|
Welcome to the January 26, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.
|
|
|
 ACM named 68 Fellows who were selected by their peers for groundbreaking innovations that have improved how people live, work, and play. Said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. “ACM is proud to include nearly 110,000 computing professionals in our ranks and ACM Fellows represent just 1% of our entire global membership. This year’s inductees include the inventor of the World Wide Web (Tim Berners-Lee), the 'godfathers of AI' (Geoffrey Hinton), and other colleagues whose contributions have all been important building blocks in forming the digital society that shapes our modern world."
[
» Read full article
]
ACM (January 24, 2024)
|
A humanoid robot developed by researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech, and other institutions, allows a human user wearing a haptic feedback suit and VR headset to see and feel as though they were actually in a remote setting. The iCub 3 robot's aluminum alloy and plastic body is equipped with an Internet-connected computer that serves as its "brain," receiving data from sensors on its body and two cameras that serve as its eyes. Remote sensations are replicated on the suit and VR headset worn by the human operator.
[
» Read full article
*May Require Paid Registration
]
New Scientist; Chris Stokel-Walker (January 24, 2024)
|
 Researchers at the AI startup Allchemy, the Korea Institute for Basic Science, and the Polish Academy of Sciences leveraged the Golem blockchain protocol to simulate a network of chemical interactions that may have played a role in the origin of life. The simulations started with an initial model for primordial molecules and produced several generations of synthetic reactions that could offer insights into early metabolic systems.
[
» Read full article
]
IEEE Spectrum; Rebecca Heilweil (January 24, 2024)
|
Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) tested a snake-shaped robot and four drones that will be used to assess the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as part of the decommissioning process. The submerged interior of the reactor's containment vessel previously was surveyed by robots, but drones will be deployed for the first time next month to capture above-water images of the damage, which will be used to formulate a plan for removing the molten fuel.
[
» Read full article
]
Reuters; Sakura Murakami; Tom Bateman (January 23, 2024)
|
 The National Science Foundation announced on Thursday the creation of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot program in partnership with several federal agencies, big tech companies, and nonprofits. Through the NAIRR, researchers and educators will be given access to high-powered AI technologies in hopes of keeping the U.S. at the forefront of AI research and innovation. Partners in the two-year pilot include Amazon, IBM, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Palantir.
[
» Read full article
]
Yahoo! Finance; Daniel Howley (January 24, 2024)
|
Forty years after its Jan. 24, 1984, debut, the Apple Mackintosh 128K continues to be used by loyal fans. The original Mac 128K had just 128 kb of Random Access Memory and lacked Internet connectivity, but was notable for helping usher in the era of personal computing,. Said computer historian David Greelish, "It's got everything: ROM, RAM, processor, and all the input-output. Everything there in a beautiful little integrated square board. For 1984, it was amazing."
[
» Read full article
]
BBC; Chris Baraniuk (January 23, 2024)
|
 An interdisciplinary team of researchers at George Mason University developed a camera system and software that creates videos that show the complex visual signals animals perceive while in motion in their natural settings. The researchers used commercially available cameras and existing multispectral photography techniques in conjunction with new open source software. The camera simultaneously records video in four color channels—blue, green, red, and UV—and processes the data into "perceptual units" based on the animal's specific photoreceptors.
[
» Read full article
]
Ars Technica; Jennifer Ouellette (January 23, 2024)
|
A quantum error correction architecture developed by researchers at the French startup Alice & Bob and France's National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology could reduce quantum computer hardware requirements. The architecture uses low-density parity-check codes and cat qubits, which suppress bit-flip errors, and involves the implementation of a fault-tolerant set of parallelizable logical gates without additional hardware complexity.
[
» Read full article
]
HPCwire (January 23, 2024)
|
Computer scientists at the U.K.'s universities of Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Surrey, and the Netherlands' University of Twente developed a method of identifying security flaws and modeling mobile phone account takeover attacks. These attacks occur when a hacker disconnects a device, SIM card, or app from the account ecosystem to gain access to the victim's online accounts. The new method, based on mathematical and philosophical logic, models changes in account access when such disconnections occur by looking at the options available to hackers with access to the victim's mobile phone and PIN.
[
» Read full article
]
University of Birmingham (U.K.) (January 22, 2024)
|
Japan’s NTT Group and the Australian charity ClimateForce have partnered to develop models for global environmental restoration efforts. Leveraging NTT's Smart Management Platform technology, they plan to create a Smart Rainforest to regenerate a portion of Australia's Daintree Rainforest. NTT Data will perform AI-powered data collection and analysis, with different organic reforestation techniques to be assessed using predictive analytics.
[
» Read full article
]
Interesting Engineering; Shubhangi Dua (January 22, 2024)
|
A robot developed by Washington State University researchers mimics insects that are supported by surface tension as they move across water. The WaterStrider, which weighs 56 milligrams and is 22 millimeters long, features a carbon fiber body and four disc-like feet that allow it to maintain surface tension. The WaterStrider's two arms are moved by a 7-millimeter-long "shape memory actuator," which flaps them at up to 40 times per second, allowing the robot to move across the surface of the water at around 6 millimeters per second.
[
» Read full article
]
New Atlas; Ben Coxworth (January 18, 2024)
|
On the first day of the Pwn2Own Automotive 2024 hacking contest, security researchers hacked a Tesla Modem, collecting awards totaling $722,500 for three bug collisions and 24 unique zero-day exploits. The Synacktiv Team chained three zero-day bugs to obtain root permissions on a Tesla Modem, for which it won $100,000. The team won another $120,000 by hacking a Ubiquiti Connect EV Station and a JuiceBox 40 Smart EV Charging Station using unique two-bug chains, and $16,000 related to a known exploit chain targeting the ChargePoint Home Flex EV charger.
[
» Read full article
]
BleepingComputer; Sergiu Gatlan (January 24, 2024)
|
|
