U.S. Computer Programmers Losing Ground
Voice of America News (07/27/06) Hoke, Zlatica
From 1977 to 1989, U.S. collegiate teams dominated the annual ACM
programming competition, and U.S. students were among the top finishers
through the late 1990s. Since then, however, they have been over taken by
Asian and East European students. Only one U.S. team finished in the top
12 in this year's competition; last year there were none. To some, this
trend is emblematic of a broader and more serious shortage of computer
scientists looming in the future. "If you look at the rate of production
of individuals either with bachelors' degrees or advanced degrees in those
disciplines in the United States, it's about half the rate of production of
those of let's say India and China, which are the two major producers,"
said Mel Schiavelli, president of Harrisburg University of Science and
Technology. "Said another way," he continues, "in the United States, less
than a third of students who go to college decide to study a science or
technology or engineering discipline. Whereas when you get to China, it's
closer to 70 percent." Schiavelli also believes that science education in
general has declined in the United States, noting the significant number of
math teachers who are not certified in the field. As a result, students
are often unprepared for the difficulty of university-level computer
science courses, and many professors have made their courses easier to keep
students from switching majors. "University programs are faced with a
challenge of: 'If we want to keep our jobs, we have to keep our students.'
So then they start dumbing down their programs to keep more of their
students when their is a sign they are going to leave," said Doug White, a
computer science professor at Roger Williams University. Meanwhile, the
flourishing technology industries in China and India have lead millions of
students to pursue computer science programs. Concerns about outsourcing
threaten to further erode the computing workforce in the United States, as
many students have turned away from computer science out of the fear that
there will be no jobs waiting for them when they graduate.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
East Coast Researchers Showcase Breakthrough Technologies
at SIGGRAPH in Boston
Business Wire (07/27/06)
Participants at the SIGGRAPH 2006 Emerging Technologies exhibition will
present a host of cutting-edge research in human-computer interaction.
SIGGRAPH accepted 36 installations of the 110 submissions that it received.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will present
three items at the exhibition. Walter Dan Stiehl will give a presentation
entitled "The Huggable: A Therapeutic Robotic Companion for Relational,
Affective Touch," a robotic companion developed around research in pet
therapy that features a complete sense of touch, voice-coil actuators, and
a built-in PC that enables the robot to communicate with the staff of a
hospital or nursing home. MIT's Angela Chang will present "Tangibles at
Play," which blends art, design, and education to explore the way that
humans understand information with their hands and peripheral senses. The
third MIT exhibition comes from Takehiko Nagakura, who will present an
interactive browser built for architectural designs. Another installation
will feature a haptic sensing digitizer that mounts to a user's fingertip
to capture the phenomena that occur through tactile movements. Ramesh
Reskar of Mitsubishi Electronic Research Labs (MERL) will present "Instant
Reply," a space-labeling technology that can track and visualize the
movements of a puck on an air hockey table. MERL's Paul Dietz will present
"Submerging Technologies," which exploits the electro-optical properties in
water to make it function as a sensor. SIGGRAPH takes place from July 30
to August 3 in Boston. For more information on SIGGRAPH, visit
http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Second GPLv3 Draft Tones Down DRM Language
IDG News Service (07/27/06) Martens, China
In the second draft of the general public license volume three (GPLv3),
the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has backed down from the rigid and
polarizing language concerning digital rights management that characterized
the first draft. Whereas the first draft was solely authored by the FSF,
"The second draft is reflective of broader opinion, of the FSF and
thousands of other people around the world," said the foundation's Eben
Moglen. The first draft described DRM as "digital restrictions
management," and prohibited software licensed under the GPL from being used
in DRM software. The DRM portion of the second draft has been overhauled
with considerably milder and more general language. Instead of dealing
with the technology specifically, the section has been retitled "no denying
users' rights through technical measures." The second draft also clarifies
the language addressing large software distributors that own and
cross-license patents to protect end users from claims of patent
infringement. The draft suggests that a company could continue to ensure
free access to source code by directing users to a Web site that hosts the
software. The section on licensing compatibility, which many felt was
difficult to understand, has also been substantially rewritten. The issue
of legally binding translations of the license remains unclear, Moglen
says.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
UCI Researchers 'Text Mine' the New York Times,
Demonstrating Ease and Evolution of Potent New Technology
University of California, Irvine (07/26/06)
Using bleeding-edge text-mining technology, researchers at the University
of California, Irvine, have performed an analysis of 330,000 stories mainly
published by the New York Times. "We have shown in a very practical way
how a new text-mining technique makes understanding huge volumes of text
quicker and easier," said UCI computer scientist David Newman. "To put it
simply, text mining has made an evolutionary jump. In just a few short
years, it could become a common and useful tool for everyone from medical
doctors to advertisers, publishers to politicians." The researchers used a
text-mining technique known as topic modeling, which searches for patterns
of words that typically appear together in documents and categorizes them
into topics. While the UCI researchers did not invent topic modeling, they
are among the first to demonstrate the technique's utility by analyzing a
large archive. Creating topics enabled the researchers to track what items
received the most press attention from year to year. Looking at a list of
words that includes "rider," "bike," "race," "Jan Ullrich," and "Lance
Armstrong," for instance, the researchers could easily identify the topic
as the Tour de France. "If I were advertising a product related to the
Tour de France, I might want to know whether interest in the Tour de France
is increasing or decreasing," Newman said. "This might be very important
knowledge."
