David Patterson Recognized for Inventing New Technologies
That Improve Computer Performance and Dependability
AScribe Newswire (05/15/08)
ACM and the IEEE Computer Society have named former ACM President David A.
Patterson the winner of the 2008 Eckert-Mauchly Award, the prestigious
computer architecture award. Patterson played a key role in the
development of the Reduced Instruction-Set Computing (RISC) microprocessor
design, first introduced in 1980. The SPARC architecture is based on RISC,
and Fujitsu and Sun Microsystems are among the companies that currently use
it. Patterson's effort in designing and implementing a computer data
storage system with multiple small disks, to improve reliability and
performance, has also led to smaller and more affordable computers.
Patterson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is an ACM
fellow, and served as president from 2004 to 2006. He will be honored with
the award and its $5,000 prize at the International Symposium on Computer
Architecture, which is scheduled for June 21-25, 2008, in Beijing,
China.
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Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children
New York Times (05/16/08) P. C1; Lohr, Steve
Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project have reached an
agreement that will allow the nonprofit to distribute laptops that run
Windows. OLPC's laptops have been praised for their innovative design, but
sales have been slow. "The people who buy the machines are not the
children who use them, but government officials in most cases," says OLPC
founder Nicholas Negroponte. "And those people are much more comfortable
with Windows." Adding Windows to the machines will add about $3 to the
cost of each laptop, the same licensing fee that Microsoft charges under
its Unlimited Potential program for developing nations. OLPC will still
provide Linux laptops for anyone who wants them, as well as laptops that
run both systems, but the extra hardware required to do so will add about
$7 to each laptop's price. The laptops now cost about $200 each. The
project wants to eventually lower the price to $100 per laptop.
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With H-1B in Limbo, Congressional Backers Push Green Card
Fix
Computerworld (05/14/08) Thibodeau, Patrick
Efforts to increase the H-1B visa cap have stalled, so U.S. Rep. Zoe
Lofgren (D-Calif.) has introduced three bills that could help foreign
nationals already working in the United States obtain permanent residency.
Employers say that getting permanent residency for their employees is as
much a problem as getting H-1B visas. One Lofgren bill would exempt
graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science,
technology, engineering, and math from the annual 140,000 limit on
permanent residency visas. Lofgren says more than 50 percent of graduates
with advanced degrees in science and engineering are foreign born. "If we
want our economy to continue competing in the global market, we have to
retain these foreign students so they compete with us instead of against us
in other countries," Lofgren says. Another bill introduced by Lofgren
seeks to eliminate the per-country caps on employment-based visas.
Currently, the U.S. caps the number of employment-based visas issued to
potential foreign workers at 7 percent per country. Lofgren also
introduced a bill that would take unused employment-based green cards and
make them available for reuse in a subsequent year.
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CFP 08 Computer Security Experts Debate Political,
Economic, Social Impacts of Technology Policy
AScribe Newswire (05/15/08)
ACM's 2008 Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference (CFP 2008), which
unites renowned technology policy experts who will help shape public debate
on technology issues, takes place May 20-23 at the Omni New Haven Hotel at
Yale University. CFP 2008 will feature representatives from both the Obama
and McCain presidential campaigns, who will answer questions posed by
panelists on the technology policy. On May 21, CFP 2008 attendees will
launch a collaborative effort to write a letter to the next president of
the United States asking about their priorities for technology policy
during the next administration. Proposals will be posted on a wiki for
review, and a draft letter will be circulated for signatures on a consensus
document. The final letter will be sent to both presidential campaigns for
their response. The project is intended to generate broad discussion on
technology policy priorities among grassroots groups, and to highlight
those viewpoints for future policy makers. CFP 2008 will also present
panels, discussions, workshops, technical demonstrations, and speeches on
key topics, including voting technology, online campaigning, social
networks, network neutrality, electronic medical records, media
concentration, cybercrime, and cyberterrorism.
