Electronic Voting Machines Are Making Officials
Wary
New York Times (09/24/06) P. A19; Urbina, Ian
An increasing number of state and local officials are growing concerned
about the reliability of electronic voting machines as the November
elections approach. The most recent warning about the technology came from
Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R), who suggested that the state return to paper
balloting. Some election officials are concerned that the electronic
systems that have been widely adopted since the 2000 presidential election
simply trade in old problems for new ones. Roughly one-third of the
nation's precincts are using e-voting systems for the first time, boosting
the chances of Election-Day problems as poll workers adjust to the new
technology. "I think there is good reason for concern headed into the
midterm elections," said former Ohio Governor Richard Celeste, adding that
the new technology creates new demands for training a generation of
non-technologically inclined poll workers. The major source of concern has
been paperless touch-screen systems, which are expected to be used by
roughly 40 percent of voters this year, raising the prospect of fraud or
computer failure. The number of challenges to an election filed in court
increased from 197 in 2000 to 361 last year, according to Richard Hasen, a
professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Last month, a Pennsylvania
state senator introduced a bill to require all precincts in that state to
provide voters with the option of using paper ballots, a provision that has
already been implemented in at least 27 states. The recent primaries in
Maryland, where Election Day problems echoed earlier issues in Texas,
Illinois, and other states, were just the latest example of the problems
that can go wrong with e-voting systems. For information on ACM's e-voting
activities, visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Universities See Sharp Drop in Computer Science
Majors
Tennessean (09/25/06) Snyder, Naomi
Despite one of the highest starting salaries of any profession in the
country, computer science is attracting fewer and fewer undergraduates.
The declining enrollment comes at a time when employers are having an
increasingly difficult time finding qualified candidates. The current
situation is a marked departure from the period between 1997 to 2001, when
the tech economy was at its peak and ambitious college students were
eagerly enrolling in computer science classes with dollar signs in their
eyes. Since the dot-com bust, many students and parents have been spooked
by the tech industry, particularly as the migration of programming jobs
overseas has become a greater concern. Others believe that universities do
a poor job of tailoring their courses to the latest skills, instead
preferring to pursue a degree from a technical school or career college.
"It's not one university that's doing a bad job, they're all doing a bad
job," said Andy Orr of the employment agency Robert Half Technology.
However, even without a four-year degree, students can still earn
certifications in the latest programming language or as a database
administrator, according to Robert Half's Beth Hunter.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Nanowire Computing Made Practical
Technology Review (09/25/06) Bullis, Kevin
A team of Caltech researchers has developed a new technique for creating
efficient circuits based on nanowires that they believe are sufficiently
dependable for mass production. The preliminary applications of the
technology would most likely be used to create cheap, ultrasensitive sensor
networks capable of detecting and measuring within a sample hundreds of
pathogens or cancer markers. Nanowires could ultimately be used to produce
new forms of computer chips as existing designs approach their physical
limitations. While there are other technologies with similar potential,
nanowires have the advantage of being able to be formed from silicon. The
centers of the neighboring nanowire transistors developed by the
researchers are denser than the current cutting-edge technologies, though
lead researcher James Heath, a Caltech chemistry professor, claims the team
could have gone "much, much denser." The development is the first to
utilize nanowires in CMOS, the current standard-bearer of semiconductor
technology, whereas previous nanowire technology had involved more
energy-intensive designs. The principal challenges facing the researchers
were to make the nanowire transistors work reliably and to place both p-
and n-type transistors on the same surface.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Europe's Software Patent War Ignites Again
CNet (09/21/06) Broersma, Matthew
The European Parliament could vote Oct. 11 or Oct. 12 on a measure that
would legitimize and enforce software patents in Europe. A software patent
directive failed in Parliament last year, but supporters of the idea have
renewed hopes with the emergence of the European Patent Litigation
Agreement (EPLA). The European patent system does not allow software
patents, but critics say the European patent office continues to grant
them. Companies that have accumulated a large number of software patents
view them as a way to add value to their assets. However, software patents
are largely considered to be something that would raise the legal costs of
larger companies while making it more difficult for small businesses and
open-source projects to operate, and some observers have expressed concern
about a weakening of democratic controls. "We are all for improvements to
the European patent system, but we must continue the search for solutions
within the framework of the EU," says Maria Berger of PES, a parliamentary
group that has expressed concern about the EPLA. Other groups that have
been critical of software patents include Nokia and the Foundation for a
