EU Investigates Internet's Spread to More Devices

From ACM TechNews:
EU Investigates Internet's Spread to More Devices
BBC News
(04/12/12)

The European Commission (EC) expects rapid growth in the number of household appliances and other devices that are connected to the Internet by 2020, and as a result is launching a consultation over controls for the way information is gathered, stored, and processed. The typical person currently has at least two devices connected to the Internet. However, by 2015 that number is expected to grow to seven Web-connected devices per person, for a total of 25 billion worldwide, and more than 50 billion by 2020. The EC notes that previous technological advances have led to new legislation, such as the European Union's (EU's) Privacy and Data Communications Directive, which requires users to give permission for Web sites to install tracking cookies into their browsers. "Technologies like these need to be carefully designed if they are to enhance our private lives, not endanger them," says EU representative Emma Draper. "Sharing highly sensitive personal data--like medical information--to a network of wireless devices automatically creates certain risks and vulnerabilities, so security and privacy need to be built in at the earliest stages of the development process."

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http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-17687373

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The Not-Too-Distant Future of Driving: When Cars Can Talk, Crashes May Be Avoided

From ACM TechNews:
The Not-Too-Distant Future of Driving: When Cars Can Talk, Crashes May Be Avoided
Washington Post
(04/10/12) Ashley Halsey

All cars in future will be equipped with short-range transmitters that use dedicated bandwidth to send information 10 times per second about where they are and what they are doing. The transmitters also will receive and make sense of the same information from every other vehicle within range. "The technology is solid, but you have to prove that the right type of data can be moved from one vehicle to another vehicle and that vehicle could take action on that data," says the Texas Transportation Institute's Christopher Poe. By governing the flow of traffic with real-time information, the technology can reroute drivers to avoid congestion and reduce time and fuel wasted while stuck in traffic. In addition, "this connected-vehicle technology could address about 80 percent, or four out of five, of all the unimpaired driving crashes in America," says the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA's) Ron Medford. NHTSA recently launched a pilot program with 3,000 cars in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to prove the reliability of the technology. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication is just part of the pilot program. NHTSA also has developed a vehicle-to-infrastructure system, which can communicate with several tools, including global positioning systems and traffic lights.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/the-not-too-distant-future-of-driving-when-cars-can-talk-crashes-may-be-avoided/2012/04/10/gIQAGCbA9S_story.html

A New Framework for Innovation in Journalism: How a Computer Scientist Would Do It

From ACM TechNews:
A New Framework for Innovation in Journalism: How a Computer Scientist Would Do It
Nieman Journalism Lab
(04/05/12) Andrew Phelps

City University of New York (CUNY) researcher Nick Diakopoulos is developing a new framework for innovation in journalism. The research is examining a different way to devise questions for journalists. Diakopoulos identified 27 computing concepts that could apply to journalism, such as natural language processing, machine learning, game engines, virtual reality, and information virtualization. He then sifted through thousands of research papers to determine which topics garner the most and least interest. "The goal is really about making innovation in journalism more technologically literate and aware," Diakopoulos says. He reasons that the impediments to progress in news organizations are likely cultural, "not having come from a user-centered design culture, where design thinking is important or ... you really think about people's needs or values." The most practical result came from a real-life series of brainstorms conducted with CUNY students and practitioners. Diakopoulos produced a card-based game designed to encourage fast, frictionless ideation, which resulted in 54 ideas. Part of Diakopoulos' motivation behind the research is to unite journalists and technologists to advance both fields.

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http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/04/a-new-framework-for-innovation-in-journalism-how-a-computer-scientist-would-do-it/

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How Smart Is Your Home?

From ACM TechNews:
How Smart Is Your Home?
Science
(03/30/12) Diane J. Cook

Within reach is a smart home that is responsive to residents' wishes and needs due to technological advances that support ambient intelligence, including sensors, computer networks, databases, and intelligent agents, writes Washington State University professor Diane J. Cook. Embedding sensors in the home generates large volumes of raw data that require analysis to extract pertinent information, and Cook says cloud computing could be used to process data too large to be managed by a single computer. Meanwhile, Cook says enabling devices to interact with their peers and the networking infrastructure without explicit human control is the purpose of much current ambient intelligence research, while imbuing the residence with contextual awareness supports the design of intelligent environments. Among the hindrances to realizing ambient intelligent homes is the need to weigh possible privacy and security implications, while another challenge is the provision of seamless, intelligent support both inside and outside the residence. The introduction of wearable sensors and smartphones expands ambient intelligence beyond the home environment. Smart homes currently offer resident-guided monitoring and automation, and Cook says future advances should support the use of these services in a more independent fashion.

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http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6076/1579

Engineers Rebuild HTTP as a Faster Web Foundation

From ACM TechNews:
Engineers Rebuild HTTP as a Faster Web Foundation
CNet
(03/30/12) Stephen Shankland

At the recent meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the working group overseeing the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) formally opened a discussion about how to make the technology faster. The discussion included Google's SPDY technology and Microsoft's HTTP Speed+Mobility technology. Google's system prefers a required encryption, while Microsoft's preference is for it to be optional. Despite this and other subtle differences, there are many similarities between the two systems. "There's a lot of overlap [because] there's a lot of agreement about what needs to be fixed," says Greenbytes' Julian Reschke. SPDY already is built into Google Chrome and Amazon Silk, and Firefox is planning on adopting it soon. In addition, Google, Amazon, and Twitter are using SPDY on their servers. "If we do choose SPDY as a starting point, that doesn't mean it won't change," says HTTP Working Group chairman Mark Nottingham. SPDY's technology is based on sending multiple streams of data over a single network connection. SPDY also can assign high or low priorities to Web page resources being requested from a server. One difference between the Google and Microsoft proposals is in syntax, but SPDY developers are flexible on the choice of compression technology, says SPDY co-creator Mike Belshe.

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57406904-264/engineers-rebuild-http-as-a-faster-web-foundation/