Estrin warned the audience of software developers and others that there are a number of fundamental problems wrong with the economy and infrastructure that are holding back innovation and the larger economy. And while computers and communications technology have long been the main drivers of growth, that’s changing.

“I believe in the future the key drivers will be different, said Estrin. “Clearly energy and the environment are key areas and also healthcare — that’s different than just medicine but the delivery of those system and how to provide it. And there are other drivers we don’t even know of yet.

“That doesn’t mean the computer industry is dead. But you have to be thinking more about interdisciplinary ways to address these new problems.”

Estrin doesn’t think globabilization is bad for the U.S. economy in theory, but it could be if we don’t start measuring up.

“Closing the innovation gap is not about the U.S. versus other countries, we want the whole world to be innovative. But it’s a disaster if others are innovative and we’re not. You don’t partner well from a position of weakness, but one of strength.”

Rodney Joffe, senior vice president with Neustar, described the ongoing battles with the worm Conficker he has been engaged in through the Conficker Working Group, a public-private consortium of security researchers working to stamp out the fast-mutating worm.

"As a sobering side note on this, last month in collaboration with one of the members of Conficker Working Group from Georgia Tech, we identified at least 300 critical medical devices from a single manufacturer ... that were infected with Conficker," Joffe said.

"The hospitals had no idea. The manufacturer had no idea. When we called them they were honestly shocked."

The infected devices, which are used to read high-density images like MRIs and CT scans in intensive-care units, became infected because they were connected to a local area network.

"They should never have been connected to the Internet," Joffe said.

Worse still, when members of the working group tried to fix the problem, Joffe said they were told they had to wait 90 days to modify the machines due to an arcane FDA rule.

"In some cases clearly there can be a disconnect between government rules, which are meant to protect consumers, and today's cyber threats," he said.

Similarly, noted security researcher Dan Kaminsky warned of potential threats to the energy grid as the industry moves toward remote power meters that communicate with each other through what is essentially a peer-to-peer mesh network.

But the energy industry has been largely removed from the rising tide of threats to networked systems, Kaminsky noted.

"This technology is being done by people who frankly have not had to deal with the last 10 years of attacks," he said.

"On analysis we've seen these meters actually able to be compromised remotely," he added. "The only thing preventing pretty widespread attack is a lack of connectivity."

But connectivity is coming, and with it a host of security scares like the recent Wall Street Journal report describing the exploits of Russian and Chinese hackers who managed to map the critical parts of the nation's energy infrastructure.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced matching legislation last week that would direct the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take a stronger role in shoring up the defenses of the electrical grid against cyber attacks.

Yes I'm a user
And I'm not the only one
I'm not a loser
With help from Puffy Tron

Clyburn, the daughter of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, has served on South Carolina's Public Service Commission since 1998. She currently heads the Washington arm of the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners.

The nomination of Clyburn, a Democrat, for commissioner leaves Obama with one Republican spot to fill on the five-person panel.

Obama has already tapped Julius Genachowski to chair the agency, but his nomination has yet to be considered by the Senate.

Two Republican commissioners, including Chairman Kevin Martin, recently stepped down, and Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, has been appointed to head the Rural Utilities Service, a division of the Department of Agriculture that is responsible for administering about a third of the money in the economic stimulus package allocated for broadband networks.

The FCC, currently under the interim chairmanship of Michael Copps, has been in limbo as it waits the Senate confirm of the permanent chairman. That confirmation hearing could be delayed until Obama produces a Republican nominee to round out the agency.

The agenda for the FCC's next meeting, scheduled for May 13, is relatively light. The most immediate task for the agency is the nationwide transition to digital television, scheduled for June 12. Down the road, the FCC is tasked with advising RUS and the National Teleommunications Information Administration in the dispersal of broadband stimulus money, and developing and reporting to Congress a national broadband strategy.

"Almost all core kernel subsystems, like virtual memory, memory allocators, file system frameworks for major file systems, and others were audited and overhauled to make use of highly concurrent algorithms," NetBSD 5.0's release notes state.

First, Google's official statement on the DoJ inquiry:

"The Department of Justice has contacted us to learn more about the impact of the settlement, and we are happy to answer their questions. It's important to note that this agreement is non-exclusive and if approved by the court, stands to expand access to millions of books in the U.S."

A more exuberant defense can be found on the Google Public Policy blog, where Book Search Director Adam Smith lays out scenarios where people's only chance to find the books they're looking for is through the Google project:

"Let's say you're a second-generation American interested in reading books in your parents' native language, Greek. Try finding more than a few books in foreign languages in most town libraries or bookstores in the United States.

"Or you're a graduate student who has been doing research on your thesis for years. You think you've read every book there is to read on your topic, but then you type your query into Google Book Search, and you suddenly discover a new original book or monograph that you weren't even aware of before."

In October, Google reached a $125 million settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers to end a copyright infringement lawsuit dating to 2005. The groups were claiming that Google's wholesale scanning operations of the collections of five major research libraries failed to compensate authors and publishers for their work.

Under the settlement, Google agreed to created a Book Rights Registry for authors and publishers to register and receive a share of the revenue Google will collect for subscriptions and sales.

