Race Is on to Advance Software for Chips
New York Times (04/30/08) P. C9; Markoff, John
Three competing teams of computer researchers are working on new types of
software for use with mulitcore processors. Stanford University and six
computer and chip makers--Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia,
IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel--are creating the Pervasive Parallelism
Lab. Previously, Microsoft and Intel helped finance new labs at the
University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. The research efforts are in response to a growing
awareness that the software industry is not ready for the coming
availability of microprocessors with multiple cores on a single chip.
Computer and chip manufacturers are concerned that if software cannot keep
up with hardware improvements, consumers will not feel the need to upgrade
their systems. Current operating system software can work with the most
advanced server microprocessors and processors for video game machines,
which have up to eight cores. But software engineers say that most
applications are not designed for efficient use of the dozens or hundreds
of processors that will be available in future computers. The university
efforts will share some approaches, but will try different experiments,
programming languages, and hardware innovations. The efforts will also
rethink operating systems and compilers. The Berkeley researchers have
divided parallel computing problems into seven classes, with each class
being approached in different ways. The Stanford researchers say they are
looking for new ways to hide the complexity of parallel computing from
programmers, and will use virtual worlds and robotic vehicles to test their
efforts.
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Has U.S. Science Lost Its Competitive Edge?
ScienceNOW (04/29/08) Mervis, Jeffrey
Speakers at a symposium held by the U.S. National Academies warned that
the United States has not risen high enough above the gathering storm of
global competition in science. "Not much has happened here, but a lot has
happened elsewhere," says Georgia Institute of Technology President G.
Wayne Clough. Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine highlighted a
series of steps taken by other counties, including scholarships for Chinese
graduates to study abroad and a multibillion-dollar nanotechnology
initiative by the Indian government, to chastise U.S. policy makers for
what he believes is an inadequate response to international
competitiveness. "There will be winners and losers, and the losers are the
ones who insist on looking backwards," said former Intel CEO Craig Barrett.
"We continue to subsidize 19th century technology--like in the $290
billion farm bill--rather than the 21st century technologies that will
allow us to remain competitive." The symposium was held to assess the
progress made since the release in October 2005 of the report "Rising Above
the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter
Economic Future." The report outlined 20 recommendations for improving
U.S. science, including the top priority of training more and better
science and math teachers followed by sustained increases in federal
research funding for physical sciences. Although legislation that
incorporated many of the recommendations became law last summer, funding
for most of the initiatives does not exist.
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Academic Leaders in Robotics Research Announce Effort to
Create National Strategy for Robotics Growth
Carnegie Mellon News (04/24/08) Watzman, Anne; Spice, Byron; Grovenstein,
Lisa Ray
Carnegie Mellon University is one of 11 universities that is developing an
integrated national strategy for robotics research. The initiative, backed
by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), will establish a unified
robotics research agenda for federal agencies, industry, and universities.
The United States is the only nation involved in advanced robotics research
without such a roadmap. Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute director
Matthew T. Mason says the failure of the robotics community to previously
establish a single voice has resulted in inconsistent funding and missed
opportunities. The effort, launched last year, includes representatives
from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the
universities of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California-Berkeley, Southern
California, Utah, and Illinois. CCC principal investigator Henrik I.
Christensen, the chair of robotics at Georgia Tech, is leading the group in
the development of the roadmap with involvement from the industry. This
spring, the CCC will host a series of workshops and in the fall a National
Robotics Senior Leadership Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. "It
is essential that the United States begins to solidly outline a leadership
position in robotics," says Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon.
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Anita Borg Institute Encourages Students to Apply for
Scholarships for the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
Conference
Business Wire (04/28/08)
The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) is accepting
scholarships for the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
Conference now through June 15, 2008. The scholarships are made possible
by grants from ABI, the National Science Foundation, and sponsors, and
cover conference registration, lodging for three nights, and travel expense
reimbursement. Most of the scholarships will go to undergraduate and
graduate students, but junior faculty and members of non-governmental
organizations and nonprofits are also encouraged to apply. More than 900
applications were received last year, and 115 full scholarships and 23
partial scholarships were awarded, says ABI's Deanna Kosaraju. A
scholarship committee will conduct blind reviews of the applications, score
each one, and award scholarships to the candidates with the highest scores.
