Welcome to the June 28, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Europe Opens AI 'Crash Test' Centers
Bloomberg
Sanne Wass
June 27, 2023
The European Union has launched four artificial intelligence (AI) facilities to test and validate the safety of innovations prior to their market rollout. The virtual and physical sites will offer a testbed for AI and robotics in real-world manufacturing, healthcare, agricultural, and urban environments starting next year. The Technical University of Denmark said the facilities would function as a "safety filter" between European technology providers and users while complementing public policy. The university described the facilities as a digital version of Europe's crash test system for new automobiles.
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'Toggle Switch' Can Help Quantum Computers Cut Through Noise
NIST News
June 26, 2023
Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, the University of Massachusetts, and Raytheon BBN Technologies unveiled a programmable "toggle switch" device to reduce noise and provide clear outputs of quantum processors. The two-quantum-bit (qubit) device links the qubits to a "readout resonator" that reads the output of the qubits' calculations. Users can adjust the connection by flipping the toggle switch into different quantum states; the "on" state connects the qubits to execute calculations, while the "off" state isolates the three components. The switch can retrieve the results of the calculations by linking either of the qubits and the resonator. The device blocks circuit noise from the system through the resonator while preventing the qubits from interacting when they should be idle.
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Self-Driving Boat Maps Underwater Terrain
UTEP News
June 27, 2023
University of Texas at El Paso researchers have built a self-driving boat that can survey underwater terrain. The researchers modified a circular aluminum watercraft by placing it on an inner tube base. The four-thruster rudderless craft travels at up to five feet per second, can spin 360 degrees, and can cover up an area of to 472,400 square feet on a four-hour charge via a solar panel and lithium battery. Sonar emissions from the boat can measure water depth and characterize material on the seafloor. In tests, researchers used the boat to generate two- and three-dimensional maps of sections of Ascarate Lake in El Paso, and Grindstone Lake in New Mexico.
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Digital Pathway Aims at Guiding Nigerian Farmers Out of Isolation
Financial Times
James Kynge
June 28, 2023
The Africa-based AFEX Commodities Exchange platform offers a way to bring Nigerian farmers into an integrated agricultural system. AFEX's Kunle Adesuyi said subscribers are trained on what crops to grow, how to reduce post-harvest crop losses, how to manage pests and flooding, and which seeds, fertilizers, fungicides, and pesticides are most suitable for their use. The system provides farm inputs like seeds and fertilizer instead of financial loans. The ThriveAgric platform offers similar services to Nigerian farmers, and digitalization is critical to both AFEX and ThriveAgric's model, with cellphones used to map acreages and digital processes used to supply loans.
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How Secure Are Voice Authentication Systems?
University of Waterloo (Canada)
June 27, 2023
Computer scientists at Canada's University of Waterloo have developed an attack that can bypass voice authentication security systems after six attempts. They created a program able to remove the markers in deepfake audio so it is indistinguishable from authentic audio. Although their success rate against Amazon Connect's voice authentication system ranged from just 10% in a four-second attack to more than 40% in an attack of less than 30 seconds, their success rate was 99% after six attempts on less-sophisticated systems. University of Waterloo's Urs Hengartner said, "By demonstrating the insecurity of voice authentication, we hope that companies relying on voice authentication as their only authentication factor will consider deploying additional or stronger authentication measures."
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More Data in the Cloud Means More Centers on the Ground to Move It
The New York Times
Miranda S. Spivack
June 27, 2023
The growth of cloud-based technologies has fueled explosive demand for datacenters. German database firm Statista estimated the U.S. had the most datacenters in the world last year, with 2,701, followed by Germany, the U.K., and China. Industry analysts see an increasing need to build datacenters across the U.S. so they are closer to customers and can leverage high-speed networks' growing availability in rural regions and smaller cities. Community concerns about datacenters add to the challenge of finding sufficient land and electricity for the facilities. Arman Shehabi at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said the facilities' energy demands and environmental impact pressure developers to implement more efficient and greener solutions.
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A Bridge Between Different Cryptocurrencies
TU Wein (Austria)
June 26, 2023
A decentralized protocol developed by researchers at Austria's Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and the decentralized multi-blockchain token system Pantos could allow for the efficient, secure exchange of one cryptocurrency for another. The new protocol, Glimpse, can be integrated into existing crypto software to facilitate cross-currency transactions. TU Wien's Zeta Avarikioti said the protocol "has to prove that the amount was actually transferred by only using a relatively small amount of data. If large parts of a blockchain were needed for this, with hundreds of gigabytes of data, it would be completely impractical.” Further, TU Wien's Lukas Aumayr said, "Glimpse can be used to express crypto-loans within smart contracts, as well as other exciting decentralized financial instruments such as asset migrations, and wrapping and unwrapping of tokens."
