I.B.M. and Universities Plan Collaboration
New York Times (12/14/06) P. C11; Lohr, Steve
IBM and seven universities have agreed to work together on software
research projects that will produce innovations that will be made widely
available, stepping away from the negative impact intellectual property
rights have had on corporate funded research at universities. The
projects, under the Open Collaborative Research program started last year
by Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Cisco, and IBM, will work to develop privacy,
security, and medical decision-making software. ACM President Stuart
Feldman, IBM's research laboratories VP for computer science, says
"Universities have made life increasingly difficult to do research with
them because of all the contractual issues around intellectual property."
These conditions started with the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which gave
universities the power to hold patents for federally funded research and
license the intellectual property. Universities have since acted more like
corporations, expecting profit for research. Elisa Bertino, a computer
scientist at Purdue University, says, "Universities in the United States
want to protect their intellectual property but more and more see the
importance of collaboration," in large part because they appreciate working
on real-world issues rather than academic theory. These IBM projects are
intended to last several years, and produce basic technological components
that can be used in future products. Emory University economist Jerry
Thursby says that "This ability to strike reasonable deals for both the
corporate and university sides is a big issue" for economic growth and
global competitiveness.
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Report Blames Denver Election Woes on Flawed
Software
Computerworld (12/13/06) Weiss, Todd
Ineffective software design, poor IT management, and the release of a
critical application without being tested were the cause of Denver's
election-day debacle, concludes a new report. Voters were met with as much
as three-hour long waits at polls, causing an estimated 20,000 to go home
without voting. The "ePollBook" electronic poll software, supplied by
Sequoia Voting Systems, was designed to let people vote at any polling
location in the area, but "decidedly subprofessional architecture and
construction" led to the difficulties, according to the Fujitsu Consulting
report. The report stated that "The ePollBook system is a poorly designed
and fundamentally flawed application that demonstrates little familiarity
with basic tenets of Web development. Due to unnecessary and progressive
consumption of system resources" the system grew slower the more heavily it
was used. Another problem experienced on election day was that Web
sessions didn't expire without an "exit" button being clicked by the user,
which tied up a great deal of the system's resources. According to
activity logs, 90 percent of the user sessions were not closed using this
button, but by a user simply shutting down the browser. Fujitsu also
pointed out the fact that the system was not stress-tested, calling such an
oversight "naive ... at best," especially given the importance of the event
it was deployed for. Fujitsu recommended that Denver get the Sequoia
application fixed or use another platform. The report concluded, "Given
the increasing criticality of technology in conducting elections and the
sensitivity of personal data in the DEC's possession, this casual approach
to technology cannot be permitted to continue."
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With Boomers Retiring, U.S. Tech Industry Faces 'Quiet
Crisis'
Investor's Business Daily (12/14/06) P. A5; Riley, Sheila
The shortages in the science and technology workforce that many are
predicting is a 'quiet crisis,' according to Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson, because once it is fully realized
it will be too late to do anything about it. As the scientists and
engineers that came of age in the post-WWII era retire, there will not be
enough replacements for them, due to "the apparent lack of interest of our
young people and their relative underperformance in science and math," says
Jackson. She places the burden on businesses to provide mentors,
opportunities outside the classroom, and more internships, including those
that provide international experience. IBM and FedEx have been effective
in establishing internship and education programs to encourage and recruit
the "next generation of technologically literate and scientifically
grounded employees," says Jackson. Women and underrepresented minorities
make up what she calls the "underrepresented majority," which is an
"untapped talent pool." She says, "The basic message is that innovation is
rooted in people. We don't know where the next breakthrough will come
from." The U.S. is still the strongest economy in the world, and our model
of investing in research and infrastructure has been followed by many other
countries, but in order to maintain this position, Jackson says, "as a
culture we need to value science and engineering and those who do it, and
maintain the infrastructure to make sure that happens."
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Beyond the Book: Software Automates Access to Brain
Atlases
USC Viterbi School of Engineering (12/11/06)
University of Southern California computer scientists have developed
software that transforms existing printed brain atlases into multimedia
resources, while respecting copyrights. The beta software, dubbed NeuARt
II, allows neuroscientists to store, organize, and utilize data from
ongoing research. NeuARt II, the continuation of a project begun by
computer scientist 10 years ago that failed due to funding, picks up on
past methods of displaying and organizing visual information, addressing
the need to facilitate consultation and comparison of data concerning a
three-dimensional organ that is comprised of thousands of cross-sectional
images. USC research scientist and neuromatics specialist Gully A.P.C.
