'Battle of the Brains' Crowns Top Computing
College
Chronicle of Higher Education (04/10/08) Fischman, Josh
St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics,
and Optics has won the "Battle of the Brains," ACM's International
Collegiate Programming Contest. The Russian team was able to write
software to solve eight of 11 computer programming problems within the
allotted five hours. Among the challenges faced by the teams of three
students were writing code to determine the length of a city skyline,
mapping the size and capacity of a new building design, and cracking an
encrypted file to obtain top secret information. A team from MIT solved
seven problems to finish in second place. Rounding out the top 10 schools
were Izhevsk State Technical University, Lviv National University, Moscow
State University, Tsinghua University, Stanford University, University of
Zagreb, University of Waterloo, and Petrozavodsk State University. For
more information about ICPC 2008 visit
http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/v2/
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Many Visas Are Sought for Skilled
New York Times (04/11/08) P. A18; Preston, Julia
Federal immigration authorities received about 163,000 petitions for
temporary work visas for highly skilled foreign workers, nearly twice as
many as the number of visas available. Citizenship and Immigration
Services closed the application period after it had been open for the
five-day minimum. Petitions for the 2009 fiscal year increased by about 23
percent over 2008, but immigration officials say they had expected an even
high number. A new rule penalizing companies who file multiple petitions
for the same worker helped control petition numbers, says USCIS' Chris
Rhatigan. The agency will now hold a lottery to choose the 85,000 foreign
workers who will receive H-1B visas this year. The limited number of visas
brought calls from the technology industry to raise the visa cap. A Senate
bill would raise the H-1B cap to 145,000 visas each year through 2011, and
would allow business to use, over a three-year period, about 150,000 visas
that were available in past years but never issued. The bill also aims to
address the expanding use of H-1B visas by major Indian companies that
bring workers to the United States for short periods as part of outsourcing
contracts. The bill would prohibit this practice by requiring companies to
employ H-1B workers in offices in the United States. Critics of potential
H-1B visa increases say H-1B immigrants have lowered wages for American
technology workers.
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U.S. Presidential Election Can Be Hacked
IDG News Service (04/10/08) McMillan, Robert
A recent audit of the three most widely used electronic voting systems has
found that the machines can be hacked, says University of California,
Berkeley professor David Wagner. The audit, which was conducted as part of
California's review of electronic voting, found that hackers could install
a computer virus on three systems from Diebold Electronic Systems, Hart
InterCivic, and Sequoia Voting Systems. The virus could then spread to
machines throughout the county and alter the vote count. "The three
systems we looked at are three of the most widely used around the nation,"
Wagner said during an e-voting panel discussion at the RSA Conference on
Thursday. "They're going to be using them in the 2008 elections; they're
still going to have the same vulnerabilities we found. He says the
problems uncovered in the audit affect not only California counties, but
counties across the country. Yet despite the pervasiveness of the problem,
academics such as Wagner will find it difficult to approach voting system
vendors because of the deep mistrust that exists between the communities,
says Florida State University professor Alec Yasinsac. He says vendors
feel that if they talk to security researchers, it could be tantamount to
admitting that they have bugs.
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Microsoft Introduces Tool for Avoiding Traffic
Jams
New York Times (04/10/08) P. C3; Markoff, John
Microsoft artificial intelligence researchers have developed Clearflow, a
Web-based service for driving directions that uses complex software models
to help drivers avoid traffic jams. The five-year project is an attempt to
apply machine-learning techniques to traffic congestion, and is intended to
reflect the complex traffic patterns that occur as traffic builds on
highways and overflows onto city streets. Clearflow will be a free service
on Microsoft's Live search service. Analyst Greg Sterling says there is
growing consumer demand for online traffic information, particularly among
mobile device users. However, he says "this is a sophisticated layer of
technology that will not be easily understood by the average person."
Microsoft AI researcher Eric Horvitz developed the idea in 2003 after his
car's navigation device failed to help him avoid a traffic jam in Seattle.
