Spectrum Special Issue: The Singularity
Be sure to read the special June issue of IEEE Spectrum, which focuses on the singularity and how continuous technological innovation in artificial intelligence could one day outstrip human brain power, changing life as we know it. The special report touches on a wide variety of singularity arguments, including how to create consciousness if we do not know what it really is; thoughts on reversing the human brain; and whether or not it is possible to escape death by uploading our minds into machines. The issue also includes a "Who’s Who in The Singularity" feature, outlining all the inventors, researchers, academics and authors who have had something to say about the controversial topic. Read more
Flexible Computers Use Displays With Any Shape
According to Roel Vertegall, a computing professor at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, who is currently developing new, innovative, non-planer devices, the future of computing is anything but flat. Rather, computers of the future will take on flexible forms never imagined—like pop cans with browsers displaying RSS feeds and movie trailers. They will also respond to our direct touch and even change their own shape to better accommodate data. Three recent developments in computer technology have allowed inventors to move beyond the rigid, rectangular design of current devices. Advances in touch input technologies now allow for any surface to sense two-handed, multi-finger touch; flexible circuit boards with organic LEDs (light emitting diodes) are being used to make electronic paper; and Kinetic Organic Interface (KOI) enables the design of computers that adjust their shape according to some computational outcome, or through interactions with users. Read more
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New Computer Could Solve Mystery of the Universe
A new supercomputer, unveiled earlier this month at Cardiff University, South Wales, England, could help solve the mystery of how stars are formed, accurately date ancient burial sites and improve cancer treatment. It could also solve a year’s worth of homework for every child in the UK in a matter of seconds. Called Merlin after the legendary Welsh wizard, the computer has the power of 2,000 laptops and is capable of handling 20,000 billion instructions per second. According to computer expert Martyn Guest, who is in charge of Advanced Research Computing at Cardiff, the project “will open up a range of new research frontiers. Research projects in the fields of astrophysics, fluid dynamics, geological simulation, materials science and molecular simulation, amongst many others, will see major benefits.” Read more
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Papers Sought for Special Issues of IEEE Software
The IEEE Computer Society is seeking original papers for two special issues of IEEE Software.
Special Issue on Mining Software Archives
This special issue will look at the resulting patterns and rules to increase program quality and programmer productivity that result from applying data mining and machine learning techniques to software development and maintenance processes. All articles should have a practical orientation and be written in a style accessible to practitioners. Submit papers by 1 July 2008. See the complete call for papers
Special Issue on Software Development for Embedded Systems
This special issue will focus on sharing proven engineering concepts and experiences for embedded software engineering throughout the life cycle. Of specific interest is how best practices and methods from the enterprise and desktop domain can be transferred into the embedded domain. Submit papers by 1 November 2008. See the complete call for papers
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Keeping an Eye on Ubiquitous Computing
In author Adam Greenfield’s Everywhere: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, an Everyware world is one in which computers are embedded and merged seamlessly throughout the environment and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags communicate their position and other information constantly in a vast network. Everyday objects become searchable, making scientific management of people and their environment possible. In South Korea, Microsoft Corporation is playing a key role in the design of a ubiquitous computing environment for an entire U-City, planned as an international business district. Possible applications for New Songdo City, posed by industrial design students at California State University, USA, include public recycling bins that use RFID technology to credit recyclers when they toss in a bottle and pressure-sensitive floors in the homes of older people that can detect the impact of a fall and contact emergency services. While a large portion of the technology is being developed in the U.S., proponents admit it is being tested in South Korea where there are lower expectations of privacy. New York City, USA, will be testing and rolling out ubiquitous systems in 2009. Consumer convenience is a central selling point, given the well established base for mobile devices. Acclimating individuals to the technology’s use was discussed at the March 2008 International Conference on the Internet of Things, sponsored by Google, IBM, and others in Zurich, Switzerland. Read more
Learn more about ubiquitous computing in IEEE Xplore®
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Rural Africa to Benefit from Computer Aid’s Test of Low-Power Computing
