Online Vote Discussed for Florida
Miami Herald (03/08/08) Merzer, Martin
Internet voting advocates say the technology should be used if Democrats
decide to hold a second primary election in Florida. They say an online
election would offer security at least equal to a ballot by mail, would
attract more voters, and would cost about $3 million, or about half as much
as a mail-in election. Internet voting played a major role in the 2000
Democratic primary in Arizona, the 2004 Democratic primary in Michigan, and
was used in 164 countries and territories last month for Democrats living
abroad. "Not only can we save the party money, we can get it done faster
and we can increase access significantly," says Everyone Counts CEO Lori
Steele. Florida's Democratic leadership is considering a ballot by mail if
someone picks up the estimated $4 million to $6 million cost, and state
party spokesman Mark Bubriski says he has not heard any serious
consideration of conducting a re-vote primarily over the Internet. Johns
Hopkins University computer science professor Avi Rubin says that beyond
Internet voting's security and privacy issues, he worries that voters could
be coerced to vote a certain way by an abusive spouse or an overbearing
employer. ''I think it is a terrible, terrible idea to take such a
meaningful primary and give an attacker the opportunity to compromise
privacy or intercept votes and change them,'' he says. Still,
electiononline.org director Doug Chapin says many people believe that
Internet-based voting is an inevitability and a primary is a good test for
the technology.
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Food Industry Tests Techno-Tasters to Judge Flavor
Washington Post (03/10/08) P. A8; Weiss, Rick
Recent improvements in sensors, and in the computer programs that
interpret their inputs, have led to the development of electronic taste and
smell sensors that could be more accurate than humans. In a recent test,
an electronic tongue and nose was able to distinguish between 53 glasses of
wine, correctly identifying every bottle. Furthermore, the sensors were
able to determine that the grapes used in 23 of the bottles were grown in
one region of northern Italy, while the rest were grown in an area only 60
miles away. Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department launched a program last
month that uses machines to grade livestock carcasses as USDA Prime,
Choice, or Select. The robotic graders, currently being tested at four
Nebraska slaughterhouses, capture photographic images of sides of beef as
they pass by at rates of up to 400 head per hour. The graders examine the
rib-eye muscle, measuring the redness of the meat, the amount of marbling
with fat, and the thinness of the outer fatty layer. Human graders confirm
the machines results and override the robots when necessary, but officials
say the degree of accuracy has been very high. Other countries are making
similar advancements. A Japanese consortium recently released a Health and
Food Advice Robot that can distinguish between 30 kinds of wine and various
cheeses and breads, and warns its owner against poor eating habits. In
Russia, St. Petersburg University researchers have developed an electronic
tongue that can distinguish among various blends of coffee or soft drinks
just as accurately as people.
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45th Design Automation Conference (DAC) Names Exhibitor
Liaison Committee
Business Wire (03/03/08)
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) has announced the members of the
45th DAC Exhibitor Liaison Committee (ELC). ELC members include Dave Reed
of Blaze DFM, George Harper of Bluespec, Michelle Clancy of Cayenne
Communication, Peggy Aycinena of EDA Confidential, and Sabina Burns of
Virage Logic, among others. Members of the DAC executive committee will
also participate on the committee, which will be chaired by EDA Industry
Chair Yervant Zorian of Virage Logic. The ELC will advise the DAC
executive committee on exhibitor-related issues and review all other areas
of the conference. "The ELC provides an essential role of representing the
views of large and small exhibitors to the conference organizers," says
Limor Fix, general chair of the 45th DAC executive committee. "Yervant and
the rest of the committee are leading important new efforts to help ensure
the vitality and vibrancy of the exhibit floor." ACM's Special Interest
Group on Design Automation is a sponsor of the conference, which is
scheduled for June 9-13, 2008, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim,
Calif. For more information about DAC, visit
http://www.dac.com/45th/index.aspx
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HP Labs Focuses on 'High-Impact' Work
Mercury News (03/10/08) Harris, Scott Duke
Hewlett-Packard last week announced the reorganization of its HP Labs
division and held a press event to showcase 14 of its leading research
projects. HP plans to narrow the labs' work from around 150 research
projects to about 20 to 30 "high-impact" projects in an effort to focus the
group's resources on "big bets" with the best chance of profitability. HP
Labs program manger Steven Rosenberg has spent 27 years working on a
variety of projects, including high-powered computer workstations and
artificial intelligence. Rosenberg is currently promoting a new display
device. "It's a reflexive display that is highly readable in all kinds of
light," he says. "It's flexible. It's light. It's cheap." The display
can also withstand a liquid spill. Other projects on display included
BRAIN, or Behaviorally Robust Aggregation of Information in Networks, a
consulting tool that uses algorithms for business forecasting. Cloud Print
would allow people to use their cell phone to print Web documents using any
printer with a phone number. Trusted Converged Client uses virtualization
technology to enable a business PC to be used for personal and business
needs while protecting data from risks on the Internet. WaterCooler is a
Web-based service that aggregates a company's blogs, forums, and other
communications to stimulate discussion and share knowledge.