Free Information Infrastructure. "More U.S.-style litigation is not the
solution," foundation President Pieter Hintjens said in a statement.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
With Homeland Security Grant, Cornell Seeks to Sort Facts
>From Opinions
Cornell News (09/18/06) Steele, Bill
Researchers from Cornell University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the
University of Utah have launched a project seeking to train computers to
scan text and make a determination as to whether its contents are fact or
fiction. The Department of Homeland Security created the consortium of
three universities as one of four that are exploring sophisticated
techniques for information analysis and security-related computational
technologies. "Lots of work has been done on extracting factual
information--the who, what, where, when," said Cornell computer science
professor Claire Cardie. "We're interested in seeing how we would extract
information about opinions." The research aims to bridge the gap between
the distinctly human form of intuitive intelligence and the more literal
machine intelligence by giving meaning to sentences through novel
machine-learning algorithms. Cardie says his team is also working to rate
the sources of a work that a writer might cite. "We're making sure that
any information is tagged with confidence. If it's low confidence, it's
not useful information," he said.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Technology Helps Foster 'Democratization of
Cartography'
University of Wisconsin-Madison (09/20/06) Mattmiller, Brian
Commercial map-making software has helped make it an exciting time to be
involved in the field of cartography, according to Mark Harrower, an
assistant professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Although commercial map-making software and geospatial information have
helped reenergize cartography, in the 1970s there were serious concerns
among geographers who believed the new technology would signal the decline
of their profession. Harrower, who specializes in visualization and
animation in cartography, sees technology as democratizing map-making.
"Mapping used to be a job of the elite, the Rand McNallys and National
Geographics of the world," he says. "Now people are taking it upon
themselves to map their passions." Harrower has helped them by developing
several tools, and making them free and available to the public online.
Working with graduate school colleague Cindy Brewer, Harrower created Color
Brewer, a tool that helps users find more sensible color schemes for maps.
Since the 2002 debut of Color Brewer, Harrower has gone on to develop Earth
Systems Visualizer, a tool for focusing in on key data sets; Visual
Benchmarks, an application for emphasizing dynamic change such as traffic
accidents or population growth; and Map Shaper, a program for generalizing
and smoothing lines on a map.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
What If Bionics Were Better
Wired News (09/25/06) Oakes, Chris
A small but growing number of early adopters have started to undergo
bionics procedures out of choice, rather than necessity. While many still
consider radical transformations to the human body taboo, the convergence
of man and machine is fast becoming a reality. To some, such as freelance
illustrator Phillipa Garner, who has already undergone a sex reassignment
operation, bionics surgery is simply a logical step on the path to self
improvement. "I would be inclined to go through some pretty radical
conceptual self-improvement procedures," she said. Still, prosthetic
surgeries such as Victhom's Neurostep are experimental and often
inconvenient. "If you try to replace something on the human body, you have
to do it in the way that the individual will feel exactly that they have
the full control of the mechanism," said Victhom founder and COO Stephane
Bedard. Last November, European researchers unveiled the Cyberhand, a
prototype of a device that enables amputees to touch, feel, and manipulate
the hand in accordance with the wearer's neural signals. When developing
procedures that imbue the human body with technology, researchers carefully
must guard against the possibility of a machine taking over, according to
Henrik Christensen, a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in
Stockholm.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
What Are The Hottest Tech Skills Today? Think Fast
InformationWeek (09/21/06) Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Many companies are rewarding technology professionals with particular
skills
that can help a business meet today's fast-changing needs, rather than
basing pay on position, rank, or title, says a new study by Foote Partners
that examines 1,800 U.S. and Canadian companies. In addition, companies
are acting more flexible with budgets for projects and more rigid about
time deadlines, says the research company. Technology professionals
specializing in customer-facing skills are in top demand right now, says
Foote Partners President David Foote. These professionals who act as
extreme programmers or rapid application developers are garnering an extra
16 percent above their customer-facing peers. Companies in 2006 are
spending about 8.2% more this year on IT training and leadership
development compared to 2005, and this is because developing from within is
easier and less expensive than recruiting from outside. At the same time,
"outsourcing and offshoring for many companies has been more of a blessing
than a curse," says David Foote.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Author Explores World of Japanese Robots
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (09/21/06) Machosky, Michael
There is a big difference between the robots developed by Japanese
researchers and those made in the United States, claims Timothy Hornyak,
author of "Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots."
