California: The Top to Bottom Review
VoteTrustUSA (08/13/07) Simons, Barbara
On Aug. 3, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced the
decertification of all electronic voting systems evaluated in her Top to
Bottom review, writes former ACM president and League of Women Voters
member Barbara Simons. All systems but one were conditionally recertified,
but the recertification came with arduous conditions in certain cases.
Such conditions include the requirements that only one direct recording
electronic (DRE) unit may be employed per polling site on election day or
during early voting; all DRE-cast votes must be counted manually using
voter verified paper audit trails; software and firmware must be
reinstalled on all machines by jurisdictions; and the vendor must foot the
bill for any post-election auditing. Bowen also ordered vendors to
generate plans for "hardening" their equipment to shield against certain
security threats detected by her review. Bowen's decision was based on
reports that the systems were highly vulnerable, insecure, and unreliable,
and her office also issued an accessibility review study concluding that
"the three tested voting systems are all substantially noncompliant when
assessed against the requirements of the [Help America Vote Act] and
specified in the 2005 VVSG guidelines." Testing and analysis was held up
by vendor delays, leading testing teams to complain that they did not have
enough time to sufficiently examine the systems and may have missed other
major security holes. Vendors insisted that their voting systems are
reliable, secure, accurate, and accessible for all voters, but Simons
contends, "It is difficult to imagine that automobile manufacturers, in
response to negative crash test results, would argue that their cars would
not crash, because safe drivers or good road conditions would prevent such
crashes. Yet that is precisely the kind of argument being made by voting
machine vendors." For information regarding ACM's e-voting activities,
visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
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New Technology Has Dramatic Chip-Cooling Potential for
Future Computers
Purdue University News (08/13/07) Venere, Emil
Purdue University researchers have demonstrated new technology that uses
tiny "ionic wind engines" to increase the heat-transfer coefficient of
computer chips by as much as 250 percent. "Other experimental
cooling-enhancement approaches might give you a 40 percent or 50 percent
improvement," says professor of mechanical engineering Suresh Garimella.
"A 250 percent improvement is quite unusual." The experimental cooling
device generates ions using electrodes placed near one another, a
positively charged wire, or anode, and negatively charged electrodes, or
cathodes. The anode is positioned about 10 millimeters above the cathodes.
When voltage passed through the device, the cathodes discharged electrons
toward the anode. While moving from the cathodes to the anode, the
electrons collide with air molecules, creating positively charged ions,
which are attracted back to the cathodes, creating an "ionic wind,"
increasing the airflow to the surface of the chip. When combined with an
ordinary fan to provide a constant stream of fresh air molecules, the ionic
wind engines significantly improve chip temperature. Infrared imaging
showed that ionic wind reduced the temperature from 140 degrees Fahrenheit
to 95 degrees F. "This technology is very exciting and innovative," says
Intel research engineer Rajiv Mongia. "It has the potential of enabling
imaginative notebook and handheld PC designs in the future."
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Intel Readies Research Papers on Programmable Multicore
Architectures
InformationWeek (08/14/07) Gonsalves, Antone
Intel is releasing eight technical papers that describe the company's key
findings from its work on future programmable multicore architectures. The
papers provide details on how the company expects future microprocessors
with simplified parallel programming models will advance. One of the
papers examines the concept of a "data center-on-a-chip," which researchers
have explored by looking at the possibility of running an e-commerce data
center with 133 or more processors on a single system based on a 32-core
tera-scale processor. Each core would have four threads that could take
advantage of simultaneous multithreading (SMT). SMT improves overall
efficiency by allowing tasks to be run as multiple independent threats.
The data center paper proposes changing the memory architecture to balance
processing on such a powerful system, including a model for a hierarchy of
shared caches, a new, high-bandwidth L4 cache, and a cache quality of
service to optimize how multiple threads share cache space. Two other
papers demonstrate parallel scalability for realism in games and movies and
in home multimedia search and mining. The papers also emphasize the need
for more cache/memory bandwidth, provided by a large L4 cache. Another
paper examines how high-bandwidth memory would eventually require memory to
be built directly on top of the die, or the integrated circuitry of a chip.
The second hardware paper focuses on how Intel might design and integrate
caches shared between cores, and explores the on-die interconnect mesh and
other non-core components. The last two papers examine new hardware and
software innovations Intel is developing to simplify parallel programming,
including tailoring runtimes to the special environment of tera-scale
platforms and integrating non-Intel architecture accelerator cores.
