The Tech Industry's Newest Power Player
CNet (07/13/06) Cooper, Charles
In a recent interview, newly elected ACM President Stuart Feldman shared
his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities he will face during his
two-year tenure heading the organization. ACM has more than 78,000
members, 30 percent of whom are not from North America, punctuating the
unique challenges Feldman will face as the computing industry comes to
grips with the realities of outsourcing. Feldman is careful not to comment
on the pros and cons of outsourcing, referring instead to ACM's recent
report on the issue and describing the phenomenon as a symptom of growth
and development in foreign countries, rather than a decline of industry in
the United States. "When you take a look at the numbers, the number of IT
jobs in the U.S. is not shrinking and there is an incipient shortage of
high skills," Feldman said, citing data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, which indicate that the worker shortage in the United States is
a supply-side issue. A major concern in the academic community is the
declining enrollment in computer science programs, as well as the drop of
participation among women after the considerable improvement a few years
ago, Feldman said. "These are very real concerns because the pipeline of
people takes four or eight years before people who think they want to go
into a field come out educated in it." Feldman hedges on choosing between
China and India as the country that will emerge as the leading technical
producer in the developing world. In the coming years, Feldman looks for
the development of ultra-fast supercomputers that will be able to solve
problems that humans have never been able to address.
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Paralyzed Man Uses Thoughts to Move a Cursor
New York Times (07/13/06) P. A1; Pollack, Andrew
The new issue of the journal Nature includes a paper on an implant system
that has enabled a paralyzed man to use his thoughts to move a cursor, open
email, play the video game Pong, and draw a circle on a computer screen.
In a commentary in Thursday's journal, Stephen H. Scott, professor of
anatomy and cell biology at Queen's University in Ontario, writes that the
device helps move implantable neuromotor prosthetics from the realm of
science fiction to reality. Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems in
Foxborough, Mass., developed the BrainGate implant system, which makes use
of a 4 millimeter by 4 millimeter sensor with 100 tiny electrodes, and is
designed to eavesdrop on the electrical signals emitted by neurons in the
motor cortex region. Matthew Nagle, 26, of Weymouth, Mass., volunteered
for the experiment, which involved connecting the device to a pedestal that
protruded out of the top of his skull, and plugging a cable connected to a
computer into the pedestal to use the implant system, similar to the
"Matrix" movies. Although performance may need to be improved,
Cyberkinetics hopes to have BrainGate approved for marketing by 2008 or
2009. Also, the ability of electrodes to detect brain signals tends to
weaken after several months, daily recalibration of the system takes about
half an hour, and a wireless version would make a permanent hole in the
head unnecessary. Krishna V. Shenoy, an assistant professor of electrical
engineering and neurosciences at Stanford University, believes the system
would work faster if the brain implant was made to eavesdrop on neurons
expressing the intention to make a move.
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Bush Compromises on Spying Program
Washington Post (07/14/06) P. A1; Babington, Charles; Baker, Peter
President Bush, in a deal with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen.
Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), has agreed to submit his warrantless wiretapping
program to a secret court review if Specter passes a compromise bill
regulating the program through Congress. White House officials and Specter
have been negotiating the deal behind close doors for weeks. One of the
bill's provisions would erase a stipulation of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) stating that FISA is the sole governing authority
for conducting U.S. government surveillance; another would permit the
Justice Department to revise the warrantless spying program numerous times
in order to win FISA court approval. The National Security
Administration's (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program also would be
permitted to track subjects for one week under the Specter bill, compared
to 72 hours under FISA currently, though the NSA program currently does not
follow FISA guidelines. Lastly, the bill would funnel all lawsuits
challenging the NSA program to the secret FISA court for hearings. The
FISA court is set up to review warrant requests for domestic eavesdropping,
and the court consists of seven federal District Judges appointed by the
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Specter says his bill will
provide a judicial check and balance on the executive program. House
Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.) blasts
the Specter bill as providing the president with a "blank check" to
continue warrantless wiretapping.
