Virtual Training

University of Leeds researchers are leading the ImREAL project, which is developing a virtual-reality training tool aimed at creating a simulated learning environment that responds and adapts to users' behavior. The project also involves researchers from Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and will focus on training workers for business, academia, and volunteering. "Simulated environments provide a cost-effective alternative to standard face-to-face training, but they need to incorporate the cognitive, social, and emotional aspects of the activities that are being modeled," says Leeds' Vania Dimitrova. The ImREAL project will focus on developing systems for interpersonal communications, which are important for managing relationships, customer service, and providing advice. The project also will develop tools that help trainees learn how communication and social cues vary across different cultures. The researchers plan to develop a self-growing adaptive simulation that uses a virtual mentor to help users learn about the experience as they work through it. "By the end of three years, we aim to have two fully functioning demonstration simulators up and running that incorporate these new ideas and illustrate highly innovative technologies for learning," Dimitrova says.

Online Social Networks and Human Behavior

Online social networks have become important laboratories for social scientists studying human behavior. "The volume of online social networking is exploding, and it appears it is becoming more pervasive than real-life social networking," says Suffolk University professor Dan Stefanescu. Online social networks provide data that can be used to engineer new social systems and predict certain events and economic outcomes, Stefanescu says. Suffolk University researchers are studying the structure of online social networks and looking for properties that characterize them. "When studying different behaviors in online social networks, such as flow of information, bargaining power, flow of influence, it is useful to be able to characterize a node with respect to the whole network," Stefanescu says. He says the researchers use certain measures that can "describe various aspects of the 'importance' of a node in a network: how connected the node is, how easily it can reach other nodes, how much it mediates the connection between other nodes, etc." Stefanescu and colleagues are also studying interrelationships between offline characteristics of users, such as gender or culture, and their Internet preferences. They want to better understand the correlation between these offline characteristics and their online behavior, such as communication patterns and relationship building.

7 New Popular Programming Languages

Seven increasingly popular niche programming languages offer features that cannot be found in the dominant languages. For example, Python has gained popularity in scientific labs. "Scientists often need to improvise when trying to interpret results, so they are drawn to dynamic languages which allow them to work very quickly and see results almost immediately," says Python's creator Guido von Rossum. Many Wall Street firms also rely on Python because they like to hire university scientists to work on complex financial analysis problems. Meanwhile, Ruby is becoming popular for prototyping. Ruby sites are devoted to cataloging data that can be stored in tables. MatLab was originally designed for mathematicians to solve systems of linear equations, but it also has found a following in the enterprise because of the large volumes of data that organizations need to analyze. Although JavaScript is not a new programming language, new applications for JavaScript are constantly in development. For example, CouchDB uses JavaScript's Map and Reduce functions to help bring harmony to both client and server-side programming. Other popular niche languages include R, which also is known as S and S-Plus, Erlang, Cobol, and CUDA.

Internet Users To Hit 2 Billion: UN agency

The number of Internet users will surpass two billion this year, approaching a third of the world population, but developing countries need to step up access to the vital tool for economic growth, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday. Users have doubled in the past five years, and compare with an estimated global population of 6.9 billion, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said. Of 226 million new Internet users this year, 162 million will be from developing countries where growth rates are now higher, the ITU said in a report. However, by the end of 2010, 71 per cent of the population in developed countries will be online compared with 21 per cent of people in developing countries. The ITU said it was particularly important for developing countries to build up high-speed connections. “Broadband is the next tipping point, the next truly transformational technology,” said ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure, of Mali. “It can generate jobs, drive growth and productivity and underpin long-term economic competitiveness.” Access varies widely by region, with 65 per cent of people online in Europe, ahead of 55 per cent in the Americas, compared with only 9.6 per cent of the population in Africa and 21.9 per cent in Asia/Pacific, the ITU said. Access to the Internet in schools, at work and in public places is critical for developing countries, where only 13.5 per cent of people have the Internet at home, against 65 per cent in developed countries, it said. A study last week by another U.N. agency showed that mobile phones were a far more important communications technology for people in the poorest developing countries than the Internet.

