Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the August 18, 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 534 Date: August 18, 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, August 18, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "The Bits Are Willing, But the Batteries Are Weak" "Cybersecurity Chairman: Infosec Mandates May Be Needed" "IT Leads Recovery After Regional Power Failure" "Linux Hits Landmarks in Los Alamos Supercomputer Deals" "A Spray-on Computer Is Way to Do IT" "Indy Know-How to Be Feature of CMU Entry in Robot Racing" "DNS Inventor Says Cure to Net Identity Problems Is Right Under Our Nose" "Smart Chips Making Daily Life Easier" "Keeping the Net Neutral" "Researcher Invents New Graphing Method" "CMU Professor Wins Award for Program That Aids Decision-Making Process" "Data Search Stirs Concern" "Postal Service Pursues 'Intelligent Mail' Despite Privacy Concerns" "A Glimpse of IBM's Future" "Quantum Computer Keeps It Simple" "Saturday Light Fever" "The Myth of Generation N" "The Great Debate Over Software Patents" ******************* News Stories *********************** "The Bits Are Willing, But the Batteries Are Weak" The recent blackout proved that the sea of digital data created with cell phones, digital cameras, email, the Web, and connected computers is not entirely independent of real-world constraints. Despite the robust performance of the Internet itself, e-commerce ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item1 "Cybersecurity Chairman: Infosec Mandates May Be Needed" House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, Research and Development Chairman Rep. William Thornberry (R-Texas) says he is considering legislation that would require private industry to improve cybersecurity. His influence over federal cybersecurity ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item2 "IT Leads Recovery After Regional Power Failure" The massive power outage that blacked out Manhattan and other northeast regions on Aug. 14 was not a crippling blow against Wall Street and other area businesses thanks to backups and data-recovery systems, many of which had been installed as a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item3 "Linux Hits Landmarks in Los Alamos Supercomputer Deals" Linux Networx has forged a $10 million deal with Los Alamos National Laboratory to build a Linux cluster supercomputer known as Lightning, which will encompass nearly 3,000 AMD Opteron processors and theoretically boast a peak performance of 11.26 ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item4 "A Spray-on Computer Is Way to Do IT" Edinburgh University researchers have received a grant of 1.3 million pounds from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council to develop ubiquitous computing technology in which mote-sized computers can be sprayed on objects and communicate their ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item5 "Indy Know-How to Be Feature of CMU Entry in Robot Racing" The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has organized the Grand Challenge, in which robot vehicles will race from Barstow, Calif., to Las Vegas for a $1 million prize on March 13, 2004. The chief purpose of the Grand Challenge, from ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item6 "DNS Inventor Says Cure to Net Identity Problems Is Right Under Our Nose" Paul Mockapetris, chairman of Nominum and the writer of the DNS protocol, is focused on addressing the problem of identity theft on the Internet. Considering possible solutions to identity issues on the Internet, Mockapetris declares, "We can use ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item7 "Smart Chips Making Daily Life Easier" European researchers with the Smart-Its Project continue to make progress on "ubiquitous computing." During the recent computer graphics Siggraph exhibition in the United States, Smart-Its Project researcher Martin Strohbach explained that his colleagues ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item8 "Keeping the Net Neutral" The so-called "Net neutrality" proposal the Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators submitted to the FCC in July wants the federal government to regulate the broadband Internet in order to ensure that cable companies do not discriminate between ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item9 "Researcher Invents New Graphing Method" Dr. Alvaro Munoz of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has determined three major flaws with the 3D bar graph method used to present financial, medical, and other information in many computer programs, newspapers, and scientific journals. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item10 "CMU Professor Wins Award for Program That Aids Decision-Making Process" Artificial intelligence can be used to find the best overall solution in a competitive decision-making environment, according to work done by Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Tuomas Sandholm; those decisions include real-life political ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item11 "Data Search Stirs Concern" The war on terrorism and the homeland security push have made citizen cross-checking and profiling a government priority, which is in turn fostering the creation of companies that wish to sell private and public data to federal agencies. There is, however, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item12 "Postal Service Pursues 'Intelligent Mail' Despite Privacy Concerns" The President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service has thrown its support behind the idea of developing sender identification technology for U.S. mail. The presidential commission has recommended that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which has ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item13 "A Glimpse of IBM's Future" New computing applications designed and developed by interns at IBM's Industry Solutions Lab were recently spotlighted at the Extreme Blue Technology Showcase. One application, Blue Fusion, is a supply-chain simplification tool that utilizes Web services ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item14 "Quantum Computer Keeps It Simple" Quantum computer researchers at the University of Oxford and University College London have proposed a radically different quantum computer design that broadens the horizon of possible implementations. Instead of relying on metal electrodes to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item15 "Saturday Light Fever" Scientific research of microscale objects could advance significantly thanks to a combination of optical tweezers and holograms developed by University of Chicago physicist David Grier. Optical tweezers invented by Bell Laboratories ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item16 "The Myth of Generation N" "Database Nation" author Simson Garfinkel challenges the popular assumption that all young people possess a natural aptitude for technology, which puts a crimp in social scientists and technologists' projected emergence of a Net generation, despite ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item17 "The Great Debate Over Software Patents" Gray, Cary, Ware & Freidenrich partner Mark Radcliffe and Open Source Initiative general counsel Lawrence Rosen offer differing views of how the U.S. patent system is being affected by the growing viability of software patents. Radcliffe posits that the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0818m.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review the Friday, August 15, 2003 issue (that edition was not sent due to a major power outage), please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0815f.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