Prize Wining Scientist Wins Another Prize
Wall Street Journal (04/28/08) Clark, Don
Stanford University computer scientist Daphne Koller has won the
first-ever ACM-Infosys Foundation Award for her ground-breaking research in
artificial intelligence. Koller's work unites two disciplines to help
solve difficult computing problems. The first field, sometimes identified
with databases and relational logic, traditionally focused on representing
complex relationships between groups of objects. The second field uses
theories about probabilities to project outcomes of situations that involve
significant uncertainty. "The two communities each had valid points,"
Koller says. "They were almost in conflict with each other." Combining
the two approaches makes it possible to sort through massive amounts of
data to find new insights. Koller has been particularly focused on
developing ways of analyzing significant amounts of genetic data to find
explanations for how genes function, as well as working on large sets of
data from sensors and cameras with the goal of improving machine vision to
help robots navigate. Koller won a MacArthur fellowship "genius grant" in
2004.
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ACM and Infosys Foundation Announce Winner of New Award
Honoring Contemporary Contributions in Computer Science
Reuters (04/28/08)
ACM has awarded the first-ever ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in Computing
Science to Stanford University professor Daphne Koller. Koller is being
awarded for her innovative approach to artificial intelligence that allows
computers to reason and learn about the world using real-world data. The
new ACM-Infosys Foundation Award recognizes personal contributions by young
scientists and system developers to a contemporary innovation that
exemplified the greatest recent achievements in the computing field. The
award includes $150,000 provided by an endowment from the Infosys
Foundation. ACM says Koller combined the previously incompatible tools of
logic and probability, the basic principles of intelligent reasoning, to
create a new field of learning that has revolutionized how computers
process vast amounts of diverse, uncertain, and often conflicting data to
solve complex, real-world problems. "Professor Koller's advances have been
productive not only for computer science, but in a wide variety of
applications that use computing to advance society in numerous ways," says
ACM President Stuart I. Feldman. "Her research has been used as a
framework to solve problems in such diverse fields as computational biology
and epidemiology; language processing systems; robotics; and computer
perception in understanding images. By using her models and algorithms to
integrate small bits and pieces of data in systematic ways that produce
stronger conclusions, her work offers a powerful way to think about the
world." Koller is head of Stanford's undergraduate research program in
computer science, which she founded in 2001.
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A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search
New York Times (04/28/08) P. C5; Markoff, John
At the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, two Google
researchers unveiled VisualRank, software they say will advance digital
image searching on the Web the same way Google's PageRank software advanced
Web page searches. VisualRank is an algorithm that blends
image-recognition software methods with techniques that weigh and rank
images that look the most similar. Most image searches are based on cues
from the text associated with each image, and not on the actual content of
the image itself. Image analysis is a largely unsolved problem in computer
science, the Google researchers say. "We wanted to incorporate all of the
stuff that is happening in computer vision and put it in a Web framework,"
says Google's Shumeet Baluja, who made the presentation along with Google
researcher Yushi Jing. Their paper, "PageRank for Product Image Search,"
focuses on a subset of the images that Google has cataloged. The
researchers concentrated on the 2,000 most popular product queries on
Google's product search, and sorted the top 10 images from both its ranking
system and the standard Google Image Search results. The research effort
then used a team of 150 Google employees to create a scoring system for
image "relevance." The researchers say VisualRank returned 83 percent less
irrelevant images.
