Techno-News Blog Ray Schroeder, editor, OTEL - University of Illinois at Springfield |
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Saturday, August 21, 2004
Strolling the stack: A Web browser plays bookworm - Anne Eisenberg, New York Times
A visit to the school library was once a necessity before writing term papers or reports. Now, many students use the Internet as their library. However convenient the World Wide Web may be, it cannot yet replace many of the built-in benefits of browsing a library stack for offbeat information that could add spark and depth to an essay. But researchers are working on more flexible approaches to digital information searches - not only on the Web but on one's own hard drive, where elusive details may be scattered through photos, e-mail and other files. At the Berkeley campus of the University of California, a professor and her students have created a search program called Flamenco that lets users browse a digitized collection in ways that replicate a stroll among the library shelves. "It's for when you are not quite sure what you want," said Marti Hearst, an associate professor at the School of Information Management and Systems, who led the research. "It's meant to help people find things, in part, by serendipity."
Cherry Readies Linux Keyboard - John Blau, IDG News Service
Linux users soon will have an opportunity to buy keyboards specially designed for the open source operating system. In late September, Cherry GmbH will launch what the company claims is the world's first Linux keyboard. The Cherry CyMotion Master Linux keyboard shows the Linux penguin logo, known as Tux, on what would be the Windows start key of a Microsoft keyboard and features 29 "hot keys" configured for the Linux operating system and Linux desktop applications, according to Cherry Marketing Director Gunter Vogl. "We are responding to numerous requests from Linux users to design a keyboard that gives them all the familiar features of a Windows-based keyboard, such as the ability to browse the Web, check e-mail, or play a CD," Vogl says. "We have developed the necessary drivers to provide these features."
Chips Measure Electron Spin - Technology Review
Practical quantum computers are at least a decade away, and some researchers are betting that they will never be built. This is because controlling individual particles like atoms, electrons and photons is extraordinarily challenging. Information carried in particles always comes in shades of gray and can be corrupted or wiped out by the barest wisp of energy from the environment. A pair of experiments has brightened prospects for quantum computing, however, by making it more likely that a practical means of reading electron-based quantum bits, or qubits, can be developed. Research teams from the University of California at Los Angeles and from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed electronic methods of detecting the spins of individual electrons. Friday, August 20, 2004
Supporters of community wireless networks gather to develop national strategy - JIM PAUL, Associated Press
Federal regulators are working on new rules governing use of the airwaves to give more people access to high-speed Internet and other wireless technologies, and advocates for free access want to be sure their concerns aren't ignored. This weekend, community wireless network developers and technology experts from across the country plan to gather here for the first National Summit of Community Wireless Networks to share their ideas and plot strategy. "Decisions are being made by policymakers (and) by regulators, and they're basing these decisions on specific information provided by major telecommunications firms. What's missing in this debate is the voice of communities, of local grass-roots groups of individual citizens," said Sascha Meinrath, an organizer of the summit and co-founder of a community wireless network in Urbana, Illinois.
Preventing drowning in e-mail - Robert Weisman/The Boston Globe
E-mail is a victim of its own success. That is the conclusion of International Business Machines researchers who have spent nearly a decade on field tests at IBM and other companies to determine how employees work and use electronic mail, who say it is clear to them that e-mail has become the Internet's killer application. "Initially there was a sense that e-mail was just a way of communicating with people," said Dan Gruen, an IBM research scientist who is leading the company's Remail, or reinventing e-mail, project in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Then came attachments, and e-mail became a way to transfer things. Now people almost live in their inboxes. You know they're checking it on a regular basis, so that's where people will go to reach someone."
Better times for techies? - Ed Frauenheim, CNET News.com
Unemployment is down and optimism is up for some tech professionals, according to federal statistics and a recent independent survey. But the numbers may be hiding ongoing troubles for U.S. techies. Just ask computer programmer Mark Roth, who got a pink slip this week from his employer, a small telecommunications company in Florida. Roth worked there for about four months after nearly three years without a job. The company may call him back if business improves, but he's anxious about his job prospects and the overall economy. "I'm not sanguine in any way, shape or form," he said. Thursday, August 19, 2004
Web Surfers Hit Higher Speeds - Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service
The majority of Internet users in the U.S. have ditched dial-up, survey says. While the total number of home Internet users has reached a plateau in the U.S., those who do use the Internet are adopting broadband at a rapid pace, according to Marc Ryan, senior director of analysis at the audience measurement company. In July, there were an estimated 63 million broadband users, or 51 percent of all home Internet users, compared with 61.3 million dial-up users, 49 percent of the total. A year earlier, broadband users were just 38 percent of all home Internet users, at about 42.8 million, and dial-up users were 62 percent, or about 70.5 million, Ryan says.
