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The article talks about the task-based interface model, in which users can arrange their machine's entire interface architecture to present those applications pertaining to a particular project. The author states that the file and folder format in every computer's operating system is the accepted standard but researchers say there is a better way of improving work and that is the use of a task-based interface model. Smart Desktop and Mylyn are two application programs that can be used for task-based interface.

The article focuses on the booming market for application life-cycle management (ALM) tools for agile development. It presents categories of vendors and tools within the market such as the full life-cycle management tools offered by Rally and VersionOne, the agile ALM tool used as a consulting component by ResultSpace and the ALM Plug-ins such as the GreenHopper solution sold by Pyxis Technologies and Microsoft's Team Foundation Server (TFS). It mentions that software as a service (SaaS) is a major driver for the agile development industry.

The article focuses on software innovations that software leaders believe have revolutionized the industry between 1984 and 2008. It states that Michael Cusumano, Professor of Management & Engineering Systems at Massachusetts Institution of Technology, offered Microsoft Corp.'s iterative approach for software engineering, which allows for better responses to software design changes and was essential for the development of the Windows Operating system and Microsoft Office. Tom Demarco, Principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild, commented on the fragmentation of the software industry into niches, as well as Apple Corp.'s concept of a brokered market for modular applications developed by individuals for the iPhone and iPod. Other suggestions include orders-of-magnitude fallacy and open source.

The article presents information on the report "Ultra-Large-Scale Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future," co-written by Dick Gabriel, produced by the Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. The report's description of how the fundamental principles of software design will change in a global economy is finding wide appeal. The study tried to answer a question posed by the U.S. Army on how to build software engineering, believed to be the systems of the future, that is likely to have billions of lines of code.

The article offers information on the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). GWT which was debuted at the May 2006 JavaOne developers' conference has brought attention to the myriad tools and frameworks for facilitating Web applications specially those written in Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax). In the short time the developers outside Google used the GWT, it has garnered compliments for several of technical hallmarks. Bret Taylor, senior product manager for Google's developer group states that two of the things he is proud of with the GWT are the Java-to-JavaScript compiler and the amount of work that Google developers have put into removing the idiosyncratic behavior that identical code often showed on different platforms before the release of GWT. INSET: The Google Web Toolkit: Big Pea in the Ajax Pod..

The article focuses on the open source project PyPy or http://codespeak.net/pypy/dist/pypy/doc/news.html launched during mid-2006 in the U.S. The project uses the sprint driven development and is primarily aimed at developing a fast and flexible implementation of the Python language in Python. The contextual view incorporated within the project is drawing a lot of interest from developers and researchers because it combines the distributed paradigm found in free and open source software development with sprints. It is usually associated with the agile development and the extreme programming and the extent of acceptance of the hybrid approach depends on the community's consideration of the siloed definitions of development methodologies.

The article reports on the growth of global software programming contests. Private sectors have become deeply involved in running global programming contests and attempting to diversify beyond the campus and beyond programming. For the winners, the exposure they receive can be instrumental in starting a career, while for sponsors it is a good marketing strategy to gain prospective employees, partners and customers. The original students programming competition, the ACM's International Collegiate Contest, has its roots in 1970 and was held by the Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor fraternity at Texas A&M University. Another programming contest has been established by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

The article reports on the success of the global technology transfer in the research community. The researchers, scholars and policymakers are making legislation which allows for equitable distribution of intellectual property arising from funded research. The analysts believe that the European effort is in progress due to the large number of cross-national and cross-framework policies that must be bridged to foster global European competitiveness. The national and multinational bodies in Europe are moving forward with new rounds of publicly funded precompetitive technology and with technology transfer activity.

This article presents information related to research funding which fluctuates globally. The U.S. is faced today with a number of serious issues which are putting tremendous pressure on the government's budget, but it must be remembered that sufficient investment in the long-term future of U.S. is essential. The major complaint about reduced university funding seems to be coming from one discipline--computer science. In Europe, scientists are complaining of budget targets unmet due to monetary crises and an increased emphasis on other disciplines. The proposed fiscal-year 2006 budget for the U.S. Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program is U.S. $2.15 billion, down slightly from 2004's $2.2 billion. Software capability is a strategic source of market differentiation in many industries, from financial services and health care to telecommunications and entertainment. Of particular interest are the close ties between the U.S. and Irish scientific communities and Ireland's adoption of several features of the U.S. research infrastructure.

