Putting the Brakes on Light Speed
Washington Post (01/19/07) P. A8; Weiss, Rick
University of Rochester scientists have developed a process for slowing
down light while retaining its ability to carry information. Today's
fiber-optical systems use electrical signal processors, but a way of
reducing the speed light moves at could bring about an age when computers
process information using optical beams. The field of "slow light" is less
than a decade old, but "This is a big step toward bringing slow-light
technology into practical usage," said Stanford University professor of
electrical engineering and applied physics Steve Harris. Not only is this
new method far simpler than those previously developed, but it allows the
light to retain information. A popular way of slowing light is routing it
through a dense material, but this causes changes in wave forms that result
in whatever data being carried to be lost. The University of Rochester
team built a four-inch-long chamber filled with cesium gas heated to over
200 degrees Fahrenheit that created a sort of photonic pileup in the pulses
of laser light sent through it. The technique maintained the peaks and
troughs of the light waves, so that they did not cancel each other out.
The beam of light was sent through a minute stencil of the letters "UR,"
for the school, in order to show that the shadow-like image remained after
the light passed through the chamber and resumed its normal speed; the
image was even visible when a single photon was sent through the tube.
Necessary for high-speed optical information processing is the ability to
control time delays, so the researchers created a knob that can do so by
changing the temperature inside the tube.
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David Farber: Hold Off on Internet Neutrality
Sacramento Bee (CA) (01/21/07) Farber, David; Katz, Michael
Proposed Internet neutrality legislation would prevent the Internet from
improving as it should and provide no consumer benefits, says the
Sacramento Bee's David Farber. Citing expert opinion that innovations such
as improved security and reliability could result from an updated Internet,
Farber believes competitive practices, such as traffic management and
pricing, must be allowed. Traffic management, which would give priority to
certain content, would allow for vital processes, such as medical
processes, to be favored over less vital processes, such as music
downloading. Farber says if prices could be charged for premium service,
suppliers could offer a better product, and there is nothing "undemocratic"
about providing consumers with greater functionality. Farber acknowledges
the negative side of discriminatory practices, especially when carried out
by competitive service providers. Politicians must act with caution when
deciding what practices promote or inhibit competition. The case-by-case
approach that has historically been used in antitrust proceedings, where
practices must be shown to restrict competition, would be effective here as
well, says Farber. He does not place all of his faith in the market, but
maintains that Internet neutrality is a harmful fix for a problem that does
not fully exist.
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'Between Now and the End of 2008 There Will be Another 7
Million Robots in the World'
Herald Sun (AU) (01/21/07) P. 74; Gates, Bill
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates explains that improving technology and
falling costs will bring about a proliferation of robots in the next few
years, although no one is really sure what the world will look like after
these developments. "We probably won't call them robots: The new machines
will be so specialized and ubiquitous," says Gates. The robotics
industry is driven by large corporations selling specialized devices for
business and an increasing number of start-ups selling novel toys, gadgets,
and other niche items. Gates reports that the industry "is also...highly
fragmented...with few common standards or platforms," while projects are
intricate and progress is slow. Although the timeframe for the global
impact of robotics is unknown, there is little doubt of the ability of
robotics to change the world. The components needed to bring robotics into
the mainstream are being made more effective and are being produced at
lower prices than ever; a few examples are distributed computing, voice and
visual recognition, and wireless broadband connectivity. According to
Gates, the major obstacle facing robotics companies is the lack of
compatibility between software used in different robots, meaning that
building a new robot means starting from scratch. Researchers have had a
more difficult time creating robots that can sense and respond to their
environment than expected, but increasing access to computing power is
helping this challenge. "Many see the robotics industry at a technological
turning point where a move to PC architecture makes more and more sense,"
says Microsoft strategic staff member Tandy Trower. Trower has worked on
improving the ability of hardware and software to process incoming data and
send the necessary signals to a robot's motors, a concern known as
concurrency, which is a challenge also brought about by the introduction of
multiple-processor computers.
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Improved Nanodots Could be Key to Future Data
Storage
EurekAlert (01/19/07)
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
have been able to limit the variation in nanodot switching response to less
than 5 percent of the average switching field, according to a recent paper
published in the Journal of Applied Physics. They also believe the design
of the multilayer films, which are the starting material for the nanodots,
is the reason for the wide disparity in the way nanodot arrays respond to
magnetic fields. The research represents a potential breakthrough for
improving digital storage, which has data needs that are believed to double
every year. The NIST researchers worked with scientists from the
University of Arizona on the project, which used electron beam lithography
to pattern multilayer thin films for nanodots that were 50 nanometers wide.
