To Err Is Human: Teaching a
GUI Good Manners
Fancy Meets Function on
Runway
Wearable technologies from 35 exhibitors hailing from 10
countries were on display at the fourth annual SIGGRAPH Cyber
Fashion Show this week. Sensor-equipped purses from Gauri
Nanda of MIT were designed to communicate with skirts and
scarves so that the wearer can be alerted to inclement ...
[read more]
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Invention
Intervention
A cry for dramatic reform to the U.S. patent system is
echoed by lawyers, lawmakers, inventors, and companies, but
few can agree on what kind of remedy would address the
system's many problems, which include an overwhelming backlog
and dubious criteria for patentability. Rep. Lamar ...
[read more]
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Dear IT Graduate, Just One
Word: Mainframes
The mainframe is enjoying a comeback of sorts with a
resurgence in centralized IT functions among many
organizations; also contributing is the need for companies to
replace retiring mainframe experts and Chinese, Eastern
European, and other international companies investing in
mainframes ...
[read more]
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Under Siege in Dulles By
New-Generation Hackers
VeriSign's Aristotle Balogh believes the hacker wars
reached a critical milestone last year as hackers transformed
from irritating nuisances into serious threats. An Aug. 2
report from IBM estimates that over 237 million security
attacks occurred worldwide in the first six months of 2005, a
50 ...
[read more]
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IT Jobs Call Stateside, But
Who's Answering?
University of Washington computer-science program director
David Notkin, who recently joined the board of the Computer
Research Association, suggests that IT jobs are more plentiful
now than they were prior to the dot-com boom--at least for
people with design and other higher-level ...
[read more]
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Lawmakers Push Pentagon
Over Science, Tech Programs
The House and the Senate will hammer out a compromise on
the Pentagon's fiscal 2006 authorization bill in September;
both measures would provide more than President Bush sought
for its science and technology programs. The House bill sets
aside $892 million more for science and technology, ...
[read more]
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Worms Could Dodge Net
Traps
Concealed Internet sensors designed to spot malware before
it becomes a threat could be thwarted by future computer worms
if preventive action is not taken, according to two papers
presented at the Usenix Security Symposium on Aug. 4. One
paper authored by University of Wisconsin ...
[read more]
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Students Work to Protect
Passwords
A new technique with the potential to increase the security
of password authentication has been developed by Stanford
computer science researchers, who created a free and open
browser plug-in that helps shield passwords. Stanford student
Nicholas Miyake, one of the researchers who developed the ...
[read more]
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Grid Meets
P2P
The San Diego Supercomputer Center's Karan Bhatia, SICS'
Per Brand, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Karlo
Berket, Microsoft's Alex Mallet, and Oracle's Sergio Mendiola
have authored a new Global Grid Forum paper discussing how
grid computing and peer-to-peer (P2P) applications can ...
[read more]
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Europe Follows Grokster's
Lead
A directive supported by the European Commission calls for
the criminalization of "attempting, aiding, or abetting and
inciting" copyright infringement--a proposal that could, like
the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in the case of MGM v.
Grokster, make developers of file-sharing ...
[read more]
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Google Now a Hacker's
Tool
Hackers are utilizing Google's massive database, with blame
falling to Internet users who are unaware what Google makes
available, according to Computer Sciences Corporation
researcher Johnny Long. Recently, Long and other researchers
were able to harness Google to find an unprotected Web ...
[read more]
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New 'Roadcasting' Concept
Allows Music Sharing in and Between Cars
A team of graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University
has developed a radio program called Roadcasting that enables
users to share music with listeners from other cars up to 30
miles away; the software also learns a user's tastes and
offers the capability to search for music of a particular ...
[read more]
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The College Library of
Tomorrow
Schools such as MIT and Stanford University are embarking
on projects to build digital libraries where access to
knowledge is just a mouse click away. Many of these
initiatives were jump-started by the U.S. government's plans
to digitize 95 percent of its material this year, while
Google's ...
[read more]
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Optoelectronics to
Increase the Broadband Flow
LABELS is an IST-backed project that aims to optimize the
capacity of existing fiber-optic cables in an effort to help
address the growing demand for faster data transmission.
LABELS is exploring ways to surmount logjams in the movement
of data; the optical method the researchers are advancing ...
[read more]
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Open GL ES 2.0 Advances 3D
Graphics Acceleration for Cellphones, Handhelds,
PS3
The Khronos Group consortium announced OpenGL ES 2.0, a new
iteration of the OpenGL desktop application programming
interface (API), at the SIGGRAPH 2005 conference on Aug. 1.
OpenGL ES, designed for use in cell phones, handhelds, and
embedded systems, offers more flexibility than its ...
[read more]
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Microsoft Tries to See
Academe's Future
In an interview at the annual Microsoft Research Faculty
Summit, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said he expects higher
education to change dramatically as a result of new
technologies. He predicted the continued enhancement of tablet
PCs and their eventual ascendance to the preeminent computer
on ...
[read more]
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Digital 3-D at a Theater
Near You
Many experts say that new 3D technologies could be the
catalyst for the rollout of a digital cinema standard that
promises to reduce film distribution costs and re-invigorate
the experience of going to the movies, which translates into
healthy profits for studios and theaters. Disney's ...
[read more]
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Calls to End U.S.
Domination of the Internet
The U.N.'s Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG)
wants control of the Internet to pass from the U.S. Department
of Commerce to an international coalition of governments,
companies, and civilian entities. The Commerce Department
holds the keys to the Internet through the Domain Name
System's ...
[read more]
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To Err Is Human: Teaching
a GUI Good Manners
User interface designer and author Niall Murphy insists
that user errors must be considered in the design of a
graphical user interface (GUI) if the end product is to
provoke less frustration. He writes that reducing the number
of error messages an interface produces requires the
elimination of ...
[read more]
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