Welcome to the May 25, 2022, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Era of Borderless Data Is Ending
The New York Times
David McCabe; Adam Satariano
May 23, 2022
More than 50 countries, including France, Austria, and South Africa, are boosting their efforts to control digital information generated by citizens, government agencies, and corporations. To achieve such "digital sovereignty," these nations are imposing rules and standards governing how data can and cannot be transmitted worldwide. Technology companies are adapting to the new rules, with Microsoft making changes so customers can keep data with certain geographies, Amazon Web Services allowing customers to control where in Europe their data is stored, and Google Cloud striking deals with local tech and telecom providers in France, Spain, and Germany to oversee customer data.
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Dutch Police Use 'Deepfake' Video in Appeal Over Boy's Murder
EuroNews
Matthew Holroyd
May 24, 2022
Dutch police produced a deepfake video to support an appeal to the public for information about the 2003 killing of teenage footballer Sedar Soares. The police artificially manipulated footage to depict Soares crossing a football pitch (soccer field) with a ball under his arm, surrounded by his relatives, friends, and teachers. "The use of the 'deepfake' is not just a lucky shot, we are convinced that it can touch hearts in the criminal environment," said the National Criminal Investigation Team's Daan Annegarn. Sedar's sister Janet acknowledged, "It's not going to bring Sedar back, but hopefully, it will bring answers."
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Charting a Safe Course Through a Highly Uncertain Environment
MIT News
Adam Zewe
May 19, 2022
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a technique that could help autonomous spacecraft navigate remote exoplanets without needing to understand environmental conditions or potential obstacles. The technique aims to help spacecraft plot a safe trajectory to a specific region when its exact starting point is unknown and it is uncertain how its movement will be affected by external conditions. The researchers developed algorithms that handle trajectory planning as a probabilistic optimization problem, enabling the robot to achieve objectives like maximizing velocity or minimizing fuel consumption while factoring in safety constraints. When applied to simulated scenarios, the algorithms were able to develop safe trajectories within minutes.
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Countermeasure Against Unwanted Wireless Surveillance
Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany)
Annika Gödde
May 24, 2022
Researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and the Cologne University of Applied Sciences have developed a system to protect privacy in wireless communications based on intelligent reflective surfaces (IRS). To prevent passive eavesdroppers from obtaining sensitive data transmitted via wireless communications through intercepted high-frequency signals, the team created IRS, which distributes many reflective elements over a surface and electronically adjusts the reflective behavior of each. Their IRShield solution uses an algorithm to create a random IRS configuration that disguises the wireless channels used so attackers are unable to read information about movements in the room from the signal. In testing, the researchers found IRShield was able to thwart 95% of such attacks.
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Nanobiotics: Model Predicts How Nanoparticles Interact with Proteins
University of Michigan
May 16, 2022
University of Michigan (U-M) researchers developed a machine learning model that can predict interactions between nanoparticles and proteins, potentially paving the way for the creation of engineered nanoparticles able to disrupt antibiotic-resistant infections. The new algorithm compares nanoparticles to proteins using a conventional chemical description, as well as descriptions of the protein's complex surface and how it could reconfigure itself to allow for lock-and-key fits with specific proteins. Said U-M's Nicholas Kotov, "By applying mathematical methods to protein-protein interactions, we have streamlined the design of nanoparticles that mimic one of the proteins in these pairs. Nanoparticles are more stable than biomolecules and can lead to entirely new classes of antibacterial and antiviral agents."
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Objects Can Now Be 3D-Printed in Opaque Resin
EPFL News (Switzerland)
Valérie Geneux
May 23, 2022
Engineers at Switzerland's École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a three-dimensional (3D) printing method that uses light rays to make objects out of opaque resin in seconds. While most 3D printers work by depositing a material layer by layer, “We pour the resin into a container and spin it,” says EPFL's Christophe Mose. “Then we shine light on the container at different angles, causing the resin to solidify wherever the accumulated energy in the resin exceeds a given level." Since light does not propagate smoothly through the resin, the engineers used computers to calculate how to compensate for the light-ray distortion, then programmed their printer to correct for distortion as it operates.
