Atlantic Partnership Brings Tech Researchers to
Province
New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal (05/25/06) White, Nathan
In a keynote address at the recent Communication Networks and Services
Research conference, jointly sponsored by ACM, Vijay Bhargava discussed the
future of wireless communication in Canada. Bhargava, the head of the
electrical and computer engineering department at the University of British
Columbia, noted that while 3G technology is still in its early stages in
Canada, Japan's NTT DoCoMo is already developing 4G prototype technology.
DoCoMo's 4G technology could lead to phones that can receive 100 Mbps while
on the move and 1,000 Mbps while stationary by 2010. Although Canada may
have been slow to develop its wireless communication infrastructure, it is
catching up quickly, Bhargava said. A recent study found that two-thirds
of Canadian households have mobile phones, while one-twentieth of the
population have replaced their traditional phones entirely. There is still
considerable room in the market for companies that offer location-based
mapping services for mobile devices, Bhargava said, though he warned that
data transmission is nearing its peak capacity. "We're talking about
increasingly higher demand for such services. People want good quality and
higher speeds," he said. "There's limitations to the data rate, how much
water you put through the pipe or data you can communicate over the
wireless channel." The myriad possibilities make it difficult to predict
what the next "killer app" will be, though Bhargava anticipates that, like
the iPod, it will come out of the blue when 4G technology matures. The
conference, which attracted roughly 100 researchers from 14 countries, also
addressed topics such as nanotechnology, disaster planning, and bandwidth
management.
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Researchers Analyze HPC Potential of Cell
Processor
HPC Wire (05/26/06) Vol. 15, No. 21,
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tested the STI
Cell processor in several scientific applications, comparing its
performance with other processor architectures. They presented their
paper, "The Potential of the Cell Processor in Scientific Computing," at
the recent ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers. "Overall
results demonstrate the tremendous potential of the Cell architecture for
scientific computations in terms of both raw performance and power
efficiency," the researchers wrote. "We also conclude that Cell's
heterogeneous multi-core implementation is inherently better suited to the
HPC environment than homogeneous commodity multi-core processors." Cell,
the product of a partnership of Sony, Toshiba, and IBM, combines
substantial floating point resources with software-controlled memory
hierarchy to process complex numerical algorithms. Unlike traditional
multi-core designs, Cell uses a standard high-performance PowerPC core that
runs eight SIMD cores called synergistic processing elements, each of which
contains a local memory, a memory flow controller, and a synergistic
processing unit. Though its architecture is a marked departure from
traditional designs, Cell is especially intriguing because it can be
mass-produced at a competitive price. The researchers evaluated Cell's
potential to serve as the engine of high-end parallel systems by testing
its performance in numerous scientific computing environments, including
dense matrix supply and sparse matrix vector multiply. Cell has a
three-level memory architecture that offers more predictable performance
and greater memory bandwidth for long block transfers. On average, Cell
tested eight times more efficient and powerful than Itanium and Opteron
processors.
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Nature Offers Guidance on Organizing Dynamic
Networks
IST Results (05/26/06)
As today's computer networks are beginning to strain under the weight of
their own complexity, researchers working under the auspices of the
IST-funded BISON program are looking to natural evolutionary processes for
clues on how to handle the burden. "Complexity in computing is already a
problem, and traditional methods are no longer adequate to address the
problems," said Ozalp Babaoglu, BISON coordinator and a computer science
professor at the University of Bologna. "And it's going to get worse as
the Internet becomes increasingly complex. Biological systems, on the
other hand, are incredibly resilient and amazingly robust, so we're taking
inspiration from a system that we know works." The BISON project
researchers created a load-balancing protocol to prove the viability of
their modular approach. Having successfully created a technique for
preventing any one node from being overwhelmed with traffic, the
researchers hope that others will pursue similar projects. Babaoglu says
the load balancing protocol is based on negative chemotaxis, a technique
for prompting data to spontaneously disseminate across a network. The
project focused on adaptive routing and radio power management to address
the problem of a fluid topology in ad hoc networks. Nodes enter and exit
the network, and the risk of running out of signal power threatens the
connectedness of the entire network. The researchers employed the computer
scheme Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), inspired by the way ants always find
the shortest path to food. BISON's AdHocNet attempted to create an ACO
routing algorithm to find the most efficient traffic pattern for data while
also conserving energy. The researchers also looked to the way fireflies
emit light as the basis for a synchronicity protocol that Babaoglu says
could eventually become the core of the Internet.
