Joining with the Tech

New Teaching Tools Aid Visually Impaired Students in Learning Math

2010-03-21T12:27:00.001-07:00

Mastering mathematics can be daunting for many children, but researchers have found that children with visual impairments face disproportionate challenges learning math, and by the time they reach the college level, they are significantly under-represented in science, technology, mathematics and engineering disciplines.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100315172218.htm

2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award Winner Named

2010-03-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

ACM has named Charles P. Thacker the recipient of the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering design and realization of the Alto, the first modern personal computer, and the prototype for networked personal computers. Alto incorporated bitmap (TV-like) displays which enable modern graphical user interfaces (GUIs), including What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editors. Thacker's design, which he built while at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), reflected a new vision of a self-sufficient, networked computer on every desk, equipped with innovations that are standard in today's models.

Dr. Thacker is also recognized for his contributions to the Ethernet local area network, the "interconnection fabric" that allows multiple digital devices such as workstations, printers, scanners, file servers, and modems to communicate with each other. Today's Ethernets, which are thousands of times faster than the original version, have become the dominant local area networking technology. He also designed the first multiprocessor workstation, and the prototype for today's most used tablet PC, with its capabilities for direct user interaction.

The ACM A.M. Turing Award is ACM's most prestigious technical award. It recognizes contributions of lasting and major technical importance, and honors individuals whose work has advanced the field of computing. First presented in 1966, and named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing, the Turing Award is widely considered to be the "Nobel Prize in Computing."

Berlin Brain-Computer Interface

2010-03-03T02:24:00.000-08:00

The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface aims to improve the detection and decoding of brain signals acquired by electroencephalogram (EEG). To this end the research focusses on new sensor technology, improved understand of the brain and the analysis of brain waves using modern machine learning methods.

http://www.bbci.de/

The Irish Times: Reeling in the hackers

2010-02-18T19:01:00.001-08:00

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2010/0219/1224264787078.html

A new study reveals that the popular film portrayal of computer hackers is actually quite accurate, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

IF YOU don’t like the idea of a scholarly paper on the trail of hackers in films, then take it up with Damian Gordon’s parents. “I have to blame my parents – the only films we were ever taken to were science fiction and futuristic kinds of films,” says Gordon, a lecturer in computer science at the Dublin Institute of Technology.

Gordon has just published his paper, Forty Years of Movie Hacking: Considering the Potential Implications of the Popular Media Representation of Computer Hackers from 1968 to 2008, in the current issue of the International Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions.

A self-confessed film buff, he likes to show students clips from such films as a teaching tool because he feels they bring an abstract subject to life and help initiate lively discussions.

“With computer science you’re always trying to explain complex ideas in a clear way. Clips from films can be very useful for that. Any time I can, I try to slip in a film clip.”

In trying to teach his students about security issues, he realised many had misguided notions about what the typical computer hacker is like and where security threats come from.

That set him thinking that perhaps the misperceptions came from the upper trails of hackers in popular culture.

So Gordon set out to compile a list of as many films that featured hacking as he could and came up with 50 – which he realises is not comprehensive and excludes foreign films, but does pick up most Hollywood films since the late 1960s that fit within his criteria outlined in the 29-page paper. He excluded animated films and documentaries, for example.

He included films from as early as 1968 through to 2008, across several genres from science fiction to crime films.

His paper observes a curious dearth of films in the 1970s, just as computing was coming into popular visibility. His theory is that a lifting of censorship rules caused films to focus more on violence and sex.

“Hacking computers was probably too passive and boring,” he laughs.

The aim of his paper “was really to investigate why there is a general public perception that hackers all seem to be teenagers in bedrooms. Lots of books on hacking talk about this, but it is so wrong. Most hackers are around 30 and are computer professionals.

“Being a hacker is really not about sitting alone in a dark bedroom. It has a lot more to do with your interpersonal skills.”

His film findings surprised Gordon just as much as they might surprise others. Far from having public perceptions of hackers shaped by films, he found that the celluloid portrayal of hackers was actually quite accurate – setting aside the unlikelihood of your average female hacker looking like Sandra Bullock or Angelina Jolie.

“It’s devastating to realise that most movies do portray hackers correctly,” he jokes.

First off, he found that the average age of the majority of film hackers was over 25, with only a quarter younger than that. Some 65 per cent were aged between 25 and 50, and only 3 per cent were older than 50, which he thinks is fairly accurate.

As for profession, 32 per cent were portrayed as working in the computer industry, 28 per cent were full-time hackers, 20 per cent were students and 20 per cent worked in other professions.

Gordon notes that this actually meshes fairly closely with reality – one study cited in his paper notes that the average hacker is 27 and either a computer professional or full-time hacker.

Gordon also found that, in the films, about 10 per cent of the hackers were women, which also approximates real-world statistics.

