From the Lab: Information
Technology
Gates Worried Over Decline
in U.S. Computer Scientists
A shortage of qualified U.S. computer science engineers is
indicative of dwindling interest in the field among college
students, said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the Microsoft
Research Faculty Summit on July 18. He is concerned about the
decline in the number of students entering ...
[read more]
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Who Are the New Computer
Whizzes?
For-profit institutions such as Strayer University issued
more computer science degrees than traditional U.S. colleges
in 2001, according to a new report from the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The
NSF-funded report, "Preparing Women and Minorities for the IT
...
[read more]
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UC Berkeley, Yahoo Team Up
to Research New Internet Technologies
Search technology, mobile media, and social media will be
areas of concentration at the new Yahoo! Research
Labs-Berkeley laboratory, a joint venture between Yahoo!
Research Labs and the University of California at Berkeley.
The lab, expected to open next month, will be headed by
founding ...
[read more]
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Mind May Affect
Machines
Researchers in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
(Pear) program are trying to determine if the output of
machines could be slightly but quantifiably affected by
people's thoughts. The experiments involve the use of random
event generators (REGs) as participants concentrate on ...
[read more]
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The Resurgence of
Mainframes?
Reports on the death of the mainframe's viability are
exaggerated, although the population of skilled mainframe
programmers is shrinking thanks to the retirement of baby
boomer mainframe specialists, and the fact that most computer
science graduates are being trained on Windows or Unix
operating ...
[read more]
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California Researchers
Offer Open-Source Platform to Speed Wireless
Development
Researchers at the University of California-San Diego's
Calit2 have developed an open-source hardware and software
platform that will offer the corporate and business
communities unparalleled opportunities to advance new wireless
RF technologies. CalRadio 1.0 is based on the 802.11b Wi-Fi
...
[read more]
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Corrupted PC's Discover a
Home: The Dumpster
When faced with the contamination of their PCs by malware
and other unwanted programs, many owners are opting to toss
their infected machines and replace them with uncorrupted
models, rather than go to the trouble of repairing them. Pew
Internet and American Life Project director Lee Rainie ...
[read more]
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The Power to Follow Your
Every Move
Later this year, the European Commission and the European
Space Agency are launching the first four of what will be a
fleet of 30 satellites in their Galileo project designed to
compete with the Global Positioning System (GPS). Seeking to
capitalize on the inconsistent and often inaccurate ...
[read more]
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Organizations Need New Ways
to Retain Women in the IT Workplace
IT companies need to do a better job of retaining women,
concludes a recent study by researchers at Penn State
University. Particularly important is extending flexibility to
women as they bear and raise children, which could include
part-time shifts, telecommuting, and child-care subsidies. The
...
[read more]
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Who Says Robots Can't
Bluff?
Last week's World Poker Robot Championship was won by
Hilton Givens' PokerProbot program, which emerged as the
victor after an intensive three-day tournament of limit hold
'em. The challenge for writing poker-playing programs lies in
the fact that the state of the game is ...
[read more]
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Between Phishers and the
Deep Blue Sea
Hackers are often based in India, Korea, or China, with
differing time zones and language barriers increasing the
difficulty facing security enforcement agencies in the United
States. The most prevalent cyberattacks are carried out by a
network of zombies, or compromised computers that are ...
[read more]
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ICANN President Delivers
Internet Vision
Amid the recent publication of a report from the UN's
Working Group on Internet Governance that outlines four
proposals for a future administrative body for the Internet,
only one of which keeps the autonomy of ICANN intact, ICANN
President Paul Twomey says that world governments ...
[read more]
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Ontology Ranking Based on
the Analysis of Concept Structures
Search engines that can help users locate desired
ontologies are necessary in order to realize effective
knowledge reuse, which is crucial to the development of the
Semantic Web. The ontology-ranking AKTiveRank system is
described by University of Southampton researcher Harith Alani
and ...
[read more]
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Is Big Brother Coming to
Your Wallet?
The U.S. State Department was heavily criticized by the
ACLU and others for its proposal to replace current paper
passports with "e-Passports" equipped with radio frequency
identification (RFID) tags that store the same data as the old
passports as well as digital photos designed to thwart ...
[read more]
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2 For
1
Today's challenges for IT executives call for business as
well as technology skills, and over the last few years U.S.
colleges have started offering programs that combine master's
degrees in business administration and computer technology to
accommodate this trend. Students in dual-degree ...
[read more]
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Soaring Through Ancient
Rome, Virtually
Virtual reality is changing the face of higher education,
as professors are using computer simulations as teaching tools
to convey interactive images of material that previously had
been 2D abstractions. Bernard Frischer, director of the
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the ...
[read more]
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Key Research Efforts
Recognized
Microsoft and IBM highlighted major research initiatives
earlier this year when Microsoft announced that five young
professors would receive $200,000 grants and IBM named five
employees as IBM Fellows. Microsoft awarded its 2005 New
Faculty Fellowship grants to MIT professor Fredo Durand, whose
...
[read more]
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Science Has Wolf as New
Advocate on Capitol Hill
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is concerned with the erosion of
America's leadership in science and innovation, and he
announced his Math and Science Incentive Act of 2005 in an
effort to help reverse this erosion. The proposal would pay
the interest on education loans for science, ...
[read more]
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From the Lab: Information
Technology
Several IT projects aim for goals ranging from improved
data center heat management to accelerated secure data
transmission to clear voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)
communications to context-specific cell phone message
delivery. Duke University and Hewlett-Packard Labs researchers
...
[read more]
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