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FBI's Net Surveillance Proposal Raises Privacy, Legal
Concerns
CNet (04/25/08) McCullagh, Declan
During a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing, the FBI's Robert
Mueller and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) discussed a two-step approach for
enabling warrantless surveillance of the Internet. The first step would
involve asking Internet service providers to open their networks to the FBI
voluntarily. The second step would involve creating a federal law that
would require ISPs to do so. As part of the first step, Issa suggested
that ISPs could get consent from all of their subscribers to allow federal
police to monitor network traffic for attempts to steal personal
information and national secrets. Mueller said legislation is needed for
"some omnibus search capability utilizing filters that would identify the
illegal activity as it comes through" and allow the government to preempt
any illegal activity. The Center for Democracy and Technology's Greg
Nojeim says the effort is very troubling, and it could, through unknowing
consent, cause Internet users to give permission to monitor communications
in ways that would otherwise be illegal. The Electronic Communications
Privacy Act says that providers may share the contents of customers'
communications but only with the "lawful consent" of the user, but what
constitutes lawful consent is still under debate. Even if ISPs agree to
allow federal authorities to monitor their traffic, many states have far
more stringent regulations that would make such activities illegal. How
such laws would intersect with International users is also problematic.
The problems created by wide-scale Internet surveillance under existing
state laws may make creating a federal law a necessity, which would include
rewriting U.S. surveillance law. ACM hosts 2008 Computers, Freedom, and
Privacy Conference May 20-23, 2008 at the Omni New Haven Hotel, Yale
University. For more on Technology Policy in the Information Age: Computer
Security Experts Debate Political, Social, and Economic Impacts, go to
http://www.cfp2008.org/
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Broadband 2.0 Poised to Reshape Web, TV
Wired News (04/28/08) Gardiner, Bryan
Two of the United States' largest ISPs are looking to create a broadband
revolution with Broadband 2.0, which promises home connections of 50 to 100
Mbps, and would allow for more high-definition content, better-quality
video-sharing sites, and 3D video. Experts say that when this increased
bandwidth becomes available, everything from our social interactions on the
Web to how we consume media will be profoundly affected. The increased
bandwidth may even lead to the development of extra features such as
stereoscopic 3D video and high-fidelity audio. "The YouTube philosophy is
really the primary motivator here," says University of California, Berkeley
professor Connie Chang-Hasnain. "But, right now, the resolution is
terrible and there are some very predefined limits due to bandwidth."
Comcast and Verizon have both started offering ultra-high-bandwidth
services to select customers, with speeds as great as 25 times faster than
today's average broadband speed of 4.8 Mbps, according to the Information
technology and Innovation Foundation. Internet researcher Rudolf van der
Berg says the new bandwidth will be absorbed quickly by users. "Every new
advance ... has enabled new services over the available bandwidth," he
says.
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Few States Take Email Votes From Troops
Associated Press (04/27/08) Baldor, Lolita C.
Troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have few options for casting their ballots
in the upcoming presidential election. Communities in 13 states will send
overseas troops presidential election ballots by email, and districts in at
least seven states will allow troops to return the ballots over the
Internet, according to the Associated Press and the Overseas Vote
Foundation. However, tens of thousands of service members in foreign
military bases still have no choice but to rely on regular mail to receive
and cast ballots, which is often done at the last minute because of delays
in ballot preparations in some states. Making the process more electronic
would solve some of these problems, but doing so would also raise security
and privacy concerns. Pentagon officials have encouraged more states to
switch to electronic voting before November, which could help reverse
recent trends in which thousands of military members have asked for ballots
but either did not vote or had their ballots rejected because of flaws.
"The personnel that fight our wars, the people who are most affected by the
decisions on the use of the military, are being systematically denied the
right to vote," says the Overseas Vote Foundation's Bob Carey. Carey says
that ballots are often not prepared and ready to be mailed until 30 to 45
days before an election, and it can sometimes take more than two weeks for
troops to receive mail, meaning the ballots will arrive too late for their
votes to count. Although the use of email voting is a controversial matter
among the National Association of Secretaries of State, Indiana Secretary
of State Todd Rokita says Indiana has had no problems using email to
deliver and receive ballots from overseas voters.
