Gemplus information security lab director David Naccache and Dublin City University computer science graduate student Claire Whelan developed a software program that identified words that were blacked-out in several confidential documents using computer-based techniques. The Eurocrypt software analyzed an April Defense Department memorandum to the White House and determined that the blacked-out word in the sentence "An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an xxxxxxxx service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike" was most likely "Egyptian." One program repositioned the document to correct a slight misalignment due to its placement on a copying machine, and a second program extrapolated that it was written in the Arial font; Naccache and Whelan estimated the number of blacked-out pixels and then employed a computer to determine the pixel length of words in the dictionary when rendered in Arial. The program disregarded all words that were not within three pixels of the assumed length of the blacked-out word, and applied semantic rules to whittle down the number of possible words from 1,530 to seven. "Egyptian" was selected as the most likely candidate, based on the context of the document. After demonstrating Eurocrypt at a security conference in Switzerland last week, Naccache said the deciphering of blacked-out words could be complicated with the employment of optical character recognition technology to rescan documents and change fonts. Freedom of Information Act experts expressed concern that the government might censor documents to an even greater degree, using Naccache and Whelan's technique as an excuse.
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Intel is researching proactive computing, in which technology is employed to solve common societal problems by collecting, filtering, and transmitting data with a minimum of human intervention. An example of Intel's proactive computing effort is IrisNet, a joint Intel/Carnegie Mellon University sensor network that supplies up-to-date information on the outside world; one IrisNet application involves cameras that monitor the Oregon coast for unusual things, such as unexpected fishing fleets and whales, and relay these sightings to remote PCs. IrisNet researcher Phillip Gibbons says the sensors could be positioned in parking lots to monitor available spaces, so that drivers with cell phones or Internet-enabled vehicles could find them via a Web site. He says that researchers are devising ways for the sensor cameras to integrate their specific images into a panorama of the parking lot as well. "We are doing for live data what Google does for content," declares Gibbons. Another Intel proactive computing project is PlanetLab, a global network for trying out distributed applications that encompasses more than 350 servers. Intel researcher Paul Brett notes that one PlanetLab application, Netbait, detects sudden surges of unusual Internet traffic on a worldwide scale, which could be useful in spotting worm outbreaks earlier. Other Intel initiatives include the GrooveBox, in which a cell phone or camera can interact with PCs or public kiosks calibrated to particular Web sites by homing in on optical symbols embedded in Web pages; the Personal Server, a device that can be used, for example, to play music on a car's speakers, or beam PowerPoint slides onto a flat-panel display in a conference room; and Computational Nanovision, an application that employs probability theory to ascertain how semiconductor testing procedures can be streamlined without reducing output quality.
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Penn State University researchers George Kesidis and Ihab Hamadeh have created an "e-postmark" that could be tagged to all Web-delivered packets, adding an extra layer of security against hackers, spammers, and digital pirates. Spoofed email and data packet addresses, though outlawed in the United States, are still an effective measure for masking cybercrimes, and Kesidis and Hamadeh are calling for border routers to affix an ID number to each message or data packet. "Since every packet is forwarded onto the Internet and marked by only one trustworthy border router, wrongdoers would not be able to insert false marks on their packets to undermine trace-back," Hamadeh notes. Barbara Hale of PSU says the virtual postmarks are created from the border router's 32-bit IP addresses and reside in antiquated fields in the IP packet headers; once the criminal packets are properly identified, offended parties can advise ISPs to halt further mailings if they wish to avoid criminal or civil liability. The researchers suggest that IP addresses less than 32 bits long can be broken up into overlapping segments that can be pieced together by cybersecurity monitors. Kesidis, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, says the e-postmark scheme's slow implementation is due to ISPs and router vendors waiting to see if Microsoft fulfills its promise to resolve the spam problem by 2006. "I think it's the height of arrogance for Bill Gates to get up there and tell the world, 'Wait until 2006 when we come up with the solution,'" Kesidis maintains. Hale says the e-postmark scheme generated less than one false positive for every 1,000 attacking addresses in simulated denial of service attacks, and notes that loss of privacy is negligible.
