Women Graduates Increase in Science
Arizona Daily Star (05/12/07) Potell, Valarie
At the recent University of Arizona's College of Science's graduation,
more than 420 student received their diplomas, but fewer than half of the
recipients were women. The long-standing absence of women in science and
technology fields may soon be changing, however. According to an analysis
by the Arizona Daily Star, the proportion of women earning undergraduate
degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics increased by
almost 4 percent nationally from 1995 to 2004, and by almost 10 percent at
the University of Arizona from 1996 to 2006. According to the National
Science Foundation, in 1995, nearly 193,000 bachelor's degrees were awarded
in science-related fields across the country and 34.7 percent of those
degrees were received by women. In 2004, more than 233,000 science related
degrees were awarded, and 38.4 percent were received by women. University
of Arizona chemistry professor and director of academic services for the
department said the shift is "huge," particularly because the percentage
shift works both ways, as a 10 percent increase for women means a 10
percent decrease for men. One reason the percentage of women entering into
the field has remained relatively low is that there is a lack of female
professors and female role models. University of Arizona's Office of
Institutional Research and Evaluation statistics show that in 2006 women
accounted for only 17 percent of tenure-track faculty in the College of
Science and 12 percent in the College of Engineering and Mines. "To
attract more women into engineering, you need more mentors and role models
and that really translates into more faculty," said Jeff Goldberg,
associate dean of academic affairs in the University of Arizona's college
of engineering. For information on ACM's Committee on Women in Computing,
visit
http://women.acm.org
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
International Conference on Software Engineering Coming
to Minneapolis
MidwestBusiness.com (05/11/07) Katsantonis, John P.
The International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) will take
place in Minneapolis from May 23-25, 2007. The conference, sponsored by
ACM and IEEE, is an event for managers, practicing engineers, researchers,
and educators who are involved in software engineering, according to John
Knight, a computer science professor at the University of Virginia who is
the chair of the conference. "They gather to present and discuss the most
recent innovations, trends, results, experiences and concerns in the field
of software engineering," he says. The event will attract top software
technologists from across the country, Canada, and Europe, and management
from companies such as Microsoft and Lockheed Martin will serve as
corporate committee chairs. The conference will offer sessions on
research, education, demonstrations and experience; presentations on the
future of the field; panels on the impact of research on industry
practices; and three keynote addresses, including a presentation by
Salesforce senior vice president of application exchange Steve Fisher.
There will also be a number of tutorials and workshops. For more
information on ICSE, visit
http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/icse07/
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Commencement 2007: Unlocking the Power of Music
Rensselaer News (05/11/07) Cleveland, Amber
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute senior Zane Van Dusen is continuing his
work on a project called an adaptive use musical instrument that allows
those with extremely limited mobility to produce electronic sounds and
compose music on a virtual keyboard. Van Dusen, who is double majoring in
electronic media, arts, and communications (EMAC) and computer science, has
been working on the musical interface since his freshman year. Working
with world-renowned musician and Rensselaer professor of the arts Pauline
Oliveros, Van Dusen designed and developed a computer interface that tracks
the movement of the user's head to select notes to play. Van Dusen says
the device provides an outlet for creative expression for people with
extremely limited mobility, particularly people with cerebral palsy (CP), a
neurological disorder that permanently affects body movement and muscle
control and can render people incapable of speaking or moving. Van Dusen
believes the device also has therapeutic benefits. "We recently tested the
adaptive use musical instrument in a clinic and noticed that many children
were more focused on their movements because they were motivated by the
sounds they were creating," Van Dusen says. He says the interface could be
adapted to create speech software, allowing people with CP to form full
sentences, instead of just answering yes or no. Following his graduation
this spring, Van Dusen will continue to work with Oliveros through the
summer to perfect the prototype adaptive use musical instrument and create
additional interfaces.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
New Domain Names Could Come in Mid-2008
Associated Press (05/11/07) Jesdanun, Anick
New domain name suffixes could be introduced between June and August of
2008, according to a May 10 announcement from ICANN. The new domain names,
which would most likely be in English, would represent the first
general-use expansion of domain names since the creation of .info, .biz,
and five other domains in 2000. Since then, ICANN has approved
industry-restricted domains such as .travel and .asia. At present, there
are about 250 domain name suffixes in existence, most of which are ccTLDs.