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Introverted IT Students More Inclined to
Cyber-Crime
New Scientist (07/26/06) Marks, Paul
A recent study has found that introverted technology students are more
prone to "deviant" computer conduct, contradicting earlier research that
suggested that malicious computing activities are most often the product of
extroverts. The researchers polled 77 Purdue University computer science
students with an anonymous online questionnaire, asking questions about
their involvement in deviant computing activities, some of which are
unlawful, such as using another person's password, writing and dispatching
a virus, and obtaining credit card numbers. "Of 77 students, 68 admitted
to engaging in an activity that could be classified as deviant," said
Purdue computer scientist Marcus Rogers. In a self-evaluation, the deviant
students gave themselves a 10 percent higher ranking on a scale that
measured introversion. Acknowledging the limited scope of the study,
Marcus cautions against using the results to support sweeping
generalizations. Rogers himself was involved in a 2003 survey of arts
students at the University of Manitoba, Canada, that found an increased
rate of "deviant" activity among extroverts. DataSec's Jon Munsey believes
that each personality type has a niche in the realm of computer misuse.
Irrespective of the proportion of introverts and extroverts, Marcus says
that he is alarmed by the fact that 88 percent of the students polled
admitted to engaging in deviant behavior.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Experts Weigh Prospect of Full DNS Control by
ICANN
IDG News Service (07/27/06) Perez, Juan Carlos
Experts on Internet governance weighed in during a meeting convened by the
U.S. Department of Commerce on the future of ICANN and its oversight of the
domain name system (DNS) once its contract with the U.S. government expires
in September, debating whether the U.S. government should maintain some
sort of role or bow out completely. Among those attending was John Kneuer,
acting administrator of the Commerce Department's National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, who said, "We have an
incentive and a long-standing policy to complete this transition. But we
will take no actions that will [compromise] the stability and security of
the Internet." Some experts said they think ICANN must go it alone, if not
now then later, if for no other reason than to get foreign countries off
its back for supposedly doing the U.S. government's bidding. "We continue
to be concerned about attempts to politicize the Internet and its
management," said Internet Society President and CEO Lynn St. Amour. "As
long as the U.S. government has a role in ICANN's governance and
management, organizations and other governments have an incentive to try to
leverage political channels to their favor." GoDaddy vice president of
corporate development and policy Tim Ruiz argued that for now the
government should retain its role. Those arguing against a complete
handover of DNS oversight agreed that security and the future expansion of
the Internet are too large a responsibility to take lightly.