Speaking generally, Japanese robots tend to be friendly and consumer
oriented, whereas the most advanced U.S. robots are often designed for
military applications. U.S. robots are commonly viewed as competitive
threats for jobs or simply as tools to be used until they break down. By
contrast, the Japanese seem to genuinely care about their robots and treat
them as partners in labor. Robots, and technology in general, emerged as a
way for Japan to rebuild after the devastation of World War II. "They did
not develop this latent technophobia that you see in the West," Hornyak
says. The Japanese also widely consider robots to have some form of soul
or spirit, which is reflected in designs such as Sony's AIBO robot dog and
Paro, a robot in the form of a fuzzy baby seal. In a country with some of
the world's longest life expectancies and lowest birth rates, Japanese
robots are widely used to fill in gaps in the labor supply and care for the
elderly. Also, in Japanese popular culture, robots frequently embody the
best characteristics of humans, rather than being depicted as the dystopic
monster that turns on its master, or as simple comic relief.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Another Perspective on Petascale
HPC Wire (09/22/06) Vol. 15, No. 38,
Concordia University's David Probst, who was asked to offer a broader
perspective on petascale efforts at the HPC User Forum in Denver, expects
that there will be solid ideas about ways to boost petaflops performance
and productivity significantly via new architectures, languages, and system
software by the end of the decade, although he cautions that there are no
assurances "that the people with clout will choose good architectures, good
languages, and good system software." Probst believes a general-purpose
sustained petaflop system will be affordable to only a few governments in
the 2009-2011 timeframe specified by several nations, and suggests that
perhaps attention should be devoted to offering a less powerful yet
productive computer system--maybe a desktop--that less wealthy government
agencies can afford. Probst says addressing power consumption is just one
of seven challenges in petascale system design, the others being contending
with latency, supplying sufficient system interconnection bandwidth, more
effectively leveraging familiar and unique forms of locality, extending the
von Neumann computing model to permit thread migration and affordable
synchronization, increasing processor-generated parallelism, and using good
system software to pair a good programming model with a good execution
model. Though Probst thinks heterogeneous processing is essential to the
revitalization of high-end computing, he says the term is excessively
defined, with people currently concentrating "on the most trivial form of
heterogeneous processing." His solution is to adopt a single, unified
series of programming abstractions, and leave the job of mapping these
abstractions to the various execution abstractions deployed by each
heterogeneous processor to the compiler and runtime. Probst opines that
certain aspects of the petascale movement could be reexamined, remarking
that, among other things, "we need more clarity about who is desperate for
productive petaflops and who is not really that unhappy with the way things
are."
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Interactive Simulator Brings Computing and Software
Education to Life
McMaster University Silhouette (Canada) (09/14/06)
An investment in an interactive motion simulator is the latest way in
which McMaster University is trying to attract more students to computer
science and software engineering. Students at the Hamilton, Ontario,
university will use the mini-van-sized simulator with a space-ship-pod
fiberglass shell to develop software for simulated flight, driving,
real-time game design, medical research, virtual reality systems, and other
applications. "It is the same simulator technology used by industry for
product development and training but now applied in a classroom setting for
teaching," says Martin von Mohrenschildt, chair of computing and software
in the faculty of engineering. At a time when fewer students are
expressing interest in tech careers, McMaster wants to show students that
there is more to IT than writing code and building PCs, as well as how it
impacts every facet of society, from business and entertainment to
medicine. "The simulator is an entry point for students to learn the
latest in 4D-modeling techniques for virtual reality, real-time systems and
control, animation tools, user interfaces, and sensory feedback," says
Mohrenschildt.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
It Could All Be So Much Better
New Scientist (09/16/06) Vol. 191, No. 2569, P. 54; Holderness, Mike
Social networks such as YouTube and MySpace would never have been realized
without hypertext navigation technology created by Ted Nelson, who says in
an interview that specific flavors of hypertext undergirding such networks
determine easy, difficult, or impossible social networking applications.