Burns explains, "Researchers need to be able to find a given segment
immediately, and compare the segment with any other. To do this using a
printed volume like [the standard print rat brain atlas] involved continual
back and forth page turning and index consulting. Page turning means that
researchers can't look at two or three or five images side by side or on
top of each other." NeuArt II presents data using various means, including
spatial maps and alphanumerics on a single interface. The JavaScript
program that the software uses converts the image files to standard vector
graphics (SVG) that are stored on the user's system and organized by the
software. Burns calls the technology "a kind of Google Earth for the
brain." It is available a free download.
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New System Solves the 'Who Is J. Smith' Puzzle
Penn State Live (12/14/06)
Penn State researchers have created a system that is able to disambiguate
authors with similar names, a problem encountered frequently in academic
publications. By examining co-authors, publication dates, citations, and
keywords, the system correctly identified authors 90.6 percent of the time,
when tested on 3,355 academic papers written by 490 different researchers.
C. Lee Giles, Penn State's David Reese Professor of Information Sciences
and Technology and principal researcher on the project, says that "It works
very similarly to how humans would figure out authors' identity ... by
using machine-learning methods to cluster together names that the system
believes to be similar. If you think there's another parameter that's
relevant, you can change the algorithm and include it." The algorithm
utilized by the system makes use of a clustering method that trains
computers to glean information based on similar characteristics: Every
time information is gleaned, a smaller grouping is produced. Part of the
next generation CiteSeer, the largest academic search engine for computer
and information science literature, the application was presented in a
paper called "Efficient Name Disambiguation for Large-Scale Databases" at
the 17th European Conference on Machine Learning and the 10th European
Conference on Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases
in Berlin.
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Google Launches Patent Search Beta
TechNewsWorld (12/15/06) LeClaire, Jennifer
Google has unveiled a Web site that it hopes will revolutionize the
process of patent inquiry the same way Google has become a "front door" to
the Internet. The Web site enablers users to search for U.S. patents by
keyword, patent number, inventor, and filing data. Although still in the
beta stage, the service uses technology similar to Google Book Search,
allowing users to scroll through pages, as well as zoom in on text and
images, making a process that had previously been time-consuming and
complicated more convenient, even for those not familiar with the realm of
patents. The "Advanced Patent Search" option enables searches for more
specific criteria. Google software engineer Doug Banks says, "It's a
natural extension of our mission to make this public domain government
information more easily accessible using Google's search technology." More
than 7 million patents are already available. Banks says the tool should
be a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, but acknowledges that it is not
completely comprehensive.
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Tackling Energy Efficiency in Computing
CNet (12/14/06) Shankland, Stephen
Andy Karsner, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Energy Department, met with
top-level representatives of Cisco, HP, Silicon Graphics, Sun, Advanced
MicroDevices, Intel, Microsoft, and IBM to discuss the energy consumption
challenge facing the industry and look for ways the government can best
help industry increase efficiency. Karsner says the issue is "a national
challenge in terms of our security and a global challenge in terms of our
environmental well-being." He says such a "public-private partnership"
will allow companies to "use tools of the federal government that make them
stronger in the aggregate than they may be acting individually." Rather
than enforce regulation, Karsner hopes that by bringing together these
parties who would not normally meet, best practices can be agreed upon.
While there were disagreements among those who met, they were outweighed by
commonalities. The Energy Department is involved in "technological R&D for
hardware," "energy saving audits," "distribut[ing] software" and training
people on software so they can audit themselves and the data could be
collected by the department and used to find more effective tools and
techniques, Karsner says. He believes that "markets provide the best
delivery system for transformation," because it is in the best interest of
everyone involved to innovate. He also stressed the role of "Silicon
Valley and the IT leadership that has been the tip of the spear of
transformation in this economy," especially "in something as important as
leading green-energy procurement and best practices for efficiency."
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Computer Model Takes in Earthquake Data and Runs a
Simulation in Real Time
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (12/13/06) Templeton, David
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Computational Seismology
Laboratory are utilizing the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) to
simulate earthquakes occurring in Southern California, with the goal of
preventing loss of life and property. The work focuses on how ground
motion caused by an earthquake propagates outward and impacts some areas
more than others. The Hercules supercomputer computation code and analysis
method allow researchers to perform intricate simulations, with 2,048
processors running simultaneously, to produce greater levels of resolution.
Lead researcher Dr. Jacobo Bielak says, "Because of the work we do, we
have a much better understanding of the entire earthquake phenomenon from
the source through the propagation path of waves and local side effects."
