From the next big quantum computer to a brain implant the size of a grain of salt, check out this week’s awesome tech stories from around the web.
Category: internet – Page 15
Microsoft finds security flaw in AI chatbots that could expose conversation topics
Your conversations with AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini may not be as private as you think they are. Microsoft has revealed a serious flaw in the large language models (LLMs) that power these AI services, potentially exposing the topic of your conversations with them. Researchers dubbed the vulnerability “Whisper Leak” and found it affects nearly all the models they tested.
When you chat with AI assistants built into major search engines or apps, the information is protected by TLS (Transport Layer Security), the same encryption used for online banking. These secure connections stop would-be eavesdroppers from reading the words you type. However, Microsoft discovered that the metadata (how your messages are traveling across the internet) remains visible. Whisper Leak doesn’t break encryption, but it takes advantage of what encryption cannot hide.
The Age of Sustainable Abundance Is Here!
Advancements in AI, robotics, and space exploration are driving us towards a future of sustainable abundance, enabled by innovations such as space-based solar power, humanoid robots, and scalable AI infrastructure. ## ## Questions to inspire discussion.
Terafabs and AI Chips.
🛠️ Q: What are Elon Musk’s plans for terafabs?
A: Musk plans to build terafabs with 10 lines, each producing 100k wafers/month, costing **$10–20 billion/line.
🔋 Q: What challenges do AI chips face for scaling?
A: Scaling AI faces bottlenecks in AI chips and energy, with Musk’s terafabs and solar power as key solutions.
Machine learning automates material analysis and design using X-ray spectroscopy data
Understanding the properties of different materials is an important step in material design. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an important technique for this, as it reveals detailed insights about a material’s composition, structure, and functional characteristics. The technique works by directing a beam of high-energy X-rays at a sample and recording how X-rays of different energy levels are absorbed.
Similar to how white light splits into a rainbow after passing through a prism, XAS produces a spectrum of X-rays with different energies. This spectrum is called as spectral data, which acts like a unique fingerprint of a material, helping scientists to identify the elements present in the material and see how the atoms are arranged. This information, known as the “electronic state,” determines the functional properties of materials.
Boron compounds have significant applications in semiconductors, Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, and energy storage. In these materials, atomic modifications, structural defects, impurities, and doped elements, each produce unique, complex variations in spectral data. Detailed analyses of these variations provides key insights into their electronic state and is crucial for rational material design. Traditionally, however, such analyses required extensive expertise and manual labor, especially when large datasets have to be examined visually.
Two independent quantum networks successfully fused into one
Many quantum researchers are working toward building technologies that allow for the existence of a global quantum internet, in which any two users on Earth would be able to conduct large-scale quantum computing and communicate securely with the help of quantum entanglement. Although this requires many more technological advancements, a team of researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China have managed to merge two independent networks, bringing the world a bit closer to realizing a quantum internet.
A true global quantum internet will require interconnectivity between many networks, and this has proven to be a much more difficult task for quantum networks than it is for classical networks. While researchers have demonstrated the ability to connect quantum computers within the same network, multi-user fusion remains a major challenge. Fully connected networks using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) have been achieved, but have scalability and complexity issues.
However, the research team involved in the new study, published in Nature Photonics, has merged two independent networks with 18 different users. All 18 users can communicate securely using entanglement-based protocols using this method. This represents the most complex multi-user quantum network to date.
Human-centric photo dataset aims to help spot AI biases responsibly
A database of more than 10,000 human images to evaluate biases in artificial intelligence (AI) models for human-centric computer vision is presented in Nature this week. The Fair Human-Centric Image Benchmark (FHIBE), developed by Sony AI, is an ethically sourced, consent-based dataset that can be used to evaluate human-centric computer vision tasks to identify and correct biases and stereotypes.
Computer vision covers a range of applications, from autonomous vehicles to facial recognition technology. Many AI models used in computer vision were developed using flawed datasets that may have been collected without consent, often taken from large-scale image scraping from the web. AI models have also been known to reflect biases that may perpetuate sexist, racist, or other stereotypes.
Alice Xiang and colleagues present an image dataset that implements best practices for a number of factors, including consent, diversity, and privacy. FHIBE includes 10,318 images of 1,981 people from 81 distinct countries or regions. The database includes comprehensive annotations of demographic and physical attributes, including age, pronoun category, ancestry, and hair and skin color.
Programmer Discovers His Smart Vacuum Was Spying on Him
Among other things, Harishankar discovered that the IRL weaponized roomba was sending logs, configuration files, and even unencrypted Wi-Fi credentials to the manufacturer’s servers. It was also running Google Cartographer, enabling the device to create a detailed 3D map of his home.
Most worryingly of all, the programmer found out that the command that shut down the vacuum was issued remotely – suggesting the manufacturer had root access via pre-installed rtty software, which allowed them to run any command or install any script on the device – meaning ILIFE/Zhiyi either manually bricked the vacuum in response to Harishankar blocking data transmission, or had automated scripts that did so.