Welcome to the August 2, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Pills from the 3D Printer
Max Planck Gesellschaft (Germany)
July 31, 2023
Computer scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Informatics and the University of California have three-dimensionally (3D)-printed liquid-soluble tablets, using mathematical models to determine configurations that release the desired amount of active ingredients. The researchers use topology optimization to characterize the temporal profile for the tablet to release its load, then calculate the matching shape with a model that captures the liquid dissolution of differently-shaped geometric figures. They employ a water-soluble material to 3D-print these shapes. The approach also can factor in the limitation of shape options by the manufacturing process.
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Cipher System Protects Computers Against Spy Programs
Tohoku University (Japan)
August 1, 2023
A team of international researchers created an efficient cache randomization cipher to protect against cache side-channel attacks. Rei Ueno at Japan's Tohoku University worked with colleagues at utility Nippon Telegraph and Telephone and Germany's Ruhr University Bochum to develop a cipher founded on a comprehensive mathematical formulation and simulation of cache side-channel attacks. The researchers said the SCARF (Secure CAche Randomization Function) cipher can complete randomization with just half the latency of current cryptographic methods. Ueno said SCARF "is engineered to be compatible with various modern computer architectures, ensuring its widespread applicability and potential to bolster computer security significantly."
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Indian Startup Wants to Reward Workers Behind AI
Time
Billy Perrigo
July 27, 2023
Nonprofit Indian startup Karya, which describes itself as “the world’s first ethical data company,” aims to remunerate workers who gather the data its major clients purchase to build out their artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Karya covers its costs with some of this cash, channeling the rest to India's rural poor and granting employees “de-facto ownership” of the data they produce on the job, in addition to their $5 hourly wage. Such data includes voice clips spoken in "lower resourced" native languages, rarely accommodated by cutting-edge AI, to address healthcare and other inequities while giving Indians a supplementary income. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned Karya to build voice datasets in the Indian dialects of Marathi, Telugu, Hindi, Bengali, and Malayalam, in order to build a chatbot that can answer rural Indians' questions in their native tongues.
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Are Quantum Computers the Future of Genome Analysis?
Research at Osaka University (Japan)
July 25, 2023
Researchers at Japan's Osaka and Kyushu universities developed a method that could clear a pathway for a new genomic analysis template. The researchers differentiated adenosine from the other three nucleotide bases in DNA with a quantum computer. They used electrodes separated by a nanoscale gap to detect individual nucleotides, yielding a distinct output of current versus time for the adenosine monophosphate nucleotide. This forms the foundation of a quantum gate that functions as a molecular signature for each nucleotide. Kyushu University's Tomofumi Tada said, "In the present setup, discrimination of adenosine monophosphate from the other three nucleotides is not necessarily straightforward, but DNA sequencing could be possible by designing quantum gates for these other nucleotides as well."
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Sensor Enhances Robots' Tactile Capabilities
Queen Mary University of London (U.K.)
July 27, 2023
Researchers in the U.K., U.S., and China have engineered a sensor to enable robots to perceive objects by touch and make appropriate grip adjustments. The L3 (Lightweight, Low-cost, wireLess communication) F-TOUCH sensor can calculate an object's geometry and interaction forces directly, producing more accurate measurements than sensors that use camera images. Queen Mary University of London's Kaspar Althoefer said the sensor achieves this "through an integrated mechanical suspension structure with a mirror system, achieving higher measurement accuracy and wider measurement range." Althoefer added that the device's embedded wireless communication ensures better robot-hand integration than competing models.
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Blockchain Could Help Protect Ancient Treasures from Looting
CNN
Nadia Leigh-Hewitson
July 31, 2023
A blockchain tool to prevent the looting of ancient relics was developed by researchers at the U.A.E.'s University of Abu Dhabi and the U.K.'s University College London. Museums or collectors can use the Salsal Web platform to enter details about their collection that experts can evaluate to determine authenticity, as well as confirming their lawful or unlawful obtainment. Once confirmed, owners can convert collections into non-fungible tokens that function as certificates of authentication, permit secure transfer of ownership, and facilitate tracking. The resulting history is intended to deter potential thieves and encourage the return of looted treasures to their native countries.
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First Demonstration of ML Model Training in Outer Space
University of Oxford Department of Computer Science (U.K.)
