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SIGDOC Newsletter
September 2004
:: Volume 5, Number 3
Interesting Items
You can find a nice list of interesting articles at Technews http://www.acm.org/technews/
including:
"Geeks Code for the Gold"
Athens, the site of this year's Olympic Games, is hosting a contest
of another kind: The 16th annual International Olympiad in Informatics
(http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/),
where approximately 300 programmers from 80 nations are competing to
see who can code the fastest through a series of challenges. Contestants
are given a new problem to solve via coding each morning of the eight-day
event; participants submit their solutions to a competition server
that grades them according to their quality and refinement. The United
States
is represented by a quartet of high-school students comprising the
USA Computing Olympiad (USACO), who trained prior to the IOI at the University
of Wisconsin-Parkside. USACO training involved intense five-hour coding
sessions and workshops on strategy and problem-solving. This year's
USACO
team is sponsored by the ACM, Google, IBM, Usenix, and the Sans Institute.
Greek PC provider Altec is supplying the hardware for the IOI, while
competitors will have the option of using Microsoft XP or Red Hat Linux
9.0 for their operating system.
Click Here to View Full Article back to top
"Coming to a Dashboard Near You"
Automakers are trying to simplify the features and control systems
in cars, as they move from mechanical to digital systems; many of these
improvements are targeted at older drivers who are not used to digital
instrument panels and other computer technology. But experts say
the
ease-of-use features being built for older drivers will also prove
useful for younger drivers as well. Many car consoles now resemble
fighter jet cockpits with the number of controls available, for increasingly
complex systems such as individual climate control or MP3-enabled
stereos. BMW's iDrive system was one of the early attempts to simplify
vehicle
controls, but has met with some criticism that the system is too
difficult to learn and could distract drivers from the road. BMW maintains
that
the iDrive is helpful, but acknowledges users need to first familiarize
themselves with its operation. BMW has also pioneered digital driving
controls, and includes an electronic steering system with its 2003
5-series cars. Digital driving controls would have to simulate road
conditions to allow drivers the same tactile connection with the
road, such as the looseness and shaking of the wheel when driving over
slippery
surfaces. Experts say such advanced systems won't appear in higher-end
cars for at least several more years, while it could be a decade
before lower-end cars get the technology. Click Here to View Full Article
back to top "Data Presentation: Tapping the Power of Visual Perception"
The mechanics of visual perception must be understood in order to effectively
and efficiently present data, and key to that understanding is a clear
determination of what does and does not work, and why. In his book, "Information
Visualization: Perception for Design," Colin Ware explains that
comprehending perception allows knowledge to be converted into rules
for displaying information--rules that, when followed, will facilitate
a data presentation highlighting critical and revealing patterns. Short-term
memory can hold no more than seven chunks of data at a time, a fact
that data presentation designers must consider: A person will be unable
to perceive a graph as a whole if there are more than seven data components,
while five is the recommended limit. Visual data displays often use
preattentive attributes such as hue, size, 2D location, orientation,
line width, shape, curvature, color intensity, enclosure, and added
marks, but only two attributes--2D location and line length--can accurately
encode quantitative values. Non-quantitative attributes are used to
reflect categorical distinctions, and the strength of those distinctions
varies with each attribute.
Click Here to View Full Article
back to top "On Fed Payroll, Hackers Seek to Save America"
As part of the Homeland Security Department's attempts to fortify the
country's defenses, the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory (INEEL) in August launched a new cybersecurity facility
where hackers test the vulnerability of critical systems in an isolated
infrastructure spread out over 890 square miles of Idaho terrain. The
results of the tests pinpoint weak areas in U.S. infrastructure--utilities,
transportation systems, etc.--that cyberterrorists could exploit to
wreak havoc. INEEL associate lab director Laurin Dodd says he strongly
doubts that any Internet-linked system is immune to hacking. He adds
that Internet connections are expanding so that infrastructure systems
can be monitored at corporate headquarters, which only increases the
risk of intrusion. Dodd says the only truly hack-proof computing system
is one that is cut off from the outside, such as the system employed
by the CIA. Lab officials note that the hacking exercises are internal
to the facility and do not involve real-life entities, and they insist
that the lab would only hire people with security clearances and no
criminal history. However, INEEL remains tight-lipped about the background
of staffers such as Jason Larsen, who breached a U.S. agency's computer
system with the aid of a handheld computer. "This is one of the
few places where it is legal to give people those kind of challenges," admits
head of INEEL cybersecurity Robert Hoffman. INEEL is sponsored by the
Energy Department.
back to top "Women Make Inroads in Video Game Industry"
Peter Raad with Southern Methodist University's Guildhall school of
video game making estimates that women comprise less than 10 percent
of all
game developers, and says that it would be in the gaming industry's
best interest to bring in more female developers. People such as Laura
Fryer, director of Microsoft's Advanced Technology Group, think more
women could be attracted to video game development through education,
particularly by spreading awareness among women that game making is
a multidisciplinary enterprise that does not necessarily require programming
skills. The motivation behind the inaugural Women's Game Conference
in Austin, Texas, is to challenge some of the long-held assumptions
that video games are primarily attractive to and designed by male "geeks," while
Guildhall has teamed up with the game review Web site WomenGamers.com and the online female job recruiting site Mary-Margaret.com to set
up a video game scholarship for women, believed to be the first in
the nation. Fryer contends that the lack of women game developers has
led to general ignorance of half the U.S. population's opinions on
game content. Many people agree that there is a demand for less violent,
story-driven games with more female lead characters, while the Entertainment
Software Association estimates that women account for about 40 percent
of gamers. WomenGamers.com co-founder Ismini Roby notes that women
are stereotypically perceived as preferential to simple puzzles or
card games.
Click Here to View Full Article
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