But some groups have cried foul. They claim that the treatment of orphan works -- copyrighted books whose authors cannot be found -- is anticompetitive because it applies only to Google, meaning that if another firm wanted to create its own digital library it would be at a competitive disadvantage.

These concerns have caught the attention of some antitrust folks at the Justice Department, the same regulatory entity that threatened suit against Google's ad deal with Yahoo last fall.

Earlier this week, in an apparently unrelated development, the New York judge overseeing the settlement agreement extended the deadline for authors of so-called orphaned works to decide whether to participate in the registry.

So Google again finds itself on the defensive, trying to prove that it's not engaging in patently anticompetitive behavior. And it does so amid a noisy chorus of critics and skeptics who take the opportunity to remind us (and the regulators) of a host of privacy concerns and other long-simmering grievances they have with the company. Why do I feel like this won't be the last time this pattern plays out?

It’s a line made famous by the original Star Trek’s Dr. ‘Bones’ McCoy after he waved the seemingly magical medical Tricorder over someone just blasted by an advanced alien weapon.

Science fiction? Sure, but so were the little discs Kirk and Spock would pop into the Enterprise’s “computer banks” to get information. Remember, the original show aired in the mid-1960s, well before CD-ROMs, much less the World Wide Web. Or how about those mysterious electronic slates Kirk was always signing off on? Someone at UPS must’ve been watching.

But back to the Tricorder. The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is funding a noninvasive, needle-free system that uses light to measure tissue oxygen and pH as an alternative to needles to draw blood and cumbersome equipment to determine metabolic rate. The “Venus” prototype is being developed by Dr. Babs Soller and her colleagues. It has the capability to measure blood and tissue chemistry, metabolic rate (oxygen consumption) and other parameters.

“Tissue and blood chemistry measurements can be used in medical care to assess patients with traumatic injuries and those at risk for cardiovascular collapse,” Soller, who leads NSBRI’s Smart Medical Systems and Technology team, said in a release. “The measurement of metabolic rate will let astronauts know how quickly they are using up the oxygen in their life-support backpacks. If spacewalking astronauts run low on oxygen, the situation can become fatal.”

Placed directly on the skin, the four-inch by two-inch sensor uses near infrared light (that is just beyond the visible spectrum) to take the measurements. Blood in tiny blood vessels absorbs some of the light, but the rest is reflected back to the sensor. The monitor analyzes the reflected light to determine metabolic rate, along with tissue oxygen and pH.

Good for more than spacefarers

Former NASA astronaut and NSBRI User Panel Chairman Dr. Leroy Chiao said Soller’s sensor system and other technologies being developed for spaceflight promise to payoff in many other areas. “Not only is this research going to help future astronaut crews and operations, it has very real benefits to people on the ground, especially to people in more rural areas.”

For example, Soller said Venus would help first-responders get quick feedback on the severity of a person’s injury. “Data can be communicated directly to the hospital. Early access to this type of information may increase a victim’s chances of survival.”

Venus could also be useful to athletes and physical therapy patients to measure metabolic rate and to assist in determining the best level of activity or exercise needed.

Star Trek has been the inspiration, or at least presaged, for a number of tech advances including other work on Tricorder-like devices. Blogger Jay Joshi recently compiled a neat list of “Inventions Inspired by Star Trek”.

Chris Kelly, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy, has just announced he’s formed a committee to explore running for California Attorney General in 2010.

How serious is this bid? Hey, he’s already got a Kelly2010 Web site devoted to the effort.

“Over the past year, many people I respect have asked me to run for California Attorney General in 2010. Today, after much consideration, I am announcing that I’ve launched a committee to further explore the race,” Kelly said in a statement. “As the next Attorney General of California, I would utilize my experience to protect California consumers, maintain an open and accountable government, and guarantee an effective legal system.”

In a video at the site, Kelly notes his first job out of law school was as a law clerk in San Diego, helping a federal judge handle criminal and civil cases. He was also an advisor to the Clinton administration after working for him during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Facebook has had its share of privacy-related controversies, but it’s also helped pioneer the whole social networking phenomena and had to figure out some of the do’s and don’ts on a trial by error basis. “At Facebook I lead an outstanding team that is building a safer and more trusted online experience for more than 200 million people,” said Kelly.

“For the past four years, I’ve worked closely with Attorneys General across the nation to help make the Internet safer for consumers of all ages, particularly young people. I understand the technological challenges parents face in protecting their children from potential online predators and preserving online privacy because I have been building systems to help protect you and your children. Improving Internet safety for young people and providing people of all ages with a safer online experience will be a critical role for me as your Attorney General.”

Kelly said the exploratory committee will help him determine “how I can best continue my contributions to a safer, more secure and more transparent California. California’s justice system and our political system as a whole need a transformation that will enhance the lives of all Californians. California has been victim to inefficient government and wasteful spending. It’s time for that to change.”

"OpenMP allows programmers to more easily create efficient multi-threaded programs in C/C++," Burke explained. "With OpenMP 3.0 the user can explicitly section off code they wish to run in parallel"