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Mapping Tool Open Sourced
Government Computer News (05/14/08) Jackson, Joab
The Java Mission-planning and Analysis for Remote Sensing (JMars) program,
software used by NASA to display data from and help plan missions, has been
made available as an open source program by Arizona State University's Mars
Space Flight Facility. NASA uses JMars for the Mars Odyssey, Global
Surveyor, and Reconnaissance Orbital spaceflights. The university released
the source code for JMars under version 3 of the GNU General Public License
in April. JMars application manager Eric Engle says the development team
hopes to get more feedback from wider use of the program. JMars maps any
ellipsoidal-shaped bodies and is designed to provide a geographic
information system-style interface for image data NASA collects about Mars.
JMars users can scan multiple datasets and look for particular
geographically-aware data gathered on a location. The Java-based tool also
can use contour data to render maps in 3D. JMars provides mission-planning
or targeting capabilities, so researchers interested in obtaining an image
of a certain area on Mars can determine if an orbiting craft will pass over
that location and instruct a satellite to capture data the next time it
crosses over that area.
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The New Science of Visual Analytics
HPC Wire (05/15/08) West, John E.
Visual analytics is the current focus of Jim Thomas, director of the U.S.
Homeland Security Department-sponsored National Visualization and Analytics
Center (NVAC), who describes the field as "the science of analytical
reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces." A 2006 paper
posits that visual analytics integrates visualization with human factors,
geospatial, scientific analytics, and information so that people can
extract individual fragments of a whole from a vast volume of unstructured
data, and then piece the whole together. NVAC's mission is fivefold: To
understand the vulnerabilities of and risk to critical U.S. infrastructure,
reduce the terrorism threat, devise a visual communication infrastructure
for response teams, cultivate an enduring talent base, and produce
effective communications metaphors that can encompass the conclusions of
risk evaluations as well as the evidence and chain of logic. Among the
users of NVAC's products are intelligence analysts who must sift through
the Web information streams and first responders managing a crisis as it
occurs. Thomas says the presentation of information in a context that is
apropos to individual users is vital, while discovery, comprehension, and
confirmation requires interaction. He says the visual analytics field has
expanded to more than 1,000 researchers up from 40 researchers just a few
years ago. Thomas says about 50 percent of NVAC's funding is committed to
basic research via a quintet of university-led research centers, each of
which has a regional partner to help focus its research.
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Parallel Processing Calls for a Fortress Mentality
InfoWorld (05/15/08) McAllister, Neil
Sun Microsystems' new Fortress programming language is designed to tackle
the problems of applications development for high-performance computing.
The problem with most programming languages is that they were designed for
an earlier generation of machines, when processing resources were limited
and desktop computers generally had only a single CPU. The amount of
available processing power continues to increase, but the popular
programming languages used today were not designed for the
parallel-processing model. Fortress allows for language constructs such as
for-next loops to be parallelizable by default. Fortress supports the
concept of parallel transactions within the language itself, meaning that
complex calculations can be computed as atomic units, independent of any
other program threads that might be running. Fortress' syntax is also
based on mathematical notation to assist developers in conceptualizing
complex parallel-processing applications. So far, Fortress exists mostly
on paper, though a reference interpreter that implements most of the core
language features is available on the Fortress project community site.
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Women Still Trail in Tech Jobs
USA Today (05/16/08) Schepp, David
Men continue to hold an overwhelming number of technology jobs, and Susan
Merritt, dean of the computer science program at Pace University in New
York City, believes the small presence of women in the industry is a
problem that is worsening. Merritt says women account for just 10 percent
of computing majors. Trying to get young girls interested in computing via
gaming might not work because they are not as interested in computer games
as boys. Meanwhile, IBM's Florence D. Hudson says girls as early as middle
school often play down their intelligence around boys and eventually lose
confidence in their abilities. She adds that many girls do not know anyone
who has pursued studies for a technology career, and might hear their
mothers say how difficult math was for them. Enrollment in computing
programs is down 70 percent for all students since 2000, largely due to the
belief that there are few job opportunities in information technology as a
result of outsourcing, Merritt notes. "Of course, that's not true," she
says.
