U.S. Colleges Retool Programming Classes
Associated Press (05/26/07) Bluestein, Greg
Across the United States, schools and universities are redesigning their
computer science classes to attract more students to the field. More than
a dozen universities have created "media computation" programs, which teach
basic engineering using digital art, music, and the Internet with a New
Media approach. Other schools are using niche fields to attract students.
The California Institute of Technology, where computer science
undergraduate enrollment has dropped slightly, has compensated for the
decline by emphasizing bioengineering. Georgia Tech computing professor
Tucker Balch blames what he calls the "prime number" syndrome for the lack
of interest in computer science. Traditionally, an introductory challenge
for computer science students is to write a program that generates prime
numbers, Balch says, which is a good way to educate students, but probably
scared away a good number of potential students as well. Georgia Tech
students have been working with a miniature robot called Scribbler that
they learn to manipulate by programming it to maneuver an obstacle course,
draw, and create music. Georgia Tech has called the robot the "new face of
computing," and plans to expand the class from around 30 to more than 200
students next semester and export the class to two other Georgia schools.
Despite efforts to attract new students, the Computing Research Association
reports that the number of new computer science majors has consistently
declined, dropping from about 16,000 students in 2000 to only 7,798 in the
fall of 2006, and only 1 percent of incoming freshmen listed computer
science as a probable major, a 70 percent drop from 2000.
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After Computer Siege in Estonia, War Fears Turn to
Cyberspace
New York Times (05/29/07) P. A1; Lander, Mark; Markoff, John
The relocation of a Russian bronze statue of a World War II-era Soviet
soldier from a park to a military graveyard by Estonian officials triggered
what some are describing as the first war in cyberspace. A month-long
campaign of attacks against Estonia's electronic infrastructure flooded the
Web sites of the Parliament, president, and prime minister, several Web
sites of daily newspapers were brought down, and the nation's largest bank,
Hansabank, was forced to shut down its online banking network. Estonian
officials claim an Internet address belonging to an official in the Russian
president's administration was involved in the attack, and attack plans
were posted on the Internet in Russian-language forums and chat groups.
Russia denies any involvement in the attacks, but has not offered to help
track down the people Estonia believes may be involved, saying Estonia
needs to be careful when making accusations. Estonia is one of the most
Internet-dependent countries in the world, as its citizens rely on the
Internet to vote, file taxes, and pay for parking and shopping with their
cell phones. "It turned out to be a national security situation," says
Estonia's minister of defense Jaak Aaviksoo. "It can effectively be
compared to when your ports are shut to sea." Linnar Viik, a computer
science professor and leader in Estonia's high-tech industry, says the
attacks should serve as a learning experience. Scientists and researchers,
convened by the National Academy of sciences, recently heard testimony from
military strategy experts that indicated both China and Russia have
offensive information-warfare programs, and the United States is also
believed to have developed a cyberwarfare effort.
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Intel: Software Needs to Heed Moore's Law
CNet (05/25/07) Fried, Ina
While semiconductor technology continues to advance in accordance with
Moore's Law, software capabilities are lagging behind. "The software has
to also start following Moore's law," says Intel fellow Shekhar Borkar.
"Software has to double the amount of parallelism that it can support every
two years." Developing software to keep up with advancing chip technology
is a major challenge for the industry, although server-based applications
are currently accommodating multiple, simultaneous workloads. Eventually,
programs will be unable to incorporate additional parallelism without
reaching some inherently serial task, according to Amdahl's Law. Borkar
says there are other options, as applications can handle multiple tasks and
systems can run multiple applications. Programs and systems could also
predict which programs a user will want and assign processor performance
accordingly. No matter how the industry responds, it cannot continue along
its current path. Microsoft recently issued a similar warning. "We do now
face the challenge of figuring out how to move, I'll say, the whole
programming ecosystem of personal computing up to a new level where they
can reliably construct large-scale applications that are distributed,
highly concurrent, and able to utilize all this computing power," says
Microsoft chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie. Microsoft's Ty
Carlson says the next version of Windows will have to be "fundamentally
different" to utilize the number of processing cores that will be standard
on PCs, because while Vista is designed to handle multiple threads it
cannot utilize the 16 or more chips computers will soon have, and that
application software is even farther behind.