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Language of a Fly Proves Surprising
Los Alamos National Laboratory News (03/10/08) Rickman, James E.
Researchers have developed a way to view the world through the eyes of a
fly and partially decode the insect's reactions to changes in the world
around it. The research has changed scientists' understanding of neural
networks and could provide the basis for intelligent computers that mimic
biological processes. The researchers used tiny electrodes to tap into
motion-sensitive neurons in the visual system of a blowfly. The fly was
harnessed into a turntable-like mechanism that mimicked the kind of flight
it might undergo when evading a predator or chasing another fly. The
neurons' firing patterns were mapped with a binary code of ones and zeroes.
The researchers found that the impulses were like a primitive, but very
regular "language," with the neurons firing at precise times depending on
what the fly's visual sensors were trying to tell it about its visual
stimulus. Previous research showed irregular spikes in the neurons'
firing, but this is now believed to be a way to conserve energy when there
is little change in the fly's surroundings. The simulated flight creates
significant change requiring regular neuron firing to process the
information. "This may be one of the main reasons why artificial neural
networks do not perform anywhere comparable to a mammalian visual brain,"
says Los Alamos physicist Ilya Nemenman, a member of the research team.
The research could improve the analyses of satellite images and
facial-pattern recognition.
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People Power Transforms the Web in Next Online
Revolution
Observer (UK) (03/09/08) Leadbetter, Charles
Creativity and intelligence enabled by mass collaboration via the Web
could spark a revolution in the collective power to solve wide-ranging
challenges such as support for the aged, global warming, disaster relief,
teaching and learning, and the spread of democracy in repressive countries,
writes Charles Leadbetter, author of "We Think: Mass Innovation, Not Mass
Production." He calls this form of creativity "We Think," and lists the
free, volunteer-created Wikipedia online encyclopedia as a key example.
Leadbetter says open access publishing makes scientific research available
on a global level without any restrictions, encouraging mass collaboration
that in turn raises the productivity of the research community. He
predicts that even top-down services will eventually be affected by We
Think, citing the School of Everything, a British effort to create a
resource for educational services, as one example. Leadbetter points out
that children learn things from each other, frequently through social
networks and computer games such as World of Warcraft, when they are not in
school. "If we could persuade 1 percent of Britain's pupils to be
player-developers for education, that would be 70,000 new sources of
learning," he writes. "But that would require us to see learning as
something more like a computer game, something that is done peer-to-peer,
without a traditional teacher."
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'Gambling DNA' Helps Fight Online Fraud
New Scientist (03/05/08)
University at Buffalo researchers Roman Yampolskiy and Venu Govindaraju
are developing a system that is capable of tracking how often and how much
a poker player bets, increases a bet, bets everything, or folds, and then
creating a "gambling DNA" that online casinos can use to determine their
identity. The system flags behavior as suspicious when a player does
something that is not in line with their personalized profile. Yampolskiy
says the software achieves an authentication accuracy rate of 80 percent
within an hour and improves as play continues. Jonathan Schaeffer of the
University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group is not convinced that
the software will be as successful with the best poker players. "If you
are predictable, you can be exploited," he says. "Strong players try not
to be predictable."
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'Women Wanted in Europe's ICT Industry'!
eGov Monitor (03/07/08)
Getting young women in Europe interested in a career in information and
communications technology (ICT) was the focus of a recent conference in
Brussels. The European Commission launched the pilot "Shadowing
initiative" two years ago, and last year more than 50 young women spent a
day in the workplace with a female senior manager working in the ICT
sector. Europe has a shortage of about 300,000 qualified staff in its ICT
industry, and some observers believe it will have to make a strong effort
to target young people, including women, if it is to maintain its level of
competitiveness in the global economy. "If this shortage of computer
scientists and engineers is not addressed, it will eventually slow down the
European economic growth and Europe runs the risks of falling behind its
Asian competitors," says Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information
Society and Media. "We need to overcome common stereotypes which describe
ICT careers as boring and too technical for women, and instead encourage
women to succeed in this exciting, innovative and multi-faceted sector."
Women received only 19 percent of European engineering degrees in 2004.
