Welcome to the September 8, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
ACM TechNews mobile apps are available for Android phones and tablets (click here) and for iPhones (click here) and iPads (click here).
To view "Headlines At A Glance," hit the link labeled "Click here to view this online" found at the top of the page in the html version.
The online version now has a button at the top labeled "Show Headlines."
|
|
|
First Human-Derived Body Part 3D-Printed in Space
Bloomberg
Loren Grush
September 7, 2023
U.S. aerospace company Redwire said it has three-dimensionally (3D)-printed a human body part in space for the first time, manufacturing a meniscus from human-derived tissues aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a proof of concept. The company said the zero-gravity environment simplifies the assembly of viscous materials without chemicals or scaffolding because they can maintain their form more easily. Redwire used stem cells and collagen to fabricate the meniscus with a specialized 3D bioprinter, then cultured the tissue for two weeks in another facility on the ISS. Redwire's Mike Gold said the company will analyze the printed meniscus, now returned to Earth, to "understand the process, and try to build from this to reproduce the success."
*May Require Paid Registration
|
Dependence on Tech Caused 'Staggering' Education Inequality: U.N.
The New York Times
Natasha Singer
September 7, 2023
A study by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) found "staggering" global education inequity due to overreliance on remote learning technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. UNESCO researchers contend that "unprecedented" technological dependence exacerbated disparities and learning loss for hundreds of millions of students worldwide, as well as impeding public discussion of more equitable options and faster resumption of in-classroom learning. The researchers urge education officials to prioritize in-person instruction with teachers as the main driver of student learning, and advise schools to ensure emerging technologies clearly benefit pupils before incorporating them into education. They also suggest school districts give educators greater influence over the adoption and use of digital tools.
*May Require Paid Registration
|
Scammers Can Abuse Security Flaws in Email Forwarding to Impersonate High-Profile Domains
UC San Diego Today
Ioana Patringenaru
September 5, 2023
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, Stanford University, and the University of Twente in the Netherlands found a way for scammers to masquerade as high-profile organizations by exploiting vulnerabilities in email forwarding. The researchers formulated four forwarding-based spoofing attacks; one involves the attacker creating a personal account for forwarding, then adding a spoofed address to the account's white list and forwarding the spoofed email to the target. Mass outsourcing of email infrastructure to Gmail and Outlook created this vulnerability, with tens of thousands of domains ranging from financial service companies to news organizations to U.S. government organizations at risk. The researchers alerted Microsoft, Apple, and Google of the flaw, which to their knowledge has not been fully corrected. They advise the disablement of open forwarding, which allows users to configure their account to forward messages to any designated email address without the destination's confirmation.
|
Shape-Shifting Ball Reduces Anxiety
ScienceAlert
David Nield
September 5, 2023
Alexz Farrall, a computer scientist at the U.K.'s University of Bath, designed a soft ball that expands and contracts in sync with a person's breathing as a tool for mental health. Said Farrall, "By giving breath physical form, the ball enhances self-awareness and engagement, fostering positive mental health outcomes." The Physical Artifact for Well-being Support (PAWS) "breathes" through haptic feedback, receiving data about the user's respiration via sensors attached to their body. Farrall led research demonstrating that users improved their focus on breathing when using the PAWS and concentrated more on a guided audio recording from a meditation application. PAWS users felt 75% less anxiety and 56% greater protection against worry-induced thoughts on average; those only using audio recordings felt 31% less anxiety.
|
Device Offers Long-Distance, Low-Power Underwater Communication
MIT News
Adam Zewe
September 6, 2023
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a battery-free underwater networking and communication system that they say uses a millionth the power required by existing underwater communication methods while expanding signal transmission range to kilometer-scale distances. The retrodirective device encodes data in sound waves that are reflected toward a receiver. The system is comprised of pairs of connected piezoelectric nodes in a Van Atta Reflector array, with a transformer between them that enables the maximum amount of energy to be reflected toward the source. The researchers observed a communication range of 300 meters, or more than 15 times farther than existing devices, though dock lengths limited testing. The researchers also developed an analytical model that can predict the system's expected range based on input power and piezoelectric node dimensions, among other data.
|
As AI Grows, Las Vegas Workers Brace for Change
NPR
Deepa Shivaram
September 4, 2023
Workers in Las Vegas are closely watching employers' adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies rise as they strive to cut labor costs. John Restrepo at business consultancy RCG Economics believes the city must reduce its economic reliance on tourism and hospitality, and shift to vocations "more highly skilled, that are not easily replaced by AI, and that provide a greater level of balance and resilience." Nevada's Culinary Union hopes to arrange a new negotiated contract this year featuring safeguards against AI replacing jobs. The Tipsy Robot bar at Planet Hollywood on the Vegas strip boasts a robot bartender assisted by employee Sabrina Bergman, who does not fear losing her job to automation; she and other service workers said machines lack the human touch and cannot deliver the same experience a person can.
