Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the February 14, 2003 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 the latest on ACM activities, member benefits, and industry issues, 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 5, Number 458 Date: February 14, 2003 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 Friday, February 14, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Software Success Has India Worried" "Development Continues on Pentagon's Massive Data-Mining System" "Data Flood Feeds Need for Speed" "Scheme Smoothes Parallel Processing" "Some Experts Say Cyberterrorism Is Very Unlikely" "Perspective: Explaining the Tech Brain Drain" "Are Developers Programmers or Engineers?" "Disposable Science" "Hey, Hasn't My Computer Heard You Somewhere Before?" "Perl Features of the Future--Part 1" "Perspective: Taking the Easy Way Out on H-1B" "Forget Moore's Law" "Coalition Makes Play For Multiband" "Professor Directs Two Tech Efforts" "Moore Predicts More Computing Advances" "Tangled Up in Spam" "Intel Looks to Software" "The Race to Kill Kazaa" "Will Computers Replace Engineers?" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Software Success Has India Worried" India's fast-growing software industry is worried that political trends in the United States will mean a pullback from offshore outsourcing from that country. India's software industry trade group, Nasscom, held a meeting in Bombay this week with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item1 "Development Continues on Pentagon's Massive Data-Mining System" The Defense Department has awarded over $20 million in contracts to develop the Total Information Awareness (TIA) system, a program that aims to integrate private and public databases so they can be mined for signs of potential terrorist activity. Jan ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item2 "Data Flood Feeds Need for Speed" An international team of physicists raised the bar for high-performance computing last November by sending 6.7 GB of uncompressed data at 923 Mbps between California and Amsterdam in 58 seconds using the Internet2 broadband network. The transfer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item3 "Scheme Smoothes Parallel Processing" A team of scientists from several universities and research institutes have derived a way to coordinate more closely massive parallel processing applications from models found in nature. The researchers studied the growth of crystals and used a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item4 "Some Experts Say Cyberterrorism Is Very Unlikely" Dire predictions of terrorists launching "an electronic digital Pearl Harbor" against critical U.S. infrastructure espoused by former White House cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke and others are being disputed by some experts, given the complexities ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item5 "Perspective: Explaining the Tech Brain Drain" The United States is suffering a significant decline of proficient technology professionals--the National Science Foundation declared last week that the number of graduating science and engineering Ph.D.s slipped to 25,509 in 2001, while ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item6 "Are Developers Programmers or Engineers?" At the recent VSLive show in San Francisco, industry veterans Alan Brown and Alan Cooper discussed many of the problems endemic to software project management. Cooper, who is thought to have fathered the Visual Basic programming language, said that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item7 "Disposable Science" The buildup of obsolete electronics in landfills can be reduced significantly thanks to a bevy of recycling and reuse programs, some of which are organized by computer manufacturers themselves. For instance, owners of old computers can visit Dell's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item8 "Hey, Hasn't My Computer Heard You Somewhere Before?" Accenture researchers Dana Le and Owen Richter have created a prototype portable computer that can record conversations, what time they took place, and the location where they occurred. The device, known as a personal awareness assistant, could be used to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item9 "Perl Features of the Future--Part 1" Perl creator Larry Wall is gearing up for a dramatic makeover of the programming language that resembles natural language in many ways. For version 6, Wall has taken more than 300 requests for change into consideration, from what some consider to be the most ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item10 "Perspective: Taking the Easy Way Out on H-1B" The Immigration and Naturalization Service's annual report estimates that approximately 17 percent of 1,064,318 immigrants who were granted permanent residence in the United States in fiscal 2001 were admitted under employment-based preferences, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item11 "Forget Moore's Law" Former Forbes ASAP editor and author of "The Microprocessor: A Biography" Michael S. Malone warns that the high-tech industry's fixation on Moore's Law, which dictates that processing power and chip density double every 18 months, is an invitation to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item12 "Coalition Makes Play For Multiband" At an IEEE 802.15.3a Task Group conference held last month in Florida, a group of five companies organized its own forum to mull an ultrawideband (UWB) standard involving multiband technology. However, most ultrawideband developers favor a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item13 "Professor Directs Two Tech Efforts" Kris Hammond, founder and director of Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory (InfoLab) and Information Technology Development Laboratory (DevLab), studied and developed artificial intelligence for 12 years at the University of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item14 "Moore Predicts More Computing Advances" Dr. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, said his dictum that semiconductor density would continue to double every two years will remain true for another decade at least. After that, he said advances in silicon-based computing may slow, but there is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item15 "Tangled Up in Spam" The rapidly growing tide of junk email, or spam, is inundating ISPs, infringing on email users' privacy, and eroding people's trust in the Internet, and thus far efforts to control it through grass-roots activism, spam filtering software, and legislation ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item16 "Intel Looks to Software" Despite its recognition as a hardware company, Intel also is a formidable software operation with more than 6,000 programmers in its ranks. Late last year, Intel created four Intel senior fellow positions at the top of its research division, two of them ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item17 "The Race to Kill Kazaa" The U.S. entertainment industry has conducted a long and often frustrating legal campaign to shutter the popular Kazaa file-sharing service, and been thwarted at many turns by Kazaa's decentralized operational structure, which is spread out across ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item18 "Will Computers Replace Engineers?" A roundtable of technology experts debated how computers are encroaching on the engineering profession by automating engineering tasks, and what this holds for the future. When asked what he thinks is the most significant effect computers ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0214f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0212w.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.