ACM TechNews - Friday, October 24, 2003

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ACM TechNews
Volume 5, Number 562
Date: October 24, 2003

Top Stories for Friday, October 24, 2003:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html

"Senate Votes 97-0 to Restrict E-Mail Ads"
"Plumbing Depths of Data Mining"
"Carnegie Mellon to Launch New Initiative to Ensure Cybersecurity"
"Usability Studies Take Field"
"Is the Age of Desktop Linux Approaching?"
"Smart Servers as Watchdogs for Trouble on the Web"
"CSIRO's Future Web Beats MP3s"
"Spammers Clog Up the Blogs"
"Ex-Cybersecurity Czar Clarke Issues Gloomy Report Card"
"Body Network Gains Speed"
"Slipping Into a New Shell"
"Robot Skin Stretches to the Task"
"Managing the Data Handbag"
"Nanotechnology Could Play Big Role in Fighting Terror"
"Xerox's Tech Revolution"
"What Users Want From Linux"
"3D TV As You've Never Seen It"
"Jobless Recovery"
"Pretenders to Power"

******************* News Stories ***********************

"Senate Votes 97-0 to Restrict E-Mail Ads"
The Senate yesterday unanimously passed an anti-spam bill from
Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), after
amendments were made that clear the way for the establishment of
a national no-spam registry similar to the do-not-call list.  The ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item1

"Plumbing Depths of Data Mining"
A panel of legislators, civil libertarians, researchers, and
others gathered in Washington, D.C., by the Potomac Institute for
Policy Studies on Oct. 21 failed to reach an accord on the best
strategy for employing data-mining technology to uphold the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item2

"Carnegie Mellon to Launch New Initiative to Ensure Cybersecurity"
The expertise of over 50 researchers and 80 students from
Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering, School of
Computer Science, H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and
Management, and the CERT Coordination Center will be combined ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item3

"Usability Studies Take Field"
Usability engineering, a field dedicated to the improvement of
human-machine interfaces through analysis of Web design,
software-interface design, ergonomics, and other factors, is a
major area of study at the University of Washington.  The field ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item4

"Is the Age of Desktop Linux Approaching?"
Linux advocates and vendors at the Enterprise Linux Forum
Conference and Expo on Oct. 22 said that Linux will not end
Microsoft Windows' domination of the desktop with a single
stroke.  "The question is, how do we get from 1 percent to 2 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item5

"Smart Servers as Watchdogs for Trouble on the Web"
An upgraded Internet that can detect worms, traffic bottlenecks,
and other network problems before they become serious may one day
be within reach thanks to the efforts of PlanetLab, an
academic-industrial consortium that has created a virtual testbed ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item6

"CSIRO's Future Web Beats MP3s"
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
(CSIRO) of Australia is using open-source media codecs as part of
its Continuous Media Web project, aimed at allowing Web users to
access media segments directly instead of as a whole.  Using the ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item7

"Spammers Clog Up the Blogs"
A recent spate of aggressive spamming on Weblogs (blogs) has
raised questions about what tradeoffs bloggers may be willing to
accept to rid their sites of this growing nuisance, and what
strategies they can employ to stave it off.  Blog-spamming often ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item8

"Ex-Cybersecurity Czar Clarke Issues Gloomy Report Card"
Former White House cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke recently
warned that the severity and frequency of cyberattacks will
continue to increase exponentially.  Speaking at the Gartner
Symposium/ITxpo 2003, Clarke said a confluence of trends have ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item9

"Body Network Gains Speed"
The ElectAura-Net prototype developed by researchers at Japan's
NTT Docomo Multimedia Labs and NTT Microsystem Integration Labs
is a wireless indoor Ethernet network that harnesses the
bioelectric field of the human body to transmit data at 10 Mbps. ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item10

"Slipping Into a New Shell"
Computer enthusiasts throughout Europe, Asia, and the United
States are finding new ways to combine functionality and
aesthetics by building stealth computers, in which their system
hardware is bundled into plush toys, lampshades, and other ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item11

"Robot Skin Stretches to the Task"
Princeton University electrical engineers Sigurd Wagner and
Stephanie Lacour plan to unveil an elastic, conducting skin for
robots during next week's robot conference in Las Vegas, Nev.
Developing skin for robots that stretches has proven to be ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item12

"Managing the Data Handbag"
Data storage systems are akin to handbags:  The larger they are,
the more things people find to fill them.  Research firm
International Data (IDC) says storage capacity in Australia will
grow by 43.6 percent this year, reaching 14,480 TB in size; by ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item13

"Nanotechnology Could Play Big Role in Fighting Terror"
Nanotechnology researcher Mark Ratner and his son, tech
entrepreneur Dan Ratner, have co-authored a book detailing how
nanotech will be an important component of U.S. homeland
security.  Dan Ratner expects the first anti-terror nanotech ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item14

"Xerox's Tech Revolution"
Xerox researchers recently gathered in San Francisco to show off
potentially revolutionary technologies under development.  Xerox
wants to boost the page output of printers by a factor of 10
using wax-based inks, and is investigating how a ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item15

"What Users Want From Linux"
Discussions with over a dozen network professionals and Linux
enthusiasts has yielded a 10-item list of the open-source
operating system's most desired features.  The most sought-after
feature is tools that can automatically monitor and coordinate ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item16

"3D TV As You've Never Seen It"
3D technology has generated periodic interest without enjoying
solid mainstream success, but over 120 computer and electronics
companies are banking on the hope that the technology has at last
begun to mature by forming a consortium dedicated to moving 3D ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item17

"Jobless Recovery"
The IT sector has not added any new jobs in 2003, according to
data aggregated over nine months by the U.S. Census Bureau, using
eight business-technology job categories instead of the
traditional three.  The average monthly IT jobless rate is 5.8 ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item18

"Pretenders to Power"
Fuel cells are unproven as a commercial technology despite their
promise to replace lithium batteries, but initial fuel-cell
rollouts from Motorola, Smart Fuel Cell, and others in 2004 could
help spur the battery-to-fuel-cell transition if technical, ...
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2003-5/1024f.html#item19

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