Welcome to the March 8, 2019 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.

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UTC digital accelerator in Brooklyn New York, Beijing Chip Away at Silicon Valley
The Wall Street Journal
Angus Loten
March 5, 2019


New York City is on track to become a worldwide hub for innovation in the next few years, according to recent KPMG survey of more than 740 tech-industry leaders at companies across a dozen countries. More than half of survey respondents said Silicon Valley will cease to dominate global technology innovation within the next four years, as New York, Boston, London, and other cities continue their evolution into technology innovation centers. The rapid adoption of cloud computing and other emerging digital tools at ventures outside of the technology sector is also having an impact, according to corporate information technology leaders. Said KPMG's Tim Zanni, "Other cities and countries have been making significant investment to develop and grow as technology innovation hubs."

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Beresheet lunar lander Israeli Moon Lander 'On the Right Path' Despite Recent Glitch
Space.com
Mike Wall
March 5, 2019


Israel's first lunar lander, nicknamed Beresheet, is back on course for the Moon despite recently missing a planned orbit-raising engine burn due to an unexpected computer reset. However, the robotic lander's human operators quickly got the spacecraft back online, and the lander managed to execute the maneuver. After the computer reset, mission team members bolstered the lander's defenses, making the software more resilient to those kinds of events, and making sure that the proper maneuver will be executed even if the computer gets reset again. SpaceIL, a nonprofit organization that runs Beresheet's mission along with Israel Aerospace Industries, started as an entrant in the Google Lunar X Prize, a $30-million competition that tasked privately funded teams to put a robot on the moon, have it move at least 1,650 feet (500 meters), and beam home high-resolution imagery. The contest ended last year without a winner, but SpaceIL has continued to develop its Moon lander, as have several other teams.

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Researchers Uncover Ring of GitHub Accounts Promoting 300+ Backdoored Apps
ZDNet
Catalin Cimpanu
March 4, 2019


A DFIR.it security team has discovered a ring of malicious GitHub accounts promoting more than 300 backdoored Windows, Mac, and Linux apps and software libraries. The apps had code to access boot persistence on infiltrated systems, and later download other malware. The analyzed samples downloaded a Java-based malware named Supreme NYC Blaze Bot (supremebot.exe), an apparent "sneaker bot" designed to add infected systems to a botnet that would later participate in online auctions for limited-edition sneakers. The accounts that did not host backdoored apps were used to "star" or "watch" the malicious repositories and help raise their popularity in GitHub's search results. All the GitHub accounts hosting these files have been closed.

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planning trip, illustration AI Wants to Know How You Plan a Trip
The New York Times
Julie Weed
March 4, 2019


Travel companies are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies to look more closely at what customers want and to use that information to find faster, cheaper ways to improve their offerings. Expedia, for example, uses facial recognition software to gauges travelers' feelings as they go through the process of booking hotel rooms online at a testing lab. MSC Cruises, meanwhile, is starting to use a virtual assistant to answer passengers' questions, and designers at the Gettys Group can show hotel executives new room layouts in virtual reality, so hotels don't need to build a full-scale model. As sophisticated research tools have become more widely available, even start-ups in the industry have begun using them.

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Waymo Starts Selling Sensors to Lower Cost of Self-Driving Cars
Bloomberg
Tom Randall
March 6, 2019


Alphabet's Waymo self-driving car unit has begun selling the laser-mapping (LiDAR) sensors used on its driverless vehicles to other companies, provided those companies do not compete with its robotaxi business. Next-generation warehouse robots, security systems, and autonomous tractors could potentially be built with this technology. Waymo's sensors, which are produced in-house, can generate an accurate, three-dimensional view of the world, identify humans, categorize objects, and predict movement. The sensors include a 360-degree roof-top bubble; a long-range forward-facing sensor; and a short-range sensor that watches the vehicle's perimeter. Waymo's Simon Verghese said, "As we scale our fleet and build more cars, we need to make sure the cost of the sensor suite comes down as well. We're excited to see what people might do with this and to explore whether some of these spinoff technologies give us another pillar to our business."

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programmer, illustration What Programming Languages Engineers, Employers Love—and Hate
IEEE Spectrum
Tekla S. Perry
March 6, 2019


A survey by online recruitment firm Hired delved into the love/hate relationships between software engineers and coding languages, examining the number of interview requests received by a job seeker listing expertise with a given language during the two to six weeks the seeker was available through Hired. Google's Go language was the global leader, likely because Go developers are scarce; Scala was ranked second in terms of employer desire, and just 3% of polled developers listed it as their primary language. Hired also determined software engineers favored Python the most, and liked PHP the least, while Java was listed as both the third most-loved and the second most-hated programming language. Key drivers of language like or dislike among engineers included difficulty, and associated learning and development resources.

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Dutch worker The Impact of Technology on Dutch Jobs
Forbes
Adi Gaskell
March 6, 2019


A Dutch research team has attempted to quantitatively assess automation's impact on the Dutch workforce, analyzing 16 years of government data on about 36,000 companies and 5 million workers. The results showed about 9% of workers were employed at firms that had made a large investment in automation, yet only about 2% left their jobs because of automation. The team found workers considered highly skilled managed to find new jobs relatively easily after their previous position was automated, while less-skilled workers had the most difficulty re-entering the workforce. The team suggested automation's biggest impact is reflected by the lost income of displaced workers and the time they spend unemployed.

