Welcome to the March 26, 2021 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
ACM TechNews mobile apps are available for Android phones and tablets (click here) and for iPhones (click here) and iPads (click here).
To view "Headlines At A Glance," hit the link labeled "Click here to view this online" found at the top of the page in the html version.
The online version now has a button at the top labeled "Show Headlines."
|
|
|
New U.K. Currency Honors Alan Turing, Pioneering Computer Scientist and Code-Breaker
NPR Online
Rachel Treisman
March 25, 2021
The Bank of England (BoE) has unveiled a new £50 note featuring pioneering mathematician, code-breaker, and computer scientist Alan Turing, which will enter circulation on June 23, his birthday. The BoE's Alan Bailey said Turing's work in computing and artificial intelligence "has had an enormous impact on how we all live today." The bill is one of a series of polymer banknotes that are harder to counterfeit, and Turing's nephew Dermot Turing said his uncle would have especially appreciated the currency for highlighting his computer science achievements. Said Dermot Turing, "I think Alan Turing would have wanted us to think about things like underrepresentation of women in science subjects, underrepresentation of Black and ethnic minority kids in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] subjects at school, and why they're not being given the opportunities that they should have and why that's bad for all of us."
|
Diversity Training Steps Into the Future With Virtual Reality
The Seattle Times
Dalvin Brown
March 21, 2022
Praxis Labs, a curriculum development startup, is offering a virtual reality (VR) tool for diversity and inclusion training that aims to help employees understand what it is like to experience bias and discrimination in the workplace and the best ways to respond. The startup’s VR-based Pivotal Experiences tool assigns employees an avatar facing a specific issue at work, such as implicit bias or ageism, or a bystander witnessing unfair treatment in the workplace. Users are asked to respond aloud as though they are that person. They receive individualized data on their performance, while employers are given aggregated insights. Praxis Labs' Elise Smith said, "By providing perspective-taking and immersive experiences that build empathy, we're helping to build understanding. By providing opportunities to practice interventions, we're helping to change how people actually act in the workplace."
|
Optical Fiber Could Boost Power of Superconducting Quantum Computers
U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology
March 24, 2021
Physicists at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) measured and controlled a superconducting quantum bit (qubit) with optical fiber. The researchers integrated the fiber with standard components that convert, carry, and quantify light at the photonic level, which could then be easily converted into microwaves. The NIST team used the photonic link to produce microwave pulses that either measured or controlled the quantum state of the qubit, by transmitting signals to the qubit at its natural resonance frequency. The qubit oscillated between its ground and excited states when adequate laser power was applied, and the cavity frequency accurately reflected the qubit's state 98% of the time, which equaled the accuracy acquired via coaxial cable.
|
KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut to Start Taking Orders Via Text
The Wall Street Journal
Heather Haddon
March 24, 2021
Yum Brands Inc., which owns KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, is acquiring Israeli startup Tictuk Technologies Inc. to take advantage of software that enables food orders to be submitted to restaurants through text message and social media apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Tests of the technology in about 900 KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell restaurants in 35 countries showed an increase in sales. Yum's Clay Johnson said the technology allows customer orders to be turned around in as fast as 60 seconds. The move comes as fast-food companies seek to boost sales as sit-down restaurants reopen amid the pandemic.
*May Require Paid Registration
|
Stay on Track! Support System to Help the Visually Impaired Navigate Tactile Paving
Shibaura Institute of Technology (Japan)
March 24, 2021
A support system to help the visually impaired navigate tactile paving developed by scientists at Japan's Shibaura Institute of Technology includes an image processing algorithm designed to make paving detection independent of pre-defined color thresholds. The algorithm uses a Hough line transform to easily find the paving's borders, then studies the color distribution in a small area near the path's center. After statistically determining an appropriate threshold for the current frame and producing an image mask that marks the tactile paving, the algorithm de-noises the data to generate a clear image. Shibaura's Chinthaka Premachandra said, "The proposed system correctly detected tactile paving 91.65% of the time in both indoor and outdoor environments under varying lighting conditions, which is a markedly higher accuracy than previous camera-based methods with fixed thresholds."
|
Tiny Swimming Robots Reach Their Target Faster Thanks to AI Nudges
New Scientist
Chris Stokel-Walker
March 24, 2021
A machine learning algorithm developed by researchers at Germany's University of Leipzig could help microrobots swim toward a goal without being knocked off course by the random motion of particles in the fluid. Swimming microrobots generally follow a random path and cannot correct their direction — unlike the bacteria they are designed to mimic, which move toward food sources. The researchers used a narrow laser beam to move a microrobot comprised of melamine resin with gold nanoparticles covering 30% of its surface. The algorithm tracked the microrobot's movement and ordered the laser to fire at a particular point on its surface. The algorithm was rewarded if the instruction moved the microrobot toward the goal, and penalized if it moved the microrobot away from the target. The number of instructions necessary for the microrobot to reach its goal was reduced nearly 85% after seven hours of such training.
