Welcome to the February 22, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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In the Metaverse, Your Identity Can Be Revealed Just by Moving
TechRadar
Lewis Maddison
February 21, 2023
University of California, Berkeley researchers found simple head and hand movements by participants in the Metaverse can expose their identities. The researchers analyzed more than 50,000 subjects with more than 2.5 million virtual reality (VR) data recordings linked to them when playing the game Beat Saber in Meta's VR ecosystem. The game requires near-constant hand movement and sometimes head movement. Artificial intelligence analysis could identify individual players with 94% accuracy, as well as identifying more than half of the 50,000 participants using just two seconds' worth of data. The researchers said the data also allowed them to determine each user’s dominant hand, height, and gender with a high degree of accuracy.
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Want Healthy Chocolate? You Can 3D-Print It
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
February 19, 2023
A Rutgers University food scientist and his research team three-dimensionally (3D)-printed low-fat chocolate. Said Rutgers' Qingrong Huang, "Unlike other food materials such as fruits and meats, 3D extrusion printing of chocolate normally involves the melting and recrystallization of cocoa butter, thereby requiring accurate control of both thermal and fluid conditions during the printing process." Huang tweaked the ratios of the ingredients for a standard chocolate recipe to optimize the liquid-solid balance for 3D printing, replacing cocoa butter with a water-in-cocoa butter emulsion bound by gum arabic. Huang said, "Three-dimensional printing of chocolate is an important and special area in food printing" that “enables the development of customized edible products with tailored taste, shape, and texture, as well as optimal nutrition based on consumer needs.”
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U.S. Census Data Vulnerable to Attack Without Enhanced Privacy Measures
Penn Engineering Today
Devorah Fischler
February 21, 2023
A team of researchers led by University of Pennsylvania (Penn) computer scientists confirmed the existence of vulnerabilities that leave U.S. Census data open to exposure and theft. Using a commercial laptop and a basic machine learning algorithm, the researchers were able to reverse-engineer aggregated data released by the U.S. Census Bureau to reveal individual respondents' protected information. Penn's Michael Kearns said, "What's novel about our approach is that we show that it's possible to identify which reconstructed records are most likely to match the answers of a real person. Others have already demonstrated it's possible generate real records, but we are the first to establish a hierarchy that would allow attackers to, for example, prioritize candidates for identity theft by the likelihood their records are correct."
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Microsoft Researchers Use ChatGPT to Control Robots, Drones
PC Magazine
Michael Kan
February 21, 2023
Microsoft scientists are controlling robots and aerial drones with OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The researchers used ChatGPT to simplify the process of programming software commands to guide the robots, because the artificial intelligence model was trained on massive datasets of human text. They initially outlined in a text prompt the various commands the model could use to control a given robot, which ChatGPT used to write the computer code for the robot. The researchers programmed ChatGPT to fly a drone and have it perform actions, as well as to control a robot arm to assemble the Microsoft logo from wooden blocks.
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Technique Enables Quantum Computing Systems to Keep Their Cool
MIT News
Adam Zewe
February 21, 2023
A wireless communication system developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology allows quantum computers to use high-speed terahertz waves to send and receive data to and from electronics outside the refrigerator. This aims to overcome the challenges associated with the fridge's ability to keep the quantum system cold, as the metal cables connected to the electronics generate heat. The new system beams terahertz waves produced outside the refrigerator through a glass window, where a transceiver chip located in the fridge receives the data encoded onto those waves. The chip also can transmit data from the qubits on the terahertz waves. The researchers found the contactless communication system used a tenth the power of systems with metal cables to transmit data at a rate of 4 gigabits per second.
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Technology Helps Prevent Whale Collisions with Ships
CBS News
Ben Tracy
February 21, 2023
Researchers hope to prevent fatal whale-ship collisions via technologies like Whale Safe, which predicts whales' presence in shipping lanes along the western U.S. coast using data from buoys, satellites, and a whale-watching application. The system can warn shipping companies and cruise ships in near-real time to slow their vessels to 10 knots (11.5 m.p.h.) to reduce the risk of deadly collisions. Experts believe whales have been drawn closer to shore this winter by their food sources, which has resulted in at least 18 whales washing up on East Coast beaches since Dec. 1. Whale Safe's Callie Leiphardt said even a blue whale, the largest animal to ever live, is "no match for a 1,000-foot cargo ship."
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German Court Rules Police Use of Crimefighting Software Unlawful
Reuters
Rachel More
February 16, 2023
A top German court has ruled that police use of automated data analysis to prevent crime in some German states violates their constitutions, backing opponents of software provided by U.S. company Palantir Technologies. The constitutional court determined provisions regulating the technology's employment in the states of Hesse and Hamburg breach the right to informational self-determination. The German Society for Civil Rights argued the case against police data analysis, claiming Palantir software used innocent people's data to sow suspicion, and could generate errors that impact people in danger of police discrimination. The court has given Hesse until Sept. 30 to redraft its provisions, and annulled legislation in Hamburg, where the technology had yet to be used.
