The Moon, Mars and
Beyond...
As File Sharing Nears High
Court, Net Specialists Worry
Technologists attending this week's Emerging Technologies
Conference in San Diego warned that the Supreme Court's
decision in the case of MGM v. Grokster could have serious
ramifications for innovative Internet-based services if the
court ...
[read more]
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Web Tools Blaze Trail to
the Past
Google's use of old-school Dynamic HTML technologies when
building its Gmail and Google Maps applications has spurred
discussion among Web developers about whether new Web
application technologies are needed. Google Maps and Gmail
functions and design put them in a different product ...
[read more]
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Irish Open-Source Groups
Protest Software Patents
Open-source advocates throughout the European Union (EU)
are concerned that a directive officially endorsed by the EU
Council will legitimize "pure" software patents and jeopardize
European contributions to open-source projects. Irish
open-source groups fired off a briefing document to ...
[read more]
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IT Innovation From Both
Sides of the Globe
The U.K. and New Zealand ministries of trade helped young
technology firms from their respective countries exhibit
innovative technologies at the CeBIT show. The UK@CeBIT
program featured several software firms, some device
manufacturers, and a Cambridge University display spinoff,
while New ...
[read more]
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The Giant Who Walks Amongst
Us
Researchers are experimenting with and refining augmented
reality (AR) systems to enhance the experience of reading a
book through animated virtual characters overlaid on the
actual pages. The technology's limitations include bulky
head-mounted displays that the user must wear, ...
[read more]
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Net Surfing for Those
Unable to See
A collaborative venture between Towson University professor
Jonathan Lazar and the National Federation of the Blind (NFB)
is examining the many problems visually impaired people
encounter when navigating the Internet. Lazar, who serves as
director of the university's Computer Information ...
[read more]
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Computer Study Powers
Down
The economic slump, offshore outsourcing, and cutbacks in
corporate IT spending have combined to create the impression
that a computer science background no longer guarantees job
stability, and fewer university students are choosing to major
in computer science as a result; the ...
[read more]
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Zooming in on
Legibility
Reading Web pages on the small display screens of mobile
devices is problematic, as the pages are presented as either
illegible thumbnails or as difficult-to-navigate single
columns. Patrick Baudisch, a human-computer interaction
researcher with Microsoft Research's ...
[read more]
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Researchers: Metcalfe's Law
Overshoots the Mark
Metcalfe's Law, perceived as a key driver of the dot-com
explosion with its assumption that a network's value increases
with the square of the number of devices in the network, has
been called into question by University of Minnesota
researchers Andrew Odlyzko and Benjamin Tilly, who posit in a
...
[read more]
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Robots Serve Humans on
Land, in Sea and Air
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
director Rodney Brooks says robotic navigation technology has
advanced dramatically in the last two decades, a statement
verified by the development of autonomous vehicles for
domestic and military use by MIT and MIT spinoffs such as ...
[read more]
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Big Screens to Come in
Small Packages
Philips Polymer Vision plans to have its rollable
electronic display technology in consumer devices within two
years and has already produced a five-inch working prototype
that is flexible enough to curl around a pencil; Polymer
Vision is set to spin off from its parent, Philips ...
[read more]
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World's Largest Computing
Grid Surpasses 100 Sites
The Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid (LCG) project
announced on March 15 that over 100 sites distributed
throughout 31 countries now comprise its computing grid,
making the LCG the largest international scientific grid on
Earth. The participating sites--chiefly research laboratories
and ...
[read more]
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Seismic
Shift
The future for U.S. supercomputing research centers seems
uncertain with the National Science Foundation's (NSF)
dissolution of the Partnerships for Advanced Computational
Infrastructure (PACI) in favor of a "shared
cyberinfrastructure." The new plan is designed to shift
investment away ...
[read more]
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Humanoids on the
March
Japan's industrial behemoths are racing to see which of
them will produce the most sophisticated humanoid robots in a
competition spurred by corporate rivalry, rapid technological
advancements, a hunger for publicity, and the potential for
tapping a vast new market. Breakthrough ...
[read more]
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This Net Is Child's Play
for Elite High Schoolers
Virginia's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and
Technology, considered to be the leading technical high school
in the United States, is especially lauded for its computer
science program. The program is unique because it is so
immersive: It involves the design and maintenance of the ...
[read more]
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Virtual Therapy: Just What
Some Doctors Order
A small number of American clinics are using virtual
reality to help patients deal with phobias and injuries, and
researchers say the technology shows promise as a tool for
treating addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well
as helping distract patients during uncomfortable ...
[read more]
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A Fundamental Turn Toward
Concurrency in Software
Author and ISO C++ Standards committee Chairman Herb Sutter
writes that software applications will need to become
concurrent because increasingly powerful processors are
already starting to lose their ability to fully support
existing applications. However, not all key operations of an
...
[read more]
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The Moon, Mars and
Beyond...
President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" has the
lofty goal of manned missions to the Moon, Mars, and
elsewhere, starting with sending robots to the Moon as early
as 2008. Key to realizing this vision are joint ventures
between NASA and industry for developing next-generation ...
[read more]
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