The Ascent of the Robotic
Attack Jet
Lively Debate as Justices
Take on File Sharing
The case of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios v. Grokster, which
is before the Supreme Court, has become a flashpoint between
the entertainment industry and technology companies over
whether file sharing services should be liable for digital
copyright infringement committed by customers. Lawyers ...
[read more]
to the top
Even Tech Execs Can't Get
Kids to Be Engineers
Technology executives are stressing the United States' need
to step up its efforts to get more young people interested in
engineering so that an engineer shortage can be mitigated and
the country can maintain its global competitiveness. The
decline in interest in engineering careers hits close ...
[read more]
to the top
Wordspotter Searches
Historical Documents
University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass) computer
science professor R. Manmatha has developed a computer
interface that can search handwritten documents for
information in a manner similar to the Google search engine.
Toni Rath, a UMass grad student who helped create a demo of
Manmatha's ...
[read more]
to the top
Why IT Workers Are Lying
About Their Age
The IT industry is riddled with ageist recruitment
policies, according to over-40 IT professionals who have often
had to lie about their age to attract interest from
prospective employers. Unemployed IT veteran Tony Wells, 49,
claims these practices are partly responsible for a shortage
in ...
[read more]
to the top
Laying the Foundation for
the Next-Generation Web
The core element of the next-generation Internet envisioned
by Tim Berners-Lee is the Semantic Web, and the IST-funded
WonderWeb project has made significant contributions to the
Semantic Web's ongoing development by fulfilling and in some
cases surpassing its goals. A major achievement is ...
[read more]
to the top
The U.N. Thinks About
Tomorrow's Cyberspace
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) wants a
greater say in Internet governance, including allocating IPv6
address blocks, overseeing top-level root servers, and
coordinating spam fighting and law enforcement cooperation,
says ITU telecommunications standardization bureau director
...
[read more]
to the top
Secure Flight Faces Uphill
Battle
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has only
fulfilled one of 10 requirements set by Congress for the
Secure Flight passenger screening system, set to launch in
August. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the
TSA has set up an oversight committee for the Secure Flight
...
[read more]
to the top
Brazil: Free Software's
Biggest and Best Friend
Brazil is becoming free software's largest benefactor with
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's mandate that government
ministries and state-run businesses transition from expensive
proprietary operating systems to free operating systems in an
effort to save millions of dollars in royalties and ...
[read more]
to the top
Going for the
Code
Stepping up to the plate for the University of
Wisconsin-Madison at ACM's International Collegiate
Programming Contest World Finals this year are the Harmless
Fluffy Bunnies, a team of graduate and undergraduate students
that will vie with 77 other teams to ...
[read more]
to the top
Rolling Out Next
Generation's Net
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large,
globe-spanning community of network designers, operators,
researchers, and vendors that collectively oversee the
workings, expansion, and evolution of the Internet by
developing free and open standards and protocols to ensure ...
[read more]
to the top
VeriSign Poised to Retain
Operation of ".Net" Domain
Telcordia Technologies, an outside firm hired by ICANN, has
recommend that VeriSign be given a new six-year contract to
continue running the .net registry, the Internet's third-most
popular suffix. VeriSign, which already generates $200 million
annually operating the .com registry, is ...
[read more]
to the top
Identity Theft Made
Easier
Identity thieves made headlines with security breaches at
ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, but common search engines provide
a much easier route to obtaining illicit personal information.
Google hacking, the practice of crafting specific search
queries using special commands to find sensitive ...
[read more]
to the top
Report: P-Languages Better
for Enterprise
A Burton Group report finds that P-Languages such as Perl,
Python, and PHP have come a long way over the last several
years thanks to their ability to complement the use of
G-Languages such as Java, C++, and C#, and suggests that
P-Languages should be favored over G-Languages because of
their ...
[read more]
to the top
Cars Are Getting
Computer-Jacked
The presence of automotive electronics is expanding both in
the dashboard and under the hood, reducing clutter and freeing
up designers to experiment aesthetically. "Everything is
blending into one unified theme," notes Ford Motors designer
Anthony Pozzi, who designed the Meta One concept sports car
...
[read more]
to the top
Quantum Computing Scheme
Cuts Errors
In a recent issue of Nature, National Institute of
Standards and Technology physicist Emanuel Knill details a
proposed quantum computing architecture that could make
large-scale quantum computers tolerant of the faults that
might crop up in practical quantum circuits. Up to now, all
proposed ...
[read more]
to the top
Intel Goes to
School
Intel Research is funding a quartet of university "lablets"
to identify and investigate technologies that merit
"acceleration and amplification," according to company
representative Kevin Teixeria. He says Intel has no claim on
the intellectual property produced by the labs, because it is
...
[read more]
to the top
Internet Governance Issue
Heats Up as Next World Summit Nears
The second phase of the conference of the World Summit on
the Information Society (WSIS) is scheduled for Nov. 16-18 in
Tunisia, and is a follow-up to the December 2003 gathering in
Geneva. The first phase produced the WSIS Declaration of
Principles and Plan of Action, and has resulted in the ...
[read more]
to the top
Agile CMMI: No
Oxymoron
Mike Konrad and James W. Over with Carnegie Mellon
University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI) write that
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), a combination of
Software CMM and Carnegie Mellon's other primary maturity
models, should be reconsidered as an agile software ...
[read more]
to the top
The Ascent of the Robotic
Attack Jet
The U.S. military already uses unmanned drone aircraft for
surveillance, but a new generation of autonomous aircraft
capable of flying in coordinated groups and identifying and
attacking targets is being developed and tested. The Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has made ...
[read more]
to the top
To submit feedback about ACM TechNews, contact: technews@hq.acm.org
To unsubscribe from the ACM TechNews Early Alert
Service: Please send a separate email to listserv@listserv.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.
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
to the top
© Copyright 2005 Information,
Inc.