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Table Is Set for Computing
USA Today (05/30/07) P. 1B; Baig, Edward C.
Microsoft's research into transforming ordinary tables and desktops into
translucent, interactive computer systems has resulted in Microsoft
Surface, a tabletop that can recognize cell phones, digital cameras,
special ID-coded digital dominoes, and other physical objects. The Surface
can also respond to human touch, allowing kids to finger paint and adults
to surf the Web without a keyboard or mouse using just simple touch
gestures on the screen. At restaurants, the Surface could be used to place
orders and play digital board games, and at home the Surface could become a
universal remote control. The first generation of the Surface, introduced
at this week's All Things Digital executive conference, is a 30-inch
acrylic horizontal display that sits on top of a table about two-feet high.
Surface uses cameras with infrared filters to sense objects, touch, and
gestures and runs on custom software built around Windows Vista.
Projectors are used to create the display on the surface. The public will
most likely get their first experiences with the Surface at restaurants,
hotels, casinos, and stores in November. Currently, the cost for each
installation is roughly $5,000 to $10,000, but Microsoft has long-term
designs ready for schools and homes in about three to five years. "We're
starting at the high end, sort of like you'd think about big flat-screen
displays or even the initial personal computer," says Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates. "But there are ways that the hardware cost of this will come
down very dramatically."
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Prize-Winning Piece of Computer Puzzle Holds
Promise
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (05/30/07) Templeton, David
Carnegie Mellon University professor of computer science Steven Rudich and
Alexander A. Razborov, a mathematician and computational theorist at the
Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow, have been awarded ACM's 2007
Godel Prize for their work on the P vs. NP question, one of seven
millennium problems for which the Clay Mathematics Institute is offering $1
million to the solver. While Rudich and Razborov did not solve the P vs.
NP problem, by reinterpreting and collaborating on each other's work, the
two were able to help explain the depth and difficulty of the question, and
prove that previous preliminary steps toward solving the problem are
invalid. The P vs. NP question addresses the difference between the
ability to recognize creative accomplishments and the ability to produce
creative work. Any formula, equation, or process of algorithms that would
allow computers to recognize a problem, or creative accomplishment, and
produce a comparable piece of work or solution would be one of the most
significant achievements in computer science and solve the P vs. NP
problem. Proving that P equals NP, or that recognition could result in
creation, would create unlimited options in computer creativity, while
proving that P does not equal NP would provide a perfect method of
cryptography. Either solution would hold significant value to computer
science. While, due to Rudich's research, most computer scientists and
mathematicians are starting to believe that proving P equals NP will never
be accomplished, Rudich remains optimistic. "I'm a big believer in human
creativity," Rudich says. "I am optimistic that someone--maybe it won't be
me--will solve this." Rudich's work did provide a unified theory in
breaking computer cryptography, providing a greater understanding of
computer security.
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Computer Scientists Set on Winning the Computer Virus
'Cold War'
University of Wisconsin-Madison (05/24/07)
Computer scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University
of California-Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University have developed the
Static Analyzer for Executables (SAFE), software that targets malware based
on its behavior. SAFE examines the behavior of a program before running it
and compares the behavior to a list of known malware behaviors, such as
reading an address book and sending emails. Any program that performs a
suspicious behavior is considered malware. Malware programmers can slip by
traditional detection programs by creating a unique signature, requiring
traditional malware detection programs to download updates at least every
week. By examining the behavior rather than the signature, SAFE can detect
malware even if it has a unique signature and only requires updates when a
virus appears that exhibits a new behavior, creating a proactive defense
rather than reactive. University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor
of computer science Somesh Jha calls SAFE "the next generation in malware
detection." Jha and University of Wisconsin graduate student Mihai
Christodorescu started working on SAFE when they tested different
variations of four viruses on Norton and McAfee antivirus software. Norton
and McAfee were only able to catch the original variation of each virus.
