Editorial Pointers

Senior Editor Andrew Rosenbloom’s annual sojourn to SIGGRAPH always ends with a list of technological gems to editorially explore and ultimately share. Indeed, he’s spent the past year cultivating a select group of articles inspired by the 3D hard copy technologies he’s experienced over several conferences and will be a presence again at SIGGRAPH 2005 (July 31–Aug. 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center; www.siggraph.org/s2005/index.php).

The developing field of 3D hard copy takes a big step beyond 3D on-screen virtual imagery to rapid prototyping systems that make it possible to create a physical prototype, spare part, or scientific models. Such tangible copies are themselves complex visualizations, mathematical forms, sculptures, and industrial components.

This section presents many of the pieces of this 3D puzzle, including 3D printing, solid free-form fabrication, 3D layered manufacturing, software challenges, and potential problems protecting proprietary physical designs from being copied and pirated (a part of the story that motivated this month’s cover).

Also in this issue, Umesh et al. evaluate the four key factors needed to identify entrepreneurial opportunities and apply them to the fields of ubiquitous computing, e-commerce, and information security. McHugh and Deek offer a truly unconventional solution for reducing malware attacks. And Xu and Chen introduce the use of Social Network Analysis as a way to mine large volumes of associated data to discover hidden patterns in criminal networks.

Nah et al. analyze the prevailing mechanisms and practices of knowledge management used by leading financial service sites. Singh et al. present an agent-enabled architecture for infomediary-based e-markets. In addition, Moore and Love ponder why IT professionals tend to display workplace behavior that does not reflect the supportive, helpful, unselfish qualities managers prize in other departments within an organization. And Kanungo et al. discover the Bible proves an ideal source for evaluating optical character recognition technologies for a variety of languages.

In "The Business of Software," Phillip Armour explores the hidden traps in the application of the U.S. Government’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In "Legally Speaking," Pamela Samuelson examines what the Supreme Court will—and should—do in the MGM v. Grokster case and what will likely occur in the aftermath of that decision. Jacques Cohen is of the "Viewpoint" that educators would better prepare future technologists by incorporating the escalating volume of Web-available programs and data resources into CS curricula. And in this month’s "President’s Letter," David Patterson points interested readers to the benefits of ACM’s Queue magazine.

Diane Crawford
Editor