Horvitz determined that the solution required mapping all the side streets
in order to understand the entire city. Microsoft research approached the
problem by building software algorithms that modeled traffic behavior by
collecting trip data from volunteers carrying GPS units. The researchers
were able to create a model for predicting traffic based on four years of
data and 16,500 trips covering 125,000 miles. The models developed in
Seattle were then transferred to other cities and combined with live data
generated by networks of highway sensors. "I consider this to be the moon
mission of our machine-learning research," Horvitz says.
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UCI Study Sheds New Light on Habits, Roles of Blog
Readers
University of California, Irvine (04/09/08) Mednick, Jason
A new University of California, Irvine study examined the blog-reading
habits of 15 participants of various ages to determine how they consume
content and interact with blogs and blog writers. Some readers frequently
posted comments, while others "lurked," or visited and read blogs without
commenting. The study also found that readers have diverse opinions of
what makes a blog. Study participants used a wide variety of
characteristics to define what constitutes a blog, including technical
aspects such as RSS feeds and trackback links, and social aspects such as
the presence of conversation or personal content. The study also found
that blog reading can become ingrained in a user's online routine, similar
to email checking, making blog reading habitual and less content oriented.
Blog readers often feel a responsibility to make insightful contributions,
and while past research suggests that readers expect bloggers to deliver
frequent, high-quality posts, the study found readers also place pressure
on themselves to produce worthwhile comments. The UC Irvine researchers
hope their work will encourage more research into the roles of blog readers
and how blog features such as commenting and linking create new ways of
interacting with authors and text. The researchers presented their study
at ACM's CHI 2008 conference in Florence, Italy.
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IBM Races to Make Hi-Tech Memory
BBC News (04/10/08)
IBM researchers are working on racetrack memory, a technology that uses
tiny magnetic boundaries to store data. Racetrack memory could increase
the capacity of electronic devices to 100 times current levels, though the
IBM researchers say the technology is still seven to eight years away from
commercial use. IBM fellow Stuart Parkin says racetrack memory is
inexpensive, durable, and fast, and could replace both flash and hard
drives in computers and other gadgets. Racetrack memory stores data in
boundaries, known as domain walls, between magnetic regions in nanowires.
The memory technology is called racetrack because data races around the
wire or track as it is being written or read. The domain walls are read by
exploiting the weak magnetic fields generated by the spin of electrons.
Racetrack memory also generates far less heat than existing devices because
very little power is needed to exploit the magnetic fields. "We have
demonstrated the physics and materials underlying racetrack memory," Parkin
says. "It's now possible to build a racetrack memory though we've not
built one yet."
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Where Did All the Girl Geeks Go?
eWeek (04/10/08) Perelman, Deb
The proportion of computer science bachelor's degrees awarded to women has
fallen from 36 percent to 21 percent between 1983 and 2006, and fewer women
are working in IT this year than in 2000, says the National Center for
Women and Information Technology. Many experts say computer science
suffers from a bad public image. For example, many students, and many
parents, feel that technology-related jobs are uninteresting and require
employees to sit in front of computers all day. Although the Bureau of
Labor Statistics predicts that computer and mathematical science jobs will
grow at a faster pace than any other occupation through 2016, many people
still believe that technology is not a secure field. "In 2001, the dot-com
bubble burst and everyone decided there were no jobs in this field," says
Adelphi University professor Stephen Bloch. "Maybe the female students
have been more sensitive to this." Webgrrls International CTO Nelly
Yusupova says even if pure programming jobs are outsourced, there will
still be opportunities within companies for people to bridge the
relationship between the outsourced IT vendors and the business. "These
roles would probably be ideal for women who prefer to be in
communication-focused roles, if they know computer science and can
communicate to all parties involved," Yusupova says. NCWIT CEO Lucy
Sanders says the best way to get more girls interested in IT may be to show
them that they can make a difference. "If we don't have women at the
design table, then the technology is not all that it could be," she says.
"Are we inventing all that we could be inventing? I don't think so."