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Florida Alters Its Voting Laws, But New Disputes May
Emerge
New York Times (04/28/08) P. A1; Cave, Damien
Florida state lawmakers have passed several laws since the 2000
presidential recount in an effort to bring order to their election system,
but many believe the laws may only create more chaos. Three laws in
particular are at the center of a heated debate. The first law is a "no
match, no vote" provision that rejects potential voters if their Social
Security number or driver's license number does not match the number in the
state database. By 2006, at least 11 states had created "no match, no
vote" provisions, but a judge in Washington state struck down a "no match,
no vote" law in 2006, and at least six other states have abandoned similar
provisions. The second law creates deadlines and fines of up to $1,000 for
third-party groups that lose voter registration forms or turn them in late.
The law has forced many organizations to stop voter registration efforts
to protect themselves from liability. The third law prohibits voters from
correcting mistakes or omissions on voter registration forms in the final
month before an election, even if those mistakes or omissions might bar
them from having their vote count. Such oversights can be as simple as
missing a check box. Voters are now allowed to amend registration forms
after the deadline in 33 states. Many believe the Florida laws are biased
against poor, black, and Hispanic voters, and attempt to block new voters.
"It's really about politicians trying to game the system," says Project
Vote deputy director Michael Slater. "They've done that by adding all
these bureaucratic obstacles to voting, and then when people can't jump
over them, they blame the voter."
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Users of Yahoo Answers Seek Advice, Opinion,
Expertise
University of Michigan News Service (04/21/08) Moore, Nicole Casal
People who register with Yahoo Answers are using the site to share advice,
opinions, and technical expertise, according to a study from researchers at
the University of Michigan. "Just as one may turn to a colleague for an
answer to a question rather than search through a book, millions of
individuals are flocking to online question/answer forums to seek answers
directly from others," says study co-author Lada Adamic, a professor at the
university's School of Information. "Part of the reason is the social
aspect of online question/answer forums." Over the course of one month,
Yahoo Answers generated 1.2 million questions from 495,414 people, 8.5
million answers from 433,402 people, and 211,372 people asked and answered
questions, with most asking a question or two and some involved in
hundreds. Queries that sought factual answers generated few replies
because others were not necessary once the right answer was provided, but
questions seeking advice or opinions generated long answer threads. Long
answers from participants who displayed some expertise for queries on other
topics were often tagged as the best. The study, "Knowledge Sharing and
Yahoo Answers: Everybody Knows Something," was presented at this month's
WWW2008 conference in Beijing.
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Creating Faster Integrated Circuits by Slowing
Light
PhysOrg.com (04/24/08)
Computer performance could theoretically be augmented and future computer
systems' power consumption reduced by transporting information optically,
and scientists are increasingly exploring the slowing of light as a method
to enable such a breakthrough. A paper by University of California, San
Diego researchers demonstrates that structures being considered as core
components for nanophotonic integrated circuits are highly prone to the
effects of disorder, including Anderson localization. "We have already
shown by analytical and numerical modeling that disorder is a serious
limiting factor in the anticipated performance of optical devices such as
buffers, which try to use slow light," says UCSD professor Shayan
Mookherjea. "But localization of light--an interesting physical phenomenon
with potential applications in the context of lasers and optical
interconnects [as yet unexplored]--was only recently predicted, and has
just now been observed in these structures." Anderson localization in
similar chip-scale structures has also been investigated by researchers
from Harvard University and Israel's Weizmann Institute, Mookherjea says.
A slow-wave optical waveguide was fabricated in a silicon-on-insulator chip
by a graduate student in Mookherjea's Micro/Nano-Photonics research group,
and the UCSD researchers' work could bring the development of optical
buffering a step closer to realization. "To be able to squeeze all this
interesting science onto a compatible silicon chip platform will really
enhance the impact of photonics in an interdisciplinary way," said
Mookherjea. "In our work, we're opening a window between optical
localization research--traditionally the domain of physicists--and research
in optical interconnects and novel waveguides, where electrical engineers
are leading the way."