Commercial nanodot drives would offer 100 times more storage space than
current hard disk drives. Nonetheless, researchers may need to combine
nanodots with an approach that also uses a laser to heat and switch
individual bits. According to lead author Justin Shaw, heat would make it
easier to switch nanodots.
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Women Abandoning Tech Jobs
silicon.com (01/18/07) Ranger, Steve
Research conducted by trade group Intellect has returned some rather
alarming data about the declining numbers of women in IT. Women currently
make up only 16 percent of the nation's tech workers, a 2 percent drop from
two years ago. This statistic is "very worrying," says Intellect program
manager Carrie Hartnell, who also points out that 61 percent of these women
are at the level of database administrator, showing how few women are able
to climb the management ladder. Perhaps most damaging is the frequency of
senior female execs leaving the industry, depriving the industry of
valuable experience, as well as removing potential role models for young
females interested in IT. "From the research we've done there is still a
feeling that the long-hours culture and the lack of understanding about
flexible working has an impact," Hartnell explains. Intellect is
concocting an "action plan" to improve gender diversity in IT based on its
findings. One element of the plan is the establishment of focus groups
that will allow companies to create policies to bolster recognition of good
practices. [[For information about ACM's Committee on Women in Computing,
visit
http://women.acm.org]]
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Linux Guru Argues Against Security Liability
ZDNet Australia (01/19/07) Espiner, Tom
Red Hat developer Alan Cox told a House of Lords committee on science and
technology that a developer's obligation to create secure software is
ethical, not legal. Cox, who was among the leading developers of the Linux
kernel, spoke of both open- and closed-source software developers as he
discussed the generally accepted fact that no one knows how a completely
secure program could be built. Closed-source companies cannot be held
accountable for breaches of their software because it would do great damage
to relationships with third-party vendors, said Cox: "[Code] should not be
the [legal] responsibility of software vendors, because this would lead to
a combatorial explosion with third-party vendors," he explained. "When you
add third-party applications, the software interaction becomes complex.
Rational behavior for software vendors would be to forbid the installation
of any third-party software." Stressing the communal nature of open-source
code, Cox said, "Potentially there's no way to enforce liability." Since
many companies implement open-source code in their products, the transfer
of liability would cause many problems. Open source developer and security
researcher Adam Laurie told the committee that while manufacturers have an
obligation to the public to make it easy for them to secure their
computers, usability can trump security. He believes programmers must be
held accountable for software that they claim is secure, yet has been
proven not to be.
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Congress Lights Fire Under Vote Systems Agency
InternetNews.com (01/19/07) Hickins, Michael
The Election Assistance Committee (EAC), which has been advised to
accredit two new independent testing labs by the National Institute of
Standard and Technology, will most likely be the target of substantial
congressional scrutiny during the coming year. Members of both houses have
made their intentions to reform the way Americans vote. Senate Rules and
Administration Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has
announced that hearings concerning electronic voting machines will be held
and corresponding legislation will be introduced. "One-third of voters
cast their ballots in the midterm election using new electronic voting
machines, and problems arose, not only in Florida, but in various
jurisdictions across the country," said Feinstein. Rep. Juanita
Millender-McDonald (D-Calif.) has said that "the integrity of electronic
voting machines is a number-one priority for the Committee on House
Administration," of which she is the new chairman. Millender-McDonald has
asked Florida courts to grant access to the source code of voting machines
in Sarasota County, where 18,000 people did not vote in the congressional
election, yet voted in others on the ballot. She is expected to subpoena
the source code if the Florida courts do not do so. As the ranking member
of the Administration Committee, Millender-McDonald took part in hearings
on verifiable paper trails this summer and fall, where she questioned EAC
chief Donetta Davidson concerning suspected flaws in current voting systems
guidelines and testing activities. More recently, the EAC has been
criticized for not revealing that a lab used to test software for voting
machines did not receive proper interim certification, yet continued
testing software upgrades in the weeks preceding the November election.
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W3C Talks Up Next-Gen Multi-lingual Talking Web
VNUNet (01/15/07) Jaques, Robert
The First Public Working Draft of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)
1.1 could help improve voice applications over the Web. Crafted by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), SSML 1.1 is designed to serve as an
upgrade to SSML 1.0 by making it easier for users of mobile phones, desktop
computers, and other devices worldwide to listen to synthesized speech.
