Welcome to the March 22, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• UN Adopts Resolution Backing Efforts to Ensure Safe AI
• Neuralink Shows Brain-Chip Patient Playing Online Chess
• EU to Impose Election Safeguards on Big Tech
• 3D-Printed Holographics Encode Data Using Common Plastic
• FCC Approves Voluntary Cyber Trust Labels for Consumer IoT Products
• Ukraine Opens New Front in Minecraft Game
• C++ Creator Rebuts White House Warning
• Robot Spots Sick Tulips to Slow Spread of Disease
• Formula 1 Chief Appalled to Find Team Using Excel to Manage 20,000 Car Parts
• Google DeepMind Unveils AI Football Coach
• Transistor Can Be Reconfigured on the Fly
• Digital Humans: The Relatable Face of AI?

UN Adopts Resolution Backing Efforts to Ensure Safe AI

The U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution on Thursday that encourages the development and support of safe AI systems. The resolution was adopted by consensus without a vote, meaning it has the support of all 193 U.N. member nations. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the assembly just before the vote, "Today, as the U.N. and AI finally intersect we have the opportunity and the responsibility to choose as one united global community to govern this technology rather than let it govern us."
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Neuralink Shows Brain-Chip Patient Playing Online Chess

Neuralink on Wednesday livestreamed its brain implant being used by a patient to play chess on his laptop. Noland Arbaugh (above on the right), who was paralyzed after a diving accident, received the Neuralink implant in January. Arbaugh said the technology "has already changed my life" but acknowledged it has "run into some issues." Neural engineering expert Kip Ludwig noted, "It is still in the very early days post-implantation.”
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EU to Impose Election Safeguards on Big Tech

Brussels is set to roll out its first binding regime to fight election disinformation. The guidelines, aimed at countering online threats to election integrity, could be adopted by the European Commission as soon as next week, according to insiders. Among other things, the guidelines say platforms that fail to adequately address AI-powered disinformation or deepfakes could face fines of up to 6% of their global turnover.
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3D-Printed Holographics Encode Data Using Common Plastic

Researchers at Austria's TU Wien demonstrated the use of a computer-generated 3D-printed diffractive phase-plate to encode terahertz holographic bits. The process involved printing holographic data to a piece of plastic and the use of a terahertz wave to read the data from the plastic. The 576-bit data code that was produced in tests included a 256-bit private Bitcoin wallet key with redundancy. TU Wien's Evan Constable said, "You can securely store a value of tens of thousands of euros in an object that only costs a few cents."
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FCC Approves Voluntary Cyber Trust Labels for Consumer IoT Products

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a voluntary cybersecurity labeling program for consumer Internet of Things (IoT) products. Products that meet the minimum criteria set forth in the National Institute for Standards and Technology's Internal Report 8425 can display U.S. Cyber Trust Certification Marks like the one shown at right. The goal is for the marks, along with related QR codes linking to product registries with security information, to help consumers make informed buying decisions.
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Ukraine Opens New Front in Minecraft Game

Ukraine on Thursday launched a game that replicates the salt-mining town of Soledar, captured by Russia in January last year. Launched by fundraising platform UNITED24, Minesalt recreates 16 real locations in Ukraine in a server on Minecraft, owned by Microsoft. While Minesalt is not made in partnership with Microsoft, it uses Minecraft's fonts with permission from developer Mojang Studios and parent Microsoft.
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C++ Creator Rebuts White House Warning

A recent White House report urged developers to avoid the use of programming languages with memory safety vulnerabilities, such as C++ and C. In response, C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup said steps have been taken to improve its safety. Stroustrup previously defended the safety of C++ against the National Security Agency, which recommended using memory-safe languages instead of C++ and C in a November 2022 bulletin.
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Robot Spots Sick Tulips to Slow Spread of Disease

On the Netherlands' North Sea coast, 45 robots from H2L Robotics have been deployed in the tulip fields to check each plant for signs of a virus that hinders growth and development and destroys the bulbs. The robots examine each plant and kill diseased bulbs as they are identified. The robots are equipped with cameras that capture images of the tulips, and an AI model that analyzes the images for signs of sickness.
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Formula 1 Chief Appalled to Find Team Using Excel to Manage 20,000 Car Parts

Concerns have been raised by James Vowles, new head of the Formula 1 team Williams, given that the team’s car build workbook, comprised of about 20,000 individual parts, was being managed in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that he called "impossible to navigate and impossible to update." Among other things, the spreadsheet did not include parts costs, production times for each part, or whether needed parts were on order. Chief Technical Officer Pat Fry called transitioning to a modern tracking system "viciously expensive."
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Google DeepMind Unveils AI Football Coach

Researchers at Google DeepMind collaborated with English Premier League club Liverpool to develop an AI football coach. The geometric deep learning model TacticAI was trained on a dataset of 7,176 corner kicks from the English Premier League from 2020 to 2023. After analyzing corner kicks with different player configurations, it can suggest positional improvements. In a study, experts including data scientists, a video analyst, and a coaching assistant chose TacticAI's recommendations over existing strategies 90% of the time.
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Transistor Can Be Reconfigured on the Fly

A transistor developed by researchers at Austria's TU Wien can be reprogrammed as necessary via electrostatic doping, deliberate contamination of the semiconductor material with certain foreign atoms. They developed a way to use electric fields to control the transport of electrons and holes, the places where an electron is missing. TU Wien's Walter M. Weber (above, at right) said, "Our reconfigurable transistors allow for reconfiguration at the fundamental switching units, rather than information routing to fixed functional units."
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Digital Humans: The Relatable Face of AI?

U.K. startup Sum Vivas has created a digital human as a showpiece for more practical applications of AI. A DJ and aspiring model, digital human Dex is animated using the 3D modeling software Unreal Engine and can interact with her Instagram followers using generative AI. Sum Vivas also has developed "Shellie," an avatar that can be featured on company websites to offer product information, and "Arif," a multilingual airport concierge who can respond to questions and provide directions.
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