This article reports that the open source Eclipse Project is rapidly obtaining majority market share among development platforms. According to analysts' surveys as well as adoption rates by major vendors, the project, originally conceived in the late 1990s by a small group of engineers at International Business Machines Corp., as a way to standardize development platforms across the company, now includes 97 members. According to industry surveys, major developers contacted, prefer Eclipse as their primary Java IDE. Two Evans Data reports from 2004 showed rapid adoption of Eclipse. From February 2003 to February 2004, Eclipse, use among Linux developers grew by 80 per cent, and Eclipse became the operating system's most-used IDE. With Eclipse's popularity booming, strategists, developers, and analysts are exploring and debating its place in the larger development ecosystem. Melbourne, Australia-based developer Joe Sango and several of his colleagues are beginning the Eclipse project. Its goal is to create a suite of Eclipse plug-ins with which developers can leverage the source control and work item features in Microsoft Corp.'s new Visual Studio 2005 Team System, which was released in beta version in April 2005.

The article reports on the debate involving China's software and standards policies. China's economy helps perhaps the greatest opportunities in the world in the coming decades. The Chinese software industry is flourishing but at the heart of the debate lie two perceptions of how to achieve market equilibrium. On the one hand, China's foreign trading partners claim that the rules mandating government offices "buy Chinese" violate the contemporary technology-neutral spirit of a level playing field. On the other, scholars and business leaders intimately involved in the Chinese market say the government might also believe the playing field has been tilted in favor of deep-pocketed multinational firms for too long, and this is a way to level it. Richard P. Suttmeier, a University of Oregon political science professor who has published extensively on the Chinese technology economy, says the rules of the game are changing fast, and the entrenched bureaucratic way of running the Chinese economy is butting against the imperatives of the global marketplace.

This article addresses several issues, related to the computer security. In February 2004, software-based Microsoft Corp., confirmed that several million lines of Windows NT and Windows 2000 source code had been leaked and had made its way to the public on Internet peer-to-peer networks and relay chats. Security analysts following the leak disagreed on whether it would lead to any serious security lapses in the operating system's affected versions. Three months later, the Internet still operated as usual. In mid May 2004, a Russian Web site reported someone had stolen some 800 Mbytes of source code for Cisco's IOS 12.3 and 12.3t operating system. Once again, security analysts were widely quoted as wondering how and if the stolen source code would be used for malicious intent and how widespread any attacks on the network might be. The IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery's Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice was adopted in 1999, but ethics instruction is far from uniform at the university level.

Reports on the continuing debate over the bottom line benefits of object- oriented programming in the United States. Importance of context in considering the benefits; Question about what variables and parameters give developers and users a clue about how and when object-oriented programming works; Problems with C++ programming language.

Focuses on the Underwriters' Laboratories-type seal of approval for hardware and software products in the U.S. Efficacy of UL-type seal; Concept of Common Criteria; Requirements for Common Criteria certified products.

Focuses on the long-term data preservation efforts in the computer software industry in the United States. Application of ISO quality control movement; Importance of preserving digital records; Accessibility of records in the future.

Focuses on U.S. federal government's call for more stringent quality measures by software manufacturers in the United States. Response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; Role of states in the software development and auditing process; Growth of Center for Internet Security.

Focuses on computer software applications in the armed forces of the United States that belong to computer programs written for personal digital assistants (PDA). Benefits of PDA application; Description of the PDA used in the military; Problems in the progress of PDA applications in some areas.

Discusses the National Software Data and Information Repository (NSDIR) measurement database project of the United States government. Objectives of the project; Details on the development of the NSDIR; Lessons learned from NSDIR project.

Focuses on the Center for Empirically Based Software Engineering intended to help software engineers build on existing empirical data to reduce costs of developing large projects. Grant received by the center; Factors which drive the development of the center; Information on the establishment of the center; Challenges faced by the center.

Focuses on the support of IBM Corp. to Linux, an open source computer operating system. Role of open source in commercial software; Dominance of desktop computers; Foundation of Linux operating system; Prospect of the open source system in the commercial market. INSET: Useful URLs.

Focuses on the efforts to modernize the automated air traffic control system of the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) using the incremental software intensive approach. Benefits of the effort; Applications of the program; Procedures established by Free Flight contractors and FAA administrators.

Focuses on the status and developments in application service provider (ASP) industry in the United States. Forecasts on the market value of ASP in 2003; Information on the vJungle.com, an ASP formed by Sun Microsystems and Andy Bechtelsheim; Important events in the industry.

The article focuses on open source business models. One illustration of the market's acceptance of open source as business-ready is the success of SpikeSource, a San Francisco-based startup founded in 2003 by former Oracle presidents Ray Lane and Murugan Pal while both were at technology venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Spike-Source tests, certifies, and integrates open source components in the LAMP stack. So attractive has open source software become that even the healthcare industry, long considered a laggard in terms of IT innovation, is seeing the first inklings of industry-specific savings and innovation through open code. One example is Vista, a clinical-management suite originally developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Medsphere, a startup founded by two brothers who saw Vista's market-making potential when they were medical students, obtained Vista through a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request and modified it license-free. Vista costs roughly half the price of existing commercial enterprise-scale medical-management systems, so it's attracting customers such as small community hospitals that had been priced out of the market.