SSML 1.1 offers greater support to languages around the world, such as the
disambiguation of "word boundaries" in Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and other
languages that do not account for white space as a boundary, according to
W3C. Other improvements include the clarification between the speaking
voice of the author and the language that is spoken, finer-grained control
over lexicon activation and entry usage, and tighter alignment of the
Speech Interface Framework with upcoming specifications. The release of
SSML 1.1, which could lead to the development of multilingual voice
applications, comes at a time when more Web content is being published in
Chinese and Indian languages.
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Nordic Researchers Aim for Multiprotocol Multisensor RFID
Tag
RFID Journal (01/19/07) Wessel, Rhea
Nordic researchers developing a multiprotocol radio frequency
identification (RFID) tag that could be used in a number of applications
and regions will find out later in the year whether the project will be
extended for another three years. Researchers involved in the IntelliSense
RFID initiative plan to incorporate environmental sensor technology into
the multiprotocol RFID tag, and expect to complete work on developing
sensors for measuring humidity and pH later in the year. Launched in
January 2006, the IntelliSense project is expected to have by the end of
the year a fully operational RFID tag that supports the ISO 15693 and ISO
18000-6C protocols and is able to monitor air pressure, temperature,
humidity, and pH. An extended project would allow the researchers to
proceed next year with integrating the 18000-4 standard for tags operating
at 2.45 GHz. "Today, there are different types of protocols for different
types of applications, such as logistics or consumer applications," says
project coordinator Ovidiu Vermesan. "Our goal is to merge these protocols
so that one can use one tag for different applications." SINTEF in Norway
and VTT in Finland are heading the project, which has received $3 million
from the NORDITE research program.
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Georgia's Unusual 'Electoral College'
Chronicle of Higher Education (01/19/07) Vol. 53, No. 20, P. A29; Foster,
Andrea L.
A joint venture between Kennesaw State University and the Georgia state
government involves the participation of computer experts in the deployment
of e-voting machines, and the effort is drawing interest from Washington as
government officials and scientists struggle to reform electoral processes
across the country. Kennesaw State's Center for Election Systems recruits
students and others as e-voting machine inspectors, trains election
officials and poll managers throughout the state, constructs a ballot
database, and interacts with voting machine manufacturer Diebold Election
Systems. It is the center's perception that the election process' workings
should not be disclosed, while many computer and political scientists argue
that a transparent election process will help ensure reliability. They are
calling for the inclusion of a voter-verifiable paper trail in e-voting
systems to ensure accuracy in the event of recounts, among other things,
and this is a universal requirement of legislation about to be reintroduced
in Congress. Diebold has caught a lot of flak over the reported insecurity
of its e-voting systems, but Kennesaw State professors and students say
such claims are exaggerated and not based on serious research. The voicing
or display of political bias by students and staff members is not allowed
so that the center can avoid accusations of election rigging. Kennesaw
State computer science department Chairman Merle King says a federal
standards compliance test is run on the Diebold systems used in Georgia
before the center conducts its own testing for adherence to state
standards. An opponent of projects such as Kennesaw State's is
NotableSoftware President Rebecca Mercuri, who contends that public
universities' reliance on state money sets up a bias toward appeasing state
officials.
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Creating the Future of Optics and Photonics
Photonics Online (01/16/07) Pearson, James
The Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) at the
University of Central Florida, founded in 1986, was the first photonic
program in the U.S. to become a full college headed by a dean, and its
research activities continue to cover the leading trends in the fields of
photonics and optics, writes CREOL and Florida Photonics Center of
Excellence (FPCE) director of research and administration Dr. James
Pearson. New visualization displays, such as those in eyeglasses, could
become mainstream as a result of CREOL research into virtualization
hardware. Bessel beam imaging is being used to produce a narrow beam of
light for a long distance, and can be used for high-resolution imaging over
a depth of focus of a few millimeters. High-speed communications and
signal processing could receive a boost from CREOL work concerning optical
frequency combs that would facilitate unique types of high-speed transfer
of coded optical signals. High-efficiency optical transmitters and
receivers offered by heterostructure devices could be made possible by Zinc
Oxide-based compounds (ZnO) that have been found to enable epilayers to
maintain relatively efficient levels of electroluminescence at temperatures
up to 650K. High-resistivity ZnO substrates are being created that are
better quality than those currently available using liquid phase epitaxy,
meaning that volume holograms could replace components in optics, laser
systems, and data storage. Extreme ultraviolet optical sensors are being
suggested as the future of manufacturing small-scale chips, since they
could enable optical lithography to continue fulfilling Moore's Law. Other
research is focusing on transflective LCDs, and an adaptive-focus liquid
crystal lens that could mimic human vision. Finally, work in laser doping,
a process for doping wide bandgap semiconductors with both n- and p-type
dopants, aims to construct efficient LEDs.