July 28, 2023
Scientists in the U.K. working with colleagues at artificial intelligence developer Trillium Technologies, Italy-based aerospace company D-Orbit, and the European Space Agency trained a machine learning model in outer space. In Autumn 2022, the researchers uplinked the code for the model to the ION SCV004 satellite in Earth orbit, teaching it to identify changes in cloud cover from aerial images onboard the satellite. The researchers said the model can be adapted to carry out different tasks easily; it also can use other forms of data.
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Reinforcement Learning Allows Underwater Robots to Locate, Track Objects
Institut de Ciències del Mar (Spain)
July 27, 2023
Researchers in Spain and at California's Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute trained autonomous vehicles and underwater robots to locate and track marine animals and objects via reinforcement learning. The researchers used various acoustic methods to estimate objects' positions, adding reinforcement learning to ascertain the robot's optimal trajectory for locating and tracking them. They partly trained the reinforcement learning networks with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center's computer cluster, which "made it possible to adjust the parameters of different algorithms much faster than using conventional computers," said Mario Martin at Spain's Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. The researchers tested the algorithms on a variety of autonomous vehicles.
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Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated Twice in Preliminary Testing
Tom's Hardware
Francisco Pires
August 1, 2023
Two independent research teams have validated a South Korean group's assertion that the LK-99 compound can facilitate the manufacture of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductors, albeit in preliminary testing. Sinéad Griffin at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, using the supercomputing capabilities within the DOE to simulate the LK-99 material, verified that it should produce resistance- and hindrance- free superconduction pathways for electrons in the highest-energy regions of the crystal lattice. Researchers at China's Huazhong University of Science and Technology separately reported reproducing the superconductor's fabrication process. They posted a video on Twitter that highlights levitating materials demonstrating the Meissner effect as evidence.
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Discovery of Smartphone Vulnerability Reveals Hackers Could Track Your Location
Northeastern Global News
Ian Thomsen
July 27, 2023
Researchers led by Northeastern University's Evangelos Bitsikas discovered a flaw in text messaging that could allow attackers to track smartphone owners' whereabouts using a machine learning algorithm to mine data derived from the short messaging services (SMS) system. Said Bitsikas, "Just by knowing the phone number of the user victim, and having normal network access, you can locate that victim." Bitsikas' approach involves a hacker sending multiple text messages to the target's cellphone, triangulating their location with or without encrypted communications through the timing of their automated delivery notifications. His team's algorithm can detect the location "fingerprint" created by that timing. Bitsikas said he has found no evidence of the vulnerability's current exploitation.
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Advancements in Photonic Memory for Faster Optical Computing
SPIE
July 31, 2023
Scientists in China have engineered a 5-bit photonic memory to enable rapid volatile modulation, creating a silicon photonic platform from the phase-change material antimonite. The photonic memory realizes volatile modulation by harnessing the carrier dispersion effect of a PIN (P-type, intrinsic, and N-type material) diode, responding in under 40 nanoseconds and retaining the stored weight information. The memory can store trained weights in the photonic computing network by facilitating multilevel and reversible antimonite phase changes through the PIN diode's microheating capability. The researchers modeled an optical convolutional kernel architecture that recognized the Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology dataset with more than 95% accuracy.
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NASA Detects Signal from Voyager 2 After Losing Contact Due to Wrong Command
The Guardian (U.K.)
Ian Sample
August 1, 2023
The U.S. National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) reported detecting a signal from the Voyager 2 probe more than a week after transmission ceased due to a command error. The command redirected the spacecraft's antenna two degrees away from Earth, severing contact; NASA said a routine scan of the sky detected Voyager 2's "heartbeat" signal, indicating it continues to broadcast and is in "good health." NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the agency will try to reestablish contact when Australia's Canberra dish sends the correct command toward the probe's antenna. Software commands from Earth take 18 hours to cross the more than 12-billion-mile gap to reach Voyager 2.
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Scientists Use Single-Cell Sequencing to Identify Cell Types in Flies' Visual System
New York University
July 31, 2023
Scientists from New York University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Canada's University of Toronto-Mississauga using a tool that identifies and labels developing neurons discovered new types of cells in fruit flies' visual systems. The approach integrates a novel algorithm with single-cell sequencing data to identify two overlapping genes that point to previously undiscovered cells. The researchers found gene pairs uniquely expressed in most cell types in the fruit fly's visual system at multiple developmental stages by feeding the algorithm single-cell RNA sequencing data. They discovered a brand-new cell type called MeSps through one such gene pair.
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