Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the October 3, 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 553 Date: October 3, 2003 Top Stories for Friday, October 3, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "A Suspect Computer Program" "Tough Issues Face Information Society Summit" "Machines Learn to Mimic Speech" "EU's Class of '04 Eyes Software Development" "Researchers Create Super-Fast Quantum Computer Simulator" "Plasma Screens and the Future of Display Technology" "Now Hear This, Quickly" "Academic Consortium Plans a $100-Million Optical-Research Network" "Software Jungle Challenges Auto Engineers" "Controversial Pentagon Program Scuttled, But Its Work Will Live On" "E-Mail Is Broken" "Don't Hold Your Breath for Online Voting" "Virus Experts Debate Bug Names" "Research Team Set to Revamp Internet" "Study Points Out Costs of Computer Disposal" "Developers Blaze Their Own Trail" "Female IT Professionals Cope in a Male-Dominated Industry" "Supercomputing Horizons" "Leaping, Then Looking" ******************* News Stories *********************** "A Suspect Computer Program" Despite the application of the most advanced technology, experts warn that would-be terrorists could likely foil the security system protecting air travel in the United States. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of innocent passengers would be flagged by such ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item1 "Tough Issues Face Information Society Summit" A number of highly contentious issues have upset preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society's (WSIS) December meeting, sponsored by the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The main goal of the summit is to spread ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item2 "Machines Learn to Mimic Speech" Attendees at this week's SpeechTek tradeshow said speech technology companies have started to take a more realistic view in realizing that voice technology has not yet reached the point where computers can actually understand human speech. "Now that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item3 "EU's Class of '04 Eyes Software Development" Central and Eastern European countries are accelerating their efforts to vie for the American and Western European software development outsourcing market, which is currently dominated by India. Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Malta, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item4 "Researchers Create Super-Fast Quantum Computer Simulator" Japanese researchers have devised a tool designed to boost the speed at which classical computers can run quantum algorithms, which engineers hope will aid the design of quantum-computer hardware and software. The researchers used a "quantum index ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item5 "Plasma Screens and the Future of Display Technology" Plasma display panels (PDPs) may face more competition in the next few years as new display technologies emerge. One such technology is Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays, which promise cheapness, light weight, and efficiency because ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item6 "Now Hear This, Quickly" New software and hardware are letting people vary the speed at which they listen and watch audio and video recordings; the new digital time compression technique cuts out tiny segments of repetitive audio, such as portions of a vowel enunciation, so ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item7 "Academic Consortium Plans a $100-Million Optical-Research Network" Academic institutions and university consortia have joined forces to construct a $100 million national optical network that will serve as the underpinning of what National Science Foundation officials term a worldwide "cyberinfrastructure" to play a key ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item8 "Software Jungle Challenges Auto Engineers" The Motor Vehicle Electronics conference this week clarified the growing challenge facing automotive systems designers, who have to manage increasing complexity without modularization and standardization. Auto electronics, now nearly synonymous with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item9 "Controversial Pentagon Program Scuttled, But Its Work Will Live On" A congressional appropriations conference committee may have killed the Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program, a Pentagon effort to root out suspected terrorist activity by mining databases of Americans' transactional information, but ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item10 "E-Mail Is Broken" Four computer scientists--Carnegie Mellon University's Dave Farber, Brandenburg Consulting principal Dave Crocker (a former student of Farber's), Electronic Frontier Foundation chairman of the board Brad Templeton, and Nielsen Norman principal Jakob ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item11 "Don't Hold Your Breath for Online Voting" The benefits of electronic voting--convenience, almost instant results, and cost effectiveness--promise to eliminate hanging chads and other problems that plague elections, as well as boost voter turnout. Accenture E-Democracy Services CEO Meg McLaughlin ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item12 "Virus Experts Debate Bug Names" How to name computer viruses without generating confusion that could hinder efforts to stop them was a point of debate at the recent Virus Bulletin 2003 (VB2003) conference in Toronto. However, Richard Ford of the Florida Institute of Technology ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item13 "Research Team Set to Revamp Internet" Stanford University is one of eight institutions participating in a National Science Foundation project to research an Internet overhaul that supports emerging technologies and scales up to increasing demand. The project's researchers believe their work ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item14 "Study Points Out Costs of Computer Disposal" A new report from research company Gartner shows that companies can recoup 3 percent to 5 percent of the original price of old computer equipment by selling the parts, but companies also should expect to spend anywhere from $85 to $136 to dispose of an ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item15 "Developers Blaze Their Own Trail" The 2003 InfoWorld Programming Survey of 804 programmers and their managers concludes that Web applications dominate industry, even though Microsoft and others insist that developers should switch to fast desktop clients: 80 percent of respondents report ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item16 "Female IT Professionals Cope in a Male-Dominated Industry" Female professionals account for 25.3 percent of America's IT workforce of 3.6 million employees, according to the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), and women have found competing in a male-dominated industry to be a formidable ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item17 "Supercomputing Horizons" Vincent F. Scarafino, manager of numerically intensive computing at Ford Motor, warns that the United States' supercomputing effort is in danger of falling way behind Japan, and this could lead to a serious lag in U.S. science and engineering unless the ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item18 "Leaping, Then Looking" Few executives are taking time to consider IT outsourcing's potential ramifications--on worker morale, the American economy, national security, and other areas--before moving software development overseas in order to cut costs and remain ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1003f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1001w.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