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Scientists Develop AR-Based Navigated Contact Lenses Using 3D Printing
Interesting Engineering
Nergis Firtina
February 15, 2023
Researchers at South Korea's Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology have three-dimensionally (3D)-printed augmented reality (AR)-based navigated contact lenses. The process can print tiny patterns on lens displays without electricity, using electrochromic screens and Pure Prussian Blue color. Prussian blue crystallizes in the acidic-ferric-ferricyanide meniscus forming between the printer's micronozzle and the substrate as the solvent evaporates. Crystallization extends through the nozzle's movement, producing 7.2-micrometer patterns that can be generated on flat and curved surfaces. KERI's Seol Seung-Kwon said the 3D printing technology "can commercialize advanced smart contact lenses to implement AR."
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Breakthrough Enables Battery-Free Smart Tag Technology
UC San Diego Today
Ioana Patringenaru
February 21, 2023
Engineers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have mated a chip in product packaging with a software update for phones into a wireless, battery-free radio frequency identification (RFID) reader. The technology renders phones capable of identifying objects based on signals the chip emits from Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The system taps backscatter communication to harness and redirect Bluetooth signals as Wi-Fi signals the smartphone comprehends while using 1,000 times less power than state-of-the-art signal generators. Long-term evolution signals can power the custom chip through RF energy harvesting. UCSD's Patrick Mercier said, "This approach enables a robust, low-cost, and scalable way to provide power and enable communications in an RFID-like manner, while using smartphones as the devices that both read and power the signals."
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Soft Robots Take Steps Toward Independence
Scientific American
Nora Bradford
February 14, 2023
More sophisticated soft robots are overcoming their predecessors' design challenges with navigation, self-repair, and growth capabilities. One research team at Cornell University modeled an experimental robot after the self-healing properties of human skin to recover from small injuries detected via fiber-optic sensors. Another team of researchers created a soft robot that "grows" like a plant by converting liquids into tubular solids. “The robotics community has been continuously focusing on the science and engineering of autonomy,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticist and computer scientist Daniela Rus. “We have made advancements on the soft body components and also on the algorithmic control and we are now using these advancements to make increasingly more capable and self-contained autonomous soft robots."
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Transmitter Design for Small Satellite Constellations Improves Signal Transmission
Tokyo Tech News (Japan)
February 21, 2023
A new transmitter (TX) designed by researchers at Japan's Tokyo Institute of Technology and Japanese space startup Axelspace aims to improve signal transmission among small satellite constellations. The TX can produce left- and right-handed circularly polarized (CP) signals to prevent interference by transmitted signals with the opposite orientation, as well as generate dual CP signals for high-speed data connections. The device operates in the 25.5-gigahertz (GHz)-to-27-GHz Ka-band for next-generation high-speed satellite communications, while a 256-element active phased-array configuration controls beam steering. The TX selects CP transmission mode via an active hybrid coupler that can alter the integrated circuit's layout in real time.
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Quantum Computers Could Run Programs That Should Be Too Big for Them
New Scientist
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
February 21, 2023
A research team led by S.C. Marshall at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands developed a new technique for writing quantum programs that could enable quantum systems to run algorithms that initially seem too computationally intensive. The method breaks down large quantum circuits into smaller sub-circuits, then mathematically determines which can be ignored without causing excessive errors. The researchers operated two quantum machine learning algorithms on a quantum computer model. The programs could recognize hand-written digits with just eight simulated quantum bits (qubits) and predict the outcome of a quantum process using five qubits, respectively. Alexey Melnikov at Swiss quantum computing company Terra Quantum said the technique could enhance the operation of quantum algorithms on commercially used conventional supercomputers.
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Studying Ship Tracks to Inform Climate Intervention Decision-Makers
Sandia Labs News Releases
February 20, 2023
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are studying sunlight-reflecting clouds generated by aerosol exhaust from moving ships to inform decision-makers about technologies under consideration for climate change intervention. The researchers used publicly available satellite images and ship location information to mathematically model ship tracks' formation and duration. Sandia's Lyndsay Shand said two algorithms observe images and physical phenomena, respectively, to predict ship tracks' persistence. This led to the discovery that ship tracks last more than 24 hours—longer than previously believed, according to Shand. The research feeds into the investigation of marine cloud brightening, which could potentially offset greenhouse gases by reflecting some sunlight back into space before the atmosphere or the Earth's surface absorbs its heat.
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