He notes that for some reason there are far more female hackers portrayed on television compared to film. “I’m presuming that’s because men tend to do the action bits on television,” he says.

Two areas in which film deviated from real-world hacking are the number of attacks depicted as coming from outside an organisation rather than being instigated from those inside an organisation, and the portrayal of the intentions of hackers.

In film, only 20 per cent of the attacks are internal, but industry studies suggest the ratio may be closer to 50-50, Gordon notes in his paper.

Also, the vast majority of hackers in films are actually portrayed as the good guys – a huge 73 per cent, with 10 per cent being somewhere in between, and 17 per cent portrayed as bad guys. “I was definitely surprised at the number of films showing hackers in a positive light,” he says.

However, he rather likes this himself, given that the term “hacker” started out as a positive one, referring to people who were highly adept at tinkering with electronics and writing or modifying computer programs. Only much later did the public start to use the term hacker to mean someone with malicious intent.

“I’d like to reclaim the title as a positive one,” says Gordon.

Damian's top five

Top Millions (1968) Peter Ustinov as Marcus Pendleton, a con-man just out of prison. “Really a great movie.”

Tron (1982) Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a former employee of fictional computer company ENCOM. “I adored Tron, and you can never go wrong with Jeff Bridges.”

Superman III (1983) Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) discovers that he has an extraordinary talent for computer programming. “A great salami-slicing attack.”

WarGames (1983) David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) as a high school student who is highly unmotivated at school but is an enthusiastic computer hacker at home. “Fixed in people’s minds the archetype of the young hacker operating from his bedroom.”

Sneakers (1992, Heist) College students Martin Brice (Gary Hershberger) and his friend Cosmo (Jo Marr) use a college computer to hack into banking systems to transfer funds. “Fantastic film”

Making Your Web Colors Visible For All – Five Color Accessibility Tools

2010-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

If you are designing, or re-designing your web site, it is time well spent running your website through the color accessibility tools below to ensure that your site can be seen correctly by as many people as possible. Most of these tools use WC3 guidelines to perform their various operations. If you can actually read and understand them, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 requires, amongst other things, that there is sufficient contrast between text and background color. For a person with a color disability, the colors used on a web site can mean the difference between being able to read text and images or not. 1 in 12 people have some sort of color deficiency.

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/08/20/color-accessibility-tools/

Build An Optimal Scientist, Then Retire

2010-01-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

AI researcher Jurgen Schmidhuber says his main scientific ambition 'is to build an optimal scientist, then retire.' The Cognitive Robotics professor has worked on problems including artificial ants and even robots that are taught how to tie shoelaces using reinforcement learning, but he believes algorithms can be written that allow the programming of curiosity itself.

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/build-optimal-scientist-then-retire

Computer science researcher hopes to stall malware threat by tracking human use behaviors

2010-01-27T16:12:00.000-08:00

Danfeng Yao, an assistant professor in the computer science department at Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, will use a $530,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant to develop software that will differentiate human-user computer interaction from that of malware.

http://www.physorg.com/news183661885.html

Innovative technique can spot errors in key technological systems

2010-01-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

An innovative computational technique that draws on statistics, imaging and other disciplines has the capability to detect errors in sensitive technological systems ranging from satellites to weather instruments.

http://www.physorg.com/news183801070.html

Safety in numbers -- a cloud-based immune system for computers

2010-01-27T16:09:00.000-08:00

A new approach for managing bugs in computer software has been developed by a team led by Prof. George Candea at EPFL. The latest version of Dimmunix, available for free download, enables entire networks of computers to cooperate in order to collectively avoid the manifestations of bugs in software.

http://www.physorg.com/news183808908.html

Graduate Student's iPhone App Gives Voice to Disabled Users

2010-01-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

Samuel Sennott, a doctoral student in special educaton at Pennsylvania State University's main campus, created an iPhone application that helps people with communication disabilities speak. He worked with David Niemeijer, an Amsterdam-based developer, to build the software, called Proloquo2Go.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Graduate-Students-iPhone-App/20549/

JISC TechDis Toolbar

2010-01-18T15:53:00.001-08:00

JISC TechDis is pleased to announce the Beta launch of the new JISC TechDis Toolbar. This free application can be installed on a website or downloaded onto an individual PC, working seamlessly across all operating systems to provide significant benefits for everyone using the internet, especially those involved in education or with a disability.

http://www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=1_20051905100544

Artificial intelligence: Noel Sharkey on the inexorable rise of robots

2010-01-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

Sheffield University's professor of robotics and AI discusses our fascination with autonomous machines.

http://www.silicon.com/technology/hardware/2010/01/13/video-artificial-intelligence-noel-sharkey-on-the-inexorable-rise-of-robots-39745322/