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Unique Locks on Microchips Could Reduce Hardware
Piracy
University of Michigan News Service (03/05/08)
University of Michigan and Rice University computer engineers' Ending
Piracy of Integrated Circuits (EPIC) framework outlines a method for giving
individual microchips a unique lock and key to prevent hardware piracy by
tapping established cryptography techniques and subtly modifying the chip
design process without impacting chip performance or power consumption.
The keys would be retained by the patent holder, and used to securely
instruct the chip to unlock itself. The enablement of EPIC protection
would allow each integrated circuit to be fabricated with some additional
switches that function in the manner of a combination lock, and that can
each generate an unchangeable random ID number. Rather than being built
with an ID number, the chips would be manufactured with the tools needed to
produce the number upon activation. Chips fabricated within the EPIC
framework would only work properly when they are activated, and activation
would require the manufacturer plugging the chip into a phone line or
Internet connection and letting it communicate with the patent holder. The
chip would securely send its ID number to the holder, who would record the
number, deduce the combination to unlock the chip, and securely transmit
the key back to the chip. "The goal of a practical system like ours is not
to make something impossible, but to ensure that buying a license and
producing the chip legally is cheaper than forgery," says UM professor Igor
Markov.
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Future 'Quantum Computers' Will Offer Increased
Efficiency and Risk
University of Central Florida (03/04/08) Kotala, Zenaida Gonzalez
An unusual observation made by University of Central Florida physics
professor Enrique del Barco may lead to a new generation of quantum
computers that could render current computer and credit card encryption
technology obsolete. Del Barco says the observation furthers the
understanding of quantum tunneling of nanoscale magnetic systems, which
could revolutionize how we understand computation. According to quantum
mechanics, small magnetic objects called nanomagnets can exist in two
distinct states, and can switch between states through a phenomenon called
quantum tunneling. Low-temperature magnetometry techniques used by del
Barco allow for the abrupt change in magnetization to be observed when the
nanomagnet switches its poles. Controlling quantum tunneling shifts could
help create the quantum logic gates needed to create quantum computing.
"Of course, this is far from real life yet, but is an important step in the
way," del Barco says. "We must still do more research and a lot of people
are already trying to figure this out, including us."
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Visions for Theoretical Computer Science
CRA Bulletin (02/29/08) Vegso, Jay
The University of Washington in Seattle will host a "visioning" workshop
on Theoretical Computer Science (TCS) on May 17. Sponsored by the National
Science Foundation-created Computing Community Consortium (CCC), the
visioning workshop will focus on TCS-related research themes that could
have a major impact on society, as well as presenting the future direction
of TCS research in "nuggets" that the average person will be able to
understand and appreciate. Organizers are asking for feedback from all
researchers in the TCS community, including those who are unable to attend
the visioning workshop. Members of the organizing committee include
Bernard Chazelle from Princeton University, Anna Karlin and Richard Ladner
from the University of Washington, Dick Lipton from Georgia Tech, and Salil
Vadhan from Harvard University. Public-key cryptography, quantum
computation, and raising the P vs. NP question are among the key
contributions of the TCS community.
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Research Suggests Mid-Level Computer Screen Displays Can
Minimize Musculoskeletal Strain in Schoolchildren
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (03/05/08)
Positioning computer screen displays at mid-level would help minimize
computer-related discomfort in children, according to a new study by human
factors researchers in Australia. Leon Straker and colleagues found that
displays in the mid-level position cause less musculoskeletal strain than
high- and book-level displays. The researchers used an optical-capture
system to record the 3D posture and muscle activity in the neck and upper
limbs of 24 children ages 10-12 as they performed interactive tasks with
high-, mid-, and book-level displays. The mid-level display supported a
more upright and symmetrical posture and lower average muscle activity.
"The data collected in this study provide the first detailed description of
3D head, neck, and arm posture and the associated muscle activity of
children reading and entering data with computers and reading and writing
with paper," say the researchers. They believe their findings will be
helpful in developing guidelines for computer use by children because the
study does not apply research on adults to children.
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Volunteer Computing and the Search for Big Answers
Linux Insider (03/04/08) King, Brad
The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley is
the birthplace of the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
(BOINC), one of the largest volunteer, distributed computing organizations
in the world. BOINC's three-person team, led by research scientist Dave
Anderson, developed software tools that allow scientists to use computers
from around the world to complete problems that require massive computing
power, and allow ordinary people to donate time on their computer to
advance scientific research. There are currently about 1 million people
participating in the various BOINC projects, providing a solution to the
difficult problem of how to find enough computing power to solve some of
science's greatest problems. "Volunteer computing is interesting because
there are about a billion private computers in the world," Anderson says.
