September 2005 - Vol. 48 No. 9

September 2005 issue cover image

Features

Opinion Editorial pointers Sep 1 2005

Editorial Pointers

Last month we featured a series of articles on technology that tracks and records where you go and what you do online. This month the focus is technology that can track where you go and what you do in the real world, including what you ate, what you purchased, what you’re wearing, and where you […]

Diane Crawford

Architecture and Hardware

News News track Sep 1 2005

The subway and bus bombings in London were a sign to security experts worldwide that the best defense governments can provide against terrorists armed with explosives remains low-tech options such as bomb-sniffing dogs, trained personnel, and working video cameras. The New York Times reports that after the billions were spent to improve homeland security worldwide, […]

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Opinion Forum Sep 1 2005

Among the six principles for designing digital rights management (DRM) systems spelled out in Inside Risks ("DRMand Public Policy," July 2005), Edward W. Felten included: "Since lawful use, including fair use, of copyrighted works is in the public interest, a user wishing to make lawful use of copyrighted material should not be prevented from doing […]

Computing Applications

Opinion The business of software Sep 1 2005

To Plan, Two Plans

A planning approach to managing risk.

Phillip G. Armour

Computing Applications

Opinion Staying connected Sep 1 2005

Nanotechnology’s Shadow

The science of manipulating small particles unleashes big issues.

Meg McGinity Shannon

Computing Applications

Opinion President's letter Sep 1 2005

Restoring the Popularity of Computer Science

Inaccurate impressions of the opportunities of 21st century CS are shrinking the next generation of IT professionals. You can help by dispelling incorrect beliefs about employment and by helping improve pre-college education.

David A. Patterson

Computing Applications

Opinion Hot links Sep 1 2005

Top 10 Downloads from ACM’s Digital Library

Communications of the ACM Volume 48, Number 9 (2005), Pages 29-30 Hot links: Top 10 downloads from ACM’s digital library Diane Crawford Table of Contents Tables Back to Top Tables Table. The Top 10 Most Popular Papers from ACM’s Refereed Journals and Conference Proceedings Downloaded in June 2005 Table. The 10 Most Popular Courses at […]

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Sep 1 2005

RFID Is X-Ray Vision

In a world saturated with RFID tags, protecting the privacy of individuals is technically difficult. Without a proper alignment of interests it may be impossible.

Frank Stajano

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

Cheap, tiny, plentiful radio-frequency identification tags will make it possible to tag almost everything, spurring a revolution in how physical objects interact with information services.

Gaetano Borriello

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

RFID-Based Techniques For Human-Activity Detection

The iBracelet and the Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform promise the ability to infer human activity directly from sensor readings.

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

Photosensing Wireless Tags For Geometric Procedures

Interacting with a self-describing, self-locating world sprinkled with RFIG tags, physical objects come alive through augmented reality labels and context-sensitive annotation.

Ramesh Raskar, Paul Beardsley, Paul Dietz, and Jeroen van Baar

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

Spontaneous Marriages of Mobile Devices and Interactive Spaces

Configuring themselves through Elope middleware, tagged physical objects and rooms let users seamlessly integrate their content and invoke services.

Trevor Pering, Rafael Ballagas, and Roy Want

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

RFID Enhances Visitors’ Museum Experience at the Exploratorium

Interactive RFID-enhanced museum exhibits let visitors continue their scientific exploration beyond the museum's walls. But museums must still help them understand the technology and address their data privacy concerns.

Sherry Hsi and Holly Fait

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

RFID Privacy Issues and Technical Challenges

Cheap tags and technology simple and secure enough to ensure personal data privacy are required before retailers implement and consumers trust and confidently use them on a mass scale.

Miyako Ohkubo, Koutarou Suzuki, and Shingo Kinoshita

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

RFID and the Perception of Control: The Consumer's View

Consumers need to feel they have control over the RFID infrastructure before they routinely trust its services.

Oliver GÜnther and Sarah Spiekermann

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances RFID: tagging the world Sep 1 2005

What Does RFID Do For the Consumer?

Want consumers to adopt RFID-based systems? Make the perceived (and real) risk acceptable through convenience, variety, and lower prices.

Bruce Eckfeldt

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

Nurturing Software

How societal institutions shape the development of software.

Rajiv C. Shah and Jay P. Kesan

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

A Question of Trust

An economic perspective on quality standards in the certification services market.

James Backhouse, Carol Hsu, Jimmy C. Tseng, and John Baptista

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

Multimedia-Based Interactive Advising Technology For Online Consumer Decision Support

Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and QuickTime) have been widely used in online product presentation and promotion to portray products in a dynamic way. The continuous visual stimuli and associated sound effects provide vivid and interesting product presentations; hence, they engage online customers in examining products. Meanwhile, recent research has indicated that online shoppers want detailed and relevant product information and explanations [2]. A promising approach is to embed rich product information and explanations into multimedia-enhanced product demonstrations. This approach is called Multimedia-based Product Annotation (MPA), a product presentation in which customers can retrieve embedded product information in a multimedia context.

Zhenhui Jiang, Weiquan Wang, and Izak Benbasat

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

Webview: An SQL Extension For Joining Corporate Data to Data Derived from the Web

Using SQL and database technology to seamlessly retrieve information from any corporate or external Web site.

Charles A. Wood and Terence T. Ow

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

The Importance of Affective Quality

Users aren't always rational logical beings---emotion plays an often overlooked role in user acceptance of technology.

Ping Zhang and Na Li

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

Exploring an Epidemic in an E-Science Environment

Rules of bio-epidemic and e-epidemic inspire scientists to create a live, scalable interconnected environment for effectively managing situations in nature, society, and the digital virtual world.

Hai Zhuge

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Sep 1 2005

Prepare Your Mind For Learning

The learning process must evolve and expand throughout one's IT career. Most would agree that's often easier said than done. Here are some ways professionals can overcome mental blocks that may prevent learning.

Deborah K. Smith, Trevor Moores, and Jerry Chang

Computing Applications

Opinion Technical opinion Sep 1 2005

As Simple as Possible, but Not Simpler

How the use of technology affects what we know and how we know it.

G. Anthony Gorry

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Opinion Inside risks Sep 1 2005

Risks of Technology-Oblivious Policy

Many readers of this column have tried to influence technology policy and had their advice ignored. Politics is frequently a factor, but another reason for our failure is that we don’t do a good job of explaining the roots of computing-related security and usability issues to non-technical people. People who have never written code do […]

Barbara Simons and Jim Horning

Computing Applications

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