Frances Allen: A Pioneer in High-Performance
Computing
University of California, Berkeley (01/23/08) Bronstein, Nancy
Frances Allen's career spans most of the history of computer science, and
Allen's work has helped shape the field in numerous ways. Allen was the
first woman to be named an IBM Fellow in 1989, and in 2006 she became the
first woman to receive the ACM A.M. Turing Award. Allen started her career
as a high-school math teacher, but stayed only two years before joining IBM
to teach the new Fortran language to scientists. "To do that I had to
learn the language and convince the scientists to learn it too, because,
like it or not, they would have to use it that next September," Allen says.
"I became my own best student, totally intrigued by language, compiler,
and computer systems." Much of Allen's early work was in compiler
optimization, which is considered by some to be an arcane specialty now.
Allen says she was inspired by her experience teaching Fortran and by the
two goals for the Fortran project laid out by John Backus, who led that
project. "The first was that Fortran had to enable users to be more
productive by spending less time writing and debugging programs," Allen
says. "The second was that Fortran programs had to run almost as fast as
hand-coded programs, and do so nearly every time. His goals became my
career goals." Allen says computers are becoming increasingly parallel
machines, with groups of processors connected in parallel using software
that divides tasks between processors. "Parallelism is no longer
specialized to big scientific problems, so from the technological point of
view, it's where we must work," she says. When asked what her greatest
adventure was, Allen, who has explored several uncharted areas of the
Arctic and the Chinese/Tibetan border, responded, "Beyond a doubt, it's my
50 years in computing." For more on Frances Allen, or to view her Turing
Award lecture, visit:
http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1012327&srt=all&aw=140&ao=AMTURING
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Tech Vacancies Languish on Immigration Snag
The Politico (01/21/08) Frates, Chris
A coalition of trade groups, educators, companies, and researchers want to
increase the number of visas available to highly-skilled foreign workers,
as companies, particularly in the tech sector, have thousands of job
openings that they have been unable to fill, says Oracle's Robert Hoffman.
Hoffman, co-chairman of the Compete America coalition, says there is a
false choice between bringing in foreign workers and not hiring American
workers. "We like to hire the most talented U.S.-born workers we can find
and the most talented foreign workers we can find," Hoffman says, "and we
think that helps us as an American company." Hoffman and Compete America
is urging lawmakers to reissue the roughly 300,000 highly-skilled worker
visas and 140,000 green cards granted between 2001 and 2003 that were
approved but never used. The coalition would also like to increase the
number of highly-skilled worker visas available to those with master's and
doctorate degrees from American universities, which is currently limited to
20,000. "Immigration is kind of like the common cold," Hoffman says.
"It's clear we're not going to cure it, but we can at least deal with its
effects this year."
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No, the Tech Skills Shortage Doesn't Exist
InformationWeek (01/14/08)No. 1168, P. 37; Hira, Ron
Numerous executives in the technology industry, including Microsoft's Bill
Gates and Intel's Craig Barrett, claim there is a severe shortage of IT
workers in the United States, but they may be misrepresenting IT labor
market conditions to support their efforts to hire foreign workers, writes
Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira. By definition,
exceptional talent and skills in emerging technologies will always be in
short supply, as newer technology has fewer experts. A better indicator of
the tightness in any labor market is wages, Hira says, specifically whether
wages are rising significantly faster than normal. Department of Labor
data compiled by the Commission on Professionals in Science & Technology
shows that IT worker wages grew by a modest 2.9 percent in constant dollar
terms from 2003 to 2005. Although that increase is larger than the average
0.6 percent growth in all professional occupations, the gains for IT
workers do not indicate significant employee shortages. The National
Association for Colleges & Employers reports that salaries for entry-level
jobs in IT rose from $50,774 in 2006 to $53,051 in 2007, an increase of 4.5
percent, but that increase is almost completely consumed by inflation,
which was about 4.3 percent in 2007. Employer practices have shifted
dramatically as well, Hira says. He says companies today do not think
twice about outsourcing IT work or bringing in lower-cost foreign labor,
often asking current employees to train their replacements. Intel's
Barrett recently wrote an op-ed piece on the shortage of U.S. workers when
his own company has had major layoffs in recent years, cutting 14 percent
of its workforce over the past two years. Hira's article was part of a
editorial debate on the state of the IT job market. To read his remarks in
their entirety, visit:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601556. To read the counterargument, visit:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601557
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All-Mail Vote in Colorado Isn't Needed, Governor
Says
New York Times (01/24/08) P. A18; Johnson, Kirk
Coloradans will be able to cast paper ballots at regular polling places in
November, under a bill that Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. (D) expects to introduce
in the next few days in the state's Democrat-controlled General Assembly.