|
More Transparency, Understanding Into Machine Behaviors
MIT News
Rachel Gordon
March 22, 2021
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a tool for instilling transparency into artificial intelligence (AI) models, by identifying concrete examples that yield a specific behavior. The Bayes-TrEx tool applies Bayesian posterior inference, a popular mathematical framework for reasoning about model uncertainty. The MIT researchers applied Bayes-TrEX to image-based datasets, uncovering insights previously missed by standard techniques focusing exclusively on prediction accuracy. Bayes-TrEX also can understand model behaviors in unique situations, and the tool has inspired an adaptation, RoCUS, for the analysis of robot-specific behaviors. MIT's Serena Booth said, "We want to make human-AI interaction safer by giving humans more insight into their AI collaborators."
|
Tesla Interior Cameras Threaten Driver Privacy, Consumer Reports Says
CNet
Sean Szymkowski
March 24, 2021
Consumer Reports ( CR) says in-cabin cameras that electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla incorporates into driver-assist systems can threaten driver privacy. The cameras record and transmit footage from within the vehicle, and the CR report warns drivers who do not opt out of the program they are giving Tesla access to sensitive information. Inside Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y, the camera can record moments before an automatic emergency braking event or before a crash, and it is possible the car shares this content with Tesla; other automakers employ closed-loop systems that do not transmit or save data, much less record drivers in the vehicle. Despite safeguards on who can access this footage, CR says the possibility exists that anyone, including malefactors, can access it.
|
Want a Vaccination Appointment? It Helps to Know a Python Programmer
NBC News
Kevin Collier
March 22, 2021
A boutique online community of computer programmers has emerged to help family and friends gain a competitive advantage in securing vaccination appointments. These programmers write simple scripts that scrape individual state or pharmacy websites every few seconds for open appointments, and send a text message when one is available. Dozens of these scripts have been uploaded on GitHub. Some are concerned whether this activity is unethical or illegal. Brooklyn, N.Y., attorney Tor Ekeland said, "Scraping data from public-facing servers that aren't using any kind of authentication protocols, like usernames or passwords? They're fine. There's generally a recognition that data-scraping is a huge component of our economy and our lives. We depend on it for our price information, for news, for communications in our social networks."
|
Tethered Drones Have Wireless Data Covered
KAUST Discovery (Saudi Arabia)
March 25, 2021
Researchers at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) proposed tethering aerial drones to a ground station via cable, in order to augment wireless connectivity in transient high-usage hotspots. The team applied a novel stochastic geometry method to extrapolate the statistical coverage probability for a user at a random site in the hotspot. The KAUST researchers also derived a mathematical proof for the optimal drone site to supply maximum coverage for hotspot users, and performed numerical simulations that demonstrated tethered drones' superior performance over untethered drones. KAUST's Osama Bushnaq said, "In practice, the drone might fly to the nearest ground tether station to a hotspot, connect itself to the tether, and hover at the optimal position for as long as needed. The drone would then detach itself and fly to another ground tether station to serve another hotspot."
|
IBM Tool Lets Users Design Quantum Chips in Minutes
ZDNet
Daphne Leprince-Ringuet
March 22, 2021
IBM has made the Qiskit Metal open-source platform generally available for the design of quantum hardware. The platform automates parts of the design process, allowing users to experiment with pre-built components to create state-of-the art quantum chips in minutes. Users can set targets for the chip and then design an initial layout via a library of pre-defined, customizable quantum components, after which Metal performs classical and quantum analyses to predict the device's performance. Researchers at Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology designed an eight-qubit chip in a record 30 minutes using the IBM platform, while researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan developed a five-qubit quantum processor in a few hours. IBM's Zlatko Minev said Metal is "aimed at small-scale, rapid design and prototyping. The idea is to create new devices and optimize designs, to push and improve the scientific techniques."
|
Why It Pays to Think Outside the Box on Coronavirus Tests
The New York Times
Emily Anthes
March 24, 2021
An analysis by researchers at Harvard University (HU), the Broad Institute (BI), and Colorado Mesa University (CMU) suggests organizations that expand their coronavirus testing resources to the wider community would better shield themselves from Covid-19. The team used real-world data from CMU to construct a baseline scenario in which 1% of people on campus and 6% of those in the surrounding county were infected, and CMU tested 12% of its members daily. Under such conditions, CMU would have about 200 Covid-19 cases after 40 days, but analysis determined this number would fall by 25% if the school parceled out about 45% of its tests to community members in close contact of students and staff. Said Pardis Sabeti, a computational biologist at HU and BI who led the analysis, “If you’ve been in enough outbreaks, you just understand that testing in a box doesn’t makes sense."
*May Require Paid Registration
|
A New Way to Visualize Mountains of Biological Data
University of Missouri
March 25, 2021
A machine learning method developed by engineers and scientists at the University of Missouri (MU) and Ohio State University can analyze massive volumes of data from single-cell RNA-sequencing, with potential applications in precision medicine. The technique applies a graph neural network to generate a visual representation of the analyzed data, in order to help identify patterns easily. The graph is made up of dots, each representing a cell, and similar cell types are color-coded for easy recognition. MU's Dong Xu said, "With this data, scientists can study the interactions between cells within the micro-environment of a cancerous tissue, or watch the T-cells, B-cells, and immune cells all try to attack the cancerous cells."
|
|
