Could It Be? Data Shows U.S. Info Tech Jobs Grew 8
Percent in 2007
InformationWeek (01/09/08) Murphy, Chris
Year-end data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that the U.S.
information-technology job market grew 8 percent in 2007. The IT job
market added nearly 300,000 workers to employ an estimated 3.76 million
people last year, up from an increase of 292,000 jobs and total employment
of 3.46 million in 2006. Computer scientist and system analyst positions
grew the fastest at 15 percent to add 110,000 jobs, and was followed by IT
management positions, which grew 17 percent to add 66,000 new jobs. The
programmer segment was the only category that declined, falling 7 percent
to lose 37,000 jobs, but programming is still the third most populous IT
position at more than 500,000 jobs. Rochester Institute of Technology
professor Ron Hira, a leading researcher of tech-related employment,
remains cautious about the meaning of the data because the IT unemployment
rate is 2.1 percent, compared with 2.2 percent in 2006, and because
salaries have only increased moderately. As for 2008, an increase in
defense spending should lead to more IT jobs but that could be offset by
layoffs in the financial services industry, which is a big IT employer,
Hira says.
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University Alliance to Increase Robotics Education,
Research at Historically Black Universities
Carnegie Mellon News (01/08/08) Spice, Byron; Watzman, Anne
Carnegie Mellon University and six other research universities are
collaborating with eight historically black colleges and universities
(HBCUs) in the United States to promote robotics and computer science
education for African-American students. Funded by a three-year, $2
million grant from the National Science Foundation, the Advancing Robotics
Technology for Societal Impact (ARTSI) Alliance will develop outreach
programs to encourage African-American students to pursue careers in
computer science and robotics. ARTSI will also provide mentoring programs
for undergraduate students. African-Americans currently account for only
4.8 percent of the almost two million U.S. computer and information
scientists, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports will be one
of the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade. Carnegie Mellon
professor David Touretzky and Spelman College professor Andrew Williams
collaborated on establishing a robotics education lab at Spelman and three
other HBCUs, which developed into ARTSI. Touretzky says ARTSI activities
will vary depending on the need of each institution, as some are just now
getting their first research-quality robots and will need to develop basic
curricula. In addition to Spelman College, participating HBCUs include
Hampton University, Morgan State University, Florida A&M University,
Norfolk State University, Winston-Salem University, the University of
Arkansas-Pine Bluff, and the University of the District of Columbia.
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Women Can Be a Force When They Work Together
Economic Times of India (01/09/08) Jayashankar, Mitu
ACM A.M. Turing Award winner and IBM Fellow Emeritus Frances Allen is one
of the most successful computer scientists in the world. In an interview,
Allen says the creation of computer science as a field brought more men to
the industry as it grew primarily out of engineering schools. Up until
that point there was a significant number of women in the field as
programmers as it was believed women were good at handling detailed work..
Over the past 40 to 50 years, Allen says programming has become more
isolating and less of a collaborative effort, which may be one of the
reasons women are no longer as interested in the field. She says part of
the problem is that there is no sense of balance between work and life in
the industry. "There is a very clear career path for women in the
management side, but companies do not offer a technical career path and
that troubles me a lot," Allen says. "It is definitely a problem for women
of getting heard in a meeting, or getting your ideas on the table as they
have a different style from the men ... women can be a force when they are
working together professionally in getting other women recognized." To
view Frances Allen's Turing Award lecture, visit
http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1012327&srt=alpha&alpha=A&aw=140&ao=AM
TURING
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Stanford Builds a Better Virtual World, One Tree (or
Millions) at a Time
Stanford Report (01/07/08) Stober, Dan
The casual computer user is typically completely unable to build
three-dimensional objects, which is a major setback in unlocking the full
potential of virtual worlds, says Stanford computer scientist Vladlen
Koltun. "There is a very, very tiny community of people around the world
who are skilled at creating three-dimensional objects," Koltun says.
"Which is one of the reasons why you don't see three-dimensional content on
the Web; because nobody can create it." To make 3D objects more prevalent
in virtual worlds, Koltun, along with the Stanford Virtual Worlds Group,
set out to prove that object construction can be sophisticated without
being difficult by designing a variety of trees that the group is now
distributing for free. Trees were chosen because botanists have already
cataloged and categorized the trees of the real world in great detail.
