ACM Expands Online Resources for Continuous
Learning
AScribe Newswire (05/03/07)
ACM is doubling the number of online courses from SkillSoft to cover a
wider range of computing, information technology, business management, and
leadership subjects in an effort to offer more continuous learning
opportunities online for professionals and students. ACM members will find
IT professional certification courses on new technologies from IBM, Cisco,
Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, and the Linux Professional Institute; courses on
topics from Web development to database design; and business-related
courses on project management, time management, leadership, and team
building. ACM also says it is expanding the number of online books in its
virtual high tech library. Members will be able to access the online
resources for free. "With these easily accessible resources, ACM is
providing a place for computing professionals and students to turn for
continuous learning opportunities in their respective fields," says ACM CEO
John White. "Our goal is to enable our members to improve their skills,
increase their knowledge, and stay competitive in industries that have
become increasingly global." For more information, visit
http://pd.acm.org/cp_home.cfm
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I.B.M. to Announce an Advance in Making Chips Faster and
More Energy-Efficient
New York Times (05/03/07) P. C3; Markoff, John
IBM scientists have developed a new material that could increase the speed
of semiconductors and reduce their energy consumption. The new material is
made by a manufacturing process that uses heat to create trillions of
atomic-sized holes in a thin layer of material deposited on top of the
conducting wires at different steps in the chip-making process. The
material is extracted through the holes, leaving insulating vacuum channels
around the ultra-thin wires that make the microchip. The holes make
themselves as a result of the heating, instead of being drilled or etches
as is the current practice, and the self-assembly process creates features
much smaller than the limits of current chip-making systems. The use of a
vacuum insulator is not a new idea, but the new approach is what makes it
possible for the technique to be used in mainstream chip manufacturing, and
the researchers say the technique is the first use of a new series of
technologies that may one day allow complete electronic circuits to be made
on a molecular scale without photographic machines. IBM says the technique
can increase chip speed by as much as 35 percent while reducing energy
consumption by 15 percent.
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Web Services 'Wizard' May Help Computers Do People's
Work, Researcher Says
Stanford News (05/02/07) Levy, Dawn
Charles Petrie, a senior research scientist in the Stanford Logic Group of
the Computer Science Department, is working to create software that enables
computers to negotiate with each other over the Internet and perform tasks
that currently require human time and effort. Petrie's "world wide wizard"
would know when situations changed on the Internet and in the real world
and be able to adapt and create solutions. Petrie uses an example of a
band to illustrate how the wizard could perform human tasks. The wizard
could schedule auditions, get copyright advice from a free legal source,
solicit equipment bids from vendors, find venues available for
performances, hire roadies, and schedule tasks into a plan that could be
executed as a tour. The wizard would also be able to create backup plans
in case a venue is cancelled or equipment is lost. Petrie says the wizard
would be able to do the same type of planning, decision making, and
scheduling for disaster relief efforts, plan a business meeting, or
schedule a trip. Petrie says the problem is that different sites
frequently use abbreviations for words, such as "flt" for "flight," and
while a human has no problem understanding that the two are the same, a
computer would exclude the abbreviation. Petrie says the solution is to
develop formal semantics, or logical expressions from which meaning can be
inferred. "The goal is to come up with a formalism that allows everybody
to express things the same way so that your machine can go out and access
all these different services and put them together to give you exactly what
you want," Petrie says.
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The ACM Conference on Computers, Freedom, and
Privacy
Technology Review (05/03/07) Garfinkel, Simson
The annual ACM conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, now in its
17th year, was once the only venue where topics such as cyber-rights,
wiretaps, and cryptography policy were discussed. SRI International's
Peter Neumann, who has been following computer security and related risks
for years and is the man who named Unix, opened the conference by saying
the problem is that people believe computers are trustworthy and that while
we try to boost security systems, the threat truly comes from people who
have legitimate access to those systems and intentionally violate their
positions. Bruce Schneier from Counterpane Systems spoke on how the
younger generation has a different approach toward security, commonly
posting everything in their lives online at social networking sites, even
to the extent that some reveal company secrets. Whitfield Diffie, from Sun
Microsystems and inventor of public key cryptography, talked about the need
for the government to run surveillance so it can know what its citizens
need, but that surveillance should be regulated. Diffie pointed out that
the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which required
all telephone switches to have wire-tapping technology built in and
originally excluded the Internet, could now be applied to VoIP as it is
being to replace regular phone service. Some of the other speakers touched
on subjects including the use of computers in mapping the human genome and
rights surrounding the use of genetic information, and problems with
organizations, particularly non-profits, losing their domain names to
pornographic sites.