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Microsoft Research India Partners With the University of
California Berkeley and Others to Host Academic Conference on
Technology
WebWire (05/25/06)
Nearly 200 researchers from academic institutions and corporations around
the world met on May 25 to discuss technology in the developing world at
the International Conference on Information and Communications Technology
and Development (ICTD) 2006. ICTD, founded by Microsoft Research India and
the University of California, Berkeley, offered discussions on information
and communication technology (ICT) initiatives in the developing world such
as setting up shared-use PCs and incorporating cell phones into rural
agricultural supply chains. "The focus of the ICTD conference is very much
on scholarship and maintaining high-quality standards of academic
research," said AnnaLee Saxenian, dean and professor of Berkeley's School
of Information. One of the keynote addresses focused on the importance of
microfinance, the practice of issuing small loans to underfunded
entrepreneurs in developing nations. The partnership between Microsoft and
Berkeley demonstrates the value of collaboration between academia and
industry. Many of the presenters at ICTD are winners of Microsoft's
Digital Inclusion request for proposals, with research addressing issues
such as telemedicine and the use of cell phones to bring technology to
impoverished communities. Other winning projects explored whether
children's cognitive development is improved by using Wi-Fi-enabled phones
to access Internet chat services. Microsoft Research India's Technology
for Emerging Markets Group is studying the effectiveness of computer kiosks
for rural villages to determine if and why they succeed or fail in
broadening the reach of technology. Researchers have also been successful
in creating an application that enables illiterate users to operate a
computer on their own using cartoons, voice feedback, and a movie to
explain the functionality of a particular application. The conference's
sponsors include ACM's SIG on Computers and Society (SIGCAS).
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Improved Visual Search
Technology Review (05/25/06) Savage, Neil
Researchers at MIT's Center for Biological and Computational Learning
(CBCL) are attempting to improve computers' ability to discern the
properties of images. Visual searching is nowhere near as accurate and
thorough as text-based searching, though if the researchers are successful,
their work could eliminate the need for humans to monitor surveillance
cameras at a military base or an office, for instance, though they admit
that their work will not be easy. "The fact that it seems so easy for a
human to do is part of our greatest illusion," said Stanley Bileschi, who
was recently awarded a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science
at the CBCL. Interpreting visual data is a complex task for computers,
notes Bileschi, adding that humans exert roughly 40 percent of their brains
on that single task. The multiple variables that factor into identifying
visual data include color, lighting, spatial orientation, distance, and
texture. Traditional image-recognition systems rely on statistical
learning systems to train computers to identify objects by examining each
pixel in the image. Neurophysiologists at the CBCL are attempting to
improve on this method by exploring how the human brain processes images,
pointing to the way that a photoreceptor in the eye is stimulated by each
pixel. The stimulus causes neurons to fire in a specific pattern, which
the researchers track with mathematical models and train the computer to
associate each neuron simulation pattern with its corresponding object.
Just as a baby learns to distinguish trees from faces, the computer
remembers the pattern when it encounters the same object again. Tests have
shown that the computers can identify people and cars in a street scene
with an accuracy rate between 95 percent and 98 percent.