"We consider academic achievement, potential in the field, and need,"
Kosaraju says. "But we also look for thoughtful, creative, well-written
essays that stand out." ACM will co-present the Oct. 1-4, 2008, conference
at the Keystone Resort in Colorado, which will feature plenary sessions,
panels, poster sessions, and workshops. For more information about the
Grace Hopper Conference, visit
http://gracehopper.org/2008/
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Google Diving Into 3D Mapping of Oceans
CNet (04/30/08) Mills, Elinor
Google is planning the creation of a 3D oceanographic map, ostensibly
called Google Ocean, that should allow people to visualize underwater
topography, locate specific sites or attractions, and use pan and zoom
functions to navigate the environment. Oceanographers say such a tool
would be very helpful, given the lack of an oceanographic terrain or depth
model in Google Earth. Tim Haverland with NOAA's Fisheries Service notes
that "you can't get in a submarine and in essence fly through the water and
explore ocean canyons yet." The project could potentially encourage more
collaboration and advance oceanographic research. Sources familiar with
the matter say Google Ocean will include a basic layer that displays the
sea floor's depth and will function as a spatial framework for additional
information. Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor Dave Sandwell
theorizes that Scripps' Predicted Depth Map will be a source for at least
some of Google Ocean's basic sea floor data. He and others speculate that
Google will probably enhance the sea floor's clarity through the
utilization of high-resolution grids from oceanographic institutions
showing the depths of select regions of the seas. "Tiles" from multibeam
and predicted topography gathered by Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory also could be used as a supply of Google Ocean data,
although LDEO professor William B.F. Ryan says that "Google would have to
put the tiles on their servers because their public of millions would bring
the servers at Columbia University to their knees."
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Xerox Showcases Erasable Paper, Smart Documents
IDG News Service (04/29/08) Shah, Agam
The Palo Alto Research Center has developed paper that can be printed and
reprinted up to 100 times. PARC scientists have demonstrated the paper can
be reused after printed text automatically deletes itself from the paper
after 24 hours. PARC's Eric Shrader says the paper contains
specially-coded molecules that form the printed content when exposed to
ultraviolet light emitted from the printer. The molecule returns to its
original form within 24 hours to erase the content and can be instantly
reset by exposing the paper to heat. PARC scientists also demonstrated
various technologies that make documents more intelligent by providing a
deeper meaning to data. The technologies can cross-reference similar data
and images from the Internet and incorporate other sources such as email
messages and corporate networks. PARC's hybrid categorization technology,
for example, can provide more accurate answers to questions than a search
engine, says Xerox's Christopher Dance. Meanwhile, Xerox is developing
Factspotter, a data mining program for locating specific information among
images and words. Factspotter can categorize a document and provide
context to words and images based on information from the document and
similar images from the Web. Another PARC project is developing
intelligent redaction algorithms that automate the process of blacking out
certain parts of a document considered confidential.
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Less Geek, More Citizen: Computer Scientists Push Social
Relevance
University at Buffalo News (04/28/08) Goldbaum, Ellen
University at Buffalo computer science lecturer Michael F. Buckley is
leading a national effort to change how computer science is taught in
college. Buckley's students learn about Buddhism and read "The Tao of
Pooh," and he has them visit a center for children with disabilities to
design technologies that could improve the children's lives. Buckley says
his approach is "computing for a cause," and he believes such socially
relevant computing could save computer science from its current doldrums.
"Creating practical solutions to socially relevant problems focuses
incredible philanthropic and creative energy," Buckley says. "When
students work on these projects, they see themselves less as geeks and more
as citizens." Microsoft agrees, and has been funding Buckley's efforts
since 2004. Students at the UB Assistive Technology Lab have designed and
developed more than 20 socially valuable technologies, several of which
have been licensed to companies that are starting to introduce them to the
marketplace. With support from Microsoft, the Applied Science Group of
Buffalo, and colleagues at Rice University, Buckley developed a Web site to
make it easier for computer science departments at other colleges and
universities to start socially relevant computing programs. Eventually,
Buckley hopes to attract interest from high schools so students enter
college with some awareness of the societal value of computer science.
