Welcome to the May 25, 2022,
edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely
information for IT professionals three
times a week.
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Era of
Borderless Data Is Ending
The New
York Times
David McCabe; Adam Satariano
May 23, 2022
More
than 50 countries, including France,
Austria, and South Africa, are boosting
their efforts to control digital
information generated by citizens,
government agencies, and corporations. To
achieve such "digital sovereignty," these
nations are imposing rules and standards
governing how data can and cannot be
transmitted worldwide. Technology
companies are adapting to the new rules,
with Microsoft making changes so customers
can keep data with certain geographies,
Amazon Web Services allowing customers to
control where in Europe their data is
stored, and Google Cloud striking deals
with local tech and telecom providers in
France, Spain, and Germany to oversee
customer data.
*May Require Paid
Registration
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Dutch Police
Use 'Deepfake' Video in Appeal Over
Boy's Murder
EuroNews
Matthew Holroyd
May 24, 2022
Dutch
police produced a deepfake video to
support an appeal to the public for
information about the 2003 killing of
teenage footballer Sedar Soares. The
police artificially manipulated footage to
depict Soares crossing a football pitch
(soccer field) with a ball under his arm,
surrounded by his relatives, friends, and
teachers. "The use of the 'deepfake' is
not just a lucky shot, we are convinced
that it can touch hearts in the criminal
environment," said the National Criminal
Investigation Team's Daan Annegarn.
Sedar's sister Janet acknowledged, "It's
not going to bring Sedar back, but
hopefully, it will bring answers."
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Charting a
Safe Course Through a Highly Uncertain
Environment
MIT News
Adam Zewe
May 19, 2022
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
researchers have developed a technique
that could help autonomous spacecraft
navigate remote exoplanets without needing
to understand environmental conditions or
potential obstacles. The technique aims to
help spacecraft plot a safe trajectory to
a specific region when its exact starting
point is unknown and it is uncertain how
its movement will be affected by external
conditions. The researchers developed
algorithms that handle trajectory planning
as a probabilistic optimization problem,
enabling the robot to achieve objectives
like maximizing velocity or minimizing
fuel consumption while factoring in safety
constraints. When applied to simulated
scenarios, the algorithms were able to
develop safe trajectories within minutes.
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Countermeasure
Against Unwanted Wireless Surveillance
Ruhr-Universität
Bochum (Germany)
Annika Gödde
May 24, 2022
Researchers from Germany's Max Planck
Institute for Security and Privacy,
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and the Cologne
University of Applied Sciences have
developed a system to protect privacy in
wireless communications based on
intelligent reflective surfaces (IRS). To
prevent passive eavesdroppers from
obtaining sensitive data transmitted via
wireless communications through
intercepted high-frequency signals, the
team created IRS, which distributes many
reflective elements over a surface and
electronically adjusts the reflective
behavior of each. Their IRShield solution
uses an algorithm to create a random IRS
configuration that disguises the wireless
channels used so attackers are unable to
read information about movements in the
room from the signal. In testing, the
researchers found IRShield was able to
thwart 95% of such attacks.
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Nanobiotics:
Model Predicts How Nanoparticles
Interact with Proteins
University
of Michigan
May 16, 2022
University of Michigan (U-M) researchers
developed a machine learning model that
can predict interactions between
nanoparticles and proteins, potentially
paving the way for the creation of
engineered nanoparticles able to disrupt
antibiotic-resistant infections. The new
algorithm compares nanoparticles to
proteins using a conventional chemical
description, as well as descriptions of
the protein's complex surface and how it
could reconfigure itself to allow for
lock-and-key fits with specific proteins.
Said U-M's Nicholas Kotov, "By applying
mathematical methods to protein-protein
interactions, we have streamlined the
design of nanoparticles that mimic one of
the proteins in these pairs. Nanoparticles
are more stable than biomolecules and can
lead to entirely new classes of
antibacterial and antiviral agents."
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Objects Can
Now Be 3D-Printed in Opaque Resin
EPFL
News (Switzerland)
Valérie Geneux
May 23, 2022
Engineers at Switzerland's École
polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
have developed a three-dimensional (3D)
printing method that uses light rays to
make objects out of opaque resin in
seconds. While most 3D printers work by
depositing a material layer by layer, “We
pour the resin into a container and spin
it,” says EPFL's Christophe Mose. “Then we
shine light on the container at different
angles, causing the resin to solidify
wherever the accumulated energy in the
resin exceeds a given level." Since light
does not propagate smoothly through the
resin, the engineers used computers to
calculate how to compensate for the
light-ray distortion, then programmed
their printer to correct for distortion as
it operates.
