Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the August 6, 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 529 Date: August 6, 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, August 6, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Voting Suit Gains Momentum" "U.S. Backs Florida's New Counterterrorism Database" "Free Software Faces a Rocky Road to Court" "Computer Groupthink Under Fire" "Three Minutes With Marcus Sachs" "Country-Coded Computer Worms May Be Ahead" "A Brilliant Future for the Smart Home" "Eyes Off, Screen Off" "Battle of the Blog" "Life Imitates Art" "'People Want Simple Home Networking'" "Tech Future for Women Starts Young" "Robotics to Play Major Role in Future Warfighting" "Interview With Brian Kernighan" "Random Numbers Hit and Miss" "Critics Tell Congress ICANN Needs Reforms" "The IT Productivity Gap" "Future Tech: 20 Hot Technologies to Watch" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Voting Suit Gains Momentum" A lawsuit that questions the constitutionality of computerized touch-screen voting machines is moving to an appeals court, at a time when the reliability of such systems is a topic of heated debate. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item1 "U.S. Backs Florida's New Counterterrorism Database" Florida's Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (Matrix) counterterrorism database is being developed as a resource that national law enforcement agencies can use to scan billions of available records about both lawbreakers and innocent citizens in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item2 "Free Software Faces a Rocky Road to Court" Hanging over the LinuxWorld trade show this week in San Francisco is the SCO lawsuit against IBM over Unix intellectual property infringement that not only threatens the future of Linux, but potentially a host of commercial software as well. SCO says IBM ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item3 "Computer Groupthink Under Fire" A July House Science Committee hearing was the focus of a heated debate on the relative merits of supercomputers compared to those of grid and cluster computing configurations, which critics charge are insufficient for certain computing operations. Grids ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item4 "Three Minutes With Marcus Sachs" Marcus Sachs, who collaborates with analysts on the development of the Homeland Security Department's Cyber Program, asserts that the program is "really, really, really prepared" to defend the United States against cyberattacks, but maintains that the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item5 "Country-Coded Computer Worms May Be Ahead" Jonathan Wignall of the U.K. Data and Network Security Research Council used the DefCon 11 security conference to address the possibility that computer worm creators could more effectively distribute their malicious code by targeting specific countries ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item6 "A Brilliant Future for the Smart Home" Futuristic home networking technologies are reaching the commercial market, allowing users to unobtrusively integrate computing into their everyday lives. Homebuilders and household appliance vendors such as Sears are promoting smart technologies ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item7 "Eyes Off, Screen Off" Duke University researchers led by Angela Dalton have developed a prototype energy-efficient device that detects people's presence and can activate or deactivate a computer screen depending on whether anyone is watching or not. The FaceOff system, fashioned ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item8 "Battle of the Blog" The format that controls Web logs (blogs) is at the heart of an acrimonious dispute between Really Simple Syndication (RSS) manager and Harvard University fellow Dave Winer and those who resent his decision to freeze the RSS core and his governance ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item9 "Life Imitates Art" Dean Economou of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization's Center for Networking Technologies for the Information Economy comments that sci-fi movies not only offer a window onto future technologies, but exert an influence ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item10 "'People Want Simple Home Networking'" A household featuring an array of networked devices that seamlessly share digital content--music, video, pictures, etc.--is the goal of the Digital Home Working Group (DHWG), an industry alliance dedicated to making future networking products ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item11 "Tech Future for Women Starts Young" Despite studies indicating that more women than men are going online and assertions from female tech professionals that gender has little to do with their struggle to rise in the industry, IN CONTEXT Managing Partner Marcie Sayiner foresees a shortage of IT ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item12 "Robotics to Play Major Role in Future Warfighting" A study being conducted by the U.S. Joint Forces Command's Project Alpha think tank suggests that integrated autonomous machines may become a standard component of battlefield tactics by 2025. Project Alpha organized a Johns Hopkins University ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item13 "Interview With Brian Kernighan" Former Bell Labs programmer and Princeton University computer science professor Brian Kernighan muses that computing's biggest headache is the difficulty of using and programming computers. He argues that the last half-century of progress has not reduced ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item14 "Random Numbers Hit and Miss" Stephan Martens of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics and Heiko Bauke of Otto von Guericke University have found the root cause of the difficulty computers have in generating random numbers, which is a key process in ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item15 "Critics Tell Congress ICANN Needs Reforms" At the recent Senate subcommittee meeting on ICANN, critics raised concerns about the organization--specifically in relation to the transparency of ICANN's business transactions, ICANN's involvement of normal Internet users in rulings, and its decision ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item16 "The IT Productivity Gap" Statistical research suggests a definite link between a company's general productivity and its IT capital per worker, although company performance varies considerably, according to Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School of Management. IT intensity ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item17 "Future Tech: 20 Hot Technologies to Watch" Technologies that promise to fundamentally change computing are in various stages of development: Autonomous driving is far from reality, but technologies that could facilitate the development of self-driving cars are converging, such as assistive vision http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0806w.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0804m.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