Welcome to the November 22, 2019 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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2019 ACM Gordon Bell Prize Awarded to ETH Zurich Team for Simulation That Maps Heat in Transistors
Association for Computing Machinery
Jim Ormond
November 21, 2019
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich were awarded the 2019 ACM Gordon Bell Prize during the SC19 supercomputing conference and exposition yesterday. The ETH Zurich group was recognized for its development of a framework for simulating electrical-signal transport through nanoscale materials. The team used the simulation method to develop a map of where heat is produced on a single transistor, how it is generated, and how it is dissipated, in the hope that a deeper understanding of such thermal characteristics could serve as the basis for developing semiconductors with optimal heat-dissipation characteristics. The ACM Gordon Bell Prize is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding achievement in high-performance computing.
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Carnegie Mellon System Locates Shooters Using Smartphone Video
Carnegie Mellon University
Byron Spice
November 20, 2019
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have developed a system that can accurately locate a shooter based on video recordings from as few as three smartphones. The researchers tested the Video Event Reconstruction and Analysis (VERA) system using three video recordings from the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and hundreds wounded; it correctly estimated the shooter's actual location. The system uses machine learning to match up video feeds and calculate the position of each camera based on what it is seeing; it also tracks the time delay between the sound of a shock wave caused by a bullet’s passage through the air, and the sound of the muzzle blast from the gun. Using video from three or more smartphones allows the direction from which the shots were fired to be triangulated. Said CMU’s Alexander Hauptmann, "When we began, we didn't think you could detect the crack with a smartphone because it's really short, but it turns out today's cellphone microphones are pretty good."
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Are Hiring Algorithms Fair? Study Finds They're Too Opaque to Tell
Cornell Chronicle (NY)
Louis DiPietro
November 20, 2019
A study by Cornell University researchers raises doubts about algorithms' ability to make fair decisions when screening potential hires. The researchers found the makers of such algorithms prefer to keep their design and workings hidden. Few vendors provided tangible data on how they validate algorithmic pre-employment screenings, or specified their bias mitigation strategies. The researchers said vendors' claims that their algorithms are "fair" also can be vague, as they do not have to disclose the company's definition of fairness. Cornell's Manish Raghavan said, "The real question is not whether algorithms can be made perfect; instead, the relevant comparison is whether they can improve over alternative methods, or in this case, the human status quo."
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Drones That Do the Work of 500 Farmers Are Transforming Palm Oil
Bloomberg
Anuradha Raghu
November 18, 2019
Commercial flying drones are automating the harvesting and maintenance of palm oil farms in Malaysia and Indonesia. Drones can spot fires, collect data on whether crops have sufficient water and nutrients, and detect leakages in irrigation systems. William Tao at drone-based service provider Insight Robotics said just one drone can capture images of approximately 2,500 hectares (more than 6,000 acres) of oil palms daily, adding that many plantation owners use artificial intelligence to analyze the huge numbers of drone images they receive in a matter of hours, rather than weeks. The data captured by drones' cameras is helpful in determining the environmental impact of palm oil and palm farms.
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Las Vegas Brings AI to Traffic Lights
The Wall Street Journal
Agam Shah
November 19, 2019
Las Vegas is using artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate real-time traffic analysis in order to relieve traffic congestion. The system, which uses cameras and sensors at intersections, tallies the direction and movement of cars and passengers. City officials can view this information through a dashboard to spot trends, with the goal of establishing smart intersections that learn, diagnose, and adjust their operations based on vehicle patterns. Las Vegas information technology director Michael Sherwood said the model could eventually form a building block for autonomous vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications on wired and wireless networks. He added that the advent of 5G communications “will actually provide a more robust pipeline of data coming back where we might be able to take advantage of additional data streams, giving us more capability out of the same sensor box based on limitations that we might have today.”