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Florida Acts to Eliminate Touch-Screen Voting
System
New York Times (05/04/07) P. A19; Aguayo, Terry; Sexton, Christine Jordan
Florida state legislators passed a vote to replace touch-screen voting
machines in 15 counties as a result of trouble with the machines in the
2000 presidential election. The new system, which is scheduled to be
operational in time for the 2008 presidential election, uses optical scan
voting machines, which are used in Florida's other 52 counties. The plan
was approved by the Florida Senate last week and passed through the House
of Representatives unanimously on May 3. In November 2006, more than
18,000 votes cast on touch-screen machines were not recorded in what became
a close and highly contested Congressional race in Sarasota County that was
won by Republican Vern Buchanan by only 369 votes. Florida state officials
said the switch to optical scanning is expected to cost $28 million, but
the federal Election Assistance Commission said the state could use money
from the Help America Vote Act, which provides money to improve voting
equipment. Critics say the switch will be more costly than estimated.
Palm Beach County election supervisor Arthur Anderson believes his county
alone will cost $19 million. Touch-screen machines can still be used for
voters with disabilities until 2012, under the new legislation, but after
that paper-ballot technology will be required.
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Japan One Step Closer to Quantum Computer
Associated Press (05/04/07) Freire, Carl
Researchers at NEC in Japan and the state-funded Institute of Physical and
Chemical Research have demonstrated a circuit that can control the state of
qubits and how strongly the pair of elemental particles interact with one
another. The development has huge implications for researchers who would
like to build a quantum computer. NEC's team is the same group of
researchers that was able to get qubits to interact with one another and
control their ability to seemingly be in a number of places simultaneously.
Quantum computing would surpass the speeds of current machines that handle
factoring, simulations, and other exhaustive problems, according to many
researchers. Nonetheless, most observers believe researchers are many
years away from building a quantum computer, and that the idea of such a
device is still hypothetical. And while D-Wave Systems earlier in the year
claimed to use quantum mechanics in one of its machines, experts are
skeptical about the Canadian company because it has not made its research
available for peer review.
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Anita Borg Institute Honors Three 'Women of
Vision'
Business Wire (05/03/07)
The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) recognized and
celebrated Deborah Estrin, Leah Jamieson, and Duy-Loan Le May 3, 2007, for
the examples they have set for women in technology. Estrin, a professor of
computer science at the University of California Los Angeles, won the award
in the Innovation category for her research efforts in network
interconnection and simulation, embedded networking, sensornet, and
security. ABI honored Dr. Jamieson, Dean of Engineering at Purdue
University, with the award in the Social Impact category for her education
and social change efforts through the Engineering Projects in Community
Service (EPICS) program, which she co-founded. And Le, a senior fellow at
Texas Instruments, received the award in the Leadership category for the
major roles she has played in projects that have had an enormous impact on
science and technology. "Women, individually and collectively, have the
power to improve our world and change the face of technology," said ABI
President Dr. Telle Whitney. "These women are using that power in ways
that have earned them a rightful place as role models for the next
generation."
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HAL 9000-Style Machines, Kubrick's Fantasy, Outwit
Traders
Bloomberg (05/03/07) Kelly, Jason
Computer scientist and machine learning expert Michael Kearns, in
conjunction with Lehman Brothers Holdings, is one of numerous researchers
writing software that can mine billions of trades and recognize promising
stocks as part of an effort to equip computers with artificial
intelligence. Aite Consulting predicts that the percentage of U.S. stock
trades fueled by algorithms will expand from 33 percent in 2006 to 50
percent by the end of the decade, but the fluid nature of the stock market
is a tough challenge for current AI programs, which function better in
scenarios that follow rigid, unchanging rules, such as chess matches.
Kearns explains that even refined AI programs are missing a vital
ingredient, common sense, which is especially risky when it comes to
trading. It is possible that machine learning could enable computers to
develop their own intelligence and distill rules from massive data sets,
while natural language processing (NLP) could imbue software with the
ability to comprehend human language and deduce stock market knowledge from
a variety of sources. Machine-learning programs are being deployed by
financial service firms, and these programs learn to execute trades by
solving problems in reverse. The neural networking field concentrates on
building systems that can mimic neurons and human thought processes, which
could be immensely helpful in understanding the subtle nuances of the stock
market. One researcher forecasts an integration of machine learning and
NLP that will be applied to trading, and an important breakthrough will be
the determination of what categories of data the AI programs should use.