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IST Researchers Classify Web Searches
Penn State Live (04/02/08) Spinelle, Jenna; DuBois, Charles
Researchers have shown that most Internet search engine queries can be
classified into one of three categories using relatively simple methods.
Penn State University professor Jim Jansen, undergraduate student Danielle
Booth, and Queensland University of Technology professor Amanda Spink
discovered that Web search engine users are primarily doing either
informational, navigational, or transactional searching. The researchers
examined more than 1.5 million searches from hundreds of thousands of
users. They found that about 80 percent of queries are informational
searches, and navigational and transactional searches account for 10
percent each. Jansen and his colleagues reached this conclusion by
selecting random samples of records and analyzing query length, the order
of the query in the search session, and the search results. The team then
developed an algorithm that can classify searches with a 74 percent
accuracy rate. "Our findings have broad implications for search engines
and e-commerce if they can classify the user intent of queries in real
time," Jansen says. He plans to continue the research with a more complex
algorithm that will yield a 90 percent accuracy rate.
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Supercomputer Beats Go Master
HPC Wire (04/09/08)
The MoGo artificial intelligence engine defeated professional 5th DAN
Catalin Taranu in a 9x9 game of Go during the Go Tournament in Paris in
late March. The victory, the first officially sanctioned "non blitz"
victory for a machine over a Go Master, is considered a significant
achievement because the game is patterned more after human thought than
chess and its possible combinations exceed the number of particles in the
universe. Taranu says the system was close to reaching the level of DAN in
performance. The computer did lose to Taranu in a 19x19 configuration with
a nine-stone handicap. The French National Institute for Research in
Computer Science and Control (INRIA) developed the artificial intelligence
engine. "The software used in this victory--the result of a collaboration
between INRIA, the CNRS(1), LRI(2) and CMAP(3)--is based on innovative
technologies that can be used in numerous different areas, particularly in
the conservation of resources which is such a vital issue when it comes to
tackling environmental problems," says INRIA researcher Olivier Teytaud,
who led the MoGo team.
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U.S. Cyber Readiness Lagging, Panel Says
Network World (04/09/08) Weinberg, Neal
Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated, more organized, and more
dangerous while federal funding for cybersecurity is lagging, legislation
intended to toughen laws against cybercrime has stalled, and cooperation
between private and public sectors needs improvement, said cybersecurity
experts during a panel at this week's RSA Conference. Business Software
Alliance CEO Robert Holleyman said an estimated 250,000 computers are
compromised everyday by bot-herders, the number of exploits is seven times
higher than it was a year ago, and the cyber threat is "growing
exponentially." U.S. Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.), chairman of the
Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Cybersecurity, said
cybersecurity has largely been ignored by government until recently.
However, he said meaningful legislation will probably not happen this year.
Langevin said that two major priorities for federal government are
securing its own networks and securing the nation's critical
infrastructure. The Homeland Security Department's Greg Garcia said the
big challenge facing Homeland Security is strengthening federal networks.
Garcia also said the department is working to build a worldwide network of
protectors.
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Software Kills Squealing Gig Feedback
New Scientist (04/05/08) Margottini, Laura
Researchers at the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of
London, have developed a system that enables bands without sound engineers
to give feedback-free performances. Feedback occurs when a specific
frequency reaches a critical volume and is re-captured by microphones
enough times that the audio system becomes saturated and a squealing sound
occurs. A sound check before a performance can reveal which frequencies
will lead to feedback, and during performances a sound engineer can adjust
volumes to prevent feedback, but the tedious task distracts the engineer
from concentrating on the quality of the mix. Automatic software filters
can help, but they tend to remove some non-feedback sounds and allow
feedback to slip through. The researchers developed software that prevents
feedback from occurring, instead of trying to remove it or cancel it out.
A sound check is still required to determine which frequencies cause
feedback, but during the performance the software automatically lowers
frequency volume before it reaches critical volume while maintaining a good
sound balance.
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Google, UN Team Up for Refugee Mapping Project
Computerworld (04/09/08) Haverstein, Heather
The Google Earth Outreach program combines Google Earth, Google Maps, and
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in an
effort to highlight refugee work done by various humanitarian agencies.