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Beyond Batteries: Storing Power in a Sheet of
Paper
Rensselaer News (08/13/07) Mullaney, Michael
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers have developed a
nanoengineered paper-thin energy storage device that is lightweight,
flexible, capable of working in temperatures between negative 100 degrees
Fahrenheit to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and can be printed like paper. The
battery is designed to fit the trickiest design and energy requirements
that future gadgets, implanted medical equipment, and transportation
vehicles may present. Another key feature is that human blood or sweat can
be used to help power the battery. More than 90 percent of the battery is
made from cellulose. The paper battery is infused with aligned carbon
nanotubes that act as electrodes and allow electricity to be conducted.
The device functions both as a lithium-ion battery and a supercapacitor and
can provide a sustained, steady output or quick burst of high energy like a
supercapacitor. The paper battery can be rolled, twisted, or cut into a
shape without damaging its integrity or efficiency. The batteries can also
be stacked to increase total power output. To power the battery, the
researchers used ionic liquid, basically a liquid salt. Ionic liquid
contains no water, so there is nothing in the battery that will cause it to
freeze or evaporate which allows the battery to withstand extreme
temperatures. The researchers also printed batteries without any
electrolytes and demonstrated that naturally occurring electrolytes in
human sweat, blood, and urine can be used to power the device. Implanted
devices such as pacemakers could use the paper battery to avoid exposing
the body to harsh chemicals found in most batteries. The materials used to
make the paper batteries are not expensive, but the researchers have not
found an inexpensive way to mass produce the devices. Eventually, the
researchers expect to create a roll-to-roll system similar to how
newspapers are printed.
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India Has the Brains, But Where's the Beef?
Forbes (08/13/07) Raghavan, Prabhakar
Many executives and journalists buy into the belief that India only needs
to establish better infrastructure to become a major contributor to
computer science and technology, but the problem is far more significant
than airports, highways, and power, writes Stanford University computer
science professor Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Research and editor in
chief of the Journal of the ACM. Despite the seemingly high number of
highly-trained, English-speaking, computer capable workers in India,
hundreds of millions of children in India do not have access to basic
elementary education, Raghavan notes. For those that do manage to obtain
an elementary and even college education, graduate programs in computer
science are strikingly scarce. The United States produces about 1,400
Ph.D.s in computer science every year, and China awards about 3,000.
India's annual computer science Ph.D. production is roughly 40, about the
same number of doctorates as Israel, a country with about 5 percent of
India's population. The quality of India's graduate work, with a few rare
exceptions, also significantly lags behind the United States and Europe,
because graduates from the top Indian science and engineering schools tend
to go abroad to do their graduate work. The end result is that most IT
jobs in India are outsourced from other countries and tend to be considered
jobs at the bottom of the IT hierarchy. A disproportionately small
fraction of these jobs contribute to technological innovation because they
require advanced training that residents in India cannot get. With India's
workforce of highly motivated and educated workers the possibility to
become an innovative country exists, but will not become a reality unless
the educational infrastructure is established, writes Raghavan.
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UNM Professor Thinks About How Robots Can
Cooperate
University of New Mexico (08/14/07)
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $400,000 grant to Herbert
Tanner, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University
of New Mexico, to study how robots that are programmed for different tasks
can learn to work together to solve a problem. Tanner, who received the
agency's Faculty Early Career Development award in the field of robotics,
is working with doctoral student Wenqi Zhang to determine the theoretical
shortcomings in this area. A simple puzzle is being used by Zhang to
determine how robots can work together to slide tiles around and come up
with a sequence of numbers. The robots would have to collaborate on how to
move the tiles, on choosing which tiles to move, and on coming up with a
plan to solve the puzzle. As part of her research she will address the
areas in which scientific theory remains inadequate. Meanwhile, Tanner
plans to have swarms of robots work as a team, communicate, divvy up
responsibilities, and determine potential solutions for carrying out a
task. Such collaboration could be useful in search and rescue missions or
for autonomous construction of structures in space, says Tanner.
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Putting Electronics in a Spin
BBC News (08/08/07) Fildes, Jonathan
The world's fastest supercomputer, scheduled to be operational later this
year, will be capable of performing 1,000 trillion calculations every
second, but this may soon be considered slow as advancements in quantum
computing and spintronics become a reality. "With quantum computing you
are able to attack some problems on the time scales of seconds, which might
take an almost infinite amount of time with classical computers," says
University of California, Santa Barbara, professor David Awschalom.
