Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the October 1, 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 552 Date: October 1, 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, October 1, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Foreign Workers Will Soon Get Fewer U.S. Visas" "ACLU Steps Into DMCA Subpoena Controversy" "UN Summit Tones Down Open-Source Stance" "Apple Posts Darwin Source Code, Pulls OS X Update" "Sneak a Peek at Next Year's Tech Tools" "Web Searches Tap Databases" "Nanotech Boom Expected to Force Legal Scrambling" "Researchers Look for Ways to Protect Privacy of Electronic Information" "Software Utilizes Unique Typing Styles to Identify Individual Users" "Author, Alumnus Discusses Internet Future" "Johns Hopkins APL Creates System to Detect Digital Video Tampering" "IBM Stops to Reinvent the Zeal" "Tech-Job Certifications That Still Matter" "The Sharer" "Innovation Interruptus" "Unleashing UWB" "The Smart Sensor Web" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Foreign Workers Will Soon Get Fewer U.S. Visas" The maximum yearly number of H-1B visas issued to foreign workers so they can enter the United States to fill mostly high-tech jobs drops from 195,000 to 65,000 on Oct. 1. An Intel representative warns that the reversion will be inadequate to deal with a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item1 "ACLU Steps Into DMCA Subpoena Controversy" The ACLU is taking the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to court over the constitutionality of subpoenas obtained through Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provisions. The ACLU, together with a Boston law firm, is representing a Boston ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item2 "UN Summit Tones Down Open-Source Stance" The UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) will reflect growing unease among some governments over open-source software, and the business lobby response to earlier proposals. The WSIS is jointly run by the International Telecommunications ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item3 "Apple Posts Darwin Source Code, Pulls OS X Update" The most recent source code for Apple Computer's Darwin open-source project, Darwin 6.7 and 6.8, was made available for download by Apple this week, while version 10.2.8 of the Mac OS X operating system was temporarily pulled due to user complaints ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item4 "Sneak a Peek at Next Year's Tech Tools" Forthcoming PC products on display at the recent Computex exhibition in Tapei included novel hardware configurations, new notebooks from Acer, Athlon 64 motherboards, and minuscule components for handhelds and small computers. Intel exhibited a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item5 "Web Searches Tap Databases" Richard Wheeldon of London's Birkbeck University reports that software he co-designed enables users to search through different types of data sources--text documents, the Web, local databases, etc.--simultaneously. He says the software, DbSurfer, allows ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item6 "Nanotech Boom Expected to Force Legal Scrambling" The emerging field of nanotechnology has massive potential, but overcoming the myriad legal and ethical barriers associated with nanotech will be a formidable challenge. Recent nanotech breakthroughs include atomic-scale switches, molecular motors, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item7 "Researchers Look for Ways to Protect Privacy of Electronic Information" Lawyers, technologists, policy proponents, and domain specialists will collaborate in a National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative whose goal is to build an infrastructure that allows sensitive personal data to be mined by organizations while ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item8 "Software Utilizes Unique Typing Styles to Identify Individual Users" Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have created "behaviometric" technology in the form of software that can accurately identify computer users according to their unique typing styles. Technion Professors Ran El-Yaniv and Ron Meir ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item9 "Author, Alumnus Discusses Internet Future" Internet expert John Patrick recently spoke at Lehigh University, where he described how the Next Generation Internet is expected to be as ubiquitous and dependable as electricity or plumbing. Professor Roger Nagel noted that Patrick said the "Internet is ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item10 "Johns Hopkins APL Creates System to Detect Digital Video Tampering" A Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) project for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has yielded a system that can detect attempts to doctor digital video, a breakthrough that could help allow reliable digital video to be ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item11 "IBM Stops to Reinvent the Zeal" IBM's seven-day "Innovation Days" event in September was a time for 3,000 company researchers worldwide to pause and reflect on their jobs in order to figure out how to keep scientists both creative and capable of producing short-term results on targeted ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item12 "Tech-Job Certifications That Still Matter" Experts say IT certification is important to job marketability, but in a down economy some certifications benefit job seekers more than others; Foote Partners President David Foote says project management and security are now two of the most popular ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item13 "The Sharer" Linux creator Linus Torvalds has tried to remove himself from SCO Group's fight to demand royalties from Linux users on the grounds that open-source Linux software uses copyrighted SCO code, but says that he may be forced to take legal action as tension ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item14 "Innovation Interruptus" Industry observers report that IT budget cuts extending over the past few years have dampened innovation, but this has allowed other types of innovation to come to the fore, according to experts such as Computerworld columnist Paul A. Strassmann. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item15 "Unleashing UWB" Allied Business Intelligence expects ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to generate sales revenues in excess of $1 billion by 2008, but the chances of this happening would greatly improve if the industry can resolve the standardization issue. Most ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item16 "The Smart Sensor Web" The Sensor Web, which author Neil Gross describes as "an electronic skin" through which all earthly activities can be sensed and monitored, will revolutionize the collaborative, consistent, and consolidated collection, fusion, and ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.html#item17 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Monday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/0929m.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