Ritter's one-year emergency repair plan for the state's voting system has
bipartisan sponsors. Uncertainty began to surround the election when
concerns about the accuracy or security of electronic voting prompted
Secretary of State Mike Coffman (R) to decertify many of the state's
e-voting machines. The General Assembly is also considering other
legislation that focuses on recertifying the e-voting machines for the
purpose of offering access to disabled voters, and for getting
ballot-scanning devices back up and running in time for the election.
Ritter says the state will not move to an all-mail system, which has been
an option for Colorado voters since 1992. He says developing an all-mail
system would be like "building an airplane in the air."
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Computer Vision May Not Be as Good as Thought, According
to MIT Study
MIT News (01/24/08) Delude, Cathryn M.
Recent advancements in computer vision may not be as successful as
originally believed because the tests being used are inadvertently stacked
in favor of computers, concludes a new MIT study. Recent computational
models of computer vision show seemingly impressive progress, with success
rates as high as 60 percent when classifying natural photographic image
sets, including the widely used Caltech101 database, which tests computer
vision algorithms against a variety of images seen in the real world.
However, researchers at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research say
these image sets have design flaws that enable computers to succeed when
they would fail with more authentically varied images. "The ease with
which we recognize visual objects belies the computational difficulty of
this feat," says James DiCarlo, a neuroscientist at the Institute. "The
core challenge is image variation." The researchers exposed the flaws in
current computer object recognition tests by using a simple "toy" computer
model inspired by the earliest steps in the brain's visual pathway. The
researchers expected the toy model to fail, as a way to establish a
baseline, but it actually performed surprisingly well on the Caltech101
images. Following a second test the model failed despite needing to
identify only two objects. The researchers concluded that the model did
well not because it is a good model but because Caltech101's "natural"
images fail to capture real-world variability. The researchers suggest
revamping current standards and images used by the computer vision
community.
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New Website Advances the Science of Turning 2-D Into
3-D
Stanford Report (01/23/08) Orenstein, David
Stanford University computer scientists have developed Make3d, an
algorithm that can take any two-dimensional image and create a
three-dimensional "fly around" model of the image, allowing people to view
an image from a variety of perspectives. "The algorithm uses a variety of
visual cues that humans use for estimating the 3D aspects of a scene," says
Stanford computer science doctoral student Ashutosh Saxena, who developed
the Make3d Web site computer science professor Andrew Ng. The researchers
say the technology could be used for enhancing pictures on online real
estate sites to rapidly creating environments for video games and improving
the vision and dexterity of mobile robots. Make3d uses "machine learning"
to create accurate and smooth 3D models and can render objects on planes at
any angle. To "teach" the algorithm about depth, the researchers fed the
algorithm still images of campus scenes along with 3D information of the
same scenes collected with laser scanners. The algorithm combined the two
pieces of information to establish trends and patterns associated with
depth. To create 3D images, the algorithm breaks an image into
"superpixels," which are within the image and have very uniform color,
brightness, and other attributes. By comparing a superpixel to its
neighbors, the algorithm can determine how far the object is from the
viewer and what its orientation in space is.
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Robotics Competition Seeks to Mentor High
Schoolers
EE Times (01/24/08) Mokhoff, Nicolas
Segway inventor Dean Kamen is looking to the next generation of students
to help develop the "next big thing" through the 17th annual First (For
Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics
competition, which takes place at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta from April
17-19. The competition is designed to help high schoolers discover the
rewards of science, engineering, and technology. This year, over 37,500
students on more than 1,500 teams from every state, as well as Brazil,
Canada, Chile, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom will
participate in the competition. The teams were shown this year's challenge
in January and given a common kit that includes motors, batteries, a
control system, and various automation parts. Students receive no
instructions, but are allowed to work with mentors to design, build, and
test their robots. The teams then compete in regional competitions that
measure the effectiveness of each robot. This year's competition requires
students to design robots that can race around a track and knock down
40-inch inflated trackballs, or move them around the track with an
overpass. "We need technology professionals to show kids they have more
options," Kamen says. "They need to help young people discover the
excitement and rewards of education and careers in science and
technology."