According to Nelson, the Internet is treated like real estate in which
users stake out territory, when what he originally envisaged and
constructed "is about sharing media and acknowledging sources, without
walls or boundaries." He cites three areas that reflect the naivete of the
Web's designers: Hierarchy, the simulation of paper, and the assumption
that the human world is entirely factual "and can be represented without
the 'says who?' information that is built into my way of doing things."
Nelson exemplifies his approach in the Xanadu system he began in 1960,
which uses a process of "transclusion" whereby a document quotes another by
pulling in the actual text from the source. Xanadu also operates on a
"transcopyright" principle in which anyone posting a Xanadu document grants
the world permission to quote from it, charging the reader a one-time fee
if they so desire. Transcopyright would enable artists to make a living,
while Nelson explains that with transclusion "You could follow through from
a comment someone put on your page to see at once what they said to
everyone else, and then ask 'Is is it only me you love or are you spamming
everyone else?'"
Click Here to View Full Article
- Web Link to Publication Homepage
to the top
Researchers Reveal Potential 'Click Fraud'
Indiana Daily Student (09/22/06) Oloffson, Kristi
"Click fraud" could pose a considerable threat to online advertisers
because it can go unnoticed, according to researchers at the University of
Indiana. In fact, Markus Jakobsson, an associate professor of informatics,
and research assistants and computer science graduate students Jacob
Ratkiewicz and Mona Gandhi are unsure if online attackers have already
taken advantage of Web advertisers in such a manner. Online advertisers
pay Web sites when Web surfers click on their ads, and scam artists can
exploit the business model by having friends visit the site and click on
the ads, according to the researchers in a new study. In addition to the
social approach, online attackers can employ a technical strategy using
"badvertisements," in which tiny ads are placed all over a site, giving the
impression that visitors are viewing them. "It's going to be invisible to
the advertisement provider," says Jakobsson, who is also an associate
director at the IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. "They won't
realize there's click fraud on your site." Small pay-per-click advertisers
appear to be more vulnerable to click fraud. The researchers will present
their study at the Anti-Phishing Working Group's annual conference in
November.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
National Biomedical Computation Resource (NBCR):
Developing End-to-End Cyberinfrastructure for Multiscale Modeling in
Biomedical Research
CTWatch Quarterly (08/06) Vol. 2, No. 3, Li, Wilfred W.; Baker, Nathan;
Baldridge, Kim
The authors detail The National Biomedical Computation Resource's (NBCR)
advances in building end-to-end cyberinfrastructure to support multiscale
modeling in biomedical research. The Finite Element Tool Kit, the Python
Molecular Viewer, AutoDock Tools, and the Adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann Solver
are just some of the innovations that are helping NBCR in this regard.
