ACM TechNews, Monday, November 11, 2024

Welcome to the November 11, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

Robotic Dogs Patrol Mar-a-Lago to Protect Trump

The U.S. Secret Service confirmed that robotic dogs are being used to secure President-elect Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago after a “high-tech hound,” as the Secret Service calls it, was filmed walking the perimeter of the Palm Beach property alongside an agent. A Secret Service official explained the units are part of its ASTRO (Autonomous Systems and Technical Robotic Operation) program, and can be outfitted with technology to detect bombs and chemical threats.
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Boat to Scan Seabed to Search for Those Missing in Spain’s Floods

A Spanish research vessel that investigates marine ecosystems was diverted to help search for people missing from Spain’s floods. The boat's sensors and submersible robot will map an offshore area of 36 square kilometers (around 14 square miles) to try to locate vehicles swept by floods into the Mediterranean Sea, which could lead to the recovery of the bodies of some of the 100 or so persons officially declared missing.
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Families Battle Tech Giants as Australia Pushes for an Under-16 Social Media Ban

Australia will soon introduce legislation that will ban social media use by those under 16. Officials said the legislation will make clear that the onus is on social media companies to keep underage children off their platforms, and that the companies could face penalties if they fail to do so. Said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “Social media is doing harm to our children, and I’m calling time on it."
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TSMC to Suspend Production for Some Chinese AI Chip Customers

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has told multiple Chinese customers that it will suspend production of their AI and high-performance computing chips, as the chipmaker steps up efforts to ensure compliance with U.S. export controls. The Chinese chip design clients affected are working on high-performance computing, graphic processing units, and AI computing-related applications using chip production technologies of 7-nanometer or better.
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North Korea Jams GPS Signals

North Korea staged GPS jamming attacks for the second consecutive day Saturday, affecting several ships in the Yellow Sea and dozens of civilian aircraft, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). After being alerted, the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted a decision raising serious concerns over the GPS jamming, naming North Korea explicitly for the first time.
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Robot Learns to Clean Bathroom Sink by Watching

A robotic arm learned to wash a bathroom sink by observing someone else doing it. Researchers at TU Wien in Austria developed a cleaning sponge equipped with force and position sensors and had a person use it to repeatedly clean the front edge of a sink that had been sprayed with a dyed gel imitating dirt. The data collected was used to train a neural network that could translate the input into predetermined movement patterns.
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Vulnerabilities Lead to Predatory Trading in Ethereum Crypto Rollups

Northeastern University computer scientists and colleagues at Switzerland's ETH Zurich uncovered vulnerabilities in Ethereum rollups, off-the-platform services that allow faster processing of higher volumes of transactions. The researchers presented three novel types of attacks in which predatory traders could have made about $2 million in profits over the last three years by manipulating transactions.
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Mobile Robots Cooperate for Chemical Synthesis

AI-powered robots created by researchers at the U.K.'s University of Liverpool can perform chemical synthesis research at a faster pace than human scientists. With a focus on structural diversification chemistry, supramolecular host-guest chemistry, and photochemical synthesis, the robots can perform reactions, analyze the products, and use the data to determine the next step.
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AI-Da Artwork of Alan Turing Sells for $1 Million

Sotheby's said "AI God," a painting of computer science pioneer Alan Turing by Ai-Da Robot, was sold to an undisclosed buyer for $1,084,800, making it the first artwork by a humanoid robot artist to be sold at auction. Said Ai-Da Robot Studios' Aidan Meller, "This auction is an important moment for the visual arts, where Ai-Da's artwork brings focus on artworld and societal changes, as we grapple with the rising age of AI."
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Suit Against Meta, Using a Tech Shield Law, Is Dismissed

A U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California judge granted Meta's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by University of Massachusetts Amherst's Ethan Zuckerman (pictured), who sought a ruling that Meta could not sue him if he proceeded with a plan to develop a tool allowing Facebook users to unfollow everyone in their feed. Zuckerman's case hinged on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects the ability to restrict obscene or troublesome content; he said Section 230 should be applicable to any content users do not want to see.
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AI Thermostats Pitched for Texas Homes to Relieve Stressed Grid

Power supplier NRG Energy Inc. is teaming with Renew Home LLC to distribute about 650,000 AI-enabled thermostats that use Google Cloud technology to Texas households over the next decade. The initiative aims to cut nearly 1 gigawatt of electricity demand, enough to power 200,000 Texas homes. Google Cloud will be tapped for its AI to determine the best times to cool or heat homes, based on a household’s energy usage patterns and ambient temperatures.
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Haptic Patch Transmits Complexity of Touch to the Skin

A wearable haptic device developed by Northwestern University researchers uses a hexagonal array of 19 magnetic actuators to deliver pressure, vibration, twisting, and other sensations. The flexible device translates data about the user's surroundings received via Bluetooth into tactile feedback.
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