Welcome to the April 17, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Indian Colleges Accelerate Work on Indic Languages Gen AI
LiveMint (India)
Shouvik Das
April 16, 2023
Indian engineering colleges are embarking on generative artificial intelligence (AI) research projects in Indic languages. National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela's Tapas Kumar Mishra said, "In academia, we're using techniques from language models, namely the transformer architecture, for different tasks such as classification of data, answering questions, machine translation, and building chatbots." Mishra said his research team is developing transformer AI models that answer questions rendered in languages like Hindi, Bangla, and Kannada in English. To accelerate AI research in India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology last year launched ‘Bhashini’, an Indic language database that can be tapped by institutes.
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Multifunctional Patch Detects Plant Diseases, Other Crop Threats
NC State University News
Matt Shipman
April 12, 2023
An electronic patch developed by North Carolina State University (NC State) scientists can monitor crops for various pathogens and threats. The 30-millimeter (1.1-inch)-long device upgrades an earlier prototype that monitored plants for volatile organic compounds pertaining to specific diseases or stressors. Said NC State's Yong Zhu, "The new patches incorporate additional sensors, allowing them to monitor temperature, environmental humidity, and the amount of moisture being 'exhaled' by the plants via their leaves." The patches are affixed to the underside of leaves, where tiny openings that the plants use to “breathe” are more densely concentrated. The researchers say they need to make the patches wireless, and to test them in the field, before the patches can be used by growers.
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NASA Updates Mars Curiosity Rover Software
UPI
Patrick Hilsman
April 14, 2023
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engineers upgraded the Mars Curiosity rover's software so the vehicle consumes less energy and experiences less wheel damage while traveling. This marks the rover's first major update since 2016; engineers said the changes would substantially improve performance by allowing Curiosity to commit less time to image processing and to conduct more "thinking while driving." A new algorithm also will calculate the optimal speed for Curiosity to traverse rough terrain with minimal wheel damage.
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Using Drones, Lasers to Pinpoint Greenhouse Gas Leaks
Princeton University
Colton Poore
April 14, 2023
Princeton University researchers have developed a laser-based sensing technique to pinpoint greenhouse gas leaks. The method involves the use of a retroreflector-outfitted drone and a base station of gas sensors that monitors the drone's flight; operators can pinpoint leak sources and measure intensity by bouncing a laser beam off the drone to set points around the suspected leak. The approach can accurately detect and measure large leaks and leaks up to 25 times smaller than those detected at natural gas facilities via other methods. Keeping gas sensors on the base station allowed the researchers to employ smaller, more affordable drones with longer flight times to gather emissions data across large areas, with the potential to monitor entire natural gas transmission and distribution facilities in one flight.
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Ford Launches Hands-Free Driving on U.K. Motorways
BBC News
Faarea Masud; Lora Jones
April 14, 2023
U.K. ministers have approved the use of Ford's BlueCruise "hands-off, eyes-on" driving system on British motorways, which will initially be available in 2023 models of the automaker's electric Mustang Mach-E sport utility vehicle. The system can operate the vehicle’s steering, acceleration, and braking while a camera watches the driver's eyes for alertness. BlueCruise monitors other vehicles, speed limits, and the road itself while keeping the car centered in its lane. The system issues audio alerts, then brakes and slows if the driver's eyes drift off the road. Automotive research firm Thatcham Research said this should not be considered an autonomous vehicle, but "the next development in assisted driving technology."
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Building a Precise Assistive-Feeding Robot to Handle Any Meal
Stanford University Institute for Human-Centered AI
Katherine Miller
April 10, 2023
Stanford University researchers developed three algorithms to serve as components of a precise robot-assistive feeding system. One algorithm merges computer vision with haptic feedback to assess the angle and speed at which to skewer food with a fork, using a camera-equipped robot arm. Another algorithm employs a second robotic arm to push food onto a spoon while a computer vision system evaluates the food's fragility. The third algorithm maneuvers food into a person's mouth naturally and comfortably by sensing when they take a bite. Each of the food acquisition and bite transfer steps are currently managed independently, but Stanford's Suneel Belkhale said, “Eventually, the goal would be to start fitting them together.”
