Submission + - New Systems Management Tool
An anonymous reader writes: New IT Management Tool that actually does what it says it does.
Bookmark Researchers take internet back to the drawing board (theregister.co.uk)
Submission + - Death of Computer Science much exaggerated
yorickwilks writes: "Why have over sixty professors risen up to deny McBride's claim (Slashdot 3
March) that university Computer Science is finished; is their attitude more than
good old job protection, and a refusal to see how their subject fits into the modern world?
But while Neil McBride's piece on "Why Computer Science is dying" was
stimulating, it was also utterly wrong, both as to facts and its
unsupported claims. Contrary to the impression McBride gave, there are
today more computer science students in the UK than in all of the more
traditional sciences — physics, chemistry, biology — put together. Even so, few
would argue that basic physical science is dying, or losing out to
industrial research, just because it is sometimes hard to recruit
undergraduates from our current school system. Likewise in our field.
McBride's complaints may best be seen as a description of what has
happened in universities which do not do computer science research, but
his disbelief that Microsoft hires computer science PhDs suggests he
himself knows little of that world, and Bill Gates explicitly asserted that he wanted
more of them in an article last month (Toronto Globe and Mail, February 8).
There is another oddity in McBride's piece
when he rubbishes the products of computer science departments but tells
us, with apparent approbation, that Indian universities produce "100,000
skilled English-speaking" graduates every year, having taken over "the
very paradigms and skills that are dear to British computer scientists".
Surely, if the Indians are right to pursue this then so must we.
There is no difficulty in revealing the basic facts about all this. The
website of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
carries a copy of its International Review of UK Computer Science. And
this found that the standard of research in universities was excellent;
the creators of web search engines like Google, for example, continue to
emerge from university departments while in the UK, important work that
made the likes of Skype and MSN Messenger possible, was done in our
universities. All market surveys show huge and continuing demand for
well-trained computer science graduates on either side of the Atlantic,
a demand that is indeed now being met by India, partly because of the
growth of pessimistic beliefs like McBride's in this country.
But his article does touch on real issues, well-known and much debated
in the field. There is the gap between the computer science core, taught
in good departments, and which is much in demand in industry, and the
much softer IT/ICT disciplines, which involve some business training,
and much use of commercial packages but little rigorous programming.
E-skills degrees of this sort are now being offered in many places, and
one must wish them well. But it is not yet clear what the future of
their graduates will be, because they are neither one thing nor the
other, and recruiters know this. Nevertheless — and here is the crux of
our argument — promotion of these new degrees does not require or
support an attack on computer science itself in the way McBride has
chosen.
On the other hand, he is right that computer science must reach out much
more to other disciplines, from psychology, philosophy, sociology and
linguistics to medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology and beyond,
because the computational metaphor is now at the intellectual core of
most disciplines. Far from being dead, computing is now effectively the
new "Queen of the Sciences". How odd it is that most houses and offices
now have a thing still called a "computer", but barely one in a hundred
is ever used to program. And soon this will change and most people will
deal only with "black box" devices that contain great computing power to
enable them to play games, access the web, drive cars, see films and
fill fridges, and it will not occur to anyone to call them computers.
Yet behind these devices there will still be armies of trained
programmers from good university computer science departments, based
either here in the UK or abroad. That last choice is still ours to some
extent, but there is no way out of this shortage of expertise in this country by
declaring, as McBride does, that a crucial university subject is
finished because he cannot or will not teach or research its core
discipline.
[Over 60 UK Professors of Computer Science agreed to sign this article —
the list is at http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~yorick/THES/thes.html%5 D"
March) that university Computer Science is finished; is their attitude more than
good old job protection, and a refusal to see how their subject fits into the modern world?
But while Neil McBride's piece on "Why Computer Science is dying" was
stimulating, it was also utterly wrong, both as to facts and its
unsupported claims. Contrary to the impression McBride gave, there are
today more computer science students in the UK than in all of the more
traditional sciences — physics, chemistry, biology — put together. Even so, few
would argue that basic physical science is dying, or losing out to
industrial research, just because it is sometimes hard to recruit
undergraduates from our current school system. Likewise in our field.
McBride's complaints may best be seen as a description of what has
happened in universities which do not do computer science research, but
his disbelief that Microsoft hires computer science PhDs suggests he
himself knows little of that world, and Bill Gates explicitly asserted that he wanted
more of them in an article last month (Toronto Globe and Mail, February 8).