SAFE caught all variations. SAFE will be particularly effective against a
new type of malware that is designed to change every time it gets sent to
another computer, which can create infinite variations of itself.
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How 'Hot' Is Your Code?
HPC Wire (05/25/07)
Virginia Tech computer science researchers have developed Tempest
(temperature estimator), a new software tool for determining how much heat
software produces. Tempest can create a thermal profile of an application
and correlate the temperature measured from thermal sensors in the system
to source code. "Our hope is that by releasing Tempest to the greater
community, other researchers and experimentalists will apply the thermal
microscope to their own systems and applications," says Virginia Tech
computer science researcher Kirk W. Cameron, director of the SCAPE
Laboratory. In studying the thermal properties of software, the Virginia
Tech researchers learned that code behavior has a considerable impact on
the temperature of devices in a system and can affect the same systems
differently. The proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on
Parallel Processing, scheduled for September, has accepted the research for
publishing.
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Should Robots Be Built to Look More Like Us?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (05/29/07) Hand, Eric
While the technology used in and capabilities of robots continues to
advance, the robotics industry remains divided on whether robots should be
given as many life-like features as possible or should they remain
fundamentally nonhuman. Washington University computer scientist William
Smart believes that robots are there to fulfill a purpose, not to stimulate
emotions or interact. "I don't want to put fuzzy heads on my robots,"
Smart says. "It's a tool. You don't have an emotional relationship with a
robot." It is undeniable, however, that robots continue to play an
increasingly social role in society, particularly in Japan where robots are
used to collect garbage, bathe the elderly, and watch children. Even
Smart's own robot, Lewis, which looks like a red trash can, is designed to
linger on the edges of social gatherings and take pictures. The United
States generally sides with Smart's philosophy, as the most successful
robots tend to be machine-like and utilitarian. Nevertheless, life-like
robots are being developed. The Actroid Repliees are a series of life-like
robots being developed in Japan that are capable of responding to touch and
holding conversations. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher
Cynthia Breazeal is intentionally incorporating human features into robots
to take advantage of people's inbred responses. For example, the MIT robot
Kismet is capable of mimicking basic facial expressions to convey anger,
surprise, and disappointment, encouraging people to personify the robot.
Researchers also say that anthropomorphized robots could be useful in
diagnosing children with disabilities such as autism.
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Noise Keeps Spooks Out of the Loop
New Scientist (05/23/07) Palmer, Jason D.
Texas A&M computer engineering professor Laszlo Kish has developed a
secure communication system that he says is more secure, more accurate, and
can be used over greater distances than quantum cryptography keys. Kish's
cipher device uses a property called thermal noise, which is generated by
the natural agitation of electrons within a conductor whenever any amount
of voltage is passed through it, but varies depending on the resistance of
the conductors. The system can be used to send information, or an
encryption key, along any wire, including telephone lines and network cable
between two users. Each user has a pair of conductors, one produces high
resistance, the other low. When both users select the same type of
resistor, either a high amount of noise or a low amount of noise will be
produced, signaling both to ignore any communication. When the both chose
a different type, an intermediate level of thermal noise is produced,
allowing messages to be sent. Kish's cipher successfully sent a secure
message down a wire 2,000 kilometers long, much farther than the best
quantum key distribution (QKD) devices that have been tried so far. Tests
show that a signal sent using Kish's device was received with 99.98 percent
accuracy, and only 0.19 percent of bits are vulnerable to eavesdropping.
Kish's system is also more durable and less expensive, as dust, heat, and
vibration can damage QKD devices.
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Architects Experience Virtual Reality
Minnesota Daily (05/30/07) Gulbrandson, Kelly
Two University of Minnesota departments, the department of architecture
and the department of computer science and engineering, started working
together five years ago on the Immersive Design Research Program in an
effort to design and create virtual renderings of buildings. Associate
professor of architecture Marc Swackhamer says the benefits of the
collaborative effort include allowing students to see the space in a
one-to-one ratio, instead of looking at a model of the design, and enabling
students to explore the virtual space and freely walk around the area as if
in the actual building. The building can also be explored as if it were
built at the site, and details such as color can instantly be changed.