Click Here to View Full Article
- Web Link May Require Free Registration
to the top
Congress Needs Better Scientific Advice, Witnesses
Say
U.S. House of Representatives (07/25/06)
The quality of the science and technology advice that Congress receives
was the focus of a House Committee on Science hearing this week. The panel
of experts said the problem has more to do with lawmakers' ability to
determine the validity of information they receive and pull knowledge from
it. "Although we would like to believe that the scientific and technical
advice and assessment provided from outside remains politically neutral,
this is not necessarily the case," said Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.). The
experts noted that there was a gap in the information available to
legislators. "There is no consistent source of in-depth assessments that
are balanced, complete, impartial, and produced at a time and in a format
that is sensitive to the specific needs of Congress," said Dr. Jon Peha,
co-editor of Science and Technology Advice for Congress. The Office of
Technology Assessment (OTA), a Congressional support office, provided
lawmakers with updates on science and technology issues starting in 1972,
but OTA funding was axed in 1995. Dr. Catherine Hunt, president-elect of
the American Chemical Society, suggested that another in-house science and
technology unit be created within the Congressional Research Service or as
a standalone agency, while Dr. Peter Blair, executive director of the
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences at the National Research
Council, said the task could be given to the National Academies.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Fingertip Device Helps Computers Read Hand
Gestures
University at Buffalo News (07/27/06)
Researchers at the University of Buffalo will demonstrate new haptic
technology that will allow computers to respond to hand gestures at the
SIGGRAPH 2006 technology conference scheduled for July 30 through Aug. 3 in
Boston. Modeled after the biomechanical properties of a finger, the
Fingertip Digitizer gives users the opportunity to direct a personal
computer by pointing, wagging a finger, tapping in the air, or making
another movement. "With this device a computer, cell phone, or computer
game could read human intention more naturally," says Young-Seok Kim, who
receives his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from UB in May.
"Eventually the Fingertip Digitizer may be used as a high-end substitute
for a mouse, a keyboard or a joystick." Kim, who developed the Fingertip
Digitizer along with Thenkurussi Kesavadas, director of UB's Virtual
Reality Lab and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering, says the device could also be used for medical diagnostics in
that it would be able to relay the shape and size of a human gland or
tumor. As a computer-game accessory, for example, the device would enable
players to imitate the squeezing of a trigger or the stroking of a pool
cue. The Fingertip Digitizer will be accompanied by Touch Painter and
Touch Canvas software, and researchers believe the device could be on the
market in three years. For more information on SIGGRAPH, visit
http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
A Processor for the PlayStation Has Supercomputing
Promise
Berkeley Lab Research News (07/26/06)
The STI Cell processor, originally designed for Sony's forthcoming
PlayStation 3 gaming console, has drawn widespread attention throughout the
computational science community for its potential to serve as the
foundation for high-performance computers. Researchers at the University
of California, Berkeley, tested the Cell's processing capability and
presented their results at the 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 multicore implementation is inherently
better suited to the HPC environment than homogeneous commodity multicore
processors." Designed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM, Cell has a
software-controlled memory hierarchy with substantial floating-point
capabilities that enable it to run complex numerical algorithms. Unlike
conventional multicore architectures, Cell uses a standard high-performance
PowerPC core that directs eight cores known as synergistic processing
elements (SPEs), each of which has a local memory, memory-flow controller,
and a synergistic processing unit. Since it will be produced in volume for
the gaming environment, Cell could be priced to compete with commodity
processors. The researchers tested the processor in numerous scientific
kernels, including dense matrix multiplication, sparse matrix
multiplication, and stencil computations. The researchers noted the high
performance of Cell's 32-bit floating point resources, and they sketched
out a design with slight hardware changes that could improve 64-bit
performance. Cell's three levels of memory architecture decouple access to
main memory from computation and offer more predictable performance and
higher bandwidth than traditional processors.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Homeland Security Awards $3 Million to Rutgers-Led
Research Consortium
Rutgers University (07/26/06)
Rutgers University will receive a $3 million grant from the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to coordinate research projects into
advanced information analysis and technology that could help indicate a
potential terror threat to the nation. The university's Center for
Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS) will head a
consortium that will focus on finding patterns and relationships in news
stories, open-source Web logs, and other accessible information, and rate
the consistency and reliability of the sources. "The challenge involved in
this endeavor is not only the massive amount of information out there, but
also how quickly it flows and how fast the sources of information change,"
says DIMACS director Fred Roberts. "We will develop real-time streaming
algorithms to find patterns and relationships in communications, such as
among writers who may be hiding their identities, and to rate information
sources for their reliability and trustworthiness." Researchers from AT&T
Laboratories, Lucent Technologies Bell Labs, Princeton University,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Texas Southern University will
participate in the research projects. DHS also awarded grants to the
University of Southern California, the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Pittsburgh for similar research,
and Rutgers will coordinate the overall initiative.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Computer Camp Draws Students From Coast to Coast
University of Toronto (07/26/06) MacArthur, Michelle