Spintronics has the potential to provide almost unlimited computing power
and storage without generating heat. "You can store an almost infinite
number of bits of information in one particle space," Awschalom says. The
near-limitless possibilities would allow for the advanced computer
processing needed in quantum computing. Basic spintronic devices, such as
spin valves on hard drives, are already used in most computers and laptops.
Spin valve inventor Stuart Parkin says the spin valve is part of the first
generation of spintronic devices, which are relatively simple structures
built from magnetic materials. However, Parkin says the second generation
of spintronics is already available, primarily in the form of
magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) which has no moving parts and
can store data even when the power is turn off. Parkin is already working
on what he calls the third generation of spintronic memory devices. A
spintronic device known as "racetrack memory" has the potential to increase
storage by as much as 100 times. Parkin says it will probably be about
five years before a complete prototype is built. A major challenge is
finding ways to control and manipulate the spin of atoms so data can be
written and read accurately.
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Local Teen Works to Advance Encryption Technology
Henry Herald (08/13/07) Jackson, Johnny
Billy Dorminy is still two years away from entering college, but he has
already received $40,000 in scholarships, including a $10,000 scholarship
from the Davidson Fellows Scholarship Program for his research and
presentation on "Improper Fractional Base Encryption," new encryption
software that uses the concepts of improper fractional bases. By using
reduced redundancy representations of improper fractional bases, Dorminy
created a more secure encryption system that requires less computer memory
and uses both confusion and diffusion to protect data. Improper Fractional
Base Encryption is the first secure method of encryption using improper
fractional bases that allows a second message to be stored undetectably
within the body of a main message. This year alone, Dorminy has received
numerous scholarships, honors, and awards, including the Scientific Depth
and Rigor scholarship from Alcatel-Lucent, a perfect score on the 2007
American Mathematics Competition 10.
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SIGGRAPH Asia Debuts in Singapore Next Year
PRNewswire (08/13/07)
ACM SIGGRAPH will be held in Singapore next year. ACM SIGGRAPH says
SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 makes sense because of how much the digital media market
has grown in recent years. The percentage of research papers from Asia in
the SIGGRAPH Papers Program has more than doubled in recent years, with the
region accounting for 17 percent in 2005. "Given the high quality contents
that we seek to offer, we expect the computer graphics fraternity to be
amazed by the cutting edge developments on show at SIGGRAPH Asia 2008,"
says Dr. Lee Yong Tsui, conference chair. The event is scheduled for Dec.
10-13, 2008, and is expected to draw 6,000 attendees to the trade
exhibition and around 1,000 delegates to the conference. "There has been a
huge increase in the amount of high quality technical and creative work
from Asia and the event will be the perfect venue to showcase them," adds
ACM SIGGRAPH President Scott Owen. The event will also offer original
research papers, a computer animation festival, courses and tutorials, a
digital art gallery, an educator's program, and a career fair. Yokohama,
Japan, has already been approved as the site of SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, and
Masa Inakage has been chosen to serve as full conference chair.
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Rewritable Holographic Memory
Technology Review (08/13/07) Avasthi, Amitabh
University of Connecticut researchers may have demonstrated a way to
produce rewritable holographic memory by using lasers to store data on
fragments of a microbial protein. The holographic storage system is based
on reengineered versions of proteins produced by bacteria-like organisms
commonly found in salt marshes. The microbe, Halobacterium salinarum,
produces a light-sensitive membrane protein when oxygen concentration drops
too low. The protein, known as bacteriorhodopsin, is used to convert
sunlight into energy. After the protein absorbs light, it cycles through
several chemical states, and in some of the chemical states the ability to
absorb light can be used to form holograms. The entire cycle takes only 10
to 20 milliseconds naturally, but shining a red light on the protein near
the end of the chemical cycle can force it into a useful state known as the
"Q state," which can last for years. To create a holographic memory
system, the Q state protein is suspended in a polymer gel. A green laser
beam split into two, with one beam encoded with data, is recombined in the
gel to imprint the proteins with an interference pattern and store the
data. A single, low-power, red laser beam is used to read the data, and a
blue laser can be used to erase the data so the proteins can be used again
to store different information. "Protein-based holographic media has the
potential for low-cost removable media rewritable up to 10 million times,"
says Tim Harvey, CEO of Starzent, a company funded by DARPA that is
developing a miniature holographic data storage drive. Harvey says the
protein is extremely rugged and, if the right genetic variant is found, can
be quickly produced in large amounts at a low cost.
