Welcome to the March 13, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Silicon Valley Is Pricing Academics Out of AI Research
• WWW Inventor's Predictions as the Web Turns 35
• How Electronic Warfare Is Reshaping Ukraine Battlefields
• Python Stretches Lead in Language Popularity Index
• 4D Knit Dress Uses Heat, Robotic Tech to Achieve Perfect Fit, Style
• Montreal Doctors Develop VR Tool That Could Save Children's Lives
• School Introduces India's First AI Teacher Robot
• CISA, NSA Share Best Practices for Securing Cloud Services
• Automated Driving Systems Get 'Poor' Rating
• Memory Device Could Stop Quantum Networks from Failing
• 6G Reflector Chip Tech Offers Road to 33 Gb/s
• Human-to-Humanoid Robot Full-Body Teleoperation

Silicon Valley Is Pricing Academics Out of AI Research

Stanford University's Fei-Fei Li, an ACM Fellow known as the "godmother of AI," pressed President Joe Biden, following his State of the Union address, to fund a national warehouse of computing power and datasets to ensure the nation's leading AI researchers can keep pace with big tech firms. Said Li, "The public sector is now significantly lagging in resources and talent compared to that of industry. This will have profound consequences because industry is focused on developing technology that is profit-driven, whereas public sector AI goals are focused on creating public goods."
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WWW Inventor's Predictions as the Web Turns 35

As it turns 35, ACM A.M. Turing Award laureate Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, shared predictions about his invention's future over the next 35 years. “Some people worry about whether, in 35 years, AI will be more powerful than us,” Berners-Lee said. “One of the things I predict—but it’s something we may have to fight for—is you will have an AI assistant, which you can trust, and it works for you, like a doctor.”
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How Electronic Warfare Is Reshaping Ukraine Battlefields

Electronic countermeasures have become one of Russia’s most effective weapons to counter Ukraine's innovative use of drones. Ukrainian troops describe how one side makes technological changes—such as using different frequencies or jamming signals for drones—then the other side adjusts. Ukraine is hampered by its reliance on store-bought compact racing drones that operate on an analog frequency, many of which come out of the box set to the same frequency. Ukrainian drone units often need soldiers skilled in coding to change the frequency on a drone’s software.
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Python Stretches Lead in Language Popularity Index

The latest Tiobe Programming Community Index showed Python was the most popular programming language in its March ranking, with its largest-ever lead of almost 4.5 percentage points ahead of C, which ranked second. Rounding out the top 10 were C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, SQL, Go, Scratch, and Visual Basic. Meanwhile, the top 10 languages on the Pypl Popularity of Programming Language Index for March were Python, Java, JavaScript, C#, C/C++, R, PHP, TypeScript, Swift, and Objective-C.
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4D Knit Dress Uses Heat, Robotic Tech to Achieve Perfect Fit, Style

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a garment that can be custom-fit and styled to any person using heat-activated yarns, computerized knitting methods, and robotic activation. The 4D Knit Dress offers a sustainable fashion option, as subsequent heat applications allow it to change with the wearer's style preferences or body shape.
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Montreal Doctors Develop VR Tool That Could Save Children's Lives

Researchers at Montreal Children's Hospital in Canada developed a VR emergency room to train physicians worldwide to treat severe pediatric injuries. The Pediatric Trauma Innovative Training in VR (PeTIT VR) provides an immersive environment with real-life scenarios to train surgical teams in small and remote hospitals without requiring them to travel or acquire expensive mannequins. Said Montreal Children's Dan Poenaru, "Like in any multiplayer game, we actually work together and interact with one another, and then we can exactly find out how the interactions were, we can analyze those interactions, and we can actually get precious information for feedback."
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School Introduces India's First AI Teacher Robot

In Kerala, India, an AI teacher robot from Maker Labs has been rolled out at KTCT Higher Secondary School. Known as Iris, the generative AI-powered robot can create lessons tailored to the needs and preferences of individual students. Iris can respond to questions, explain concepts, and provide interactive learning experiences. The robot also can move through learning spaces and manipulate objects with its hands.
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CISA, NSA Share Best Practices for Securing Cloud Services

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) jointly issued five cybersecurity bulletins offering best practices for securing cloud services. The cybersecurity information sheets provide guidance on identity and access management solutions, as well as key management solutions, encrypting data in the cloud, managing cloud storage, and mitigating risks from managed service providers.
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Automated Driving Systems Get 'Poor' Rating

After the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) tested 14 advanced driver assistance systems, it gave 11 of them a "poor" rating. Among those deemed "poor" were Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self Driving systems, and the Ford Blue Cruise and Nissan ProPilot Assist hands-free highway driving systems. IIHS rated General Motors' Super Cruise hands-free system as "marginal," and Lexus's Teammate with Advanced Drive system as "acceptable." IIHS said none of the 14 systems adequately monitored driver attention, seven failed to provide two-method alerts to inattentive drivers, and only GM's Super Cruise properly responded when a driver did not pay attention after receiving a warning.
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Memory Device Could Stop Quantum Networks from Failing

Researchers at China's Tsinghua University developed random access quantum memory (RAQM) that can read and write information 1,000 times. Quantum information degrades easily as it travels, and adding RAQMs at regular intervals along a network connection could allow network users to create backups and salvage failed transmissions of quantum data. The RAQM is comprised of a billion rubidium atoms cooled to a few hundred-millionths of a degree above absolute zero and arranged into 144 groups. It can store 72 qubits at a time for 0.5 milliseconds.
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6G Reflector Chip Tech Offers Road to 33 Gb/s

Cornell University researchers demonstrated that 3D spirals of reflectors on microchips can help save space while allowing for true time delays to avoid the blurring of signals. The microwave component measures just 0.16 square millimeters, and allows for a true time-delay element across 14 GHz of bandwidth. The researchers estimate the device could achieve data rates faster than 33 gigabits per second within a bandwidth of 8 GHz, exceeding that of phase shifters by three times and true time-delay elements by 40%.
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Human-to-Humanoid Robot Full-Body Teleoperation

A teleoperation system developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers using reinforcement learning gives individuals full-body control of full-sized humanoid robots. The scalable reinforcement learning-based Human to Humanoid (H2O) system uses an RGB camera for real-time translation of human gestures into behaviors performed by the robot. Human operators can direct the robot to pick up and place objects, as well as walk and kick, among other movements.
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