The Adobe Flash plugin has maintained its status as one of the most common ways for developers to create complex interactive Web features irrespective of the browser or operating system used, but experts point to new browser technologies such as the HTML 5 open Web standard as emerging challengers. Whereas Flash introduces additional capabilities to browsers following downloading and installation, the nonproprietary HTML 5 would guarantee that similar functionality is embedded within browsers that adopted it as a standard by default, with no single company controlling it. At the recent South by Southwest Interactive event, industry experts discussed the possibility that HTML 5′s Canvas component–which permits graphics, animation, and interactive features to run inside a browser without any additional plugins–could replace Flash’s own in-browser graphics and animation rendering capabilities. Complicating the competition between Flash and HTML 5 is the lack of support for Flash in Apple’s iPhone and iPad, while HTML 5 does not function on Internet Explorer.
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The U.K. government has provided a 250,000-pound grant to repair Bletchley Park, where British mathematicians, including Alan Turing, worked to break Germany’s Enigma codes in World War II. The site also is where one of the world’s first programmable computers, Colossus, resides. British prime minister Winston Churchill destroyed all evidence of the secret code-breaking program after the war, due to fears the Soviet Union would discover it, but in 1991 the Bletchley Park Trust, formed by historians and ex-codebreakers, saved the site and opened it to the public. The grant will be used to make repairs to the structure and to buy new computer equipment, but Bletchley Park supporters have more ambitious plans to turn the center into a National Museum of Computing.
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A prototype of a device that enables people with motor disabilities to communicate with just their thoughts was on display at the Medtech Conference in Stuttgart, Germany. A team from IMEC, the Holst Center, and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven developed the Mind Speller as a portable cap, which positions electrodes in key areas on the head to capture electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. A portable device connected to the cap includes a proprietary eight-channel EEG-chip to process the EEG signals, a microcontroller to digitize the EEG signals, and a 2.4 GHz radio to transmit EEG signals wirelessly to a nearby PC. The team developed signal processing algorithms that enable the PC to interpret brain waves and spell words and phrases. The Mind Speller can be adjusted for different people suffering from paralysis or speech or language disorders. IMEC is making the Mind Speller easier to use by adapting it to work with dry electrodes.
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The Mars rover Opportunity features new artificial intelligence software that will enable it to decide on its own when to stop and analyze rocks as it travels across the planet’s surface. Uploaded by engineers over the winter, the Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) software is designed to work with Opportunity’s computer system, which sets the specific criteria for taking images of rocks. Previously, NASA scientists determined which rocks needed further analysis after studying the images sent back to Earth by the rover. “It’s a way to get some bonus science,” says NASA’s Tara Estlin. “We spent years developing this capability on research rovers in the Mars Yard here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.” The upload of AEGIS also will serve as a test of robotic autonomy for NASA. The space agency wants to make greater use of robotic autonomy in future space missions.
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Researchers engaged in the together anywhere, together anytime (TA2) project seek to make telepresence technology available to households by creating the components needed to build an affordable and easy-to-install in-home telepresence system. The hardware would consist of a TV set, sound system, cameras, and microphones positioned in a living room, while the communications backbone would be managed by transparent software. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS has devised an audio communication engine to supply low-delay, hi-fi quality sound, while other project partners are focusing on the development of enhanced video communications, the linkage of interactive devices, and ambient intelligence deployment. The researchers say the technology should be especially beneficial for children and older adults, because they often find themselves more alone than other social groups.
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The universities of Southampton and Oxford will co-host the Institute for Web Science, a new institute established to span the chasm between research and business and help commercialize next-generation Web technologies. “We must understand the forces that have shaped [the Web], anticipate its evolution, and determine its future social and economic impact,” says Southampton professor Nigel Shadbolt, who will direct the institute with visiting professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee. “But we must also research a next generation of the Web.” The institute will serve as a nexus for collaboration between the hosting universities and other institutions in Britain and the related business communities. It also will take advantage of Southampton and Oxford’s reputations and their connections to centers overseas to draw funding and talent. “It is important and appropriate that Oxford should be involved in initiatives that seek to tap into the exciting future possibilities and potential of the Web,” says Oxford professor Andrew Hamilton.
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The Computing Research Association’s (CRA’s) 2008-2009 annual Taulbee Survey of its member departments found that the number of undergraduate students enrolled in computer science (CS) departments as well as the number of new CS majors have risen for the second consecutive year. The portion of new CS majors increased 8.5 percent over last year, while the total number of majors increased 5.5 percent, amounting to a 14 percent two-year gain. “The best and brightest students recognize that computer science is a field that offers tremendous intellectual excitement, great job prospects, and the ability to change the world,” says CRA chairman Eric Grimson. He says the uptick in CS enrollments and majors is a sign that the field has regained its coolness. The Taulbee survey suggests that CS graduation rates should climb in two to four years as the new students graduate. Meanwhile, total Ph.D. degree production declined by nearly 7 percent from last year, representing the first drop in seven years, implying that last year’s total was a recent high in production.
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The electronics within today’s cars are under increasing scrutiny in the wake of the recent problems reported with some Toyota vehicles. Modern cars and trucks contain as many 100 million lines of computer code, more than in some jet fighters. “It would be easy to say the modern car is a computer on wheels, but it’s more like 30 or more computers on wheels,” says SAE International’s Bruce Emaus. The on-board computers control several functions, including the brakes, cruise control, and entertainment systems. Built-in electronics, as a percentage of total vehicle costs, rose to 15 percent in 2005 from five percent in the late 1970s, and likely is higher today, reports IEEE Spectrum. Throttle-by-wire technology has replaced cables or mechanical connections. These systems are designed to protect against the kind of false signals or electronic interference that could cause sudden acceleration. Emaus says the software controlling a car’s electronics is engineered with defensive programming to prevent problems, but he acknowledges it is nearly impossible to test for every eventuality.

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Integrating visible and infrared video could lead to more successful rescue and search missions, according to Brigham Young University’s Nathan Rasmussen, who has created a hybrid system that makes it easier to interpret video images. To calibrate feeds from visible and infrared cameras, Rasmussen filmed a grid of black wires on a white blackboard. Sending a current down the wires to heat them up enabled the infrared camera to “see” the wires. He also developed an algorithm to align the vertices of the grids and make up the differences in viewing angles. Warmer areas in natural environments picked up by the infrared camera appear magenta on the hybrid video stream. During tests, volunteers were asked to watch either the hybrid feed or the two separate visible and infrared video streams while a series of beeps was played. Both groups were able to identify objects in the footage, but the viewers of the hybrid video were more accurate in noting the number of beeps they had heard, which suggests the hybrid feed was easier to interpret.

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The German Research Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) are launching Quantum Computing in Isotopically Engineered Diamond, a research project designed to develop new logic devices for faster computing and secure communications. The project is coordinated by University of Stuttgart professor Fedor Jelezko and Tsukuba University professor Junichi Isoya, with contributing research from the University of Dortmund, the Technical University of Munich, the National Institute of Material Science, and the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency. The research project will combine Stuttgart’s expertise in the detection and manipulation of internal quantum states of single atoms in diamond with JST’s knowledge of synthetic diamonds and single atom doping technologies. The technology will be used for testing novel data-processing protocols.

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