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Ocean Life in 3D: Mapping Phytoplankton With a Smart AUV
Gemini (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Nancy Bazilchuk
March 7, 2019


Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) scientists are using autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to map out phytoplankton distribution in the North Atlantic Ocean. One AUV, called Harald, is programmed to think on the go and "see" where the phytoplankton live by choosing to focus on patches to acquire a better sample. When given an area of ocean to explore, Harald collects data to generate a three-dimensional map of phytoplankton patches, roaming within a 700-×700-meter “box.” NTNU's Trygve Olav Fossum said, "[Harald] boxes in a volume of water and based on what it sees, it estimates what is inside. Then it plans a route for inside and makes a map of the most interesting region. What I really want from this is an accurate map, with the accuracy where it is most needed—where the plankton aggregation is high."

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Scientists Put Ichthyosaurs in Virtual Water Tanks
University of Bristol News
March 6, 2019


Researchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K. have used computer simulations and three-dimensional (3D) models to discover more information about how ichthyosaurs—Mesozoic-era sea creatures—swam, finding they had body shapes adapted to minimize resistance and maximize volume, similar to modern dolphins. During their evolution, ichthyosaurs changed from having narrow lizard-like bodies to more streamlined fish-shaped bodies. The researchers tested whether fish-shaped bodies helped ichthyosaurs reduce the energy demands of swimming by making 3D models of several different ichthyosaurs. The team also used specialized software to create a "virtual water tank," in which they were able to control variables like temperature, density, speed, and water. Said University of Bristol researcher Mike Benton, "Much to our surprise, we found that the drastic changes to ichthyosaur body shape through millions of years did not really reduce drag very much."

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Mavic 2 drones New Zealand Farmers Have New Tool for Herding Sheep: Drones That Bark Like Dogs
The Washington Post
Peter Holley
March 7, 2019


New Zealand farmers are using drones to herd livestock, with some capable of emitting barks like dogs. One drone, the DJI Mavic Enterprise, can record sounds and play them over a loudspeaker, allowing the machine to mimic its canine counterparts. Shepherd Corey Lambeth said cows are less resistant to drones than to actual dogs, which means the machines move livestock faster, with less stress. The drones also let farmers monitor their land remotely, tracking water and feed levels, and checking on livestock health without upsetting the animals. Said farmer Jason Rentoul, "Being a hilly farm where a lot of stuff is done on foot, the drones really saved a lot of man-hours. The drone does the higher bits that you can't see [from the ground], and you would [otherwise] have to walk half an hour to go and have a look and then go, 'Oh, there was no sheep there.'"

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Fatmah Baothman Saudi Woman First in the Middle East with a Ph.D. in AI
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
Caline Malek
March 7, 2019


Saudi Arabia's Fatmah Baothman is the first woman in the Middle East to earn a Ph.D. in Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI). Baothman first became interested in computers as a student at the University of Arizona, where she was introduced to computer systems that help non-native English speakers. In 2003, she graduated from the School of Computing and Engineering at the University of Huddersfield in the U.K., where she earned a Ph.D. in “Phonology-Based Automatic Speech Recognition for Arabic.” Her work was focused on AI, but she also studied forecasting, pattern recognition, phonology and phonetics, acoustics, machine learning, and mathematics. Baothman worked as an advisor with MedLab Media Group, a Spanish technology start-up focused on improving daily clinical practice and decision-making. She also has worked at the King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia for more than 25 years as an assistant professor in computing and information technology.

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Europe's AI Startups Often Do Not Use AI, Study Finds
Financial Times
Aliya Ram
March 4, 2019


London investment firm MMC Ventures estimated 40% of Europe's 2,830 artificial intelligence (AI) startups do not use AI apps in their products, despite being branded as AI-focused. MMC said nearly 8% of European startups launched last year were AI firms, versus about 3% in 2015. The U.K. has been the lead European nation for AI startups, and is home to some of the most significant AI companies. MMC's David Kelnar said many AI startups have plans to devise machine learning programs, although the widespread use of the term has made it difficult for venture capitalists to differentiate between actual and purported AI companies. Said Draper Esprit CEO Simon Cook, "Getting stuck in buzzwords is never a good thing. AI has become a catch-all phrase that's often used flippantly."

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Web authentication, illustration Goodbye Passwords? WebAuthn is Now an Official Web Standard
CNet
Marrian Zhou
March 4, 2019


The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the FIDO Alliance have announced that Web Authentication (WebAuthn) is now an official Web standard for logins. WebAuthn is a browser and platform standard for simpler and stronger authentication processes, allowing users to log in to their online accounts with their preferred device, biometrics, or FIDO security keys. WebAuthn is already supported by Windows 10, Android, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari browsers. Becoming an official Web standard should lead to wider adoption of WebAuthn instead of traditional passwords. "It's common knowledge that passwords have outlived their efficacy. Not only are stolen, weak or default passwords behind 81% of data breaches, they are a drain of time and resources," W3C and the FIDO Alliance said in a press release.

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