Welcome to the December 28, 2020 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.

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Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, said the bank plans to spend roughly $3.4 billion on digital tech next year. CIOs Expect Tech Investments to Climb in 2021
The Wall Street Journal
Angus Loten
December 23, 2020


A survey of 45 information technology (IT) executives by CIO Journal found that many expect tech investment will grow next year, crediting the Covid-19 pandemic for justifying more investment. Bank of America's Cathy Bessant said, "We feel that it's important to double down on technology investment in times like these." Tata Consultancy Services CIO Abhijit Mazumder said the Indian software exporter is planning investments in areas like cloud delivery models, contactless operations, digital collaboration, and analytics. Tech research and consulting firm Gartner forecast cloud-based IT infrastructure spending will balloon 27.6% to $64.3 billion next year; in a September Gartner study, nearly 70% of corporate boards cited the pandemic as justification for boosting IT and digital investment.

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Chess pieces in the air. DeepMind's AI Masters Games Without Even Being Taught the Rules
IEEE Spectrum
Philip E. Ross
December 23, 2020


The MuZero artificial intelligence (AI) developed by Alphabet subsidiary DeepMind can master games without learning their rules beforehand. The system attempts first one action, then another, learning what the game rules permit, and concurrently noting the rewards proffered. MuZero then modifies its strategy until it finds a way to collect rewards more readily; this observational learning is perfect for any AI confronting problems that cannot be specified easily. MuZero outperforms previous DeepMind AIs in its economical use of data, because it models only environmental parameters that matter in decision-making. Once trained, MuZero processes so little for decision-making that its entire function might be managed on a smartphone.

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India Bets Big on 5G Technology Going Mainstream in 2021
Business Standard
December 28, 2020


The role of 4G networks in helping to keep the global economy afloat during the pandemic has helped convince leaders in India to support the nation's telecommunications sector and launch future technologies like 5G faster. K. Ramchand with India's Department of Telecommunications said it would soon announce 5G spectrum bands for auction, signaling that 5G adoption is a government priority. Cellular Operators Association of India director general S.P. Kochhar said, "5G technology is poised to open up a plethora of possibilities in terms of business models, and overall, enhanced lifestyles for one and all. We seek the support of the government in enabling the industry to play its role as an enabler of horizontal growth and a boost to the nation's economy."

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Faster, More Efficient Information Transfer
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Germany)
December 10, 2020


Physicists at Germany's Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (JGU), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and several French organizations transmitted information over long distances at room temperature using antiferromagnetic rust. The team employed iron oxide as an antiferromagnetic insulator in which to contain the data, transferred via excitations of magnetic order. Romain Lebrun at France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Thales laboratory said, "The possibility of using iron oxide at room temperature makes it an ideal playground for the development of ultra-fast spintronic devices based on antiferromagnetic insulators." JGU's Mathias Kläui also noted that iron oxide used in the experiment boasts one of the lowest magnetic attenuations ever reported in magnetic materials. Said Kläui, "We anticipate that high magnetic field techniques will show that other antiferromagnetic materials have similarly low attenuation, which is crucial for the development of a new generation of spintronic devices."

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A Better Kind of Cybersecurity Strategy
MIT News
Peter Dizikes
December 10, 2020


Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago contend Russia's use of North Korean IP addresses for a cyberattack during the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics underscored the need for a new cybersecurity strategy involving selective retaliation. Said MIT's Alexander Wolitzky, "If after every cyberattack my first instinct is to retaliate against Russia and China, this gives North Korea and Iran impunity to engage in cyberattacks." After extensive modeling of scenarios in which countries are aware of cyberattacks against them but have imperfect information about the attacks and attackers, the researchers found a successful strategy involves simultaneously improving attack detection and gathering more information about the attackers' identity before retaliating. Wolitsky added, "If you blindly commit yourself more to retaliate after every attack, you increase the risk you're going to be retaliating after false alarms."

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AI-Designed Serotonin Sensor May Help Scientists Study Sleep, Mental Health
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
December 23, 2020


Using advanced genetic engineering methods, scientists at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the California Institute of Technology created a new research tool to monitor serotonin transmission. The team used artificial intelligence to repurpose the bacterial protein OpuBC into a serotonin catcher. Researchers applied machine learning algorithms to help a computer formulate 250,000 designs, narrowed down to one after three rounds of testing. Experiments in mice ultimately showed the sensor could help monitor neurotransmission under more natural conditions, catching events that traditional serotonin monitoring techniques overlooked.

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A robotic finger touching a human finger. Getting the Right Grip: Designing Soft, Sensitive Robotic Fingers
Ritsumeikan University (Japan)
December 10, 2020


A three-dimensionally (3D) printed soft robotic finger developed by researchers at Japan's Ritsumeikan University features a built-in sensor with adjustable stiffness that could pave the way for more dexterous robotic handling. A reinforced inflation chamber allows the finger to bend in a controllable fashion, and creating a vacuum in a separate chamber makes the stiffness of the finger tunable. Together, these functions allow a three-finger robotic gripper to grasp and hold any object by applying the necessary force. Said Ritsumeikan University's Mengying Xie, "Self-powered built-in sensors will not only allow robots to safely interact with humans and their environment, but also eliminate the barriers to robotic applications that currently rely on powered sensors to monitor conditions."

