Welcome to the April 26, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Randles Awarded ACM Prize in Computing for Revolutionizing Medical Diagnostics
• Russian Programmers Play 'Cat and Mouse' to Outsmart Censors
• AI Industry's Thirst for New Datacenters Can't Be Satisfied
• Chinese Firm Is America's Favorite Drone Maker, Except in Washington
• Lightweight Model for Gymnast Movement Detection
• Cisco Says Hackers Subverted Its Security Devices to Spy on Governments
• Program Empowers Inmates with Computer Skills
• Noncompetes Are Dead, Leaving U.S. Tech Workers Free to Roam
• Glasgow Trial Explores AR Cues for Autonomous Road Safety
• Hackers Use Developing Countries as Testing Ground for New Ransomware Attacks
• Microsoft Pushes into Smaller AI Systems
• Maximizing Wi-Fi Performance Using Game Theory
• Smart Roads Get Better Eyesight

Randles Awarded ACM Prize in Computing for Revolutionizing Medical Diagnostics

Duke University's Amanda Randles has been awarded the ACM Prize in Computing for her work in computational health, particularly the development of computational tools to simulate biophysical processes with precision. Her team at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering recently developed simulations of 700,000 heart beats, the interactions of millions of cells, and the movement of cancer cells within the body. The ACM Prize in Computing honors the groundbreaking and far-reaching contributions of early-to-mid-career computer scientists.
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Russian Programmers Play 'Cat and Mouse' to Outsmart Censors

An increasing number of freelance programmers and VPN companies are working to circumvent Russian censors via group chats, collaborative Web development programs, and virtual hackathons. Eighteen-year-old Antony Rudkovsky recently won a $1,200 prize in the Demhack hackathon for developing a VPN for mobile phones that switches between two protocols in case one is blocked. Other programmers are building on Chinese and U.S. anti-censorship tools.
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AI Industry's Thirst for New Datacenters Can't Be Satisfied

The rush to construct datacenters amid a surge in AI demand has led to a shortage of the necessary parts, property, and electricity. Datacenter executives say it can take two years to obtain backup generators, and delivery times for custom cooling systems are five times longer than several years ago. Finding real estate with enough power and data connectivity also poses a challenge.
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Chinese Firm Is America's Favorite Drone Maker, Except in Washington

The Countering CCP Drones Act, under consideration by the U.S. Congress, would threaten the commercial business of DJI, a Chinese drone manufacturer that dominates sales among U.S. law enforcement agencies and hobbyists. The legislation would put the company on a Federal Communications Commission roster that would prevent it from running on U.S. communications infrastructure. Researchers found vulnerabilities in an app that controls DJI's drones could be used to access personal data (a U.S. official said all known vulnerabilities currently have been patched).
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Lightweight Model for Gymnast Movement Detection

Researchers in China demonstrated the effectiveness of the ShuffleNet V2 and convolutional block you only look once version 5 (SCB-YOLOv5) model for on-site athlete action detection. The SCB-YOLOv5 model combines lightweight design principles with advanced feature integration strategies for high detection accuracy while minimizing computational resources. The model outperformed other detectors in recognizing irregular hand and leg movements.
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Cisco Says Hackers Subverted Its Security Devices to Spy on Governments

Cisco Systems on Wednesday said that hackers have subverted some of its digital security devices to break into government networks globally. In a blog post, Cisco said its Adaptive Security Appliances had previously unknown vulnerabilities that had been exploited by a group of hackers they dubbed "UAT4356." The company described the group as a "sophisticated state-sponsored actor." Cisco said the vulnerabilities have been patched.
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Program Empowers Inmates with Computer Skills

A virtual training program conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers at five U.S. correctional facilities is intended to bolster inmates' self-efficacy and digital literacy. The 12-week college-accredited Web design class, called Brave Behind Bars, involves six weeks of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript basics, with 30-minute lectures followed by 90-minute breakout sessions with a teaching assistant. During the last six weeks, the students are tasked with designing a website on a social issue that impacted their community.
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Noncompetes Are Dead, Leaving U.S. Tech Workers Free to Roam

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday issued a final rule that bans most noncompete agreements nationwide. The contracts disproportionately affect workers in tech and other sectors, including 35% of workers in computer and math fields, according to research from the University of Maryland (UMD) and University of Michigan. Under the FTC’s new rule, tech workers will probably "have more freedom to work where they want; they will be more likely to be paid higher wages," said UMD's Evan Starr.
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Glasgow Trial Explores AR Cues for Autonomous Road Safety

Researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, U.K., looked at whether drivers can manage entertainment and other non-driving tasks safely in self-driving vehicles through the use of augmented reality (AR). Using a simulated driving setup, participants were asked to play a game that uses their gaze to collect gems, and complex number entry tasks that mimic dashboard interactions. The researchers found tablet and AR displays impacted drivers' ability to foresee and react to sudden road changes, although driver responsiveness improved with the addition of specific visual cues to the AR display.
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Hackers Use Developing Countries as Testing Ground for New Ransomware Attacks

Cybersecurity firm Performanta reported that businesses in Africa, Asia, and South America increasingly are being used by hackers as testing grounds for their latest ransomware before they turn to higher-value targets in North America and Europe. Recent dry runs in developing countries focused on a Senegalese bank, a Chilean financial services company, a Colombian tax firm, and a government economic agency in Argentina.
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Microsoft Pushes into Smaller AI Systems

To attract customers with lower prices, Microsoft has unveiled three smaller AI models: Phi-3-mini, Phi-3-small, and Phi-3-medium. The smallest, Phi-3-mini, can run on a smartphone even without an Internet connection, and on chips that power regular computers. Lower processing requirements translates into lower prices, although the Phi-3 models may be less accurate than larger models.
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Maximizing Wi-Fi Performance Using Game Theory

A Wi-Fi network access point (AP) connection strategy developed by researchers at Japan's Shibaura Institute of Technology and Nagoya University uses game theory to maximize performance. The game model condenses incentives for all users into a single function to maximize system throughput, considering the impact of new WLAN users' position on existing users and the probability of packet collisions to account for inter-user interference. In tests against previous AP connection methods, the new strategy boosted system performance by up to 6%.
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Smart Roads Get Better Eyesight

University of Science and Technology of China researchers developed a smart road system that merges high-definition camera and millimeter-wave radar to track vehicles within 1.3 meters at a range of up to 500 meters. The system is intended to lower the costs of smart roads by extending the range of sensing devices along the roadway so fewer are required. The researchers determined projecting 3D radar data onto 2D images substantially reduced location errors at longer ranges, compared to the standard method of mapping image data onto radar data.
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