Infrastructures for Innovation

2010-01-12T15:53:00.001-08:00

Nearly nine out of ten senior IT and business executives say that data, voice and network services can be leveraged to drive innovation, facilitating remote access to critical applications and speeding up customer service. They can generate immediate cost savings by eliminating the cost of maintaining separate voice lines.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1285489

When Lawyers Attack! - Dealing With the New Rules of Electronic Discovery

2010-01-12T15:50:00.001-08:00

The reasons for this ambiguity will become clear as it examine the nature of the common law system, as will the conclusion that these ambiguities have little chance of being cleared up any time soon. Progress, especially the technological kind, waits for no man and therefore anyone doing business in the United States or conducting information security research need to keep in mind a few rules.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1296537

The Psychology of Security

2010-01-12T15:49:00.001-08:00

The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasures. One can calculate how secure home is from burglary, based on such factors as the crime rate in the neighborhood one live in and doorlocking habits. One can calculate how likely it is for one to be murdered, either on the streets by a stranger or in home by a family member. Or how likely one is to be the victim of identity theft. Given a large enough set of statistics on criminal acts, it's not even hard; insurance companies do it all the time.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1296545

Unforgivable Vulnerabilities

2010-01-12T15:48:00.001-08:00

For some products, it's just too easy to find vulnerabilities. First, find the most heavily used functionality, including the first points of entry into the product. Then, perform the most obvious attacks against the most common types of vulnerabilities. Using this crude method, even unskilled attackers can break into an insecure application within minutes. The developer likely faces a long road ahead before the product can become tolerably secure; the customer is sitting on a ticking time bomb. These Unforgivable Vulnerabilities act like canaries in a coal mine. They are beacons of a systematic disregard for secure development practices. They simply should not appear in software that has been designed, developed, and tested with security in mind.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1296551

The Security Analytics Project: Alternatives in Analysis

2010-01-12T15:47:00.001-08:00

Ten Things You Should Know About Website Security

2010-01-12T15:45:00.002-08:00

Websites have emerged as the target of choice for money hungry hackers. Attacks have moved from the network layer to the Web application layer that people use to manage their lives everyday: online shopping and banking, healthcare information management, insurance payments, travel booking and college applications. The ramifications for companies are clear: Loss of data, loss of consumer confidence and loss of brand integrity. No company can afford the black mark of a website hack. With many states mandating full disclosure, and the federal government close behind with its own efforts, the luxury of keeping these incidents behind closed doors has passed. Organizations must develop a strategy for complete website vulnerability management.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1296563

Technology Alone Cannot Defeat Website Attacks: Understanding Technical Vs. Logical Website Vulnerabilities

2010-01-12T15:45:00.001-08:00

Hackers behave like water, taking the path of least resistance. Today this path leads over SSL, and past the firewall, where nothing exists between them, the website, and the information it holds. This is how a Web hacker views the world. Using a browser and a few simple tricks, hackers can penetrate a website, access the credit card database, and make off with critical data, customer databases or even intranet information, unseen.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1296565

Researchers developing techniques to strengthen the security of information systems

2010-01-12T15:42:00.000-08:00

As computers increasingly transfer patient medical records and other sensitive information, a group of computer scientists at Kansas State University is doing basic research that will help designers keep such information safe.

http://www.physorg.com/news181912198.html

FreeMind - free mind mapping software

2010-01-12T15:29:00.000-08:00

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Wordle Word Cloud Tool

2010-01-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

http://www.wordle.net/

Google Visualization API

2010-01-12T15:27:00.000-08:00

The Google Visualization API lets you access multiple sources of structured data that you can display, choosing from a large selection of visualizations. Google Visualization API enables you to expose your own data, stored on any data-store that is connected to the web, as a Visualization compliant datasource. Thus you can create reports and dashboards as well as analyze and display your data through the wealth of available visualization applications. The Google Visualization API also provides a platform that can be used to create, share and reuse visualizations written by the developer community at large.

http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/

Mindmap42.com

2010-01-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

Mind42.com is a browser based online mind mapping application, which helps you manage all your ideas, whether alone, twosome or working together with the whole world - collaborative, browser-based and for free.

http://mind42.com/

The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE)

2010-01-12T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is an Open Source project based at Tufts University. The VUE project is focused on creating flexible tools for managing and integrating digital resources in support of teaching, learning and research. VUE provides a flexible visual environment for structuring, presenting, and sharing digital information.

http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm

Decoding an Ancient Computer: Greek Technology Tracked the HeavensDecoding an Ancient Computer: Greek Technology Tracked the Heavens