Face of FaceBook

Through Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg aims to create something that moves beyond search engines and other Web-indexing tools. Three years ago, Zuckerberg announced Facebook's transition to a platform for applications devised by outside developers, while two years ago he introduced Facebook Connect, an app that allows users to sign onto other Web sites, gaming systems, and mobile devices with their Facebook account. Spring 2010 marked the unveiling of the Open Graph, which lets users reading articles see what articles their Facebook friends have read, shared, and enjoyed. Zuckerberg ultimately envisions Facebook as an underlying layer of virtually every electronic device. Such ambitions require people to be willing to cede more and more personal information to Facebook and its partners, and last December Facebook amended its privacy policies so that much more of users' information would be publicized by default. Users and institutions such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center balked, and in response Zuckerberg announced a streamlined version of the privacy settings. Critics say his vision of the world as a more honest place through greater transparency does not align with many individuals' inclinations.

5 Indispensable IT Skills of the Future

In the future, the most sought-after information technology (IT)-related skills will be those that involve the ability to mine large amounts of data, protect systems from security threats, manage the risks of growing complexity in new systems, and communicate how technology can increase productivity. By 2020, IDC predicts that the amount of data generated every year will reach 35 zettabytes, which will stimulate a high demand for IT workers that can analyze the data, as well as work with business units to define what data is needed and where to find it. Risk management skills also will be in high demand through 2020, especially at a time when business is working with growing IT complexity, says futurist David Pearce Snyder. Meanwhile, robots will have taken over more jobs by 2020, says futurist Joseph Coates. Protecting users' privacy also will be very important in 2020, because fewer interactions will be face-to-face, more personal information will be available online, and new technologies could make it easier to impersonate people, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report. In addition, network systems and data communications management will be a top priority in 2020, Snyder says.

Future on Display

National Taiwan University (NTU) researchers have developed a lamp that can convert a multitouch tabletop display into a three-dimensional (3D) projection. Users viewing an image projected onto a tabletop display can zoom in on specific areas by positioning the lamp device on them. "We combine an infrared projector and a standard color projector to simultaneously project visible content and invisible markers on the table surface," says NTU's Li-Wei Chan. The lamp is equipped with infrared cameras and can use the hidden markers to compute its position in three dimensions. The lamp analyzes the information to control the projection of high-resolution images onto the correct place on the tabletop display. The NTU team also has created a tablet computer that enables viewers to see a two-dimensional scene in 3D. Users hold the computer over a specific area on the map, and a 3D view of that area will appear on the screen.

3D Virtual Learning

Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) researchers working on the eMadrid project are studying how to use three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds for teaching. Three-dimensional virtual worlds must include teaching elements such as a training program, with a sequence of activities for students to acquire knowledge, as well as a methodology to evaluate previously defined learning results, to become a learning platform, says UC3M professor Carlos Delgado Kloos. "The 3D learning environments are not only appropriate for transmission of knowledge, but also for teaching competencies, and if they also include augmented reality elements for the manipulation of a three-dimensional world with real physical elements, even better results are obtained, as the barrier of a fictional world immersion is reduced," Kloos says. The eMadrid project is working to achieve these standards by collaborating with researchers from other universities, including Autonoma, Complutense, Politecnica, Rey Juan Carlos, and the National Distance Education University of Spain. The researchers are developing defined standards and best practices for implementing teaching environments in 3D virtual platforms.

Watching 3D Without the Glasses

Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group (APG) has designed a lens that could help make it possible to watch three-dimensional (3D) movies without glasses. The lens is thinner at the bottom than at the top, a design that steers light to a viewer's eyes by switching light-emitting diodes along its bottom edge on and off. When combined with a backlight, the switching diodes make it possible to show different images to different viewers, or to create a 3D effect by presenting different images to a viewer's left and right eye. "What's so special about this lens is that it allows us to control where the light goes," says APG's Steven Bathiche. Microsoft's display can deliver 3D video to two viewers at the same time no matter where they are positioned. The 3D display uses a camera to track viewers so it knows where to steer the light. The lens design, which includes a rounded, thicker end, dictates how the light bounces around and when and where it can escape, Bathiche says. He says the lens could replace the traditional backlight in a liquid-crystal display to create a glasses-free 3D display.

