Groups Call for E-Voting Paper Trail Legislation
IDG News Service (02/12/07) Gross, Grant
Several voting rights groups came together on Monday to ask Congress to
mandate that e-voting machines be equipped with printers. However,
attendees at the Elections: Looking Forward conference said that many
election problems blamed on e-voting machines were actually caused by a
lack of poll worker training, a lack of voting materials in foreign
languages, and polling places that were not handicap accessible. Several
speakers at the conference voiced support for the recently introduced Voter
Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, which requires printouts for
touch-screen machines. People for the American Way CEO Ralph Neas says
Congress must act on this matter in the next six to eight months in order
for the changes to be made in time for the upcoming presidential election.
Neas called the Saratoga County situation "a disgrace ... 18,000 votes ...
inexplicably disappeared into cyberspace." Opponents of printouts include
advocates for the blind, who claim that a paper trail would establish a
two-tiered voting system in which some people wouldn't be privy to the same
information as others. The American Association for People with
Disabilities (AAPD) claims that voting-machine manufacturers could not make
enough printers in time for the election, and that the country should focus
on complying with the standard set in 2002 by the Help America Vote Act.
"Either you lower the standards for the election equipment, or you live
with the time line that looks like 2010," says AAPD's Jim Dickson. "You
cannot have it both ways." For information on ACM's many e-voting
activities, visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
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I.B.M. Reports a Speed Record for a Type of Computer
Memory
New York Times (02/14/07) Markoff, John
IBM researchers today will announce a record speed for memory cycle times
using embedded dynamic random access memory (eDRAM), which could bring the
company into a confrontation with Intel, as both seek the fastest way to
move large amounts of data within multi-core processors. Earlier this
week, Intel demonstrated its 80-core Teraflop chip. IBM's technique
integrates ultrafast memory directly into its processors, while Intel will
stack memory chips on top of its processors. The IBM researchers claim to
have reduced memory cycle time to less than 2 nanoseconds, 10 times faster
than the off-the-shelf DRAM used in PCs. EDRAM works like a temporary
storage unit that speeds operations by holding data in a microprocessor for
reuse while it is being processed. This process reduces the processor
waiting time needed to perform new calculations. Intel is skeptical of
this type of embedded memory, which has been more expensive than others in
the past. IBM claims that the switch from static RAM (SRAM) to eDRAM will
save as much as 30 percent of the space on a microprocessor. The
technology will first be used in high-performance microprocessors and later
in consumer applications such as video games and mobile computing.
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Start-Up Demos Quantum Computer
CNet (02/14/07) Kanellos, Michael
D-Wave demonstrated its quantum computer technology on Tuesday at the
Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., and announced that
businesses could begin renting computing services in 2008. D-Wave's
quantum computer, dubbed Orion, is based on a silicon chip with 16
"qubits," the equivalent of storage bits in a traditional computer, each of
which consists of dots of niobium surrounded by coils of wire. Electrical
current sent down the wire creates a magnetic field, which causes a change
in the state of the qubit. "The qubits behave according to a certain set
of rules," said D-Wave founder Geordie Rose. "Quantum computing is the
translation of those laws into a format that we can take." Orion is
actually an analog computer, since answers come in the form of a physical
simulation, where digital computers produce answers to problems as
mathematical solutions. "We want to build an actual physical embodiment of
a hard math problem," Rose said. D-Wave's quantum machines will be able to
run complex and time-consuming equations, allowing researchers to extend
their efforts beyond the limits set by today's computers, according to
D-Wave investor Steve Jurvetson. D-Wave plans to increase the number of
qubits in its machines incrementally, with a 1,024-qubit system to be ready
by the end of 2008. Niobium is a superconductor, so these machines will be
very energy efficient; the most power will be used by the liquid helium
refrigeration unit, which cools the computer to 4 millikelvins.
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Research at WPI Could Produce a New Class of Flexible,
Power-Efficient Computer Chips
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (02/13/07)
A DARPA funded project at Worcester Polytechnic Institute aims to create a
computer chip that integrates application-specific integrated circuit chip
(ASIC) technology and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology.
