Frances E. Allen, 74, was honored for her work at IBM Corp. on techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs that translate one computer language into another.
This process is required to turn programming code into the binary zeros and ones actually read by a computer's colossal array of minuscule switches.
Allen joined IBM in 1957 after completing a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. At the time, IBM recruited women by circulating a brochure on campuses that was titled "My Fair Ladies."
When Allen joined Big Blue, an IBM team led by John Backus had just completed Fortran, one of the first high-level programming languages.
The point of Fortran was to develop a system that could operate a computer just as efficiently as previous "hand-coded" approaches directly assembled by programmers. Allen recalled Wednesday that her task at IBM was to replicate the achievement on multiple kinds of computers.
"I had the good fortune to work on one big project on good machines after another," she said.
Her work led her into varied assignments, including writing intelligence analysis software for the National Security Agency. More recently she helped design software for IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer.
She retired in 2002 but has stayed active in programs that encourage girls and women to study computer science.
"It's a very tough problem overall," she said. "Constant attention to it is important."
Since the Turing Award was first given in 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery, previous winners have included luminaries in encryption, artificial intelligence, hypertext, networking and other vital elements of modern computing. All were men, including Backus, the 1977 winner.
Allen called it "high time for a woman," though she quickly added: "That's not why I got it."
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Your cell phone is spying on you, but don't be afraid. Thanks to better mapping technology and hyperlocal services tailored to the small screen, the latest wireless gadgets can automatically pinpoint your location and then direct you to everything from the nearest Chinese restaurant to where your friends are hanging out. And while it may seem creepy to have your phone keeping tabs on you even when you're sleeping, this isn't some Homeland Security nightmare. It's just an easier way to find people and places nearby.
Mobile social networking is hot. The new Drift phone from Helio comes with a feature called Buddy Beacon that lets you see your location on a map that pops up onscreen, thanks to the global positioning system (GPS) chip built into the phone. You can also see where any of your friends are--assuming that they authorize it and own the same $225 phone. Targeted at teens and twentysomethings, the idea is that if you always knew your friends' whereabouts, it would be that much easier to meet up with them. "We create a natural extension of what people already want to do, which is, they want to be with their friends," says Sky Dayton, a co-founder of the Internet service provider Earthlink. Dayton launched Helio last summer with $440 million in funding from Earthlink and South Korea's SK Telecom.
Helio already has buzz--and lots of imitators. The start-up's 70,000 customers each spend about $100 a month--about twice the industry average--for an all-inclusive calling plan with text, photos and video messaging. A similar service called Loopt, which is free and works only on Sprint's Boost Mobile youth brand, claims 100,000 users. And anyone with a Windows Mobile device, like the Samsung BlackJack and Palm Treo, and $30 can download software from gpsgate.com that works in much the same way.
If cyberstalking your friends isn't your bag, you can still use your phone's GPS genius to find businesses or get driving directions on the fly. Sure, this option was already available on some phones without GPS, but it worked so poorly that hardly anyone ever used it. Now the $200 Verizon enV, a smartphone released in January, shows your position on a map and suggests everything from dry cleaners to plumbers nearby. Other cool offerings include the Dash Express, a $700 portable car navigation system on sale this spring with Yahoo!'s Go! local search on it, and the iRiver W10 from ReignCom, which combines an Internet phone, MP3 player and personal navigator in an iPhone-size unit.
Nifty. But is there really a market for these GPS gizmos? After all, not everyone is willing to pay $100 a month to hound her friends. Free services, on the other hand, make money on advertising. But there's not much room for ads on a screen about as big as a Post-it. The mobile-phone ad market brought in just $200 million in 2006, according to the Yankee Group, vs. $16 billion for online ads. Nonetheless, ABI Research expects revenues for location-based services in North America to spiral from less than $1 billion last year to more than $13 billion by 2011, partly because of the cheap GPS chips and free Google maps that power some devices.
Stephen Lee, 23, is already sold. He says his Helio's Buddy Beacon came in handy one night when his roommate went out. "I saw that she was at Wendy's, and I just texted her to pick up a couple of 99¢ crispy-chicken sandwiches," says the graduate student in Chattanooga, Tenn. "I really use it to show other people that it's cool and they should get one." So far he has convinced his roommate, his girlfriend and his best friend. Well, it's a start.
3-D x-ray videos of species in motion will help scientists understand how they evolved
Scientists at
The lack of good imaging systems has been a major obstacle for people studying movement, says Rebecca German, a biologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "When you study any kind of movement, it happens in three dimensions," she says. "When you're limited to looking at it in two dimensions, you're only getting part of the story."
Scientists have previously developed high-speed, 3-D, x-ray video systems to study the human knee and other joints, particularly after injuries or surgery. But these technologies have been used only in a limited number of clinics for specific medical applications. The Brown team, led by biologist Elizabeth Brainerd, plans to develop a similar technology for evolutionary biologists that is flexible enough to analyze different animals as they walk, swim, fly, or jump.
The approach combines two imaging technologies: computed tomography, or CT, which uses a series of x-rays taken at different orientations to reconstruct a 3-D image of the bone and tissue inside the body; and x-ray video, or cinefluouroscopy, which is able to capture events as they happen in real time, but only in two dimensions. CT is used routinely in research and in medical practice, but it is a time-intensive process and produces only static images. X-ray video is frequently used by scientists studying movement.
Evolutionary biologists focus on movement as a way to understand why different anatomical features evolved. Studying skeletal motion is particularly important since bones in the fossil record are one of the main sources of information about the past. "To determine how those extinct animals might have moved, we need a very precise understanding of how living animals move," says Brainerd.
One of the biggest puzzles for evolutionary biologists is understanding how a complex structure like a bird's wing evolved. Wings would have appeared gradually, so they must have had some usefulness long before they could function in flight. "What's the use of half a wing?" asks Brainerd. One recent observation, she says, is that birds tend to flap their wings when they run uphill. A current theory, which her team plans to investigate, is that wings provide a downward force when a bird is running up a hill or a tree to avoid a predator. That gives its feet better traction, much as the spoiler on a sports car helps the wheels grip the road. By understanding how a bird's shoulder joint behaves as it runs uphill flapping its wings, the team can then search the fossil record for clues that early birds made similar movements.