RobotC 2.0 Programming Language

Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Academy recently released ROBOTC 2.0, a programming language for robots and a suite of training tools designed for use by both elementary school students and college-level engineering courses. Based on the C programming language, ROBOTC is designed to evolve as students move from elementary school through college-level robot programming. Version 2.0 feature a new graphical user interface and an interactive real-time debugger that operates with either a wired or wireless connection to a PC. "We introduced ROBOTC four years ago because students working with robots should spend their time learning scientific, mathematical, and engineering principles, not learning a different programming language for each robot platform," says Robotics Academy director Robin Shoop. ROBOTC 2.0 is an integrated development environment that consists of a compiler, text and project editor, and a run-time environment. The debugger supports both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi links and provides users with complete access from a PC.

Microsoft Manual Deskterity

Microsoft researchers have developed Manual Deskterity, a computer interface that combines touch input with the precision of a pen. The prototype drafting application, designed for the Microsoft Surface tabletop touchscreen, enables users to perform touch actions such as zooming in and out and manipulating images, but they also can use a pen to draw or annotate those images. Manual Deskterity also allows users to touch an image onscreen with one hand while using the pen in the other hand to take notes or perform other actions that pertain to that object. Users need to learn more tricks to use Manual Deskterity, but the natural user interface should ease the learning curve by engaging muscle memory. "This idea that people just walk up with an expectation of how a [natural user interface] should work is a myth," says Microsoft research scientist Ken Hinckley. The researchers also plan to adapt the interface for use with mobile devices. Incorporating only touch input into devices is a mistake, according to Hinckley, who believes that pen and touch interactions can complement each other.

Using Twitter to Predict Event Success

HP Labs researchers have developed a way to use Twitter to gauge real-time interest in movies and accurately predict how they will perform at the box office on opening weekend. HP Labs' Sitaram Asur and Bernardo Huberman developed computational formulas that analyze Twitter feeds and use the rate at which movies are mentioned in Twitter updates to predict the first-weekend returns. The research also showed Twitter could be used to predict other events, such as how major products will be received and the outcomes of elections, according to Huberman. HP Labs studied nearly 3 million Twitter updates that mentioned 24 major movie releases over the course of three months. The researchers factored in the release date and the number of theaters the movie would be shown in, to predict the opening weekend box office performance with 97.3 percent accuracy. They also developed a system that evaluates the sentiments of Twitter updates as positive, negative, or neutral, to predict the following weekend's returns with 94 percent accuracy.

Microsoft OfficeTalk

Microsoft is preparing a small-scale pilot for OfficeTalk, an experimental microblogging service for business users developed by its OfficeLabs researchers. The pilot will allow Microsoft to study how businesses use OfficeTalk, which enables employees to share information in short messages similar to Twitter. "This concept test applies the base capabilities of microblogging to a business environment, enabling employees to post their thoughts, activities, and potentially valuable information to anyone who might be interested," according to a company blog post. OfficeTalk was one of the most popular concepts in OfficeLabs' internal tests. Use of the microblogging service quickly spread across informal networks, offering a unique and efficient collaboration experience, according to the blog post. "OfficeTalk isn't a product--it's a research project focused on learning how people might use social networking tools at work and in what ways both people and organizations realize their value," the blog post says.

Mobile Learning

Peruvian and Belgian researchers have developed an open source mobile learning application that enables health-care workers to connect to the free learning platform Moodle with their iPhone or iPod. The application was tested by health-care workers engaged in 20 clinics throughout Peru. The three-month pilot program used multimedia, three-dimensional animations, group discussions, policy documents, and peer-reviewed literature. The researchers are now finalizing the code before making it available under a Create Commons GNU license. Once the application is completed, the researchers say that institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and companies will be a

Multilingual Search Engine

Universidad Politecnica de Madrid researchers have developed a multilingual search engine that can query a data repository written in Interlingua using questions formulated in any language and provide an answer in that same language. The search engine requires an information base that is written in the Universal Networking Language, the only general-purpose Interlingua. The search engine works by deducing the answer from the question instead of just finding the answer. First, the system searches the text corpus for statements that could contain the answer. Second, it determines which statements actually contain the answer. Finally, it generates the answer in the same language the question was formulated in. The researchers used a biographical encyclopedia to test the system, and reported that 82 percent of the 75 questions they posed were correct.