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Georgia Tech Preps Personal Robots for Computer Science
Students
EE Times (07/13/06) Mannion, Patrick
A team of academics at Georgia Institute of Technology is set to develop
robots that will aid in computer science education and combat the
discipline's declining enrollment nationwide. The robot will be used to
generate enthusiasm for entry-level computer science courses, but the
researchers are also planning to develop robots for use in secondary
schools, and possibly even primary schools. "We want to bring robots into
computer science courses to make them more exciting and effective," said
Tucker Balch, an associate professor at Georgia Tech, and the director of
the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE). Microsoft will
contribute more than $1 million over three years to help create the
institute, which is jointly sponsored by Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr
College. The emergence of efficient high-performance processors, reliable
motors, and high-bandwidth wireless networks have all brought practical
applications of robotics closer to reality, according to Balch. He
believes the next step will be to bring costs down. "It's hard to say if
we will do that in two or five years, but seeing a company like Microsoft
invest in this area is the writing on the wall." With the launch of its
freely available Robotic Studio software suite, Microsoft helped address
the shortage of tools for amateur robotics developers, Balch said. The
first robots slated for development by the institute will be designed to
bring some hands-on fun to computer science and cost less than $200. The
robots will likely use a basic wireless technology such as Bluetooth, and
will include speakers, microphones, and other features to engage
students.
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Congress Begins Push for Energy-Efficient Servers
Computerworld (07/12/06) Thibodeau, Patrick
The House has approved a bill that requires the EPA to conduct a study of
the use of energy-efficient servers to lower the power demands of data
centers. The study that would be required by the bill, which now goes to
the Senate, will encourage the use of energy-efficient servers through a
combination of regulatory measures and tax incentives, according to Rep.
Michael Rogers (R-Mich.), who authored the bill. With the U.S. server
market expected to increase from 2.8 million units in 2005 to 4.9 million
in 2009, power consumption and cooling have become major issues for
managers of data centers. In the business world, energy-efficiency is
often subordinated to performance, however. "Our main consideration on
servers is processor speed. That's going to trump the energy efficiency of
a server," said Dawn Sawyer of GuideStone Financial Resources, though she
notes that placing energy-efficiency ratings on servers could heighten
awareness and influence corporate purchasing decisions. In crafting the
bill, Rogers cites the success of the voluntary Energy Star rating system
first developed by the EPA in 1992.
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Marvin Minsky on Common Sense and Computers That
Emote
Technology Review (07/12/06) Roush, Wade
An event at Dartmouth College commemorating the 50th anniversary of
artificial intelligence will be attended by pioneers of the field such as
John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and three other participants of the 1956
Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. Though the
field was originally conceived out of an unbridled optimism, scientists
realized by the late 1960s how difficult of a task it is to get computers
to replicate even the most basic forms of human thought. In a recent
interview, Minsky shared his thoughts on the evolution of the field.
Minsky is disappointed at how few scientists have been researching the way
people think, a subject that he addresses in his forthcoming book. Even
the reasoning capacity of a three-year-old is beyond the current ability of
scientists to replicate in a machine. Computers need to know a staggering
amount of information to conduct the simplest common-sense reasoning.
Unlike physics, research in artificial intelligence cannot look for a
universal solution because of the widely varying nature of the human brain.
Over the years, DARPA has turned away from supporting visionary
researchers, while corporate research in the United States began declining
in the early 1970s, Minsky said. Research today is more driven by the
short-term demands of entrepreneurs, he claims. While Doug Lenat began
developing the Cyc database in 1985 to establish a vast stable of knowledge
to facilitate common-sense reasoning in machines, Minsky notes that it is
proprietary and difficult to use. Minsky hopes to make the publicly
available Open Mind database capable of using natural language, emphasizing
that a common-sense database does not need to be completely logically
consistent. "When you represent something, you should represent it in
several different ways," he says.
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Fitting Software to Students
USC Information Sciences Institute (07/11/06)
Researchers at the University of Southern California are working to
improve computer-based teaching programs, also known as Intelligent
Tutoring Systems (ITS), by making them more responsive to the needs of
individual students. USC's Information Sciences Institute has become the
site of research into which students are more likely to take advantage of
an ITS program's help feature in order to obtain an answer to a problem.