Koltun's team incorporated that data into a mathematical engine that uses
about 100 different attributes to create trees. The program, called Dryad
after a tree nymph in Greek mythology, allows users to create unique trees
by navigating the "space of trees" and changing direction. An
information-sharing technique in the software allows Dryad to improve every
time someone chooses a tree. Dryad trees can be viewed from any angle.
The trees can also be downloaded in the OBJ format and loaded into any
major modeling program.
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German Activist Move to Block E-Voting
Computerworld (01/08/08) Kirk, Jeremy
German computer club the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has asked a court to
grant an injunction that would prohibit the use of electronic voting
machines in state elections scheduled for later this month. CCC's Frank
Rieger says the government does not have the technical knowledge to ensure
that machines have not been manipulated. E-voting machines made by
Nederlandsche Apparantenfabriek (Nedap), with software from Groenedaal, are
currently scheduled for use in an election on Jan. 27 in eight cities and
districts in the German state of Hesse. Meanwhile, another e-voting case
filed in early 2007 is currently pending before Germany's Constitutional
Court, which could influence any future use of e-voting machines in
Germany. Nedap machines have been used in the Netherlands, France, and
Germany without controversy, but in each country activists tried to stop
the use of the machines due to security concerns. In a 2006 paper, Dutch
researchers found that undetectable control over the machines and the
election could be obtained in a short amount of time, and that radio
signals from a Nedap model could be used to eavesdrop and monitor how
people vote.
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Wikipedia Co-Founder Tries Similar Idea in Search
Investor's Business Daily (01/08/08) P. A5; Deagon, Brian
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales' latest brainchild is Wikia Search, a
for-profit search engine that Wales says he launched partly to make a
political statement that supports open source. He views it as unhealthy
that a small group of players control the flow of all search engine
traffic, a model that is inconsistent with the traditional open Internet.
As with Wikipedia, Wikia Search's content will be provided by thousands of
volunteer contributors, and Wales says the software and data will be
released under a free license. "We have open-source software and cheap
commodity computers in an open, neutral setting so that people can innovate
very cheaply," he says, adding that this allows people to experiment and
perhaps make search a ubiquitous infrastructure component. Wales
anticipates that many organizations will build their own search engine
services thanks to the software's availability on an open platform, and he
says the trick to persuading people to use Wikia Search is delivering
quality and a search experience that is at least as good if not better than
their preferred search engine. "Because we are putting all the software
out there in an open-source fashion, we expect in some ways to generate our
own competition," Wales says. Wikia Search has received $14 million in
financing, and Wales says it will be funded via an advertising business
model. He says Wikia Search volunteers sign in with their user account,
and they can build a profile, connect to friends, send messages, and
perform other social networking activities.
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Intel Predicts the Personal Net
BBC News (01/08/08)
Mobile devices might soon "augment reality" by providing information from
the Internet in real time, predicted Intel CEO Paul Otellini at the
Consumer Electronics Show. He said that devices will become location-aware
and will provide access to the Internet over WiMax wireless connections.
"Instead of going to the Internet, the Internet comes to us," Otellini
said. "We need a ubiquitous, wireless broadband infrastructure.
Eventually we will blanket the globe in wireless broadband connectivity."
Otellini said his future will require exponentially more powerful
processors that use less and less power, which will require breakthroughs
in chip development. At CES, Intel unveiled a range of new processors,
including chips for "mobile Internet devices," which Otellini said will be
able to deliver the Internet "with no compromises," and will be only
slightly larger than mobile phones, but are expected to shrink in size by a
factor of four within two years.
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UCSD Joins the Green Grid
UCSD News (01/07/08) Zverina, Jan
The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has joined the Green Grid,
an international consortium of companies dedicated to advancing energy
efficiency in datacenters and computing systems. Joining the Green Grid
complements the university's efforts to reduce power consumption, including
efforts at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the largest
datacenter on the UCSD campus. SDSC is undergoing a "green" building
renovation that includes a variety of energy-saving designs, materials, and
practices. The 80,000-square-foot building, which is scheduled to open
next year, received the 2005 Best Practices Award for innovative heating,
ventilation, and air conditioning design from the Higher Education Energy
Partnership. By joining the Green Grid, UCSD researchers, engineers,
students, faculty, and staff will be able to learn new energy-saving
practices with other Green Grid members. "We're looking forward to
participating in the wealth of programs that this consortium is focusing
on, such as research, standards and best practice guides, and continuing
education, says UCSD's Steven Relyea. "By becoming a member of the Green
Grid, we hope that other academic institutions will join the consortium so
that universities everywhere can benefit from this exchange of innovative
ideas and solutions."