China & Russia Tops Intl Programming Competition

The top 10 rankings of the 2010 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) were dominated by five Russian teams and four Chinese teams. In first, second, third, and fourth place were Shanghai Jiaotong University, Moscow State University, National Taiwan University, and Taras Shevchenko Kiev National University, respectively. The University of Warsaw claimed eighth place, making it the only non-Russian or non-Chinese team to make the top 10. ACM President Dame Wendy Hall described the ICPC's global nature as an exceptional instance of the association's recent efforts to extend its technical activities, conferences, and services for the computing profession, and to acknowledge computing achievement in international areas. "By strengthening ACM's ties in multiple regions throughout the world and raising awareness of its many benefits and resources with the public and in-country decision-makers, we can play an active role in the critical technical, educational, and social issues that surround the computing community," she said. Hall also stressed the importance of computer science education in the international economy, citing ACM's initiatives to help high school students, teachers, and parents better comprehend the kinds of careers that studying computer science facilitates.

Digital Doomsday

In the event of a disaster that destroys the vast majority of the world, humanity's legacy will largely reside on data stored on hard drives. However, hard drives were never meant for long-term storage and no one can be sure how long they will last. The Canadian Conservation Institute's (CCI's) Joe Iraci says that although the most important data is backed up on magnetic tapes or optical discs, these formats cannot be trusted to last even five years. Iraci has conducted accelerated aging tests by exposing different forms of media to high heat and humidity. The tests found that the most reliable data storage devices are recordable CDs with a reflective layer of gold and a phthalocyanine dye layer. Many experts believe that after a major catastrophe only information that is written on paper will survive. "Even the worst kind of paper can last more than 100 years," says the CCI's Season Tse. Proposals to make a paper format that can store digital data for centuries using a system similar to bar codes have been slowed due to a lack of commercial interest. Another option is the Rosetta Disk, which holds descriptions and texts of 1,000 languages. The Rosetta Disk is made out of nickel, etched with text that is only readable at 1,000 times magnification. Each disk holds about 30,000 pages of text or images.

Latest Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Research

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed Sikuli, a system that enables computer users to write programs using screen shots of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The researchers say that Sikuli could allow novice computer users to create their own programs without having to master a programming language. Sikuli was designed by MIT professor Rob Miller and graduate student Tsung-Hsiang Chang, and the University of Maryland's Tom Yeh. The researchers won the best-student-paper award at ACM's recent User Interface Software and Technology conference. The paper described how Sikuli can build short programs that aid other, larger programs. Sikuli uses computer vision algorithms to analyze the computer screen and can work with any program that has a graphical interface. Another Sikuli application lets programmers who are working on large software development projects create scripts that automatically test an application's GUI components.

Thought Controlled Technology

Researchers are developing technology that would enable people to control electronic devices using only their thoughts. The technology uses software that can analyze and interpret patterns in the brain's electrical activity when people think about specific words or actions. "If we could access the global information network simply by using the power of our thoughts, it would open up incredible new opportunities for computing technology," says Intel's Dean Pomerleau, who has been working with Carnegie Mellon University researchers to study brain patterns. The U.S. Army is working with University of California, Irvine researchers to study how to harness brain waves to send nonverbal messages in battle. Meanwhile, Mayo Clinic researchers think thoughts can be read faster by placing sensors inside the skull. The Mayo Clinic's Jerry Shih says that one day people's brains could be implanted with microchips similar to those used for personal computers. Already, University of Southern California researchers have implanted chips into the brains of rats to try to study ways to boost memory, with applications for Alzheimer's patients in mind.

International Internet Classroom

University of Arizona (UA) researchers are developing the International Internet Classroom as a way to help teachers access information and teaching resources. The project will use artificial intelligence and user-generated data to create pertinent educational resources. The UA team plans to release a Unit Package Editor in February 2010 to a small test group of teachers. The tool will enable teachers to build and share collections of educational resources such as lectures, exercises, homework assignments, and videos. "Just about every single educational idea is out there, and we want to make it easy to develop and to share that information," says UA computer science department head Paul Cohen. A similar project, called eTwinning, already exists in Europe and has about 74,000 members and 3,980 active projects for teachers to use. The service connects educators from European Union countries. International collaboration among students is very important, as educators in other countries have realized, while U.S. teachers seem to fight global educating efforts, says Alan November, an international education consultant. As part of the UA project, a survey of U.S. educators was developed to determine how they use Internet-based resources. According to the survey, teachers use tools such as Wikipedia, Discovery Education, and YouTube, as well as search engines such as Google and Yahoo, to locate educational resources.