"Scientists who need a lot of computing power can set up a volunteer
computing project and get tens of thousands of nodes working for them."
The small collectives that have formed through BOINC and similar efforts,
such as IBM's more formally run World Computer Grid, have formed social
structures with medals for teams that power through problems, and a
hierarchy based on the number of projects completed. Distributed computing
has spread beyond the academic and scientific fields, and is the reason
books can be ordered from Amazon without serious lag times and why Google
can search the Web so quickly.
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Cyber Goggles: High-Tech Memory Aid
Pink Tentacle (03/04/08)
A smart video goggle system developed by researchers at the University of
Tokyo has the potential to function as a high-tech memory aid. Head
researcher and professor Tatsuya Harada demonstrated the "cyber goggles"
last week. The goggles recorded all of the everyday objects that a wearer
saw in a room, and the names of the items appeared on the device's screen.
The wearer was then able to search the images for footage of a particular
object such as a CD or a cell phone. The goggles make use of a compact
camera to capture images, a computer (worn on the back of the user) to
record video, and ultrahigh-speed image recognition processing software to
analyze, name, and file objects. A user can conduct a keyword search of
the database, and look into a tiny LCD screen attached to the right-side
lens to watch the recorded video.
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Weather Map Interface Lets You Feel the Wind
New Scientist (03/05/08) Inman, Mason
Climate researchers can now use a joystick that simulates touching objects
to physically experience the data on their maps, allowing them to "feel"
wind speeds and other weather features. The system, which consists of a
robotic arm with a joystick at the end, converts climate data into forces
that a person can feel. Haptics researcher Cagatay Basdogan of Koc
University in Istanbul, Turkey, applied the haptic device after hearing
from climate researcher Omer Lutfi Sen of the Istanbul Technical University
that his students were struggling with climate information. The system,
called Climate Exploration and Visualization (CEVIZ), allows users to
physically experience climate variables by applying force to their hand.
The controller can guide a person's hand along contours representing areas
of high pressure, or push and pull their hand to represent shifting winds
as the user moves the cursor over the map. Tests involving 22 people found
that they understand climate data much better after using CEVIZ. For
example, CEVIZ users were able to pinpoint with greater accuracy where
humid air would interact with wind and cooler temperatures to form
clouds.
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Can You Count on Touch-Screens?
Software Development Times (03/01/08)No. 193, P. 1; Feinman, Jeff
States' migration away from direct-recording electronic voting machines
(DREs) to optical-scan voting is a wise move, according to critics of
touch-screen e-voting systems such as John Hopkins University computer
science professor Avi Rubin. Optical scan machines are set up so that
users write on the ballots to indicate their choice, and this paper-based
method allows for auditing and recounts. "I think optical scan has its own
challenges, but it does provide a mechanism to audit the election, which I
don't think should ever be compromised," says Rubin. "The optical scanners
are computers just like the touch-screens but they have much less code in
them, and less code means fewer bugs, and it's easier to audit." Fortify
Software's Rob Rachwald cites DRE security issues such as memory buffer
overflows and password storage for administrators who access the devices as
vulnerable points hackers can exploit to rig or unravel elections. The
biggest concern about touch-screen voting is that malfunctions could go
unnoticed because there is no direct way of finding out whether a problem
with the machines had arisen, according to Fortify chief scientist Brian
Chess. Rubin concurs, noting that DREs would leave behind no evidence of
software tampering. "You can't check a DRE to see if it got the right
answer, but you can check an [optical] scan by counting the ballot some
other way," he says.
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Eran Segal: Computing Expression
The Scientist (02/08) Vol. 22, No. 2, P. 61; Scheff, Jonathan
Starting a molecular biology lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in
Rehovot, Israel, last February has enabled Eran Segal to find the right
balance between computer science and biology. Segal, who earned a
bachelor's degree in computer science from Tel-Aviv University in 1998
before studying computer science and genetics at Stanford University, is
currently a senior scientist at Weizmann. At Stanford, Segal designed
computational models of gene expression, including a method for identifying
groups of coregulated genes and their regulators. Segal studied under
Daphne Koller at the computer science department, who says the research was
part of a new movement to come up with testable hypotheses about regulatory
relationships that could be determined in the lab. He was also involved in
designing a model that identified 22,163 pairs of genes that are
coexpressed in the DNA of humans, flies, worms, and yeast. "We were the
first to do this for gene-expression data across species," Koller says.
Segal left Stanford in 2004 and spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at
Rockefeller University, before returning to Israel and joining Weizmann.
"Now, I find a biological problem and find the algorithm for tackling that
problem," Segal says.
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