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CSIRO Astronomers to Join 'Private Data Highway' Across
USA
CSIRO (04/23/08)
A 10 Gbps link across the United States has been awarded to CSIRO's
Australia Telescope National Facility by the Internet2 consortium and Level
3 Communications, and this "private data highway" will enable the ATNF and
collaborating institutions to demonstrate the real-time transfer of large
data to and from Australia and around the world. The link will initially
be used by CSIRO astronomers to collaborate with peers at MIT's Haystack
Observatory. "By providing this circuit for this innovative application,
we hope to support greater global collaboration and investments in radio
astronomy research, and encourage innovative thinking about how new optical
networking technology enables science and engineering," says Jack Suess,
CIO of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Through the
electronic very long baseline interferometry (e-VLBI) method, telescopes
separated by a distance of hundreds or thousands of kilometers concurrently
monitor the same region of sky, and high-speed networks are used to sample
data and send it to a supercomputer that decodes and couples that data and
produces high-resolution images of the objects under observation. The time
it takes to record data and route it to collaborators has been vastly
reduced thanks to e-VLBI, and astronomers can get instantaneous feedback as
they observe. "We've made enormous progress since our first e-VLBI tests
in 2006, but we're not yet able to just set up these experiments and press
the 'go' button," says the ATNF's Dr. Shaun Amy. "This dedicated circuit
will let us work out how to make these systems operate routinely." The
award is the consortium's first Internet2 Driving Exemplary Applications
Wave of the Future Award.
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Humanoid Robot to Conduct Detroit Symphony
Orchestra
Computerworld (04/24/08) Gaudin, Sharon
Honda Motor is preparing its Asimo robot to conduct the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra for one song during a sold-out concert on May 13, 2008. Asimo
will lead the orchestra when it plays "Impossible Dream" from the musical
"Man of La Mancha." "The musicians will have to follow him and do what he
says," says Jill Woodward with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. "It will be
interesting to see if he has, shall we say, a different take on the piece."
Asimo also will present a lifetime achievement award to cellist Yo-Yo Ma
during the concert, and will show off its conducting abilities to local
music students the following day. Honda has been developing Asimo since
1986, and envisions the robot as a helper that will be able to assist the
elderly and the disabled in their homes in the future. Asimo is capable of
walking forward and backward, climbing up and down stairs, and even running
at speeds of about four miles per hour.
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Patches Pose Significant Risk, Researchers Say
SecurityFocus (04/23/08) Lemos, Robert
A team of computer scientists has developed a technique that exploits
patches and updates by automatically comparing the vulnerable and repaired
versions of a program and creating attack code. The technique, which the
researchers call automatic patch-based exploit generation (APEG), can
generate attack code for most major vulnerabilities in minutes by
automatically analyzing a patch design to fix a flaw. If Microsoft does
not change how it distributes patches to customers, attackers could create
a system that attacks the flaws in unpatched systems minutes after an
update is sent out, says Carnegie Mellon computer science PhD candidate
David Brumley. The technique is built on methods used by many security
researchers, who reverse engineer patches to find vulnerabilities fixed by
the update. Normally the process can take a few days, or even hours, but
Brumley and his colleagues were able to use APEG to create exploits in five
recent Microsoft patches in under six seconds each time. The system does
not create fully weaponized exploits and may not work on all types of
vulnerabilities, but it shows that developing exploits from patches can be
done in minutes. The researchers suggest that Microsoft could increase the
likelihood that customers receive patches before attackers can reverse
engineer them by obfuscating the code, encrypting the patches and waiting
to distribute the key simultaneously, and using peer-to-peer networks to
increase the distribution of patches.
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Mind-Blowing Blue Gene/P Revs Up at Argonne
Pioneer Press (04/23/08) Jaworski, Jim
About 100 local legislators, Argonne scientists, and federal
representatives gathered in a warehouse at Argonne National Laboratory for
the dedication of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. At the
dedication ceremony, the crowd was able to watch a simulation of a
supernova, a complex simulation made possible by the facility's Blue
Gene/P, one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The Blue Gene/P,
built by IBM and Argonne, runs at 445 teraflops, and is housed in the same
location as its predecessor, the Blue Gene/L, which runs at 5.7 teraflops.