2010-01-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

The Antikythera mechanism is a unique mechanical calculator from second-century B.C. Greece. Its sophistication surprised archaeologists when it was discovered in 1901. But no one had anticipated its true power. Advanced imaging tools have finally enabled researchers to reconstruct how the device predicted lunar and solar eclipses and the motion of the moon in the sky. Inscriptions on the mechanism suggest that it might have been built in the Greek city of Syracuse (now in modern Sicily), perhaps in a tradition that originated with Archimedes.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=decoding-an-ancient-computer

No Gender Gap in Math

2010-01-07T12:03:00.001-08:00

Stereotypes are usually the last thing to change in the face of contradictory evidence. A case in point is the long held belief that boys are better at mathematics than girls. Well a meta-analysis to be published in the journal Psychological Bulletin can be added to the pile of evidence that finds no significant gender difference in mathematical ability.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=no-gender-gap-in-math-10-01-06

Warp-Speed Algebra: New Algorithm Does Algebra in a Snap

2010-01-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

Quantum computers can do wondrous things: too bad they do not exist yet. That has not stopped physicists from devising new algorithms for the devices, which can calculate a lot faster than ordinary computers—in fact, exponentially faster, in quite a literal sense

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=warp-speed-algebra

Critical Connections: Leveraging Technology to Improve Healthcare

2010-01-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocates more than $20 billion to drive adoption of advanced healthcare technologies. Find out how your organization can take advantage and how Qwest can help. Qwest provides the robust, reliable, secure data networks needed to support electronic health records, health information exchanges and telemedicine.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1285499

Solving the Problem of School Timetabling

2010-01-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

A new approach to solving the problem of school timetabling, known as a GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure), has been developing by researchers in Brazil. They report details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Operational Research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100106093631.htm

Linguist uses Internet to study how we say things

2010-01-04T17:51:00.001-08:00

Mats Rooth, a Cornell linguist, will use software to study distinctions of prosody (rhythm, stress and intonation) in language by hunting for word patterns on the Internet.

http://www.physorg.com/news181853573.html

As the Refrigerator Said to the Hi-Fi ...

2010-01-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

Networked sensors and devices have huge potential but how can we ensure that they can all talk to each other? The answer, according to a European consortium, is to link them seamlessly through a common 'middleware'.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100104092456.htm

New Open Source Intrusion Detector Suricata Released

2010-01-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

"The OISF has released the beta version of the Suricata IDS/IPS engine: The Suricata Engine is an Open Source Next Generation Intrusion Detection and Prevention Engine. This engine is not intended to just replace or emulate the existing tools in the industry, but will bring new ideas and technologies to the field. This new Engine supports Multi-Threading, Automatic Protocol Detection (IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, HTTP, TLS, FTP and SMB! ), Gzip Decompression, Fast IP Matching and coming soon hardware acceleration on CUDA and OpenCL GPU cards."

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/12/31/2143250/New-Open-Source-Intrusion-Detector-Suricata-Released?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Impressive Robot Hand From Shadow

2010-01-03T12:23:00.000-08:00

"The Shadow Dextrous Hand is a robotic arm that allows for fine motor control and precise movements. It's accurate enough to pick up an egg, screw in a light bulb, or thread a needle. Even cooler, researchers can control it with a 'Cyber glove,' allowing for 24 distinct human movements that mimic the user's own hand. A British based company, Shadow, has been displaying the hand for several years now, and recently demonstrated its latest model at IREX 2009. The hand, toted as the world's most advanced, is available for sale to researchers (pricing has not been made public)."

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/12/30/1730241/Impressive-Robot-Hand-From-Shadow?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+(Slashdot)&utm_content=Google+Reader

The New Security Management Model

2010-01-03T12:10:00.001-08:00

Driven by regulatory compliance and security event correlation, most large organizations have deployed a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) system over the past few years. Does this mean that they are adequately protected? ESG does not believe so. Ominous security threats and a rash of publicly-disclosed data breaches certainly place an intense strain on many legacy security management tools and ESG believes this is just the tip of the iceberg.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1279407

David Gurteen's Knowledge Management Links

2009-12-29T16:55:00.001-08:00

David Gurteen's Knowledge Management Links;

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/knowledge-management

John Nash and Harold Kuhn discuss the early days of Game Theory

2009-12-29T16:52:00.000-08:00

John Nash and Harold Kuhn discuss the early days of Game Theory.

http://www.pacm.princeton.edu/video.shtml

AbleGamers Reviews Games From a Disability Standpoint

2009-12-29T16:47:00.000-08:00

The AbleGamers Foundation provide a rating system for games that blends together a number of factors to determine a score with regard to accessibility. Visual, hearing, motion, closed captioning, speed settings, difficulty settings and even colorblindness options are all taken into account when compiling these scores and reviewing these games.

http://www.ablegamersfoundation.org/

The Web Accessibility Initiative

2009-12-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

The WAI develops guidelines widely regarded as the international standard for Web accessibility, they support materials to help understand and implement Web accessibility, and they create resources, through international collaboration.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/

This Cyborg Life Website

2009-12-29T15:36:00.001-08:00

A collection of articles on cyborg technology.

http://gizmodo.com/tag/thiscyborglife/?skyline=true&s=i

David Gurteen's KM Network Directory

2009-12-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

David Gurteen's KM Network Directory is a list of Knowledge Management societies, institutes, networks and forums which you can join to learn more about Knowledge Management, informal learning and more.