Focuses on strategies recommended by a study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on improving procedures for computer software testing. Analysis of the factors that cause the lack of a robust testing infrastructure; Recognition of cross-industry challenges in the business.

Focuses on the spending of computer industry in research and development. Relationship between the academic research community and industry; Changes in the research and development environment due to evolving technology; Willingness of the federal government to fund sectors of research and development.

Reports the impact of September 2001 terrorist attacks on the issues of computer privacy and security of software industry in the United States. Scrutiny on the encryption scheme employed by the Federal government; Implications of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act on library concerns; Consideration of the government on the issue.

Offers an outlook on the future of the game industry. Enhanced capabilities of the next generation of game consoles; Remarks from Celia Pearce, research associate at the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communications, on the culture of game consoles; Expansion of the market for third-party purveyors of game engines.

Focuses on Team Software Process (TSP), a highly documented, disciplined method of updating software platforms. Reason why TSP has yet to flourish in the software development industry; Where TSP works.

Reports on developments in information technology as of April 1999. Includes Ariba and CommerceOne's introduction of competing versions of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for electronic commerce applications; Continuing controversy over privacy in Intel's plan to put identification numbers in Pentium III microprocessors; Initiatives to develop standards for storage area networks.

The article reports on the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards that highlights the contributions of open source software. The awards give a venue to show the support to the projects and development teams that are proving that Open Source is changing the world. The awards coincide to the plans of further enhancement of SourceForge.net Web site and organization. Jay Seirmaco, SourceForge.net general manager, the enhancements will include the advanced search capabilities to allow site visitors find projects more efficiently, improve mail architecture to allow developer-to-developer email, improved internal systems management and more employees as the site's mission expands.

Reports the impact of September 2001 terrorist attacks on the status of Digital Millennium Copyright Act proposed in the United States Congress. Implications of the legislation on engineers and cyber-rights advocates; Cses involving software companies in the country; Scrutiny on the legal liability of the legislation.

Explains that strategic position of Sun Microsystems company's Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) computer software. Limitation which slowed down the adoption of J2ME; Applications of J2ME; Potentials of J2ME.

Looks at the status of researches on magnetic random access memory (MRAM) technology. Comparison of MRAM and dynamic RAM; Problems met by researchers in perfecting MRAM.

Reports on an Irish girl named Sarah Flannery who invented a public-key encryption method for e-mails. Comparison with the Rivest, Shamir and Adelman method; Use of modular mathematical principles; Description of Flannery's approach.

Mark Dean, a participant in the original IBM PC design team, looks back 30 years to review the events that led to the design of a very "un-IBM" computer—a small device that used hardware and software from outside vendors and made the logic and BIOS code available to anybody. This Web extra features audio from an interview with Mark Dean, a participant in the original IBM PC design team. This video is also available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYPwVOUcCnc [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Evaluates the computer software Lotus Translation Services for Sametime from Lotus Development Corp. Features of the software; Computer systems that are compatible with the software.

Reports on efforts to help developing countries formulate Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance and contingency plans. World Bank's approval of loans for Argentina, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the Ukraine; Passage of United States laws absolving state agencies of liability provided preventive efforts were made; Russia's difficulty obtaining the estimated three billion dollars needed to find and fix noncompliant code.

Reports on the Toshiba memory chip. Details on the cooperative research effort by Toshiba, IBM, and Seimens; Design features; Partnership with Fujitsu in developing a stack-cell-based design.

Presents information on a draft application programmer interface (API) specification for biometric security. Function; Role of the BioAPI Consortium in the draft specification; Features.

Presents information on efforts of the Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP) Forum for a world-wide standard for mobile Internet access. Details on the web-access cellular phone service called i-mode; Role of NTT DoCoMo in releasing i-mode; Remarks by Bruce Martin, chair of the WAP Applications Working Group.

Reports on the Oracle and Sun Microsystems companies' attempts to minimize the need for an operating system (OS). Involvement of Oracle's database technology and Sun's Solaris OS for embedded applications; Plans of Sun Microsystems; Reaction to the initiative of the two companies.

Features the Next Generation Input/Output (NGIO) technology and Future I/O technology for high-speed server communications standards. Function of a switched fabric design; Availability of NGIO; Implications of the competition between the two standards.

Presents news briefs on year 2000 date conversion system (Y2K) as of February 1999. Meeting of the United Nations' Working Group on Informatics addressing the issue; Forecasts on the Y2K effect on economic growth; Launching of global Y2K mediation project.

Focuses on the concerns related to the year 2000 date conversion aftermath (Y2KA) which includes problems caused by bugs in the software that is supposed to fix the Y2K problem. Cost of Y2KA; Other Y2KA problems; Information on the joint effort by the United States and Russia regarding Y2K problem; International scorecard from Gartner Group regarding preparedness for Y2K problem. INSET: Selected Y2K resources.