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Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Coders
Content Log (05/23/06) Newton, John
The computer science curriculum needs to be made more enticing to
ultimately attract more students for careers in computer science and
software, says ACM President David Patterson. The West is headed for a
shortage in tech-related skills, and an economic slowdown if the issue is
not addressed. Patterson, also a professor at UC Berkeley, says people
tend to view computer science as being only about programming, and that
programming is something that would only interest nerds. He is attempting
to change the curriculum at UC Berkeley. At a recent ACM contest, MIT was
the only American university to place in the top 10, and Western European
universities were nowhere to be found. Tech industry professionals are not
encouraging their children to follow their career paths, and salaries for
new graduates no longer look as promising. Some of the current problems
have something to do with the dot-com fallout, writes John Newton, who
expects salaries to rise as the demand for computer scientists becomes more
acute.
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Europe: No Patents for Software
ZDNet UK (05/25/06) Marson, Ingrid
The European Commission (EC) appears to have reversed its stance on
software patents, according to a statement the EC made last week regarding
the Community Patent legislation. A year ago, the EC said the European
Patent Office (EPO) would continue to make patents available for computer
programs that provide some technical contribution, but a week ago the EC
said there would be no software patents under the new Community Patent
legislation. "The draft Community Patent regulation confirms in its
Article 28.1(a) that patents granted for a subject matter (such as computer
programs), which is excluded from patentability pursuant to Article 52 EPC,
may be invalidated in a relevant court proceeding," the EC said. The
statement came in response to a question Polish European Parliament member
Adam Gierek posed in April regarding the impact of the Community Patent
legislation on EPO's practice of granting software patents. The new
position was a surprising and confusing one for groups that oppose patents
on computer programs in Europe. Pieter Hintjens, president of the
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, is just as concerned
about having an independent appeal process as he is about the invalidation
of software patents in court because of the potential cost of civil
litigation for small companies. "Therefore, software patents not yet taken
to court will impose an enormous burden on the industry," Hintjens says.
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Announcement: ICANN Call for Submissions of Interest for
Leadership
ICANN.org (05/25/06)
ICANN is seeking statements of interest for leadership positions on its
Board of Directors and its Supporting Organizations. The ICANN Nominating
Committee is looking to fill the following positions: three members of
ICANN's Board of Directors, one member of the Council of the Generic Names
Supporting Organization (GNSO), one member of the Council of the
Country-Code Names Supporting Organization (CCNSO), and two members of the
At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC). Successful candidates will have the
opportunity to work alongside colleagues from around the world and tackle
technical coordination issues and associated policy concerns assessing them
from a functional, cultural, and geographic perspective. The positions are
voluntary, though travel and other expenses that arise from service to
ICANN will be reimbursed. The positions offer the opportunity to make
substantial contributions to public service, and may require frequent
travel and regular communication via telephone and Internet. Qualified
candidates should have strong experience with an international perspective
and some familiarity with the Internet. Descriptions of the positions,
selection and eligibility criteria, application procedures, and contacts
can be found at
www.icann.org/committees/nom-comm. For the complete Statement of
Interest go to
www.icann.org/committees/nom-comm/soi-2006.html. Applications will be
accepted on a confidential basis until July 16, 2006, and selections will
be made by the end of October. Service begins at the end of ICANN's
General Meeting on December 8, 2006.
