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Welcome to the March 4, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.
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The winners of the 2024 ACM SIGCHI Awards have been announced. The recipients of the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award are Susanne Bødker of Denmark's Aarhus University, Carnegie Mellon University's Jodi Forlizzi, Stanford University's James A. Landay, and Wendy Mackay of France's Inria. Google's Elizabeth Churchill was awarded the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Practice Award. Other winners include Jan Gulliksen of Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University's Amy Ogan, and University of Washington's Kate Starbird, who were the recipients of the ACM SIGCHI Societal Impact Award.
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Medium; Niklas Elmqvist (February 29, 2024)
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Self-healing robots would be ideal in environments where making repairs is difficult, such as space or the deep sea. Most self-healing robots involve polymers that can heal when heated then cooled, but researchers have identified methods for autonomous healing, including the use of polymers with hydrogen bonds, with varying bond strengths resulting in strong, flexible materials. Researchers also have developed conductive self-healing materials, such as by adding liquid metal or dielectrics and semiconductors to self-healing polymers. Now, Bram Vanderborght of Belgium's Vrije University Brussels said a portfolio of self-healing products should be developed so "we can shop from the different materials and combine them in one big application."
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Nature; Simon Makin (February 29, 2024)
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A probe-sensing circuit developed by Columbia University researchers can launch a protection engine that instructs the processor to encrypt data traffic after detecting changes in capacitance as small as 0.5 picofarads. Meanwhile, University of Texas at Austin researchers developed a technique to obscure a chip's side-channel signals by breaking the SMA component of the AES encryption process into four parallel steps and slightly altering the timing of each substep. They also inserted tunable replica circuits to conceal the real signals. Additionally, University of Vermont researchers developed a circuit that self-destructs by increasing the current in its longest interconnects or speeding up the breakdown of the transistor's gate dielectric.
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IEEE Spectrum; Samuel K. Moore (February 28, 2024)
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A wearable sensor sticker developed by researchers at China's Beijing Normal University, Sun Yat-sen University, and Guilin University of Electronic Technology could allow rehabilitation patients or people with disabilities to communicate using subtle gestures. The sticker is comprised of polydimethylsiloxane, a soft and flexible silicone elastomer, and a fiber Bragg grating optical sensor. In tests using a system that translates simple gestures into commands or messages, the sensors were found to detect the smallest movements with high accuracy.
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Optica (February 27, 2024)
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As part of a long-term study of food insecurity, Edwin Solares, a computer scientist at the University of California, San Diego, relied on supercomputing resources at UC San Diego's San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the University of California, Irvine. Solares ran millions of simulations to analyze the genomic features in maize and discovered the presence of a small ribonucleic acid (RNA) from genes. Said Solares, "Was it co-opted into genes or was it co-opted into repeats and ancient viral infections? We aren't quite sure, but we will next use SDSC's Expanse to better understand this phenomenon."
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HPCwire (February 29, 2024)
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The jump in U.S. productivity is being attributed to more companies deploying robots amid labor shortages and more workers being satisfied in their current positions. Indiana-based Batesville Tool & Die, for instance, was forced to invest in robots capable of mimicking human workers when it was able to fill only 40 of its 70 job vacancies last year. Increased investments in equipment, research and development, and other forms of intellectual property led to a boost in productivity that economists believe explains how the economy has remained strong at a time of high interest rates. Meanwhile, studies indicate that AI could spur ongoing gains in productivity.
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Associated Press; Paul Wiseman (February 21, 2024)
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A patient with ALS received a brain-computer interface (BCI) that translates neural activity in his brain to computer commands. The patient, named Mark, received the BCI in August as part of a human trial with Synchron. The company's Stentrode, a stent with electrode sensors, develops a personalized dictionary of movement based on the unique electrical signature from Mark's brainwaves. Mark already can use the BCI to play a Pong-like table tennis game and send health notifications or pain reports to his provider. Eventually, he hopes to learn to text, control Alexa, and turn on Netflix, among other things.
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CNN Business; Catherine Thorbecke; Amanda Sealy; Nadia Kounang (February 28, 2024)
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A 3D-printed sensor developed by researchers at China's Qingdao University can identify objects up to 10 cm (about 4 inches) away without physically touching them. The sensor is made of graphitic carbon nitride and polydimethylsiloxane, which is 3D-printed into a grid to produce a material with a low dielectric constant. The researchers created a unified system able to track human motion remotely by integrating the sensors into a printed circuit board. Said Qingdao's Xinlin Li, "The performance was outstanding in terms of sensitivity, speed of response, and robust stability through many cycles of use. This opens new possibilities in the field of wearable objects and electronic skin."
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New Atlas; Paul McClure (February 27, 2024)
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed 3D-printed, 3D electromagnets that could allow for more affordable electronic components. The researchers modified a commercial extrusion 3D printer to produce pellets instead of filament, allowing them to use soft magnetic nylon. The printer was also modified to handle multiple materials so that the necessary dielectric, conductive, and soft magnetic components could be layered with precision. Tests showed the 3D-printed solenoids surpassed traditionally manufactured solenoids in terms of performance.
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Interesting Engineering; Can Emir (February 23, 2024)
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A software portal developed by researchers at the AI Democracy Projects assessed whether popular large language models can handle questions about topics related to national elections around the globe. Open AI's GPT-4, Alphabet's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, Meta's Llama 2, and Mistral AI's Mixtral were asked election-related questions. Of the 130 responses, slightly more than 50% were found to be inaccurate, and 40% were deemed harmful. The most inaccurate models were Gemini, Llama 2, and Mixtral, and the most accurate was GPT-4. Meanwhile, Gemini had the most incomplete responses, and Claude had the most biased answers.
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Bloomberg; Antonia Mufarech (February 27, 2024)
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The cybersecurity firm Dragos reported 905 ransomware attacks on industrial companies last year, marking a 50% gain. Dragos said the number of ransomware groups targeting "operational technology," meaning the heavy machinery and industrial control systems used by manufacturing plants and water utilities, among others, was up 28% from 2022. The Manufacturing Information Sharing and Analysis Center's Mark Orsi noted, "The vast majority of ransomware variants only target the IT infrastructure of an organization, but all too often the manufacturing plant floor operations are disrupted as a result of compromise to IT systems." Meanwhile, there are concerns about the increased sophistication of tools used by hackers beyond ransomware.
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WSJ Pro Cybersecurity; James Rundle; Catherine Stupp (February 21, 2024)
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The Eyegaze eye-tracking system developed through a partnership between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Eyegaze Inc. helps individuals with a traumatic brain injury, stroke, or disease to communicate. First developed in 1988, the system can now be integrated into a small camera that can be mounted on a standard computer screen. The Eyegaze camera can serve as an external mouse and keyboard for devices equipped with Eyeworld, allowing users to post on social media, send emails and texts, make phone calls, and operate Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. Among other things, Eyegaze has been integrated with Zoom and WhatsApp and allows users to control motorized mobility devices.
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NASA; Margo Pierce (February 20, 2024)
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