Welcome to the February 23, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.
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A robotic spacecraft on Thursday became the first privately built craft to touch down on the Moon's surface, as well as the first U.S. vehicle to accomplish the feat since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Nicknamed Odysseus and built by Houston-based space exploration company Intuitive Machines, the lander is carrying commercial cargo and NASA science instruments. It is expected to spend about a week collecting data on the moon before lunar night sets in and the probe loses power.
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NBC News; Denise Chow (February 22, 2024)
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Deep brain stimulation is helping Emily Hollenbeck recover from severe depression. Surgeons inserted thin metal electrodes into her subcallosal cingulate cortex, a region of the brain that regulates emotional behavior. The electrodes are connected to a device under the skin of her chest that provides constant low-voltage pulses. Occasionally, she goes into Mount Sinai’s “Q-Lab” in New York, where scientists collect data; she also provides the researchers regular brain recordings remotely.
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Associated Press; Laura Ungar (February 21, 2024)
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 The Stack Overflow 2023 Developer Survey of more than 90,000 developers found that programmers using the Zig programming language were paid more than those using other languages, with earning potential of up to $103,611 last year. Ranking second in the survey was Erlang ($99,492), followed by F# ($99,311), Ruby ($98,522), and Clojure ($96,381).
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InfoWorld; Elizabeth Montalbano (February 21, 2024)
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 More than 400 AI experts and executives from various industries, including AI "godfather" and ACM A.M. Turing Award laureate Yoshua Bengio, signed an open letter calling for increased regulation of deepfakes. The letter states, "Today, deepfakes often involve sexual imagery, fraud, or political disinformation. Since AI is progressing rapidly and making deepfakes much easier to create, safeguards are needed." The letter provides recommendations for regulation, such as criminal penalties for individuals who knowingly produce or facilitate the spread of harmful deepfakes, and requiring AI companies to prevent their products from creating harmful deepfakes.
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Reuters; Anna Tong (February 21, 2024)
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Researchers at Germany's ATHENE (National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity) found a design flaw in a Domain Name System (DNS) security extension that could cause widespread Internet disruptions if it were exploited on multiple DNS servers simultaneously. DNS servers that use the DNSSEC extension to validate traffic are vulnerable to the "KeyTrap" DNS bug, which has existed since 2000. The researchers worked with Google, Cloudflare, and other major DNS service providers on patches before publishing their work.
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Dark Reading; Becky Bracken (February 20, 2024)
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 New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a pilot project to be launched this summer will use drones to assist in the rescue of struggling swimmers off Brooklyn’s Coney Island. The drones will carry an inflatable boat and feature a speaker that can communicate with swimmers and the lifeguards working to save them. Lifesaving drones have been tested on Long Island beaches, as well as in Spain and France. However, there are concerns the drones could be used to spy on beachgoers.
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The New York Times; Dana Rubinstein; Corey Kilgannon (February 20, 2024)
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Employees at U.K. house-clearing firm Just Clear found two Q1 microcomputers while clearing out a property in December. Just Clear's Brendan O'Shea said the units were last used in the 1970s by an oil drilling company. There are only three known Q1 microcomputers in the world, with the other believed to be in Scandinavia. The Q1, considered the first single-microchip PC and a predecessor of the modern desktop PC, was manufactured in 1972 by the American Q1 Corporation.
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LiveScience; Keumars Afifi-Sabet (February 20, 2024)
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Researchers at Australia's University of New South Wales Sydney demonstrated four different ways in which data can be written on a qubit. A single atom used by the researchers was made from antimony, which can replace one of the silicon atoms on a silicon chip. The four methods used to manipulate data on the atom involved using an oscillating magnetic field to control the electron; using magnetic resonance to manipulate the spin of the atom's nucleus; using an electric field to control the nucleus; and using an electric field to control the nucleus and the electron in opposition to each other.
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New Atlas; Michael Irving (February 19, 2024)
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Researchers in the U.S. and China have demonstrated a side-channel attack on the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System that allows fingerprint pattern features to be extracted from the sounds of a user's finger swiping a touchscreen. The attack, dubbed PrintListener, can be made through apps like Discord, Skype, WeChat, and FaceTime when a device’s microphone is on. Tests of PrintListener found it could extract up to 27.9% of partial fingerprints, and 9.3% of complete fingerprints, within five attempts at the highest-security false acceptance rate setting of 0.01%.
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Tom's Hardware; Mark Tyson (February 19, 2024)
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A facial recognition system developed by researchers at Taiwan's National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and Hon Hai Research Institute that uses flatter, simpler optics that consume less energy performed on par with existing smartphone facial recognition in tests involving a 3D replica of Michelangelo's David sculpture. The depth-sensing facial recognition system uses metasurface holograms and photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers in place of bulkier components. Tests on the David replica showed the new system produced close to 1.5 times more infrared dots than standard commercial 3D imaging systems, and was 233 times smaller than standard dot projectors in terms of surface area.
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Ars Technica; Jennifer Ouellette (February 19, 2024)
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Through a partnership with robotics firm Cartken and Mitsubishi Electric, Uber Eats will begin offering food deliveries via robot in Tokyo, Japan, next month. Cartken’s Model C autonomous sidewalk robots are about as fast as a walking adult and use AI and computer vision technology to navigate, avoid obstacles and pedestrians, and stop at traffic lights. The robots are equipped with a temperature-controlled cargo bin to keep food at the proper temperature during transport.
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CNN; Catherine Thorbecke (February 20, 2024)
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 Kirkland, WA-based Wyze said about 13,000 users of its security cameras were able to view sensitive content from the devices of other users when the cameras came back online Feb. 16 following an hours-long service outage attributed to Amazon Web Services. Some users were able to see thumbnails from other users' feeds in their apps and clicked to view the videos. Wyze attributed the mixup of device IDs and user ID mapping to a partner that has since fixed the issue.
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The Washington Post; Heather Kelly (February 20, 2024)
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An algorithm developed by University of South Florida (USF) researchers can produce 3D models of scenes behind walls, doors, and cars using the faint shadows cast by objects on nearby surfaces. The algorithm can reconstruct hidden scenes in just minutes using a single photo from a digital camera. Said USF's John Murray-Bruce, "We live in a 3D world, so obtaining a more complete 3D picture of a scenario can be critical in several situations and applications."
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Interesting Engineering; Rizwan Choudhury (February 20, 2024)
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