Researchers at the Warsaw University of Technology in Poland have studied the characteristics of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls in an attempt to gain a better understanding of ordinary traffic. Security remains an issue for VoIP calls, which can be hijacked and used to send confidential information over the Internet. Wojciech Mazurczyk and colleagues decided to study ordinary VoIP calls so experts would have a way to compare and contrast regular calls with those that have been embedded with stolen data. VoIP calls can be compromised by changing the order in which the digital packets are sent, or by deliberately delaying certain packets that have embedded data, a technique known as Lost Audio Packet Steganography (LACK). The team’s research shows that packets are not normally re-ordered in a way for hiding data, so attacks that re-order data are not a real threat. However, LACK attacks would be difficult to spot because of the routine loss of data packets.

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A panel of experts told U.S. senators at a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that the United States would be defeated in an all-out cyberwar, and reducing this vulnerability will not occur until the government takes a more active interest in safeguarding the nation’s network. Former director of national security and national intelligence Michael McConnell warned that greater government involvement may not happen until after a “catastrophic event” transpires. The focus of the hearing was the Cyber Security Act of 2009, which would oversee organizations and companies that supply critical U.S. infrastructure, mandate licensing and certification for cybersecurity professionals, and sponsor grant and scholarship programs.

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Oxford University researchers have developed the Parallel Tracking and Mapping (PTAM) program, a camera-tracking system for fusing real and three-dimensional (3D) computer-generated visuals. PTAM enables users to project virtual objects or characters into a video stream that appears on real world surfaces. “The blending of real and virtual worlds is common enough in films and television, but is usually achieved by extensive processing of the recorded images or by filming in studios with known objects at fixed locations,” says Oxford professor David Murray. “The PTAM software allows developers to augment a camera’s video stream in real time and in everyday locations.” PTAM builds a map of thousands of features from objects and scenes, tracks accurately and at a standard frame rate, and calculates the camera viewpoint and angle. The technology also could improve global positioning systems and digital compasses, and provide support for satellite, 3G, and Wi-Fi signals.
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University of the Basque Country (UBC) researcher Markel Vigo recently published his Ph.D. thesis on the Web Accessibility Quantitative Metric (WAQM), a system that automatically measures the accessibility level of a Web page. WAQM can measure the level of accessibility according to the type of disability of each person and automatically create an accessibility report for each Web page. This allows users to conduct an Internet search and have criteria related to their specific disability taken into consideration. The system uses the Unified Guidelines Language to give each Web page a score, which is shown next to the Web page’s link, based on its level of accessibility. Vigo says his system gives people with disabilities more control when carrying out a search on the Internet. WAQM also can create different accessibility grades based on the type of device that is being used. Each user gets a profile based on information about the type of disability, the Internet device of choice, and other factors, and this profile is used to personalize the accessibility report for each Web page.
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Aberystwyth University researcher Stephen Pugh has developed a picture-taking robot designed to look for signs of life on Mars. Pugh is fine-tuning the robot’s onboard panoramic cameras and teaching it to point and shoot at features on the planet’s surface. “I have been looking in particular at how the robotic rover can point its camera at specific targets, such as rocks, without human intervention,” he says. The research’s long-term goal is to increase scientific data for all future planetary missions. “NASA has already found evidence of ice on Mars, but I don’t think rover will find evidence of anything more than water because if it was there I think we would have found it by now,” Pugh says. The researcher is developing software that will enable the robot to discover locations of interest more quickly and to choose targets for pictures by itself, without communicating with scientists on Earth.
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Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin announced that the government would spend more than a tenth of its budget on science and innovation this year. “We have assigned about 1.1 trillion rubles ($36.8 billion), or more than 10 percent of the federal budget, for fundamental and applied sciences, higher education, high-tech medicine, and specialized federal programs,” Putin said. The government increased its science and innovation spending by more than 300 billion rubles in 2009 compared to 2008. The new effort to promote science and innovation includes requiring competition for scientific projects and giving preference to innovative options when the state buys products and services. Separately, Putin announced that Russia has allocated 1.1 billion rubles ($37 million) to develop supercomputer technologies in Russia. Last year Russia launched its fastest supercomputer, Lomonosov, at the Moscow State University’s Research Computing Center. Lomonosov has a peak speed of 420 teraflops and is ranked as the 12th fastest computer in the world.

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The European Union 3Plast research consortium plans to develop sensors that can be printed onto plastic film and attached to everyday objects. The sensors are being designed to respond to changes in temperature and pressure, which would enable them to detect the movement of a finger. “The sensor is combined with an organic transistor, which strengthens the sensor signal,” says project leader Gerhard Domann. Researchers have already printed sensors onto film, and are now optimizing transistors that can amplify changes in temperature and pressure. “By providing everyday objects with information about their environment–for example, whether a person is approaching–by means of pressure and temperature sensors, we can create and market new devices that can be controlled just by pointing a finger,” Domann says. It will likely take several years to print sensors on large surfaces, he says.
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The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access recently released a report addressing the problem of ensuring that digital information will be accessible in the future. The report provides principles and actions to facilitate long-term economic sustainability and context-specific recommendations geared toward four specific scenarios–scholarly discourse, research data, commercially-owned cultural content (such as digital media), and collectively produced Web content such as personal Websites and blogs. “Valuable digital information spans the spectrum from official e-documents to some YouTube videos,” says Task Force co-chair Fran Berman. The report also cites four distinct prioritized courses of action–organizational action, technical action, public policy action, and education and public outreach action. The report concludes that preservation strategies need to develop at their own pace. “A key element of a robust sustainability strategy is to anticipate the effect of these changes and take steps to minimize the risk that long-term preservation goals will be impacted by short-term disruptions,” says Task Force co-chair Brian Lavoie.
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Science and math educators are keeping classes knowledgeable and interesting, but they are not promoting science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers, according to most students surveyed by Harris Interactive for the American Society for Quality (ASQ). High school student respondents also say they do not think STEM knowledge is crucial to acquiring a good job. “We believe that as students get older and begin to diversify their studies and become more aware of the wide range of available career opportunities, they start to think that math and science aren’t necessarily critical to their job hunt,” says ASQ’s Maurice Ghysels. He says that teachers often leave out discussions of career options because of time and budget constraints. One of the challenges is that teachers themselves may have little knowledge of the wide variety of available STEM career options. Despite these drawbacks, there are ways to kindle interest in STEM careers among students, one of them being to offer hands-on lab activities and real-world examples of STEM applications at an earlier educational level such as elementary school.
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Recently discovered problems with the paper records produced by electronic voting machines in Cuyahoga Country, Ohio, could make a recount after next year’s presidential election a disaster. More than 20 percent of the paper printouts from touch-screen voting machines were found to be unreadable. The recount was necessary because the vote counting software crashed twice on election night and the margin of victory was one-half of one percent or less. Election workers found the unreadable ballots while conducting a recount of two races, which involved only 17 of the county’s 1,436 precincts. Board of Elections director Jane Platten says recounting the ballots for the entire county in the 2008 presidential election could take more than a week. Cuyahoga County uses Premier Elections Solutions (formerly Diebold) touch-screen voting machines that store votes on a memory card inside each machine. During the election a paper record of each vote is printed on a long reel of paper that is stored inside the machine. The paper record is used during recounts, but can be damaged or unreadable, usually because of a paper jam while printing. Premier Elections Solutions’ Chris Riggall says the company will investigate the situation.
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