Researchers at Queen’s University are calling their new technology the future of board games. The technology, which looks like a set of white, cardboard hexagrams from the game board of Settlers of Catan, enables people to play electronic games in a traditional setting around a table, while enhancing game controls. Queen’s Human Media Lab (HML) professor Roel Vertegaal worked with graduate student Mike Rooke to develop the technology, which makes use of an overhead camera and a projector that allows designers to turn each piece of cardboard into a minicomputer capable of displaying video images. Vertegaal says such board games will become practical with the emergence of thin-film organic light-emitting diode screens. Meanwhile, Vertegaal also is working with HML student Eric Akaoka on research into DisplayObjects, which would allow any object to become a computer. “In the near future, a computer will have any shape or form, and iPhone-like computer displays will start appearing on any product,” he says. “These organic user interfaces will be embedded in real-world interactions.”

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China has demonstrated the most growth in scientific research of any country in the past three decades and is on pace to overtake the United States as the world’s scientific leader by 2020, according to a recent Thomson Reuters study. The study found that China has experienced a 64-fold increase in peer-reviewed scientific papers since 1981. “China is out on its own, far ahead of the pack,” says the Royal Society of London’s James Wilsdon. Chinese researchers also have become more eager to work with international colleagues, with almost nine percent of Chinese-based papers having at least one U.S.-based co-author. Three main factors are driving China’s boom of scientific research, Wilsdon says. The government has made an enormous financial investment, new scientific breakthroughs are organized to flow from basic science to commercial applications, and Chinese researchers based in the United States and Europe are being recruited back to China.

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Researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have incorporated cloud computing technology into Dimmunix, a new tool designed to make programs immune to future recurrences of bugs. When a bug manifests in software for the first time, Dimmunix saves its signature, then observes the response of the computer and records a trace, which enables the tool to recognize the bug the next time. When the bug appears again, Dimmunix automatically changes the execution of the program so it continues to run smoothly. The use of cloud computing technology means the tool can protect an entire network of computers from bugs, even in an environment such as the Internet. EPFL professor George Candea compares Dimmunix to the way the human immune system develops antibodies after an infection. “Subsequently, when the immune system encounters the same pathogen once again, the body recognizes it and knows how to effectively fight the illness,” he says. Dimmunix is available online for free.

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The number of foreign scientists that earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering in the United States continues to grow, despite a weak job market and increased opportunities at home, according to a study by the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. The study found that 62 percent of foreigners who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007, and 60 percent of those receiving Ph.D.s in 1997 were still in the U.S. a decade later. Foreign scientists account for about 40 percent of all science and engineering Ph.D. holders in the U.S. The Energy Department’s Michael Finn says that Ph.D. graduates in computer science and the physical sciences are the most likely to stay in the United States after graduation. However, other analysts say that foreign scientists are more likely to return home, especially due to the current job market. “I have no doubt that the 2009 data will show a dramatic shift,” says Duke University professor Vivek Wadwha. According to a recent National Science Foundation survey, there were 158,430 foreign science and engineering students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs in April 2009, up eight percent from the previous year.

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University of Bath researchers led by professor Peter Hall and Ph.D. candidate Chris Li have developed software that enables a computer to process video of a tree and then generate lifelike computer animations of trees and the movement of branches and leaves in the wind. The program allows users to draw around the tree outline in the first frame of the video, and then make a model of the tree and track the movement of branches and leaves in the video. Algorithms copy this movement, enabling the software to generate trees that are slightly different from each other. Li says the program would be a helpful tool for animators and computer game designers. “Our system will make it faster and cheaper for animators to create animated backgrounds,” he says. “In the future, we want to use this same technique to animate other objects like clouds, water, fire, and smoke.”

