Welcome to the April 24, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Generative AI Arrives in the Gene Editing World of CRISPR
• Deepfakes of Bollywood Stars Spark Worries of Meddling in India Election
• University Unveils World's Largest 3D Printer
• China's Aging Tech Workers Hit by 'Curse of 35'
• Advanced Brain Science Without Coding Expertise
• 3D Model of Black Hole's Mysterious Flare
• Satellite Data Helps Pinpoint Ocean Waves
• Group Joins Fight Over Online Disinformation
• GitHub Comments Abused to Push Malware via Microsoft Repo URLs
• AI-Controlled Jet Fighter Flies Against Human Pilots
• Autonomous E-Scooters Could Ride Themselves Back to Charging Points
• Why Is Tech Going Down More?
• Solar-Building Robot Designed to Solve Industry's Labor Problems

Generative AI Arrives in the Gene Editing World of CRISPR

Generative AI technology developed by Berkeley, Calif.-based startup Profluent is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms with a gene editor called OpenCRISPR-1, which can edit DNA. The technology learns from sequences of amino acids and nucleic acids, in essence analyzing the behavior of CRISPR gene editors pulled from nature and learning how to generate entirely new gene editors. "These AI models learn from sequences, whether those are sequences of characters or words or computer code or amino acids," said Profluent CEO Ali Madani (pictured). Profluent said that it was "open sourcing" its OpenCRISPR-1 editor, though not the AI technology behind it.
[ » Read full article *May Require Free Registration ]

Deepfakes of Bollywood Stars Spark Worries of Meddling in India Election

Deepfake videos of A-list Bollywood actors Aamir Khan (pictured, right) and Ranveer Singh (left) criticizing India Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center) have gone viral. The videos, which call on viewers to vote for the opposition Congress party, have generated concerns about the use of AI to influence the nation's ongoing general election. Reuters found that the videos had been viewed more than 500,000 times on social media since last week. At least eight fact-checking websites determined the videos to be altered or manipulated, but it remains unclear who created them.
[ » Read full article ]

University Unveils World's Largest 3D Printer

The University of Maine, which houses the world’s largest 3D printer, on Tuesday unveiled one four times larger than the first one. The new printer’s frame fills up a large building on the school's campus and can print objects 29 meters by 10 meters by 5.5 meters. The original printer, unveiled in 2019, was certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest polymer 3D printer. It was used to create a 600-square-foot, single-family home made of wood fiber and bio-resin materials that are recyclable.
[ » Read full article ]

China's Aging Tech Workers Hit by 'Curse of 35'

The "curse of 35" increasingly appears to be impacting China's tech sector. Sources say the short-video app Kuaishou has a reorganization project known as "Limestone," in which junior workers in their mid-30s are pushed out. Said Beijing-based labor law lawyer Yang Baoquan, "There is a perception that older workers don't keep up with the latest technological developments, that they don't have energy to keep up the hard work, and that they're too expensive." About 87% of programmers polled last year by Chinese recruitment platform Lagou Zhaopin said they were "seriously worried" about losing their jobs or being unable to find a new one after age 35.
[ » Read full article *May Require Paid Registration ]

Advanced Brain Science Without Coding Expertise

A deep learning tool developed by researchers at Germany's Helmholtz Munich and the LMU University Hospital Munich enables brain cell mapping without the need for coding expertise. The goal of the tool, DELiVR (Deep Learning and Virtual Reality), is to democratize 3D brain analysis. Researchers can train DELiVR for specific cell types, and it works with the open source Fiji software for image analysis.
[ » Read full article ]

3D Model of Black Hole's Mysterious Flare

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have produced the first 3D model of the flare surrounding Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's black hole. The 3D video was built by combining telescope data with AI computer-vision simulation. The researchers leveraged the neural radiance fields (NeRF) algorithm, which uses deep learning to produce a 3D representation from 2D images, and data from Chile's Atacama Large Millimeter Array.
[ » Read full article ]

Satellite Data Helps Pinpoint Ocean Waves

A team including Yongsheng Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences built a new kind of buoy to attain precise measurements of waves. Like other wave buoys, the technology uses global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technology. But instead of gathering dual-frequency satellite data, the current standard, it achieves lower costs, better accuracy, and real-time computation with single-frequency analysis. Xu estimates their buoy costs about one-tenth the price of other wave buoys, which means scientists could deploy a larger network of buoys to allow for better monitoring of waves.
[ » Read full article ]

Group Joins Fight Over Online Disinformation

Nina Jankowicz (pictured), former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board, has co-founded the nonprofit American Sunlight Project, with the goal of fighting against campaigns to undermine researchers who study the sources of disinformation. The group was formed during a time in which prominent researchers have been targeted with lawsuits, subpoenas, and physical threats. The inception of the project reflects how divisive the issue of identifying and combating disinformation has become as the 2024 presidential election approaches.
[ » Read full article *May Require Paid Registration ]

GitHub Comments Abused to Push Malware via Microsoft Repo URLs

McAfee reported that a new LUA malware loader is being distributed through what appeared to be legitimate Microsoft GitHub repositories. GitHub users can attach files when leaving a comment that are uploaded to GitHub's content delivery network (CDN) and associated with the related project using a unique URL. The download link is generated automatically after the file is added to an unsaved comment, allowing threat actors to attach malware to any repository. The files are not deleted from the CDN and download URLs continue to work even if the comment is not posted or is deleted after being posted.
[ » Read full article ]

AI-Controlled Jet Fighter Flies Against Human Pilots

As part of the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Air Combat Evaluation program, an AI test pilot has flown a jet fighter in dogfights against human pilots for the first time. The X-62A Variable Stability In-Flight Simulator Test Aircraft (VISTA) had flown 21 test flights since December 2022, including an aerial engagement within visual range against a human-piloted F-16. DARPA said more than 100,000 lines of flight-critical software changes were made over the period of test flights, marking "an unprecedented rate of development."
[ » Read full article ]

Autonomous E-Scooters Could Ride Themselves Back to Charging Points

An autonomous scooter developed by researchers at Germany's University of Stuttgart could simplify the process of collecting and redistributing e-scooters around cities. The scooter is self-balancing, featuring a reaction wheel that works in conjunction with tilt sensors and an onboard computer to keep it upright. It also has three ultrasonic sensors that can identify potential obstacles up to four meters away.
[ » Read full article *May Require Paid Registration ]

Why Is Tech Going Down More?

IT outages are occurring more frequently, according to Brennen Smith of Ookla, parent company of Downdetector, a platform that monitors online outages. Smith said, "Right now there's a push for these mega giants to incorporate very game-changing new technology into their products and services. I think with the push for innovation now, we're going to start to see tech companies move faster, [but] it comes at the risk of potentially breaking things." Outages can be caused by a variety of factors, but Sam Kirkman of the cybersecurity firm NetSPI emphasized that the modern Internet depends "on a fabric of really old technology."
[ » Read full article ]

Solar-Building Robot Designed to Solve Industry's Labor Problems

The startup Charge Robotics has developed a robot that automates part of the process of solar farm construction to help address labor shortages. The Sunrise robotic system resembles a shipping container, with robotic arms inside that put together solar panels and mounting brackets, which then are delivered by vehicle for final assembly on the solar farm. Sunrise can install up to 1 megawatt of solar power per day, keeping pace with a traditional crew of about 80 people. Multiple systems can be used simultaneously and in combination with a traditional crew to further increase installation speed.
[ » Read full article ]