Welcome to the April 12, 2019 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Grad Student's Algorithm Makes New Image of Black Hole Possible
CNN
Michelle Lou; Saeed Ahmed
April 10, 2019
Former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate student Katie Bouman developed an algorithm that played a critical role in capturing the first-ever image of a black hole in space. Three years ago, Bouman led the team creating the imaging algorithm, which helped fill in gaps in data collected by a network of telescopes about the black hole via interferometry. Bouman said the team attempted to piece the image together from the telescopes' "sparse and noisy data," and she oversaw verification of images and selection of imaging parameters over several years. Said Bouman, "We developed ways to generate synthetic data and used different algorithms and tested blindly to see if we can recover an image." She added that multiple algorithms, with different built-in assumptions, had to be developed to recover the same general data.
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Researchers Develop Method to Improve 3D-Printed Prosthetics by Integrating Electronic Sensors
Virginia Tech News
April 5, 2019
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) researchers have integrated electronic sensors with personalized three-dimensionally- (3D)-printed prosthetics, which could eventually make electric-powered prosthetics more affordable. By combining the sensors at the interface between the prosthetic and the wearer's tissue, the researchers can collect information about function and comfort, to help enhance future models. The team utilized 3D scanning data to guide the integration of sensors into the prosthetic's form-fitting cavity, using a conformal 3D printing method. Virginia Tech's Yuxin Tong said the project aims to foster engineering practices and processes that can reach as many people as possible. Said Virginia Tech's Blake Johnson, "Personalizing and modifying the properties and functionalities of wearable system interfaces using 3D scanning and 3D printing opens the door to the design and manufacture of new technologies for human assistance and healthcare."
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Walmart Rolling Out the Robots
The Wall Street Journal
Sarah Nassauser; Chip Cutter
April 9, 2019
Walmart is expanding its deployments of robots in its stores to help track inventory, clean floors, and unload trucks, as part of initiatives to control labor costs as it invests more in higher wages and new services like online grocery delivery. The company said at least 300 stores will add automated devices that scan shelves for out-of-stock products this year, while software-powered autonomous floor scrubbers will be deployed in 1,500 stores. Walmart also will more than double the number of conveyor belts used at its stores that automatically scan and sort products as they come off trucks. Walmart’s Mark Propes said, "With automation, we are able to take away some of the tasks that associates don’t enjoy doing. At the same time, we continue to open up new jobs in other things in the store."
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Google's Drone Delivery Business Wins Approval in Canberra
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
Lisa Martin
April 8, 2019
Project Wing, a branch of Google parent Alphabet, has received approval from Australia's aviation regulator to deploy its drone delivery service for the city of Canberra. The project has spent the past 18 months testing drone delivery of food and drinks, medication, and locally made coffee and chocolate, in Australia's capital. Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesperson Peter Gibson said his group gave the service a passing grade because it apparently poses no risks to people or property on the ground, or to aircraft in flight. The service is expected to begin with 100 qualifying homes in Canberra suburbs in the coming weeks. In addition to limiting the drones to operating only during daylight hours, the aircraft also are forbidden from crossing over major roads, and they must maintain a specific minimum distance from people on the ground.
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Algorithm Optimizes Quantum Computing Problem-Solving
Tohoku University
April 10, 2019
Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan have developed an algorithm that augments the ability of a Canadian-designed quantum computer to more efficiently determine an optimized solution for complex problems. The D-Wave quantum annealer uses the concepts of quantum physics to solve "combinatorial optimization problems;” Tohoku's Shuntaro Okada and Masayuki Ohzeki designed the algorithm with global automotive components manufacturer Denso and other collaborators, to improve this capability. The algorithm partitions a large problem into a group of subproblems, then the annealer iteratively optimizes each subproblem to solve the overarching one. The program also enhances another algorithm via the same concept, permitting the use of larger subproblems, and more efficiently arriving at optimal solutions. Ohzeki said, "As the number of [quantum bits] mounted in the D-Wave quantum annealer increases, we will be able to obtain even better solutions."
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Technology Jobs Market Heats Up in Brazil
ZDNet
Angelica Mari
April 11, 2019
Recruitment firm Hays said Brazil's technology market has enjoyed prosperous growth in recent years, despite political and economic volatility. According to Hays' research, Brazilian employers' most numerous job listings last year sought people to fill roles in data science, analytics, product ownership and management, DevOps, and development; data and development professionals were the most sought-after employees. Hays predicts directors of digital laboratories and digital transformation managers will be the most popular jobs that Brazilian employers will be looking to fill this year. According to the recruitment firm, "Those particular fields are crucial for their businesses going forward." The study suggests enticing the right professionals for these roles will be challenging, given the skills needed for these positions are new.