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The Virtual Chainsaw
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (08/07)
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGS
in Darmstadt, Germany, contracted by the tool manufacturer Dolmar, have
created a virtual chainsaw that can be used to train workers to use power
tools. The Cybersaw combines the virtual world with the real world in what
the researchers are calling "mixed reality." The user holds an actual
chainsaw that has had its motor and carburetor replaced with electronics
and vibration motors. Light-emitting diodes on the chainsaw's cutting bar
allow a camera attached to a Perspex tree trunk to find the exact location
of the chainsaw. When the user pulls on the starter, the chainsaw jumps to
life. On a projection screen behind the Perspex tree trunk is an image of
a sawhorse in the middle of a farm scene. As the user moves the chainsaw
around, the virtual representation of the saw moves with it. To add more
reality to the simulation, sounds of the motor are added, and the Perspex
tree moves as the virtual chainsaw cuts through the wood. "Our system has
a native interface," says Michael Zollner, developer of the Cybersaw. "In
other words, the virtual environment fully corresponds to the real one.
Normally, before someone can use a virtual world, you first have to explain
the technology to them - how to use data goggles perhaps. But in this case
they can get going straight away with no need for explanations." Mixed
reality is quickly becoming a favorite training tool. Fraunhofer Institute
researchers are developing medical simulation environments so health care
professionals to practice using endoscopes, allowing them to see and feel
what they actual experience would be like.
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Computers Expose the Physics of NASCAR
University of Washington News and Information (08/09/07) Hickey, Hannah
University of Washington computer scientists have developed software that
is being used to allow television audiences to instantly see how air is
flowing around speeding cars. The algorithm dramatically speeds up
real-time fluid dynamics simulations and ESPN has used it to create a new
effect for racing coverage. Called Draft Track, the software calculates
air flow over the cars and displays it as colors trailing behind the car,
with different colors corresponding to different speeds and directions for
air flow when two or more cars approach one another at speeds upwards of
200 miles per hour. The challenge was how to simulate and display complex
systems in a short amount of time. Studios already use physical laws, such
as the Navier-Stokes fluid equations, to realistically portray smoke, fire,
hair, and fabric in animations, but these calculations take hours, run on
multiple high-performance computers, and scenes do not change. "The
studios shoot a two-second special effect and if it doesn't work they just
change the parameters and try again," says Zoran Popovic, an associate
professor in UW's department of computer science and engineering. "But in
a real-time context the simulation has to run indefinitely, and for an
unforeseen set of inputs." Popovic says the new algorithm first simulates
all the ways modified stock cars can behave. Then the software runs the
simulation for a smaller number of physically possible parameters, allowing
the model to run a million times faster than when trying to process all
possible parameters. The initial objective for the UW researchers was to
create applications that could be used for video games or virtual
firefighter training programs that would allow users to interact and move
through the smoke.
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Part-Time Jobs Scarce in IT
Network World (08/13/07) Garretson, Cara
Although many professionals are increasingly being given the opportunity
to work part time, IT professionals are not being offered the same options
because most employers would prefer their IT staff to work more hours. The
urgency and complexity of the IT industry can require IT employees to work
more than full-time hours, and the declining numbers of available IT
workers only makes the situation worse. "IT problems are 24 hours a day,
365 days a year," says Ilyse Shapiro, founder of MyPartTimePro.com, a Web
site dedicated to connecting experience professionals with employers
looking for part-time, flexible, virtual, or seasonal employees. Shapiro
says very few companies are looking for permanent, part-time help because
more non-IT employees are working longer hours and require more support
from IT. One IT professional says few part-time jobs are available because
IT is not task-based, meaning jobs are rarely "finished" in IT, and because
it is difficult to quantify IT work it is difficult to create a cut-back
version of the position. Robert Half Technology vice president Brian
Gabrielson says companies sometimes hire part-time IT workers to provide
additional support at a help desk, or when the company is expanding and it
is not yet ready for a full-time employee, but other than that there is
little demand from either employers or job hunters for part-time IT work.
Shapiro says the few IT professionals who have part-time jobs generally did
not get hired into the position, but rather worked full-time at the company
and eventually asked to have their hours cut back, which often leads to
squeezing the workload of a full-time into part-time hours.