The University of Toronto is hosting 30 high school students during the
three-week Computing Insights summer program featuring lectures, lab work,
and an opportunity to meet leading experts in the field. "Computing
Insights really is about giving kids who are really already interested in
computer science a chance to do stuff that they would probably never have a
chance to do in high school, or on their own," said Diane Horton, a senior
computer science lecturer. The camp is also designed to debunk common
misperceptions about computer science. "A lot of students come out of high
school with the idea that computer science is about sitting in front of a
computer and typing and they don't often see the impact that the
programming can have on the things around them and they don't often see the
more social side," said Tobi Kral, coordinator of the camp. Daily morning
lectures cover topics ranging from artificial intelligence to animation,
and afternoons are devoted to lab work where students sharpen their
programming skills under the guidance of graduate students.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
New Internet Is the Stuff of Dreams
Chicago Tribune (07/27/06) Van, Jon
Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and
Communications Technologies have $140 million at their disposal to upgrade
the Internet and have chosen to partner with Northwestern University and
the University of Illinois at Chicago, operators of the advanced computer
network Starlight, to connect to researchers around the globe through the
network's Chicago gateway. Starlight, used for advanced research, runs at
speeds more than 10,000 times faster than regular broadband. Development
of the next-generation Internet is largely driven by the proliferation of
data-rich files, particularly video and its use for both research purposes
and by the general public as well. "The Internet needs to be refreshed,"
says Joel Mambretti, director of Northwestern's center for advanced
Internet research. "The text- and picture-based Internet people see today
isn't the Internet we'll soon have. It's undergoing a revolution."
Already, scientists are using digital video with resolution four times
higher than HDTV, including 3D holographs incorporating haptic technology.
The Internet2, or national lambda rail, runs at 10 billion bits per second,
linking universities around the world. Also driving the development of a
new Internet is the need for more IP address space, fueled by the booming
technology sectors of countries such as China and India.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Young Coders Summer on Google
Wired News (07/28/06) Glasner, Joanna
Now in its second year, Google's "Summer of Code" program pairs 630
student programmers with mentors and pays them $4,500 to spend their summer
writing code. The program was developed to address the fundamental issue
hindering recruitment in the open-source world, namely that skilled
volunteer programmers also need to earn an income. Among the projects the
programmers are addressing are creating an open instant message program
compatible with the leading messaging application in China, and improving
the integration of Mozilla with the Linux desk. "A lot of times in
computer science school you're exposed to important problems, but you're
not exposed to what's on the other side of the keyboard," said Google's
Chris DiBona. More than 6,000 students applied for the program, and many
of those accepted are not on pace to complete their projects, the mentors
say. Too often they are leaving everything for the last minute, the
mentors say. The programmers represent some 90 countries, though most are
from North America and Western Europe.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Blind to Lead Way in E-Voting
Australian IT (07/25/06) Jenkins, Chris
The Australian government is considering a trial of electronic voting
systems that could lead to the use of e-voting for next year's federal
election. The government will decide on the e-voting system
recommendations of an electoral committee within six weeks, and the
proposal also suggests that the trial involve people who are blind and
visually impaired. Last week, the Australian state of Victoria announced
that visually impaired people will be able to use e-voting systems to vote
in its November elections. The e-voting systems used in Victoria will not
tally votes, according to Michael Simpson, public policy manager of Vision
Australia. Voters will receive smart cards in order to use the e-voting
system, which will read the ballot options to voters via headphones, print
their votes, and then return them to the ballot box. E-voting will allow
voters to cast their ballots privately and independently, but there are
concerns that the technology or results could be used to classify voters.
"We are prepared to live with that downside because it is a huge step
forward," says Simpson.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
AT&T Labs vs. Google Labs: Not Your Grandfather's
R&D
Ars Technica (07/24/06) Stokes, Jon Hannibal
Though AT&T and Verizon are frequently derided as lumbering relics of a
bygone era, innovation is still very much a part of the climate at the
nation's two largest telecommunications companies. AT&T researchers are
actively working on projects in the areas of data mining, voice
recognition, data security, and wireless networking, among others. Modern
corporate research labs are very different from their predecessors,
however. Fabled institutions such as Xerox PARC and Bell Labs relied
heavily on government funding and researchers were encouraged to develop
visionary technologies irrespective of their immediate commercial
potential. It was in these labs that the major infrastructure of the
modern information society was developed, and funding such efforts was a
major source of corporate pride. Today's model--the famed "two guys in a
garage"--is squarely focused on using basic science to bring products to
market, while the major public and private research labs have all been
downsizing. Whereas "blue sky" labs were created to allow scientists to
pursue their own research 100 percent of the time, Google, widely heralded
as a leader in innovation, allows its researchers to work on pet projects
20 percent of the time. As a result, today's companies are using but not
replacing the scientific capital created by the previous generation of
researchers. The tendency to neglect basic scientific research could
become a threat to the United States' ability to compete with countries
such as China and South Korea that heavily invest public funds in
innovation.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Bluetooth to Proliferate in Vehicles
TechNewsWorld (07/22/06) Koprowski, Gene J.