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Finding Computer Files Hidden in Plain Sight
Ames Laboratory (05/24/06)
While criminals or terrorists are likely to arouse the suspicion of
government agents by sending encrypted files over email, software programs
now enable a practice known as steganography, where files are hidden within
other files, such as photographic images. Researchers at Iowa State
University and Ames Laboratory have been exploring the emerging discipline
of detecting those hidden files, or staganalysis. JPEG files and other
electronic images are perfect for concealing such files because they can be
found by the thousands in any given computer and can be emailed by anyone
or found all across Web. With the aid of steganographic, or stego,
techniques, users can make slight alterations to the color values of an
image to conceal the bits of data that comprise a secret file, or payload,
that can represent anything from unlawful financial transactions to child
pornography. "We're taking very simple stego techniques and trying to find
statistical measures that we can use to distinguish an innocent image from
one that has hidden data," said Clifford Bergman, professor of mathematics
at ISU. "One of the reasons we're focusing on images is there's lots of
'room' within a digital image to hide data. You can fiddle with them quite
a bit and visually a person can't see the difference." Ones and zeros can
represent the payload file, which the stego program compares to the ones
and zeros of the image file's pixel values. The recipient can then
retrieve the secret file by decrypting and reconstructing the payload's
data string. The researchers are developing a system known as an
artificial neural net (ANN) to help review and detect hidden files within
images. They trained the ANN with a database of "clean" images and then
altered them using stego techniques to greatly expand the database and
provide a basis for comparison. The ANN identified 92 percent of the stego
images in preliminary tests, while only flagging 10 percent of clean
images, and the researchers hope to refine it further.
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Sensors: Living Off Scraps of Energy
CNet (05/24/06) Kanellos, Michael
Researchers are developing technologies that will enable sensors to
harvest piecemeal bits of energy from sources such as the motion of a
soldier's boot or an RFID reader. Georgia Institute of Technology
researcher Zhong Lin Wang is developing sensors that could collect energy
as the soldier walks that might be sufficient to charge batteries for a
flashlight or a radio. Intel researchers exploring the potential of
infusing a capacitor or other energy-collecting device into an RFID tag
that could power a temperature sensor or an accelerometer. "You can
imagine a moisture sensor. You could embed it into a building and
literally never have to get at it again," said Intel's Joshua Smith.
"Frozen foods are a big one. Security is another. Another one I heard of
is blood. Blood plasma has to be kept at a certain temperature." Rather
than the strictly theoretical perpetual motion machine, Smith describes his
sensors as something close to perpetual computing, because they are powered
by energy that they collect themselves and that would otherwise go unused.
Batteries have long inhibited the utility of sensors, reducing the visions
of scientists and futurists to glean energy from fault lines on the ocean
floor or forest fires to hopeless impracticalities. Intel's research
capitalizes on the declining power requirements of low-end microprocessors,
Smith says. "Microcontrollers have gotten so low with their energy
requirements that we can now power a general purpose microcontroller off an
RFID reader. Compared to all power sources, an RFID reader is a relatively
easy case." Wang's sensors harness energy from zinc oxide nanowires that,
when bent by a probe, generate a negative charge on the outside of the
surface and a positive charge on the inside. Wang's research is still in
the experimental stages, though he says the military could put the
technology to practical use within three to five years.
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Invention IDs Computer Users by Typing Patterns, UA
Scientists' Discovery Pays Off 13 Years Later
University of Alabama (05/24/06)
Marcus Brown, associate professor of computer science at the University of
Alabama, and his former graduate student Joey Rogers were awarded a patent
for a technique to identify a person based on the way they type their name
13 years ago. Rogers based his thesis on the technology, but until
recently, when they sold the patent for around $15,700 each, the pair had
received little recognition from the discovery. Brown drew part of his
inspiration for the invention from Thomas Edison, who as a telegraph
operator learned to identify who was on the other end of the wire by the
patterns of dots and dashes. Any computer with a standard keyboard can
identify who is using it with Brown's invention, which has obvious
applications to improving security. "Rather than replace passwords, this
technology would probably best be used to add another layer of
authentication," Brown said. "It could reduce the need for measures such
as changing your password every six weeks." To develop their program,
which creates an individual "fingerprint" based on the exact time a user
presses a key, Brown and Rogers trained a neural network, though Brown is
still unsure if the technology distinguishes between the physical structure
of the user's hand or the manner by which humans mentally break up words as
they type, or a combination of the two, perhaps combined with other unknown
factors.