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Preliminary findings of a Georgia Institute of Technology study presented at the Association of Computing Machinery's CHI 2004 conference indicate that older adults are willing to accept monitoring to a certain degree in order to extend their independence rather than move into assisted-living quarters. The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, is part of the Aware Home initiative at Georgia Tech's Broadband Institute Residential Laboratory. The research involved 44 adults between the ages of 65 and 75 touring the lab, viewing assistive technologies developed at the Georgia Tech College of Computing, and relaying the technologies' good points and bad points. Technologies featured at the lab included Cook's Collage, a setup in which unobtrusive cameras monitor meal preparation and display the cook's six most recent actions on a flat-panel screen so chefs can remember their past actions; FaceBot, an camera/microphone/speaker combination that allows residents to vocally command other home technologies; and Digital Family Portrait, a display monitor in the caregiver's home that shows static images of the elderly relative and a frame that tracks activity levels and other information via a set of icons. "Understanding how older adults evaluate technology provides insights into their judgments and decision-making processes, which will help us design tools they will actually use," notes Georgia Tech psychology professor Wendy Rogers. Study participants were primarily interested in technologies they perceived as being beneficial to them, and necessary to their lives rather than luxury items. Participants were alternately comforted or unsettled by FaceBot, which is designed to resemble a human face; one individual thought the device could be useful as a tool for greeting visitors. Digital Family Portrait may be criticized as an infringement of privacy, but Rogers reports that some older participants felt more secure with the idea of being monitored.
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Many American corporate and political leaders contend that focusing more resources and policy into research and development is essential if the United States is to remain at the forefront of technological innovation, especially in the face of offshore outsourcing and increased competition from Asian and European technology efforts. A recent report from the American Electronics Association calls for an increase in university-based physical sciences R&D, noting that revolutionary technologies such as PCs, supercomputers, the Internet, and integrated circuits owe much of their existence to federal R&D. Meanwhile, the United States is experiencing a declining growth rate in its tech workforce, which could translate into higher wage increases. Both supporters and critics of outsourcing concur that continued U.S. tech innovation cannot be sustained without devoting more attention to the American educational system. James Foley of the Georgia Institute of Technology stresses the need for U.S.-based graduate students to gain international experience so they can become adept at managing cultural differences. Anticipating next-generation disruptive technologies is no easy task, but several areas hold promise and are attracting academic and industrial interest. Federal funding for R&D in nanotechnology has risen by a factor of six over the past seven years, and President Bush has authorized a four-year, $3.7 billion federal nanotech R&D budget. Biotechnology is another hot field: Frost & Sullivan estimates that the 20 leading pharmaceutical companies' collective biotech R&D budget will increase from $57 billion in 2002 to over $73 billion by 2006. Both government and industry are pursuing R&D into "smart" materials that are rugged and can serve as lightweight power sources, and whose future applications could include robotics, building materials, and medical treatments.
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To help realize its vision of battlefield operations carried out by autonomous vehicles, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored the Grand Challenge, an offroad race between unmanned vehicles developed by various teams, with the winning team receiving $1 million if their vehicle was the first to traverse over 225 miles in 10 hours. None of the 15 vehicles that raced on March 13 completed the course (the must successful entrant traveled 7.4 miles), but DARPA will support a second race in 2005, this time for a $2 million prize. The chief causes of the failures in the first Grand Challenge included the difficulty of traveling at an average speed of 25 mph over rough terrain, and problems with navigation and detecting and circumventing obstacles. Many teams came to the conclusion that the best solution to the first problem is using a rugged truck or all-terrain vehicle, while solving the second problem will be a tougher challenge, as the causes of the navigation and obstacle avoidance problems were as varied as the sensing and navigation systems the vehicles employed. "The Grand Challenge is a cerebral race that requires as much subtlety and planning about speed as it requires deliberation about route," notes William Whittaker, whose Carnegie-Mellon team's entry traveled the furthest on March 13. SciAutonics II's Paul Gunthner reports that his team will enter two vehicles in the next Grand Challenge, each of which will be developed at a cost of $3.6 million; the vehicles should be able to travel at a maximum speed of 60 mph with improvements in their laser and pinhole cameras, as well as their 3D stereoscopic vision systems. Team Caltech's David van Gogh explains that his team's vehicle failed because it lacked a road-following algorithm, which will be incorporated into their 2005 entry along with a better speed control algorithm.
