Information Technology

There are some computer problems so hard that computer scientists consider them out of reach. They label them “intractable” and move on.

But researchers at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., have developed tools to solve such problems, at least in certain practical situations. Mostly their approach is to have the computer do what a human being might do: stop, go back and start over and try something different.

“Even though these problems are intractable in the worst ca

The profusion of wireless communications in homes, in coffee shops and even on battlefields presents us with fantastic new conveniences — but also new security problems. Indiana University computer scientist Markus Jakobsson will discuss “stealth” attacks over wireless networks, which can disrupt communications and endanger personal information. One such attack is “denial of service,” in which devices are overloaded with so much incoming information they cease functioning properly.

A new security approach could improve safeguarding of credit card numbers, bank passwords and other sensitive information for those who surf the Internet using wireless connections, researchers told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)on Saturday.

The same protocol could be employed in many computer networks in which two computers, hand-held communication devices or network nodes need to simultaneously verify the identity of each o

If you’re a ship captain and there might be 50-foot waves headed your way, you’d appreciate some information about them, right? That’s the idea behind a wave model system a Texas A&M University at Galveston professor has developed. His detailed wave prediction system is currently in use in the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of Maine.

Vijay Panchang, head of the Department of Maritime Systems Engineering, doesn’t make waves – he predicts what they’ll do, when

“The Web will become more than what we see on our computer screens, it will become a place where computers interact with each other and where meaning is attached to information.” That is the vision behind a cutting-edge Semantic Web project.

For Richard Benjamins, the coordinator of the IST project ESPERONTO, the future of the Semantic Web lies in it becoming “something akin to ambient intelligence” with the meaning of digital information understandable not only by humans but by a

A new semantic web interface, which will improve access to information and present search results in associated categories in one window, was launched this week.

This new approach means that instead of users having to wade through long lists of search data to decide what is relevant, the interface will enable the machine to pull related sources into one usable view.

The new mSpace software framework developed by the School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) at t