Information Technology

For every warm-blooded human who has ever taken an online poll or signed up for free web-based email, there are legions of computer-automated Internet robots, or “bots,” trying to do the same thing.

A clever security system designed to stop these bot programs – which contribute to the Internet equivalent of computer-generated telemarketing calls – has now been cracked by a pair of computer scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon Unive

’Hot laps’ to become yesterday’s problem

Laptops make laps hot, as users of mobile lightweight computers sometimes learn dramatically. (If you’re not easily shocked, go to http://www.reuters.com). And things could get worse: upcoming chips may produce 100 watts per square centimeter — the heat generated by a light bulb — creating the effect of an unpleasantly localized dry sauna. (Current chip emanations are in the 50 watts/cm2 range.)

Evacuating heat i

New software that responds to written questions by retrieving digital images has potentially broad application, ranging from helping radiologists compare mammograms to streamlining museum curators’ archiving of artwork, say the Penn State researchers who developed the technology.

Dr. James Z. Wang, assistant professor in Penn State’s School of Information Sciences and Technology and principal investigator, says the Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures (ALIP) system first build

Researchers at the University of Leeds have rescued the BBC Domesday Project, preserving it for future generations. The CAMiLEON Project has developed software that emulates the obsolete BBC computer and videodisc player on which the original system ran.

The BBC Domesday project was conceived by the BBC to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the 1086 Domesday book. It formed a social snapshot of life in the UK during the mid eighties. Information was recorded on two virtually indestructible i

The Basque company Contec, specialised in connectivity and security tasks in Internet accesses, has just presented a range of VPN e-Link solutions.

e-Link solutions provide several capacities of connectivity, security and interconnection between the head offices of one or more companies. These solutions guarantee the possibility to keep connected all head offices, representative offices or stores located in different geographical places of a company. That way, they can share all resources a

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) and the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) jointly announced organizational changes which aim to strengthen research relationships throughout Europe to better support Web technology development.
The change of W3C European Host from INRIA to ERCIM will take place on 1 January 2003. The change allows W3C to better leverage research relationships througho