|
Scales, Self-Checkouts to Identify Weighted Goods Faster
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Russia)
September 4, 2023
Researchers from Russia's Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) and Voronezh State University of Engineering Technology, and U.S. biosensor startup AuraBlue, have developed a method for differentiating weighted goods at supermarkets that can accelerate neural network training when new forms of produce arrive. The PseudoAugment technique uses computer vision to simplify the self-checkout process by tuning the neural network to accept new produce classes without extensive data collection and labeling. Skoltech's Sergey Nesteruk said, "A box with the new type can be put under the camera and photographed. Then, based on just a few photos, the algorithm identifies particular objects without manual labeling. Later, we augment images that will be used for retraining the model."
|
Legion of Robot Chefs Coming to Colorado with Meatless Sausage
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Zachy Hennessey
September 7, 2023
Israeli alternative-meat food technology company SavorEat has partnered with food services and facilities management provider Sodexo to bring SavorEat's Robot Chef to the U.S., starting with a deployment at the University of Denver. The Robot Chef will prepare digitally manufactured meatless burgers and breakfast sausage patties derived from plant material for diners at the university’s Rebecca Chopp Grand Central Market. Customers can tailor meal options based on their preferred size, texture, nutritional specifications, and "doneness" level. Operators feed a food cartridge into the Robot Chef, which three-dimensionally-prints, cooks, and delivers orders within five minutes without human interaction.
|
Researchers Design ML Models to Better Predict Adolescent Suicide, Self-Harm Risk
UNSW Sydney Newsroom (Australia)
Maddie Massy-Westropp
September 4, 2023
Machine learning (ML) models developed by researchers at Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW), the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, and South Western Sydney Local Health District aim to better predict the risks of suicide and self-harm attempts among adolescents. Using data from 2,809 participants in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, the researchers identified more than 4,000 potential risk factors related to mental and physical health, interpersonal relationships, and school and home environments. They used a random forest classification algorithm to determine the risk factors at age 14-15 that were most predictive of self-harm and suicide attempts at age 16-17. The ML models based on the top risk factors were more accurate in predicting self-harm and suicide attempts than the standard approach, which considers only previous attempts.
|
Software Analyzes Calcium 'Sparks' That Can Contribute to Arrhythmia
UC Davis Health
Lisa Howard
September 1, 2023
Open source software developed by researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and the U.K.'s University of Oxford can analyze calcium signals in cells, a key signaling molecule in all cells, automatically. The SparkMaster 2 software can identify the distinct patterns of calcium release, including "sparks" associated with arrhythmia that occur when calcium is released in cardiac cells. SparkMaster 2 can analyze calcium sparks in cells from different tissues and using different microscopy approaches. UC Davis' Donald M. Bers said that compared with its predecessor, "SparkMaster 2 is even easier to use and is much more powerful in the variety of event types it can analyze quantitatively—sparks, waves, mini-waves, and latencies. And it has higher accuracy and sensitivity, resulting in fewer missed events and fewer erroneous positives."
|
Quantum State Found During Error Correction Research
Cornell Chronicle
Kate Blackwood
September 6, 2023
Cornell University researchers observed the formation of a quantum spin-glass while studying error correction strategies in quantum computing. The quantum spin-glass state occurs when qubits simultaneously display disorder, assuming seemingly random values and rigidity (when one qubit flipping causes all others to do so as well). Cornell's Erich Mueller said, "One implication of our work is that some types of information are automatically protected in quantum algorithms which share the features of our model." The researchers identified a hidden spin-glass order when looking at random algorithms to learn their general properties, which Mueller said "points toward their being some extra hidden information floating around, which should be useable in some way for computing, though we don't know how yet."
|
Meeting DEMAND for Neutron Automation at HFIR
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
September 1, 2023
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have equipped the single-crystal Dimensional Extreme Magnetic Neutron Diffractometer (DEMAND) of the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) with new Real-Time Image Analyzer (ReTIA) software. ReTIA processes images to detect structural and magnetic scattering signals, screening out unwanted background noise by comparing neighboring frames. Neutron experiments on DEMAND can be fully automated through ReTIA, which can assume control of the diffractometer to quantify samples only at angles where high-quality data likely exists. ORNL's Yiqing Hao said the software "allows us to do experiments 30 to 50% faster" by circumventing unnecessary data collection.
|
|