In the next five years, nearly one-third of all new automobiles will have
wireless Bluetooth technology equipment, versus 3 percent in 2005,
according to a Strategy Analytics report. The demand is being driven by an
increase in consumer awareness about Bluetooth, quick adoption of the
technology on mobile phones, demand for hands-free devices, an increase in
the number of Bluetooth solutions available in the original equipment, and
legislation. "As we have already seen with portable navigation, poor
competitiveness from carmakers and automotive system suppliers will result
in aftermarket vendors taking a greater share of the growing consumer
demand for Bluetooth," says Strategy Analytics analyst Clare Hughes.
Researchers predict stereo headsets, MP3 players, notebook PCs, and game
consoles will be areas of growth for Bluetooth. Higher data rates led to
the increased shipments of Bluetooth this year. Research Markets says a
higher bandwidth version of Bluetooth, which offers data speeds of up to
480 Mbps over short distances, is getting ready to be shipped in products
soon. Bluetooth can also be used in motorcycles, as well as cars and
SUVs.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Chaotic Chomp
Science News (07/22/06) Vol. 170, No. 4, P. 58; Peterson, Ivars
Fluctuating geometric patterns resembling crystal growth have been
uncovered via a new, physics-based method for analyzing simple games such
as Chomp. The two-player game of Chomp involves cookies arranged in a
rectangular pattern that are removed in turns, with the loser being the
player forced to take the poison cookie in the lower left-hand corner.
Only two Chomp scenarios have yielded winning strategies: When cookie
arrays are square and the first player starts by choosing the cookie that
is diagonally adjacent to the poison cookie, and when the array is in two
columns and the first player takes the top right cookie so that one of the
columns is always shorter than the other. Mathematicians have established
that the first player can always win, and Cornell University computer
scientist Eric Friedman and Claremont Mckenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges
physicist Adam Landsberg teamed up to show what strategies will probably
guarantee wins by applying re-normalization techniques to combinatorial
games such as Chomp. Re-normalization tools allow physicists to calculate
the properties of objects or physical systems that exhibit a geometric
similarity across varying scales. It may be possible to efficiently
determine areas of combinatorial games most likely to harbor winning moves,
given the games' geometric architecture. "Finding good algorithms for
solving or approximating [simple combinatorial games] is a first step
toward understanding the much more complex games that arise at the
intersection of computer science and economics," notes Landsberg. Rutgers
University mathematician Doron Zeilberger thought the game of Chomp was a
perfect problem for demonstrating how computers can contribute to
mathematical research.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Hack-Proof Design
EDN (07/20/06) P. 47; Webb, Warren
The profusion of networked devices and the refinement of hackers' attack
methods are fueling the urgency among embedded-system designers to
prioritize security requirements. All security requirements must be
addressed during the design phase, prior to the deployment of an embedded
system product. The National Institute of Standards and Technology's
Computer Security Resource Center offers security-related publications for
designers outlining what kinds of challenges need to be met, such as the
identification of data or proprietary information in need of protection,
and identification of potential attackers and how sophisticated they are.
Security measures to be considered include the physical isolation of
networked systems, and the containment of sensitive equipment within rugged
packaging that cannot be accessed without specialized gear. The Common
Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation are internationally
formulated guidelines for system security standards, which enables
consumers, developers, and evaluators to particularize the security
functions of a product in standards-protection profiles and
evaluation-assurance levels. Users must confirm their identities before
they can interact with a secure embedded system via authentication, while
data encryption plays an important role when embedded systems link to a
network or the Internet. Concurrent with improving security is device
manufacturers' experimentation with new business models, such as the
pay-as-you-go scheme in which customers agree to pay for a device as they
use it and in return receive full functionality. Failure to pay gives the
vendor license to withhold network-activation codes and disable the device,
while bypassing activation or parts removal is thwarted by a strong
security model.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