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Commencement 2008: Rensselaer Student Invents Alternative
to Silicon Chip
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (05/13/08) DeMarco, Gabrielle
Recent Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute doctoral graduate Weixiao Huang
has invented a new gallium nitride (GaN) transistor that could reduce power
consumption and improve the efficiency of power electronics systems.
"Silicon has been the workhorse in the semiconductor industry for last two
decades," Huang says. "But as power electronics get more sophisticated and
require higher performing transistors, engineers have been seeking an
alternative like gallium nitride-based transistors that can perform better
than silicon and in extreme conditions." Engineers have known that GaN and
other gallium-based materials have electrical properties that are superior
to silicon, but no useful GaN metal/oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors
had been developed. Huang's transistor, the world's first GaN MOS
field-effect transistor (MOSFET), has already demonstrated world-record
performance, Huang says. "If these new GaN transistors replaced many
existing silicon MOSFETs in power electronics systems, there would be
global reduction in fossil fuel consumption and pollution," Huang says.
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Engineering Creativity 'Swarms' the Heart of Sensors
Confab
EE Times (05/12/08) Mokhoff, Nicolas
James McLurkin's research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory focuses on modeling
aspects from nature to research algorithms and techniques for constructing
and programming large swarms of autonomous robots. McLurkin is the keynote
speaker at this year's Sensors Expo, where he will discuss the logistics of
creativity and how one can structure the environment around them to enhance
creative thought. McLurkin's current project is to create swarm robots
capable of working together on a single objective while performing
different tasks. McLurkin is developing software and programming
techniques capable of handling large swarms of robots. A possible
application for swarm robots could be earthquake-response search and
rescue. On his Web site, McLurkin describes one scenario in which
thousands of cockroach-sized scout robots are sent into piles of debris to
locate survivors. A few dozen rat-sized structural engineering robots
would then be sent to get near the scene and solve how to remove debris
without causing the rubble to collapse. Finally, brontosaurus-sized
heavy-lifting robots would arrive to execute the rescue plan. McLurkin
will use his keynote speech to generate buzz about his work and encourage
more creative ideas to resolve the software problem.
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Robot that Gives Birth Helps Medics Learn
New Scientist (05/13/08) Barras, Colin
Researchers at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquees in Lyon,
France, have improved a robot capable of simulating the birth of a child by
adding a pneumatic arm that mimics the movements of childbirth. BirthSIM
provides a life-size model of a mother's pelvis, and the baby's head is now
hidden inside mounted on the pneumatic arm. The childbirth simulator was
created to serve as a safe testbed that junior obstetricians could use to
improve their forceps skills. Electromagnetic sensors track the motion of
the forceps and the baby's head in 3D, and the data is used to project a 3D
model onto a screen, which enables trainees to see what is happening inside
the pelvis. Patrick Mohide, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at
McMaster University believes further improvements are needed. "The ideal
simulator would also measure the forces, pressures, and directions of
traction from using the forceps, and would simulate the effects on the
fetus," he says. "That might lead to the development of more standardized
techniques and provide an objective approach to measuring and maintaining
skills, just as aircraft simulators do."
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Next Generation of Business Software Could Get More
Fun
Associated Press (05/12/08) Bergstein, Brian
Researchers are incorporating elements from video games and
social-networking Web sites into business software to make it more engaging
as an antidote to the disconnection that physically scattered workers often
feel. IBM's Beehive portal for its employees is designed to encourage
participation and comradeship through a brighter color scheme, and the
ability to share lists and post pictures, video, and one-statement updates.
Beehive developer Morris DiMicco thinks such information helps nurture
understanding and empathy between far-flung workers. IBM's Bluegrass
portal seeks to set up a virtual environment through which software
programmers spread out across different locations can organize their work.