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The 3D Consortium (3DC), whose members include Sharp, Sanyo Electric, Samsung Electronics, Sony, and Toshiba, was created to promote next-generation 3D display technologies. Sharp has developed a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that can be switched between 2D and 3D: The 3D display employs a set of vertical parallel lines, called a parallax barrier, that are positioned in a way that each eye only sees 50 percent of the pixels, which obviates the need for special glasses. Two NTT DoCoMo cell phones incorporate Sharp's dual-mode display, as do Sharp's PC-RD3D and NEC's Lavie S LS900/8E. ARS analyst Ashley Domis says the technology's consumer applications will be limited until it can support stable images on large screens that can be used in households. NTT Data is working on the conversion of a large amount of mapping data of Japan into 3D imagery, while NEC is attempting to draw consumers with a 3D version of the Final Fantasy video game. Progress is being made to disseminate 3D entertainment content in Japan: Mobile Broadcasting (MBCO) plans to launch a satellite broadcasting service that will transmit video to handheld devices, and the company reports that Sharp is mulling over the creation of a 3D display terminal as well as 3D programming. Researchers such as MIT Media Laboratory's Steven Smith are devising 3D displays that support full image resolution. Full resolution autostereoscopic displays, for instance, would employ a fast processor to refresh the LCD about two times as fast as current screens, according to Smith; this would allow users to change their physical position yet still perceive the image in three dimensions without any loss of resolution. Smith says the processing power already exists to bring about this breakthrough.
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A researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle is developing new search engine technology that could, for example, produce a list of the 50 best-selling blues guitarists, even though the information does not exist on a single Web page. Oren Etzioni is developing the KnowItAll search engine that trawls the Web for data then collates it to produce a list at a single click of a mouse. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Google are sold on the search engine technology, and have decided to fund Etzioni's work. Etzioni wants KnowItAll to eventually answer a query such as "list all British Scientists born before 1900," but says a module for understanding "natural language" questions still needs to be developed. At this stage, KnowItAll can respond to a phrase such as "list scientists" by searching Web sites for sentences with the noun "scientist," followed by certain words and phrases such as "including" and "such as," then feeding the data into its 12 search engines and extracting the words that are not the scientists' names. KnowItAll also produces a percentage of probability that each entry in its list is actually the name of a scientist based on how often it found the names on Web sites.
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The computer scientist community continues to struggle with the nature of intelligence and the consequences of current technology becoming exponentially smarter. Retired computer scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge presented the concept of Singularity at a NASA gathering back in 1993, and Steven Spielberg addressed the subject with the movie "AI," in which humans finally realized that intelligent machines were becoming too powerful and set out to destroy the androids. Isaac Asimov envisioned laws for smart machines that would prevent them from harming humans, make them obey all orders except a command to harm humans, and allow them to protect themselves in situations that would not compromise the other laws. Vinge describes Singularity as the point when ultraintelligent machines are able to build even smarter machines, which would jump start an explosion in intelligence. He writes: "Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man ever need make." However, some theorists believe the human brain might be too complex for Singularity to occur before 2030, as Vinge believes, which might even result in computer performance reaching its peak. A plateau in computer power would put a halt to exponential growth in automated design. Humans might even come to the realization that it is best to use human ethics when making tough decisions, and that they were presumptuous in believing machines would one day make their moral choices for them.
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Intel's product design cycle starts with a forecast of potential markets, followed by in-depth analysis of the people who make up those markets; the resulting information is translated into individual user "personas" whose projected needs form the basis of the concept device's configuration and function. Intel Research anthropologist Genevieve Bell's two-year study of households in the Asia-Pacific region has uncovered some interesting revelations that challenge Intel's philosophy of designing products for secular users. An analysis of consumers in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore led her to the conclusion that "it's harder for some forms of technology to get over the threshold of the home," and the reasons for this can be religious, not just economic. For instance, technology can be a difficult sell in Muslim and Hindu households, where humility and simplicity are emphasized. Bell also notes that the appeal of text-messaging over cellular phones to Japan's youth may stem from the fact that Japanese dwellings have little room for privacy. From Bell's studies have emerged personas such as "Sally Lu," a 25-year old Shanghai resident who prefers inexpensive, utilitarian high-tech products that are easy to use and do not come with a lot of bells and whistles. This analysis has inspired Intel concept products such as an integrated PC-entertainment center for people with limited living space, and a PC-like device geared toward Chinese users who lack the income to buy a full-sized machine. Meanwhile, LGE in Korea has created a mobile phone incorporating a compass that uses Global Positioning System technology to point Muslims in the direction of Mecca.
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University of Victoria computer science professor Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey is directing the efforts of an interdisciplinary research team in the computer-human interaction and software engineering lab (CHISEL) to develop software that can help people manipulate large bodies of data to carry out complex operations. "We're trying to understand the interplay of technology, human behavior, cognitive ability, and social structure," Storey explains. "This enables us to design and improve technologies that will increase the efficiency with which people can access, process, and manipulate information." One CHISEL project concentrates on the development of Groupware-enabled Integrated Learning and Development (GILD), a tool designed to help people learn and teach the Java programming language. Storey notes that one of the key challenges is the fact that various resources--lectures, textbooks, Web-based tools, Java programming techniques, etc.--are not integrated. GILD supports interaction between two parties and their course material, assignments, and support material without having to flip-flop between resources. Meanwhile, Ph.D. student Ian Bull is focusing on the development of tools that furnish programmers with visual representations of a program's structure connected to textual code representations. Mechthild Maczewski, another Ph.D. student, is studying the culture of technological connectedness' psychological and social effects on young people.
