Welcome to the November 29, 2023 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Robots with Squidgy Paws Navigate Uneven Terrain
New Scientist
Matthew Sparkes
November 28, 2023
Tejal Barnwal at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Jørgen Anker Olsen at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and colleagues developed an artificial paw to help robots keep their footing on uneven terrain. The Terrain Recognition and Contact Force Estimation Paw (TRACEPaw), made from half a silicone ball, deforms as the robot walks. Inside the silicone ball, a camera takes images of a grid-like pattern of dots on the interior of the silicone, detecting how it changes in response to each step. An artificial intelligence (AI) model then works out the amount of force being applied and from which direction. A microphone also captures the sound made by each step, which another AI model uses to differentiate between surfaces. A single chip inside the foot runs all the AI algorithms, so extensive wiring is not required.
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Seeing Cancer's Spread Through a Computational Window
Duke University Pratt School of Engineering
November 27, 2023
A team led by researchers at Duke University developed a computational model that can simulate the movement of individual cancer cells through a body's blood vessels. The Adaptive Physics Refinement model expands on an existing algorithm to show how cancer cells interact with millions of neighboring red blood cells. Duke's Samreen Mahmud said, "Our goal was to maximize the window size to see how many cells we could capture using a leadership-class supercomputer. We then focused on reducing the computational cost and efficiently moving the method to the cloud." The researchers demonstrated the algorithm's efficiency by simulating a cancer cell's movement across a centimeter using a single node on Amazon's Web Service for 500 hours, reducing computational memory demand from petabytes to gigabytes.
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AI Sharpens Rainfall Estimates from Satellites
IEEE Spectrum
Charles Q. Choi
November 23, 2023
Colorado State University (CSU) researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to improve rainfall estimates from weather satellites, which scan cloud tops instead of detecting surface-level precipitation. The researchers used deep learning techniques to analyze data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R), which scan visible and infrared light from Earth. Using a neural network with more than 1.3 million parameters and GOES-R infrared data from the southwestern U.S., the researchers trained the model to generate precipitation estimates as close to ground-based radar estimates as possible. They found the AI system outperformed other algorithms used to analyze satellite data in matching ground-based radar estimates, and that it was even more accurate in estimating heavy precipitation when incorporating GOES-16's lightning data.
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Algorithmic Recommendation Technology or Human Curation? Study of Online News Outlet Suggests Both
Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College News
November 27, 2023
A study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Switzerland's University of Lausanne, and Germany's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München found that when it comes to recommending which news stories people see online with an eye to maximizing clicks, a combination of automated recommender technology and human curation may work best. The study looked at how users of an online news outlet in Germany reacted to both algorithmic and human recommendations of news articles, and found that in terms of user clicks, the algorithmic recommendations performed better. However, the researchers observed that human editors performed better on days with more attention-grabbing news. Further, they determined that clicks could rise up to 13% with an optimal combination of both methods.
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Drones with Defibrillators Are Saving Lives
Interesting Engineering
Loukia Papadopoulos
November 22, 2023
In a study of the use of drones equipped with automated external defibrillators (AEDs, devices that apply an electric charge to the heart to restore a normal heartbeat), researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet found the drones were at the scene of a suspected cardiac arrest a median of 3 minutes and 14 seconds before ambulances in 67% of the cases examined. Said Karolinska Institutet's Andreas Claesson, "Our study now shows once and for all that it is possible to deliver AED with drones and that this can be done several minutes before the arrival of the ambulance in connection with acute cardiac arrest." Claesson said in some of the cases, the person who dialed 911 was instructed to retrieve and use the AED before an ambulance's arrival.
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Defending Your Voice Against Deepfakes
The Source (Washington University in St. Louis)
Shawn Ballard
November 27, 2023
A tool developed by Washington University in St. Louis' Ning Zhang is intended to protect a user's voice from being used to create deepfakes. By making it harder for artificial intelligence (AI) tools to read certain voice-recording characteristics, the AntiFake tool prevents unauthorized speech synthesis. Said Zhang, "The tool uses a technique of adversarial AI that was originally part of the cybercriminals' toolbox, but now we're using it to defend against them. We mess up the recorded audio signal just a little bit, distort or perturb it just enough that it still sounds right to human listeners, but it's completely different to AI." In tests against five state-of-the-art speech synthesizers, AntiFake was found to be 95% effective.