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Physicists Extend Qubit Lifespan in Pivotal Validation of Quantum Computing
ScienceAlert
David Nield
April 9, 2023
Yale University physicists demonstrated the feasibility of quantum error correction (QEC) by doubling the lifespan of a qubit. Said Yale's Michel Devoret, "For the first time, we have shown that making the system more redundant and actively detecting and correcting quantum errors provided a gain in the resilience of quantum information." In an experiment, the researchers maintained the lifespan of an error-corrected qubit for 1.8 milliseconds by upgrading both a QEC code from 2001 and the quantum circuit fabrication process. Google's Volodymyr Sivak, formerly of Yale, attributed the breakthrough to "a combination of a whole bunch of different technologies that were developed in the past few years, which we combined in this experiment."
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Tech Skills Shortfall Frustrates Start-Ups Looking to Hire
Financial Times
Cristina Criddle
April 16, 2023
Hundreds of U.K. startups are struggling to fill positions requiring technology skills due to widespread domestic and global shortages. The Institute of Analytics' Clare Walsh said the shortage stems from education's inability to keep pace with technological change, and addressing the problem will require companies to retrain and reskill workers. Smaller U.K. tech companies face the challenge of recruiting from a small base of candidates while jockeying with large tech companies for talent, compounded by a dearth of qualified graduates and inflation driving up salaries. Some startup founders are offering a piece of their business to draw workers, while others hope to reap talent from layoffs at large tech firms like Amazon and Meta.
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An Algorithmic Way to Measure Wind
The University of Arizona News
Niranjana Rajalakshmi
April 12, 2023
University of Arizona (UArizona) scientists used data from two U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites to develop an algorithm for measuring wind by tracking water vapor. The satellites travel in the same direction separated by a 50-minute interval and use infrared radiation to detect water vapor movement. The researchers employed the algorithm to measure the vertical distribution of horizontal winds over the tropics and midlatitudes for the first time. UArizona's Xubin Zeng said, "For decades, people were saying, 'You have to move the cloud top or water vapors enough so that you can see the difference of the pattern.' But now, we don't need to do that."
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Companies Get Inside Gig Workers' Heads with 'Algorithmic Wage Discrimination'
CBS News
Megan Cerulo
April 14, 2023
The University of California, Hastings' Veena Dubal suggest in a new report that large companies like Uber and Amazon use artificial intelligence to practice "algorithmic wage discrimination." Dubal found companies that employ independent contractors collect information on them, which results in unpredictable and unequal pay in the case of rideshare drivers, while some drivers accuse their employers of "gamifying" work. Said Dubal, "Algorithmic wage discrimination allows firms to personalize and differentiate wages for workers in ways unknown to them, paying them to behave in ways that the firm desires, perhaps [paying] as little as the system determines that they may be willing to accept."
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Research in Japan Shows the Way Toward Tactile, Proximity Sensing in Large Soft Robots
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
April 12, 2023
ProTac, a robotic link developed by researchers at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) as a soft cylindrical segment for a robotic arm, is equipped with tactile and proximity sensing capabilities. It features an outer skin that can be deformed slightly via touch and arrays of reflective markers on the inside, with fisheye cameras at both ends. The cameras capture and process changes in the markers' relative positions upon deformation of the skin, determining the location and intensity of the contact. The cameras also can capture the robot’s immediate surroundings for proximity calculations. The researchers also developed SimTacLS, an open source simulation and learning framework, so users can validate sensor designs and learning-based sensing performance before proceeding to fabrication and implementation.
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Shapes 3D-Printed into Living Worms Could Be Future of Brain Implants
New Scientist
Alex Wilkins
April 10, 2023
A technique developed by researchers at the U.K.'s Lancaster University can print conductive circuits inside living organisms using a photonic three-dimensional (3D) printer. Photonic 3D printers shape and turn materials conductive using lasers. With a photonic 3D printer and an ink containing the fluorescent plastic polypyrrole, the researchers printed star and square shapes inside living nematode worms. Lancaster's John Hardy said, "In principle, with a human or other larger organism, you could print around 10 centimeters (nearly 4 inches) in." Hardy said conductive circuits printed inside the body could have a wide range of applications, from biomedical settings to agriculture.
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