"Too often, undergraduate computer design courses lack social relevance,"
Buckley says. "They don't help students figure out how it's relevant to
society's technology needs."
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Cray Links With Intel in Super Deal
EE Times (04/28/08) Merritt, Rick
Cray has announced an agreement to work with Intel in the development of
supercomputers, processors, and interconnect technologies. The agreement
also could impact the supercomputer maker's deal to develop a commercial
supercomputer for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Cray will
license Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) technology, use Intel
processors in systems starting as early as 2011, and collaborate with Intel
on new processor technologies. Still, Cray says it will continue to use
processors from Advanced Micro Devices for the foreseeable future. Cray
and IBM divided an award of about $500 million 18 months ago to separately
develop commercial supercomputers for DARPA's High Productivity Computing
Systems program, and in its bid Cray said it would use AMD processors for
the proposed Cascade system. But now Cray wants to use Intel processors
with QPI that provides links at up to 6.4 GTransfers/second. The company
plans to work out a modified agreement with DARPA in the next few
months.
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One Breach Is One Too Many in Cyber Warfare
Monterey County Herald (CA) (04/29/08) Howe, Kevin
Students from the Naval Postgraduate School's computer science department,
along with students from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant
Marine service academies, and the Air Force Institute of Technology
recently tested their cyberspace defensive abilities against a team of
computer hackers from the National Security Agency. In its eighth year,
the annual cyberwar exercise is intended to give students a chance to "get
their hands dirty" while learning about vulnerabilities in computer
systems, says Naval Postgraduate School senior lecturer Scott Cote. The
students were given computers that had compromised programs that needed to
be found before they were exploited by the NSA hackers. The students were
limited to defensive strategies only, and were given a limited budget for
hardware and firewall software to add to the realism of the exercise. Only
one cyber attack from NSA got through the NPS firewall during the four-day
exercise, but Cote says it only takes one mistake for hackers to wreck an
entire system. The Air Force Institute of Technology was the top scorer,
Cote says, and the undergraduate teams did not do as well, but that is
because they do not have as much experience. However, he says students
come away with an understanding of how systems can be attacked, the amount
of damage that can be done, and how to prevent attacks.
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Artificial Intelligence Boosts Science From Mars
European Space Agency (04/29/08)
European Space Operations Centre scientists are using artificial
intelligence to significantly improve the European Space Agency's Mars
Express as it searches for signs of life on Mars. The spacecraft creates
huge amounts of scientific data that needs to be downloaded to Earth at the
right time in the right sequence or data packets could be permanently lost
when the limited on-board memory is overwritten by new data. The data
downloads have traditionally been managed by human-operated scheduling
software to create command sequences that are sent to Mars Express,
instructing it when to dump specific data packets. The downloading problem
involves several constantly changing factors, including spacecraft
orientation, ground station availability, space-ground communication
bandwidth, on-board storage availability, and how much data has been
collected by the spacecraft's seven instruments. Since 2005, AI
researchers at Italy's Institute for Cognitive Science and Technology and
mission planners and computer scientists at ESOC have been developing an
artificial intelligence technique to do the work. The new Mars Express AI
Tool (MEXAR2) has successfully passed initial testing and validation and is
now part of the Mars Express mission planning system. MEXAR2 works by
analyzing the variables that affect data downloading and intelligently
projecting which data packets might be lost due to memory conflicts. The
program then optimizes the data download schedule and generates the command
for the download. ESA's Fred Jansen says MEXAR2 has largely eliminated any
loss of stored data packets.
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Microsoft Funds Research for Computer Energy
Efficiency
CNet (04/28/08) LaMonica, Martin
The University of Tennessee, Stanford University, Harvard University, and
the University of Oklahoma have received a $500,000 grant from Microsoft
Research to pursue research on improving the energy efficiency of
computers. Tennessee will develop frameworks that address power and
performance improvements in virtualized data centers, and Stanford will
design a sensor network that gathers data and analyzes power consumption.
Harvard will create a "dynamic runtime environment" that ties power
consumption to computational load, and Oklahoma will develop a simulation
framework for studying "low-power microarchitectures for innovative
multicore systems." Microsoft awarded the grants through its Sustainable
Computing Program, which supports the development of hardware and software
that consumes less power.
