NewsScan Daily, 22 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 22 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Alan Kay Wins ACM's Turing Award for Smalltalk
        New Discovery Puts the Brakes on Storage Speed
        Robot Teams to Hit the Trenches
        Australia, India Lead PC Growth
        Offshoring Works Both Ways
        Sony E-Book Gets Rave Reviews

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Erna Schneider Hoover

ALAN KAY WINS ACM'S TURING AWARD FOR SMALLTALK
      Longtime computer innovator Dr. Alan Kay has been awarded the 2003 
Turing Award by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). Kay won the 
award for his work on Smalltalk, the first complete dynamic object-oriented 
programming language. Kay is credited with coining the phrase 
"object-oriented" and Smalltalk today serves as the model for C++ and Java. 
Smalltalk embodies the concept of using "cells" of individual objects 
communicating with each other to solve problems, but after developing the 
software, Kay expanded its use to serve as an educational tool for 
children. "The principles found in the Smalltalk language and development 
environments continue to influence the software industry," says Allen 
Davis, executive director of the Smalltalk Industry Council. "Many 
capabilities found in Smalltalk exceed those found in more 
recently-developed object-oriented programming languages such as Java. From 
hobbyists to Fortune 500 companies, Smalltalk continues to be used today 
for traditional and Web-based applications."  Along with the award comes a 
$100,000 cash prize. (Internet News 20 Apr 2004)
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article/php/3342511

NEW DISCOVERY PUTS THE BRAKES ON STORAGE SPEED
      Scientists have discovered an apparent speed limit on how fast data 
can be written onto disks and then retrieved, but disk makers aren't too 
worried. It turns out that the limit is still about 1,000 times faster than 
today's state-of-the-art storage devices. Data, once converted to digital 
format, is rewritten by sending an electronic pulse that reverses the 
magnetic spin of selected bits. Accelerating the pulses can speed up the 
time needed to rewrite or store information, but if the pulses come too 
quickly, the high energy can cause the magnetic changes to occur randomly, 
damaging the data. The research was conducted by scientists at Stanford 
University and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Moscow, and 
engineers at Seagate Technologies. Danilo Pescia of the Swiss Federal 
Institute of Technology says, "In order to go beyond this limit, some 
completely new technology will be required, of which we do not know 
anything yet." But Seagate CTO Mark Kryder downplayed the results, noting 
that the project had few real-life implications for the data-storage 
industry. "Certainly we are not going to start packaging linear 
accelerators into hard disk drives, so the kinds of speeds achieved in 
these experiments would never be observed in an actual recording device." 
(AP/Washington Post 21 Apr 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30805-2004Apr21.html

ROBOT TEAMS TO HIT THE TRENCHES
      Researchers at the University of Minnesota, the University of 
Pennsylvania and Caltech are developing software that will enable dozens of 
small, cylindrical robots called Scouts to coordinate their emergency 
response activities and carry out complex commands from their human 
operator. The goal is to use the robot teams -- equipped with tiny cameras, 
infrared range finders, sensors and a two-way remote control system -- for 
taking air samples and checking for toxic fumes, and for exploring and 
mapping hard-to-get-to areas and relaying that information back to their 
human operator. But the real challenge is how to assemble teams of robots 
that can essentially coordinate their activities and collate their results 
so that humans can concentrate their efforts on controlling only a small 
group of "team leaders." "The emergency response personnel we've talked to 
tell us they wouldn't want to control more than about three robots at a 
time. There's just too much information," says University of Minnesota lead 
researcher Nikos Papanikolopoulos. "Eventually, we'd like to allow teams of 
human operators to control a hundred or so robots organized into teams, 
with each human operator communicating with about three robot team leaders. 
For emergency response, this makes sense." (Science Daily 15 Apr 2004)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/04/040413001615.htm

