ACM TechNews, Wednesday, September 4, 2024

Welcome to the September 4, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

Women Face Greater Risk of Job Displacement from Automation

A study by Code First Girls and Tech Talent Charter found that women are 40% more likely than men to be impacted by job automation. Code First Girls attributed this in part to men accounting for the majority of software engineers, raising concerns about biases being built into AI. Code First Girls said upskilling and reskilling can help keep women in particular from being displaced by AI and automation.
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Datacenters Face Seven-Year Wait for Dominion Power Hookups

Dominion Energy Inc., the electric utility that serves "Datacenter Alley" in northern Virginia, said the wait time to connect new datacenters to the electric grid could be anywhere from four to seven years. That estimate applies to datacenters requiring more than 100 megawatts of electricity and amounts to an extra one to three years compared to previous estimates. Electrical demand from datacenters exceeds the available power supply in many areas of the world.
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Robot Waiters in Kenya Create a Buzz

At the Robot Cafe in Nairobi, Kenya, three robots serve food to customers. Controlled by human waiters using an iPad app, the robots deliver food on trays and are programmed to utter simple responses like, "Your order is ready." Robot Cafe manager John Kariuki said the robots are not meant to replace human waiters, citing high acquisition costs and the robots' inability to handle all restaurant services.
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SQL Injection Bypasses Airport Security Checks

Security researchers identified a flaw in a third-party Web-based service used by airlines to manage the Known Crewmember (KCM) program and the Cockpit Access Security System (CASS). They found the FlyCASS login system was vulnerable to SQL injection, which could allow hackers to log in as an administrator and manipulate employee data. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said FlyCASS was disconnected from KCM/CASS in May; the vulnerability reportedly was fixed soon afterward.
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Which Programming Languages Are Most Popular Now?

The ZDNET Index of Programming Language Popularity features five clusters, with Python, JavaScript, and Java at the top in the first cluster, followed by C++, C#, C, TypeScript, and SQL. The third cluster contains HTML/CSS, PHP, Shell, and Go, followed by Rust and Kotlin in the fourth cluster. The final cluster features Lua, Ruby, R, Dart, and Swift. The index aggregated survey data from nine different rankings.
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Nationwide Ban on Phones in Schools Underway in Netherlands

The Dutch government has banned the use of cellphones, smart watches, and tablets among students in primary and secondary schools. The ban went into effect for secondary schools in January and for primary schools on Sept. 2. The government said in a statement, "There is increasing evidence that cellphones in class are harmful. Students can concentrate less and their performance suffers. We need to protect students from that." The move follows similar bans in schools in Greece and Italy.
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Submersible Robotic Vehicles to Measure Melting Antarctic Ice

Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory tested a prototype submersible vehicle that will help assess the rate at which warming ocean water is melting Antarctica's ice sheets and help improve computer models that predict future sea level rise. The prototype was deployed beneath the frozen Beaufort Sea north of Alaska in March, when it descended 330 feet (100 meters) to gather salinity, temperature, and flow data. The team aims to deploy a fleet of 10 autonomous robots.
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Researchers Build 'AI Scientist'

A team of researchers from the U.S., Canada, and Japan developed AI Scientist in an effort to automate parts of the scientific research process. Based on a large language model, AI Scientist can perform the complete research cycle, from reading existing literature and developing a hypothesis to testing solutions and writing a paper. It also can evaluate its own results, then build on those by restarting the research cycle.
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Quantum Holograms Can Send Messages That Disappear

Quantum holograms developed by researchers at the U.K.’s University of Exeter can be used to embed secure messages that are erased after sending. The researchers used a metasurface to create quantum holograms in which complex information can be encoded and recovered. Said Andrew Forbes of South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, “Everybody’s dream is to see all this quantum technology that spreads out over many square meters on a table to be compact enough to sit in your smartphone. Metasurfaces seem to be a good way to go [about that].”
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Low Cost 'Smart Mask' Detects Disease from Breath

A smart mask developed by California Institute of Technology researchers analyzes a wearer's breath biomarkers to detect diseases. The EBCare device in the mask condenses the wearer's breath, which is analyzed by a built-in sensor to determine alcohol, pH, ammonium, and nitrite levels that can identify kidney conditions, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma. Data is transmitted to an app via Bluetooth.
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OpenAI, Anthropic Reach AI Safety, Research Agreement with NIST

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced agreements that will give NIST's U.S. AI Safety Institute access to new AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic before and after their public release. The agreements will help bolster research on AI's capabilities and risks and allow NIST to recommend safety improvements.
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Can China Tech Find a Home in Silicon Valley?

China is losing increasing numbers of tech professionals who have set their sights on Silicon Valley. Many are venture capitalists who grew wary of the tensions between the Chinese government and private companies. However, their ability to invest in AI, quantum computing, and semiconductors is hampered by both the Chinese and U.S. governments.
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Machine Learning Could Forecast Earthquakes Months Early

University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) researchers have developed a method of forecasting earthquakes accurately months before they occur using machine learning. The researchers developed an algorithm that searches seismic data for abnormal activity and makes informed predictions about impending earthquakes. By studying major earthquakes that occurred in Alaska in 2018 and California in 2019, the researchers found that major earthquakes are preceded by low-level tectonic unrest, which they attributed to a significant increase in pore fluid pressure within a fault.
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