Welcome to the February 14, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Go Language Hits Top 10 in Tiobe Index
• Imran Khan's 'Victory Speech' from Jail Shows AI's Peril, Promise
• Apps Let Blind People Navigate with a Phone in Their Pocket
• Sea Cows Have a New Best Friend: Drones
• Threats to Election Systems Prompt U.S. Cybersecurity Agency to Boost Cooperation with States
• Japan's FamilyMart to Roll Out Cleaning Robots
• EdgeFace: A Face Recognition Model for Edge Devices
• Datacenters Curbed as Pressure Grows on Power Grids
• Replacement Cartilage Grows in Any Shape with 3D-Printed 'Spheroids'
• Spying on Security Cameras Through Walls
• Student Invents Takeaway Delivery Robot
• Fitness Trackers Find New Symptom of Depression: Body Temperature
• Cryptography-Breaking Algorithm Upgraded

Go Language Hits Top 10 in Tiobe Index

Google's Go language cracked the Tiobe language popularity index's top 10 in February to reach No. 8, its highest position on the ranking ever. Tiobe's top 10 programming languages for February are Python, C, C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, SQL, Go, Visual Basic, and PHP. In contrast, the Pypl Popularity of Programming Language index's top 10 for the month are Python, Java, JavaScript, C/C++, C#, R, PHP, TypeScript, Swift, and Objective-C.
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Imran Khan's 'Victory Speech' from Jail Shows AI's Peril, Promise

Despite being imprisoned, former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has garnered support for his political party using AI. Khan's AI-generated voice was used to make a victory speech on Feb. 10, stating that his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, won the most seats in the general election. The speech, which featured a disclaimer about the use of AI, rejected the victory claim of Khan's rival and called on supporters to defend the election’s results.
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Apps Let Blind People Navigate with a Phone in Their Pocket

Two smartphone apps developed by University of California, Santa Cruz researchers can use a smartphone handset's built-in motion sensors and AI to guide blind people through buildings while their phones are in their pockets. One of the prototype wayfinding apps uses spatial sensing and uploaded building maps to guide the user to their desired location, with navigation cues provided via headphones or vibrations. The other app works similarly, but also records the user's path and plays it backwards to help them exit the building.
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Sea Cows Have a New Best Friend: Drones

Damboia Cossa of Sweden's University of Gothenburg studied the population of dugongs ("sea cows") and their feeding trails in Maputo Bay, Mozambique, using off-the-shelf aerial drones. The goal of Cossa’s research is to inform safer fishing practices to protect the endangered dugongs. After taking thousands of pictures over a six-month period, Cossa used a machine learning model to pinpoint the dugongs' feeding trails.
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Threats to Election Systems Prompt U.S. Cybersecurity Agency to Boost Cooperation with States

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is rolling out a program to help state and local election officials enhance election security. The agency hired 10 new people for the program, each with significant election experience, who will be placed at various locations nationwide to work alongside staff already performing cyber and physical security reviews as requested by election offices.
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Japan's FamilyMart to Roll Out Cleaning Robots

Japan's FamilyMart will deploy floor-cleaning robots at 300 of its directly run stores across the country by the end of the month, with franchise locations able to rent them for a monthly fee beginning in April. The robots clean the floors five times daily, allowing store employees to focus on other tasks. The robots also can carry sales items, display product information and ads, and use its roughly 20 sensors to avoid colliding with customers or shelves.
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EdgeFace: A Face Recognition Model for Edge Devices

An international team of researchers developed EdgeFace, a face recognition model optimized for use on edge devices with limited processing power and storage. The newly developed EdgeFace face recognition model achieves state-of-the-art accuracy on benchmark datasets like LFW, IJB-B, and IJB-C, even when compared to larger and more complex models.
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Datacenters Curbed as Pressure Grows on Power Grids

Across the globe, concerns about the substantial amount of energy used by datacenters have led to restrictions on their construction. So far, Ireland, Germany, Singapore, and China, as well as Loudon County, VA, and Amsterdam, Netherlands, have implemented strict environmental requirements for datacenters. Analysts expect more restrictions to be imposed as governments assess the impact of increased Internet use on electrical grids. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon already are working to achieve sustainability targets through wind and solar energy investments.
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Replacement Cartilage Grows in Any Shape with 3D-Printed 'Spheroids'

A method for growing cartilage from stem cells developed by researchers at Austria’s TU Wien uses 3D-printed "spheroids" as a scaffold for creating cartilage in any shape needed. The hollow spheroids are made from biocompatible plastic material and can be connected seamlessly like blocks, giving cartilage stability and structure as it grows. Once the spheroids break down, the tissue is left behind in the desired shape.
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Spying on Security Cameras Through Walls

Northeastern University researchers have developed a way to access video feeds from home security, dashboard, and smartphone cameras through walls. The EM Eye technique detects electromagnetic radiation emitted by the cameras' wires using a radio antenna, decodes the signal, and uses machine learning to reproduce real-time video without sound at a similar quality as the original. A test on 12 different types of cameras revealed that, depending on the model, EM Eye could successfully eavesdrop within a range of up to 16 feet.
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Student Invents Takeaway Delivery Robot

Ebthehal Alotaibi of the U.K.'s University of Edinburgh custom-built two robots to deliver food from the Kings Buildings cafe to students across campus. Developed through Alotaibi's company Pixconvey, the Pixie 1 and Pixie 2 robots can navigate roads, traffic lights, and pedestrian crossings. The Pixconvey app will be integrated with the Upay takeaway app. After catering staff load the food into the robot's cargo hold, it will make the delivery autonomously. Once the customer removes their order, the robot will return to the catering area. Alotaibi hopes the food-delivery trial on campus will pave the way for road trials of the robots.
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Fitness Trackers Find New Symptom of Depression: Body Temperature

A study by University of California, San Francisco researchers found that Oura Rings, which sense a variety of physical factors, can be used to predict COVID-19, and also may detect depression. The study tracked 20,880 participants who used the off-the-shelf wearable, which monitors heart rate, body temperature, oxygen levels, and other vital signs. The researchers found the ring identified COVID-19 infections an average of 2.75 days prior to a positive test. They also found participants with higher body temperatures reported higher rates of depressive symptoms and feelings of depression.
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Cryptography-Breaking Algorithm Upgraded

Cryptographers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a more efficient LLL-style algorithm, based on the original lattice-based cryptography-breaking algorithm released in 1982. The algorithm, named after the researchers who published it—Arjen Lenstra, Hendrik Lenstra Jr., and László Lovász—has also proven useful in advanced mathematical arenas such as computational number theory. The new algorithm can break tasks down into smaller pieces and better balance speed and accuracy.
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