ASICs are hard-wired for a specific function and are therefore more power
thrifty, while FPGAs are cheaper since they are programmed by software.
The military prefers ASICs since they run on battery power, but they would
also like to be able to reprogram chips in the field, says DARPA grant
recipient Xinming Huang. The reconfigurable computing device he has
developed is called the smart cell, and will make use of over a thousand
individual processors wired to a silicon substrate in order to capture the
advantages of both ASICs and FPGAs. Each processor will be assigned a
single operation while data flows through the chip. A parallel computing
method known as stream processing will execute hundreds of calculations
simultaneously, making it 300 times faster that microprocessors and 15
times faster than FPGAs. Smart cells will use software that can be
updated, like FPGAs, but each processor will be individually designed for
its specific function, like ASICs. The biggest challenge for Huang is to
integrate hundreds of processors in a single chip and to connect them to
each other. "If the chip is to be truly reconfigurable, every processor
must be able to communicate with every other processor at any time," Huang
says. "These interconnections will be very difficult to develop, but are
the key to the chip's success."
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Today's Homework: Make Good Games
Wired News (02/13/07) Kohler, Chris
Educators are beginning to realize the value of video game design and the
potential role of "serious" video games in society. Michigan State
University will soon begin the nation's first master's program in video
games, called "serious games." MIT's Henry Jenkins, who heads up the
Comparative Media Studies Department, thinks that while video games
produced in studios ensure high production quality, they sacrifice
innovation and expression. MIT's Media Development Authority will be
working with Singapore, which hopes to add 10,000 jobs to its digital media
sector by 2015, through the Singapore-MIT International Game Lab. About 30
of Singapore's best game-design students will come to MIT each year, where
they will work on producing five to 10 games a year. "We see the lab as a
space where we can move swiftly from pure research into compelling
applications, and then partner with the games industry to bring the best
ideas to market," says Jenkins. Asian video games have had trouble in the
past with communicating in an international context, so future generations
of video game designers must gain a better understanding of different
cultures and the way they interact. The MSU program will strive to bring
together many disciplines to create games that have an impact on the world,
but reaching an agreement between scientists and game designers has proved
very challenging in the past. So far, games have been used by the UN to
explain its food-aid programs, and by a student leader to teach nonviolent
protest strategies. MSU professor Carrie Heeter imagines a doctor being
just as likely to prescribe a patient a relaxation game to help them sleep,
as they would insomnia pills; "I like that kind of a world," she says.
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Finding Survivors, Protecting Drivers
EurekAlert (02/12/07)
Two radar chips developed at the USC Ming Hsieh department of electrical
engineering have the ability to send out and detect radio signals. Unlike
most high performance chips, these use ordinary CMOS silicon bases, meaning
they can be built very inexpensively. They can scan, by focusing precise
beams in a particular direction, and detect, by determining the direction
of incoming signals. One of the chips operates in the 24 GHz range using
an architecture that brings together the usefulness of multiple coherent
transmitters-receivers ("transceivers") so it can be more economically
sized than previous arrays. GM has expressed interest in the chip, since
10 of them could be installed in a car for around $100--less than a tenth
of the cost of a single chip currently used for self-parking. The other
radar chip can detect "ultrawideband" probes, low-intensity signals
extended across a wide spectrum and given off in a timed-array system. By
processing the echo collected by the chip's receiver function, the chip can
analyze spatial, temporal, and frequency data through solid barriers to
form detailed data. This chip could be used as "biometric radar," which
rescue crews could use to locate living victims trapped in the rubble of a
building, or as a way to monitor patients whose wounds do not allow them to
be touched.
