Key Open-Source Programming
Tool Due for Overhaul
The widely used GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) will receive
new optimization capabilities that should boost performance of
open-source software compiled using the tool, including Linux,
Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and Apache. GCC 4.0 will add new
optimization technologies that enable the compiler to not ...
[read more]
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Crack in Computer Security
Code Raises Red Flag
A flaw in a "hash function" technique for encrypting online
data has been uncovered by a team of Chinese researchers at
Shandong University, and this has raised alarms in the
computer security industry because it casts doubt on the
so-called impenetrability of hash function-based cryptography.
The ...
[read more]
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Creative Commons Is
Rewriting Rules of Copyright
Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig's
Creative Commons licensing scheme, which permits authors and
artists to distribute their works online while retaining "some
rights reserved" rather than "all rights reserved," has gained
a substantial advocacy base. Lessig is concerned ...
[read more]
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Programming Wizards Offer
Advice at Developers Confab
This week's Software Development Expo is an event where
programmers can pick each other's brains on effective
strategies for developing quality code, and selecting
methodologies that work for developers and their team has been
an overarching theme. Ronin International consultant Scott
Ambler ...
[read more]
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Local Research Team Works
Alongside Homeland Security
Ten schools, including the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, are involved in the Institute for
Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) consortium's
two-year, $8.5 million program to identify security flaws in
the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems
that help ...
[read more]
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Looking at Open Source
Software Through Arabeyes
A group of Arabic-speaking volunteers is working to create
open source tools that will make computing more accessible to
hundreds of millions of people who use Arabic lettering; the
Arabeyes project aims to establish itself as the nexus of
Arabization efforts, which previously have been ...
[read more]
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Open-Source Movement Now
In Hands of Hired Guns
Corporate programmers have for the most part supplanted
volunteer programmers as developers of core open-source
software. IBM committed $1 billion to the development and
promotion of the open-source Linux operating system four years
ago, and has since made over 500 software patents and 30 ...
[read more]
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Sign
Language
Pennsylvania State University scientists are working on a
computer that allows people to pull together disparate pieces
of data using gestures, voice input, cognitive engineering,
natural language technology, and geographic information
systems (GIS) into a coherent whole in order to ...
[read more]
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Video Games--A Girl
Thing?
Sony Online Entertainment senior game designer Sheri Graner
Ray is a crusader for increasing women's presence in the video
game developer and game player communities, and was honored
with the International Game Developers Association's Community
Contribution award at last week's Game ...
[read more]
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Electrical Engineer
Receives $400,000 to Evaluate Maximum Capacity of Wireless
Networks
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $400,000
Early Career Development grant to University of Texas at
Austin electrical engineer and Wireless Networking and
Communications Group professor Sriram Vishwanath, who will use
the money to determine the maximum capacity of wireless ...
[read more]
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Experts Look to Digital
IDs to Boost Net Security
Experts at the CeBIT computer trade show in Germany said
digital IDs, enabled by multi-factor authentication, would
help boost flagging consumer confidence in e-commerce.
Currently, rampant identity theft, spyware infections, and
other cyberthreats are even causing some companies to scale
...
[read more]
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IETF Leaders Urge Detente
With Rivals
At a plenary session of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF), recently appointed chairman Brian Carpenter promised
better outreach to competing standards bodies such as the
World Wide Web Consortium and the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), arguing that such cooperation
...
[read more]
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Outsourcing
Innovation
Western companies are outsourcing product research and
development to overseas centers, a trend underscored by an
increasingly homogeneous feeling among CEOs that more
innovation is critical, but that current R&D investments
are not delivering sufficient returns. This is causing ...
[read more]
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Managing Next-Generation
IT Infrastructure
The complexity of today's IT infrastructures can be traced
back to a build-to-order mindset that is traditional in most
IT organizations, where the typical IT infrastructure is
custom made for each organization, write McKinsey & Co.'s
James M. Kaplan, Markus Loffler, and Roger P. Roberts. As ...
[read more]
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U.S. High-Tech Economy
Slipping
The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, which
counts industrial, scientific, and academic groups among its
members, released a set of benchmarks last month to convince
Capitol Hill that "the U.S. government is falling behind in
its commitment to basic physical sciences ...
[read more]
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Open-Source Users Find
Rewards in Collaborative Development
Collaborative open-source software development is
attractive to corporate IT groups--particularly those in the
financial community--as a vehicle for developing cleaner code
and more innovative applications. However, open-source experts
caution that protective measures must be incorporated ...
[read more]
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