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Cooperation
Rewards Water Utilities
Texas
Advanced Computing Center
Jorge Salazar
May 19, 2022
Researchers at the University of North
Carolina and Cornell University used the
Stampede2 supercomputer at the Texas
Advanced Computing Center to study the
benefits of cooperation among urban water
utilities in the North Carolina Research
Triangle. Using a computational model
developed in conjunction with the region’s
utilities, the researchers simulated the
utilities' risk management and long-term
infrastructure planning decisions through
2060. Among other things, the researchers
found cooperation has its benefits in
terms of utility supply and financial
needs, although more flexible agreements
can expose each utility to its partners'
risks and uncertainties. Said Cornell's
David Gold, "Without supercomputing
capabilities, we're flying blind in terms
of how the water supply system reacts to
different types of uncertainties, whether
it's population growth or changing
climate."
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AI Powered
Autonomous Cargo Ship for 500 Miles
Interesting
Engineering
Ameya Paleja
May 16, 2022
A
749-gross-ton vessel is the first
commercial cargo ship to be navigated
entirely by artificial intelligence (AI)
during a nearly 500-mile, 40-hour journey
from Tokyo Bay to Ise Bay in Japan. The
Suzaka was outfitted with Israeli startup
Orca AI’s Automatic Ship Target
Recognition System as part of a
collaboration with Japan’s NYK Line
shipping company. Data from the Orca
system, which offers real-time data
detection, tracking, classification, range
estimation, and 360-degree views, was
monitored by a fleet operations center in
Tokyo. During the journey, the onboard
navigational software made 107 collision
avoidance maneuvers without human
assistance, avoiding 400 to 500 vessels
along the way.
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Scientists
Use Quantum Computers to Simulate
Quantum Materials
Argonne
National Laboratory
Jared Sagoff
May 24, 2022
Scientists at the U.S. Department of
Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and
the University of Chicago (UChicago)
conducted quantum simulations of spin
defects, improving the accuracy of quantum
computer calculations by correcting for
hardware noise. The researchers applied
this method in an experiment that
simulated the properties of materials for
next-generation quantum technologies. Said
UChicago's Giulia Galli, "We want to learn
how to use new computational technologies
that are up-and-coming. Developing robust
strategies in the early days of quantum
computing is an important first step in
being able to understand how to use these
machines efficiently in the future."
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Trilobite-Inspired
Camera Boasts Huge Depth of Field
IEEE
Spectrum
Charles Q. Choi
May 23, 2022
Chinese and U.S. researchers collaborated
on the development of a camera with a
massive depth of field, which can
simultaneously image objects as close as 3
centimeters (1.1 inches) and as far off as
1.7 km (1.05 miles). The researchers
modeled the light-field camera after the
compound eyes of the extinct trilobite Dalmanitina
socialis, fabricating metasurface
lenses studded with millions of
nanometer-scale pillars. The metalenses
capture and split light into waves whose
electric fields are circularly polarized
clockwise or counterclockwise; each
nanopillar bends these light waves by
different amounts, focusing them on near
or far objects. The researchers adapted a
convolutional neural network to enable the
metalens to focus on intermediate
distances, helping the camera reassemble
light-field data over a large depth of
field from a single shot.
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UT, Meta
Create Digital Humans That Learn
Complex Movements
University
of Twente (Netherlands)
May 23, 2022
Researchers at Meta's Artificial
Intelligence (AI) Research Laboratory and
at the University of Twente (UT) in the
Netherlands modeled digital humans using
the MyoSuite open-source framework they
jointly developed. MyoSuite enables the
co-simulation of AI-powered
musculoskeletal systems that can learn to
execute complex movements as they
physically interact with assistive robots.
The system also can model how such robots
could be designed and controlled to help
restore movement to real people who suffer
from some impairment. "We hope that
diverse features supported by our
framework will open new opportunities in
understanding neuromechanical systems
interacting with artificial robotic
agents," said UT's Massimo Sartori.
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'Tough to
Forge' Digital Driver's License
Actually Easy to Forge
Ars
Technica
Dan Goodin
May 24, 2022
Security researchers have found that the
supposedly hard-to-counterfeit digital
driver's licenses (DDLs) in use in New
South Wales, Australia, actually can be
easily altered. Introduced in 2019, DDLs
are used with an iOS or Android
application that displays each holder's
identity and age, and permits
authentication. Researcher Noah Farmer
found the DDL can be cracked by
brute-forcing the four-digit personal
identification number that encrypts the
data, which can take less than an hour
using publicly available scripts and a
commodity computer. Once a hacker accesses
encrypted DDL data, brute force enables
them to read and alter anything stored on
the file. Farmer aired the flaws in a blog
post last week; it is not clear how, or
if, Service NSW, which issued the digital
driver’s licenses, plans to respond.
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