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Open Source Software Predicts Impacts of Extreme Events on Grids
R&D Magazine
April 11, 2019
Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have developed free, open source software to reliably forecast how damage from extreme environmental events will affect electrical grids. Los Alamos' Carleton Coffrin said the Severe Contingency Solver for Electric Power Transmission "can tell users where the greatest outage is expected prior to an event. By offering it as open source...we're hoping to help government agencies and grid operators mitigate the devastating effects of extended power outages." The software calculates the most power that can be transmitted through a severely damaged grid, subject to real-world operational demands like voltage limits, line flow limits, and generator capability limits. The software is the first to reliably, consistently, and accurately analyze extreme-event power grid damage, as well as offering a solution for a severely damaged grid.
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Self-Driving Car Learns to Navigate Narrow European Streets Like a Human Driver
The Washington Post
Peter Holley
April 5, 2019
The U.K. startup Wayve said it has created an autonomous vehicle that can learn to drive the way a human does, through trial and error, using cameras and satellite navigation. The company said this "is only possible with end-to-end machine learning." With a backup driver in the car to take over should the vehicle be in error, this approach enables the automobile to learn by experience, mistakes, feedback, and imitation. Said Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall, "Every time a safety driver intervenes or takes over control of the vehicle, we learn from that experience and that feedback. And with each piece of data, we're able to train our system to get better and better and better." The company says its approach renders unnecessary more sophisticated training technologies and techniques, like high-definition maps, sensor/computer suites, and hand-coded rules.
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Swinburne Researchers Use Blockchain Technology to Prevent Art Forgery
Swinburne University of Technology (Australia)
April 10, 2019
Researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia have developed an electronic system that could help thwart art forgeries through the use of blockchain technology for authentication. Swinburne's Yang Xiang said the adaptation of blockchain code for new applications is relatively simple, given the availability of open source blockchain platforms. He added that his team used state-of-the-art electronic technologies to develop protocols that link a physical artwork to its digital blockchain record. The team initially attached an Internet-enabled electronic tag to the artwork, establishing an Internet of Things connection, which can be combined with global positioning system tracking to constantly localize the object. The team also devised an artificial intelligence program based on deep learning algorithms to analyze high-resolution camera images of an artwork, using analysis of color saturation, brightness, and depth, to detect forgeries.
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Program Promotes Women in Expanding Robotics Fields
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Don Hopey
April 8, 2019
Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Pattie Rote is the co-founder of Girls of Steel, a K-12 program designed to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects through mentoring and robotics competition. For the past two years, nearly as many woman as men have been accepted by CMU's computer science program, but women continue to make up only about 25% of the university robotics program. Girls of Steel aims to change that. The Girls of Steel program "makes robotics interesting and cool and a great social activity, and not just some solitary nerdiness," said CMU’s Bill Scherlis, who added that "the robotics competitions are competitive and promote camaraderie and development of coaching skills."
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First Machine-Generated Book Published
Goethe University
April 8, 2019
Researchers at Goethe University in Germany developed an algorithm that was used by publisher Springer Nature to produce its first computer-generated book. The volume offers an overview of new research publications on lithium-ion batteries. Elements of the algorithm analyze textual content, so relevant publications from the SpringerLink content platform were automatically selected and processed; the algorithm then clustered the publications according to similarity, arranging source documents into coherent chapters and sections. Concise abstracts of the articles were generated within the chapters, while extracted and paraphrased passages from the source documents were referenced by hyperlinks, which let readers further explore the original document. Goethe's Christian Chiarcos said, "This publication has allowed us to demonstrate the degree to which the challenges of machine-generated publications can be solved when experts from scientific publishers collaborate with computer linguists."
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Algorithm Helps Detect, Analyze Suspicious Activity in Surveillance Footage
Binghamton University
April 9, 2019
Researchers at Binghamton University of the State University of New York have developed a method to make it easier to track and process suspicious activity in surveillance footage. The researchers created a hybrid lightweight tracking algorithm called Kerman (Kernelized Kalman filter), which allows smart cameras at the source of data generation to raise an alert when something suspicious is detected in incoming video streams. The system uses single board computers (SBCs) mounted on surveillance cameras to process videos and extract features that focus on enhanced detection of people, tracking their movement, and recognizing behaviors for increasing surveillance coverage. The researchers used SBCs in order to implement the system in decentralized computing platforms, which distribute the workload among multiple Fog computing nodes, rather than one centralized server, making the surveillance system more agile and robust.
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MIT Places First in USAF VR Competition
MIT News
Sarah Jensen
April 9, 2019
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research team was named a first-place winner of the U.S. Air Force's inaugural Visionary Q-Prize competition, for its development of a prototype virtual reality (VR) satellite visualization tool. MIT's Eric Hinterman said, "The challenge was to develop a user interface to help visualize these objects and predict if they're going to collide, and what we can do to avoid that." The Command, Sensing, and Mapping Information Center (CoSMIC) tool is designed to enable satellite operators to process more data than they could using a standard two-dimensional screen, and to more easily execute maneuvers and concentrate on user-selected objects. Hinterman's team assembled the CoSMIC prototype from off-the-shelf components, including a VR headset and hand-tracking sensor. The end product is an immersive environment depicting the Earth, and tiny pinpricks of light representing orbiting satellites, using accurate orbital data.
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