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Scientists at Japan's Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) say that their research into the theory of chaotic resonance could accelerate electronic communications and lead to improvements in robotic learning technology and artificial intelligence. The researchers postulated that a certain kind of chaotic signal would manifest itself if neurons were linked electrically, and this led to a computer simulation of the inferior olive, a section of the human brain that likely relays errors in movement to the cerebellum. The model demonstrates that moderate electric linkage between neurons in this area of the brain could generate chaotic signals that recode the higher-frequency information into slower signals by conveying data within the rhythm of the neural firing rather than just the frequency. The CREST scientists modeled two network architectures composed of a small group of simulated inferior olive cells: Chain networks in which each nerve cell is electrically connected to one or two neighboring neurons according to its chain position; and 2-by-2-cell, 3-by-3-cell, and 9-by-3-cell grid networks where neurons are coupled to two, three, or four neighboring cells according to their positions within the grid. Plain periodic spikes were produced by each cell when their connections were severed, while a lower spike rate and chaotic firing patterns were generated when neurons were linked into a network using an intermediate coupling strength. A strong coupling strength resulted in orderly, synchronized spikes with a higher-than-average firing rate. The conclusion arrived at by CREST researcher Nicholas Schweighofer is that moderate electrical coupling can accelerate the transfer of data, which implies that chaos in the inferior olive may augment information transmission and play an important role in the learning process.
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Experts believe that SMTP authentication will help battle spam by allowing Internet mail servers to confirm that messages come from the domains they say they come from. Major recent SMTP initiatives include Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail, the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and Yahoo's Domain Keys, and a formal IETF working group was created in February to concentrate on MTA authorization and DNS-based mechanisms. The group, called MTA Authorization Records in DNS (MARID), is part of the Internet Research Task Force's Anti-Spam Research Group, and is due to submit a document in August, choosing among three major proposals. The specification of the SMTP protocol is RFC2821, while RFC2822 is the standard for the format of the message transmitted by SMTP, and SMTP authentication proposals usually focus on one or the other. MARID Chairmen Andrew Newton and Marshall T. Rose say the working group intends to concentrate on RFC2821 identities so that it can meet its deadlines, leaving RFC2822 identities for later. 2821 solutions are not infallible, but they can allow the rejection of messages without having to read them first. Sendmail director Rand Wacker points out that one site could support multiple standards, and that multiple standards are a good idea. More experimentation would be a good idea before implementing standards. SPF chief architect Meng Wang Wong says SMTP authentication should include cryptography, although others are concerned that old mail servers won't be able to handle it.
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Two mechanical engineering researchers at the Iowa State University have developed a hand held mouse for computers and video games that doesn't generate strain on a user's arm, wrist, shoulder, neck or back. The ergonomically friendly pointing device is spongy and fits in the palm of your hand and is shaped like a joystick; a pressure sensor at the top is used by the thumb to control cursor movement, while right and left click buttons are on the side. The two researchers, Iowa State professors Abir Qamhiyah and Don Flugrad, say a wireless version is being developed for use in presentations while the design is being modified to include a strap that frees the hand for typing and makes the device more convenient to use.
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Companies are in danger of losing customer trust because of the constant threat of data breaches, which are far more common than the public is aware of. Sensitive customer data can be compromised by hackers who penetrate corporate networks, insiders who steal information, and identity thieves, and they are only the tip of the iceberg. InformationWeek Research's 2003 U.S. Information Security Survey of 815 companies determined that over 80 percent employ antivirus and network-firewall software, but only 23 percent use vulnerability-scanning tools to find exploitable security holes; furthermore, just 43 percent use intrusion-detection systems, while only 40 percent claimed to have evaluated and gauged the effectiveness of their information-security policies. Symantec reports that over seven new software holes cropped up each day last year on average, while software vulnerabilities are becoming easier to exploit, and are being exploited faster as well. To curb data breaches, firms must deploy firewalls, application-security solutions, and intrusion-detection systems; patch newly discovered security flaws before they can be exploited; and institute frequently updated security policies that are rigorously enforced. Data encryption is another security measure companies can employ, but the baggage it brings varies: For instance, encryption key management can complicate security, while encrypting data may slow down system performance. Legislators expect that ID theft and network hacking will be deterred with the passage of tougher laws and stiffer prison sentences. Some companies employ technology to spot fraudulent activity early on and halt it before it inflicts too much damage, a philosophy that accepts ID and customer-data theft as a permanent fact of life; as one anonymous financial-services executive puts it, "The problem is like a water balloon: When you squeeze hard in one spot it gets ready to burst somewhere else."
