Techwatch Information Technology in the News
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techwatch Information Technology in the News LIBRARY OF CONGRESS UNDER- TAKES DIGITIZATION PROJECT e - p u b l i s h i n g ■ Early in 2006, the Library of Congress will begin transferring large collections of vinyl records and video recordings KEEPING ONLINE ARTICLES AVAILABLE to a single location, where they will be everal libraries and publishers are cooperating on a pilot project to ensure access archived and digitized. The library has Sto online journals. Libraries at five universities, as well as the New York Public nearly four million separate items, cur- Library, will work with nine publishers on an archive that will consist of copies of journal rently stored in several states. The items articles from participating publishers stored on ten servers at the universities. Those will be moved to a Virginia facility that archived copies will be unavailable to the public, but the system will monitor the Web was set up in the 1960s as a headquarters sites of the journals that published those articles. When the system detects that the for government officials in the event of a publisher’s online version of an article is unavailable for an extended period of time, the nuclear attack. The library’s holdings will system’s governing board will decide whether to make the archived copy available. The be stored on fifty-seven miles of shelves, goal is to ensure long-term access to journal articles, even when publishers go out of and starting early next year, the library business or computer systems suffer severe outages or losses of data. The effort is will begin making digital copies of the important because libraries and publishers are frequently at odds over how and when collection. Because many are covered to provide online access to copyrighted material. Those involved hope the effort will by copyright, the digital copies will not help the groups work together toward a common goal. (Chronicle of Higher Education, be available online. Researchers will be <http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/01/2006012502t.htm> [subscription required]) able to request digital copies of specific recordings, however, and library staff will pull the original and make a digital ver- BRITISH LIBRARY WORRIES ABOUT ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC CONTENT sion. (Federal Computer Week, <http://www. n comments submitted to the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group, which is fcw.com/article91968-01-13-06-Web>) Iinvestigating digital rights management (DRM) technologies, the British Library has expressed strong concerns about the long-term viability of electronic resources. NEW SITE AIMS TO IDENTIFY Content producers increasingly use DRM to limit unauthorized access to electronic MAKERS OF MALICIOUS PROGRAMS materials, but officials from the library said the protections also threaten legitimate ■ Researchers at Harvard Law School and uses of content. Use of materials held by libraries constitutes an important exception Oxford University are launching a Web site to copyright laws, according to Clive Field, the British Library’s director of scholarships that will identify organizations that distrib- and collections, but DRM tools inadvertently upset the balance between appropriate ute spyware, adware, and other unwanted exceptions and the rights of content owners. Moreover, long-term access is at risk. computer programs, as well as the tactics Even when copyright expires for a work, the DRM tools applied to its electronic version they employ to install their applications. will still be in place. If the owner cannot be contacted, there may be no way to unlock StopBadware.org was financed initially by materials that are no longer covered by copyright. “This will fundamentally threaten the companies including Google, Lenovo, and longstanding and accepted concepts of fair dealing and library privilege,” according Sun Microsystems. The site will also in- to the British Library’s statement, “and undermine . legitimate public good access.” clude an area where consumers can submit (BBC, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4675280.stm>) testimonials about their experiences with different software they have downloaded. John G. Palfrey Jr., the executive director computers were infected with spyware last MARINE RESEARCHERS TO USE of the Berkman Center for Internet and year. Data from Consumer Reports indicate NEW FIBER-OPTIC CONNECTION Society at Harvard, said, “We want to turn that despite consumer spending of $2.6 bil- ■ Officials from research centers on the spotlight on the bad actors, but also give lion over the past two years on antivirus and opposite sides of the United States an- ordinary users a place to go and get an early antispyware tools, users still spent $3.5 bil- nounced a project that will link the two warning before they download something lion in damages over the same period due to centers with extremely fast connections, that might harm their computer.” Accord- unwanted software. (New York Times, <http:// allowing researchers at each site to col- ing to the Pew Internet & American Life www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/technology/ laborate with colleagues at the other as Project, 59 million U.S. adults said their 25spy.html> [registration required]) if they were in the same location. The 4 EDUCAUSE r e v i e w March/April 2006 © 2006 EDUCAUSE techwatch Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial Ecology Re- c a m p u s infrastructure search and Analysis (CAMERA) project, funded by a $24.