Meanwhile, Intel is investigating the potential of virtual-world software,
which will make collaboration between groups more natural through its rich
3D models of conference rooms, factory floors, and other areas. Game-like
virtual interactions could be incorporated into more aspects of everyday
working life in the coming years as the sophistication of technology
improves, leading to such innovations as virtual meetings using avatars
that mimic the participants' gestures and facial expressions in real time
through the use of Web cameras. Intel engineer Cindy Pickering says the
advancement of socially-oriented workplace software will chiefly depend on
younger workers who are already familiar with online social engagement,
although she cautions that the element of face-to-face interaction will not
be completely supplanted.
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Finding the Right Soliton for Future Networks
ICT Results (05/14/08)
A new generation of computers and optical telecommunications networks
could be borne from a study of self-sustaining solitary light wave packets
carried out by European researchers engaged in the FUNFACS project.
FUNFACS focuses on solitary waves, or solitons, formed in an optical cavity
capable of capturing light, and researchers believe that these cavity
solitons possess novel properties that could lead to applications more
sophisticated than what is possible using current technology. For example,
cavity solitons can be formed and destroyed at the micrometer level, and
such characteristics are thought to be especially relevant in photonics and
optoelectronics, where light can be used as a medium for the storage,
manipulation, and transmission of data. The FUNFACS researchers
demonstrated that the energy input required to maintain cavity solitons is
small thanks to the solitons' self-sustaining properties, while cavity
soliton lasers can be switched on and off using light pulses. Such lasers
could thus play a key role in an all-optical telecommunications system,
says FUNFACS project coordinator Robert Kuszelewicz. It also was proved in
other tests that solitons could be moved across the plane of the
semiconductor material with a controlled speed and direction of drift,
while multiple solitons can coexist in close proximity to each other
without interacting. Other documented properties of cavity solitons
include their tendency to bind together when brought in very close
proximity, and the phenomenon of one soliton vanishing when two solitons
are superimposed. These discoveries could perhaps form the basis of an
evolution from the current use of chip-based semiconductors for data
processing to a more flexible type of optical processing.
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Wireless Mesh Standard Gets Boost From OLPC, Open
Source
Network World (05/09/08) Cox, John
The One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) and a recently launched open
source project are experimenting with IEEE's wireless LAN mesh
specification, which is still under development. The hands-on experiences
by OLPC and the open source project have already led to several changes in
the IEEE 802.11s Task Group draft standard, and other changes are being
considered. When deployed, 802.11s will allow different types of wireless
devices to find each other, interconnect securely, and send traffic on
behalf of other mesh nodes, creating new routes automatically if nodes move
or wireless links fail. Advocates say the standard will make WLAN
deployments easier and less expensive. OLPC started studying the benefits
of mesh networks in 2006 as a way of creating its own wireless networks and
communications, without the need for access points or intermediate servers,
and to share any wide-area connections that might be available in areas
where the laptops will be used. OLPC chief connectivity officer Michail
Bletsas says the 802.11s mesh was a natural choice because it works at
Layer 2, so no changes were necessary to the TCP/IP network stack or other
higher-layer applications. Another benefit of 802.11s mesh is that the
code can run on the 802.11 network adapter module, with a system-on-a-chip
having its own memory and small CPU, enabling the OLPC laptop to suspend or
shut down its main CPU to save power but continue to use some power to keep
the network alive, sending traffic to other mesh participants.
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Study: 'Hyperconnected' Users Growing
InfoWorld (05/13/08) Krill, Paul
Enterprises are increasingly dealing with a growing "culture of
connectivity" as information workers worldwide use more and more Internet
applications and wireless devices, concludes a new IDC study. The study
uncovered a large number of what it called "hyperconnected" users, or
people who use at least seven devices and nine applications.
