What's New @ IEEE for Students, March 2006

2. 3-D TECHNOLOGIES FOCUS OF "PROCEEDINGS OF THE IEEE" SPECIAL ISSUE
The March 2006 special issue of "Proceedings of the IEEE" (v. 94, no. 3) examines the broad subject of three-dimensional (3-D) imaging, display and visualization technologies. Writing in their introduction to the issue, Guest Editors Bahram Javidi and Fumio Okano say that 3-D technologies are "important applications of information systems in a society that is increasingly dependent on the presentation of information." Overview papers in this issue present the fundamental ideas, theory, experiments and application of some leading 3-D technologies, illustrated with examples, simulations and experiment results. A preview is available online:
http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/procieee/current.html

7. PROTOTYPING FOR HUMAN INTERACTION
How can inventors determine if their designs are a good fit for human users? A new program called d.Tools prototypes consumer products by blending the interactive components and physical design interface with the software's intents and purposes. The programs developers argue that many devices fail because the inventors try to mimic or supplant physical attributes with computer software, forgetting that people are inherently hands-only. They hope d.Tools will help bring about new technologies that are more in tune with what humans want. Read more:
http://www.physorg.com/news11112.html

8. INCREASED USE OF BIOMETRICS SEEN TO STOP IDENTITY THEFT
Biometrics, such as the digital record of an individual's fingerprints or iris patterns, are increasingly being used as a more secure way to confirm user identity in a variety of systems, writes Alfred C. Weaver in the current issue of "Computer" (v. 39, no. 2). Weaver identifies three broad classes of personal identification: what an individual knows (such as a password); what an individual carries (such as an ID card); and who an individual is (based on fingerprints, DNA, or some other physical or behavioral measurement). Of the three, biometric identification is the most reliable proof of identity, Weaver says, and is being implemented in more and more places like airports and border crossings, where the stakes are highest for positive identification. According to Weaver, the security of biometric identification is highly dependent upon who is collecting the data, and on the data being stored as mathematical templates so that it cannot be used to recreate the users' identifying characteristics. Read more: the link