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Microsoft Patents Frustration-Detecting Help
System
Ars Technica (01/03/08) Reimer, Jeremy
Microsoft has filed a patent application for a system that connects
frustrated computer users with others who have had or are having similar
experiences. The patent includes biometric feedback that can initiate
certain features in software, making some industry watchers concerned that
the patent is the first step toward allowing corporations and governments
to closely monitor their citizens. The patent application begins by
describing the relationship between a typical computer user and their
applications, documents, and daily tasks. Problems arise because users
have trouble keeping a mental map of where documents are stored and how
they relate to their daily tasks. Microsoft's patent proposes a program
that monitors a user's computer activities and identifies other users who
are currently involved in the same activity. The software then provides a
way for users to answer each others questions. The biometrics are used to
tell if the user is having any problems by monitoring certain behaviors
tied to frustration, such as an elevated heart rate or taking an abnormally
long time to complete a task.
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Fraudsters Beware: Iowa State Engineer Is Developing
Cyber Technology to Find You
Iowa State University News Service (12/27/07) Krapfl, Mike
Iowa State University professor Yong Guan and his students are developing
technologies to fight cyber crime and make online activities more secure.
One of the technologies detects "click fraud," in which the number of
clicks to ads posted on Web sites is falsely inflated in order to increase
pay-per-click advertising. Guan says the technology will help online
advertisers such as Google and Yahoo reduce fraud. Guan also says that his
research could help millions of computer users who do not have the time or
ability to ensure their machines are updated with the latest security
patches and safeguards. Guan is developing technology and techniques for
collecting evidence from computers, network hardware, cell phones, and
electronic devices to help find the true origins of cyber criminals and
attackers. Guan is also working on three projects to improve the security
of wireless networks. The first examines how a new secure coding model can
be protected from attacks while transmitting network traffic. The new
method sends and combines messages in groups to save energy and increase
capacity. The second project aims to develop location-based security
systems for wireless technology by limiting access to certain documents or
networks based on location. The third project will help secure wired and
wireless multicasts by protecting and managing lists of Internet accounts,
which could help limit access to content.
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LiSA, a Robot Assistant for Life Sciences
ZDNet (01/07/08) Pipuepaille, Roland
The German government has launched an initiative to develop safe and cost
effective robot assistants. One such robot, called LiSA, is being built at
the Fraunhofer Institute and should be ready by March 2009. LiSA will
interact with technicians in life science labs and autonomously perform
routine tasks such as transporting multiplates and setting up stocking
stations. LiSA is designed with a sensing gripper arm designed to hold
plastic dishes that senses, cushions, and can protect humans from injuring
themselves on the robot, as well as a thermographic camera to register body
heat to tell if a human hand is in the way. The foam and textile skin of
the robot can also sense and compensate for accidental jostling.
"Flexibility, safety, and intuitive operation are crucial for the
acceptance of an assistant robot that shares a work environment with human
workers and interacts with them," states the LiSA project Web page.
"Hence, along with the development of the mobile platform and navigation in
dynamic environments, these aspects are also top priorities in the
project."
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50 Experts Attend Computer Forum
Gulf Times (Qatar) (01/06/08)
The Asian Computing Science Conference in Qatar recently drew more than 50
computer scientists from around the world. Hosted by Carnegie Mellon
University in Qatar (CMUQ), the computer and network security conference
offered 25 regular presentations for researchers from universities in
Japan, India, Iran, the United States, and France. Andrei Sabelfeld from
Chalmers University in Sweden discussed the latest developments in the area
of declassification, while Kazuhiko Kato from the University of Tsukuba in
Japan spoke about advances in architecture that will improve the security
of computers. MITRE's Joshua Guttman talked about new ways for performing
verification tasks. CMUQ computer science professor Iliano Cervesato
organized the event, and he is also planning the 15th Logic for Programming
Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (LPAR) conference in Doha in December
that will attract at least 100 computer science experts from across the
globe.