The research validated theories that focused seismic energy occurs in the
San Fernando Valley and L.A. as a result of geological characteristics by
creating a model of the region, shaking it, and observing what happens,
according to Dr. Bielak. In the future, the researchers plan to simulate
earthquakes that have not occurred, but are imminent based on patterns, in
order to help prepare the area by providing information that can be applied
to new building codes. The team was awarded the SC06 Analytics Challenge
Award for its simulation of the 1994 Northridge Earthquake that killed 51
people and did $44 billion of damage, despite only registering 6.7 on the
Richter scale.
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Plastic Sheet of Power
Technology Review (12/14/06) Greene, Kate
University of Tokyo researchers have developed a prototype for a flexible
plastic sheet that acts as a power source for devices simply by touching
them. The sheet uses electromagnetic induction, but where past induction
systems could only transmit a small amount of power over a large area or a
large amount of power to precise a location, these power sheets can be
large and supply a large amount of power, approximately 30 watts. Two
types of sheets make up the system: One that figures out the positioning
of a given object, and another that supplies power to the point of contact
of the device. A technique similar to silk screening is used to print
various copper coils, 10 millimeters in diameter, on the position-sensing
sheet, and a modified inkjet printer is used to print organic transmitters
on another sheet. These transistors can recognize the decreased resistance
that occurs when an object is placed near the sheets, and direct power to
it. The sheet that supplies power has various switches made of silver and
plastic that turn the flow of power, transmitted by copper coils, on and
off. In order to be compatible with these sheets, a device would need to
have a coil and special power harvesting circuitry. A magnetic field
generated by the power source induces an electric flow in the device's
coil, transmitting power. University of Tokyo engineering professor Takao
Someya, who led the development of the prototype, says, "There's a lot of
space to improve," but he is optimistic because similar materials in
commercial displays that use organic electroluminescence have recently been
improved due to market demand. Someya says the technology will be complete
in five years, and be reliable for household use. His ultimate goal is for
these sheets to be embedded in walls and tables.
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Engineering Professors Work to Secure Software-Defined
Radio Technology
Virginia Tech News (12/14/06) Crumbley, Liz
Software-defined radio (SDR) technology will be the focus of a three-year
project by engineering researchers at Virginia Tech. Although SDR
technology is found in the two-way communications devices of tactical
military forces and emergency responders, there are concerns about the
reliability and security of the software, which is used to handle the
signal processing for transmission and reception. Lead researcher Jung-Min
Park says the team will try to answer some important questions about the
security of SDR technology. "What are the security threats if an adversary
were able to install malicious software on an SDR, and what counter
measures would be effective against such attacks? These problems are
unique to SDR networks and have not been studied in a systematic way by the
network security community," says Park. The research could result in the
development of SDR technology that is better able to withstand attacks, and
the emergence of improved security standards. SDR technology has also
become a key component for wireless mesh networks, and some observers
believe it could help relieve traffic on the radio spectrum through its
ability to locate vacant areas.
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E-Voting Requires Long-Term Strategy: IDC
Washington Technology (12/12/06) Butterfield, Ethan
IDC Research has released a study showing that, despite spending almost
$3.8 billion since 2002 on e-voting systems, state and local governments
are far from achieving an accurate, secure, and timely voting process. The
study, "Improving Voting System Investment, Credibility and Transparency,"
found that minimal strategy was used to deploy the new systems acquired
after the 2000 election. The result of this lack of planning was intricate
new systems that are just as unproven and controversial as the systems they
replaced, according to the study. While easier to use, the new equipment
has security problems, as they were bought with initial costs in mind,
ignoring upkeep. Improvements in standards, funding, auditing
capabilities, and transparency is recommended. The study also recommended
that governments keep records on lifecycle expenses to aid future
purchases. To read ACM's Statewide Databases of Registered Voters: A
Study of Accuracy, Privacy, Usability, Security, and Reliability Issues,
visit ttp://
www.acm.org/usacm/VRD
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Robotic Hand has a Built-in 'Slip Sense'
New Scientist (12/13/06) Simonite, Tim
A mechanical hand that can hold objects without crushing or dropping them
has been developed at the U.K.'s Southampton University. Improving on
previous technology, the researchers "added new arrays of sensors that
allow [the hand] to sense temperature, grip force, and whether an object is
slipping," explains Southampton electrical engineer Neil White, who was
part of the development team. Slip-detecting sensors in the hand pick up
vibrations caused when an object is slipping through the hand, and works
with the pressure sensors to close the fingers enough to secure the object.