The researchers have found that students who say they are motivated are
less likely to constantly ask an IST program for help, and also found that
students who say they have the ability to learn a subject are less likely
to simply guess an answer. "The opportunity to learn from software may
offer an appealing alternative because the student can seek help in
private," according to a paper ISI researcher Carole Beal will present at
the AAAI 21st National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Boston July
20. Although use of ITS is on the rise, the learning tools are not being
used effectively, she says. The ISI researchers now plan to use models of
learning based on expert human tutors in an effort to determine how a
student uses an ITS program. Human tutors work "through a repertoire of
feedback messages, sophisticated problem selection, and judicious offers of
learner control when the learner appears to be flagging," writes Beal.
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A Year Later, Cybersecurity Post Still Vacant
Washington Post (07/13/06) P. A21; Krebs, Brian
The high-tech community continues to question the White House's commitment
to shoring up the nation's critical technological infrastructure from a
cyber attack. The nation still does not have an assistant-secretary in the
Department of Homeland Security to coordinate cybersecurity efforts, a new
position Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced July 13,
2005, amid mounting concern over the cybersecurity policy of the Bush
administration. By not filling the post, the United States has left its
information systems that support everything from telecommunications
networks, power grids, and chemical manufacturing and transportation
systems as unprepared for an attack as the Gulf Coast region was for a
major hurricane, according to critics. Security experts maintain that the
nation needs a cybersecurity advocate in Homeland Security who can
influence its policy and spending priorities. Paul Kurtz, a former
cybersecurity advisor in the Bush administration, says, "Having a senior
person at DHS...is not going to stop a major cyber-attack on our critical
infrastructure...but it will definitely help us develop an infrastructure
that can withstand serious attacks and recover quickly." Critics say the
administration is dragging its heels in filling the post because the White
House does not want to divert money away from securing physical
infrastructure. George W. Foresman, DHS undersecretary for preparedness,
says it has been difficult finding qualified candidates, but the agency is
in the final stage of approving a candidate for the cybersecurity post.
John McCarthy, director of George Mason University's critical
infrastructure program, says, "I believe that as we as a society and
economy move towards a greater reliance on these vulnerable communications
networks, that those who would wish us harm will find ways to target those
infrastructures in ways we haven't thought about, and that's going to
present a major challenge for whoever is picked for that position."
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Developers Working to Overcome AJAX Accessibility
Issues
eWeek (07/11/06) Taft, Darryl K.
Though it offers many advantages over conventional Web-application
techniques, AJAX poses accessibility issues for certain users. The dynamic
changes that occur in AJAX-based technologies, which enable dynamic
interactions without reloading a page, can take place undetected by users
with site impairments or other disabilities, though several developers are
working to address those issues. MB Technologies, for instance, spent over
a year modifying its Bindows application to improve its accessibility. "It
was nothing short of a huge undertaking for Bindows to build an AJAX
framework that enabled the construction of AJAX and Web 2.0 sites that
support accessibility," said MB Technologies CEO Yoram Meriaz. One of the
main challenges that MB Technologies faced was getting the platform to
support multiple browsers and assistive-technology tools. Microsoft has
also been working to improve accessibility in its set of tools for
Web-application development, and IBM is planning to donate critical
intellectual property to the open-source community to deal with AJAX
accessibility issues. Through a variety of assistive technologies, IBM is
working to improve the accessibility of the Dojo toolkit for both
international and disabled users. With numerous lawsuits having recently
appeared when users found their access to AJAX restricted, accessibility is
becoming an increasingly important issue, according to Dion Almaer,
co-founder of Ajaxian.com. Despite the increased attention that AJAX
accessibility has been receiving lately, Almaer notes that complete
accessibility is difficult to achieve. Compatibility with non-AJAX
browsers and the accessibility of the AJAX interface are the two main
barriers to the accessibility of AJAX applications, said Nexaweb
Technologies CTO Coach Wei.
