Don't Miss IEEE on the Today Show
Don’t miss IEEE member Karen Panetta, Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering, on the Today Show this Friday, 18 July during the 10 am hour. Panetta, who also serves as Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine will be talking about IEEE and Nerd Girls—a growing segment of women engineers who are challenging the notion of what a geek should look like by mixing girly interests with traditionally techie pursuits.
Embedded and Real-Time Computing Conference
The 14th IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications (RTCSA 2008) will be held 25-27 August in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The conference will bring together researchers and developers from academia and industry for advancing the technology of embedded and real-time computing systems and applications. Similar to earlier RTCSA conferences, there will be a three-day program with a keynote speech, oral paper presentations, industrial demonstration, industrial invited sessions and panel discussions. Visit the RTCSA 2008 web site
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Warehouse Robots Bring the Goods
A Massachusetts, USA, firm hopes to revolutionize the warehouse business with swarms of robots that bring the merchandise to the workers, rather than having the workers track it down and bring it to a shipping area, according to an article in IEEE Spectrum online. At the demonstration facility of Kiva Systems, 24 squat orange machines on wheels move blue plastic merchandise racks around the floor in a complicated ballet of straight lines and 90-degree turns, maneuvering just 15 centimeters from each other. A computer cluster keeps track of all robots and racks on the floor, and resource-allocation algorithms orchestrate their movement. Kiva faces the challenge of convincing potential customers to switch from conventional warehouse technologies (most automated distribution centers rely on vast mazes of conveyor belts, chutes and carousels—an approach that has not changed much in the past 100 years) to a fleet of mobile robots. According to Kiva, equipping a 10,000-square-meter facility costs between US$4 million and US$6 million—substantially less than the costs associated with building a slower, less efficient conveyor system. Read more
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Embedded Applications Market Sees Tremendous Growth
Several computer companies are diving into embedded applications with new multicore hardware and software products this year. Leading the pack is Intel, which recently launched three new multicore processors for the embedded market with two support chipsets, according to Joe Jensen, General Manager of Intel’s Embedded Products Divisions. Renasas, Lynuxworks, Toshiba, Cyan and FTDI of Glasgow have also stepped up the competition with updated products for the embedded applications market. Read more
Learn more about embedded applications in IEEE Xplore®
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Grid Computing for a Greener Planet Rolled Out
A competition inviting participants to find grid computing applications for devising solutions to environmental issues has been launched by the British government’s Grid Computing Now network. The competition challenges entrants to find any way grid computing can be applied to an environmental issue that stands to benefit from a huge amount of raw processing power to calculate huge data sets. Examples of grid computing include the Folding@Home project, which harnesses computing cycles of idle PCs and PlayStation 3s to help with cancer research. A spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund says the initiative is also a way for the IT community to improve its green credentials and “showcase examples of the great work being done within the sector to combat the environmental challenges we all face.” The entry deadline for the first stage of the competition is 1 September 2008. Entry forms and further details can be found on the Grid Computing Now website. Read more
Learn more about grid computing in IEEE Xplore®
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Mobile Computing to Help Bridge Social Divides
New York City, USA-based TransMedia has launched the Glide OS World Development Program (GWDP) to make mobile computing more accessible in developing countries. Working in conjunction with various non-profit, culturally-oriented foundations, the company has also released Glide Kosovo and Glide Albania, local language versions of the Glide Web-based mobile application suite. Already ahead of other major technology giants with the development of a complete socially-oriented cloud computing service that works with Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and assorted mobile phones, TransMedia is trying to bring an element of social responsibility to computer-driven interaction. The company’s Glide OS offers a collection of more than a dozen free applications that can be used on PCs or mobile phones. TransMedia CEO Donald Leka hopes providing free applications that can be used across devices and operating systems will help people who might not be able to afford a desktop computer participate in the Internet age. Read more
Learn more about mobile computing in IEEE Xplore®
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IT Giants Move into Cloud E-Mail to Transform Industry