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Profs Push for Major Uniting Computers, Art
Yale Daily News (01/25/08) Torbati, June
Yale computer science professors Julie Dorsey, Paul Hudak, and Holly
Rushmeier are working with Yale arts professors to create a Computing in
the Arts major, which would use the tools of computer science to develop
software for and solve problems in five different arts fields. "There are
all sorts of examples of combinations of technology and art and
architecture," Hudak says. "Many of these jobs require skills in both
areas." Hudak, Dorsey, and Rushmeier say their proposal, which could be
approved as early as Feb. 7, has been met by "universal enthusiasm" from
administrators. Music department professor Daniel Harrison says he
immediately saw the potential benefits of such a major. "It's a great way
to build bridges between artistic creation and computational methods and
techniques," Harrison says. According to the proposal, few new courses
would be needed to create the major. Students would be required to take 14
courses, seven in computer science and seven in one of the arts
disciplines. The major would include a senior project in which students
combine both fields. Although many schools offer digital media majors, the
computer science classes in these majors are often "watered down," Dorsey
says. Yale's major would require all students to take standard computer
science classes.
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Louisiana University Research Team Receives Grant to
Develop CyberTools
Supercomputing Online (01/23/08)
Faculty researchers from nine Louisiana universities has been awarded a $9
million National Science Foundation grant, along with matching funds of $3
million from the Board of Regents Support Fund and $3.2 million from
participating institutions, to develop new cyber tools that will enable
significant advances in science and engineering. "This grant will allow
Louisiana university researchers to capitalize on the state's recent
investments in cyberinfrastructure," says Joseph Savoie, the Commissioner
of Higher Education. "The project will take full advantage of the
Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI), the high-speed optic network
that connects supercomputers at our major universities and research centers
and links Louisiana to the National Lambda Rail, one of the nation's most
advanced grid-based, distributing and computing infrastructures." The
grant is the third consecutive $9 million Research Infrastructure
Improvement (RII) award Louisiana has received from the NSF's Experimental
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Louisiana EPSCoR
program project director Michael Khonsari says the RII project will develop
new cyber tools for high-performance computing, advanced networking, and
data management that will advance the capabilities of Louisiana's
university researchers. "It will give the investigators greater access to
an advanced research tool that will allow them to conduct many more tests
in a much shorter period of time and with better results than traditional
screening techniques," Khonsari says.
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IT Jobs Coalition to Lobby for Immigration Changes
Computerworld Canada (01/22/08) Schick, Shane
Every IT manager position that goes unfilled costs the Canadian economy
more than $160,000 a year, while the monetary loss of most vacant IT jobs
averages about $100,000, with open software engineering positions costing
more than $150,000, and network operations staff positions costing about
$106,000, concludes a new Conference Board of Canada report. The report
calculated the economic impact of skill shortages in 15 technology-related
positions using wages, profit-per-employee, and other indirect effects such
as how IT professionals spend their money. A coalition of firms formed
last month will use the study to lobby for changes in foreign immigration
policy. The coalition, spearheaded by Bell Canada, was working with
universities and schools to change perceptions of IT as a profession and to
develop better curricula, but immigration policy is key to filling new jobs
and jobs that will become vacant from retiring baby boomers in a few years.
The coalition has yet to outline specific immigration policy changes, but
say the first step is to make people understand how bad the problem is.
Bell is also working on its own program, call First Jobs, which will
attempt to streamline the hiring process for immigrants with suitable
qualifications. The Conference Board's Michael Bloom notes that IT jobs
pay about 45 more than other Canadian jobs, and suggests that computer
science would be more appealing to students if it were combined with other
popular majors such as environmental science.
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Computer Learns to Out-Munch Humans at Pac-Man
New Scientist (01/22/08) Mullins, Justin
A computer program that has developed its own tactics for playing Ms.
Pac-Man slightly outperforms average human players. Andras Lorincz and
Istvan Szita at Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary, are behind the Ms.