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Napkin PC Enables High-Tech Doodling
PhysOrg.com (01/05/08) Zyga, Lisa
Designer Avery Holleman is targeting creative groups with a new PC concept
that makes use of e-paper and radio-frequency technology. The Napkin PC
resembles a napkin holder and is filled with e-paper "napkins" and can hold
colored pens. An architect, artist, or engineer who suddenly has a new
idea can simply grab a napkin and doodle on it with a pen, which sends data
to the napkin interface using short-range RF technology. The pen and
napkin also use long-range RF to communicate with a base station PC. The
Napkin PC allows users to easily share their ideas, connects napkins to
create a large-scale display, and uses little power. The concept makes use
of a single-layer flexible circuit board for inductive power; has the pen
wirelessly power the napkin when it is in close range; and the e-paper
napkins retain the bright, full-color images for some time. Users sign
their name to load features such as settings and bookmarks, and the device
also keeps track of their work.
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Malware Honeypots Wait for '08
InfoWorld (12/28/07) Hines, Matt
The Distributed Open Proxy Honeypot Project, launched by the Web
Application Security Consortium (WASC) in January 2007, will be
re-introduced with new improvements in January 2008. After collecting data
for 11 months, project researchers spent December 2007 reviewing results
and strategizing for 2008. As a result, in 2008 WASC will fine-tune its
methods for tracking malware distributors and will also expand its existing
network of honeypots. The WASC initiative monitors Web traffic for
malicious activities using a network of 14 specially-configured open proxy
servers. The innovative system is more effective than traditional honeypot
applications, which cannot offer sufficient real-time intelligence for
defending against modern, swift, customized threats, says WASC project
leader Ryan Barnett. The WASC effort gains new information about
cyber-criminals' techniques by advertising its undefended open proxy server
to the Internet as the type of anonymous conduit preferred by attackers.
System improvements in 2008 will involve implementing more successful
methods for correlating anomalies and categorizing attacks. Project
researchers would also like to gain assistance from the open-source
community in analyzing the raw data. The proxypot model enables
researchers to monitor the source IP addresses being utilized by
cyber-criminals. Further analysis of the results would let WASC determine
which sites were being targeted and notify any companies concerned. At the
moment, the project aims to develop an early warning system to facilitate
the security industry's response to attacks as they emerge, though the
project could one day be used to uncover malware sources and block
threats.
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Individual Privacy Under Threat in Europe and U.S.,
Report Says
Associated Press (12/30/07)
International rights group Privacy International warns that individual
privacy is under threat in the United States and Europe as governments
introduce surveillance and information-gathering legislation in the name of
security and controlling borders. Privacy International reports that
Greece, Romania, and Canada have the best privacy records of 47 countries
studied, while Malaysia, Russia, and China rank the worst. Britain and the
United States are ranked as "endemic surveillance societies," the
lowest-performing group. "The general trend is that privacy is being
extinguished in country after country," says Privacy International director
Simon Davies. "Even those countries where we expected ongoing strong
privacy protection, like Germany and Canada, are sinking into the mire."
In the United States, civil liberties groups have criticized the Bush
administration for its involvement in domestic wiretapping, which allows
monitoring of international phone calls and email messages involving people
suspected of terrorist links, without a warrant. Britain was criticized
for plans for a national identity card, a lack of government
accountability, and the world's largest network of surveillance cameras.
Davies says the loss of computer disks with personal and bank information
on 25 million people in Britain highlights the risk of centralizing
information on huge government databases. The report says that privacy
protection is generally worsening across Western Europe while it is
improving in former Communist states in Eastern Europe. The report also
says concern over terrorism, immigration, and border security is driving
the spread of identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to
individual privacy, and that the trends are being fueled by the development
of a "profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and
the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate
outside judicial or democratic processes."
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Can You Count on These Machines?