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, IOWA STATE FIRES UP NEW SUPERCOMPUTER will use the National LambdaRail and esearchers at Iowa State University will use a recently acquired supercomputer to other fiber-optic connections to link the Rwork on a map of the genome of the corn plant. The $1.25 million IBM BlueGene J. Craig Venter Institute, in Rockville, computer, which was financed by the university and the National Science Foundation, Maryland, with the Scripps Institution of can perform up to 5.7 trillion calculations per second, according to Srinivas Aluru, Oceanography at the University of Cali- professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State, enabling research fornia at San Diego. Larry L. Smarr, one projects that otherwise would be impractical due to processing needs. Three other of the project’s leaders, noted that many universities are also working on the corn genome. Researchers hope that understand- research programs that involve disparate ing the genome will allow them to engineer a corn plant “that, for example, produces components are limited by the connec- biodegradable plastic or ethanol,” said Patrick Schnable, an agronomy professor and tions between facilities. CAMERA will director of the Center for Plant Genomics. The supercomputer will also be used in allow researchers at the two locations to biomedical research to study protein networks. (NewsFactor Network, <http://www. access and compare vast amounts of data newsfactor.com/news/story.xhtml?story_id=0010001JZMRW>) on marine microbes, including genetic codes and data on water conditions at locations around the globe. (Chronicle of Higher Education, <http://chronicle.com/ Federal Computer Week, <http://www.fcw. BELLSOUTH FOUNDATION daily/2006/01/2006011801t.htm> [sub- com/article91625-12-06-05-Web>) SUPPORTS ONLINE EDUCATION scription required]) ■ The BellSouth Foundation an- DHS GRANT FUNDS nounced it will spend $20 million over ACADEMY AND OPEN SOURCE RESEARCH five years to improve online education INDUSTRY STUDY ROI ■ The Department of Homeland Secu- and technology access in nine states in ■ A group of academic and industry rity (DHS) has awarded a $1.24 million, the southern United States. The Bell- researchers will work together on an three-year contract to improve the quality South Foundation is the charitable arm initiative to create a methodology that or- of open source software. Given the grow- of BellSouth, which serves the southern ganizations can use to study the return on ing reliance on open source technologies region. The foundation is specifically investment (ROI) of technology projects. for infrastructure that underpins national charged with improving education and, Governments are increasingly asked to security, DHS expects to see real benefits according to Mary Boehm, the president demonstrate the value of taxpayer dol- from the grant. The award will be split of the foundation, decided a year ago to lars invested in IT projects. Led by the among Stanford University, Symantec, focus its efforts exclusively on virtual Center for Technology in Government and Coverity, a firm that specializes in learning. The new initiative will fund (CTG) at the State University of New York code analysis. Rob Rachwald, the senior virtual learning programs and will work at Albany and SAP, the effort will include director of marketing at Coverity, said, to bring technology and Internet access researchers from Harvard University’s “The DHS in many ways is obviously to children in poor areas of the region. John F. Kennedy School of Government, brokering this and they are the main A pilot site for the initiative in Atlanta is Accenture, Gartner Research, Cisco Sys- beneficiary.” For the grant, Coverity will working on job-shadowing technology tems, and North American and European identify security flaws and risks; Stanford and an online algebra course for middle government agencies. Anthony Cress- will offer academic analysis of trends and high school students. Organizers well, the deputy director of CTG, said that and provide opinions about the relative hope to create eight similar sites, one in calculating ROI for IT projects “has been security of various technologies; and Sy- each of the other states of the program. a complex and difficult problem.” He said mantec will provide consulting on how Boehm said, “We wanted to be sure the new effort will “produce results that governmental agencies can incorporate all kids, not just the privileged, could will make a major contribution to the open source products in a secure fashion be part of the virtual learning move- ability of governments of all types to en- into their own applications.