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Interview: Must-Know Security Insights for 2007
Business 2.0 (01/07) Fortt, Jon
Cryptography Research President Paul Kocher outlines in an interview some
electronic security threats that people may encounter, along with steps
individuals and businesses can take to protect themselves from these
threats. Kocher says that the hackers of years past who only wanted
attention and bragging rights have been replaced by criminals looking to
make money through electronic fraud. Furthermore, a great deal of the work
being done to commit these electronic crimes is effectively outsourced to
countries with very intelligent people but poor employment opportunities
and weak economies, like Eastern Europe, he says. Kocher also explains a
new system of attack that Cryptography Research discovered whereby a hacker
can figure out a key code by reading the amount of energy a semiconductor
chip uses while processing. To protect information, Kocher says you should
encrypt all laptops in case they are lost or stolen; never reuse the same
password; put a fraud alert on your credit history; ensure that firewalls
and virus scanners are active; and put critical data on a physically
separate network from the one used for email and Web browsing.
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Software That Learns From Experience
domain-B (01/16/07) Chokshi, Kaustubh
Artificial intelligence software running on Artificial Neural Networks
(ANNs) is gaining regard for its ability to function in the world of
unstructured domains, where logic-based software reaches its limit. AI
software is able to analyze previously unseen inputs by learning an
underlying domain model from examples fed into the software. ANNs are
modeled on the architecture of the interconnected neurons of the human
brain, and can be algorithms or linked hardware processing components.
Using massive amounts of data and rules concerning data relationships, ANNs
are trained to evaluate connections based on patterns in data inputs, in
the same way that a child learns to identify all dogs after a single dog is
pointed out to them. A program can then tell the network what to do with
external inputs. Once training is completed, ANNs are used as statistical
experts that can analyze data to identify trends and construct projections
concerning a specific area of operation. AI-based software is the only way
to achieve accurate predictive analytics from historical data, and its
ability to do so improves as more data is passed through it. The pattern
recognition ability of ANNs has led to their use in business applications
such as consumer profiling and fraud detection. A prominent example of the
technology's worth is a program known as Falcon, which uses ANNs in
protecting nearly half of the credit cards issued in the United States from
fraudulent activity. Speech and handwriting recognition technology also
owes a great deal to neural networks. Researchers have recently focused on
creating AI software that far surpasses human intelligence in very
particular fields. As technology advances, this type of software will most
likely become even more widespread.
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Brain Activity Provides Novel Biometric Key
New Scientist (01/16/07) Knight, Will
Researchers at the Center for Research and Technology Hellas in Greece
plan to test a biometric system that is able to identify people based on
their brain activity this year as a security system for a laboratory in
Germany. Dimitrios Tzovaras and colleagues make use of
electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the electrical activity in the
brain as part of the authentication process, in which individuals wear a
cap to wirelessly communicate their uniquely identifiable brain data. The
researchers believe such an authentication system could serve as a building
or computer security system. Their work is part of a larger initiative in
Europe, the Human Monitoring and Authentication using Biodynamic Indicators
and Behavioral Analysis (HUMABIO) project, which is integrating various
biometric strategies to develop a more effective security system. Although
the approach has been found to have an accuracy rate of 88 percent, there
is still some criticism that using the cumbersome and invasive EEG cap is
not practical. "Wearing a wired helmet with sensors on one's scalp might
change the ambiance of the workplace somewhat," says John Daugman, a
biometrics researcher at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Another Cambridge researcher, Olaf Hauk, questions its accuracy. "EEG
varies greatly depending on a person's alertness, or mental operations,"
says Hauk, a neuroimaging specialist.
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A Head Start in Computing
New University (01/16/07) Vol. 40, No. 13, Rokhideh, Maryam
The benefits of internships were stressed during a panel discussion that
was recently sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery Club at
the University of California at Irvine. The panel, which featured
professionals from various companies, said internships can help lead to a
successful career in computer-related fields because they introduce
participants to life in the industry. Paul Salce, a consultant with
Unisys, compared internships to taking a "test drive" of a career. Evok
Networks CEO Greg Moulton added, "There are lots of different jobs out
there, but the only way you're going to be able to differentiate between
taking a job where you grimly count the hours to punch out and a job where
you don't even view it as work is by taking as many internships as possible
to sample the jobs that interest you." ACM Club President Zack Ji, a
fourth-year information and computer science major, said internships
ultimately helped him find his dream job. The focus on internships gave
the ACM Club an opportunity to warn students that work experience is more
of a factor in obtaining a good job than a degree.