New York Times Magazine (01/06/08) P. 40; Thompson, Clive
The 2000 election debacle prompted national initiatives to modernize
voting systems throughout the United States, but electronic voting systems
may cause even worse headaches, an especially urgent issue as the next
election rolls around. Unpredictable failures, voters' difficulty using
the machines, and other problems have shaken people's faith in the
technology, and states are scrapping touch-screen devices as officials such
as Ohio secretary of state Jennifer Brunner contend that the systems "may
jeopardize the integrity of the voting process." Carnegie Mellon
University computer scientist Michael Shamos contends that about one in 10
touch-screen machines "fail" in each election, and a scenario in which a
very close presidential election is decided by a handful of votes cast on
malfunctioning machines is very disturbing for election observers. Though
state officials in California and Ohio have raised the specter of hacking
as one of the chief reasons for their rejection of touch-screen voting, the
threat of miscounts stemming from error, incompetence, and unreliability is
far greater. Computer scientists such as Princeton University's Ed Felten
note that risk of failure is an inherent part of software complexity, while
critics also cite poor design as another reason behind touch-screen voting
systems' unreliability. Determining the magnitude of design flaws is
difficult for computer scientists because touch-screen vendors fiercely
protect their source code as a trade secret, critics contend. Vendors
counter that they allow a small number of approved elections officials in
each state and county to access the source code, which is almost always
tested by the government prior to use. However, critics respond that if
this is the case then more diligent security testing is necessary, as
evidenced by the proliferation of buggy and unreliable touch-screen
machines.
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Agile Principles Are Changing Everything
SD Times (01/01/08)No. 189, P. 1; DeJong, Jennifer
Although the formal adoption rate of agile software development is modest,
underlying principles such as incremental requirement definition, inviting
customer feedback, testing code while it is being written, and frequent
builds are enjoying wide proliferation. "Agile principles have become IT
best practices [for software development]," says IBM agile practice leader
Scott Ambler. Every facet of software production is being transformed by
the growing interest in agile practices, according to interviews with
analysts, developers, consultants, and tool makers from which three key
observations were inferred. The first observation is that the inversion of
the roles of the project manager, business analyst, programmer, and tester
by agile practices makes the adoption of agile principles tougher than many
teams assume. The second observation is that there is no consistency in
the application of agile practices between teams, which raises issues about
whether a process can be enhanced by adding one or several agile practices.
The third observation is that the agile development approach is not as
dogmatic as it was six years ago when the Manifesto for Agile Software
Development was introduced. The early days of agile development yielded
important lessons, such as that rigidly following a methodology may not be
viable in reality, according to the Eclipse Foundation's Bjorn
Freeman-Benson. Forrester analyst Peter Sterpe says some teams embrace
agile practices as a solution to failing projects, but this does not
constitute agile development. Freeman-Benson concludes that a process
achieves agile status when one practice leads to another practice,
acknowledging that craft is needed to select a balanced set of practices.
Though a report from Forrester documents the wide recognition of agile
benefits such as reduced time-to-market, improved predictability, and
better quality, there is a lack of empirical evidence that such advantages
exist.
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Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software
Engineers of Tomorrow?
STSC CrossTalk (01/08) Dewar, Robert B.K.; Schonberg, Edmond
AdaCore's Robert B.K. Dewar and Edmond Schonberg, computer science
professors at New York University, say that today's computer science
graduates are not equipped with the skills they need to work well in the
current software industry, leading to the conclusion that "we are training
easily replaceable professionals." They recommend an approach to CS
education characterized by the earlier introduction of formal methods such
as model checking and linear temporal logic for the design of concurrent
systems, and a central role for programming languages. Dewar and Schonberg
stress a heavier concentration on floating-point computations, and they
deem the use of Java as an introductory programming language to be "a
misguided attempt to make programming more fun, perhaps in reaction to the
drop in CS enrollments that followed the dot-com bust." At the same time,
the authors recognize that Java has a certain value in CS instruction, in
that it can help programmers' gain an understanding of concurrent
programming and the understanding that a program can be instrumented to
analyze its own state and determine its own behavior in a dynamically
shifting environment. Dewar and Schonberg cite the need for CS students to
become fluent in a number of diverse programming languages, such as C,
Lisp, and Ada. Knowing C is especially critical, as it forces students to
achieve a clear understanding of the hardware/software relationship,
according to the authors. They express consternation that scripting
languages are so popular in introductory programming courses, as they lack
strong typing and do not support the learning of algorithms and performance
analysis. Dewar and Schonberg write that students must not just be taught
the right programming languages, but also must be exposed to the tools for
building large-scale reliable programs.
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