Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the May 28, 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 500 Date: May 28, 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 28, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "American Spam Is Flooding Europe" "College Plans Virus-Writing Course" "Legal Threat Rocks Linux" "From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000" "U.S. Launches Drive to Regain Top Spot in Supercomputing" "Big Changes for Search Engines" "Antispam Law Likely" "Group Moves to Boost Women in IT" "Fretting Over U.S. Data Collection" "Testing With the Mess of Reality" "Companies Pare Down UWB Proposals" "Guess Who's Smarter." "Q&A With Dan Reed" "MIT Gives Peek at Future Tech" "How to Unclog the Information Artery" "Predictions for Software Development and Web Services" "Going For the Wireless Gold" "The Wi-Fi Revolution" "Building a Standard" ******************* News Stories *********************** "American Spam Is Flooding Europe" Experts claim that most of the unsolicited commercial email swamping European ISPs originates in the United States, and partially blame disparate enforcement policies and lenient penalties for spam's proliferation. Anti-spam enforcement is the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item1 "College Plans Virus-Writing Course" Canada's University of Calgary is courting controversy by offering fourth-year students a course in which they will write and test computer viruses, starting in Fall 2003. Calgary's Ken Barker says such a class is a valuable tool for gaining insight ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item2 "Legal Threat Rocks Linux" SCO Group sent a letter to Fortune 1,000 companies and 500 other global enterprises on May 12, warning them that they could be subject to legal action for using the Linux open-source operating system, which allegedly incorporates copyrighted software ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item3 "From PlayStation to Supercomputer for $50,000" A supercomputer that may be able to perform a half-trillion operations per second has been built out of 70 Sony PlayStation 2 consoles for around $50,000 by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's National Center for Supercomputing ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item4 "U.S. Launches Drive to Regain Top Spot in Supercomputing" Spurred by Japan's Earth Simulator stealing the fastest supercomputer crown from the United States last year, President Bush has established the High-End Computing Revitalization Taskforce to put the country back on top. A lagging American ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item5 "Big Changes for Search Engines" Near-future search engines will be intelligent, quick, and tailored to the requirements of individual users, if papers presented at the 12th International World Wide Web Conference in Budapest are any indication. This transformation will be spurred ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item6 "Antispam Law Likely" A slew of antispam bills are currently before Congress, and some form of antispam legislation is expected to pass this year, but eight antispam and consumer groups have sent a letter to four congressional committees arguing that the bills under ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item7 "Group Moves to Boost Women in IT" The Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) is attempting to interest high-school girls in IT and reform the field's stereotypical geeky image through a new "ambassador" program that strives to provide young women with role models they can look up ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item8 "Fretting Over U.S. Data Collection" The Pentagon issued a report last week detailing its Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) program, in which numerous databases about citizens' personal transactions would be mined to find indications of terrorist activity. The point of the report was ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item9 "Testing With the Mess of Reality" Duke University assistant professor of computer science Amin M. Vahdat is nearly ready to release the source code for an Internet software testing framework called ModelNet. The system allows users to simulate realistic Internet conditions and see if their ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item10 "Companies Pare Down UWB Proposals" Twenty-three proposals for a new ultrawideband (UWB) standard were submitted at a March meeting of the IEEE, the majority of which favored a multiband-based model in which UWB's 7.5 GHz spectrum apportionment would be split into smaller bands of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item11 "Guess Who's Smarter." Artificial intelligence is producing tangible benefits in specific applications, but the technology is still far away from computers that understand the world as well as a human three-year-old, according to MIT graduate student Push Singh. He ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item12 "Q&A With Dan Reed" Dan Reed of the University of Illinois at Champaign's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) says the center's mission to devise enabling technologies for the science and engineering sectors is being extended to the arts arena. For ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item13 "MIT Gives Peek at Future Tech" MIT alumni, faculty, and students celebrated the centennial of the institute's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department on May 16, where speakers addressed the need to keep pace with technological changes and cited the academy's progress ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item14 "How to Unclog the Information Artery" The growing headache of spam has prompted proposals to rigorously control it, some of which aim to be effective without repressing the libertarian spirit of the Internet. Hans Peter Brondmo of Digital Impact advocates Project Lumos, which requires mass ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item15 "Predictions for Software Development and Web Services" Experts are making diverse forecasts about what trends in Web services and software development will emerge over the next five to 10 years. John Radko of Global Exchange Services predicts that corporate budgets for internal and external IT will equalize ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item16 "Going For the Wireless Gold" Chip manufacturers plan to capture a piece of the projected market for cellular handsets that communicate over high-speed wireless networks through the development of powerful yet energy efficient processors. Such chips are expected to support devices ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item17 "The Wi-Fi Revolution" At the vanguard of the open spectrum movement is wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi), a cheap, powerful, and viable way to access broadband Internet that has emerged as one of the most rapidly expanding electronics technologies of all time. Wi-Fi, which is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item18 "Building a Standard" Section 508 mandates that federal agencies purchase enablement technologies for the disabled, and since its passage almost two years ago over a dozen U.S. states have adapted Section 508 to their policies. Industry leaders and accessibility proponents ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0528w.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue (they was no issue on Monday, May 26 [Memorial Day]), please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0523f.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