Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the July 15, 2002 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week. For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this service, please see below. ACM's MemberNet is now online. For discussion (and voting) forums on current industry issues and the latest on ACM activities, visit http://www.acm.org/membernet Remember to check out our hot new online essay and opinion magazine, Ubiquity, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ACM TechNews Volume 4, Number 373 Date: July 15, 2002 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Site Sponsored by Hewlett Packard Company ( ) HP is the premier source for computing services, products and solutions. Responding to customers' requirements for quality and reliability at aggressive prices, HP offers performance-packed products and comprehensive services. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Top Stories for Monday, July 15 2002: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Royalties May Force Standards Stalemate" "NSF Announces New Funding for Nano Research, Education" "Tapping Brainpower: New Generation of Engineers" "National Science Foundation Boosts Grid Computing" "Deja Vu" "Handheld Finds Little Luck Spanning Digital Divide" "Nanocontacts Could Make Hard Drives Go 'Ballistic'" "Transistors Spin Toward Quantum Computing" "U.S. House Passes 'Tech Talent' Bill" "Java JEFF Inches to Market" "Militants Wire Web With Links to Jihad" "The GUI Gold Standard" "Net Body Faces Criticism Over Reform Plan" "Guarded Optimism" "Open-Source Enterprise" "The Incredible Shrinking Storage Media" "Next-Gen Enterprise Apps" "Voices in Harmony" "Still Waiting for the Revolution: A Conversation with Alan Kay" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Royalties May Force Standards Stalemate" The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Patent Policy Working Group is near a final decision on the issue of whether to allow patented technologies with royalties attached into its standard specifications. Sources close to the discussions say that a . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item1 "NSF Announces New Funding for Nano Research, Education" On Friday, the National Science Foundation (NSF) earmarked roughly $70 million to fund several nanotech projects, including the establishment of two additional Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers and an undergraduate nanoscience curriculum . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item2 "Tapping Brainpower: New Generation of Engineers" China is becoming a hotbed of researchers and engineers that multinational companies are eager to snap up for global applications. It is estimated that Chinese schools produce 700,000 engineering graduates a year, and these graduates are . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item3 "National Science Foundation Boosts Grid Computing" The National Science Foundation (NSF) has apportioned $12.1 million for its Middleware Initiative, which program director Alan Blatecky says is designed to "lay foundations for middleware infrastructure and spur adoption of the advanced services that . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item4 "Deja Vu" Comparisons between the Internet and once-revolutionary technologies like the printing press, the telegraph, railroads, and radio offers some insight into what the near future may hold for online communications and commerce. Like the printing press, the . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item5 "Handheld Finds Little Luck Spanning Digital Divide" The production and proliferation of an inexpensive handheld computer designed by Indian scientists to serve rural and poor people has been seriously hampered by a lack of commitment on the part of investors and customers. The Simputer (simple, . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item6 "Nanocontacts Could Make Hard Drives Go 'Ballistic'" Harsh Chopra and Susan Hua of the State University of New York have changed magnetoresistance in magnetic media 3,000 percent via the application of atomic-scale metal contacts. Such gains in the phenomenon known as "ballistic magnetoresistance" (BMR) . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item7 "Transistors Spin Toward Quantum Computing" A significant breakthrough on the road toward quantum computing has been performed by scientists at the Institute for Microstructural Science in Ottawa, Canada, who have created a spintronic transistor fashioned from a "quantum dot" . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item8 "U.S. House Passes 'Tech Talent' Bill" The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation to boost the number of undergraduates focusing on science and technology by offering universities almost $390 million in grants during the next five years to boost science, math, and technology . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item9 "Java JEFF Inches to Market" J Consortium has won approval from the International Organization for Standards in France for its new JEFF executable object-oriented Java-language file format designed for use with PDAs, set-top boxes, cellular phones, EFT machines, and other . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item10 "Militants Wire Web With Links to Jihad" U.S. officials are worried that the increase in the volume of Internet messages being sent by suspected al Qaeda operatives in the last month, nearly doubling normal amounts, indicates that another terrorist attack may be imminent. Terrorist . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item11 "The GUI Gold Standard" Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) have become more sophisticated, useful, and unique since their inception, but their evolution is far from over. Jupiter Research analyst Matthew Berk believes that users' familiarity and comfort level with GUIs determines . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item12 "Net Body Faces Criticism Over Reform Plan" ICANN's reform plan is meant to streamline ICANN's decision-making process, and has received praise from ICANN President Stuart Lynn, though not from those who believe ICANN needs to make further changes. Nominet Chairman Willie Black . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item13 "Guarded Optimism" Results of InformationWeek Research's fifth annual Global Information Security Survey indicate a decline in the number of companies that were successfully attacked by computer viruses or worms in the past year, but this confidence booster is tempered . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item14 "Open-Source Enterprise" Open-source software is proving very attractive to many companies as a way to save costs thanks to its high level of configurability and the elimination of licensing fees. Advocates also cite the open-source community for offering far better and . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item15 "The Incredible Shrinking Storage Media" Advancements in storage media promise to drive prices down and fundamentally change companies' data storage strategy. For example, IBM announced in June that it had successfully written data to a medium that boasts a storage capacity of 1 TB per . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item16 "Next-Gen Enterprise Apps" A new generation of collaborative, XML-based enterprise applications will blend functions from several applications systems to facilitate a broad, almost real-time Web service, and industry observers say their infrastructure will be determined by . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item17 "Voices in Harmony" Speech technology that could, for example, allow a person to carry out multiple tasks in the course of a single telephone call using natural language could emerge within the next five years, if the technology keeps up its momentum. The merging of customer . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item18 "Still Waiting for the Revolution: A Conversation with Alan Kay" In an interview with Kate Kane, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center co-founder Alan Kay explains that the so-called revolution in the computer industry is actually a gradual, evolutionary process because of the nature of innovation. He does not consider . . . http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0715m.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/0712f.html -- To visit the TechNews home page, point your browser to: http://www.acm.org/technews/ -- To unsubscribe from the ACM TechNews Early Alert Service: Please send a separate email to listserv@listserv2.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. -- To submit feedback about ACM TechNews, contact: technews@hq.acm.org -- 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 ---- ACM TechNews is sponsored by Hewlett Packard Company.