Welcome to the March 6, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Google Launches $5 Million Prize to Find Uses for Quantum Computers
• More than 2 Million Research Papers Have Disappeared from the Internet
• Anycubic 3D Printers Hacked in Attempt to Inform Owners of Security Hole
• Malware Worm Can Poison ChatGPT, Gemini-Powered Assistants
• Ukraine’s ‘City in the Phone’ App Collects Top Honors at GLOMOs
• AI Frenzy Complicates Efforts to Keep Power-Hungry Data Sites Green
• Silicon-Less Computer Uses Light Waves, Surpasses Existing Systems for Classification
• Toyota's Soft Humanoid Picks Things Up with Its Whole Body
• AI Warfare Is Already Here
• Vest with 256 Sensors to Detect Early Signs of Heart Muscle Disease
• Assistive Technology Expands Capabilities for Quadriplegic Volunteer
• GitHub Besieged by Millions of Malicious Repositories in Ongoing Attack
• AI Enables Phones to Detect Depression from Facial Cues

Google Launches $5 Million Prize to Find Uses for Quantum Computers

Google and the XPRIZE Foundation have launched a three-year competition with $5 million in prizes for researchers who use quantum computers to develop algorithms that can solve real-world problems, such as those outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Researchers need not solve the problem in practice but explain how the algorithm could be applied and the required quantum computing specifications.
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More than 2 Million Research Papers Have Disappeared from the Internet

Martin Eve of the U.K.'s University of London assessed whether 7,438,037 research papers with digital object identifiers (DOIs) were held in archives and determined that around 28%, or more than 2 million, were not held in a major digital archive despite having an active DOI. Only 58% of the sample had been stored in at least one archive. However, Eve's research focuses only on articles with DOIs and did not involve a search of every digital repository.
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Anycubic 3D Printers Hacked in Attempt to Inform Owners of Security Hole

Hackers reportedly discovered security vulnerabilities in Anycubic 3D printers and are using a readme file on the printer display to inform users about the issue and encourage them to disable the Internet connection until a patch is issued. The hackers indicated that they had contacted Anycubic regarding the two critical security flaws they uncovered but resorted to informing users directly after not receiving a response from the company.
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Malware Worm Can Poison ChatGPT, Gemini-Powered Assistants

A "zero-click" AI worm able to launch an "adversarial self-replicating prompt" via text and image inputs has been developed by researchers at Cornell University, Intuit, and Technion—Israel Institute of Technology to exploit OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, Google’s Gemini, and the LLaVA open source AI model. In a test of affected AI email assistants, the researchers found that the worm could extract personal data, launch phishing attacks, and send spam messages. The researchers attributed the self-replicating malware’s success to “bad architecture design” in the generative AI ecosystem.
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Ukraine’s ‘City in the Phone’ App Collects Top Honors at GLOMOs

Dubbed “the city in the phone,” the Kyiv Digital app won "Best Urban Innovation" and "Best Mobile Innovation for Digital Life" at the Mobile World Congress' Global Mobile Awards. The app allows residents of Kyiv, Ukraine, to replenish transport cards, pay for parking, vote for city improvement projects, and receive housing and community service notifications, among other things. Since the war with Russia began, the app also provides information about such things as air raid shelter locations, military operations, volunteer assistance, and alarm messages.
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AI Frenzy Complicates Efforts to Keep Power-Hungry Data Sites Green

Data centers previously were built near Internet users, but proximity to users has become less necessary while access to power sources has become a priority. Development has spread further away from established first- and second-tier markets to areas where land is inexpensive, and power is plentiful. "Anybody who has any significant source of power has now become a new data center market,” said North American Data Centers managing principal Jim Kerrigan.
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Silicon-Less Computer Uses Light Waves, Surpasses Existing Systems for Classification

A computer using a single optical fiber to mimic the computational power of numerous neural networks has been developed by researchers at Germany's Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) as an alternative to silicon. "By leveraging the unique physical properties of light, this system will enable the rapid and efficient processing of vast amounts of data in the future,” said Mario Chemnitz, head of the Smart Photonics department at the Leibniz Institute.
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Toyota's Soft Humanoid Picks Things Up with Its Whole Body

A soft humanoid robot uses its entire body to hug, pick up, and carry objects. Named Punyo and developed by roboticists at Toyota Research Group, the torso-up robot features a hard metal skeleton made of gripping materials, a fabric cover with tactile sensors that allow it to feel the objects it hugs or carries, camera-monitored inflatable pads at the ends of its arms, and 13 air-filled bladders from its shoulder to its wrist that are pressure-regulated individually based on the assigned task.
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AI Warfare Is Already Here

In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Defense's Maven Smart System was used to identify rocket launchers in Yemen and surface vessels in the Red Sea and assisted in narrowing down targets in Iraq and Syria. Maven, which merges satellite imagery, sensor data, and geolocation data into a single computer interface, uses machine learning to identify personnel and equipment on the battlefield and detect weapons factories and other objects of interest in various environmental conditions.
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Vest with 256 Sensors to Detect Early Signs of Heart Muscle Disease

By monitoring electric impulses in the heart, the electrocardiographic imaging (ECGI) vest could be used for early diagnosis of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Developed by researchers at the U.K.'s University College London, the vest features 256 embedded sensors that can produce a detailed electrical map of the heart in only five minutes. In tests involving 174 patients and 37 healthy participants, the ECGI vest identified electrical irregularities in 24% of subjects, including some who were asymptomatic.
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Assistive Technology Expands Capabilities for Quadriplegic Volunteer

The Head-Worn Assistive Teleoperation (HAT) system developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers enables users to control a mobile robot through daily tasks using head motions and speech recognition technology. During a recent week-long trial, the HAT system enabled an individual with quadriplegia to get a drink, feed himself, and operate blinds, among other activities. The study participant indicated a preference for the assistive technology over computer screen controls for certain tasks.
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GitHub Besieged by Millions of Malicious Repositories in Ongoing Attack

An ongoing cyberattack at GitHub has resulted in millions of malicious code repositories that use malware to steal developers' passwords and cryptocurrency. GitHub's "automation detection seems to miss many repos,” contend Apiiro security researchers Matan Giladi and Gil David, “and the ones that were uploaded manually survive. Because the whole attack chain seems to be mostly automated on a large scale, the 1% that survive still amount to thousands of malicious repos."
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AI Enables Phones to Detect Depression from Facial Cues

The MoodCapture smartphone app that leverages AI and facial-image processing software can determine when a user is depressed based on their facial cues. The app, developed by Dartmouth College researchers, could pave the way for early diagnoses and real-time digital mental-health support. The app was 75% accurate in detecting symptoms in a study of 177 individuals with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder.
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