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Competitiveness Initiative Aims to Keep U.S. Ahead of
Global Trends
Fox News (07/11/06) Vlahos, Kelley Beaucar
The Senate is expected to take up the issue of funding President Bush's
American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) when the Senate Appropriations
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science meets this week. President
Bush views ACI as a funding commitment for education, research and
development, and workforce training that will help the United States remain
the leader in innovation in the years to come. For example, he has
proposed $5.9 billion for research and development and $380 million for
education programs, favorable tax policies for businesses, and skilled
worker training programs for fiscal year 2007. The United States could
slip in competitiveness as more U.S. students perform poorly in math and
science and shun technology-related careers, as skilled foreign workers
choose to return to their homeland, and as other countries devote more
money to research and development. The U.S. tech industry has taken issue
with federal investment in research and development in recent years, and
Bush has responded by requesting $137 billion for R&D over 10 years. Bush
is also concerned that as more tech jobs head overseas, U.S. tech workers
may begin to leave as well. The House helped advance ACI in part by
approving a $6.5 billion bill that funds programs at the National Science
Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology before
the July 4 recess.
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Europeans Debate 'Hopelessly Complex' Software Patent
System
TechWeb (07/12/06) Gardner, David W.
The issue of software patents could derail discussions between members of
the European Union concerning the future of the region's patent system. A
new wrinkle to this year's discussions is the proposal to create the
European Patent Litigation Agreement, which would serve as a central
European patent court. The issue of how to address concerns about the
future of the patent system is controversial. For example, German-based
software expert Florian Mueller is attempting to gain support to counter
major patent portfolios, including those of Microsoft and Nokia. The
European Patent Office (EPO) has given thousands of software patents to
applicants, though the existing rules prohibit such actions, according to
Mueller. However, individual European countries are responsible for
enforcing their own patent rules and many national courts have not honored
software patents granted by the EPO in court cases.
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Is Your Code Ready for the Next Wave in Commodity
Computing?
JavaWorld (07/10/06) Sheil, Humphrey
CedarOpenAccounts chief technical architect Humphrey Sheil notes that
processor architecture is transitioning to a multicore scheme in which
multiple processing units are the norm, and writes that parallel computing
hardware is necessary to satisfy demands for faster and more scalable
applications. "We want to--in fact we need to--parallelize hardware if we
are to 'kick on' and provide more computing resources in a sustainable way
to software applications," he maintains. Java programmers face the dual
challenge of finding a way to exploit the new hardware platform and
optimally using the vendor-supplied operating system without deviating from
Java's Write Once, Run Anywhere (WORA) potential. Future trends Sheil
foresees include the emergence of tools that reflect the expectation that
software engineers will possess more explicit knowledge about concurrency,
and the extension of the core Java programming language to explicitly and
exceptionally support parallel computing within five years. The author
concludes that "The next wave of hardware currently filtering onto the
client fundamentally differs from what it replaces in one important regard:
As a programmer or architect, you must explicitly take advantage of the
new parallel computing resources through the efficient creation and
utilization of threads to pass performance improvements on to your end
users." Sheil adds that Java programmers must fulfill the new requirement
of guaranteeing that their applications continue to properly function on
the new multicore hardware.
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Scientists Build Brain Box Computer
University of Manchester Press (07/13/06) Hunter, Simon
Researchers at the University of Manchester are involved in a project to
develop a computer that functions similar to how nerve cells interact in
the human brain. The so-called "brain box computer" will be the first
project of its kind. University professor Steve Furber is heading the
research team involved in the project, which is receiving 1 million euros
from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The
university's School of Electronics and Computer Science is also involved
the project. Furber noted that the aim of the project is to provide
researchers with knowledge of how the brain operates "at the level of spike
patterns." He added that understanding the "fault-tolerant characteristic"
could provide researchers with knowledge that could be applied to improving
the reliability of computers. The computer involved in the research will
be able to model a high number of neurons in real time, plus monitor neural
spike patterns. The real-world applications of the technology would allow
use of dozens of microprocessors on individual silicon chips, which would
provide cost and power consumption benefits.
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On Space Station, Droids Get a Workout
Christian Science Monitor (07/11/06) Spotts, Peter N.
