Welcome to the February 4, 2022, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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European Oil Port Terminals Hit by Cyberattack
France 24
February 3, 2022
Major oil terminals at some of Western Europe's biggest ports have been hit by a cyberattack, as energy prices in Europe soar amid tensions with gas supplier Russia. In Belgium, authorities are investigating the hacking of oil facilities in the country's maritime entryways, including Antwerp, Europe's second biggest port, while German prosecutors are investigating a cyberattack targeting oil facilities in what was described as a possible ransomware strike. German newspaper Handelsblatt said an initial report from German security services identifies the BlackCat ransomware as the tool used in the cyberattack in Germany. BlackCat emerged in mid-November 2021 as a software tool that allows hackers to seize control of target systems. Experts note that BlackCat is programmed in the Russian language.
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Cornell Software Enables 3D Printing on Space Station
Cornell Chronicle
David Nutt
February 2, 2022
Cornell University researchers designed modeling software that enables three-dimensional (3D) printing aboard the International Space Station (ISS). An experiment sought to show how the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Spaceborne Computer-2 can operate on the ISS. The software can simulate how additive manufacturing (3D printing) will play out for a desired part, as well as the component's resulting quality. Cornell's Terrence Moran said the software "was successfully run and the results were consistent with the results we'd done during our research." Said Cornell's Derek Warner, “One of the allures of 3D printing is that you can manufacture locally, so the neat thing about this is that, while space might be the most extreme environment, for the military or on oil rigs or other places, there’s also going to be a need for doing the same thing. This demonstrates that it’s possible.”
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This Tech Job Crowned Best in the Country
ZDNet
Owen Hughes
February 2, 2022
Glassdoor's 25 Best Jobs List for 2022 ranked Java developer as the best job in the U.K., with an overall job score of 4.6 out of 5, based on a combination of salary, job satisfaction, and the number of job openings. Eleven science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related jobs made the list, which the accompanying report said was "reflective of the industry's ability to offer a good work-life balance and flexible work options." The other STEM-related jobs on the list include enterprise architect (ranked No. 2), full-stack engineer (No. 4), data scientist (No. 5), front-end engineer (No. 9), UX designer (No. 11), mobile engineer (No. 12), data engineer (No. 15), DevOps engineer (No. 16), software engineer (No. 17), and cloud engineer (No. 19). The report also revealed that enterprise architect was the highest-paid job on the list, with a median base salary of £73,898 (nearly US$10,000). The most in-demand role on the list was software engineer, with 3,599 active job openings on the Glassdoor platform.
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COVID Forecasting Method Using Hospital, Cellphone Data Can Reliably Guide U.S. Cities Through Pandemic Threats
University of Texas at Austin News
February 2, 2022
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) developed a forecasting model and two public-facing dashboards that use cellphone mobility data and COVID-19 hospital admissions data to forecast regional hospital demands. The models and dashboards have been used for nearly two years to manage healthcare resources, maintain sufficient hospital capacity, and inform the public about pandemic risks. Using intuitive graphics and spaghetti lines from hurricane forecasting (computer models that show potential tropical cyclone paths), the dashboards display immediate and future risks of COVID-19’s spread. The model, which uses anonymized cellphone mobility data from SafeGraph, can be adapted to project COVID-19 healthcare needs three weeks in advance for any U.S. city. UT's Spencer Fox said, "Community movement data helps us gauge changing COVID-19 transmission risks and anticipate healthcare surges several weeks in advance."
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Optimizing Facebook Notifications Pumped Up Blood Donations
University of Maryland
Maria Herd
February 3, 2022
University of Maryland (UMD) machine learning researchers developed a predictive algorithm that enhanced Facebook's notification system for blood donations, which helped donations grow by 5% last year. The algorithm can identify when and where users are most likely to donate, based partly on factors like how frequently they use Facebook, age, or proximity to donation sites. The new predictive model outperformed one that randomly chose nearby donation opportunities, yielding an extra 75,000 donations out of 1.5 million Facebook users who received notifications during the experiment. "This is a successful step in better aligning the global supply and demand of blood," said UMD's John Dickerson.
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VR 'Shopping Task' Could Help Test for Cognitive Decline in Adults
King's College London (U.K.)