Previously, microphones were used to detect the sound caused by slippage,
but White says that "using vibration is more robust because there can be no
interference in noisy environments." The sensors are made up of patches of
piezoelectric crystals surrounded by circuitry that are printed on each
finger tip using a novel, which is a relatively inexpensive technique known
as "thick-film fabrication." When their shape changes due to temperature,
vibration, or strain, the crystals create a voltage that tells the fingers
what changes to make. Such a hand could be connected to nerves in the arm,
chest, or shoulder to give amputees greater control over prosthetics, but
the user's brain would have to be in control of the feedback loop between
the prosthetic's sensors and motors, which could be done by attaching the
sensor output directly to the brain or nerves. For now, a simpler system,
where tiny microphones in a glove send different outputs to earphones based
on the object being grasped, has been tested with some success.
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Conference to Focus on Spatial Thinking
News-Gazette (12/14/06) Kline, Greg
The University of Illinois plans to show educators that the benefits of
computerized geographic information systems are not limited to geographers
and urban planners. Next Monday and Tuesday, the UI Center for Computing
in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences will host the "Spatial
Thinking in the Social Sciences and the Humanities" conference to show
researchers and grade school teachers what is possible with geospatial
information science and spatial analysis, says UI history professor Vernon
Burton. Attendees will receive free software tools so that they can
experience visualizing information in space and time, and a book
documenting the results of spatial analysis methods. Michael Goodchild, a
pioneer in computer-based geographic information systems at the University
of California, Santa Barbara, will serve as the keynote speaker of the
conference. UI's National Center for Supercomputing Applications is
looking to address the needs of humanities and social science researchers
as it pursues the development of specialized "cyberenvironments" for
analyzing data in a more comprehensive manner. "It allows you to integrate
different sources of information," says UI geography professor Luc Anselin.
"It also allows you to ask different questions, which is very
powerful."
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Project Aims to Bolster Java Open Source Security,
Quality
Linux Insider (12/12/06) Lyman, Jay
Fortify Software and FindBugs Java plan to provide additional reviews of
open source code written in Java through a collaborative initiative called
the Java Open Review (JOR) Project. Most open source programmers have
embraced the effort to help improve the security of software and eliminate
errors in applications, says Fortify chief scientist Brian Chess. JOR will
examine open source projects for bugs and security holes, and make its
findings available to the open source software community. In addition to
identifying security and quality errors, it will provide an analysis of
errors per 1,000 lines of code. JOR will even offer more specific
information on coding errors to aid programmers in their efforts to address
any problems. "As software becomes increasingly intricate, FindBugs and
Fortify Software want to provide open source developers automated tools to
help find defects in complex code bases, as well as defend against an
ever-growing pool of sophisticated hackers," says Chess. "No one is
helping the Java open source community, and we want to fix that."
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Proof That the Search for the 'Great Search' Isn't Over
Just Yet
ZDNet (12/13/06) Berlind, David
David Berlind writes that after visiting Sun's Labs, he believes that
quantum leap enhancements are still possible in search technology. Sun
researchers have found that 85 percent of the information businesses
produce is unstructured, while the average information worker spends 25
percent of his time looking for information. Thus, any improvements in
searching can directly boost the productivity of workers and the bottom
line of businesses. Berlind recently viewed a demonstration of Sun's
"Blurbalyzer" search technology, which uses linguistics analysis technology
and clustering techniques to bring the most relevant items in a search to
the surface. However, Blurbalyzer's surface is not a list of text items,
but a three-dimensional sphere displaying bubbles (individual search
results) and colored clusters of bubbles (related search results). Users
mouse over the bubbles and clusters to see the types of information
available in each, enabling them to quickly determine which cluster to
focus on. Double-clicking on a bubble brings up that search result, while
circling a cluster and doubling-clicking on it might bring up a search
results list. Blurbalyzer can also analyze the audio properties of items
it searches, thus clusters can be formed based on their musical similarity.
Blurbalyzer can then create playlists from its audio results by connecting
the bubbles.
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Tech Lessons Learned From the Wisdom of Crowds
CNet (12/14/06) McCullagh, Declan
Technology companies have begun utilizing what is known as prediction
markets to harness the fragmented insight of their employees to analyze
various concerns, such as when a particular product will be ready for the
market. Yahoo recently held a microconference in which representatives
from Google, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Yahoo discussed how prediction
markets had been used. The conference moderator, author James Surowiecki,
says, "The really valuable knowledge is in the organization as a whole."
HP Labs has created a prediction market program known as BRAIN that allows
companies to reward employees in cash for their predictions. The program
assigns each person a profile based on the level of risk they take. Yahoo
Research's David Pennock says his company has created the Yootle, which it
calls a "scorekeeping system for favors owed." Employees can use their
Yootles to purchase help at work or to influence the choice of restaurant.