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Computers' Mistakeover
Washington Post (05/25/06) P. D1; Walker, Leslie
While the term "glitch" is bandied about freely to describe any
problematic situation that can be attributed to computers, its technical
definition--"a false data output triggered by a sudden surge of electrical
power"--is often overlooked. Technophiles prefer to consider computers
infallible machines that run on pure mathematics, and deem glitches the
product of programming errors made by extremely fallible humans. The fact
that computers have begun to permeate almost every quarter of human
endeavor, however, amplifies the severity of a glitch, regardless of its
origin. Computer glitches come in all stripes, from the mildly irritating
to the frightfully disastrous; they can variously be blamed for holding up
the lines at the grocery store to erroneously releasing convicted criminals
from prison. In Ohio, an automated phone system placed 3,000 calls to the
families of crime victims, notifying them that their relatives' assailants
or killers had been released. That glitch resulted from a routine computer
upgrade that mistakenly sent the file containing the list of the inmates'
names to the company processing victim notifications. The frequency of
computer glitches and humans' growing dependence on technology has led some
to campaign for greater emphasis on paper dictionaries and pen-and-paper
writing in schools, so that children grow up capable of retrieving
information from sources other than Google. In the end, the failures of
computers reflect the failures of human beings, writes Leslie Walker, and
they also serve as a reminder that humans are in control of technology, and
that it is humans who decide the extent to which computers infiltrate their
lives.
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All-Female Computer Game-Design Team Wins Unprecedented
First Prize for Cornell
Cornell News (05/23/06) Clairborne, J.R.
A Cornell University computer game-design team won the national all-female
Games 4 Girls programming competition in Urbana, Ill. Sally Huang, a film
major who served as manager as well as programmer, says the team focused on
the social nature of girls in designing the Mario-styled interactive,
two-player game, "Green, Eggs, and Pan." In addition to the competition's
judges, the games were evaluated by high school girls attending the Third
Annual ChicTech Retreat at the University of Illinois, where middle school
and high school girls spent a late April weekend learning and having fun.
"What we have are some phenomenal female game designers here at Cornell,"
says David Schwartz, a lecturer in computer science and director of the
Game Design Initiative at Cornell (GDIAC). "To win the contest shows
Cornell has its foot in the door in terms of this new area in academia."
The Cornell team competed against female students in other game-design
programs at the Universities of Bradley, Buffalo, and California-Irvine,
and Franklin and Ohio State Universities. Other team members included
programmer Dora Helen Fraeman, an independent major with a concentration in
computer science; artist Brenda Chen, a biological engineering major;
musician Pamela Chuang, a computer and electrical engineering major; and
artist Lisa Marie Allen, a biological engineering major.
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My Friend, the Robot
CNet (05/24/06) Krazit, Tom
While robotic technology is making ever deeper inroads into the commercial
sector, robots are also being widely used in other areas, such as iRobot's
PackBots, which the U.S. military uses to detonate roadside bombs in Iraq.
In a recent interview, iRobot CEO Colin Angle shared his thoughts on the
future of robotics. When iRobot was developing the Roomba robot vacuum,
one of the more popular consumer robots, the designers consciously tried to
make it more functional than cute to avoid the personification problem,
though Angle says that some level of identification with the device is
inevitable. "It's nearly impossible not to have these emotions as you
observe Roomba," Angle said. "You want it to succeed, you're cheering for
it, and it is a very emotional sort of experience." Angle references the
Furby, which he says sold in excess of 20 million units, as proof that
consumers look to robots for companionship, regardless of whether they are
built in a human form or not. The greatest potential application for
robots is to help the elderly who are disinclined or unable to hire a
live-in nurse to remain independent and in their own homes for longer,
Angle says. Roomba already helps in combating seniors' social isolation,
Angle notes, citing the testimonial of an elderly woman unable to push a
vacuum who was ashamed at how dirty her home would get between visits from
a cleaning company. After purchasing Roomba, she could vacuum her home
whenever she wanted, and she contacted iRobot to thank them for making her
feel good about entertaining guests more often. While at the end of many
people's lives they will need the close care that only a hospital can
provide, Angle looks to the potential of robots to administer virtual
nurse's visits and ensure that the patient is taking the appropriate
medication as a way of extending seniors' independence.