AUSTRALIA, INDIA LEAD PC GROWTH
      Computer sales in Asia outside Japan rose 16% to 7.4 million units in 
the March quarter compared with the previous year. Sales were slightly 
higher than expected, including in the key markets of Australia and India, 
according to IDC. Compared with the previous quarter, however, sales dipped 
5% due to seasonal trends. "The Asia Pacific region's personal computer 
market got off to a solid start in 2004," said IDC analyst Bryan Ma. "The 
road to the upcoming year appears bright, as long as issues such as 
regional elections, China's WAPI (Wired Authentication and Privacy 
Infrastructure) encryption standard, and a destabilizing situation in Iraq 
do not get in the way." (The Australian 21 Apr 2004, rec'd from John Lamp, 
Deakin University)
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9345254%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html 


OFFSHORING WORKS BOTH WAYS
      Indian companies like Bangalore based Infosys, Wipro, etc. are 
opening up branches in the U.S. in a trend likely to turn the outsourcing 
argument on its head. According to the CEO of Infosys, the move will help 
cut costs and increase efficiency of the company. Infosys Consulting, the 
U.S. based branch of Infosys, is expected to hire over 75 Americans this 
year and 500 in the next 3 years. (rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University)
http://www.infosys.com/careers/us/default.asp

SONY E-BOOK GETS RAVE REVIEWS
      Sony's Librié electronic reader is as easy on the eyes as the paper 
version, says New York Times reviewer Todd Zaun. The Librié screen is a 
collaborative effort between Philips Electronics and E Ink, and the letters 
appear "as sharp and clear as those on a printed page. The screen can be 
read from almost any angle, and it does not fade in bright light," says 
Zaun. Sony plans to begin selling the Librié in Japan next month for about 
$380, and buyers will be able to download e-books for less than $5 each 
from a Web site set up by Sony and a group of Japanese publishers. Sony 
plans to see how its Japanese market develops before it decides whether to 
expand to the U.S. and Europe. (New York Times 22 Apr 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/22/technology/circuits/22read.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the 
advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance." (Ambrose 
Bierce's Devil's Dictionary)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ERNA SCHNEIDER HOOVER
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Bell Laboratories researcher Erna 
Schneider Hoover, who earned one of the first software patents ever issued 
when she invented a computerized telephone switching system. She developed 
her system to replace the hard-wired, mechanical switching equipment that 
was being swamped by the increasingly large number of calls coming in to 
Bell Labs. Hoover saw the problem as one that could be solved by developing 
a computer program to monitor the varying frequencies of incoming calls and 
control potential overload in their processing. The principles behind 
Hoover's switching system led to today's stored program control systems in 
use today by the communications industry.
      Hoover came to Bell Labs with an impressive educational background. 
She had earned a B.A. with honors from Wellesley College in medieval 
history and a Ph.D. from Yale University in philosophy and foundations of 
mathematics. She then taught at Swarthmore College for several years before 
joining the Bell Labs research staff in 1954. In time she became the first 
female supervisor of a technical department at Bell Labs. In that position 
she prepared the computer programs used for the radar tracking systems 
employed in the Safeguard Ballistic Missile Defense System, which was 
successfully tested at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1973. At 
one point in her career, she transferred to AT&T to work as a manager in 
the marketing of central office business services, which at the time 
brought in revenues of $1 billion a year. When she returned to Bell 
Laboratories, she was appointed the department head, supervising the work 
being done on the large programs that the telephone companies used for 
maintaining plant efficiency. Her work there was notable for the successful 
use made of artificial intelligence programming.
       Hoover married in 1951 and has raised three daughters despite the 
demands of a heavy work schedule. She also has found time to chair the 
Board of Trustees of Trenton State College and to serve on the Board of 
Higher Education in New Jersey. She organized several conferences for 8th 
grade girls to encourage them to study math and science.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345383141/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Anne Macdonald's "Feminine Ingenuity: How Women Inventors Changed 
America" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue 
from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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