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On the Battlefield, There Are No Surprises
University of Southern California (04/24/08) Mankin, Eric
University of Southern California researchers in the Viterbi School of
Engineering's Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are helping develop Deep
Green, a DARPA project that could enable future combat commanders to
anticipate enemy movements. Deep Green combines anticipatory planning with
adaptive execution to help battlefield commanders think ahead, identify
problem areas, and predict the likelihood of multiple outcomes. Deep Green
also is able to search for and recruit additional computing resources if
the situation requires more processing power. Deep Green has several
components, including interfaces for receiving guidance from and providing
options to commanders, battlefield simulations, and techniques for
searching the area for future options. Paul Cohen, who heads one of the
two ISI groups involved, says the name Deep Green refers to the IBM
chess-playing computer Deep Blue, as Deep Green will hopefully be able to
simulate and predict warfare the same way Deep Blue could compute the
outcome of a chess game. Cohen's contribution, a program called
Adversarial Continuous Time and Space Search (ACCTS), represents
collections of interacting combatants through fluents, a concept similar to
time-space operators called vectors. Fluents represent periods in which
activities of the units modeled do not conflict or interfere with each
other or complete their mission or arrive at their goal. When the units
do, a decision point is reached and new vectors have to be assigned,
creating new fluents.
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Superbots, Self-Reconfigurable Robots
Technology News Daily (04/28/08)
University of Southern California researchers continue to make
improvements to self-reconfigurable superbots. The researchers describe
superbots as versatile, self-healing, metamorphic machines that are
inexpensive to duplicate, and add that the direction of their research is
influenced by nature and biologically-inspired approaches. "We use a
distributed framework inspired by the biological concept of hormones," says
SuperBot team leader Dr. Wei-Men Shen. "In this digital hormone framework,
modules are viewed as autonomous agents or cells that are nameless, but
communicate and reconfigure with hormone-like messages to perform
locomotion, manipulation, self-reconfiguration, and self-healing." One
focus of the research is to improve the robots' prediction capabilities and
to develop algorithms that allow for "surprise-based learning." The Air
Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), which is funding the research,
believes the project could have some key implications for future
warfighters. NASA, which has a SuperBot program of its own, also plans to
make use of the results of the AFOSR-funded project.
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Integrating Embedded Systems
ICT Results (04/25/08)
Researchers at the European Union-funded DECOS project say they have
developed tools that will make embedded systems operate more smoothly. The
DECOS team aimed to reduce the number of integrated systems necessary to
complete certain tasks, and to ensure that integrated applications would
not interfere with each other. The team developed a dependable middleware
of high-level services based on several time-triggered core protocol
services. The protocols were developed to respond to safety-critical
applications requirements, with a special focus on real-time applications,
allowing for lower development costs and higher protocol efficiency and
predictability. The researchers created a prototype tool-chain and
test-bench, which includes validation and certification support, hardware
and software components, and basic software building blocks. Using the
package, the DECOS researchers applied the prototype to automotive,
avionics, and industrial control embedded systems. The automotive trial
tested adaptive lighting and door positioning. For industrial control, the
DECOS architecture helped suppress critical vibrations during
nano-imprinting. In aerospace, the DECOS team developed a demonstrator for
a shift in airplane flap control. Project deputy coordinator Erwin
Schoitsch says, "It's a long-term proposition, but we demonstrated that it
was feasible."
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Information Security Set for Explosive Growth
Campus Technology (04/24/08) Nagel, David
Compliance and public confidence issues will cause information security to
dramatically expand over the next few years, predicts a Frost & Sullivan
and (ISC)2 report. Worldwide, the number of information security
professionals is expected to increase from 1.66 million in 2007 to about
2.7 million by 2012. The report says that, as a percentage, most of the
growth will occur in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, though the
Americas will dominate in raw numbers, expanding from 685,700 professionals
in 2007 to more than 1.1 million in 2012. The 2008 (ISC)2 Information
Security Workforce Study polled 7,548 respondents from the public and
private sectors in the fall of 2007. The report says that forces driving
the expansion of information security include regulatory compliance
initiatives that make executives responsible, organizations' needs to
prevent damage to their reputation and to maintain public confidence, and
possible financial losses for failing to meet regulatory requirements.