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Security Expert Recommends Net Diversity
Network World (05/22/06) Vol. 23, No. 20, P. 19; Marsan, Carolyn Duffy
Eugene Spafford, director of Purdue University's Center for Education and
Research in Information Assurance and Security, says the three biggest
threats to information security that multinationals are likely to face are
the deployment of cost-saving or feature-enhancing resources (such as VoIP
and wireless) without careful consideration of the consequences; the
erosion of the network perimeter through the advent of advanced
communications technologies; and excessive dependency on a small set of
suppliers, leading to a situation in which a weak or failing platform type
can cripple an organization. Embedding diversity within every critical
infrastructure can address the threat of network homogeneity, says
Spafford. "This helps ensure that some of your infrastructure will be
maintained so that you can send and receive email and surf the Web even if
one of your common configurations is completely blown away by some kind of
attack or some kind of bug," he explains. To minimize the other two
threats, Spafford recommends instilling a thorough understanding of any new
technology's risks and trade-offs, and a new emphasis among IT executives
on shielding individual hosts or constructing well-defined sectors.
Network diversity will obviate the need for an enterprise to shut
everything down and restart in the event of an automated, unobserved
attack. Spafford rates network attacks by insiders such as disgruntled
employees as the most potentially damaging, although he says outsider
threats are growing as law enforcement fails to keep pace with the increase
in online criminal activity. He gives most big multinationals a B in terms
of information security, and remarks that government agencies' security is
"not particularly good," while that of charities, state governments, and
universities is downright shoddy. Spafford is chair of ACM's U.S. Public
Policy Committee;
http://www.acm.org/usacm.
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Power Challenges Wireless Sensor Nets
EE Times (05/22/06)No. 1424, P. 43; Mokhoff, Nicolas
Mesh network applications require the presence of energy-efficient and,
ideally, self-powered microsensor nodes, and progress in this area was
reported by several universities at the Nanotech 2006 conference earlier
this month. MIT researchers led by Anantha P. Chandrakasan have developed
an analog-to-digital converter, DSP, and radio to enable sensor nodes that
are energy-scalable and efficient. A power-efficient sensor processor
employs a custom CPU and instruction set to keep the instruction memory
footprint to a minimum, while ultradynamic voltage scaling optimizes energy
by varying supply voltage and frequency. Kensall Wise of the University of
Michigan's Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems
(WIMS) detailed a common architecture for microsystems for various
applications at Nanotech 2006. His vision of WIMS includes a power source,
an embedded microcontroller, front-end sensors/microinstruments, and a
wireless interface. WIMS will run on a generic platform, and their chief
difference will reside in the selected front-end sensors and their
software. Wise expects microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to become
socially pervasive over the next 20 years, noting that such systems "will
make the automated gathering of information a reality, extending the
electronic connectivity represented by personal communications and the
World Wide Web to information provided directly by the environment."
Purdue University researchers are working on a minuscule, battery-free
"passive wireless transponder" that can be implanted within tumors to
gather and relay diagnostic information, with its activation facilitated by
electrical coils placed next to the patient's body.
