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Welcome to the May 22, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.

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President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida participate in an event at the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. At G-7 Summit, Leaders Call for International Standards on AI
The Washington Post
Michelle Ye Hee Lee; Matt Viser; Tyler Pager
May 20, 2023


World leaders at the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Japan called for the development of international standards to limit the potential damage from rapid innovations in artificial intelligence (AI). They wrote that AI's challenges must be weighed alongside its advantages, while new technologies should be regulated in harmony with democratic values like fairness, accountability, transparency, protection from online abuse, and respect for privacy and human rights. The G-7 leaders cited in particular generative AI, as some experts warn the technology may worsen polarization through machine-generated content and make it difficult for people to assess the authenticity of information. The leaders also urged the creation of technical standards for the development of "trustworthy" AI, noting G-7 members may have differing strategies and policy tools for realizing this goal.

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The 306-sensor MEG helmet, which detects nerve activity in the brain by measuring magnetic fields. Noninvasive Brain Imaging Can Distinguish Hand Gestures
UC San Diego Today
Mila Ono
May 19, 2023


A study by researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System used noninvasive brain imaging to differentiate among hand gestures as a step toward a noninvasive brain-computer interface. The researchers applied magnetoencephalography (MEG), which uses a helmet equipped with a sensor array to detect magnetic fields in the brain generated by neuronal electric currents passing between neurons. The researchers assessed the ability to use MEG to distinguish between hand gestures made by volunteers, who were randomly told to make a gesture from the game Rock Paper Scissors. The researchers found measurements by the MEG-RPSnet deep learning algorithm could differentiate among hand gestures with greater than 85% accuracy.

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Can't Find Your Phone? There's a Robot for That
University of Waterloo (Canada)
May 15, 2023


Engineers at Canada's University of Waterloo have programmed a robot to help dementia patients find misplaced objects. Waterloo's Ali Ayub and colleagues used an object-detection algorithm to program a Fetch mobile manipulator robot to detect, track, and maintain a log of objects in its camera view through stored video. They then created a graphical interface for users to select objects to be tracked and, after typing the objects' names, to search for them on a smartphone application or computer. The robot can signal when and where it last saw the desired object. Said Ayub, "The long-term impact of this is really exciting."

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FlexBoard is an interaction prototyping platform that enables rapid prototyping with interactive components. Toward More Flexible, Rapid Prototyping of Electronic Devices
MIT News
Alex Shipps
May 18, 2023


The FlexBoard interaction prototyping platform developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and South Korea's Chung-Ang University facilitates rapid prototyping of electronic devices. A flexible "breadboard" can incorporate interactive sensors, light-emitting diodes, actuators, and screens on curved and deformable surfaces. FlexBoard's design comprises a thin plastic that links two pieces of the same material in a "living hinge pattern," which could support the fabrication of more rapidly customizable interfaces. The researchers used FlexBoard to attach electronic components to kettlebells, videogame controllers, and gloves. Former MIT researcher Michael Wessely explained, "Our platform also enables designers to quickly test different configurations of sensors, displays, and other interactive components, which might lead to faster product development cycles and more user-friendly and accessible designs."

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Cows wearing electronic collars as part of a virtual-fencing system. Virtual Fences for Cattle Find a Home on the Range
The Wall Street Journal
Jim Carlton
May 18, 2023


Cattle ranchers increasingly have access to virtual fences that allow them to determine their land’s boundaries on a computer and use electronic collars to keep their cows from wandering away from it. San Diego-based Vence expects to deploy more than 75,000 of the electric collars, which emit warning beeps followed by a shock if the cow crosses the virtual fence, by the end of the year. The collars are being used at the Mushrush Ranch near Kansas City, MO, as part of a test of fenceless grazing on the Tallgrass Prairie National Reserve. The virtual fences cost just $50 per collar per year in rental and battery fees, plus $12,500 per base station; a traditional fence can cost upwards of $15,000 per mile for installation and maintenance.

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AI Powers Second-Skin-Like Wearable Tech
Monash University (Australia)
May 19, 2023


Scientists at Australia's Monash University and the Melbourne Center for Nanofabrication integrated nanotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) into an ultra-thin skinpatch that monitors 11 biometric signals. The researchers engineered the Deep Hybrid-Spectro frequency/amplitude-based neural network to track multiple biometrics transmitted by the skinpatch in a single signal. Monash's Wenlong Cheng said the layered, neck-worn patch can measure speech, neck movement, touch, respiration, and heart rate. Cheng explained, "Emerging soft electronics have the potential to serve as second-skin-like wearable patches for monitoring human health vitals, designing perception robotics, and bridging interactions between natural and artificial intelligence."