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/km-networks

Fastuk Website

2009-12-29T15:32:00.001-08:00

The Foundation for Assistive Technology (FAST) works with the AT community to support innovation in product development and good practice in service provision.

http://www.fastuk.org/home.php

Rehabtool Website

2009-12-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

The mission of rehabtool.com is to help children and adults with disabilities enhance their lives, increase their independence and productivity, and gain greater social inclusion through the use of leading-edge assistive technology.

http://www.rehabtool.com/

Abledata Website

2009-12-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

AbleData provides objective information about assistive technology products and rehabilitation equipment.

http://www.abledata.com/

The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design

2009-12-29T15:21:00.001-08:00

The Centre for Excellence in Universal Design is dedicated to enabling the design of environments that can be accessed, understood and used regardless of age, size and ability.

http://universaldesign.ie/

The Inclusive Design Toolkit

2009-12-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

Inclusive design is the design of mainstream products and/or services that are accessible to, and usable by, as many people as reasonably possible. The aim of inclusive design toolkit is to help designers develop mainstream products and/or services that are accessible to and useable by as many people as possible without the need for special adaptations. In a nutshell, inclusive design is better for everyone.

http://www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com/

Sponsor www.try-it.ie

2009-12-29T15:05:00.000-08:00

Try-It is an on-line library of electronic assistive technology. Members may borrow devices for trial and/or training purposes. In addition, this initiative provides features to strengthen and support professional networking and training in the area of electronic assistive technology, e.g. Peer Support, Product Reviews, Forum, and notifictation of training events.

http://www.try-it.ie/Welcome.do

you can sponsor it at;

http://www.try-it.ie/d/?q=node/13

Adobe will be top target for hackers in 2010, report says

2009-12-29T12:35:00.001-08:00

Adobe Systems' Flash and Acrobat Reader products will become the preferred targets for criminal hackers in 2010, surpassing Microsoft Office applications, a security vendor predicted this week.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/122909-adobe-will-be-top-target.html

Moving Video to "Captcha" Robot Hackers

2009-12-29T12:33:00.000-08:00

I hate CAPTCHAs.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091229105911.htm

Web 2.0 Accessibility Tests

2009-12-29T05:51:00.000-08:00

ECS researchers have begun a trial of browser and USB (Universal Serial Bus) pen drive applications to assist with the accessibility of Web 2.0 services.

http://www.axistive.com/web-20-accessibility-tests.html

Web accessibility no longer an afterthought

2009-12-29T05:47:00.000-08:00

Yahoo's Victor Tsaran knows how much time Web designers spend agonizing over color and font-width choices when laying out an application. So when he started Yahoo's accessibility push two years ago, he had a tough time arousing sympathy for engineers grousing about how much extra time was needed to create accessibility features. Fortunately for Tsaran, Yahoo's accessibility manager, he's running into that problem less and less. Web designers are starting to take accessibility as seriously as button placement or heading layout when they develop their products, improving the Web experience not only for people like Tsaran--who lost his sight at the age of five--but for Web users in general.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10414041-265.html

The ADA Audio Conference Series

2009-12-29T05:43:00.000-08:00

The ADA Audio Conference Series provides in-depth information on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This program is designed to enhance an individual's existing knowledge base or facilitate continued learning regarding regulations and trends under the ADA.

https://adagreat.powweb.com/

Top Ten Best Practices to Stop Insider Threats

2009-12-29T05:34:00.000-08:00

Insider theft and other malicious behavior are particularly difficult because employees often have legitimate access to sensitive corporate data and tend to know the weaknesses in the organization's infrastructure. Over the course of hundreds of customer interactions, Prism Microsystems, a leading security vendor, has developed best practices for monitoring potential insider abuse. The attendee of this webcast will learn the top ten insider activities one has to monitor to make sure the employees are not violating security policy. Implementing these valuable recommendations is fast, cost effective and will prevent these costly insider hacks and data leakages from impacting the business.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1276203

Detecting a Hacking Attempt

2009-12-29T05:33:00.000-08:00

In today's technological environment, threat profiles are evolving constantly and growing in sophistication and the impact of successful attacks is far more severe in terms of lost revenue and negative publicity. Relying on reactive anti-virus and rule-based firewall systems alone are often insufficient to prevent damage. It is critical to quickly and effectively respond while an attack is in progress.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1276205