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Speech Recognition Technology Will Change the Way You
Drive
Network World (02/13/07) Brodkin, Jon
Speech recognition technology is being prepared for expansive use in the
car, which will allow drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their
eyes on the road. "Speech can be revolutionary," said IBM program director
Brian Garr. "We can actually change the paradigm of the way people think
about completing transactions, the way people think about interacting with
computers or not even caring that they're interacting with computers." New
technology by Pioneer allows a driver to simply name a store or restaurant
they want to go to and have the car find the nearest location and provide
spoken directions. A big step for speech recognition could be the ability
to understand that several different words could mean the same thing, or
that artists can be called by several different nicknames. Johnson
Controls plans to market a "mobile gateway device" that allows speech
control of the telephone, music, navigation system, and temperature control
by the end of the year. "We're trying not to go real overboard on this
because sometimes it's a little bit easier to just tap the button rather
than do everything by voice," says Johnson's Mark Zeinstra. A big
challenge remains how to have speech recognition software know the
difference between commands and conversation. David Nahamoo, chief
technology officer for speech technology at IBM, says proposed solutions
include pushing a button to activate the voice recognition, or having a
camera on the driver to know when they are talking. "If a lot of other
things are going on [in the car] it's an automatic way of filtering
everything out. If the mouth of the driver is not moving that means ... no
action should take place," Nahamoo says.
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Moving Pictures
The Engineer Online (02/13/07)
An EU project called Interact is developing two methods that enable users
to work with a 3D image in real time. "We think there's a real need to
develop a completely new form of human-computer interaction," says project
leader Tomas Rodriguez. The first method uses gesture recognition
technology that requires no additional hardware and enables users to
manipulate 3D images with hand movements. The biggest challenge to this
method is developing a system that can understand gestures in ordinary
office lighting conditions. "There are already technologies available
which use spots or markers for gesture recognition," Rodriquez says.
"However, the real problem is developing extremely precise hand-tracking
without any other hardware which can also operate under common office
lighting conditions. Developing a sensor within these constraints is a
completely different story." The second method enables users to use voice
commands to manipulate a 3D object and access product information.
Three-dimensional image systems currently in use require eyewear or are
only viewable from certain angles, but 3D specialist Holografika plans to
develop "quasi-holographic" technology, which is a near perfect 3D image
that can be viewed by many people at multiple angles. "By combining these
technologies, it should be possible to use it just like children shaping
something from modeling clay--it will be very intuitive," says Holografika
chief technology officer Tamas Forgacs.
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US Government Readying Massive Cybersecurity Test
IDG News Service (02/12/07) McMillan, Robert
The next major online simulation of a cyberattack conducted by the U.S.
government will involve more international participants and a wider range
of companies from outside the information technology industry. Cyber Storm
2 is scheduled for March 2008. The exercise will give the Department of
Homeland Security a better idea of how well the public and private sector
would be able to respond to a large-scale attack, DHS assistant secretary
for cybersecurity and telecommunications Gregory Garcia said last week
during the RSA Conference in San Francisco. Cyber Storm 2 follows the
February 2006 Cyber Storm simulation, which involved about 30 corporations,
including Symantec, Microsoft, and VeriSign, and 115 organizations from the
United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, including
the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. National Security Agency.
Specific weaknesses in computer systems were not found during the first
test, according to security experts. "What they're trying to do is
highlight the inefficiencies in the process," says Marcus Sachs with
research group SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory.
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Software Patch Could Improve Car Engine Efficiency
New Scientist (02/08/07)
A University of Eindhoven researcher has teamed up with Ford to develop
software that improves the fuel efficiency of automobiles. "Just by adding
a piece of software and a simple cable, cars can save 2.6 percent of fuel
consumption," says Dutch scientist John Kessel. The software is designed
to dynamically switch the battery-charging dynamo off when it is
inefficient for the engine to power it, and back on when it is more
efficient for the engine to do so. Many hybrid vehicles use the strategy.
Switching the car engine on and off in a similar manner would save 5
percent to 6 percent of fuel consumption. Although the savings are only a
few percentage points, car manufacturers could embrace the results,
considering governments are focusing more on global warming, which is
impacted by greenhouse gas emissions. Any motor vehicle that has an engine
computer would be able to take advantage of the new software. Kessel still
has concerns about the extent to which car batteries would be degraded by
the software, which is not ready to be made available.