Graduate student Brain Ries says the main purpose of the lab is
architecture design, but it is also used to test perception of reality and
psychological reactions to being in a virtual environment. Users can walk
around the lab wearing a virtual reality helmet that uses a computer to
project the building design onto the screen so it can be seen in large
scale and freely explored. Associate professor of computer science Gary
Meyer says that while the research has a promising future, there are
currently several limitations. One is finding a balance between providing
enough detail but keeping the program running smoothly. The program works
with polygons, but if the program becomes too detailed, it will cause the
simulation to lose fluidity, ruining the sense of reality. Meyer says he
wants to bring in local architecture firms and construction companies to
provide real-world examples of project and program simulations and identify
any possible problems, such as working with difficult material.
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Researcher: RSA 1024-Bit Encryption Not Enough
IDG News Service (05/23/07) Kirk, Jeremy
A distributed computing project has enabled researchers to factor a
307-digit number into two prime numbers in 11 months. The development,
which is comparable in difficulty to cracking a 700-bit RSA encryption key,
suggests that encryption for protecting banking and e-commerce transactions
will need to be improved within five years, according to Arjen Lenstra, a
cryptology expert at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) in
Switzerland. The ability to determine the two prime numbers used to create
a public key means it would be possible to calculate the private key and
decrypt messages. The researchers created special mathematical formulas to
calculate the prime numbers as part of a project that used 300 to 400
off-the-shelf laptop and desktop computers at EPFL, the University of Bonn,
and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in Japan. The 1024-bit RSA encryption
is largely used for e-commerce, and it will likely take another five to 10
years to calculate prime number components of current RSA 1024-bit public
keys, Lenstra says.
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Man's Best Friend that Drives You Barking Mad
Edinburgh Evening News (05/24/07) Rose, Gareth
Napier University computer scientists are working on creating an
electronic companion that could take multiple forms such as a robotic dog,
intelligent teddy bear, or a talking handbag. The key aspect to each is an
internal memory bank containing knowledge about the background,
personality, and likes and dislikes of its owner. Napier University's
chairman of human-computer systems, professor David Benyon, says some of
the potential applications of a computer companion include storing
photographs and automatically relating to similar photos and events,
monitoring fitness and diet and automatically making exercise of meal
suggestions, and monitoring children's television experiences, commenting
on television programs and habits. Benyon says that portable computer
companions may be used to remind children which school bus to get on and
what they should be doing after school. A satellite navigation companion
might remind users of the last time they were at a location and what they
did, such as which restaurant they liked. The first versions will be
developed before the end of 2007, but with the available long-term funding,
researchers believe that they have only begun to tap the project's
potential. "We expect everyone to have one of these in 2012, it will be a
must-have on Christmas lists," Benyon says.
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Move to Create Less Clumsy Robots
BBC News (05/29/07)
Researchers at the Department of Architecture and Computing Technology at
the University of Granada hope to implant an artificial cerebellum into a
robot designed by the German Aerospace Center in the next two years. The
researchers have been focused on designing microchips that incorporate a
full neuronal system, emulating the way the cerebellum interacts with the
human nervous system, in a effort to make robots more nimble and subtle in
their movements. "Although robots are increasingly more important to our
society and have more advanced technology, they cannot yet do certain tasks
like those carried out by mammals," says University of Granada researcher
and professor Eduardo Ros Vidal. "We have been talking about humanoids for
years but we do not yet see them on the street or use the unlimited
possibilities they offer us." The research is a part of a greater European
project called Sensopac that unites electronic engineers, physicists, and
neuroscientists from numerous universities and groups such as the German
Aerospace Center. The next objective in the Sensopac project is to develop
artificial skin for robots to make them look more human like and have
information-sensitivity like human skin. Another European research
project, called Feelix Growing, is developing robots that are capable of
learning from humans and responding socially and emotionally.