The new 2008 domains represent choice, said ICANN CEO Paul Twomey, and
ICANN is asking for public comment on procedures to choose the new domains.
"We want the diversity of the world's people, geography, and business to
be able to be represented in the domain name system," Twomey said. The
procedures for creating new domains will be improved to allow "a much wider
variety of them to be added in a timely, predictable, and efficient
manner." In related news, ICANN may complete its technical work on
non-Latin scripts by the end of 2007, though policy issues pertaining to
the scripts will need to be resolved.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Lonely Joggers Find Company At Last
Discovery News (05/11/07) Staedter, Tracy
The Jogging Over a Distance system, developed by researchers at
Australia's University of Melbourne, combines GPS technology and a customer
computer program to transform a phone conversation into a 3D audio
experience to help find a jogging partner and motivate joggers, even if
they live in different countries. When using the system, the jogger will
hear their partner's voice coming from the front, to the side, or behind,
depending on how fast he or she is running. "It's a way to support social
joggers to motivate one another to jog and push each other even with being
in two different cities or countries," says Florian Mueller, one of the
developers of the system. The system consists of a Bluetooth GPS receiver,
a 3G mobile phone connection, a miniature computer, a wireless modem, and a
headset. As the person runs, the GPS data is collected and wirelessly sent
to the miniature computer, which is worn in a close-fitting backpack. The
computer uses an algorithm to determine how fast the person is running in
relation to his or her partner, and calculates a sound position. As one
jogger speaks, the partner hears the voice from the front if the partner is
jogging faster, from the side if they're running at the same pace, or from
behind if the partner is slower. University of Glasgow human computer
interaction professor Stephen Brewster says that while hearing other people
is good motivation during exercise, not seeing them could lead to some
confusing moments, such as when a runner may stop talking during a
difficult uphill section their partner is unaware of.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
'Racetrack' Memory Could Gallop Past the Hard Disk
New Scientist (05/11/07) Swarup, Amarendra
An international team of physicists at the University of Hamburg in
Germany used nanosecond pulses of electric current to push magnetic regions
along a wire at 110 meters per second, a hundred times faster than was
previously possible. This breakthrough could dramatically increase the
capacity, speed, and reliability of computer hard drives. The device used
was a u-shaped magnetic nanowire embedded into a silicon chip. Magnetic
domains were sent along the wire by pulses of polarized current, which were
read by fixed sensors arranged in the silicon itself. IBM says that this
type of magnetic memory could drastically simplify computers, and
eventually replace traditional disk hard drives. Previous tests of this
technology proved disappointing, producing speeds up to a thousand times
slower than predicted. Project researcher Guido Meier said the success on
this attempt was partially due to shorter electric bursts. "Our results
showed the movement of domains cannot be predicted with certainty as they
get stuck on imperfections in the crystal," Meier said. Future hard drives
could store data by designating a domain wall as a binary "one," while the
absence of a domain could be interpreted as a binary zero. "The question
is can we fabricate media that are perfect or control the imperfections,"
asked Peter Fischer, a team member at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
in California. Meier said the use of different materials and changing the
shape of the wire could help avoid such problems.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Google Searches Web's Dark Side
BBC News (05/11/07)
Google researchers are studying billions of Web sites in an effort to
identify all possible malicious pages on the Internet. Google researcher
Niels Provos and his colleagues subjected 4.5 million Web pages to
"in-depth analysis" for their paper, "Ghost in the Browser," and found
about 450,000 Web pages able to launch "drive-by downloads" and an
additional 700,000 potentially compromised Web pages. Drive-by downloads
are malicious programs that install automatically when a user enters a
"booby-trapped" site, often those with adult video thumbnails or other
"interesting" content. Drive-bys frequently install themselves by taking
advantage of vulnerable elements in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.
Virulent code often resides in widgets and banner advertisements, and
forums and blog postings containing links are new channels through which
criminals can attack. Hackers can hijack entire Web servers, or individual
computers; they also can use drive-bys to capture sensitive information.
To keep computers safe, Google alerts users with a message if they are
about to visit a potentially dangerous Web site. In addition, the company
is striving to detect and map all Web-based infection vectors. "Finding
all the Web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires
almost complete knowledge of the Web as a whole," wrote the Google
researchers.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
A Decade After Kasparov's Defeat, Deep Blue Coder Relives
Victory
Wired News (05/11/07) Andrews, Robert
Just over a decade ago, on May 11, 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated
the best chess player in the world, Garry Kasparov. Computer scientist
Murray Campbell was one of the programmers of Deep Blue and moved the chess
pieces for the computer during the iconic match. In an interview with
Wired, Campbell relived the match and commented on modern supercomputing.