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Women Invent the Future
Waikato Times (NZ) (02/14/07) Schweer, Andrea
At the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing last October,
Waikato University computer science Ph.D. student Andrea Schweer witnessed
the drive to make women an equal part of the technology industry. She
noticed a strong pattern focusing on passing knowledge and experiences
along to others, as mentoring, computer science education, and career
building were all stressed. Many of the well-known speakers discussed
their own efforts in getting young girls interested in math and science.
Some of the biggest companies in the field seemed very eager to get to know
potential future employees at a big party held one evening. Schweer writes
that beyond the statistical inequality of women in technology lies the
danger that new technology is not being created with women in mind. She
writes that "as long as women are not equally involved in creating new
technology, it's very likely that a lot of this new technology will be
based on men's requirements and won't meet women's needs." Meeting so many
women who are involved in her field, Schweer noticed herself overcoming
stereotypes she had and beginning to appreciate the diversity of women in
IT.
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Wireless: GPS Software Promises Hope for the
Disabled
International Herald Tribune (02/12/07) O'Brien, Kevin J.
An application created by researchers are the University of Applied
Sciences in Hamburg, Germany, aims to provide the handicapped with detailed
maps that show them barrier-free ways to get from one place to another.
Barrier-free guides have been previously developed, but this project, known
as Trailblazer, allows users to map their own local routes and place them
in a central server at the university, or download those that others have
placed on the server. The success of the project therefore relies heavily
on user contribution. Past barrier-free guides use brochures or CD-ROMs,
but Trailblazer uses a mobile device equipped with a GPS receiver, motion
detector, mobile operating system, and Java Mobile software. Along with
using the motion detector to track their path and record obstacles, users
can take pictures of obstacles or hard-to-find pathways and upload them
onto the server. This data exchange can be done over cellular airwaves,
without the need for a GSM connection. The Trailblazer technology has been
proven, but the database still has very few routes in it. The team is
working on voice recognition capabilities for users that cannot operate the
mobile device.
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A Clean Slate for the Internet
Computerworld (02/12/07) Anthes, Gary
There is a growing sentiment in the IT community that incremental
improvements to the Internet are no longer sufficient as abuse and
complexity threaten its functionality. A school of thought known as
clean-slate research is emerging to promote the idea that the Internet is
failing and must be rebuilt from the ground up. The Internet was built for
users that were all connected by wires, "But if the user is moving around,
you end up with a whole lot of hooks and kludges to keep track of the
user," says Stanford computer scientist Nick McKeown. "There have been
various proposals for a mobile IP, and they are all awful. They barely
hold together now, but all the routing mechanisms will just break when
there are many more mobile devices." The National Science Foundation is
preparing a $300 million to $400 million clean slate, known as the Global
Environment for Networking Innovation (GENI), on which researchers could
test new ideas. GENI would be a huge test laboratory spanning the country,
including wired and wireless computers, routers, switches, management
software, and subnets various devices. After it is finished around 2010,
researchers could contract virtual "slices" of the GENI infrastructure.
This network will supposedly be built without any assumptions, so any idea
could be tried out. Along with GENI, NSF is funding a program called
Future Internet Network Design that will undertake many projects, such as
how to have manageability built into routing systems; other projects
address the social and economic aspects of security and service. Despite
the opportunities of a clean slate, researchers say the same problems could
still arise in different forms. "A lack of security, viruses, [and] spam
... are not issues that a brand-new structure is likely to solve all by
itself," says TCP/IP co-inventor Robert Kahn. However, Kahn says the clean
sate approach makes sense "if there really are good ideas--that's the heart
of it."
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Designing Low-Power Multiprocessor Chips
EE Times (02/12/07) P. 37; Fujimoto, Shinya
A heterogeneous multicore chip architecture is preferred by designers
seeking to combine highest power efficiency with optimal cost/performance,
but Shinya Fujimoto of LSI Logic notes that the design of low-power
multiprocessor chips requires caution and planning. "Designers must
architect chips to handle data transactions efficiently and to minimize the
stall cycles as multiple masters access the external memory," he writes.