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Students on the University of Maryland campus. The university showcases two trends reshaping higher education. College is Remade as Tech Majors Surge, Humanities Dwindle
The Washington Post
Nick Anderson
May 20, 2023


Higher education institutions are seeing rising enrollment in computer science at the same time interest in humanities is declining. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center estimated U.S. students pursuing four-year degrees in computer and information sciences and related fields climbed 34% from 2017 to about 573,000 to 2022, while the number of English majors dived 23% to about 113,000, and history majors fell 12% to roughly 77,000, over the same period. Many colleges are looking to establish a balance to accommodate increased demand for technology credentials while preserving the humanities. One solution being pursued at the University of Maryland is to institute blended majors like "immersive media design," while another is to persuade students from other fields to take multiple majors.

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3D-Printed Pills with Desired Drug Release – a Step Upwards in Medication
Max Planck Institute for Informatics (Germany)
May 16, 2023


Computer scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Informatics and the University of California, Davis have developed pills allowing for time-controlled release using advanced computational methods and three-dimensional (3D) printing. The process of dissolving the pills in liquid in a predetermined time relies solely on the shape of the pill, based on a geometric intuition that objects dissolve one layer at a time. The researchers formulated an inverse design strategy that determines the pill’s shape from release behavior based on topology optimization, which involves the inversion of forward simulations to identify a shape that exhibits a certain property. They used a filament-based 3D printer to produce the pill and a camera system to measure its dissolution.

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Decoding Stress from Wearable Tech
IEEE Spectrum
Michael Nolan
May 17, 2023


Researchers at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital used heart rate variability (HRV) measurements from smartwatches to interpret the wearer's psychological state. The researchers quantified group correlations between standardized resilience and HRV measurements over time for each study participant. They taught machine learning models to forecast resilience and an aggregate tally merging resilience, optimism, and emotional support scores for participants based on their HRV patterns. The best-performing classifiers produced a score of 0.63 (where 0.50 would equal pure random chance), while the best-performing aggregate score classifier scored 0.65. The researchers said their approach provides people access to holistic mental health care that they did not have previously.

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Georgia Tech researchers, from left to right, Simar Kareer, Joanne Truong, and Naoki Yokoyam, work on a quadrupedal robot that can navigate over obstacles. Training Robots to Navigate over Obstacles
Georgia Tech College of Computing
Nathan Deen
May 18, 2023


Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) researchers developed a novel protocol to train four-legged robots to walk over obstacles. Said Georgia Tech's Naoki Yokoyama, "Whereas blind locomotive controllers tend to be more reactive—if they step on something, they'll make sure they don't fall over—we wanted ours to use visual input to avoid stepping on the obstacle altogether." The Visual Navigation and Locomotion training approach combines high-level visual navigation policy with a visual locomotion policy to guide robots through simulated cluttered settings with a 72.6% success rate. The researchers embedded memory and spatial awareness within the network architecture to train the robot exactly when and where to walk over an obstacle and taught it which objects to step over and which to go around.

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Algorithm-Backed Tool Offers Accurate Tracking for Deforestation Crisis
Interesting Engineering
Sade Agard
May 19, 2023


A multi-institutional team of scientists has introduced a tool to detect and track large-scale deforestation. Suming Jin at the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observation and Science Center and colleagues improved the mapping efficiency, flexibility, and accuracy of the National Land Cover Database by integrating 2-date and time-series change detection algorithms. The 2-date algorithms can identify forest disturbances accurately by analyzing changes in image bands, indices, classifications, and combinations by incorporating richer spectral information. Time-series algorithms factor in spectral and long-term temporal data, concurrently providing changes for multiple dates. The researchers' forest disturbance tool shows the latest forest disturbance date within two- to three-year periods from 1986 to 2019, and can be extended to new dates.

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Memcomputer Chips Could Solve Tasks That Defeat Conventional Computers
New Scientist
Matthew Sparkes
May 22, 2023


Researchers at the universities of California, San Diego (UCSD) and South Carolina have built a digital memcomputer that stores data using binary numbers. Conventional computers shuttle data between multiple components to solve computational problems, while a memcomputer executes processing and memory tasks simultaneously. The researchers designed their memcomputer to solve a combinatorial problem typical of standard computer chip design, accomplishing in minutes what would take standard algorithms "over the age of the universe" to achieve, according to UCSD's Massimiliano Di Ventra. The proof-of-concept system offers a route to scaling up digital memcomputer chips. Said Di Ventra, "It's under the radar a little bit at the moment, but we've solved a lot of very tough problems.”

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