Welcome to the May 1, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• AI Faces Its 'Oppenheimer Moment'
• Phone Keyboard Exploits Leaves Billion Users Exposed
• Automatic Braking Systems to Be Standard in U.S. by 2029
• EU Investigates Meta Over Fears of Election Interference, Foreign Disinformation
• Company Revives Alan Turing as a Chatbot
• Turning Up the Heat on Data Storage
• Quantum Advantage Possible with Hundreds of Qubits
• Telegram Unblocks Chatbots Used by Ukraine's Security Services
• GitHub's Take on AI-Powered Software Engineering
• Robotic Arm to Take Over UAE Gas Stations
• CS Students Encouraged to Incorporate Ethics into Work
• Nokia, NASA Taking 4G into Space
• Startups Call India Ideal for Testing Self-Driving Cars

AI Faces Its 'Oppenheimer Moment'

During an April 29 meeting of civilian, military, and technology officials from more than 100 countries in Vienna, Austria, speakers said governments are running out of time to rein in autonomous weapons systems. “This is the Oppenheimer Moment of our generation,” said Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. Costa Rican Foreign Minister Arnoldo André Tinoco said new rules will be required once non-state actors and terrorists have access to the technology.
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Phone Keyboard Exploits Leaves Billion Users Exposed

A team led by researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab in Canada revealed that a billion smartphone users are exposed to potential cyberattacks due to their use of digital Chinese-language keyboards. The Chinese-language keyboards use character-prediction features that rely on cloud computing resources, and improperly secured communications between the keyboard app and external cloud servers make users' keystrokes and messages vulnerable to spying and eavesdropping.
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Automatic Braking Systems to Be Standard in U.S. by 2029

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced Monday that automatic emergency braking systems must be included as standard equipment in new vehicles by the fall of 2029. Under the rules, these sensor-based systems must enable vehicles traveling up to 62 mph to make a complete stop without a collision, and to apply the brakes at speeds up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected. NHTSA said updated software could bring most vehicles into compliance.
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EU Investigates Meta Over Fears of Election Interference, Foreign Disinformation

Meta is being investigated by EU officials over concerns it is not doing enough to safeguard upcoming EU elections or curtail foreign disinformation on Facebook and Instagram. The investigation targets Meta's handling of advertising by scammers and foreigners interfering with elections, and its move to shutter the CrowdTangle analysis tool that allowed researchers and journalists to track trending conversations on its platforms. Meta could be fined of up to 6% of its global revenue if violations of the EU's Digital Services Act are identified.
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Company Revives Alan Turing as a Chatbot

Singapore's Genius Group, a company focused on AI-powered business education, revived Alan Turing as a chatbot and appointed it the company’s "chief AI officer." After a month-long search for a chief AI officer, "It soon became clear that Alan Turing AI was by far the best candidate for the role," said Genius Group CEO Roger James Hamilton. The company uploaded a video introducing the Turing chatbot to the public using AI-generated imagery.
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Turning Up the Heat on Data Storage

A heat-resistant memory device developed by University of Pennsylvania researchers can withstand temperatures of 600 degrees Celsius (more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit), double that of currently available commercial drives. The device is made from ferroelectric aluminum scandium nitride (AlScN), which is both heat-resistant and durable. AlScN can retain a given electrical state (the “on” or “off” representing 1s and 0s of digital data) after an external electric field is removed and at significantly higher temperatures than other data storage technologies.
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Quantum Advantage Possible with Hundreds of Qubits

Researchers at Canadian startup Nord Quantique developed an individual error-correcting physical qubit that could significantly reduce the number of qubits necessary to achieve quantum advantage. By applying a bosonic code, an error-correcting code for systems that use bosonic modes like photons, during operation, the researchers were able to minimize errors at the individual qubit level. The researchers said this could mean that quantum advantage may be possible using hundreds of qubits, rather than millions as previously estimated.
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Telegram Unblocks Chatbots Used by Ukraine's Security Services

The Telegram messaging app has restored access to chatbots used by Ukraine's security agencies to gather information about Russia's war effort. Ukraine's military spy agency GUR said Monday the app had blocked access to three bots used by Ukraine's SBU security service, GUR, and the digital ministry. The bots allow people to report the location of Russian military hardware and personnel inside Ukraine. According to a Telegram spokesperson, the bots were "temporarily disabled due to a false positive but have since been reinstated."
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GitHub's Take on AI-Powered Software Engineering

GitHub has unveiled plans for the Copilot Workspace, where AI agents powered by its Copilot coding assistant would help developers brainstorm, plan, build, test, and run code in natural language. GitHub's Jonathan Carter said Workspace would build on new capabilities, such as Copilot Chat, where developers can ask coding questions in natural language. Carter said Copilot Workspace “gives developers a plan to start iterating from."
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Robotic Arm to Take Over UAE Gas Stations

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company plans to roll out robotic arms at its fueling stations by the end of the year. The robotic arm can open a vehicle’s gas cover, remove the gas cap, and refill the tank. Drivers will use a touchscreen or smartphone app to select the fuel type, and cameras and sensors will ensure the nozzle of the robotic arm is aligned correctly.
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CS Students Encouraged to Incorporate Ethics into Work

The University of Toronto's Embedded Ethics Education Initiative (E3I) is intended to teach undergraduate computer science students the importance of taking ethics into account when designing and developing new technologies. The program integrates ethics modules into certain undergraduate computer science courses and focuses on issues like AI safety, data privacy, and misinformation. In the current academic year, enrollment in E3I-integrated computer science courses topped 8,000 students, with another 1,500 taking courses outside computer science that incorporate E3I programming.
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Nokia, NASA Taking 4G into Space

NASA and Nokia have teamed up to build a 4G network on the Moon. The system, scheduled to be carried to the Moon on a SpaceX rocket later this year, will be installed by a lander at the Moon's south pole and controlled remotely from Earth. The lander will use it to connect to two roaming vehicles tasked with searching for ice on the Moon.
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Startups Call India Ideal for Testing Self-Driving Cars

Startups are looking to India as a testbed for self-driving vehicles. Given India's chaotic roadways and unpredictable driver behavior, startup Swaayatt Robotics' Sanjeev Sharma said, "If you're able to build here, this technology is universal." Startup Minus Zero is working on physics-aware algorithms that can identify the most salient information even when trained on smaller datasets, and startup RoshAI is developing autonomous systems that can be adapted to individual customers' needs.
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