Dear ACM TechNews Subscriber: Welcome to the December 12, 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 582 Date: December 12, 2003 Top Stories for Friday, December 12, 2003: http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html "Profiling System Takeoff Delayed" "Patenting Air or Protecting Property?" "New Software Helps Supercomputers Think Fast" "Automated Analysis of Bee Behavior May Yield Better Robots" "In a Data-Mining Society, Privacy Advocates Shudder" "E-Mail 'Cluster Bombs' a Disaster Waiting to Happen, Computer Scientists Say" "Buried Treasure?" "Megabits and Multimedia Specs Await New Bluetooth Road Map" "First Test of IPv6 Network Goes Well" "Mining the Vein of Voter Rolls" "An Electronic Assist for Perilous Driving" "Where In the World Is the Virtual I.T. Worker?" "Everyone Wants to Govern the Internet" "IT Workers Feel Effects of the Long Downturn" "Why Software Quality Stinks" "Prepare to Be Scanned" "Toward a Brain-Internet Link" "The Taming of the Internet" ******************* News Stories *********************** "Profiling System Takeoff Delayed" The launch of the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) has been postponed as industry and federal Agencies take a closer look at the project, which is designed to Profile air travelers and determine if they may be criminals based ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item1 "Patenting Air or Protecting Property?" The deluge of new patents on Internet technologies and software is impeding innovation, according to industry experts and proponents of more traditional patents. A class of small companies is emerging that claim patents in key technological ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item2 "New Software Helps Supercomputers Think Fast" MPI for InfiniBand on VAPI Layer (MVAPICH) software developed by Ohio State University researchers is used to coordinate communication between the clustered desktops, or nodes, that make up supercomputers such as Virginia Tech's Macintosh-based ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item3 "Automated Analysis of Bee Behavior May Yield Better Robots" Georgia Institute of Technology robotics experts led by Tucker Balch are using a computer vision system to automatically analyze the movements of social insects--bees especially--in the hopes of drawing new insights on animal behavior and applying those ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item4 "In a Data-Mining Society, Privacy Advocates Shudder" Concern is growing among privacy proponents and civil liberties advocates that our privacy is being stripped away by the availability of databases listing personal information as well as the "bread crumbs" left behind by our activities in the networked ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item5 "E-Mail 'Cluster Bombs' a Disaster Waiting to Happen, Computer Scientists Say" The December 2003 issue of ;login: features a report by researchers at Indiana University Bloomington and RSA Laboratories in Bedford, Mass., that says miscreants could use Web sites to bombard the inboxes of Internet users with hundreds ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item6 "Buried Treasure?" Economists have long dismissed the concept of a causal relationship between IT investment and productivity growth, but theorists such as MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson believe one exists, and over the last several years an unusual trend has ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item7 "Megabits and Multimedia Specs Await New Bluetooth Road Map" The industry consortium supporting the Bluetooth short-range wireless standard is setting up a working group to plan the next iteration: The newly announced group is in charge of forecasting market demands and guiding Bluetooth along those lines. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item8 "First Test of IPv6 Network Goes Well" The results of the first test of a next-generation Internet powered by Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) were very positive, according to the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory's Ben Schultz at the IPv6 Summit in Arlington, Va. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item9 "Mining the Vein of Voter Rolls" Registering to vote requires people to list personal information that by all rights should be kept confidential, yet election officials are offering this information to political parties, candidates, and data collectors for the purposes of marketing or ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item10 "An Electronic Assist for Perilous Driving" Electronic stabilization systems are designed to prevent rollovers and other skidding-related accidents by having in-vehicle sensors collate data such as brake pressure, steering wheel orientation, wheel speed, and acceleration, while a ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item11 "Where In the World Is the Virtual IT Worker?" Telecommuting has stepped out of the limelight at companies for a number of reasons, most having to do with the trend toward offshore outsourcing and the economic downturn; companies no longer feel as pressed to lure the best new hires with perks such ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item12 "Everyone Wants to Govern the Internet" Discontent over Internet governance is growing as the world increasingly lays claim to a technology built by consensus. Begun as a U.S. military project called ARPANET in 1969, the nascent data network system was soon transferred to academic ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item13 "IT Workers Feel Effects of the Long Downturn" The downturn in the technology industry continues to have an enormous impact on information technology workers. According to experts across the industry, IT workers are overworked, concerned about job security, and are not happy with their careers. ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item14 "Why Software Quality Stinks" The poor quality of software can only be improved by the deployment of an effective software quality assurance (SQA) program, yet 38 percent of developers polled by the Cutter Consortium across more than 150 software development ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item15 "Prepare to Be Scanned" Despite unresolved issues of intrusiveness and cost, biometrics system rollouts are accelerating in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; biometrics security will be standard at U.S. airports and seaports starting early next year, foreigners ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item16 "Toward a Brain-Internet Link" MIT scientist Rodney Brooks speculates that brain implants which connect people wirelessly to the Internet could be a reality by 2020, thanks to technological advances as well as military and medical research initiatives. Brooks cites State University of ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item17 "The Taming of the Internet" The proliferation of spam and the adoption of spamming methods by virus writers and online fraudsters has delivered a jolting reality check to Web authorities, and is driving a migration away from a free-for-all Internet towards a more regulated ... http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1212f.html#item18 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- To review Wednesday's issue, please visit http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1210w.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