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Cooperation Rewards Water Utilities
Texas Advanced Computing Center
Jorge Salazar
May 19, 2022
Researchers at the University of North Carolina and Cornell University used the Stampede2 supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to study the benefits of cooperation among urban water utilities in the North Carolina Research Triangle. Using a computational model developed in conjunction with the region’s utilities, the researchers simulated the utilities' risk management and long-term infrastructure planning decisions through 2060. Among other things, the researchers found cooperation has its benefits in terms of utility supply and financial needs, although more flexible agreements can expose each utility to its partners' risks and uncertainties. Said Cornell's David Gold, "Without supercomputing capabilities, we're flying blind in terms of how the water supply system reacts to different types of uncertainties, whether it's population growth or changing climate."
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AI Powered Autonomous Cargo Ship for 500 Miles
Interesting Engineering
Ameya Paleja
May 16, 2022
A 749-gross-ton vessel is the first commercial cargo ship to be navigated entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) during a nearly 500-mile, 40-hour journey from Tokyo Bay to Ise Bay in Japan. The Suzaka was outfitted with Israeli startup Orca AI’s Automatic Ship Target Recognition System as part of a collaboration with Japan’s NYK Line shipping company. Data from the Orca system, which offers real-time data detection, tracking, classification, range estimation, and 360-degree views, was monitored by a fleet operations center in Tokyo. During the journey, the onboard navigational software made 107 collision avoidance maneuvers without human assistance, avoiding 400 to 500 vessels along the way.
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Scientists Use Quantum Computers to Simulate Quantum Materials
Argonne National Laboratory
Jared Sagoff
May 24, 2022
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago (UChicago) conducted quantum simulations of spin defects, improving the accuracy of quantum computer calculations by correcting for hardware noise. The researchers applied this method in an experiment that simulated the properties of materials for next-generation quantum technologies. Said UChicago's Giulia Galli, "We want to learn how to use new computational technologies that are up-and-coming. Developing robust strategies in the early days of quantum computing is an important first step in being able to understand how to use these machines efficiently in the future."
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Trilobite-Inspired Camera Boasts Huge Depth of Field
IEEE Spectrum
Charles Q. Choi
May 23, 2022
Chinese and U.S. researchers collaborated on the development of a camera with a massive depth of field, which can simultaneously image objects as close as 3 centimeters (1.1 inches) and as far off as 1.7 km (1.05 miles). The researchers modeled the light-field camera after the compound eyes of the extinct trilobite Dalmanitina socialis, fabricating metasurface lenses studded with millions of nanometer-scale pillars. The metalenses capture and split light into waves whose electric fields are circularly polarized clockwise or counterclockwise; each nanopillar bends these light waves by different amounts, focusing them on near or far objects. The researchers adapted a convolutional neural network to enable the metalens to focus on intermediate distances, helping the camera reassemble light-field data over a large depth of field from a single shot.
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UT, Meta Create Digital Humans That Learn Complex Movements
University of Twente (Netherlands)
May 23, 2022
Researchers at Meta's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Laboratory and at the University of Twente (UT) in the Netherlands modeled digital humans using the MyoSuite open-source framework they jointly developed. MyoSuite enables the co-simulation of AI-powered musculoskeletal systems that can learn to execute complex movements as they physically interact with assistive robots. The system also can model how such robots could be designed and controlled to help restore movement to real people who suffer from some impairment. "We hope that diverse features supported by our framework will open new opportunities in understanding neuromechanical systems interacting with artificial robotic agents," said UT's Massimo Sartori.
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'Tough to Forge' Digital Driver's License Actually Easy to Forge
Ars Technica
Dan Goodin
May 24, 2022
Security researchers have found that the supposedly hard-to-counterfeit digital driver's licenses (DDLs) in use in New South Wales, Australia, actually can be easily altered. Introduced in 2019, DDLs are used with an iOS or Android application that displays each holder's identity and age, and permits authentication. Researcher Noah Farmer found the DDL can be cracked by brute-forcing the four-digit personal identification number that encrypts the data, which can take less than an hour using publicly available scripts and a commodity computer. Once a hacker accesses encrypted DDL data, brute force enables them to read and alter anything stored on the file. Farmer aired the flaws in a blog post last week; it is not clear how, or if, Service NSW, which issued the digital driver’s licenses, plans to respond.
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