Sunday, April 16, 2006
Millennium Problems
.In order to celebrate mathematics in the new millennium, The Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts (CMI) has named seven Prize Problems. The Scientific Advisory Board of CMI selected these problems, focusing on important classic questions that have resisted solution over the years. The Board of Directors of CMI designated a $7 million prize fund for the solution to these problems, with $1 million allocated to each. During the Millennium Meeting held on May 24, 2000 at the Collège de France, Timothy Gowers presented a lecture entitled The Importance of Mathematics, aimed for the general public, while John Tate and Michael Atiyah spoke on the problems. The CMI invited specialists to formulate each problem.
One hundred years earlier, on August 8, 1900, David Hilbert delivered his famous lecture about open mathematical problems at the second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. This influenced our decision to announce the millennium problems as the central theme of a Paris meeting.
The
rules for the award of the prize have the endorsement of the CMI Scientific Advisory Board and the approval of the Directors. The members of these boards have the responsibility to preserve the nature, the integrity, and the spirit of this prize
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Lessons from the Browser Wars
by Sara Grant, Publications Coordinator, HBS Working Knowledge
In a famous example of how first movers can lose their advantage, second-mover Microsoft won the Web browser wars from Netscape and continues to dominate the market today. But that competition was the subject of another "war," this one among researchers who study how technology is diffused into the market.
The debate was this: Did Microsoft win because its Internet Explorer was the technologically superior product to Netscape Navigator, or was Microsoft just more successful at the distribution end by convincing most PC companies, some argue by anticompetitive tactics, to include IE on every PC shipped in the late 1990s? Researchers line up on both sides of the argument.
A recent working paper by Harvard Business School professor Pai-Ling Yin and Stanford professor Timothy F. Bresnahan offers an answer. Looking at both the pace of adoption of new versions of the browsers and the brand choice made by users, "distribution played a larger role than did technical progress in determining the market outcomes," the scholars conclude in the paper "Economic and Technical Drivers of Technology Choice: Browsers."
The implications are significant. Browsers simplified access to the online world, transforming the Internet from a communications vehicle for academics into a mass consumer phenomenon. At the same time, the growing usefulness of the Internet drove sales of personal computers off the chart—the installed base of PCs doubled to 213 million computers between 1995 and 1999. Understanding the complex interaction between the two technologies and how a second mover was able to unseat the incumbent market champion will help innovators of all stripes learn how new technology gets diffused into mass markets.
In this interview, Yin discusses the results and implications for new browser upstarts such as Firefox and Camino. Do they stand a chance against Internet Explorer? Yin says Microsoft's entrenchment in corporate IT, the maturation of the PC market, and the technical difficulty many consumers have in switching to a new browser make it hard soil for new challengers to take root.
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006
2006 ACM Programming Contest Complete
"World finals for
2006 ACM programming contest took place in San Antonio, TX this year, and
the results are in. Russia's Saratov State University solved 5 contest problems in record time, followed closely by Altai State Technical University (Russia) with 5 problems solved as well. University of Twente (Netherlands), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), Warsaw University (Poland), St. Petersburg State University (Russia), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Moscow State University (Russia), University of Waterloo (Canada) and Jagiellonian University - Krakow (Poland) all completed 4 problems."
IRS Compels PayPal to Release Info
"Just in time for the tax season, the IRS won a federal court ruling, allowing them to force PayPal to
turn over records of American taxpayers who have certain foreign accounts. It's all part of an ongoing effort to track down money held in offshore accounts by would-be taxpayers. A spokesperson for PayPal acknowledged receiving the
summons (PDF) and said 'We're still evaluating our options [...] The privacy of our customers' information is something we take really seriously.'"
Sun Opens Modeling Tools
"According to the Register, Sun is set to
open source a few modeling tools, including their UML modeler, XML infrastructure and visual editing tools, and BPEL tools. The software, part of the planned Java Studio Enterprise 9.0, will made available for download as part of Sun's NetBeans Enterprise Pack." From the article: "By open sourcing its UML tools Sun is continuing its push against the rival Eclipse open source tools framework. The Eclipse Foundation has pushed UML and model-driven architectures for some time via the Eclipse Tools Project. The project encompasses an open source implementation of UML, called UML2, and a modeling framework and code-generation facility to build tools and applications that use a structured data model - called the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)."
Software Engineers Ranked Best Job in America
"CNNMoney and Salary.com have ranked the title of
Software Engineer the best job in America. Computer IT Analyst also ranks 7th on the list, placing both technology positions in the top 10. From the article: "Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread.""
Sunday, April 09, 2006
In-Depth ajaxWrite Review
"ajaxWrite is the first offspring of
ajax13, Michael Robertson's (of Lindows and SIPphone fame) latest startup that aims to deliver a brave new line of
web-delivered, AJAX-based apps. ExtremeTech today has an
in-depth review of just how apt a replacement ajaxWrite is for the big installed word processors. It's a neat idea, but let's just say the web-based word processor has some catching up to do."
NASA Launches Educational Website
Computer Business Review magazine is reporting that NASA has launched a
new educational site targeting children in kindergarten through fourth grade. From the article: "The
website aims to appeal to both parents and educators wishing to help develop children's knowledge in subjects such as science, technology and mathematics. [...] 'Our goal with the
Kids' Club is to provide a medium that encourages children's interest in exploring the subjects important to developing early skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,' said Angela Phillips Diaz, NASA's acting assistant administrator for education."
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