Pac-Man program, which was given a selection of possible scenarios, such as
"if ghost nearby," and possible actions, such as "move away." The program
came up with rules by randomly combining scenarios with actions, then
played Ms. Pac-Mac with the random combinations to determine the
effectiveness of the rules. The program went on to set priorities for
handling conflicting rules, and it decided that the most important rule was
not to get eaten by the ghosts, with the next being to track down edible
ghosts. The researchers are using the Ms. Pac-Man program to analyze the
weaknesses of artificial intelligence compared to human intelligence for
video games. "Games are interesting and challenging for human intelligence
and therefore an ideal means to explore what artificial intelligence is
still missing," the researchers say. For example, the program did not
evolve the common human tactic of waiting for ghosts to approach before
eating a power dot, with hopes of eating as many edible ghosts as
possible.
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Palpable Computing: A Taste of Things to Come
ICT Results (01/21/08)
"Palpable computing," a term coined by University of Aarhus researcher
Morten Kyng, refers to pervasive computer technology that is also tangible
and comprehensible to users, in contrast to "ubiquitous computing," which
is based on the idea of making computers invisible. "The problem is that
when the technology is invisible you can't see what it is doing, how it
functions, or comprehend it," Kyng says. He says the invisibility of
ubiquitous computing can be a serious, even life-threatening problem in
some cases. Communication failures during emergencies that are not easily
fixed can cost lives, as can interoperability failures in hospital
equipment. Palpable computing aims to make the technology visible when it
needs to be, and understandable all the time, reducing the complications
associated with using technology and making it easier for developers to
create new applications. Over the last four years, Kyng and a group of
more than 100 researchers from across Europe have developed a software
architecture for palpable computing systems and a toolbox for developers to
create applications that has been made available under an open source
license. The researchers also developed several test platforms. "The
potential uses for palpable computing are diverse, although initially I
think the key markets will be in areas, such as emergency response and
health care, where there is an urgent need for increasingly more efficient
and effective technology," Kyng says.
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A 'Swift' Kick to the Secure Development Process
Dark Reading (01/18/08) Spande, Nathan
Developers will be able to easily create secure, robust, and
high-performance Web applications using a new system called Swift.
Developed by a group at Cornell University, Swift allows developers to
write code using a variant of Java, applying sensitivity labels to
variables. Developers then feed the code into a series of programs that
use the labels to determine which code is to reside on the server, on the
client, and in both places. The code handles synchronization, and
translates the requisite client code into JavaScript. The resulting
application will not be as fast as an optimally designed system, but the
performance cost should be minimal. Client code is generated using the
Google Web Toolkit with fixes transparently adopted by a simple
recompilation, and although the code is exposed to any bugs in the toolkit,
developers are able to use a suitable client-side framework due to the
loose coupling of the front end. Swift was the subject of a paper at the
2007 ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles.
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Computer-Based Tool Aids Research, Helps Thwart
Questionable Publication Practices
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (01/23/08)
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers have developed
eTBLAST, a computer-based text-searching tool that can rapidly compare
multiple documents in a database, providing a more efficient way of
executing literature searches, and helping scientific journal editors catch
and prevent questionable publication practices. ETBLAST automatically
finds and marks publications that are highly similar, says UT Southwestern
professor Harold Garner, who developed the computer code along with his
colleagues. ETBLAST can identify the duplication of key words as well as
word proximity and order, along with other variables. The tool can be used
to analyze unpublished abstracts or project ideas to find previous
publications on the topic or to identify possible collaborators, or to help
journal editors find potentially plagiarized or duplicate articles
submitted for publication. In the first phase of study, eTBLAST analyzed
more than 62,000 abstracts from the past 12 years from the Medline database
Medline. The program found that 0.04 percent of papers with no shared
authors were highly similar and could represent potential plagiarism. That
percentage, when extrapolated to the 17 million scientific papers currently
cited in the database, could mean there are as many as 7,000 cases of
potential plagiarism. "Our objective in this research is to make a
significant impact on how scientific publications may be handled in the
future," Garner says.
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English as You've Never Seen It Before
Sky News (01/17/08) Tyldesley, Hazel
MIT computer scientists Antonio Torralba, Rob Fergus, and William T.