Are You Monitoring the Top Ten Critical Security, System, and User Events

2009-12-29T05:32:00.000-08:00

Monitoring the Microsoft Windows Event Log is critical because the Operating System and key applications continuously record critical security, system and user events in the Log. However, monitoring the Windows Event Log alone is not enough because many important conditions in Windows are not recorded in the Event Log.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1276207

Beyond Traditional Security: Blending Proactive and Reactive Security to Protect the Enterprise

2009-12-29T05:31:00.000-08:00

Traditional firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems leave the organization unprotected from most zero-day and internal attacks. One needs a combination of both event and change management practices to protect the organization.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1276209

The Need For Search Neutrality

2009-12-29T05:29:00.000-08:00

The New York Times has an op-ed piece arguing for Search Neutrality:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28raff.html?_r=1

Star Trek to blame for lack of female Computer Scientists ???

2009-12-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

How very interesting, two topics that are very dear to my heart...Star Trek and gender balance in Computer Science...a study has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggesting that stereotypical images of computer science (including Star Trek, videogames, junk food, and comic books) create barriers to females from joining the fold, as the decor broadcasts a kind of masculinity. The paper entitled "Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science" suggests that these stereotypical images can either create/prevent a sense of (ambient) belonging, and for females they serve as barriers to joining.

I love the debate that this opens; I think it is a very interesting and a very important issue to discuss. I think it is vital we have gender balance in computer science, it is a necessity as fundamental as gravity.

The study in this paper is a good beginning, but that's about it, in it the authors presented students with two computer rooms, one which contained comic books, video-game boxes and junk food, the other room contained nature posters, healthy snacks and general interest books -- given the choice, 82 percent of the women picked the nonstereotypical workroom. In follow-up tests, a total of 215 students were asked to imagine they were joining either a geekily decorated or a neutrally decorated company after graduation. For every possible scenario, women preferred the non-geeky space.

Lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington suggests that non-stereotypical depictions of computer science, in the media and in classrooms, could help update the field’s image. Now this it seems to me is very, very obvious, and over simplified -- the findings suggest that environment can influence people's comfort level. I accept this, but I think there are a number of larger issues here, such as the way computer education is treated in secondary school as a result of secondary school teachers attitudes to women in science. I think blaming the media is a bit trite, I have previously looked at the representation of computer users in TV and it is clear to me that female computer users are well represented in the media.

I think to make this type of study more useful, the experimental approach needs to be expanded.

First what we need are more longitudinal studies on this issue, the study undertaken in this paper appears to be a very short-term experiment.

And second let's see which of the geeky elements are the problem. Do they work in combination or is there any one element that is key? My view is "let's not eliminate these things (where possible) let's modify them to be more inviting to everyone", So;

If Star Trek is a parameter, what if the images are of positive female role models in Star Trek, e.g. Captain Janeway or B'Elanna Torres the engineer, would this change things?
If video games are a parameter, let's try ones with more positive female role models in them.
If the issue is junk food let's just get rid of junk food out of computer labs, it's bad for your brain.
If the issue is comic books, can we find comics with positive female role models? like Halo Jones or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Still this is a great paper to start the debate.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214143728.htm

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2009-22579-003&CFID=26947242&CFTOKEN=68584354

GSM Decrypted

2009-12-28T18:23:00.000-08:00

A German computer engineer said Monday that he had deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world’s digital mobile phone calls, saying it was his attempt to expose weaknesses in the security of global wireless systems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/technology/29hack.html

Cockroaches Offer Inspiration for Running Robots

2009-12-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

The cockroach is a biological and engineering marvel providing researchers at Oregon State University with what they call "bioinspiration" in a quest to build the world's first legged robot that is capable of running effortlessly over rough terrain.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091228163304.htm

Worldwide cost of IT failure: $6.2 trillion

2009-12-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

Roger Sessions, a noted author and expert on complexity, developed a model for calculating the total global cost of IT failure. Roger describes his approach in a white paper titled, The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity. He concludes that IT failure costs the global economy a staggering $6.2 trillion per year.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=7627&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zdnet%2Fprojectfailures+(ZDNet+Project+Failures)

Security in the Ether

2009-12-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud--and prove we can trust it.

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/24166/

MIT Goes Back to the Drawing Board on Artificial Intelligence

2009-12-26T12:34:00.000-08:00

A new research initiative at MIT intends to revisit some decades-old assumptions about artificial intelligence. It's part of a five-year plan to create an AI program that can comprehend a children's book.

http://io9.com/5434212/mit-goes-back-to-the-drawing-board-on-artificial-intelligence

How Can I Contribute to Open Source?

2009-12-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Always a good question to consider

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=8007916

Is Code Auditing of Open Source Apps necessary before deployment?