Participating groups can upload text, audio, and video information to
Google Earth to highlight challenges faced by workers on the ground and how
they intend to solve them. The new Google Earth program is divided into
three layers. The first layer highlights three major areas where displaced
persons are housed. The second layer explores issues such as refugee
health, education, water, and sanitation through pop-up windows that
explain the specific needs of each location. The third level explains
issues at the local level, such as problems with schools and other
infrastructure needs. UNHCR says the project will eventually allow the
agency to build a geographic record of ground efforts to aid refugees that
could be used for future logistical planning. Last year, Google partnered
with the U.S. Holocaust Museum to launch the Genocide Prevention Mapping
Initiative, an online site to help educate Web users about genocide. The
site includes photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony from numerous
sources about the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.
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McCormick Researchers Take Step Toward Creating Quantum
Computers
Northwestern University (04/04/08)
Northwestern University researchers have demonstrated one of the basic
building blocks for distributed quantum computing using entangled photons
generated in optical fibers. "Because it is done with fiber and the
technology that is already globally deployed, we think that it is a
significant step in harnessing the power of quantum computers," says
Northwestern professor Prem Kumar. The superposition of a quantum bit, or
qubit, would allow a quantum computer to process significantly more
information than a traditional computer. Kumar's group, which uses photons
as qubits, found that they can entangle two indistinguishable photons in an
optical fiber by using the fiber's inherent nonlinear response. The
researchers also found that no matter how far the two photons are separated
in standard transmission fibers, they remain entangled and "mysteriously"
connected to each other's quantum state. Kumar and his team used the
fiber-generated indistinguishable photons to implement the most basic
quantum computer task, a controlled-NOT gate, which allows two photonic
qubits to interact. DARPA has funded the group's next research effort,
which will study how to implement a quantum network for physically
demonstrating efficient public goods strategies, such as government
contract auctions that would be able to find the most inexpensive contract
arrangements by pairing contractors that have previous experience working
together.
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My Life in a Video Game (Batteries Not Included)
New York Times (04/09/08) P. T6; Wayner, Peter
Computer designers are working to develop and incorporate new technology
into people's daily lives that will be nearly invisible to them but offer
significant enhancements. For example, doctoral student Rafael Balagas
developed a "magic wand" using cell phone technology that can give people a
guided tour of Regensburg, Germany, a project that landed him a job at
Nokia's research lab in Palo Alto, Calif. Intel's Digital Health Group
director of research and innovation Eric Dishman says his group is focusing
on preventing falls, social health, and cognitive assistance. "People with
Alzheimer's stop answering the front door or answering the phone," Dishman
says. "It's really embarrassing not to know the difference between a
stranger or a spouse at the front door." Intel developed a phone with
advanced caller ID that provides users with a picture of the person calling
along with a sentence about the last thing the caller talked about with
them. Dishman's group is also using embedded sensors to track the movement
of patients to prevent falls by incorporating sensors into their clothing
and carpets. A hidden computer tracks a person's progress and warn the
person to slow down if any aberrations in stride are detected, or calls for
help if necessary. Meanwhile, Botanicalls, developed at New York
University, monitors soil moisture levels and sends a message when the soil
is too dry. NYU researcher Tom Igoe says his students are becoming more
critical about when embedded computing is worthwhile, and adds that the
goal of embedded computing is not communication but the quality of life
communication affords.
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Robots Seen Doing Work of 3.5 Million in Japan
Reuters (04/08/08) Kubota, Yoko
Robots could fill 3.5 million jobs in Japan by 2025, concludes a new
Machine Industry Memorial Foundation report. The report says robots have
the potential to save $21 billion on health care costs for the elderly by
2025. Robots could help caregivers with children or older people by
reading books out loud or helping bathe the elderly, and they also could do
some housework. People would be able to focus on more important things,
including caregivers, who could gain more than an extra hour a day as a
result of such assistance. The robots could range from micro-sized
capsules that detect lesions to high-tech vacuum cleaners, but it could
take more time before they have a big impact in Japan. "There's the
expensive price tag, the functions of the robots still need to improve, and
then there are the mindsets of people," says Takao Kobayashi, who worked on
the study. "People need to have the will to use the robots."