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Apple Joins Opposition to Encrypted Message App Scanning
BBC News
Chris Vallance
June 27, 2023
Technology giant Apple has taken issue with authority accorded by the U.K.'s Online Safety Bill to communications regulator Ofcom, allowing it to coerce encrypted messaging applications to scan for child abuse content. The company, which said the measure should be revised to shield encryption, joined 80 other organizations and tech experts that have urged Technology Minister Chloe Smith to reconsider the bill's powers. The U.K. government, police, and some child protection charities claim end-to-encryption prevents law enforcement and tech companies from detecting the exchange of child sexual abuse material. Apple countered that the technology safeguards the privacy of journalists and others, and "also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches."
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Heat-Resistant Drone Could Scope, Map Burning Buildings, Wildfires
Imperial College London (U.K.)
Hayley Dunning
June 26, 2023
Scientists at the U.K.'s Imperial College London (ICL) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology designed a heat-resistant drone that could inspect and define the scope of fires in buildings and woodland. The FireDrone incorporates thermal aerogel insulation material and a cooling system based on the release and evaporation of gas from carbon dioxide sensors so it can tolerate temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit) for up to 10 minutes. Explained ICL's Mirko Kovac, "FireDrone could be sent in ahead to gather crucial information—noting trapped people, building layouts, unexpected hazards—so that responders can prepare accordingly to keep themselves safe and potentially save more lives."
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Scientists Say the Future of Space Exploration Is a Transforming, Animal-Like Robot
ABC News
Julia Jacobo
June 27, 2023
A morphing robot that emulates the movement patterns of animals could transform space exploration, according to a multi-institutional team of researchers. The researchers developed the Morphobot to navigate its surroundings by mimicking animal dynamics like flying, rolling, crawling, crouching, balancing, and tumbling. The device can reconfigure its appendages to negotiate variable terrain. It features four two-jointed legs with ducted fans fixed at the ends, which can switch functions between legs, propeller thrusters, or wheels. Northeastern University's Alireza Ramezani believes the Morphobot "is going to replace some old-fashioned traditional multimodal concepts at NASA [the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration]."
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Ninth Dedekind Number Discovered: Scientists Solve Long-Known Problem in Mathematics
Paderborn University (Germany)
June 26, 2023
Researchers at Germany's Paderborn University and Belgium's KU Leuven have identified the value of the ninth Dedekind number using Paderborn's Noctua supercomputer. The eighth Dedekind number was discovered in 1991 using the most powerful supercomputer of the time, Cray 2. Paderborn's Lennart Van Hirtum said, "For 32 years, the calculation of D(9) was an open challenge, and it was questionable whether it would ever be possible to calculate this number at all." The researchers used the P-coefficient formula to calculate D(9). Said Van Hirtum, "By exploiting symmetries in the formula, we were able to reduce the number of terms to 'only' 5.5*10 18—an enormous amount." To perform the calculation, the researchers developed a hardware accelerator using field programmable gate arrays. The program ran on the Noctua supercomputer for about five months before yielding D(9).
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AI Fake Victims Disrupt Criminal Business Model
The Lighthouse (Macquarie University, Australia)
Fran Molloy
June 26, 2023
The Apate multilingual chatbot created by cybersecurity experts at Australia's Macquarie University could masquerade as intended victims of scam callers as part of an effort to undermine their profitability. Apate uses authentic-sounding voice clones to engage in dialogue and "scam the scammers." The researchers analyzed bogus phone calls to extract scammers' social engineering methods, identifying scam "scripts" via machine learning and natural language processing before training Apate to compose its own conversations. Macquarie's Dali Kaafar said these systems "can fool scammers into thinking they are talking to viable scam victims, so they spend time attempting to scam the bots."
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Bath Scientists Develop 3D-Printed Artificial Knee
BBC News
Matthew Hill
June 27, 2023
Researchers at the U.K.'s University of Bath have developed a three-dimensionally (3D) printed implant for patients with osteoarthritis in the knee that aims to preserve the existing knee joint. The customized, 3D-printed high-tibial osteotomy plates are better at realigning a patient's knee than generic plates currently in use. The new surgical guide stabilization plate is 3D-printed after an X-ray and CT scan of the patient's tibia to determine the amount of correction necessary. University of Bath's Richie Gill said, "The big difference is there isn't that guesswork which is happening at the time of surgery."
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