A future google rival? - Tamlin Magee, Inquirer
Yet another search engine has been announced, this one called AnooX, which its creators are promising is "a better search engine than Google or Yahoo." Is that just a crazy claim, with no backing? AnooX seem to think it's got something revolutionary up its sleeve, with users being able to vote search results up or down, on a "one man, one vote basis per key word." The reasoning behind this is that the result will be more accurate, because a majority vote almost always generates more accurate results when compared to a machine generated result. The technique is an interesting one, but may or may not work depending on whether people are bothered to vote at all.
Wal-Mart offers sub-$600 notebook - John G. Spooner, CNET News.com
Wal-Mart Stores has begun selling a Wi-Fi notebook PC for less than $600, which analysts say could herald a laptop push by the retailer for the holiday season. The retail giant began offering the wireless notebook, manufactured by Taiwan's Elitegroup Computer Systems, in late July for online sales only. It's listed at $598, without discounts or mail-in rebates. Wal-Mart has traditionally sold only a limited number of notebook models, including laptops from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. Instead, it has concentrated its marketing efforts on desktop PCs, but it also sells lower-priced machines based on the Linux operating system. Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Study: Unpatched PCs compromised in 20 minutes - Matt Loney and Robert Lemos, CNET News.com
Don't connect that new PC to the Internet before taking security precautions, researchers at the Internet Storm Center warned Tuesday. According to the researchers, an unpatched Windows PC connected to the Internet will last for only about 20 minutes before it's compromised by malware, on average. That figure is down from around 40 minutes, the group's estimate in 2003. The Internet Storm Center, which is part of the SANS Institute, calculated the 20-minute "survival time" by listening on vacant Internet Protocol addresses and timing the frequency of reports received there.
Home PCs to get key Windows fix - Mark Ward, BBC News Online
Home PC users will be able to get one of Microsoft's biggest software overhauls ever later this week. The software giant has told BBC News Online that its SP2 security patch will be put on servers that automatically update home PCs as from Wednesday. The consumer version is smaller than the business edition released to corporate customers in early August. The software updates Windows XP and fixes many security loopholes exploited by viruses and malicious hackers.
Internet Heading to Light Speed - John Gartner, Wired
A new nanotechnology that eliminates network bottlenecks could help create a web surfers' paradise that is 100 times faster than today's internet. Fiber-optic networks capable of sending information at 10 Gbps or 40 Gbps are being rolled out around the world and under the oceans to connect everyone to everything. But getting information to pass from one high-speed network to another can be slowed by electronic switching technology. The new technology, described in a paper published Aug. 11 in the scientific journal Nano Letters, uses buckyballs glued together by a custom polymer, providing a way to create an optical switch. Tuesday, August 17, 2004
RSS gets down to business - David Becker, CNET News.com
Primarily the province of bloggers, RSS is moving into the business realm, with the release this week of a new application for sharing calendar data over the Internet. Developer John Pacchetti released a trial version of RSSCalendar late last month, and the free application has quickly become one of the first nonblogging successes for RSS (Really Simple Syndication), the standard behind Web logs and news aggregator feeds. RSS applications let online publishers automatically send Web content to subscribers, giving readers a powerful tool to compile news headlines on the fly from several sources at once. The RSSCalendar program allows a user to convert and publish calendar data as an RSS feed. Friends, co-workers and customers can subscribe to the calendar feed and automatically receive notices of new appointments, which can be viewed through an RSS reader or imported to a Web-based calendar or Microsoft Outlook.
An Alternative to Windows - Wade Roush, Technology Review
With its low cost, growing catalogue of desktop software, and backing from business, Linux could finally pry the PC market from Microsoft's grasp.Will it always be a Microsoft Windows world? That’s what I hoped to find out when I sliced open the box containing the new PC I’d ordered from WalMart.com. It had a respectable 1.6-gigahertz processor, a serviceable 40-gigabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, an MP3 player, and enough other software to keep me occupied for life, though supporting it all was a barely adequate 128 megabytes of RAM. Okay, I knew this chunky black box wouldn’t be the sexiest PC on my block. But that was fine, considering its paltry $278 price tag—and that I’d really ordered it for what it didn’t have: any Microsoft software whatsoever. Rather than Windows and Office, it came with Linspire 4.5, one of the many commercial versions of the open-source Linux operating system that are now available, and a link to a website where I could download a variety of open-source applications.