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Cornell Lawyers and Computer Experts Team Up to Make
Government Rule-Making Accessible in Internet Age
Cornell News (05/16/07) Steele, Bill
Scientists and legal experts at Cornell University are helping the federal
government in its effort to improve the request for public comment process,
which recently was moved to the Internet. The Web has made it easier for
people to participate in the government rule-making process, but regulators
now need help when issues are generating more than 2 million comments,
considering they must review every submission and respond to key points.
As part of the Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative (CeRI), Claire Cardie, a
professor of computing and information science, is developing software to
sift and categorize comments, and to learn the rules of classification
employed by agency staff that will allow a computer to eventually take
over. Cardie, a specialist in natural language processing, says that while
people can classify phrases and sentences in about 40 to 50 comments a day,
the computer programs will be able to perform the task in seconds. Geri
Gay, a professor of communication who heads the Human Computer Interaction
Laboratory, is also developing a Web interface to assist people in writing
useful comments. "One way to make the job easier for agencies is to make
comments better," says Cynthia Farina, a professor of law. Farina also
envisions Cardie developing an application that interacts with people by
popping up to compliment them on a well-made point and to ask if they also
have any evidence to contribute. CeRI is funded by a three-year, $750,000
grant from the National Science Foundation.
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Robotic Researchers Learn From Ants
Electronics Weekly (UK) (05/24/07) Bush, Steve
Britain's EPSRC is investing half a million pounds (nearly $1 million)
over the next three years in an effort to use the self-organization of ants
and other bio-systems as the basis for developing emergent behavior in
robots. The project calls for biologists at the University of the West of
England to study how ants operate without central organization, while
social scientists at the University of Hull delve into self-organization in
human social systems within organizations and countries. Physicists at
Imperial College will study self-organizing behavior mathematically and
develop computer models, and researchers at the University of Wales,
Newport, will develop rules and algorithms for multi-robot systems. Wales'
Dr. Torbjorn Dahl notes that the researchers are not taking a "minimal
intelligence approach" to mimicking ant behavior, adding that they want to
determine how much intelligence is needed for emergent behavior, and not to
build ants. "The EPSRC has been pushing for an interdisciplinary effort to
see if there are general rules for emergent behavior," says Dahl. "And
results are a lot more convincing if they can operate a robot in the real
world."
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A Linux Computer in Every Garage?
LinuxDevices.com (05/22/07)
The Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Consortium (VII-C), a U.S.
government and industry coalition, plans to develop a prototype design for
a Linux-based wireless computer system for use in every car and along every
roadside in the United States. The VII-C is funded by the U.S. Department
of Transportation, the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials, 10 state Departments of Transportation, and seven
vehicle manufactures involved in the DOT's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative.
According to the VII-C, 21,000 of the 43,000 traffic fatalities in 2003
were caused by vehicles leaving the road or entering intersections when
they should not. The VII-C wants to reduce the number of these accidents
by creating a massive network that connects every car to each other and to
the roadside. Such a system is expected to be deployed between 2015 and
2017. Meanwhile, the VII-C has created prototype hardware that will be
field-tested. The on-board equipment is based on rugged Celeron-powered
PC/104 form-factor single-board computers. The on-board communication
system is expected to make driving safer by signaling the approach of
emergency vehicles, alerting drivers if any nearby cars activate anti-lock
braking, informing car owners of recalls, and monitoring weather
patterns.
