Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the November 14, 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 571 Date: November 14, 2003 Top Stories for Friday, November 14, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Study: Tech Has Glass Ceiling" "Net 'Outcry' Spurs Review of Patent" "Europe's IT Skills Shortage Evaporates" "Whatever Happened to Bluetooth?" "Is That You, Son? Voice Authentication Trips Up the Experts" "Tech Peddles Its Influence on Campus" "Plastic Memory Could Replace Silicon" "Wireless Networks Gain Spectrum" "20-Year Science Map From Dept. of Energy" "Standard for Securing Domain Name System Nears Finalization" "Advances in Car Technology Bring High-Class Headaches" "Academics Can Be Fun and Games" "Image Processing Means You Can See Both the Wood and the Trees" "Behavior-Monitoring Machines" "Student Wins Award for Novel Web Idea" "TIA Is Dead--Long Live TIA" "The Mind of a Hacker" "The Code Warriors" "AI Loves Lucy" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Study: Tech Has Glass Ceiling" Despite the United States' vanguard position in the area of technological advancement, there is still a dearth of female IT leaders, according to a new study from the nonprofit Catalyst research and advisory group. The study is the result of five ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item1 "Net 'Outcry' Spurs Review of Patent" The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decided Nov. 12 to re-assess a Web browsing patent credited to the University of California at San Francisco and Eolas Technologies CEO Michael D. Doyle in response to what deputy commissioner for patent examination ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item2 "Europe's IT Skills Shortage Evaporates" Bleak projections of IT staff shortages in the European Union forecast in the late 1990s by International Data (IDC) and other research firms have generally not come to pass. More and more European tech employees are being forced to seek local employment ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item3 "Whatever Happened to Bluetooth?" Bluetooth is gaining momentum as its growing volume of shipped products pushes prices down, but the technology is still too complex for many users, say experts. Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) executive director Mike McCamon says most of the 1 ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item4 "Is That You, Son? Voice Authentication Trips Up the Experts" Though computer-based speaker recognition has made significant progress in the last few years, boosting its accuracy and consistency is a tough challenge. Speaker recognition expert George Doddington observes that such factors as age, emotions, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item5 "Tech Peddles Its Influence on Campus" The relationship between the tech industry and educational universities is becoming so intricate that schools and enterprises are openly collaborating on projects and even curricula that further major companies' agendas, which critics ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item6 "Plastic Memory Could Replace Silicon" Princeton University and Hewlett-Packard Labs researchers have developed a new polymer-based memory technology that promises greater storage capacity at lower cost than silicon chips. The memory, which consists of a certain amount of silicon, a flexible ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item7 "Wireless Networks Gain Spectrum" In an attempt to spur the penetration of high-speed Internet access in rural communities and other underserved regions, the FCC yesterday reserved a section of airwaves for wireless networks in the 5 GHz band of the radio spectrum, which has ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item8 "20-Year Science Map From Dept. of Energy" The U.S. government plans to team up with U.S. computer vendors to develop supercomputing capability specifically for science and industrial applications. In a new 48-page report, "Facilities for the Future of Science: A 20-Year Outlook," the Department of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item9 "Standard for Securing Domain Name System Nears Finalization" The IETF reportedly will soon implement DNS-Sec, a security function that will authenticate information that passes through the Internet for more easy identification of people who send spam, worms, and viruses. DNS-Sec uses a digital signature that ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item10 "Advances in Car Technology Bring High-Class Headaches" Auto technology is able to give drivers on-the-road directions, monitor multiple aspects of vehicle performance, and avoid serious injury in accidents, but the growing complexity of value-added systems is also causing serious problems; ironically, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item11 "Academics Can Be Fun and Games" The University of Southern California plans to launch a minor degree program in gaming in late November 2004, in what is reportedly a first for a major research university. The minor, which is nearing finalization, is an interdisciplinary course of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item12 "Image Processing Means You Can See Both the Wood and the Trees" Mathematician Gemma Piella has reworked current wavelet techniques to bring more detailed pictures to image processing. Developed when she was a doctoral student in the Netherlands, the new technique for processing images is able to produce a complete ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item13 "Behavior-Monitoring Machines" Behaviometric software is designed to determine the behavioral patterns of people and things and fine-tune the kinds of behavior--normal and abnormal--to look for through observation. The effectiveness of such software lies in developers' ability to ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item14 "Student Wins Award for Novel Web Idea" Shou-De Lin, a Taiwanese graduate student at the University of Southern California, earned the award for best paper at the 2003 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Web Intelligence Consortium International Conference last month with ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item15 "TIA Is Dead--Long Live TIA" The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Information Awareness Office and its controversial Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program were defunded by congressional decree in late September, but eight Information ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item16 "The Mind of a Hacker" The word "hacker" has acquired a bad reputation in light of the harm inflicted on people and computer networks by worms and viruses, identity theft, and digital extortion, while laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) are driving what ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item17 "The Code Warriors" Boosting homeland security--perhaps the overriding concern of the 21st Century--follows a two-pronged strategy of shoring up the safety of both physical and information assets. Security incidents reported to the CERT Command Center totaled 114,855 ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item18 "AI Loves Lucy" Cyberlife Research founder Steve Grand plans to create an artificially intelligent machine that can think and learn through experimentation with Lucy, an android version of an infant orangutan he has developed. Such a breakthrough, Grand hopes, ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1114f.html#item19 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1112w.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