A trio of robotic balls dubbed SPHERES, about the size of bowling balls,
have been developed by students of professor David Miller at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The devices might someday be used
to make large space telescopes or serve as inexpensive satellites that
gauge changes on Earth. The sponsors of the initiative, NASA and the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, hope the devices can create
smart docking system that identify problems and use their thrusters to
compensate. Earlier in July, the second of three orbs was brought to the
International Space Station (ISS) via the space shuttle Discovery. The
devices feature small-scale computers, location sensors, and thrusters for
making precise movements, and each of the robotic balls weighs roughly nine
pounds, and 12 thrusters using carbon dioxide are used for moving and
shifting position. Twenty-four small microphones can detect sound from
ultrasonic transmitters along station walls. The spheres can also
communicate with each other using radio, and ISS crewman Colonel Jeffrey
Williams can send software to them to obtain test information. In May, the
first robotic sphere performed basic docking moves and also reported
changes in position.
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Security Agency War Game Tries to Teach Net
Defense
CNet (07/10/06) Broache, Anne
In a notable departure from its rigid climate of secrecy, the National
Security Agency sent representatives to an event at the SANS Institute to
share some of the "lessons learned" from their recent cyberdefense
activities. In the exercise, students from the U.S. military academies and
the Air Force's postgraduate technology school matched wits against mock
attackers at NSA headquarters. Though the public presentation was the
first of its kind, the exercise has been taking place for six years. The
agency representatives hope that it will be a wake-up call for network
administrators throughout government and industry. "Even in four days, a
network can be had," said Major Thomas Augustine, the coordinator of the
event. "Imagine, if you will, those individuals who have a year or two to
spare and are waiting to get into your networks." In the exercise, each
team had two weeks to detect as many errors and security threats as
possible in network software that the NSA representatives had corrupted.
At that point other agency representatives, unaware of the preset
vulnerabilities, set to work hacking into the networks that the military
teams had created. The Air Force Academy boasted the winning team, whose
relatively inexperienced members created a network based on some of the
simplest design principles. "We know there's a tendency for students to
think they have to build some sort of whizbang network with bells and
whistles," said Rigo MacTaggart, who participated on the NSA's side of the
exercise. "What has been shown to work best in previous (exercises) is a
simpler-works-better" approach. In addition to a simplified network
structure, MacTaggart and his colleagues at the agency recommend that
network managers restrict access to ports and services and remove from
servers all unnecessary user accounts, software, and services. Network
managers should also develop contingency plans for the worst-case
scenario.
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Hard Cores: Multicore Chips Provide Power But Make App
Development Tough
Computerworld (07/10/06) Anthes, Gary
The successful exploitation of chip multiprocessors (CMPs) by application
software entails a rethinking of design, coding, and debugging, which is
underway among both hardware and software vendors. In-Stat analyst Tom
Halfhill projects that microprocessor chips in servers will boast eight to
16 cores in five years, while desktop machines will have four to eight.
Each core will be capable of processing at least four software threads
concurrently. Intel's James Reinders outlines three challenges for code
writers in the multiprocessor/multicore arena: Scalability, correctness,
and ease of programming. The scalability challenge deals with the problem
of keeping each additional processor active, and the correctness challenge
focuses on the avoidance of bugs such as deadlocks and race conditions.
Reinders explains that compilers can help meet the third challenge by
spotting and taking advantage of opportunities for parallel processing in
source code, while programmers can contribute by inserting "a few little
hints"--such as those contained in the new OpenMP standard--within the
code. At the root of CMPs' performance advantages over systems with
multiple, separate processors is the greater speed of on-chip
interprocessor and processor-memory communication, and Rice University
computer science professor Ken Kennedy foresees hybrid systems composed of
computer clusters running multicore processors. Reinders says the ability
of CMPs to facilitate more fine-grained machine partitioning will bolster
hardware virtualization, whereby a computer is enabled to run multiple
operating systems.