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White House Updates National Strategic Computing Initiative
NextGov.com
Brandi Vincent
November 15, 2019
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released an update to the National Strategic Computing Initiative, with the goal of keeping pace with and fueling innovation. White House chief technology officer Michael Kratsios said, "The [update] provides a framework to drive the future of computing, improve our computational infrastructure, and create lasting multi-sector partnerships to ensure continued American leadership." The updated objectives of the initiative are to pioneer new frontiers of computation to address today's and tomorrow’s scientific and technological challenges and opportunities; to advance the U.S. computational infrastructure and ecosystem; and to create and grow partnerships for the future of computing “to ensure American leadership in science, technology, and innovation.”
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States, Cities Make Cybersecurity Pledge after Trump Administration Rejects It
The Washington Post
Joseph Marks
November 15, 2019
Several U.S. state and local governments are signing an international pledge aimed at making cyberspace safer, even though the Trump administration will not endorse it. The state governments of Virginia, Colorado, and Washington state have all endorsed the Paris Call, which commits members to fighting cyberattacks, digital theft of intellectual property, and foreign election interference. The city governments of Louisville, KY, San Jose, CA, and Huntington, WV, also endorsed the call. A State Department official said the U.S. government "largely supports the objectives of the Paris Call," but has issues with some elements of the text and the way it was drafted.
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During Epidemics, Access to GPS Data from Smartphones Can Be Crucial
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland)
Sandrine Perroud
November 15, 2019
Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that human mobility is a major factor in the spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue. The researchers used mobile phone data and census models to effectively predict the spatial distribution of dengue cases in Singapore, based on data from actual reported cases in 2013 and 2014. The team also demonstrated that the types of data used in their study could be obtained without infringing on people's privacy. Said EPFL's Emanuele Massaro, "We need to think seriously about changing the law around accessing this kind of information – not just for scientific research, but for wider prevention and public health reasons."
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The Top 10 Most Popular Tech Skills of 2020
CNBC
Jennifer Liu
November 19, 2019
Online learning platform Udemy's 2020 Workplace Learning Trends Report found Python programming is the most in-demand technology skill for next year, with interest surging in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science. The report is the result of analysis of more than 40 million users of the platform. Following Python in popularity are skills in JavaScript's React user-interface-building library, and its Angular open source front-end Web framework. Also in demand are conversancy with machine learning, deep learning, the open source container creation platform Docker, and Amazon Web Services.
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Intel Fixes a Security Flaw It Said Was Repaired
The New York Times
Kim Zetter
November 12, 2019
Researchers at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands discovered the continued existence of vulnerabilities in Intel's computer processors that the company said were patched months ago. The flaws allow an attacker to extract passwords, encryption keys, and other sensitive data from processors in desktop computers, laptops, and cloud computing servers. The researchers first brought the vulnerabilities to the attention of Intel in September 2018, and company officials claimed to have solved the problems in May 2019. However, that software patch addressed only some of the issues the researchers found; it would take a second patch six months later (and only publicly disclosed by the company on Nov. 12) to fix all of the vulnerabilities.
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Modeling Every Building in America Starts with Chattanooga
Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility
Rachel Harken
November 13, 2019
A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a building energy model that automatically extracts high-level building data from publicly available information. The team demonstrated its new approach by using the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility's (OLCF's) Cray XK7 Titan supercomputer to model the energy usage of every building serviced by the Electric Power Board (EPB) of Chattanooga, TN. The supercomputer found the electric utility could save between $11 million and $35 million a year by adjusting electricity usage during critical peak times. Said ORNL’s Joshua New, "We're not just creating these models and doing what-if analyses in the blind. We have an error rate for every building on how closely we're matching that 15-minute energy use."
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5G Ambulance Could Be Future of Emergency Healthcare
ZDNet
Daphne Leprince-Ringuet
November 18, 2019
University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) in the U.K. demonstrated how a doctor at a hospital workstation could remotely diagnose a patient in an ambulance two miles away in real time. The doctor used a joystick to move the hand of a paramedic in the ambulance, who wore a glove that vibrated in response to joystick signals. Both doctor and paramedic also wore virtual reality headsets so the doctor could see live videos and close-up images from inside the vehicle. UHB's Tom Clutton-Block said the success of such a service hinges on ensuring the technology is safe, as well as on patient buy-in. Said Clutton-Block, "This will only work if patients want it to work, but I think people are beginning to accept that we need to move forward with healthcare."
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