Colorado Woman Sues To Hold Web Crawlers To Contracts

Information Week Colorado Woman Sues To Hold Web Crawlers To Contracts: "Computers can enter into contracts on behalf of people. The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) says that a 'contract may be formed by the interaction of electronic agents of the parties, even if no individual was aware of or reviewed the electronic agents' actions or the resulting terms and agreements.'"

Quite an interesting result -- not the first example of computational agents being accorded a status on par with human agents.

Where are the programmers?

EETimes.com: "'We are at a low point of interest in computer science,' said Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research, who pointed to a sharp decline since 2001 in college undergraduates choosing com- puter science as a major. 'Jobs will go begging in the next few years because we don't have the people willing to take on the field.'"

Sociology at Microsoft

Technology Review: "Marc Smith, the senior research sociologist at Microsoft Research, believes that now is a good time to practice his trade. Thanks to the Internet, there is unprecedented access to sociological data. And thanks to computers, sociologists are better able to sift through that data, find trends, and test models."