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Collaborative Development Environments
Dr. Dobb's Journal (01/07) Booch, Grady
A collaborative development environment (CDE) represents a key shift in
focus from an individual developer to the development team. CDEs are
virtual spaces that allow participants in a software development team to
work together on a project, even if they are separated by space and time.
They are usually comprised of configuration management systems,
issue-tracking databases, instant messaging systems, project Web sites, and
other capabilities that would allow software engineers to interact,
communicate, and coordinate with each other. One reason why a CDE is
materially different from an integrated development environment (IDE) is
the fact that it facilitates the software developers' focus on semantically
deep artifacts with semantically deep associations. SourceForge and
Collab.net are among the few commercial CDEs that focus on software
development over the Web, and there are more CDEs for other domains or that
serve a certain aspect of the software CDE domain. In order for software
developers to make the transition to CDEs, the other domains must be
studied. Issues dealing with presentation, simplicity, ease of use,
personalization, and culture will have to be addressed if CDEs are to
become a sanctuary for collaboration.
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Everything and the Kitchen Sink
eWeek (01/15/07) Vol. 24, No. 2, P. 16; Taft, Darryl K.
Sun Microsystems has announced that it will open-source its new Java
compiler, Javac, through a project known as the Kitchen Sink Language
(KSL), which will allow programmers to play around with the language in
hopes of obtaining data on which to base debates concerning the dynamic
language. Javac lead tech Peter von der Ahe says, "I see a lot of proposal
for enhancing the language and our team has to turn down most. So how can
we experiment?" KSL, a Sun incubator project created by Java creator and
Sun Fellow James Gosling, is a forum that will let programmers evaluate the
language "by using [it] on their own code," rather than reading abstract
specifications and proposals, according to von der Ahe. He understands the
potential for chaos that KSL could bring to the language, so he explains
that Sun must be "conservative" when evaluating features to implement. In
a Jan. 8 blog post, Gosling said, "I've never been real happy with debates
about language features. I'd much rather implement them and try them out."
Though some took this to mean that Gosling did not like any debate on the
subject, he clarified himself by explaining that he did not approve of
debate when it was separated from "experiment and data," and that KSL will
provide this type of scientific foundation for debating features.
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Multithreading Invites String of Nasty Bugs
Electronic Engineering Times (01/15/07) P. 46; Bier, Jeff
A new paper from University of California, Berkeley, EECS professor Edward
Lee has engineers buzzing about the potential of thread-based programming.
Multi-threaded programming primarily has been limited to single-core
processors, and has performed fairly well, but multicore-chip vendors are
now talking up multithreading as a way to take advantage of the processing
power of their chips. Multithreaded applications are nondeterministic and
very unintelligible to their own programmers, Lee writes in "The Problem
With Threads," explaining further that program execution sequence and
processor state can be switched at any time. As a result, programmers
would never know whether every possible sequence is correct, which means
bugs would be difficult to find, according to Lee, who is also a founder of
Berkeley Design Technology. Although there are techniques for addressing
the nondeterminism in some multithreaded applications, Lee maintains that
the approach in flawed. He believes deterministic behavior should be the
focus of programming methodology and languages, and that nondeterminism
should be added when it is necessary.
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The Enabler
IEEE Spectrum (01/07) Vol. 44, No. 1, P. 51; Patel-Predd, Prachi
The realization that learning requirements differ sharply between people
with different abilities or disabilities eventually led Rob Sinclair to
become director of Microsoft's accessible technology group, whose focus is
enhancing computer software and devices for people with learning or
physical disabilities. Thanks to Sinclair's guidance, the forthcoming
Windows Vista operating system features augmented screen magnification,
voice control, dictation, and greater compatibility with third-party
assistive technology products so that disabled users are better
accommodated. His overarching objective is boosting the user-friendliness
and accessibility of computers for the benefit of disabled as well as
non-disabled people through user interface (UI) automation. Sinclair
helped conceptualize the Microsoft User Interface Automation Model for
enabling interoperability between software applications and assistive
technology. "The idea about this is that there has to be some common way
of exposing information from an application so that other applications can
get to it," he explains. "It allows developers with special expertise to
build the speaking application and developers who really understand email
to build the email application." In addition, Sinclair believes UI
automation has the potential to offer simpler, consistent access across
disparate computing platforms, facilitating the expansion of accessible
design into "design for all." It is his view that technology should adapt
to people rather than vice-versa.
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