Welcome to the May 1, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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Thirty Years Ago, One Decision Changed Our Connected World
NPR
Julian Ring
April 30, 2023
The World Wide Web's launch three decades ago marked the beginning of the Internet's evolution into the revolutionary communications tool it has become. Tim Berners-Lee conceived of the Web at Switzerland's CERN laboratory and persuaded the lab to release it into the public domain for free; he has since credited the Web's massive expansion to that decision. By the end of 1994, more than 24 million people in North America spent an average of five hours a week online, while today nearly two-thirds of the global population visit hundreds of millions of sites via the Web. Berners-Lee, who received the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award for inventing the World Wide Web, directs the World Wide Web Consortium with the goal of keeping the platform neutral and universal.
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Technology to Mimic Skin Functions
UNSW Sydney Newsroom (Australia)
Lilly Matson
April 26, 2023
Scientists at Australia's University of New South Wales, Sydney (UNSW Sydney) have engineered an electronic skin (e-skin) by combining artificial synapses with sophisticated sensors. The device can detect mechanical stimuli for information processing while consuming very little power. UNSW Sydney's Dewei Chu said, "The electric current that powers our device corresponds to the strength of the connection between two neurons. And we applied electric stimuli to control the device conductance to emulate human synaptic behaviors." Chu said the sensors can perceive any applied stress and produce different electrical signals in response to various deformations. The sensors can sense subtle human movement and monitor physiological signals such as wrist pulse, respiration, and vocal cord vibration.
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Truck Drivers Bear Big Burden on Data Collection. Some Companies Want to Change That.
The Wall Street Journal
Isabelle Bousquette
April 26, 2023
Truck drivers are responsible for collecting and tracking detailed shipment data for logistics companies, but some trucking companies are turning to more advanced software and automated data-collection via cameras and sensors to ease drivers' burdens while gathering more accurate and real-time data. Estes Express Lines, for instance, has streamlined data-sharing by creating a digital twin of each piece of freight moving through its network, eliminating the need to duplicate or store data on multiple platforms. In addition to adopting automated data collection, Estes plans to launch a system that would allow drivers to upload a photo of a bill instead of manually inputting the data into an app. Said Estes' CIO Todd Florence, "If I only save my city driver two minutes per pickup a day … that's a lot of time. And that's a lot of dollars."
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Using Quantum Physics to Secure Wireless Devices
UIC Today
April 27, 2023
Quantum physics inspired computer engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and Michigan Technological University to formulate a method for enhancing wireless device identification and protecting device-to-device communication. The technique uses a genuinely random and unique digital fingerprint to provide virtually impenetrable hardware encryption. UIC's Pai-Yen Chen and colleagues mathematically identified a "divergent exceptional point" in a radio frequency identification (RFID) system using quantum physics, producing new RFID lock-and-tag hardware that creates secure signals via the resulting algorithm. Each device generates a novel digital signature due to variations in its manufacture. The researchers failed to find two identical digital fingerprints after thousands of simulations, passing U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology randomness tests and withstanding machine learning-based attacks.
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What Happens When Teens Privately Ask for Help on Instagram?
Drexel News
April 26, 2023
Researchers at Drexel and Vanderbilt universities investigated adolescent Instagram users' experiences on the social media platform in order to ensure they receive requested support. The researchers analyzed direct messages between users who requested help in their conversations on Instagram, focusing on how they initiate peer-support dialogues, the topics for which they require support, and the support they received. The results suggested teenage users are more likely to share negative experiences privately with friends and online acquaintances, which usually elicit positive peer support. The researchers categorized disclosures soliciting help as mental health concerns, relationship issues, daily life issues, or abuse. Drexel's Afsaneh Razi said certain circumstances led to support being denied, such as when participants felt they were not mentally or emotionally positioned to help, "or when there was a perceived imbalance in mutuality of support."
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'Smart Mines' Drive China's Coal Build-Out
Bloomberg
April 27, 2023
China's mining operators are deploying robots and other technologies to expand its coal industry, with Shaanxi Coal & Chemical Industry Group's Xiaobaodang mine using remote-controlled robots that shear boreholes with six-foot-diameter discs. The shearers are monitored by workers on the surface using closed circuit cameras positioned along the coal face and connected to 5G base stations from Huawei Technologies. The Hongliulin mine features more than 2,700 pieces of subterranean equipment linked to networks to instantly send photos, videos, and operational data to the surface. China Coal News estimates China has roughly 570 "smart mines" that use technology to optimize about 42% of the nation's total output, or about 1.9 billion tons of coal annually.