Hyperconnected users represented 16 percent of the population in the study
and used such devices as cell phones, laptops, PDAs, and car-based systems,
as well as Web 2.0 applications such as Twitter, Second Life, text
messaging, wikis, and Web conferencing. The study identified another group
dubbed the "increasingly connected" who use at least four devices and six
applications and comprised 36 percent of the population. IDC's Vito
Mabrucco says the new usage trends will cause IT and telecommunications to
converge. He says future networks will need to incorporate telephony,
data, identity, presence, and location. He also warns that broadband,
telecommunications, wireless, and high-speed networks will become strained
as demand rises for connectivity and applications.
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Pinta the Robot Sailing Boat Takes on Atlantic
Challenge
The Times (London) (05/10/08) Smith, Lewis
Several robotic sailboats are undergoing final preparations before setting
sail in an effort to become the first robot to cross an ocean using only
wind power. Eight robotic sailboats will participate in a race that is
intended to test the endurance and reliability of robots. The Pinta,
designed by scientists at Aberystwyth University, uses solar panels to
provide power to a robotic arm on the tiller and a pulley system to change
the angle of the sail, which requires far less power than a motor. "This
is the first time anybody has attempted to sail across any ocean with an
automated boat," says Aberystwyth University's Mark Neal. "The big issue
in robotics at the moment is longevity and flexibility in a complicated
environment." A robotic sailboat able to navigate by itself could
participate in sampling expeditions and collect data for scientists
studying climate change, weather, chemistry, and other subjects. Sensors
could measure the carbon dioxide content of the water, chlorophyll content,
pollution, air pressure, air and sea temperatures, and wind speed, and the
robots could monitor events such as plankton blooms or oil spills.
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Academic Argues Software Needs to Learn Manners
Computerworld New Zealand (05/14/08) Hedquist, Ulrika
Massey University senior lecturer Brain Whitworth says much of today's
software is rude, constantly forcing users to remove things they did not
want added, reset changes they did not want made, close windows they did
not want opened, and block emails they did not want to receive. Whitworth
says software must be both usable and polite, with software functioning as
an assistant to the user instead of the other way around. Impolite
programs use the computer's hard drive to store information cookies, change
the user's computer settings such as the browser home page, email
preferences, or file associations, or spy on the user to record online
activities. Whitworth says polite software can make human-computer
interactions more pleasant by following certain guidelines. First, polite
software should respect the user and not preempt user choices or act on or
copy information without the user's direct permission. Second, software
should openly declare itself, who it represents, and how that organization
can be contacted. Third, polite software should help users make informed
choices and provide useful, understandable information when asked.
Finally, polite software should remember past user choices during
interactions. Whitworth says impolite software examples include Windows
Update, which simply notifies the user when it starts, as it progresses,
and when it finishes updating instead of asking for the user's permission.
Google is an example of polite software because it allows users to look at
sponsored links only if they want to. Another example is eBay's customer
reputation feedback function, which gives users optional access to
information related to their purchase choice.
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Singapore-MIT Game Lets Visually Impaired Share the
Fun
MIT News (05/13/08) Chandler, David
MIT students have developed AudiOdyssey, a computer game for visually
impaired users. AudiOdyssey simulates a DJ trying to create a catchy tune
and get people to dance. The player uses the Nintendo Wii's remote-control
device to create a rhythm and lay down a series of musical tracks,
gradually building a song. Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab graduate student
Eitan Gilnert says that although the Wii gaming system has attracted a lot
of people who never previously played video games, people with disabilities
are being left behind. Gilnert started to research available video games
that were designed for the visually impaired, and found that the games were
so specifically adapted for sound and tactile play that they gave
visually-impaired players too much of an advantage. Gilnert set out to
create a game that could be played equally well by both visually impaired
and sighted players. The game also is designed to be played on a regular
keyboard for those without Wiis. Gilnert says the game is an early
prototype and limited in its capabilities. MIT Comparative Media Studies
program graduate Alicia Verlager, who is blind, helped develop the game.
"The element I probably most envy about gamers is just the way they hang
out together and share doing something fun," Verlager says. "Hanging out
with other gamers playing AudiOdyssey was really fun."
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