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Camera Flashes Reveal Scenes in 3D
New Scientist (05/03/07) Simonite, Tom
Researchers Kazunori Umeda and Naoya Ogawa at Chuo University in Tokyo,
Japan, say they are working on digital cameras and camera-phones that can
capture 3D information using only a built-in flash and software. A
prototype device called a Motion Processor, made by Toshiba in 1999,
inspired the two researchers. The Motion Processor used infrared LEDs to
capture 3D information by recording the pattern and intensity of reflected
infrared light. By calculating the distance and orientation of an object,
the Motion Processor could detect hand gestures to control software.
"Toshiba proposed the infrared system as an interface device for a PC--a
kind of 3D mouse," Umeda says. "Our aim is to add range measurement
function to a standard digital camera." Umeda's team used an ordinary
consumer digital camera and took several pictures of simple objects with
and without the flash. Mathematically subtracting one image from the other
allowed the team to examine just the reflected light from the flash. By
comparing the pattern and strength of the reflected light, the team was
able to estimate the distances and relative angles of different surfaces in
the scene. A rough 3D model can be reconstructed from this information,
although some surfaces, mainly highly reflective ones such as mirrors, are
difficult to correctly estimate. Umeda says one application for the system
would be to distinguish a person in an image from the surroundings.
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Technology Helps Visualize 'Faces' of Biology
ASU Insight (05/01/07) Jenk, Dan
Arizona State University assistant professors Michael Rosenberg and
Jieping Ye of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Evolutionary Functional
Genomics were recently awarded more than $1.2 million in grants from the
National Science Foundation to expand and create technology to help sort
and navigate a rapidly growing biological datapool. Ye, a computer
scientist, is developing a computational framework to analyze biological
images using machine learning technology to compare expression patterns in
images of embryonic fruit flies to see if the genes share the same
function. Ye hopes to design a system that can automatically identify an
embryo's developmental stage and identify spatial overlaps in the gene
expression patterns. Rosenberg is developing the second generation of a
methods and software package called PASSaGE (pattern analysis, spatial
statistics and geographic exegesis) that can be used to analyze any
information that has a geographical or spatial component. Rosenberg says
such information could be the clustering of diseases in different regions
of the world or the distribution of species in an ecological environment.
Rosenberg says that although there have been tools that perform this type
of function for a long time, each research discipline has its own way.
PASSaGE takes elements common to methods in scientific disciplines such as
ecology, geology, and geography and combines them into a single, more
user-friendly package.
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Hacking the Online Ballot Box
Guardian Unlimited (UK) (05/03/07) Bradbury, Danny
A series of high-tech pilot projects gave some voters in the United
Kingdom the opportunity to cast their votes over the Internet in elections
on May 3, but experts are questioning the reliability and security of
Internet voting. Despite security evaluations by the Department for
Constitutional Affairs (DCA) and the Electoral Commission, independent
experts identified flaws in a least two of the election's pilot projects,
calling them "catastrophically weak" and claiming it would have been easy
to manipulate votes in some districts testing the software. The DCA said
it was aware of potential loopholes but believes security procedures were
strong enough to withstand hacking attempts, and the Electoral Commission
said Internet security will be one of the major areas it will examine while
reporting on online voting. Even with these reassurances, the e-democracy
organization Open Rights Group's voting campaign coordinator Jason Kitcat
worries that the lack of a paper trail makes oversight difficult and even
threatens democracy. Part of Kitcat's fears may stem from problems in the
United States with direct recording electronic voting machines (DREs),
which became a heavily debated issue in the 2000 election when George Bush
and Al Gore were within a few hundred votes of each other. Talks of vote
stealing were widespread, and some states have since banned the heavily
scrutinized machines. Former ACM President Barbara Simons, a computer
scientist and Internet voting expert, notes some of the dangers in Internet
voting that DREs avoid. "At least you have a chance of doing an audit with
a DRE," Simons says. "With Internet voting, you can't." Simons says DRE
voting could be made more transparent by designing the machines to print
marked ballots based on the voter's entry that could be fed into an optical
scanner to register the vote, and provide a paper trail in case of an
audit.
