Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the July 23, 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 523 Date: July 23, 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, July 23, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Making It Illegal to Hire Abroad" "Think Fast! New Supercomputers Race Toward Unimaginable Speeds" "IT Gender Gap Under Study by Pair at RIT" "Spotlight on SIGGRAPH 2003" "Bring on the Telematics Revolution" "Pentagon Wants to Make a New PAL" "Power Sharing: Distributed Computing Moves Beyond the Search for ET" "Controversy Surrounds Employees on L-1 Visas" "Program to Create Next-Generation Computer Security Experts" "Cheaper Optics-Chip Link on Tap" "Wireless Raises the Final Standard" "Middleware Could Help Link Real-Time Battle Data" "New Privacy Laws Less Likely" "Trends Point Toward New Internet Architecture" "I/O Moves Into the Express Lane" "I, Computer" "A Chat Room Like No Other" "Professor Gadget" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Making It Illegal to Hire Abroad" State and federal lawmakers are considering legislation that limits overseas outsourcing in response to more and more U.S. companies shifting technology and service jobs to countries where the labor pool is cheaper as well as larger. The New Jersey ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item1 "Think Fast! New Supercomputers Race Toward Unimaginable Speeds" Experts such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher Jack Dongarra note that supercomputing speeds are increasing at an exponential rate: The gigaOPS benchmark of a billion operations per second that was the peak of supercomputing speed in 1985 is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item2 "IT Gender Gap Under Study by Pair at RIT" The National Science Foundation has awarded Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) assistant professors Elizabeth Lane Lawley and Tona Henderson a grant of $323,000 to fund a two-year study of the difficulties female undergraduates encounter in college IT ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item3 "Spotlight on SIGGRAPH 2003" The latest creative and technical developments in computer graphics and interactive technology will be on display at the annual ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) conference July 27-31 at the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item4 "Bring on the Telematics Revolution" Spurred by major electronics makers, telematics technology is expanding beyond fleet vehicles and luxury automobiles, and broadening its applications to include more sophisticated features in addition to location tracking. IBM will introduce ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item5 "Pentagon Wants to Make a New PAL" The Pentagon is investing $29 million in an effort to develop a Perceptive Assistant that Learns (PAL)--software that, like a real-life office assistant, can intuit the needs of the boss and automatically perform tasks to meet those needs. "The idea is to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item6 "Power Sharing: Distributed Computing Moves Beyond the Search for ET" Distributed or grid computing allows ordinary individuals to help search for a cure to cancer or participate in socially or scientifically significant projects by donating idle computer power. People support distributed computing initiatives out of a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item7 "Controversy Surrounds Employees on L-1 Visas" Critics claim that the L-1 visa program, which allows companies to transfer foreign staff to the United States for the purposes of consultation, cross-training, or management education, is being exploited to essentially replace American workers with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item8 "Program to Create Next-Generation Computer Security Experts" Mississippi State University (MSU), an academic institution certified by the National Security Agency as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, aims to build a new generation of cybersecurity specialists for both the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item9 "Cheaper Optics-Chip Link on Tap" Speeding up Internet access requires an affordable technique to broaden high-bandwidth fiber-optic lines to the home, but fiber-optic connection costs are a formidable barrier. Researchers from the Italian Institute for the Physics of Matter ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item10 "Wireless Raises the Final Standard" An industry consortium working on ultrawideband (UWB) radio specifications is finalizing a proposal that could dramatically change the wireless networking landscape, writes Rupert Goodwins. After the FCC approved UWB, with the caveat that devices emit ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item11 "Middleware Could Help Link Real-Time Battle Data" The Object Management Group (OMG) has adopted a middleware specification that proponents say will enable unprecedented real-time communications between different battlefield systems. The Data Distribution Service for Real-Time Systems (DDS) ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item12 "New Privacy Laws Less Likely" Congress is prioritizing spam legislation over online privacy legislation, as evidenced by the list of privacy proposals that are nowhere near approval and being criticized by privacy proponents and the technology sector. Sen. Diane Feinstein's ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item13 "Trends Point Toward New Internet Architecture" The Burton Group says in its "Vision 2003" report that developments in network security, Internet Protocol telephony, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), mobile and wireless networking, and virtual private networks (VPNs) are causing ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item14 "I/O Moves Into the Express Lane" The standard expansion bus in most desktops is based on an 11-year-old technology that's due for replacement. Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus specification supports 1 Gbps bandwidth speeds, which is more than enough for general PC ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item15 "I, Computer" Imperial College emeritus professor Igor Aleksander projects that machine consciousness research will yield insight on human consciousness, and lead to a future where many machines will claim to be self-aware. Aleksander places machine consciousness ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item16 "A Chat Room Like No Other" "There" is a virtual chatroom technology that allows correspondents to relay their emotional states through electronic avatars instead of relying on emoticons typical of current text-based virtual communications systems. There avatars use ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item17 "Professor Gadget" Ted Selker of MIT's Media Lab has acquired a reputation as an innovator whose prototypes and projects have received a great deal of media exposure. His breakthroughs include the TrackPoint, a rubberized mouse button that has become a standard ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0723w.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0721m.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