Campbell said that chess matches between humans and computers have
basically reached the end of the line, as computers are being given
handicaps, such as playing with fewer pieces or less time, and a basic Cell
processor today has as much processing power as Deep Blue did in 1997.
Campbell recalled that no one expected the now famous match to attract so
much attention, even after Kasparov beat Deep Blue's predecessor Deep
Thought in 1989. Deep Blue was able to analyze 200,000,000 moves per
second, and was redesigned with chess-specific hardware so it would run
more chess patterns--upgrades that were helped by a team of grand masters.
When asked about Kasparov's refusal for a rematch, Campbell said the IBM
team accomplished what they were trying to and it was time for them to move
onto another project. Kasparov has since retired from chess and Deep Blue
sits in a museum, but other chess matches between humans and computers
still continue. The current world chess champion, Vladimir Kramnik from
Russia, lost a match to a PC program in November by four games to two.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Hybrid MP3 at Heart of Research Project
Western Mail (Wales) (05/10/07) Williams, Tryst
A three-year research project at the University of Wales, Swansea, has
developed a hybrid MP3 player and satellite navigation system that prompts
pedestrians to travel in a certain direction by lowering music in one ear.
Users can program a destination into the handheld device and listen to
their music as they travel. As long as the user is headed in the right
direction, the music is clear and strong in both ears. When the user needs
to change direction, instead of a voice, the music balance changes, with
clarity and volume shifting in one ear or the other, indicating the
intended change of direction. A prototype of the system was developed
several years ago by Matt Jones, a senior lecturer in the Department of
Computer Science, who is now developing the technology so users can make
better use of the system. "We are particularly interested in redefining
how people interact with computers, and how we can make computers more
actively responsive to their needs," Jones says. Jones says they are
developing a system that will allow the device to suggest attractions that
may be of interest to the user, giving hints in the form of a physical
vibration from the device or by altering the music volume. "Normally, when
we listen to music through headphones, we do so to shut the world out,"
Jones says. "This system allows the world to seep in when users let it.
It enhances our interaction with computers in the real world, allowing them
to talk back and actively provide information to us."
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Java Security Traps Getting Worse
eWeek (05/09/07) Vaas, Lisa
In a recent interview with eWeek, Fortify Software founder and chief
scientist Brian Chess said that Java security traps have only become more
of a problem in the year since he gave a presentation titled "12 Java
Technology Security Traps and How to Avoid Them" at JavaOne. Chess arrived
at this conclusion after Fortify ran the Java Open Review project, which
uses FindBugs--a static analysis tool that looks for bugs in Java code--to
look over code in a number of open-source projects. After more than a year
of running the project, Fortify found that the defect density of
open-source code is "astronomical." Java expert William Pugh agreed with
Chess' conclusion that Java security traps--particularly XSS (cross-site
scripting)--are getting worse. "Tools like Fortify's tool set will look
for problems with XSS, but it's not easy to cleanse your code of any XSS
[vulnerabilities]," said Pugh, a computer science professor at the
University of Maryland. "The statistics we've seen is that this is on its
way to becoming the biggest vulnerability" in Java applications, if not all
Web attacks. Despite the growing number of vulnerabilities in Java
applications, Chess said he has not seen developers working on secure Java
coding practices. He noted that a more effective way to address the rising
number of vulnerabilities in Java applications could be to talk to
framework owners and software makers to see what can be done to make the
Web a safer place to program, though that tactic is not likely to be a
quick fix, either.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Girls Get Glimpse of Computer Science Careers
news@UofT (05/09/07) Franca, Sara
The University of Toronto's computer science department recently held an
event called GR8 Designs for GR8 Girls that introduced 22 female
eighth-graders from 12 schools near the St. George campus to the world of
computing. "We suspect that many girls are opting out of mathematical
careers by making choices based on career stereotypes that aren't
necessarily correct," said Michelle Craig, computer science senior lecturer
and one of the coordinators of the event. "GR8 Designs for GR8 Girls
allows young girls to learn a little about computer science and discover
that they might enjoy working in this exciting field." Supported by the
Faculty of Arts and Science and Google, Craig created projects to give the
girls a first look at basic programming skills and an opportunity to apply
what they learned. The girls worked with graduate students and faculty
members, writing programs in the Python language, playing a hands-on
programming simulation game, and using Alice 2.0, an interactiv graphics
program, to create animated stories. The overwhelmingly positive response
for the girls has prompted another event next year. "The girls had a blast
discovering that computer science can be fun," Craig said. "Every single
participant said that she would encourage a friend in Grade 7 to attend
next year."