January 26, 2022
A virtual reality (VR) test developed by researchers at the U.K.'s King's College London can be used to assess an individual's functional cognition, and eventually may be used to test for age-related cognitive decline. Using the VR shopping task called "VStore," 142 healthy individuals aged 20 to 79 years were asked to verbally recall a list of 12 items; they then were assessed based on the time it took to collect those items in a virtual store, select them on a virtual self-checkout machine, pay for them, and then order coffee. The researchers found VStore simultaneously engaged several key neuropsychological functions, potentially accessing a greater range of cognitive domains than standard assessments. Said King's College's Lilla Porffy, "These are promising findings adding to a growing body of evidence showing that [VR] can be used to measure cognition and related everyday functioning effectively and accurately."
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Infrared Goggles, Vibrating Armband Help the Blind 'See'
New Scientist
Matthew Sparkes
January 21, 2022
Researchers at Germany's Technical University of Munich (TUM) incorporated a pair of infrared cameras into prototype goggles produced by a three-dimensional (3D) printer to help blind and visually impaired people navigate their environment intuitively. A stereoscopic image created by the two cameras is used to create a map of the user’s surroundings, which is converted to a low-resolution image on a 5x5 grid. The user, outfitted with an armband containing 25 vibrating pads, receives strong vibrations on the edge of the grid to identify walls, for instance. The vibrations grow weaker in the center of the room, and as users walk toward an obstacle, the vibrational intensity of the respective pads increases in the corresponding spot. Said TUM's Manuel Zahn, "You quickly learn that when you move, the vibration moves on your arm as a lower-resolution representation of your surroundings."
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Invisible Machine-Readable Labels Identify, Track Objects
MIT News
Steve Nadis
January 28, 2022
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Facebook Reality Labs have developed three-dimensionally (3D) printed tags to classify and store data on physical objects. Called InfraredTags, the tags are imperceptibly embedded in the interior of 3D-printed objects, where they can be read with an infrared (IR) camera. The tags could contain standard one-dimensional barcodes, as well as two-dimensional options like QR codes and ArUco (fiducial) markers. The researchers also developed a software user interface that indicates what the tag should look like and where it should appear within the object. Fraser Anderson at the Autodesk Technology Center called InfraredTags “a really clever, useful, and accessible approach to embedding information into objects.”
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Robots Marched On in 2021, with Record Orders by North American Firms
Reuters
Timothy Aeppel
February 2, 2022
Record numbers of robots joined the U.S. workforce in 2021, with North American companies paying over $2 billion for roughly 40,000 units amid record demand and a labor shortage. The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) estimated U.S. factories and other industrial users ordered 28% more robots than in 2020, totaling 39,708 units last year. The portion of robots going to non-automotive companies expanded further, with A3 observing the fastest growth in robot orders in the metals and food/consumer goods sectors. Many of last year’s robot orders were for a new type of collaborative robots (cobots) that work alongside humans on assembly lines. Joe Campbell at Denmark-based cobot-maker Universal Robots said the worker shortage in manufacturing is a key driver of automation growth. Campbell said cobots are entering many industries that long opposed automation, such drywall installation in construction, and final assembly jobs in auto plants.
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Dairy-Tech Startup Created a Step Counter for Cows
CNN Business
Rebecca Cairns
February 3, 2022
India's Stellapps Technologies has come up with what CEO Ranjith Mukundan describes as "a device which is like a Fitbit for cattle." Stellapps combines information from the "mooON" step tracker device, which is strapped to a cow's leg, with data that farmers and veterinarians enter into a smartphone app. Stellapps' technology is currently used by nearly 3 million dairy farmers across 36,000 villages in India, according to Mukundan, who says by tracking and better managing their animals, farmers can increase milk yields. Stellapps also measures the volume of milk brought to collection points with a digital scale, and transfers payments directly to farmers' bank accounts via its "mooPay" platform.
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AI Could Cut Hiring Biases as Companies Make Push to Find Workers, Proponents Say
The Wall Street Journal
Richard Vanderford
February 2, 2022
With more companies launching widespread recruitment campaigns amid a worker shortage, some proponents of artificial intelligence (AI) say its use can make hiring decisions faster and fairer. This comes even as regulators and other AI experts warn the algorithms can learn from, and then perpetuate, human biases. Said Kevin Parker of hiring technology firm HireVue, "When you can ask the candidates exactly the same question about the skills associated with their job, you get a much fairer outcome ... and diversity improves as a result of that." On the other hand, McGill University’s Matissa Hollister said, “There’s a growing realization that these tools can exacerbate bias,” adding, “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, ‘Keep the humans in human resources’.”
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