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A Program That Gives Saudi Women a SWIFT Start in
Technology
MIT News (05/02/07) MacMillian, Amy
An MIT graduate student in system design and management has won the first
runner-up prize in the Jeddah Economic Forum Collegiate Business Venture
Award 2007 for her efforts to provide Saudi Arabian women with basic
computer skills and the experience of working for a real company. After
obtaining undergraduate and master's degrees in computer science and math
in the United States, Nada Hashmi returned to her native country in 2005 to
work for the College of Business Administration, and the lack of technology
in Saudi Arabia and the limited opportunity for women to gain IT skills
inspired her a year later to coordinate a partnership for women at the
private college with Women in Technology (WIT). The female students became
Microsoft-certified through an outside trainer, and they were able to teach
the entire Microsoft Office suite, the basics of the Internet, and
e-commerce to other women. Hashmi set up a nonprofit company, Student
Women Initiative For Technology (SWIFT), for the 50 participants. "They
had to go through finance to raise and manage funds, and they had to deal
with a president and a vice president," says Hashmi. "I wanted to do a
project that's good for society and the school."
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Send in the Robots: Robot Teams Handle Hazardous
Jobs
Kansas State University News (05/01/07) Hall, Michelle
Kansas State University associate professor of computing and information
sciences Scott DeLoach has been using a $219,140 grant from the Department
of Defense to research and create intelligent sensor networks. DeLoach's
approach uses robots, sensors, laptops, and servers to handle dangerous but
necessary tasks such as searching buildings for weapons of mass
destructions or clearing supply routes of improvised explosive devices.
DeLoach's projects examine how robot teams can respond to changing
environments when performing a task, an action that will require the robots
to have knowledge of the team's organizational structure, individual team
member capabilities, the environment, the team goal, and appropriate
reasoning mechanisms. "The goal is to establish 'organizational reasoning'
as a key component in a new approach to build highly robust cooperative
robot teams," DeLoach says. So far, a model of autonomous teams has been
developed that allows teams to reason about organizing and reorganizing,
along with a goal model for dynamic systems that allows the dynamics of the
environment to be captured, according to DeLoach. The project has also
developed a high-level simulator that tests the teams reasoning algorithms
to determine if the team actually adapts the problem-solving process to
their environment. The robotic team structure will allow a small number of
operators to control multiple teams of robots, rather than multiple
operators controlling a small number of robots.
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Motion-Sensitive Laptop Developed
BBC News (04/30/07)
BT's research labs is developing the BT Balance, a type of tablet laptop
capable of responding to movement controls and designed to help people with
disabilities or the elderly who may have difficulty moving the mouse or
keyboard. BT researcher David Chatting said the objective is to create a
machine that is as easy to use as an Etch-A-Sketch. The BT Balance can be
used to read books or documents, flipping the monitor to tell the computer
to turn the page, or navigate a map by tilting the computer up for north,
down for south, right for east, and left for west. BT says the system
could be useful for someone using their laptop in tricky conditions or with
one hand, such as a crowded train. BT Balance works through the use of an
accelerometer, which works be detecting changes in the acceleration and
gravity of an object compared to the static gravity of the earth.
Accelerometers are used in cars to detect accidents and inflate the airbag,
and in devices such as the Nintendo Wii controller and Apple computers to
detect when the laptop is being dropped. BT has combined an accelerometer
with software to interpret the data and control the cursor and programs.
Chatting said the project is still a research project, as BT is interested
in developing communication tools for BT Balance so users can create
messages and perform common day-to-day tasks.
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Net Neutrality Advocates Ready for New Congress
PC Magazine (04/26/07) Albanesius, Chloe
Claiming that the future of the Internet is at stake, Sen. Byron Dorgan
(D-N.D.) recently announced that he intends to renew his push for "net
neutrality" legislation in the Senate. Net neutrality is a concept that
would provide all Web sites with equal rights to fast download and access
speeds, the theory being that larger retailers with faster access would
have a distinct advantage over small retailers on the Web. Net neutrality
"has moved from an unknown technology issue to one of the dominant telecom
and Internet policy debates in D.C.," Dorgan said. The CEOs of some top
ISPs have made it clear that they oppose efforts to legislate net
neutrality, arguing that ISPs should be allowed to provide quicker download
times to companies that are willing to pay for such services.