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
No Way to Slow Down
Network World (05/08/07) Doyle, Jeff
Network architect Jeff Doyle forecasts the depletion of IPv4 address space
sometime in 2010, given the rates at which IPv4 address blocks are being
apportioned by IANA; but the depletion could happen much sooner than the
numbers indicate when other variables are taken into account. Doyle writes
that letting the IPv4 address space run out completely is unacceptable,
arguing that "some number of address blocks must to be held in reserve for
critical needs." He points to a proposal drawn up in March that called for
the IANA to terminate IPv4 allocation once 10/8s are left, and to sound a
"two-minute warning" when the IANA pool reaches 30/8s. Despite the
proposal's rejection by ARIN, and the likelihood that APNIC will also
abandon the plan due to a lack of agreement, it is probable that some
percentage of /8s will be held, most likely shaving a year off the time
left for IPv4 allocations. Another possibility that could bring the
termination deadline even closer is a mad dash by organizations to request
immediate allocations as it becomes increasingly apparent to them that new
allocations will not be available when they need them. Doyle examines a
number of strategies for decelerating IPv4 exhaustion, such as the RIRs or
IANA retaking idle IPv4 space either by economic incentive or legal
challenge, or the institution of tougher rules or a monetary cost for the
remaining allocations; the author dismisses the first two approaches as not
cost effective, while developing nations would likely greet the third
solution with outrage. Doyle suggests that stepping up the deployment of
IPv6 could be the best solution to the depletion of IPv4 addresses.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Escaping the Data Panopticon: Prof Says Computers Must
Learn to 'Forget'
Ars Technica (05/09/07) Anderson, Nate
Improvements in technology are turning us into digital pack rats, which is
not good for society, suggests Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, a professor in the
JFK School of Government at Harvard. In a faculty research working paper
entitled "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous
Computing," Mayer-Schonberger says fast processors and affordable storage
has enabled our computers and other gadgets to remember everything for us,
but a return to an era of "forgetfulness" is necessary. These days,
everything from Google searches, family photos, books, credit bureau
information, air travel reservations, government databases, and archived
email is stored. Mayer-Schonberger says the information can be easily
combined to create a composite picture of individuals, and ultimately
discourage people from speaking and acting out of fear that the information
could be used against them. Mayer-Schonberger's solution is to use
legislation and technology to ensure that all computing technology has a
default setting to forget data after a certain amount of time. But he adds
that users should also have the option to extend the expiration date for as
long as they want.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Burton Smith on Reinventing Computing
HPC Wire (05/11/07) Vol. 16, No. 19,
The keynote address of the 2007 International Supercomputing Conference
(ISC'07) will be delivered by high performance computer architectures and
programming languages in parallel computing expert Dr. Burton J. Smith, and
will discuss the implications of the ubiquitous deployment of parallel
processors on high performance computing (HPC) as well as the computing and
IT industries. Smith forecasts that single-processor performance will no
longer be able to keep up with Moore's Law, and the choice is to lower the
cost of computers without upgrading their speed, or to sustain continued
performance enhancement via parallel computing; he maintains that in the
second scenario, "consumers will continue to enjoy the benefits of
performance improvements, but successful software and hardware providers
will have to embrace parallelism to differentiate themselves and compete."