Presented by the authors is a prototype environment that permits the
transparent operation of existing applications on the grid, leveraging open
source software that offers a GridSphere-enabled portal interface; Grid
Account Management Architecture (GAMA)-based transparent GSI
authentication; the Opal Web service wrapper; a CSF4-supported
metascheduler; the Gfarm virtual file system; and the Rocks grid-enabled
cluster environment. "Better and more robust approaches will always come
out of close collaborations between computer scientists and biomedical
researchers, as well as other field specialists," the authors note. "The
interactions will educate all the groups to be fully aware of the
requirements and challenges of the state of the art technology, and make
routine use of the grid possible today." The collective cost of global
computation grids is substantially lowered by the invention of new tools
that support applications in various fields and via international
cooperation, the authors point out. Their conclusion is that the specific
problems to be addressed and the target audience of the designed
environment dictate what tools are to be selected.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
From Hypertext to Hypervideo
Economist (09/21/06)
Just as hypertext enables Web users to click on a passage of text and be
transported to a new page, an emerging technology known as hypervideo makes
it easier to stitch together online video segments in new ways, giving rise
to the phenomenon of video blogging, or vlogging. Using object-tracking
software, the objects in hyperlinked videos become clickable as they move
around. Clicking on an object takes the viewer to a related video; once it
has played, the original video picks up where it left off. To alert users
that a video contains hyperlinks, editors can use audible clues, highlight
the moving images, or place images from the hyperlinked videos alongside
the clip that is currently playing. Siemens plans to use the ADIVI system
developed by researchers at the Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany,
to improve the technician's experience when consulting an online-video
technical manual, enabling viewers to click on a portion of the manual to
call up a more detailed explanation of a specific topic. That feature is
alternately referred to as "drilling" and "telescoping." In addition to
competing terminologies, there are also questions about the etiquette of
linking to other users' clips. The controversial practice of hotlinking,
where a site owner displays another user's content on his own page, is
discouraged by some sites. The technology also has considerable commercial
potential for advertisers and technology companies. A new software
application allows users to create videos that link to advertising or
e-commerce pages, or to supply product information.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Artificial Intelligentsia
Atlantic Monthly (10/06) Vol. 298, No. 3, P. 146; Fallows, James
Debate is brewing over whether the Internet is nurturing a form of
artificial intelligence through the group efforts of bloggers, editors, and
other Internet users, whose individual pursuits are collectively creating a
vast, impartial, and multidisciplinary knowledge base. Atlantic Monthly
correspondent James Fallows expects two significant achievements--spot
knowledge retrieval via the embedding of computing power in everyday
objects and machine-created categorization--to have an ultimately
beneficial effect on human beings' cognitive capabilities. With spot
recall, people will be able to retrieve any piece of information whenever
they wish, while categorization will give them a leg up in recognizing
patterns in the data. Fallows writes that these capabilities will be a
mental version of eyeglasses, enhancing the lives of people whose memory
fades as they get older. "For those without such problems, these new tools
could, while perhaps less immediately essential, yet become the modern-day
equivalent of the steam engine or the plow--tools that free people from
routine chores and give them more time to think, dream, and live," the
author concludes. At the same time, Fallows acknowledges sympathy with
technology essayist Jaron Lanier, who warned in the online publication Edge
that collective intelligence would have an effect similar to political
collectivism in its stifling of innovation and creativity.
Click Here to View Full Article
- Web Link to Publication Homepage
to the top
Compliance Deconstructed
Queue (09/06) Vol. 4, No. 7, P. 30; Cannon, J.C.; Byers, Marilee
It is possible for companies to contend systematically with compliance and
automate compliance-related business processes through technological
application via a process of deconstruction, write Microsoft's JC Cannon
and Marilee Byers. Compliance is chiefly fueled by regulatory legislation
and corporate governance, and companies should understand that the primary
compliance drivers should be the processes that impact the bottom line.
Ensuring, or validating, compliance is a formidable task for large
companies. The enterprise should perform a compliance assessment with an
internal or external compliance expert to identify high-risk business
processes, and put in a series of controls to address those processes. The
consolidation of compliance management can foster the development of a
single corporate compliance policy, which can avoid duplication of effort
that gives rise to conflicting policies; each department should define a
strategy for corporate policy compliance. The next step is to ascertain
how controls for high-risk business processes should be automated, but
automation should wait until it has been confirmed that the controls
accommodate the company's compliance requirements in an appropriate manner.
The automation mechanism should be a system that supplies end-to-end
control over business processes, and that is capable of determining the
reasons behind the incidence of an action, and the person or persons who
approved the action. Following the compliance evaluation's identification
of business processes in need of automation, systems that assist with the
automation process must be found.
Click Here to View Full Article
- Web Link to Publication Homepage
to the top