Freeman used a computer program to find the visual that best represents
each of the 53,463 nouns in the English language, after entering each word
into various image search engines. Each noun generated an average of 140
pictures, and the researchers collected approximately 80 million pictures
in all. The researchers have produced a detailed map, with each word
represented by a colored square. "For some, the average turns out to be a
recognizable image; for others the average is a colored blob," say the
researchers. Related nouns were grouped together, and viewers will see the
words "cantaloupe" and "pumpkin" near each other, represented as a blurry
circular orange image. The project is another example of how people can
recognize objects and scenes when the quality of the pictures is poor, the
researchers say.
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Interview: OLPC's Michail Bletsas
Gearlog (01/21/08)
Despite the initial, nearly universal praise of the One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC) project, critics have been quick to point out what they perceive to
be flaws in the organization, and the project has seen a fair amount of
problems, including a lawsuit filed by the patent holders of a Nigerian
keyboard, the exit of the company's chief technology officer, the end of
the successful Give One, Get One program, and a public falling out with
one-time supporter Intel. OLPC chief connectivity officer Michail Bletsas
says the Nigerian keyboard lawsuit has no basis. He notes that OLPC uses X
Window on the laptop, which has its own keyboard-mapping technology, so
OLPC did not reverse-engineer the keyboard controller firmware as the
patent holder claims. When asked about competition in the industry,
Bletsas responded, "I think to us it's very clear. We're trying to get
laptops in the hands of kids, with the lowest cost possible. If somebody
can beat us, fine. But don't treat the kids as a market. Treat them as a
mission," he says. "We would like to focus more on how to improve
education using those PCs, but, in order to get to that step, we have to
get those PCs into the hands of kids, and that's what we're trying to
enable, right now."
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Ben Schneiderman: Visualize Data
Government Computer News (01/21/08) Vol. 27, No. 2, Walsh, Trudy
University of Maryland computer science professor Ben Schneiderman says in
an interview that the visual nature of the computer and the Web has
exciting possibilities for the presentation and dissemination of
information. He agrees that the Web is changing people's visual thinking,
noting the way that filmmaking skills have spread and advanced thanks to
innovations such as Flickr and YouTube. Schneiderman says U.S. government
agencies' mapping efforts are good examples of information visualization
applications, and cites housing prices and changes over time as key areas
where the government could apply information visualization further. He
says government Web sites could be improved through the use of compact
visual design that displays a lot of information in a well-organized way;
ceding control of visual displays such as bar charts, graphs, and maps to
users; and the consideration of universal usability issues. Schneiderman
says social networks also hold great potential for information
visualization, pointing to the National Consortium for the Study of
Terrorism and Responses to Terror (START) center's retention of a global
terror database as an important resource. Schneiderman says information
visualization could help combat information overload in the event of a
terror attack, disaster, or other emergency. "You have to find scalable
approaches, and visual or graphical displays can give you a handle on
what's happening," he says. "At the START center, we're working on a
project that shows on a map where people are when they hit *9 on their cell
phones, which sends a geolocated, time-stamped message to university
security."
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New Answers for E-Learning
U.S. News & World Report (01/21/08) Vol. 144, No. 2, P. 46; Clark, Kim
The shortcomings of e-learning courses include tedium, less emphasis on
education, and higher dropout rates, but some professors and schools are
revamping their courses to exploit the Internet's visual and interactive
potential, adopting wikis, avatars, and other Web tools to enhance the
e-learning experience. Researchers say students greatly lessen their
chances of dropping out of courses that offer several of the e-learning
field's best practices. Among the e-learning course traits they say
students should research are accreditation by approved organizations,
transferability, a solid reputation, scheduling, guidance for technology,
detailed syllabi, and logical grading criteria. "The evidence shows the
more access, more interaction, and more opportunities for feedback learners
have from instructors, the better they do," notes executive director of
Michigan State's Global Online Connection Christine Geith. Easy
accessibility is a key characteristic of the best online teachers. Another
indicator of excellent online teachers is their ability to present
information in multiple formats, and to take advantage of the Web's
opportunities for interactivity and flashy graphics. Good e-learning
courses cultivate student communities, which some colleges support by
requiring students to post personal information on a class blog, Facebook,
or Web page.
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