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Optimization Framework for Robot Motion Planning
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Alex Shipps
November 21, 2023
An algorithm developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers aims to help robots map out collision-free, optimized trajectories through maze-like environments. The Graphs of Convex Sets Trajectory Optimization algorithm combines graph search and convex optimization to plan collision-free paths in at least 14 dimensions, allowing robots to better navigate warehouses, libraries, households, and other complex spaces. In tests in which two robotic arms holding a mug maneuvered around a bookshelf, the algorithm was able to identify a shorter path more quickly than similar algorithms. The algorithm also successfully guided a quadrotor drone though a building and around obstacles in simulations without collisions. Said MIT's Russ Tedrake, "This framework is deeply connected to many core results in optimization, control, and machine learning, giving us new leverage on problems that are simultaneously continuous and combinatorial."
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Modded Switches Secure Ukraine's Power Grid from Russian Cyberattacks
The Register (U.K.)
Connor Jones
November 22, 2023
Cisco-modified network switches were delivered to Ukrenergo, Ukraine's state-owned electrical grid operator, to help it withstand Russian cyberattacks. Russia has used GPS-jamming tactics to interfere with Ukraine's high-voltage electrical subsystems. When GPS signals are jammed, such subsystems are unable to synchronize time so they can't report the status of the grid to power dispatchers accurately, making it difficult to assess damage to electrical infrastructure caused by Russian attacks, and to balance power. Said a Cisco spokesperson, "Using the Cisco Industrial Ethernet switch with its internal crystal oscillator, we were able to create new, enhanced clock recovery algorithms and modified the switch code to provide an accurate time holdover when GPS was unavailable."
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A New Front Is Opening in the U.S.-China Chip Conflict
Bloomberg
Jane Lanhee Lee; Ian King; Mackenzie Hawkins
November 20, 2023; et al.
The ongoing conflict between the U.S. and China over semiconductor chip production is expected to ramp up as the U.S. seeks to gain a competitive edge in the area of advanced packaging. The semiconductor packaging process, which involves encasing chips in materials that protect them and permit their connection to electronic devices, has long been outsourced to Asia. The Biden administration plans to create a $3-billion National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program to develop numerous high-volume packaging facilities by the end of the decade and ease the nation's reliance on Asian supply lines.
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Amazon Launches Free AI Classes
The Wall Street Journal
Sebastian Herrera; Chip Cutter
November 20, 2023
Amazon.com is rolling out a free training program that aims to provide basic to advanced skills in artificial intelligence (AI) to at least 2 million people by 2025. The AI Ready program aims to fill the gap in AI talent as Amazon seeks to compete against Microsoft, Google, and others. The program will provide eight online courses centered on generative AI for both beginners and more experienced professionals in tech and tech-adjacent roles. Non-Amazon employees can access the courses, which also cover Amazon's Bedrock AI platform and CodeWhisperer tool, through the Amazon learning Website. Amazon's Swami Sivasubramanian said the main goal is to "democratize" generative AI education, adding that re-skilling workers would benefit not only Amazon but also its enterprise customers.
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Crowdsourced Fact-Checking Fights Misinformation
Cornell Chronicle
Patricia Waldron
November 21, 2023
A study by Cornell University researchers found that crowdsourced fact-checking sites can help combat misinformation online. To compare 2,641 professional fact-checked articles to more than 60,000 posts on Cofacts, a Taiwan-based fact-checking platform, the researchers matched the responses using natural language processing and assessed the time it took to respond to queries, as well as response accuracy and persuasiveness, and the range of topics covered. They determined that Cofacts' volunteers more quickly responded to questions than journalists. The researchers also found Cofacts posts and professional articles were similar in accuracy, but professional articles were deemed more persuasive and Cofacts posts were deemed clearer. Said Cornell's Andy Zhao, “We can leverage the power of the crowds to counter misinformation."
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Researchers Find Vulnerabilities in Windows Hello Implementations
SiliconANGLE
Maria Deutscher
November 22, 2023
Researchers at cybersecurity company Blackwing Intelligence found vulnerabilities in several laptop makers’ implementations of Windows Hello, the biometric login feature built into Windows. The researchers uncovered the vulnerabilities as part of a project carried out on behalf of Microsoft Corp.’s offensive research and security engineering team to analyze laptops from Microsoft, Lenovo, and Dell. The flaws found relate to a Microsoft technology called the Secure Device Connection Protocol (SDCP), which many laptops rely on to power their Windows Hello implementations. “Microsoft did a good job designing Secure Device Connection Protocol (SDCP) to provide a secure channel between the host and biometric devices, but unfortunately device manufacturers seem to misunderstand some of the objectives,” the researchers said.
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