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IT's Identity Crisis
Network World (07/10/06) Vol. 23, No. 26, P. 1; Desmond, Paul
Many IT professionals feel their careers are being derailed as automated
systems, outsourcing, new regulatory requirements, and other factors make
once-vaunted skills redundant or burdensome, while declining computer
science enrollment and IT's flagging influence in boardrooms are eroding
its status as a career choice. There are less instances of an identity
crisis among IT workers in companies that recognize the business advantages
of IT and accord their employees proper respect and roles. TCG Advisors'
managing director Geoffrey Moore believes the IT commoditization outlined
by Nicholas Carr in an industry-shaking report is a positive force, in that
it will liberate corporate resources to focus on core functions separated
from context via automation or outsourcing. Cisco's Lance Perry asserts
that a concentration on core functions can help sustain IT personnel's
excitement and fuel innovation. Increasing dependence on formalized
processes such as ITIL will increase network uptime, reduce costs, and
raise user satisfaction, according to advocates; aligning business closely
with IT, a strategy that frequently dovetails with process, improves
employee satisfaction by giving staffers the sense that their contributions
are vital to the company's well-being. Many IT executives think the key to
winning respect and influence in the company is to gain an expert knowledge
of end customers and their wants, while University of North Carolina
Wilmington professor Ken Lau argues that a good marketing strategy can help
IT workers overcome their natural reservation and better serve customers.
Organizations are recommended to help IT staff advance their careers
through business training, particularly in the area of soft skills such as
negotiation, persuasion, and relationship building. Good training programs
can lower the likelihood of resentful employees.
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Ninth Annual Global Security Survey: Invincible
InformationWeek (07/10/06)No. 1097, P. 38; Greenemeier, Larry
U.S. business technology professionals' attitude toward their IT systems'
resistance to viruses and other cyberthreats demonstrates misplaced
confidence, according to the results of InformationWeek Research's Global
Security Survey 2006. Despite many reports of intrusions and the ranking
of security complexity management as a leading challenge, an overwhelming
majority of American respondents believe their companies' vulnerability has
not significantly increased over the past year. The likelihood of attack
is rising as hackers become more profit-motivated, a trend reflected in the
nearly twofold surge in the number of U.S. companies that reportedly
suffered identity theft and the exposure of customer records in the past
year. American companies are less likely than their European counterparts
to formalize rules that govern access and storage of customer data, and
just 28 percent of U.S. security policies require data encryption. Many IT
managers say too much of their attention is focused on external attacks,
even though internal attacks are a bigger threat to American businesses
that no amount of training, security measures, or policies can prepare them
for. Wireless network security and VoIP security are of growing concern to
survey respondents, and Clark County, Nev., CIO Rod Massey points to the
need for more effective, manageable, and easy to use security products.
Accenture's Alastair MacWillson says a clear demonstration that a more
secure IT environment will enable company growth makes it easier to obtain
additional security funding. Meanwhile, throughout the world, new
regulations are forcing companies to reform security practice.
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A Farewell to Keywords
Scientific American (07/06) Vol. 195, No. 1, P. 91; Stix, Gary
Content-based image retrieval is making strides toward becoming a more
effective alternative to keyword-based retrieval though industrial and
academic research efforts aided by the increasing sophistication and
pervasiveness of technology such as Web-based camera phones. Microsoft
Research has developed a system that can search the Web for images or
information related to an image taken by a cell phone camera. The image
server the picture is sent to matches the picture with training images
compiled from the Web, and the server attempts to delineate distinctive
features of the image, some of which are clustered in groups of three based
on an estimation of how far they are from one another. A match is found by
comparing triplets, or groups of the patches, from the query image with
triplets from the training images, and then the Web pages featuring a
matched image are relayed to the user's cell phone. Google is also focused
on more practical content-based image retrieval, and among its areas of
concentration is the generalization of many images' content to avoid such
things as getting image query results with unwanted pornographic material.
"We want to make sure that images are classified as containing adult
content by using not only keywords and URLs but also image analysis,"
explains Google researcher Shumeet Baluja. He has worked on a system that
combines modules for spotting 27 features such as skin hue, skin texture,
faces, connected pixels, and distinctive elements of objects that resemble
skin but are not skin. Baluja and fellow Google researcher Henry Rowley
have also developed gender and facial-pose filters to boost performance by
recognizing the sex or orientation of a face, shrinking processing time.
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