Yahoo Research is also experimenting with the use of Tech Buzz Game, which
awards Yootles to employees that make accurate predictions as to popular
search terms. Microsoft's Todd Proebsting, director of Microsoft's Center
for Software Excellence, says the company used a prediction market system
to predict when a particular product would ship. Google project manager Bo
Cowgill wants to take prediction markets further by creating reputation
systems. He wants the accuracy of each employee's predictions to be
publicly displayed, thus providing incentive to participate. George Mason
associate professor of economics Robin Hanson says that prediction markets
have proved their worth by letting companies observe the likelihood of
possible consequences of proposed actions.
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Speaking in Tongues
SD Times (12/01/06)No. 163, P. 37; DeJong, Jennifer
Developers' employment of Java or C# within an enterprise database instead
of relying on older languages is now possible thanks to embedded runtime
engines. Burton Group research director Peter O'Kelly says database
support for modern languages enables the deployment of increasingly
sophisticated application logic in the database; permits exploitation by
development teams of a unified programming model across all application
levels; and establishes a platform for databases to play an important part
in service-oriented architectures. The coding process becomes less
stressful when the same language is used across all application tiers,
according to Sybase director of database products Tom Traubitz.
Furthermore, there is database-level support for increasingly complicated
tasks. Forrester Research analyst Larry Fulton notes that a database
server can host Web services through the use of Java-enabled databases.
"With no intermediate layer to look up services, that eliminates a few
extra components," he says. O'Kelly points out that Web service hosting
via the database yields the key advantage of reuse.
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Rooted in Controversy
Telephony (11/20/06) Vol. 247, No. 19, P. 28; Engebretson, Joan
The U.S. Department of Commerce's control of ICANN has been a source of
contention, because ICANN administrates the root server system; this
arrangement has caused many countries to feel uneasy about their dependence
on America when it comes to the assignment of top-level domains and
Internet communications. Running the root server system are a couple
hundred servers overseen by a dozen organizations based primarily in the
United States, and Internet Systems Consortium President Paul Vixie stated
that the root server administrators were "selected by people who are dead
now, through processes that are not transparent." Critics charge that
ICANN has been turned into a tool of U.S. foreign policy because of the
role the Commerce Department plays, and could be used as leverage in
international trade agreements. "The USA is theoretically and practically
able to control 'our' access to contents to the Internet and also to limit
them," notes the Open Root Server Network (ORSN) Web site. ORSN proposes
to create an alternative root server system to reduce U.S. control, and
VeriSign's Ken Silva is concerned that such efforts will lead to a
"balkanization" of the Internet. In September, the Commerce Department
replaced the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between it and ICANN with a
joint project agreement under which ICANN will furnish reports on the
organization's activities to the entire community rather than just the
Commerce Department, according to ICANN CTO John Crain. Critics are hoping
that the Department will back away from its involvement with ICANN by the
time the new agreement expires, and some believe ICANN should maintain its
status as a nonprofit, with some board members chosen by the general
public. Some critics think a body for overseeing the root server operators
should be set up, while others oppose such an idea, claiming that it could
inhibit the exceptional reliability of the root server system; Silva favors
the assignment of an MOU for each root server.
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Can Microsoft Save the World?
Redmond (12/06) Vol. 12, No. 12, P. 46; Barney, Doug
Major problems and research challenges such as disease, global warming,
and the creation of life are the focus of Microsoft's Science division,
which is teaming its researchers with about 40 scientists around the world.
The leader of this effort is Microsoft Research European Science Program
director Stephen Emmott, who is seeking the transformation of computer
science and traditional science through the combination of the two. "The
real benefits come from bringing together people from Microsoft
Research--whether they're computer scientists or computational biologists
or computational climatologists or oceanographers--with people in the wider
science community, to do the kinds of things that neither of us could do on
our own," Emmott notes. One goal is to model basic biological processes so
the incidence of disease can also be modeled as a step toward a treatment
revolution, and an effort in this vein is the construction of a global
pandemic modeling system for forecasting epidemics. Miniaturization is
considered to be the future of both science and disease treatment:
Envisioned innovations include molecular computers that function as smart
drug systems within the human body, and sensor networks that can measure an
ecosystem's health through the collection of data. The new model of
scientific research Emmott's group is aiming for could also yield new
energy sources through the study of plants' process for converting energy,
for example. Such research could also be an important step toward
controlling global warming by reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
Microsoft is also collaborating with The Sloan Digital Sky Survey by
providing the data-acquisition and analysis resources necessary for
achieving a greater understanding of the universe.
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