There is another oddity in McBride's piece
when he rubbishes the products of computer science departments but tells
us, with apparent approbation, that Indian universities produce "100,000
skilled English-speaking" graduates every year, having taken over "the
very paradigms and skills that are dear to British computer scientists".
Surely, if the Indians are right to pursue this then so must we.
There is no difficulty in revealing the basic facts about all this. The
website of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
carries a copy of its International Review of UK Computer Science. And
this found that the standard of research in universities was excellent;
the creators of web search engines like Google, for example, continue to
emerge from university departments while in the UK, important work that
made the likes of Skype and MSN Messenger possible, was done in our
universities. All market surveys show huge and continuing demand for
well-trained computer science graduates on either side of the Atlantic,
a demand that is indeed now being met by India, partly because of the
growth of pessimistic beliefs like McBride's in this country.
But his article does touch on real issues, well-known and much debated
in the field. There is the gap between the computer science core, taught
in good departments, and which is much in demand in industry, and the
much softer IT/ICT disciplines, which involve some business training,
and much use of commercial packages but little rigorous programming.
E-skills degrees of this sort are now being offered in many places, and
one must wish them well. But it is not yet clear what the future of
their graduates will be, because they are neither one thing nor the
other, and recruiters know this. Nevertheless — and here is the crux of
our argument — promotion of these new degrees does not require or
support an attack on computer science itself in the way McBride has
chosen.
On the other hand, he is right that computer science must reach out much
more to other disciplines, from psychology, philosophy, sociology and
linguistics to medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology and beyond,
because the computational metaphor is now at the intellectual core of
most disciplines. Far from being dead, computing is now effectively the
new "Queen of the Sciences". How odd it is that most houses and offices
now have a thing still called a "computer", but barely one in a hundred
is ever used to program. And soon this will change and most people will
deal only with "black box" devices that contain great computing power to
enable them to play games, access the web, drive cars, see films and
fill fridges, and it will not occur to anyone to call them computers.
Yet behind these devices there will still be armies of trained
programmers from good university computer science departments, based
either here in the UK or abroad. That last choice is still ours to some
extent, but there is no way out of this shortage of expertise in this country by
declaring, as McBride does, that a crucial university subject is
finished because he cannot or will not teach or research its core
discipline.
[Over 60 UK Professors of Computer Science agreed to sign this article —
the list is at http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~yorick/THES/thes.html%
Submission + - Sniffer dogs to detect pirate discs
An anonymous reader writes: Thought this was interesting!
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21376703-1702 ,00.html
Unfortuently only one news agency has picked it up
Submission + - Someone In Congress Actually Understands Mixtapes!
An anonymous reader writes: Most of us (for pretty good reasons!) have come to assume that our Congressional representatives are pretty far out of touch when it comes to things like technology and culture, but it's nice to see that at least one Congressman seems to understand that mixtapes and mashups aren't such a bad thing. Techdirt has the transcript of Rep. Mike Doyle's speech, which talks about the benefits of mixtapes, while wondering about why DJ Drama was arrested: "I hope that everyone involved will take a step back and ask themselves if mash-ups and mix-tapes are really different or if it's the same as Paul McCartney admitting that he nicked the Chuck Berry bass-riff and used it on the Beatle's hit 'I Saw Her Standing There.' Maybe it is. And, maybe Drama violated some clear bright lines. Or, maybe mixtapes are a powerful tool. And, maybe mash-ups are transformative new art that expands the consumers experience and doesn't compete with what an artist has made available on iTunes or at the CD store. And, I don't think Sir Paul asked for permission to borrow that bass line, but every time I listen to that song, I'm a little better off for him having done so...."
Submission + - Stopping WGA Installation sends data to Microsoft
rev writes: "The new WGA Notification installation that can be installed using Windows Update sends data to Microsoft if the user decides to cancel the installation. A cookie is set that could be used to identify the host and information such as version of Windows and WGA as well as language of the operating system are transmitted. Part of the data is encrypted. (read more)"
Submission + - Windows 2.0 era talk by Bill Gates with 640k
An anonymous reader writes: Back in 1989, Bill Gates came to talk to the students
of the University of Waterloo on the early days of Microsoft, and the future
of computing. It's an interesting blast to the past, as he touches on topics
such as the VGA graphics, OS/2 and software piracy, as well as the now
infamous 640K of memory. Lost for nearly two decades, the tape of the talk
recently surfaced and is now available in a number of audio formats from the
University of Waterloo Computer Science Club.
