Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the May 7, 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 492 Date: May 7, 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 Wednesday, May 7, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "U.S.-Singapore Trade Pact Echoes DMCA" "Tech Hiring to Remain Stagnant, Studies Say" "Data Mining Proponents Defend Technology" "Study: Working Women Face Technology Gender Gap" "Program Lets P2P Users Roam Free" "Chips Could Crunch at Light Speed" "UMBC Event Encourages Girls to Excel in Science" "Eyes on the Spies" "Will Nanotech Save the World, or Destroy It? Experts Can't Say" "Why Free Software Is God's Gift to India" "A New Technology, Now That New Is Old" "Linux Desktop Myths Exploded" "Offshore Coding Work Raises Security Concerns" "Radio ID Chips to Come With Kill Switch" "Social Software" "Minding Your Business" "The Minister of Net Defense" "Patents Go Global" ******************* News Stories *********************** "U.S.-Singapore Trade Pact Echoes DMCA" The U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA)--the first such agreement between the United States and an Asian nation--carries provisions similar to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), in that they ban the unauthorized circumvention of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item1 "Tech Hiring to Remain Stagnant, Studies Say" Hiring managers polled by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) announced that they expect to swell their workforce by less than 500,000 this year, compared to the 1.1 million new jobs they planned to create last year, according to a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item2 "Data Mining Proponents Defend Technology" Federal agency heads reported to Congress on new data mining systems that critics say will unnecessarily sacrifice personal privacy. In hearings before the House subcommittee on technology and information policy, Transportation Security Administration ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item3 "Study: Working Women Face Technology Gender Gap" A technology gender gap is barring women from competing for high-paying positions, especially those that carry family-friendly benefits such as flexible schedules, telecommuting, and job sharing, according to a report the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item4 "Program Lets P2P Users Roam Free" Peer-to-peer file traders now have a new weapon to defend themselves against music labels trying to spy and crack down on their activities: PeerGuardian, a free software application that gives traders a personal firewall that blocks the IP addresses of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item5 "Chips Could Crunch at Light Speed" IBM nanotechnology research shows carbon nanotubes can emit light in addition to conducting electricity. The discovery promises more powerful computer chips and communications equipment. IBM manager of nanometer-scale science Phaedron Avouris says the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item6 "UMBC Event Encourages Girls to Excel in Science" The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMBC) yesterday hosted Computer Mania Day, an event intended to demonstrate how entertaining computer science can be for girls, as well as address the low enrollment of girls in IT studies. Former ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item7 "Eyes on the Spies" U.S. sites vulnerable to terrorist attacks number in the hundreds of thousands, and protecting them all from spies or saboteurs would require a new security force. U.S. HomeGuard, conceived by Walker Digital's Jay Walker, founder of Priceline, is designed to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item8 "Will Nanotech Save the World, or Destroy It? Experts Can't Say" Nanotechnology has moved from the realm of science fiction toward industrial feasibility over the past 20 years, but while investors eagerly inject venture capital into the research and development of nanotech products, scientists such as Foresight ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item9 "Why Free Software Is God's Gift to India" In his address at GNUnify 2003, IndLinux co-founder Venkatesh Hariharan declared that India's adoption of free software, in the form of the GNU/Linux operating system, will open up new opportunities for cultural, political, and economic freedom. He ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item10 "A New Technology, Now That New Is Old" Irving Wladawsky-Berger of IBM contends that the tech industry has entered "the post-technology era" in which the focus has shifted from the technology itself to what people and businesses can do with that technology; paralleling this trend is a transfer ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item11 "Linux Desktop Myths Exploded" Linux on the desktop offers companies some advantages depending on the particular business situation, but a recent Gartner study debunks many of the myths about Linux benefits. Gartner analyst Michael Silver says he is not against the open-source operating ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item12 "Offshore Coding Work Raises Security Concerns" IT professionals attending last week's Techno-Security Conference expressed concerned about the security risks of U.S. companies outsourcing software development and other essential IT services to countries where labor is cheaper. Attendees were especially ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item13 "Radio ID Chips to Come With Kill Switch" Philips Semiconductor, Matrics, Alien Technology, and other manufacturers are expected to debut radio frequency identification (RFID) tags outfitted with kill switches this summer, according to an announcement from the Auto ID Center last ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item14 "Social Software" Social software is likely to be the basis of the next great IT innovation; in the realm of social software, the interaction is not between humans and computers but between the group and the computer. This poses three distinct problems, and a software ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item15 "Minding Your Business" Researchers such as Queen's University's Roel Vertegaal are developing hardware and software designed to mitigate information overload without restricting users' access to data; Microsoft Research's Eric Horvitz expects these projects to yield digital ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item16 "The Minister of Net Defense" Howard Schmidt, only the second person to have held the post of White House cybersecurity chief, recently talked about cybersecurity measures in an interview with Wired Magazine. He said that a major cyber attack is likely to be highly planned ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item17 "Patents Go Global" There are 120 national patent systems worldwide, each with its own criteria, translation requirements, and filing fees, and failing to satisfy most or all of them could endanger a patent's eligibility. Such a task can be prohibitively expensive for ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0507w.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0505m.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