The alternative is the commoditization of hardware and software. Smith
predicts that the ubiquity of multicore processing will be such that
everyone will have multiple parallel computers available to them on a daily
basis, and they will be incorporated in mobile devices to boost performance
as well as extend battery life. With the proliferation of parallelism will
come an increase in HPC's ability to tap and extend mainstream programming
languages, development tools, libraries, operating systems, and even
smaller-scale system applications, as well as an increase in the population
of HPC-competent people, according to Smith. He anticipates that the
mainstream will adopt desktops as their own "personal supercomputers,"
while smart phones will be used as PDAs, MP3 players, and so on. The
reinvention of the computing profession is a job not just for universities,
but for companies such as Microsoft, which must make the developer
community familiar with the new computing philosophy, Smith contends.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Petascale Chemistry
SuperComputing Online (05/02/07) Bell, William
Petascale computing is rapidly approaching and numerous fields will
benefit from the advancement in computing power, writes NCSA's J. William
Bell. The Department of Energy's Office of Science is planning to install
a computing system with a peak performance of one petaflop at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in 2009, and the National Science Foundation plans to
install a computing system with a sustained performance of one petaflop by
2011. NSF estimates that there are already 30 science and engineering
problems that will benefit from sustained petaflop computing. NCSA
director Thom Dunning says that chemistry will particularly benefit from
petaflop computing, but that utilizing the power of petascale computers
will require developing new scalable, parallel chemistry codes as petascale
computers utilize hundreds of thousands of processors, compared to current
high-end systems which utilize only thousands. A similar problem occurred
in the 1990s when "massively" parallel computers had a few hundred
processors. To scale to hundreds of thousands of processors, new
algorithms are needed, particularly for chemistry. Whenever possible,
chemistry codes use standard mathematical algorithms, but there are
chemistry-specific algorithms that will need to be adopted or replaced with
entirely new algorithms. Virtualization, representing multiple resources
or processes as single entities, could provide a solution by automating the
method by which applications are spread out across the hundreds of
thousands of processor cores so users do not need to address the problem
directly. Already, scientists are working with simulators that allows them
to develop, debug, and predict the performance of applications on petascale
machines before the machines are available.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Cracks in the Air
Government Computer News (05/07/07) Vol. 26, No. 10, Jackson, William
In a recent lecture at the CIO Council's quarterly IT forum in Washington,
D.C., Justice Department information technology security specialist Mischel
Kwon gave a sobering assessment of some of the security risks involved in
using wireless communications. For example, Wi-Fi technology used in
wireless local area networks has a number of vulnerabilities, including
rogue access points that can make control difficult, signals that are easy
to detect, and encryption standards that are easy to crack. As part of her
lecture, Kwon--along with Rob Del Gaizo, a computer science student at
George Washington University--demonstrated how hackers crack the encryption
standards used in Wi-Fi networks. Kwon and Del Gaizo were able to crack
the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption standard in just a few
minutes after capturing relatively few packets, though they had much more
difficulty breaking the Advanced Encryption Standard used in Wi-Fi
Protected Access/2 (WPA/2). However, Kwon and Del Gaizo were eventually
able to subvert the encryption standard by attacking the passphrase
exchange during the connection process. Given these vulnerabilities, Kwon
advised users who set up wireless networks to separate the wired and
wireless segments with a firewall and avoid anything involving sensitive
information on the wireless side of the network. Kwon and Del Gaizo also
demonstrated how to hack Bluetooth, a wireless technology that is becoming
common for hands-free cell phone communications and for the on-board
computers in cars. The two showed how hackers can use a man-in-the-middle
attack to intercept a cell phone call. Similar attacks can also be used to
steal data stored on a Bluetooth-enabled device, Kwon and Del Gaizo
said.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top
Robots Tackle Core of STEM Education
eSchool News (05/07) Murray, Corey
Many educators are using robotics to fuel more student interest in
technology and engineering, considered to be the STEM disciplines with the
weakest level of mastery. Courses, fieldwork, special projects, and
contests such as the annual For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology (FIRST) Competition are being used to fire up students'
fascination with robots and the technology and engineering that goes into
their design and operation. "[Robotics is] something that's always been
very appealing to young people," notes Project Lead the Way's Niel Tebbano.
The FIRST event challenges teams of students to build robots that meet
specific goals using a common set of components and guidelines, and then
pits their machines against each other in tournaments. Robots are also
useful in spotlighting abstract concepts that students have long struggled
with, such as geometry and fundamental programming and engineering
principles. Valiant Technology's Roamer robot, for example, is utilized in
classrooms to illustrate the unpredictable nature of real-world mathematics
by encouraging students to contend with variables such as how the surface
of the floor affects the device's movement. Math and physical science
teacher Gail Warren of Virginia's Mathematics & Science Center explains
that students are more likely to retain knowledge they are being taught if
they pick it up earlier through interaction with technology at a young age,
which in turn would give them advantages in the job market later on.
Click Here to View Full Article
to the top