2009-12-24T14:40:00.000-08:00

Interesting

http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8655

By Thought Alone: Mind Over Keyboard

2009-12-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

Why bother to type a document using a keyboard when you can write it by simply thinking about the letters you need to type?

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/neuro/thought-alone-mind-over-keyboard

Computer Algorithm Identifies Authentic Van Gogh

2009-12-21T10:21:00.000-08:00

Igor Berezhnoy of Tilburg University in the Netherlands has developed computer algorithms to support art historians and other art experts in their visual assessment of paintings. His digital technology is capable of distinguishing a forgery from an authentic Van Gogh based on the painter's characteristic brush work and use of colour.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091220174723.htm

10 questions to ask when selecting open source products for your enterprise

2009-12-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

To make sure you realize all the benefits of open source, run these simple background checks on an open source project.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1238425

Computer scientists develop technique to improve helpfulness of user-generated online reviews

2009-12-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

Irish computer scientists have developed a system to improve the helpfulness of online customer reviews. In recognition of the quality of their work, the group received a distinguished paper award at the British Computer Society’s annual Artificial Intelligence Conference.

http://www.physorg.com/news180370101.html

Capturing the Potential of Cloud: How Cloud Drives Value in Enterprise IT Strategy

2009-12-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

This paper discusses how cloud is helping enterprises, governments and industries around the globe meet their current challenges through key value drivers. Cloud value drivers provide a framework for building business and IT strategies.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1221009

Why Data Modeling Is Still Relevant

2009-12-18T13:51:00.000-08:00

In the Quest white paper, "Why Data Modeling is Still Relevant," discover the reasons why - even after 30 years! - data modeling is more essential than ever. Learn about its resurgence, how it supports efforts such as data warehousing and system development, and how your business can benefit from effective data modeling.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1221023

Phonetic Query Expansion for Spoken Document Retrieval

2009-12-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

The rapidly increasing amount of spoken data calls for solutions to index and search this data. The classical approach consists of converting speech to word transcripts using Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition (LVCSR) tools and extending classical Information Retrieval (IR) techniques to word transcripts. Advanced word transcript search algorithms are presented by Mamou et al. However, a significant drawback of such an approach is that a search on queries containing Out-Of-Vocabulary (OOV) terms will not return any result. OOV terms are words missing in the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system's vocabulary.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1220969

MONGOOSE: MONitoring Global Online Opinions Via Semantic Extraction

2009-12-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

The ever increasing amount of content on the Internet has fostered many efforts seeking to leverage this potentially yottascale information source. Service systems using advanced data and text analytics techniques have been developed to perform knowledge gathering and information discovery over Web data. Information gathered from free and public sources on the Web is frequently integrated with enterprise and proprietary data to create sophisticated service systems able to provide insight in an increasing number of business critical areas.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1220983

Lower Bounds for Randomized Read/Write Stream Algorithms

2009-12-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

Motivated by the capabilities of modern storage architectures, one considers the following generalization of the data stream model where the algorithm has sequential access to multiple streams. Unlike the data stream model, where the stream is read only, in this new model the algorithms can also write onto streams. There is no limit on the size of the streams but the number of passes made on the streams is restricted. On the other hand, the amount of internal memory used by the algorithm is scarce, similar to data stream model.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1220985

Interval Hash Tree: An Efficient Index Structure for Searching Object Queries in Large Image Databases

2009-12-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

As image databases grow large in size, index structures for fast navigation become important. In particular, when the goal is to locate object queries in image databases under changes in pose, occlusions and spurious data, traditional index structures used in databases become unsuitable. This paper presents a novel index structure called the interval hash tree, for locating multi-region object queries in image databases. The utility of the index structure is demonstrated for query localization in a large image database.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1220975

Michael Widenius, the creator of MySQL, asks for urgent help

2009-12-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

Michael "Monty" Widenius, the creator of MySQL, posted a message on his blog calling for support in preventing MySQL being absorbed by Oracle.

http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html

Google demonstrates quantum computer image search

2009-12-13T12:40:00.000-08:00

Google's web services may be considered cutting edge, but they run in warehouses filled with conventional computers. Now the search giant has revealed it is investigating the use of quantum computers to run its next generation of faster applications.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18272-google-demonstrates-quantum-computer-image-search.html

Bacterial Prisoner's Dilemma and Game Theory

2009-12-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

Scientists studying how bacteria under stress collectively weigh and initiate different survival strategies are similar Game Theory approaches.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091211200341.htm

The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009

2009-12-12T15:17:00.000-08:00

Categories of Open Source hardware 2009;
* 3D printing
* Arduino
* Arduino shields
* Blinky projects
* Clocks and watches
* Culture jamming
* Development platforms and tools
* Energy, Power and Green
* Fun, games and entertainment
* Imaging
* Medical and bio
* Music
* Processors
* Religious
* Robotics
* Telecommunications
* Transportation
* Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
* Wireless and GPS