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Great Duck Island off the coast of Maine serves as a testbed for "mote" technology--wireless networked sensors that in this case are employed to monitor the nesting behavior of Leach's storm petrels. Each mote is made from off-the-shelf parts, and includes environmental sensors, a battery, and a low-power radio transceiver; each unit gathers data from its immediate surroundings and relays it to other motes through the distributed network. Mote signals are routed to a gateway mote's antenna and then to a computer base station at the lightkeeper's cottage, and from there over the Internet via satellite to the Intel Research Laboratory in California. The devices can be deployed in three microclimates because the network software's current iteration supports multihop routing, allowing each mote to transmit signals as well as pick up and forward signals from neighboring motes. The motes are designed to withstand the harsh environment, stay dry, and conserve power: The devices are inactive 99 percent of the time, and are only activated to send messages and scan for other mote signals. When motes malfunction, the signal is routed around to the nearest healthy mote, and motes confronted with several healthy neighbors are programmed to forward the signal through the most reliable unit. Intel aims to develop a generic sensor network toolkit that can be set up in practically any habitat or environmental monitoring situation. There may be nothing ethically wrong with sensor networks monitoring wildlife, but as the technology grows smaller and more sophisticated, it will inevitably be applied to people, and its implications for personal privacy will undoubtedly breed controversy.
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The computer has emerged as the definitive laboratory tool for the field of mathematics, and mathematicians such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's David Bailey and Dalhousie University's Jonathan Borwein contend that math is being revolutionized by computer experimentation. "Instead of just being a number-crunching tool, the computer is becoming more like a garden shovel that turns over rocks, and you find things underneath," notes Reed College mathematician Richard Crandall. Mathematical breakthroughs that owe a great deal to computers include new revelations about hyperbolic geometry, specifically the discovery of a family of knots with completely flat surfaces. This finding was reached through experimentation with the Snappea computer program created by freelance mathematician Jeffrey Weeks. In another milestone, a research team lead by Bailey worked out a shortcut formula for pi by employing a computer program to search for numerical relationships between pi and constants with known shortcut formulas. Bailey and Borwein posit in their book "Mathematics by Experiment" that math research should follow a more empirical path that does not accept formal proof as the only vehicle for establishing mathematical knowledge. University of California, Berkeley mathematician Bernd Sturmfels does not agree with this notion. He argues, "Our understanding can be significantly advanced by experiments, but I think there will always be a clear borderline as to what constitutes an acceptable result in pure mathematics."

A team of researchers with the European Space Agency, GMV Sistema, and Telespazio SpA evaluated a prototype receiver designed to boost the positioning accuracy and availability of satellite-based augmentation systems by integrating European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) correction messages picked up via a wireless Internet link with pseudorange measurements from its internal Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The results were encouraging, particularly in the hopes of overcoming visibility constraints in urban environments. The Signal in Space through the Internet high-Performance Internet-Dependent EGNOS Receiver (ShPIDER) could allow scientific, engineering, and educational communities to gather and process EGNOS signals without buying an EGNOS receiver. ShPIDER is bundled into a ruggedized case that comes with a liquid crystal display, user and power interface connectors, and antenna inputs; the basis of its architecture is a complete CPU board combining a 12 parallel-channel GPS receiver, a GPRS/GSM dual-band modem, and a 1 GB hard drive. Several disadvantages are observed as EGNOS messages pass through the Internet--namely, message delays and loss. Actions recommended by the team to increase EGNOS signal availability while keeping accuracy in mind include faster EGNOS message acquisition, the employment of slow connections that are less likely to degrade, the use of non-EGNOS-monitored satellites, a reduction in degradation factors for fast connections, the utilization of ionospheric corrections whenever possible, and longer timeout intervals. The team deployed ShPIDER in a bus in Valladolid, Spain, and the computed navigation solution was relayed to the Control Center responsible for managing the city bus fleet; the demonstration showed an increase in EGNOS signal availability in metropolitan areas. GMV is developing Pocket-ShPIDER as a handheld solution that allows users to select beginning and end waypoints, compute routes between them, and receive guidance along these routes.
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