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Eyeing Unnoticed Security Researchers
SearchSecurity.com (05/23/07) Fisher, Dennis
SearchSecurity.com executive editor Dennis Fisher cites six individuals
whose contributions to the security domain is worth noting. Former @stake
and Matasano Security researcher Dino Dai Zovi is described by Veracode CTO
Chris Wysopal as "one of the top vulnerability researchers out there based
on his skill." Zovi's achievements include the Vitriol virtual machine
rootkit, which can undermine the Mac OS kernel, and the KARMA wireless
client security assessment tool, which can allow users to view the wireless
networks any client in range is searching for. Nate Lawson has a
reputation among DVD hackers for co-designing Blue-Ray discs' copy
protection scheme, and he also designed the first commercial IDS
(RealSecure) and Decru's fibre channel encryption appliance; a major focus
of Lawson's work is enhancing the security of hardware devices and embedded
software. Dave Dittrich, a researcher at the University of Washington's
Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, is credited with having
possibly more expertise on botnets and the development of distributed
attacks than anyone else in the industry, and he is currently engaged in
advanced research and forensics work on peer-to-peer malware and the
command-and-control systems of immense botnets. UC Berkeley professor Vern
Paxson is involved in a National Science Foundation-funded project to
furnish an early warning system for new worm activity via the monitoring of
unallocated IP address space, and he is also involved with DETER, a joint
project between multiple universities and SRI International to explore worm
behavior and defenses. Stealth malware such as virtual rootkits is
Invisible Things Lab founder Joanna Rutkowska's specialty, and her work on
methods for subverting hardware-based RAM acquisition drew many admirers at
this year's Black Hat conference. SPI Dynamics research and development
engineer Billy Hoffman rounds out Fisher's list for innovations such as
Jitko, a pure JavaScript tool that can take advantage of weaknesses in
cross-site scripting and construct a large-scale botnet that can be used
for anything.
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Open-Source Software and Its Role in Space
Exploration
CIO (05/22/07) Byrne, D.J.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) software developer D.J. Byrne says
free/open source software (FOSS) and NASA make great bedfellows because
both are cutting-edge-oriented communities that support a "cycle of
knowledge" through the dissemination of "free floating information." Byrne
reports that FOSS is pervasively embedded in the real-time operating
systems, file systems, and math libraries of robotic interplanetary
explorers, while space software is devised via FOSS methods and FOSS
develops next-generation state-of-the-art technology such as the Couple
Layered Architecture for Robotic Autonomy. Byrne explains that FOSS speeds
up development cycles so that missions are ready by their launch windows,
while the FOSS community is an important (and cheap) resource to review
flight software, uncover and address bugs prior to launch, support system
interoperability and collaboration, ensure portability, avoid paperwork and
other bureaucratic hurdles through open files, mitigate future risk,
implement security, and reduce total cost of ownership by saving time and
labor. Byrne says it is important to comply with very rigorous software
quality-assurance and dissemination needs, and notes that NASA's Software
Policy mandates, among other things, that software providers have proven
organizational skills and experience to deliver quality software in a
timely, budget-conscious, and technically acceptable manner; that they
create a software management plan that encompasses the whole of the
program/project lifecycle; and that they issue software for commercial,
educational, and governmental purposes in compliance with External Release
of NASA Software guidelines, and in accordance with law and applicable
agreements.
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Robots to the Rescue
Chronicle of Higher Education (06/01/07) Vol. 53, No. 39, P. A29;
Fischman, Josh
Enrollment of students in undergraduate computer-science
programs--especially female students--has plummeted in the United States,
and universities are starting to agree that one reason for this drop-off is
the fact that for many students, computer science courses are tedious and
uninteresting. To rekindle enthusiasm, particularly among girls,
institutions are incorporating robotics into their curriculum in an attempt
to show students that not only can the acquisition of knowledge be a fun
process, but that the skills they develop can be channeled into fascinating
and worthwhile real-world applications. Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr College
undertook a joint venture this past semester in which students programmed
small "Scribbler" robots. "The idea is to convey key components of
computing, like control over the machine," notes Georgia Tech College of
Computing professor Tucker Balch. "It's very practical, and students see
immediate results." The discomfort many girls feel about learning
programming languages, given their unfamiliarity with the subject, can be
eased with more than just robots. For instance, Carnegie Mellon University
substantially increased female computer science enrollments partly by
ejecting the requirement that students already have programming experience
and by creating a mentorship program for women.
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