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Recent Trends in Degree Production
CRA Bulletin (08/03/07) Vegso, Jay
A study using data furnished by the Taulbee Survey and the National
Science Foundation outlined computer science degree production trends
according to gender, citizenship, and ethnicity. According to the NSF,
awarded degrees increased more than 100 percent between 1998 and 2004, and
CS' percentage of all granted undergraduate degrees climbed from roughly 2
percent to 4 percent. However, the share of CS bachelor's degrees granted
to women declined from 37 percent to 25 percent between 1984 and 2004,
while the share of CS bachelor's degrees awarded to non-Hispanic Whites
fell from 77 percent in 1991 to 64 percent in 2004. Just 8 percent of
undergraduate CS degrees were earned by foreigners in 2004, says the NSF.
Production of Master's degrees almost doubled between 1997 and 2004 to
close to 20,000. In this period, CS enjoyed its biggest percentage of all
degrees earned--3.8 percent--but there was a slight decline in 2004, a
trend reflected in the awarding of undergraduate degrees. The share of
master's degrees awarded to women ranged from between 25 percent and 30
percent. Forty-four percent of master's degree recipients in 2004 were
temporary visa holders. CS doctoral degrees rose 40 percent between 2002
and 2005, while just slightly over 20 percent of doctoral degree recipients
in that time were female; from 1993 to 2005, the share of doctorates
awarded to whites ranged between 70 percent and 75 percent, while temporary
visa holders earned about 50 percent to 53 percent of doctorates in that
period, with significant gains recorded in the last few years.
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Evolutionary Algorithms Now Surpass Human
Designers
New Scientist (07/28/07) Vol. 195, No. 2614, P. 26; Marks, Paul
Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) imitate the processes of natural selection
and random mutation by blending elements of designs, and then choosing and
"rebreeding" the best combinations to produce designs over thousands of
generations that utilize components in ways that would probably not have
occurred to a human designer. Advocates say EAs could supplant traditional
design techniques in numerous fields, while opponents claim that this
method could generate designs incapable of proper assessment since no human
comprehends which trade-offs were made and thus where failure is probable.
EAs have been relegated to niche applications due to their reliance on
super-fast computers, but this is changing thanks to the increasing
availability of powerful computers, the emergence of distributed computing
"grids," and the arrival of multicore chips. "To mainstream engineers
there is a disbelief that a self-organizing process like an EA can produce
designs that outperform those designed using conventional top-down,
systematic, intelligent design," notes Cornell University computer
scientist Hod Lipson. "That tension mirrors the tension between
evolutionary biology and ID. That's the challenge we need to rise to in
winning people over." Lipson and fellow colleagues in the ACM's Special
Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (SIGEVO) are
concerned that their failure to promote the use of EAs by engineers could
result in the loss of evolved systems, software, and machines. SIGEVO runs
the yearly Human Competitiveness Awards, which rewards EA-produced designs
that are "competitive with the work of creative and inventive humans."
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Making IT Work
Computerworld (08/06/07) Vol. 41, No. 32, P. 30; Brandel, Mary
Women can flourish in the IT sector, but finding success involves
overcoming many obstacles and meeting numerous challenges. Chubb Group
application manager Monique McKeon was discouraged by earlier employers
whose corporate cultures did not promote a work/life balance, but Chubb was
an exception. She took the initiative and eventually assumed chairmanship
of the Chubb Partnership for Women, a grass-roots organization that offers
skills training and networking opportunities, but her success did not come
easy. She learned that achieving a work/life balance is possible, but it
involved hard choices and a comprehension of trade-offs. Sun Microsystems'
Katy Dickinson says the effects of being in the minority are very palpable
for female software engineers, who can feel a weighty responsibility for
representing their entire gender when they engage in meetings and other
important company activities. Having a support group is very important,
and Dickinson recommends that women join a networking group oriented around
women IT professionals. University of Pennsylvania CIO Robin Beck has
learned that establishing a healthy IT environment for women involves
creating a culture that supports honesty and openness, so that strategies
for making people worry- and stress-free can be clearly articulated; key to
this is communicating to one's employer and one's family what
accommodations they must make to ensure productive employment. Finally,
L.L. Bean information services manager Donna Lamberth stresses the
benefits, especially to senior IT professionals, of finding women who can
act as role models or mentors.
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