Computer Aid International (CAI), which collects and refurbishes unwanted PCs from UK businesses for use in education, health and non-profit organizations in developing countries, is meeting the challenge of unreliable energy sources in rural Africa. CAI has been investigating low-power computing using the traditional desktop power sources of electricity, solar panels and diesel generators. Working with ZDNet to survey available choices for low-power machines, CAI found that some older computers can consume just 20 watts of power (versus the typical 200 watts), while newer computers consume as little as eight watts. CAI experimented by providing PCs with flat thin-film-transistor screens to schools using solar power in order to reduce power consumption. Realizing the power limitations of single solar panels, CAI found that incurring the cost of installing solar panel systems was less expensive over time than the use of generators. CAI is now testing the power consumption of new products, such as the Intel Classmate, OLPC's XO, the EEE PC, NComputing's X300 and Inveneo's Communication machine in universities in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. CAI has donated more than 10,000 refurbished PCs to education-based recipients in Zambia. The organization has donated more than 120,000 PCs in over 100 countries. Read more
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Employees Considered Biggest Security Threat
Can security problems created by staff be a greater threat to a business than external hackers? Yes, according to new research by enterprise security firm Secure Computing. In a recent survey of IT directors, more than 80 percent said insider threats posed the biggest danger, with 37 percent reporting a leak of sensitive information in the past year. Internal security was named the highest priority when the directors were asked to rank possible future investments including perimeter security, staff mobility and network performance. E-mail was deemed the biggest current security risk. Viruses topped the list of external threats for 31 percent of respondents, followed by spam and data leaks, with hackers the area of least concern. Read more
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Classic Math Puzzle Solved by Biology-Based Computer
Researchers at Davidson College, North Carolina, USA, have constructed a basic living computer by genetically altering E. coli bacteria and used it to solve the classic Burnt Pancake Problem. This puzzle involves a stack of pancakes of different sizes, each of which has a golden and a burnt side. The goal is to sort the stack so the largest pancake is on the bottom and all are golden side up. Each flip of the spatula reverses the order—and which side is facing up—of one or several consecutive pancakes. The aim is to stack them properly in the fewest number of flips. With six pancakes, there are 46,080 possible solutions; for 12 pancakes, there are 1.9 trillion permutations. A traditional, silica-based computer would try—one at a time—every single possible solution. But in a biology-based computer, each bacterium becomes a single computer that deals with a different part of the problem simultaneously—and a million of these computers could be incorporated in a single drop of water. Researchers used DNA as the pancakes and injected a protein called flagellin into E. coli bacteria to act as the spatula, speeding up the calculations dramatically to solve a two-pancake version of the problem. “The computing potential of DNA far exceeds that of any other material. If we figure out how to increase that capacity in a practical manner we will have much more computing power,” said Karmella Haynes, Davidson researcher and lead study author. Read more
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Intelligent Computers See Your Human Traits
In order to make human-computer interaction more natural and friendly, computer engineers are currently working on a way to give computers a more personal touch. By combining audio and visual data, Yongjin Wang, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and Ling Guan, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, have developed a system that recognizes six human emotional states: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust. “Human-centered computing focuses on understanding humans, including recognition of face, emotions, gestures, speech, body movements, etc.,” said Wang. “Emotion recognition systems help the computer to understand the affective state of the user, and hence the computer can respond accordingly based on that perception.” Their system can recognize emotions in people from different cultures and who speak different languages with a success rate of 82%. Read more
Learn more about human-computer interaction in IEEE Xplore®
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Computer and Information Technology Conference
The 2008 IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (CIT) is being held 8-11 July in Sydney, Australia. Sponsored by IEEE Computer Society, CIT has become a major platform for researchers and industry practitioners from different fields of computer and information technology. Each year, CIT attendees appreciate and benefit from multidisciplinary exchanges in computer and information technology. Papers will be presented to highlight work that strives to push beyond limits of existing computer technologies, including experimental efforts, innovative systems and investigations that identify weaknesses in existing IT services. For more information, visit the CIT 2008 web site
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The Future of Cloud Computing: Gartner, Google Views
At Gartner’s Emerging Trends and Technologies Roadshow in Sydney, Australia, the firm’s analysts predicted that by 2012, 80 percent of Fortune 1000 enterprises will be paying for some cloud computing services, and 30 percent will be paying for cloud computing infrastructure services. Gartner VP David Cearley explained that the Web has become a platform for building new applications, akin to the Amazon electronic bookstore growing to provide Amazon Web Services for other eCommerce vendors within a Web 2.0 setting. By providing programmatic access to Web-based services on which applications and businesses may be built, cloud computing could provide large-scale, common cost savings for IT functions. Read more
Learn more about cloud computing in IEEE Xplore®
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