Information Technology

The need for security in electronic communications is crucial in today’s world. The foundation for providing this security rests on mathematics. In particular, a certain kind of mathematical function called a “hash function” is central in the design of cryptographic systems that protect electronic communications. But recently the most secure hash function in use today was shown to be vulnerable to attack. An article in the upcoming issue of the Notices of the AMS describes these attacks and

A newly published report by the National Research Council (NRC) urging educators to teach K-12 students to think spatially and to use geographic information systems (GIS) to do so underscores the importance of educational research underway at Northwestern University.

Because geographic information systems are designed for use by scientists and are too complex for classroom use, the NRC report calls for the development of GIS software specifically designed to meet the needs of eleme

Until E! 2668 AUDIOCLAS, there was no method to automatically classify audio and musical sound effects. This EUREKA project has resulted in an objective sound-effect classification system that should provide a major boost to European film, video and audio production. The software system makes it possible to speed access to major sound-effect libraries and simplify synthesis of new or combined sound effects from the stored data. Audio DNA is used to identify sounds similar in nature, such as door s

New UW study says amount of covert and sometimes malicious programs is ’extensive’ Spyware is alive and well on the Internet.

That’s the overall message of a new study by University of Washington computer scientists who sampled more than 20 million Internet addresses, looking for the programs that covertly enter the computers of unwitting Web surfers to perform tasks ranging from advertising products to gathering personal information, redirecting Web browsers, or even using a

To allow business and people to rapidly, and easily, establish virtual organisations to share information, services and computing resources a team of European researchers are laying the technological foundations that will open the door to the era of the Semantic Grid.

Working under the IST programme-funded OntoGrid project, they are catalysing the evolution of the Grid from a distributed network of computers in which the meaning of information is implicit and hidden into a medium

In the digital age, cultural institutions face new technical and organisational challenges. They must improve and sometimes radically change how they acquire, store and preserve their collections as well as how they provide access to users. European research is helping them rise to the challenge.

For some years now the European Commission has been working to help cultural organisations, particularly archives, libraries and museums, develop the technological infrastructure, applicat