Welcome to the March 20, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Chinese, Western Scientists Identify 'Red Lines' on AI Risks
• Foreign-Born STEM Talent Key to U.S. Research
• Automakers Share Consumers' Driving Behavior
• U.S. Warns of Cyberattacks Against Water Systems
• Never-Repeating Patterns of Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information
• 'GhostRace' Speculative Execution Attack Impacts All CPU, OS Vendors
• 3D Printing Produces a Million Microscale Particles Daily
• Tech Job Seekers Without AI Skills Face a New Reality
• VR Headsets Approach Eye's Resolution Limits
• Smart Beanie Detects Traffic Lights
• Neck Patch Allows People to Speak Without Vocal Cords

Chinese, Western Scientists Identify 'Red Lines' on AI Risks

A statement signed by Western and Chinese AI scientists warns that Cold War-level global cooperation is necessary to avoid "catastrophic or even existential risks to humanity within our lifetimes" resulting from AI technology. At the International Dialogue on AI Safety in Beijing, the experts established "red lines" on AI risks that no AI system should cross, including the development of bioweapons and the launch of cyberattacks. Signatories to the statement included ACM A. M. Turing Award laureates Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, as well as computer scientists Stuart Russell and Andrew Yao.
[ » Read full article *May Require Paid Registration ]

Foreign-Born STEM Talent Key to U.S. Research

A report from the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics found that the 38.6 million U.S. STEM workers in 2021 accounted for around 24% of the nation's workforce, up 2% from 2011. Foreign-born workers were found to make up 19% of U.S. STEM workers and 43% of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in 2021, the most recent year for which data was available. The report also found more than half (58%) of doctorate-level computer and mathematical scientists working in the U.S. were foreign-born.
[ » Read full article ]

Automakers Share Consumers' Driving Behavior

Some car manufacturers collect information from Internet-controlled vehicles and pass it along to partnering data brokers, which then sell it to auto insurers. In some cases, drivers are unaware that if they turn on certain connected-car apps purporting to provide informational benefits to them, data on their driving habits is collected and used by insurance companies to increase their car insurance premiums. Automakers' data collection practices are under investigation by California's privacy regulator, and U.S. Sen. Edward Markey has called for a probe by the Federal Trade Commission.
[ » Read full article *May Require Paid Registration ]

U.S. Warns of Cyberattacks Against Water Systems

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned in a letter to governors made public Tuesday that U.S. water systems were at risk of state-sponsored cyberattacks from hackers linked to the governments of Iran and China. “Drinking water and wastewater systems are an attractive target for cyberattacks because they are a lifeline critical infrastructure sector but often lack the resources and technical capacity to adopt rigorous cybersecurity practices,” the letter stated.
[ » Read full article ]

Never-Repeating Patterns of Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information

Zhi Li of Canada's Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics and Latham Boyle of the U.K.'s University of Edinburgh developed a quantum error-correcting code based on Penrose tilings, which never produce a periodic repeating pattern regardless of how they are arranged. The researchers determined which tiling configurations would not be impacted by localized errors, and after distinguishing two qualitatively different relationships between distinct Penrose tilings, they built an error-correcting code in which the analogous states are superpositions of all tilings within a single equivalence class.
[ » Read full article ]

'GhostRace' Speculative Execution Attack Impacts All CPU, OS Vendors

An attack developed by researchers at IBM and the Netherlands' Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) takes advantage of a flaw in Intel, AMD, ARM, and IBM processors to bypass operating system controls against race conditions. The attack, called "GhostRace," targets modern processors' speculative execution (out-of-order processing) feature, specifically conditional branch speculation. The researchers said, "The security implications are significant, as an attacker can speculatively execute all the critical regions in victim software with no synchronization."
[ » Read full article ]

3D Printing Produces a Million Microscale Particles Daily

A 3D-printing technique pioneered by Stanford University researchers enables the production of up to 1 million customized microscale particles daily. The researchers previously developed a scalable method for microscale 3D printing known as continuous liquid interface production (CLIP). In their recent development, dubbed roll-to-roll CLIP (r2rCLIP), a meticulously tensioned film is fed into the CLIP printer, where customizable shapes are printed on the film. The particles may be used in a variety of applications, including microfluidics, vaccine delivery, and microelectronics.
[ » Read full article ]

Tech Job Seekers Without AI Skills Face a New Reality

Recently laid-off information technology workers are not finding new jobs quickly due to a mismatch in the skills they have and their expectations about pay, according to consulting company Janco Associates. Jobs in areas like telecommunications, corporate systems management, and entry-level IT have declined in recent months, while roles in cybersecurity, AI, and data science continue to rise, according to Janco's data. Meanwhile, data from job listings aggregator Indeed show that the average total compensation for IT workers is about $100,000, while the average salary potential for those with generative AI skills is $174,727.
[ » Read full article *May Require Paid Registration ]

VR Headsets Approach Eye's Resolution Limits

Developers of micro-OLED and micro-LED displays for AR/VR headsets are focused on achieving higher pixel densities for greater resolution. Higher pixel densities would make visuals appear more lifelike and allow for more compact displays that reach the "human resolution bar," at which a person with 20/20 vision no longer perceives any improvement. Potential solutions to what Pimax’s Nordic Ren calls "the shortfall in raw graphical computing power" include foveated rendering and intelligent frame-interpolation algorithms.
[ » Read full article ]

Smart Beanie Detects Traffic Lights

Ultra-thin semiconductor fibers developed by researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University can be woven into fabrics to create smart wearable electronics. The hair-thin fibers can be made as long as 100 meters thanks to improved modeling and simulation techniques that address the challenges of stress-induced cracks when manufacturing such fibers. The researchers incorporated the fibers into a beanie that can be worn by visually impaired individuals to alert them when traffic lights change.
[ » Read full article ]

Neck Patch Allows People to Speak Without Vocal Cords

A wearable device developed by bioengineers at the University of California, Los Angeles, can be attached to the skin of the throat to help people with dysfunctional vocal cords regain their voice function. The device is capable of detecting movement in a person’s larynx muscles and translating those signals into audible speech with the assistance of machine learning technology with what the researchers described as nearly 95% accuracy.
[ » Read full article ]