Representatives of MoveOn.org and the Christian Coalition voiced their
support for the issue of net neutrality, with the latter group expressing
concern that ISPs would effectively be able to "control our content"
because the coalition's church services are highly dependent on Internet
broadcasts. Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, predicted that the
issue will heat up during the summer and fall, once the transition of power
from Republicans to Democrats has been completed.
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Network Warfare
Government Computer News (04/30/07) Vol. 26, No. 9, Jackson, William
The Cyber Defense Exercise is not only the capstone program for
information assurance classes at the nations military academies, but is
also a rigorous competition that will test the academies' computer science
students against a hand-picked group of National Security Agency security
experts called the Red Team. Students from West Point, the Air Force
Academy, the Naval Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Merchant
Marine Academy all participate in the five-day competition where the Red
Team will try to break into and shut down a network built by the students.
The network is required to include a Web server providing dynamic content
from a back-end database, an email server with public encryption, chat
service, file sharing, and a Domain Name System for name resolution. To
simulate real-world use and the possibility of users exposing the network
to malicious programs, the NSA hid malware in a virtual machine that must
be included in the network. The students are allowed to search the machine
for malware, but the NSA experts are too good at hiding things, according
to Air Force Academy assistant professor of computer science Capt. Sean
Butler. The test starts with the Red Team probing the networks, looking
for obvious points of entry, and gradually escalates as the hidden malware
sends information back to the Red Team and they eventually begin their full
assault on the last day. The score is based on how long the academies can
keep their network working, and the winner will receive the coveted NSA
Information Assurance Director's Trophy and bragging rights for a year, but
the exercise is more than a competition. "Are they fully prepared for it?
No," said Coast Guard Academy electrical engineering instructor Lt. Joseph
Benin. "But they learn that what they are learning in class has value."
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High-Performance Happy
Campus Technology (04/07) Vol. 20, No. 8, P. 44; O'Hanlon, Charlene
Increasing numbers of universities are centralizing their high-performance
computing (HPC) resources, yielding advantages to IT departments as well as
researchers in terms of time, money, and resource access. Factors
contributing to this trend include the increasingly critical role research
is playing in universities' institutional identity and competitiveness,
while participation in regional and national research efforts such as the
National LambdaRail project requires the ability to pool resources and
create an immense computing environment. HPC centralization is usually
shepherded by the CIO, which makes it a priority for the university to
enlist and empower an experienced CIO. "IT management of HPC takes more
than just an effort to educate the researchers; there has to be buy-in on
both sides," notes Texas Tech University CIO Sam Segran. Also vital to the
success of central IT management is the foresight to understand where
technology is going, according to Princeton University CIO Betty Leydon.
"Plus, you need to link research and instruction," she adds.
Centralization has not only increased the HPC capacity researchers enjoy,
but has also removed the burden of cooling, power, security, and IT support
from their shoulders. Through centralized IT management, universities can
deliver a cutting-edge research facility that reinforces the school's
reputation as a world-class institution.
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Innovation, Adoption, and Learning Impact: Creating the
Future of IT
Educause Review (04/07) Vol. 42, No. 2, P. 12; Abel, Rob
Implementing technology to improve the performance of institutions of
higher education requires aligning technology to the goals of improved
access, affordability, accountability, quality, and innovation, as dictated
in a 2006 report from a commission appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education
Margaret Spellings, writes IMS Global Learning Consortium CEO Rob Abel. IT
leaders must take an active role in strategic planning and policy
discussions about institutional evaluations and outcomes, and a perspective
of where institutions are in terms of the evolution of the application of
technology to support learning must be obtained. This evolution has
experienced substantial shifts since the advent of the Internet and the
World Wide Web, and the root cause of these changes is the spread of
Internet access, high-performance networks, and mobile devices. The design
of the learning environment is guided by desirable learning types that Abel
says will be enabled by the emerging science of learning, and he identifies
the core components of the environment as the background, needs, and
interests of the learners; an organized body of knowledge; a learning
community; and formative assessment. IT is envisioned to support the
learning environment, instructional strategies, and learning outcome
analysis. Compelling new learning tools projected by "pragmatic" study
that considers the challenges associated with the adoption of new
technologies include a combination of classroom and online environments,
easy publishing to Internet for a majority of faculty, augmented
effectiveness of students' study, formative assessment and quality and
learning outcomes through student-faculty learning interactions, and
content management of faculty-produced, published, and recorded rich media.
"The most important role of assessment is to provide feedback that
improves the learning experience," Abel notes.
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