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Engineers 'Grow' Atomically Thin Transistors Atop Computer Chips
MIT News
Adam Zewe
April 27, 2023
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and information and communication technology provider Ericsson Research have "grown" transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) material layers atop a silicon chip. The approach can culture a uniform layer of TMD material in less than 60 minutes over eight-inch wafers; previous methods take at least a day. MIT's Jiadi Zhu compared the process to building a multistory edifice, with the first floor composed of silicon and the upper floors constructed from two-dimensional materials. Those materials consist of a one-atom layer of molybdenum sandwiched between two sulfide atoms, forming a semiconductor transistor. Said Zhu, "By shortening the growth time, the process is much more efficient and could be more easily integrated into industrial fabrications."
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VR Drives Next-Gen Situational Awareness for Public Safety
GCN
Stephanie Kanowitz
April 25, 2023
A virtual version of a command center developed by the Headwall software company came in first in the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's CommanDING Tech Challenge. The Headwall XR Command Center allows users to view live video feeds and other data from command centers in a head-mounted display; using such a display, an on-site commander could providing field responders the same situational awareness as command center personnel. The software is combined through an application programming interface with first responder agencies' video management systems. Said Headwall's Geoffrey Bund, "We’ve taken it for granted that all information has to be transferred to a 2D format to then be transmitted and viewed. Virtual reality allows [geospatial information systems], mapping systems, and 3D information to maintain its native format through to viewing.”
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Jellyfish-Like Robots Could Clean the World's Oceans
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Germany)
April 25, 2023
A hand-sized, jellyfish-inspired robot developed by researchers at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) could be used to navigate underwater environments and potentially handle ocean cleanup. The robot features electrohydraulic actuators that act as artificial muscles, which are surrounded by air cushions and components that provide stability and waterproofing. The muscles contract and expand when electricity runs through the actuators, allowing it to swim like a jellyfish. MPI-IS's Tianlu Wang said that like a real jellyfish, “Our robot, too, circulates the water around it," allowing it to collect and transport waste or fragile biological samples like fish eggs to the surface.
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Positive Triggering Method Reduces Nationality Bias in Large Text Generators
Penn State News
Francisco Tutella
April 25, 2023
Pennsylvania State University researchers found large language models trained on Internet files to learn how to respond to user prompts about different countries repeat biased concepts online. The researchers asked OpenAI's GPT-2 model to generate 100 stories about the citizens of each of the 193 countries recognized by the United Nations and learned each country's Internet user population and economic status determined the adjectives the model used to describe its citizenry. Adjectives used by GPT-2 to describe nations with higher levels of both factors were more positive, while lower-rated countries returned less-positive adjectives. The researchers found using positive trigger words in prompts like "hopeful" and "hardworking" can retrain the models and produce less-biased results.
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Light-Based Computing Scheme Reduces Power Needed to Mine Cryptocurrencies
Optica
April 27, 2023
A research team at Stanford University developed a light-based computing approach that could reduce the energy necessary to mine cryptocurrencies by using a photonic integrated circuit to create a photonic blockchain. LightHash features a silicon photonic chip with a 6x6 network of programmable interferometers to allow for low-energy optical processing of matrix multiplications. Said PsiQuantum's Sunil Pai, formerly of Stanford, "Essentially, we have devised a way to use analog optical circuits to perform multiplications at near-zero power dissipation, yet precisely enough for use in a digital encryption scheme." Pai noted LightHash could have other applications, such as secure data transfer for medical records, smart contracts, and voting. The researchers said a large-scale implementation of their approach, with additional development, could improve energy use about 10-fold compared to the best modern digital processors.
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Self-Driving Lab Accelerates Materials Discovery with Multiple Applications
Argonne National Laboratory
Joseph E. Harmon
April 25, 2023
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have integrated artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics into the Polybot autonomous laboratory to expedite the discovery of materials with multiple uses. Polybot delegates different tasks to AI and robots, typically formulating and printing polymer solutions, checking quality, manufacturing devices, and measuring their electrical performance. The researchers are using Polybot to design polymer electronics for energy-saving and medical applications, including recyclable or biodegradable devices. Argonne's Jie Xu said Polybot's potential applications include materials for computers with brain-like characteristics, climate change-monitoring sensors, and solid electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries.
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