Internet calls add foreign accent - Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
In the digital age, the next best thing to being there might be this: a French phone number. Primus Telecommunications on Monday will become the first major broadband phone provider to add an international flavor to anything-goes, Internet-based calling. Lingo customers can get a foreign phone number to receive calls as local calls in these cities: Australia: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney Brazil: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro France: Paris Guatemala: Guatemala City Hong Kong Italy: Milan, Rome Japan: Tokyo The Netherlands: Amsterdam Puerto Rico: San Juan South Korea: Seoul Taiwan: Taipei United Kingdom: London. Monday, August 16, 2004
Nanotech funding to grow to $8.6 billion - Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com
Corporations, governments, universities and others will spend an estimated $8.6 billion on nanotechnology research and development in 2004, and a growing portion of the total comes from the private sector. Spending on nanotech research will more than double from the estimated $3 billion level level of 2003, according to an annual state of the industry report from Lux Research, a consulting firm that studies the industry.... Nanotechnology refers to the science of building products out of components measuring less than 100 nanometers, usually designer molecules. (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter and derives from the Greek root "nano" or dwarf.). At this level, many materials such as gold or silicon begin to exhibit novel properties.
Trying to take technology to the masses - John Markoff, The New York Times
Raj Reddy was fed up debating the problem of the digital divide between the rich and the poor and decided to do something about it. Reddy, a pioneering researcher in artificial intelligence and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, plans to unveil at the end of this year his new project, called the PCtvt, a $250 wirelessly networked personal computer intended for the four billion people around the world who live on less than $2,000 a year. He says his device can find a market in developing countries, particularly those with large populations of people who cannot read, because it can be controlled by a simple TV remote control and can function as a television, telephone and videophone.
In Search of a Browser That Banishes Clutter - JULIET CHUNG, New York Times
For Katherine Sandlin, a barrage of pop-up ads was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - in this case, her reliance on Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Even before her home page could load, thumbnail-size advertisements would crowd the monitor urging her to apply for a credit card or find love online. So she asked around for other ways to browse the Web. One software switch later, Ms. Sandlin is reveling in a pop-up-free existence and spreading the word about Firefox, a free Web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation that has a built-in pop-up blocker. Ms. Sandlin is so devoted to her browser that she has taped a note to her monitor warning guests not to click on the desktop shortcut to Internet Explorer. "Do not touch the blue 'E!' " the note says. Sunday, August 15, 2004
Politics Pulls Users Online - Robyn Greenspan, clickz.com
The traffic spikes to candidate sites are to be expected during the presidential election season, but Internet users are also relying on the medium as a political news and information source. While an estimated 24.4 million viewers watched U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, the nominee's Web site was undergoing exorbitant traffic growth. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, traffic to the John Kerry for President Web site grew 191 percent between July 25, 2004 and Aug.1, earning the distinction of being the fastest growing site for the week. Comparatively, the Web site for the Republican National Committee experienced a 32 percent traffic swell, as American voters searched for information on the two major candidates.
Wireless Directory Assistance on the Horizon - Robyn Greenspan, Clickz.com
Mobile phone users that have disconnected their landlines, along with those lulled into security by the "Do Not Call" list, may be the keys to an untapped revenue opportunity. A report from The Pierz Group found that the addition of mobile numbers to the U.S. directory assistance/enquiry (DA/DQ) database could result in nearly $2 billion dollars by 2008 for telecommunications carriers and DA/DQ service providers, as long as a significant portion of users sign on. "I am assuming that by 2008 between 50 percent and 60 percent [of mobile users] will list [their mobile phone numbers]. Based on my recently completed consumer research this is a very realistic number," said Kathleen Pierz, managing partner, The Pierz Group.
Attracting Women to Technical Professions - Joanne Kossuth and Tracey Leger-Hornby, Educause Quarterly
Much has been written about the challenges faced by women in technical and scientific study and professional life.1 A literature search on women in technology or computing shows, however, that the rate at which articles and research reports are published has declined dramatically in recent years. Does this mean that the challenges have disappeared and women have equality in numbers and activity in the professions? The data seem to indicate that challenges remain. This article highlights some recent research, lists issues, and makes a few suggestions for improving the ways we educate, recruit, and retain women in technical jobs in higher education. |