The new supercomputer was built in part as a response to Japan's Earth
Simulator, which was seven times faster than any other computer in the
world when it was unveiled in 2002. "It's always helpful to have a
competitor," says U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.). "Just look at what
Sputnik did for space." The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility will
house 20 scientific projects and award 111 million computing hours to
research projects from around the world. The simulation of the supernova
was one of the computer's first challenges. Other research efforts at ALCF
will include projects such as testing new airline components to reduce the
need for physical tests, and medical research that provides scientists a
more detailed understanding of how diseases and illnesses develop in the
body.
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Shibboleth Authentication Tool Upgraded
Government Computer News (04/22/08) Jackson, William
Internet2 has released an upgraded version of Shibboleth, an open source
identity management tool that is widely used in the academic research
community to provide users with a secure, single-sign-on mechanism for
accessing protected online resources from their campuses and external
service provider partners. Among the additions Internet2 made to
Shibboleth is an implementation of the OASIS Security Assertion Markup
Language (SAML) 2.0 standard, which includes security features such as
encryption technology. Also included in SAML 2.0 is a better method for
usage logging at the home institution. This will allow for better tracking
of abuse or inappropriate use of the system. The new version of Shibboleth
also includes improved anonymous identifiers, which were used in the
previous version of the software to protect user privacy. With the new
version of Shibboleth, identity providers can assign a persistent unique
identifier to a specific user, which in turn will allow service providers
to better meet the needs of that user without knowing his specific
identity. Students researching articles in an online medical journal, for
example, will be able to use the anonymous identifier to save their
searches and add to their research over time.
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Finding the Right Picture
Economist (04/22/08)
Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, and the German Research
Center for Artificial Intelligence in Saarbrucken are trying to close the
semantic gap between how people and computers understand images. Queen
Mary professor Ebroul Izquierdo says the research effort has made huge
gains over the past five years. Teaching computers to identify pictures is
a two-step process. First, the machine is fed dozens of images so that it
learns to recognize the range of colors and shapes that picture subjects
frequently contain. The more videos and images a computer is fed, the more
accurate it becomes in identifying new pictures. The method is imprecise,
but a technique developed at Queen Mary uses the same data to identify
objects more accurately. The new technique divides an image into small,
regular-sized blocks, groups similar-looking blocks together, and discards
the plainest and least interesting ones. After identifying the colors,
textures, color distributions, and horizontal lines in the groups with the
most blocks, those blocks are put through a mathematical algorithm called
the Pareto Archived Evolution Strategy to categorize pictures. A second
layer of analysis uses ontologies to describe the relationships that exist
between objects in images, such as the relationship between water, a
person, and the sky to suggest a beach. Although a person has to write
every ontology, it is still a faster process than writing descriptions for
every image and video.
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A Brainy Approach to Image Sorting
IEEE Spectrum (04/08) Peck, Morgen E.
Teams of scientists at Honeywell, Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, and
Columbia University are accelerating data sorting significantly by
recording the neural activity of professional image analysts as part of the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Neurotechnology for
Intelligence Analysts program. The average duration of consciously
recognizing specific information in an image is about 300 milliseconds,
while another 200 ms passes before a physical reaction takes place,
according to Oregon Health & Science University professor Deniz Erdogmus.
The electrical activity in the brain's visual cortex, also known as an
event related potential (ERP), has peaked even before the person is aware
of what he or she is seeing. The experiments Erdogmus oversaw involved the
recording of image analysts' brain activity as they searched a series of
aerial images for targets, after which the recordings were run through a
program that identified any images whose appearance corresponded to an ERP.
The program rarely failed to identify real targets, but analysis and
recording will have to occur simultaneously for the system to comply with
DARPA standards. "This [system] could be used for searching for desired
images in a large database of images," Erdogmus says. "It would be faster
than a manual search." Among the challenges to this project is the problem
of matching neural signals with the images that triggered them because the
brain continues to respond electrically even after the image has
disappeared, so Erdogmus has been working on an approach to tweak the
system for each new user.
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