Fujimoto says the approach of using architectures with a main processor
that integrates multiple identical cores on one chip is appropriate for
systems that need flexible computing capabilities such as PCs and new
videogame consoles, but not for products and applications that must execute
dedicated tasks with a minimum of power consumption and a maximum of
cost/performance. A heterogeneous multicore architecture integrates
multiple unique cores or processors, each dedicated to a specific task that
is performed more efficiently with fewer gates than a garden variety CPU
core. "For a system that is required to operate with very low power
consumption and at low cost, developing a chip with the smallest die size
that can operate at the slowest possible frequency becomes paramount,"
comments Fujimoto. The challenges of designing an efficient multicore
architecture include shrinking the bottleneck when accessing the external
memory; addressing the arbitration shortcomings generated by standard bus
protocols; and interfacing multiple bus masters with a minimal number of
gates. Fujimoto describes the most efficient course of action as utilizing
a heterogeneous multiprocessor system with specialized cores optimized to
efficiently perform specific chores. He concludes that achieving low power
consumption involves a blend of methods that include simplified system
design, the use of multiple processors, and an efficient memory
controller.
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Swimming on the Shoulders of Giants: Q&A With Horus Shu,
Pixel Magician From ITRI
DigiTimes.com (02/09/07) Sobolev, Vyacheslav
The Creativity Lab of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute is
developing Aqua, a functional underwater artificial intelligence (AI)
system capable of swimming and collision avoidance, and project leader
Horus Shu says the goal of the government-funded project is nothing less
than the creation of a new life form. The project began with just two
people: Shu, whose previous experience was in arts and design, and a
psychologist, neither of whom has a technology background. The robotic
fish can avoid collisions via ultrasound scanning technology that enables
the system to perceive objects in its path. Shu asserts that Aqua's diving
and swimming abilities can be greatly enhanced with additional funding.
The robot uses AVR-based 8-bit RISC microcontrollers from Amtel for
hardware, and MCS Electronics' BASCOM-AVR Basic compiler for software. The
second-generation Aqua robotic fish, christened POPO, is described by Shu
as an autonomous system, although he notes that the machine can be
augmented with communications capabilities via standard components. Among
Taiwan's advantages is the ability for Taiwanese researchers to rapidly
adopt new and exciting concepts from overseas researchers. "We can do
more, standing on the shoulders of giants," Shu boasts, arguing that Taiwan
has easier access to information than, say, China, thanks to its democratic
system of government. Shu has also started another project whose objective
is to create a machine that can comprehend a person's mood via a new kind
of sensor, and base its behavior on that understanding; the device will
resemble a dog or a cat, according to Shu.
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Addressing the Future Internet
CircleID (02/09/07) Huston, Geoff
When considering the Internet's progress compared with future
communications needs, the dual roles of IP addresses as locations and
identities must be examined, writes Geoff Huston, Telstra chief scientist
and executive director of the Internet Architecture Board. Huston attended
a joint workshop on Jan. 31, 2007, organized by the National Science
Foundation and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
to consider the social and economic factors shaping the future of the
Internet. In order for networks to maintain their integrity, addresses
must be unique, consistent, persistent, trustworthy, and robust, Huston
says. Several technologies have tried to reduce the value of IP addresses
as identities, and IPv6's use of more bits of address space still runs into
the same problems of overloaded semantics. In order to change IP addresses
for the better, perhaps the concept of an address should be split into
individual sectors with structural separation reflecting the dual role of
addresses, argues Huston. This approach could be effective for spaces that
are characterized by continued uniqueness and have identity values embedded
during creation. A main reason IPv6 has been slow to emerge is the
economic and public policy challenges that accompany technology changes.
Sufficient network equipment and capabilities of end systems to support
IPv6 and the scarcity of IPv4 addresses are not enough to push deployment
through without a practical business model, Huston writes. Future
technology needs must be considered in terms of the economics of the
industry. If technological advancements in the architectural model of the
Internet, sometimes referred to as the "new Internet," achieved marginal,
incremental progress, it is doubtful that they would have a strong impact
on the deployment of IPv6, but if this new Internet could make significant
gains, there would be concrete reasons to push for deployment.
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