Major investments by IT giants in cloud computing, the use of third-party suppliers of computing power and data storage over the Internet, will lead to a fundamental restructuring of the e-mail market. According to industry experts, Google, Yahoo, Dell and Microsoft’s move into the market will raise the percentage of enterprise e-mail delivered by a cloud-computing model from one percent in 2007 to 20 percent by 2012. Experts say that, until recently, cloud computing has largely been the domain of small suppliers, but has been rapidly transformed into a market where the largest IT companies are aggressively competing, and that traditional e-mail software-as-a-service vendors will come under tremendous price pressure from large-scale vendors. Experts forecast that adoption of cloud e-mail will start with small companies and move to midsize companies. By 2012, cloud computing is expected to serve large firms with more than 50,000 seats. Read more
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Computers Used to Model Anti-Cancer Drugs
High-powered computers are being used at Florida State University, USA, to model the effectiveness and safety of anti-cancer drugs. According to experts, the computational techniques are necessary to evaluate a new class of cancer-killing drugs because cancer is a disease of such tremendous complexity that the analysis and interpretation of data demands sophisticated, specialized computational methods. The new substances, recombinant immunotoxins, can be modified in order to attack and kill malignant tumors while doing minimal harm to a patient's healthy cells. Numerous factors, however, can decrease the immunotoxins' effectiveness, including the large size of some immunotoxin molecules, which can hinder their ability to move to the targeted location or bind readily with cancer cell proteins; immunotoxin molecules' stability in the bloodstream; the rate at which immunotoxins bind with malignant cells; and the relative amount of antigens expressed on the cell surface. Read more
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Call for Papers: Computer Arithmetic Symposium
The 2009 IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic (ARITH), which will take place 8-10 June 2009 in Portland, Oregon, USA, is requesting papers that describe recent advances on all aspects of computer arithmetic. The symposium will provide a forum for discussing the latest research in computer arithmetic and look at the future of the field. Acceptable paper topics include, but are not limited to:
- Foundations of number systems and arithmetic
- Arithmetic processor design and implementation
- Arithmetic algorithms and their analysis
- Highly parallel arithmetic units and systems
- New floating-point units and systems
- Standards for number representation and arithmetic
- Impact of high level languages on arithmetic systems
- Special function implementation
- Low power arithmetic
- Applications of computer arithmetic for cryptography, digital signal processing, data compression, computer graphics, etc.
Papers must be anonymous, with no author names, affiliations, acknowledgments or obvious references. It should begin with a title, a short abstract, a list of keywords and an introduction summarizing the contributions of the paper at a level appropriate for a non-specialist reader. Papers should be submitted no later than 15 October 2008. For more information, visit the ARITH 2009 web site
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Flat Iron Hailed as Quantum Computing Breakthrough
A bizarrely shaped molecule that can act as a quantum state atom was discovered accidentally by scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, a discovery experts say is among the most promising and strange in quantum computing. The phenomenon consists of an arsenic atom embedded in a strip of silicon atoms that generates an exotic molecule with an artificial flat atom at one end when an electric current is applied to it. The exotic molecule has a shared electron which can be manipulated to be at either end, or in an intermediate quantum state, opening the door to quantum computing applications. Experts say information in a quantum computer could be stored across a much smaller number of bits than in a traditional computer, and that the quantum computer could see multiple datasets simultaneously, allowing for instant processing of vast amounts of data and easier searches. Read more
Learn more about quantum computing in IEEE Xplore®
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Alcatel-Lucent Adds Laptop Disk-Encryption Support
Alcatel-Lucent has released an updated version of its wireless-security appliance for laptop PCs. The 3500 is a PCMCIA card, running Linux, equipped with its own battery and an integrated 3G modem and GPS. It acts as a 3G card and a network card, terminating VPN traffic from the laptop and storing encryption keys and other information. If the card is removed, the laptop cannot be used. The new version of OmniAccess 3500 Nonstop Laptop Guardian now works with other vendors' full hard-disk-encryption applications, emulates the smartcard some of these vendors use for encryption keys and adds an SSL VPN. In addition, the new card lets a laptop be shared by employees without compromising security. Read more
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