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New Technology is a Sign of the Times
Daily Free Press (Boston University) (04/07/08) Landry, Cassandra
Boston University's ASL Linguistic Research project is researching ways to
make it easier to learn and analyze American Sign Language (ASL) data. The
project, backed by a $900,000 National Science Foundation grant, will spend
the next three years collecting and analyzing raw data of people signing in
front of video cameras that capture signs and entire sentences in ASL from
multiple angles. ASL Linguistic Research project director Carol Neidle
says the researchers are exploring the possibility of creating an online
tool that would enable people to see a thorough analysis of sign motions.
Neidle's group is researching ASL structure using SignStream, a program
that allows users to see multiple angles of signing onscreen. Neidle says
SignStream has been very useful for computer-based work on sign language
recognition, and has provided a way for researchers to test and refine
computer vision and algorithms. Stanley Sclaroff, co-director of BU's
Image and Computing Group says the online dictionary is a long-term goal,
but notes that there are several computer science challenges that need to
be solved first.
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National Institute of Standards and Technology Shows
On-Card Fingerprint Match Is Secure, Speedy
NIST Tech Beat (04/01/08) Brown, Evelyn
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology say a
new fingerprint identification technology for use in personal
identification verification (PIV) cards is both fast and secure. As part
of the authentication process for the technology, the cardholder enters a
personal identification number to authorize the reading of fingerprint data
from the card, and a card reader matches the stored data against the newly
scanned image of the cardholder's fingerprints. In one model, biometric
data on the card would travel across a secure wireless interface, which
would eliminate the need to insert the card into a reader. In a second
model, biometric data from the fingerprint scanner would be sent to the PIV
smart card for matching by a processor chip embedded in the card, and the
stored data would never leave the card. "If your card is lost and then
found in the street, your fingerprint template cannot be copied," says
computer scientist Patrick Grother. Ten cards with a standard
128-byte-long key and seven cards that use a more secure 256-byte key
passed the security and timing test using wireless, but only one of three
teams met NIST's criteria for accuracy. A new round of tests on the
technology, which offers an improvement in protection against identity
theft, will begin shortly.
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The Rise of the Emotional Robot
New Scientist (04/05/08)No. 2650, P. 24; Marks, Paul
People are making an emotional connection to robots such as the Roomba
automated vacuum cleaner, going so far as to dress up and/or name the
machines and consider them to be unofficial family members, according to
the results of a survey that Georgia Research Institute of Technology
researchers disclosed at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in
Amsterdam. Soldiers in Iraq also displayed affection for bomb- and
landmine-disposal robots, and even expressed sadness when such devices were
destroyed by explosions. Figuring out the extremes to which humans are
willing to go in terms of accepting robots as partners and not just devices
will help designers determine robot-suitable functions and tasks, and
Georgia Tech researcher Ja-Young Sung says that "engineers will need to
identify the positive robot design factors that yield good emotions and not
bad ones--and try to design robots that promote them." Stanford University
psychologist Herbert Clark says the sooner roboticists acknowledge that
robots will never achieve human-like levels of interaction, the sooner a
realistic perception of people's expectations of robots will emerge.
Brains of people interacting with robots are being scanned by researchers
at Germany's Bielefeld University to figure out what types of machines are
more likely to elicit emotional responses from humans. The experiments
involve putting the subjects in a competitive game with a series of
opponents that include a computer program, a pair of robot arms, a robot
with humanoid features, and an actual person. The team has learned that
neurons related to having a theory of mind exhibit more activity when the
subjects are playing more human-like opponents. Other studies indicate
that people refuse to attribute intentions to robots regardless of their
level of sophistication, and that a person's gender and nationality play a
role in the degree to which the person socializes with and trusts
robots.
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