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A virtual battleship in the middle of the ocean. VR Battlefield Technology Designed to Train Military Leaders
Purdue University Research Foundation News
Chris Adam
December 10, 2020


Purdue University innovators generated a virtual reality (VR) model of the D-Day beaches in Normandy, France, using battlefield simulations designed to train future military leaders. Purdue's Sorin Adam Matei said, "We apply what we know from the field of physics and treat the virtual soldiers almost like liquids that are interacting on the battlefield. Military educators can use this tool to teach future leaders lessons learned from historic battles in a visually exciting way." The work is part of Purdue's FORCES (4S)—Strategy, Security, and Social Systems Initiative. Purdue's Jonathan Poggie said the purpose of FORCES is to implement a new approach to group behavior, and potentially transform wargaming and crisis management.

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How We Can Be Manipulated Into Sharing Private Information Online
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel)
December 23, 2020


Researchers at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) found online users are more likely to expose private information based on the structuring of website forms. BGU's Lior Fink said, "We are able to cause smartphone and PC users of online services to disclose more information by measuring the likelihood that they sign-up for a service simply by manipulating the way information items [name, address, email] were presented." The BGU team worked with online bank Rewire to demonstrate that digital "foot-in-the-door" methods, like requesting personal information from less important to more private, can coax users into revealing more private data. Placing each request on consecutive, separate webpages also encourages data exposure, and sites can further manipulate users by diffusing information requests over several pages. BGU's Naama Ilany-Tzur said, "The general public and regulators should be made aware of these vulnerabilities, since it is so easy to capture more private information, despite their privacy concerns."

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Illustration of a session with a psychologist. A Rare Pandemic Silver Lining: Mental Health Startups
The New York Times
Ellen Rosen
December 7, 2020


The Covid-19 pandemic has helped to support the growth of new mental health startups like Two Chairs and Cerebral. Two Chairs relies on a proprietary algorithm to match client and therapist after a prospective client's first meeting, while Cerebral's platform asks clients to self-monitor and report symptoms monthly, with any exacerbation triggering a clinician notification to alert the patient. Northwestern University's David Mohr said research has long established that teletherapy can be as effective as in-person therapy, and a remote option can address distance and time limits that often discourage patients. He said the pandemic is an inflection point, and "there is a greater acceptance of the use of technology in mental health care, while at the same time there is a tremendous decrease in the stigma" associated with emotional problems.

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Algorithm Will Prevent Misidentification of Cancer Cells
University of Kent (U.K.)
Sam Wood
December 10, 2020


A deep learning algorithm developed by researchers at the U.K.'s University of Kent spots differences in cancer cell lines based on microscopic images, which promises to help prevent misidentification of cancer cells in laboratories. The Kent team based the algorithm on computer models trained on mass comparisons of cancer cell data. The program enables computers to examine, identify, and label separate digital images of cell lines. Kent's Chee Ang said, "Utilizing this new algorithm will yield further results that can transform the format of cell identification in science, giving researchers a better chance of correctly identifying cells, leading to reduced error in cancer research and potentially saving lives. The results also show that the computer models can allocate exact criteria used to identify cell lines correctly, meaning that the potential for future researchers to be trained in identifying cells accurately may be greatly enhanced too."

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Bend, Don't Break: Tool Enables Economic Glass Design
IST Austria
December 7, 2020


Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Vienna University of Technology (TU Wein), Spain's Rey Juan Carlos University, and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have developed software that lets users manipulate a façade design and receive immediate feedback on fabricability and aesthetics. Based on a deep neural network (DNN) trained to predict glass panel shapes and fabricability, the software also can optimize a given design automatically. The program is able to choose pane geometries that best fit the façade design based on factors like smoothness of frames and reflections, and then allows users to adapt their model to reduce stress and improve the overall appearance.

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Bristol Researchers Publish Significant Step Toward Quantum Advantage
University of Bristol News (U.K.)
December 10, 2020


Practical hybrid quantum-classical computing is a step closer, thanks to researchers from the U.K.'s University of Bristol and quantum startup Phasecraft, who applied optimized quantum algorithms to solve instances of the Fermi-Hubbard model on near-term hardware. Bristol's Lana Mineh said, "The results suggest that optimizing over quantum circuits with a gate depth substantially less than 1,000 could be sufficient to solve instances of the Fermi-Hubbard model beyond the capacity of current supercomputers. This ... shows significant promise for producing the ground state of the model on near-term quantum devices, improving on previous research findings by around a factor of 10." The University of Maryland's Andrew Childs said this achievement suggests low-depth circuits could deliver useful data that could make Fermi-Hubbard more accessible to realistic quantum hardware. Hartmut Neven at Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab said the Phasecraft researchers' efforts could accelerate development of the first-ever commercial quantum-computing hardware applications.

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