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MBAs Go High-Tech
InfoWorld (05/22/06) Vol. 28, No. 21, P. 18; Tynan, Dan
An MBA is becoming an increasingly vital tool for IT professionals seeking
to further their progress in the enterprise or to prevail in a global
economy. More and more schools are offering high-tech MBA programs geared
toward students rigorously versed in computer science and who have heavy
work experience, with an emphasis on the novel issues associated with the
integration of continuously fluctuating technology within core business
functions. Northeastern University College of Business Administration
professor Marc Meyer touts the project-based nature of courses taught
within the school's high-tech MBA program as an advantage: "Students can
apply what they learn to real live projects inside their own companies, and
not to some generalized Harvard Business School case," he notes. Mixing
tech with business skills is becoming a necessity in certain
industries--telecommunications, for instance--due to the transition of IT's
role from operational infrastructure to center of revenue. "Our students
feel limited if they don't understand the marketing, market development,
and sales processes behind the IT-enabled services their companies are
making," remarks Meyer. The threat of offshore outsourcing is also
spurring IT pros to pursue MBAs in order to increase their value to the
company, making it less likely for them to lose their jobs to lower-priced
workers overseas. Such personnel will probably be picked to manage teams
of offshore programmers, and knowledge transfer and multiple time-zone
communications are just some of the skills they need to become proficient
in. Cultural disparities between workers in different countries is one
aspect of globalization that is often overlooked in training programs,
according to Yong Zhao with Michigan State University's U.S.-China Center
for Research on Educational Excellence.
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Meet the Hackers
BusinessWeek (05/29/06)No. 3986, P. 58; Ante, Spencer E.; Grow, Brian;
Olearchyk, Roman
Russian computer hackers distinct from their predecessors for their youth,
organization, and brazenness are among law enforcement's most wanted
cybercrooks. Factors contributing to their notoriety and success include
their country's strong technical universities, low salaries, and
beleaguered court system. Political tension can also hinder local law
enforcement's cooperation in bringing these criminals to justice. Dmitry
Golubov, a 22-year-old Ukrainian, was arrested last year for a series of
cybercrimes, including credit-card fraud, allegedly perpetrated by an
international gang of hackers he masterminded; yet he was released on a
personal recognizance bond from two Ukrainian politicians who defended his
character. Russian-born Leo Kuvayev, 34, was named in a lawsuit filed by
the state of Massachusetts last May accusing him and six accomplices of
sending millions of spam emails to peddle illicit products through American
and international Web-hosting servers, in violation of the 2003 CAN-SPAM
Act. State officials think Kuvayev, who Spamhaus ranks as one of the
world's three leading spammers, may have taken refuge in Russia, where
antispamming laws are nonexistent, before he was sued. Federal law
enforcement officials believe Kuvayev was making over $30 million annually
through his spamming business, and he and his co-defendants were ordered by
the court to pay $37 million in civil restitution for sending approximately
150,000 illegal emails. The 2005 FBI Computer Crime Survey estimated that
$67 billion is lost every year to computer crime, while 87 percent of the
2,066 surveyed companies admitted to a security incident.
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The OLIN Experiment
IEEE Spectrum (05/06) Vol. 43, No. 5, P. 30; Guizzo, Erico
The Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering bills itself as a place that
takes a nontraditional approach to engineering education by stressing
practice over theory braced by design exercises, interdisciplinary studies,
and teamwork. "The urgency of reform of engineering education has been
heightened in the last two or three years as we've slowly begun to
recognize that we really are competing on a global playing field," says
National Academy of Engineering President William Wulf, an advocate of the
view that an upgrade in the U.S. engineering workforce's quantity and
quality is critical if the country is to continue riding the leading edge
of innovation. By tightly integrating basic disciplines with practical
projects, Olin supports a model of engineer training that focuses on
interdisciplinary learning, communications skills, and entrepreneurship.
The establishment of Olin is one indication of a curriculum shift from
theory-based learning to project-based learning. "Students start out with
an audacious project, which would in many institutions be heretical, except
we do that deliberately," notes Olin President Richard Miller. "Because,
after all, when you get hired in a corporation, that's the first thing that
happens to you: They give you a challenge for which you've not had the
prerequisites." The sophistication of the design projects Olin students
work on grows throughout their education, climaxing in their assumption of
real engineering challenges from companies and other groups that partner
with the college. Olin's advantages include its small community of
exceptional students and charismatic, diverse, and mostly young teachers,
which makes for enthusiastic teamwork among people who have a mutual
respect and camaraderie because of similar intellects and interests.
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