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The U.S. government is exploring ways to combat and deter cyberattacks from abroad. After a recent Pentagon simulated cyberattack, it became clear that the enemy had all the advantages–stealth, anonymity, and unpredictability. The situation has led some in the government to compare it to that of the Cold War era, and there is intense debate inside and outside the government about what the United States can realistically threaten. Diplomatic demarche, formal protest, economic retaliation, and criminal prosecution have all been suggested as possible responses to increased cyberattacks. “We are now in the phase that we found ourselves in during the early 1950s, after the Soviets got the bomb,” says Harvard University professor Joseph Nye. The Internet has blurred the line between military and civilian targets because an enemy can cripple a target without ever aiming at the government or military, which hinders the U.S. Department of Defense’s authority to intervene. The U.S. government has responded to increasing cyberattacks by creating a new United States Cyber Command, run though the Defense Department.

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A swarm robot demonstrator has been successfully tested by a European collaboration that brought together nine research and industry partners from seven countries. Part of the ROBOSWARM project, the demonstrator consisted of 10 to 15 devices that enabled the swarm of simple robots to carry out cleaning tasks. Fixed radio frequency identification (RFID) tags facilitated the positioning and navigation of the swarms, enabling project partners to coordinate the robots for sharing tasks. The project sought to develop swarms that would be robust, self-configurable, and inexpensive. The partners say the ROBOSWARM technology provides a level of communication that would enable robots to learn from other members of the swarm, and split tasks to allow for scalability of the swarm. The Department of Computer Science at Estonia’s Tallinn University of Technology led the project, coordinating with teams from Estonia, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Finland, and Sweden.

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The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) will award $30 million across two to four projects to redesign the Internet via new security, reliability, and collaborative applications, under the aegis of its Future Internet Architectures (FIA) program. “Proposals should not focus on making the existing Internet better through incremental changes, but rather should focus on designing comprehensive architectures that can meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century,” NSF says. The proposals should seek out transformative research that could potentially facilitate the generation of architectures that extend outside of current core networking components, mechanisms, and application requirements. The NSF also wants researchers to develop more efficient ways to disseminate information and manage users’ identities while accounting for emerging wireless and optical technologies. The NSF says FIA proposals must feature prototype plans, and may mandate the employment of research networks such as Global Environment for Network Innovations or the National Cyber Range.

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University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory researchers Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson contend in a paper that the 3D Secure (3DS) credit card authentication system branded as the MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa schemes is deeply flawed. The researchers call attention to a number of vulnerabilities. For instance, the mechanism used to display the 3DS form is incorporated within an iframe or pop-up with no address bar, leaving no clue as to the form’s origin. This conflicts with banks’ recommendation to customers to avoid phishing sites by only entering bank passwords into sites they can identify as the bank’s own site. The initial password entry process that takes place the first time a cardholder uses a 3DS-enabled card to shop online also is a point of criticism, as the user is asked to enter a new password as part of the process of facilitating the purchase. Murdoch and Anderson argue that the timing of this request is wrong, as the shopper is probably more interested in the transaction than security and is more likely to select a weak password. The paper cites the single sign-on model that the 3DS system deploys as inappropriate, and says that it should be supplanted by a transaction authentication system in which a user receives a SMS message asking for an authorization code from the shopper.

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The revolution in texting, social networking, and crowdsourcing has enabled innovations such as the 4636 texting service, which is aiding the disaster relief efforts in Haiti by recruiting scores of volunteers to help translate messages that could mean the difference between life and death. Another crowdsourcing initiative is CrisisCommons, which has organized thousands of volunteers to enhance the map of Haiti available on the open source OpenStreetMap site. Other projects CrisisCommons is spearheading include one to build a Craigslist-style “we need, we have” Web site to connect people offering resources to those that need them. The proliferation of mobile communications infrastructure to the developing world has supported the emergence of new tools for using text messaging, run by relatively small organizations that can work fast using limited resources in difficult conditions. This places them in a pivotal position as facilitators of disaster relief. Individuals and organizations have been galvanized to collaborate via social networking media by the realization that large-scale activities can be coordinated through online networks.

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