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/open_source_hardware_2009_-_the_def.html

Hackers find a home in Amazon's EC2 cloud

2009-12-10T15:38:00.000-08:00

Interesting, wacky Hackers.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/hackers-find-home-in-amazons-ec2-cloud-742

Rethinking artificial intelligence: Researchers hope to produce 'co-processors' for the human mind

2009-12-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

Rethinking A.I.

http://www.physorg.com/news179400180.html

Coding Practices

2009-12-06T14:53:00.000-08:00

An interesting posting on coding practice.

http://www.omninerd.com/articles/Coding_Practices

Google quietly rolls out Google Dictionary

2009-12-06T03:26:00.000-08:00

Google Dictionary!

http://www.google.com/dictionary

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/12/google-dictionary.html

Bionic Hand

2009-12-03T14:25:00.001-08:00

Excellent.

http://io9.com/5418294/luke-skywalkers-robotic-hand-comes-even-closer-to-reality

Researchers demonstrate a better way for computers to 'see' Taking inspiration from genetic screening techniques, researchers from Harvard and MIT hav

2009-12-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

Taking inspiration from genetic screening techniques, researchers from Harvard and MIT have demonstrated a way to build better artificial visual systems with the help of low-cost, high-performance gaming hardware.

http://www.physorg.com/news178997486.html

What Hackers Know That You Don't: Wireless Edition the Advent of Organized Crime & How to Fight It

2009-12-02T15:11:00.001-08:00

This webcast draws on actual enterprise case studies and new security methodologies that highlight common mistakes and successful WLAN deployments.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1198623

How to Prevent a Data Leak

2009-12-02T15:10:00.001-08:00

A data breach is a leak of information into a non-trusted environment, and discovered occurrences are growing exponentially.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1198627

Cloud Computing: Key Considerations for Adoption

2009-12-02T15:08:00.001-08:00

Organisations are moving onto the Cloud, what are the trends looking like?

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1198637

Lean IT Transformation

2009-12-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

Lean IT Transformation is an approach for creating new cost-effective, agile and flexible IT service models by switching from company-owned IT hardware, software & services to per-use based models.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1198639

Five Security Threats to Watch in 2010

2009-12-02T15:03:00.000-08:00

Five security threats to watch in 2010;

1. Downloading malware
2. Identity theft
3. Mobile security threats
4. Shortened URLs
5. "Scareware"

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62059763,00.htm?scid=rss_z_nw&tag=wrapper;col1

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon to be extradited to US

2009-12-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, is at serious risk of suicide, relatives said today, after the home secretary rejected a last-ditch attempt to prevent his extradition to the US.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/26/computer-hacker-gary-mckinnon-extradition

In Defense of Software Patents

2009-12-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

Martin Goetz, the fisrt person to successfully
be granted a software patent has written a blog
posting defending them.

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/11/in-defense-of-software-patents-1.html

Practice overtaking theory in cloud computing

2009-12-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

Interesting, this is exactly the kinds of discussions we need to be having about Cloud comuting, to see what it's going.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19413_3-10405895-240.html

Antikythera mechanism

2009-11-30T15:23:00.000-08:00

For me the Antikythera mechanism is the most important device in the history of the world, it is a 2000 year old mechanical computer - an enigma in the history of cryptoarchaeology - a puzzle.

Scientific American video on the Antikythera mechanism - Part 1
http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?lineup=1406165298&id=52209781001

Scientific American video on the Antikythera mechanism - Part 2
http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?lineup=1406165298&id=52217285001

Project Management: Anatomy of a Failing Project

2009-11-29T09:49:00.000-08:00

Project failures are not an accident of nature. They are purely the outcome of a cumulative and compounding set of events that eventually conspired to derail the project.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1197237

Project Management: A Process for All Times

2009-11-29T09:47:00.000-08:00

Irrespective of the economic conditions, a project's desirability ultimately is based on a thorough evaluation of the risks, costs and potential rewards.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1197243

TOG Hackerspace

2009-11-29T02:19:00.000-08:00

TOG is a hackerspace based in the centre of Dublin. It is a shared space where members have a place to be creative and work on their projects in an environment that is both inspiring and supportive of both new and old technologies.

JOIN NOW!

http://www.tog.ie/

Taking the Drudgery out of Software Development

2009-11-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

ReDSeeDS is a project to develop an automated searchable repository, and then producing a software toolkit to cope with the requirements.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091127133323.htm

Protecting Your Data With Forrester Research and Websense

2009-11-28T15:32:00.000-08:00

Protecting data from insider threats.

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1197117

Business Intelligence in the Cloud

2009-11-28T15:31:00.000-08:00

Nice !

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=1197123