Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the June 16, 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 508 Date: June 16, 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 Monday, June 16, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Computing's Big Shift: Flexibility In the Chips" "ROI, Security Driving IT Employment Trends" "TSA Modifies Screening Plan" "Your Blink Is My Command" "Hacker Alert" "Government to Investigate IT Visas" "Poker Playing Computer Will Take on the Best" "Hobbyist Wins a Patent for PC's" "Java Should Be Open-Source, Creator Says" "Bend It Like Robo-Beckham" "Shock Waves Tune Light" "Pentagon to Move to Next-Generation Internet" "Info With a Ball and Chain" "Lessons From Building the "Spatial Web"" "A Game of Chance" "Supercomputers for the Masses?" "Getting In on the (Copyright) Act" "Self-Repairing Computers" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Computing's Big Shift: Flexibility In the Chips" Adaptive computing employs chips with circuitry that changes on a moment's notice; chips with this ability can handle several functions that otherwise would require separate chips, and would be ideal for wireless devices that have to interoperate with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item1 "ROI, Security Driving IT Employment Trends" The IT market is showing signs of stabilization, despite mass layoffs and little elevation in salary last year, as indicated by studies from META Group, International Data (IDC), and the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA). IDC ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item2 "TSA Modifies Screening Plan" The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), partly in response to hundreds of written complaints from people and organizations, has revised plans for a second-generation Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) in order to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item3 "Your Blink Is My Command" Ted Selker of MIT and Roel Vertegaal of Ontario's Queen's University are focused on the development of context-aware computers that can pick up on "implicit communication" relayed through eye or body movements to carry out commands. Much of the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item4 "Hacker Alert" July 1, 2003 will mark the enactment of a precedent-setting California law requiring companies to immediately notify California residents of online intrusions that may have compromised their personal information and made them vulnerable ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item5 "Government to Investigate IT Visas" The National Audit Office (NAO) and Work Permits (UK) will independently evaluate the UK's method of providing visas for overseas IT workers. At issue is how firms place ads for positions at low wages and hire foreign workers when people fail ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item6 "Poker Playing Computer Will Take on the Best" A team of artificial intelligence researchers at the University of Alberta has spent the last 10 years developing a computer program that can play poker, and they believe the program could conceivably outclass all human players within a year. The ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item7 "Hobbyist Wins a Patent for PC's" Banking service company technician Claude M. Policard has transformed his hobby, collating an archive of digital music on his PC, into a two-in-one desktop that is secure against computer viruses, a design that was awarded a patent last week. The PC is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item8 "Java Should Be Open-Source, Creator Says" Sun Microsystems vice president and Java creator James Gosling says the strength of the developer community and the variety of interests behind Java are robust enough for Java to become open-source. "My personal feeling is that we're over the edge, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item9 "Bend It Like Robo-Beckham" Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Manuela Veloso ascertained that true advancement of robotics technology cannot take place without collaboration. This was her motivation for organizing RoboCup, an effort to spur research and development by ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item10 "Shock Waves Tune Light" MIT researchers have discovered through computer models that exposing a photonic crystal to shockwaves can induce a dramatic Doppler shift and narrowing of bandwidth in lightwaves passing through the crystal. The findings could lead the way to quantum ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item11 "Pentagon to Move to Next-Generation Internet" The Pentagon on Friday announced that it will move to an IPv6-based Internet infrastructure by 2008 in order to overcome IPv4's limited numbering system, security shortcomings, and packet-loss problems. Pentagon CIO John Stenbit says today's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item12 "Info With a Ball and Chain" An era of online content restriction is emerging, thanks to the advancement of digital-rights-management (DRM) software. David Weinberger, author of "Copy Protection Is a Crime Against Humanity," alleges that DRM by itself is not evil, but its ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item13 "Lessons From Building the "Spatial Web"" Members of the Open GIS Consortium (OGC) are committed to interoperability for computer processes that are carried out by geospatial technology users. OGC members believe that people and organizations cannot adequately deal with the concept of space if ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item14 "A Game of Chance" The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) certified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2000 may not live as long as originally conceived, according to a cryptic disclosure last year. Schlumberger-Sema cryptographer Nicolas ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item15 "Supercomputers for the Masses?" High-performance computing clusters (HPCCs) are replacing monolithic water-cooled machines as the supercomputer of choice for technical computing tasks. By making use of off-the-shelf components and the Linux operating system, HPCCs cost less to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item16 "Getting In on the (Copyright) Act" Rep. Rich Boucher's (D-Va.) Digital Media Consumers' Act attempts to amend the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to satisfy critics who complain that the law's provisions allow copyright owners to strangle innovation and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item17 "Self-Repairing Computers" The growing complexity of computer systems adds up to their increased fragility and unreliability, which is why recovery-oriented computing (ROC) is so important, write Armando Fox of Stanford University and David Patterson of the University ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0616m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Friday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0613f.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