Frost & Sullivan estimates that the potential cost of a data breach varies
between $50 to $200 per record lost, not including intangible losses that
result from damage to the organization's reputation. The top security
concerns include intrusion prevention, risk management solutions,
vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, and incident management.
To support these technology and security goals, 40 percent of respondents
said that they will personally acquire additional certifications within the
next 12 months.
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Critical Infrastructure Central to Cyber Threat
Federal Computer Week (04/24/08) Bain, Ben
Cybersecurity specialists at the GovSec, U.S. Law and Ready Conference and
Exposition in Washington, D.C., warned that the nation is increasingly
prone to cyberattacks that could have a disastrous effect on vital physical
infrastructure. Among those in attendance at the event was US-CCU director
Scott Borg, who said that scalable cyberattacks could destroy a large
number of electricity generators that would take years to replace. Such an
event would likely result in deaths as well as an economic calamity. "We
are talking about things much bigger than the Great Depression," Borg says.
"We are talking about consequences that are only exceeded by use of
nuclear weapons." Borg also voiced concern about the federal government's
efforts to consolidate access points to its systems--efforts he said could
make those systems more vulnerable to damage from attacks. He added that
cybersecurity and military efforts should begin to focus on resiliency,
creating robust systems, and protecting critical infrastructure instead of
focusing solely on perimeter defenses.
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Shape-Shifting Robots Take Form
New Scientist (04/26/08)No. 2653, P. 36; Hecht, Jeff
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is making a sizable
investment in reconfigurable robots, such as modular "mesoscale" machines
that can assemble themselves into any desired shape. Developers are
planning to demonstrate a system with a minimum of 1,000 modules over the
next two years. This deviates from traditional areas of investigation into
shape-shifting robotics systems such as nanoparticle fluids. A key
challenge to making reconfigurable robots feasible is giving the modular
devices an efficient way to align themselves relative to each other, and
University of Pennsylvania roboticist Mark Yim is working with modules
comprised of two metal pieces connected by a motorized hinge, and with
magnet-equipped plates on the side and bottom. Some modules are also
outfitted with a digital camera and processor to effect navigation. The
default configuration of shape-shifting robots is an important question,
but a "snake" design becomes impractical when thousands of modules are
involved, so researchers are testing an architecture where modules are
organized into a lattice-like 3D pattern. Cornell University roboticist
Hod Lipson says building more sophisticated structures via reconfigurable
robotics may require a probabilistic rather than deterministic approach,
involving large numbers of modules getting shaken up so that they fill a
desired volume. Special algorithms will be required to address the control
and communication needs of the many modules, while reducing the size of
each module even to mesoscale calls for an incredible feat of
engineering.
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The Eyes Have It ... Finally
CITRIS Newsletter (04/08) Slack, Gordy
Rural patients in India can be connected to eye doctors through cheap and
reliable broadband furnished by University of California, Berkeley
professor Eric Brewer's CITRIS-supported Technology and Infrastructure for
Emerging Regions (TIER) project, whose network includes 13 clinics and
three hospitals. UC Berkeley computer science student Sonesh Surana says
the clinics are facilitating videoconferences with ophthalmologists for
about 3,000 rural patients per month. The TIER group utilized Wi-Fi cards
based on the 802.11 networking standard, and extended and narrowed its
penetration while maintaining decent transmission speed by tweaking the
software and focusing the signal from routers with high-gain directional
antennas. There must be a direct line of sight between stations in order
to sustain a connection, but TIER member Rabin Patra says obstacles can be
circumvented by the addition of a relay on a tower. The system has the
speed and reliability to support videoconferencing as well as the
transmission of clear ophthalmologic images and other data, and Surana says
it can penetrate regions that lack cable, wires, and cell phone coverage.
One of the core appeals of the system is its inexpensiveness: The onetime
Wi-Fi gear costs just $800 per link, and operation is very cheap following
system setup. Since the system went operational three years ago, local
villagers have been able to fix and maintain the networks themselves, while
Surana is working on built-in mechanisms that can alert users on both ends
to incipient system breakdowns. He is also focusing on finding ways to
tell users whether a system crash is caused by a power failure or something
else that could be repaired.
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