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Category: security – Page 124

Unsecured cloud configurations expose data across thousands of mobile apps

In mobile application development, server-side storage of the application’s data remains top priority. In particular, many developers have begun using backend APIs that enable their apps to query a server for information in real time rather than reply upon static data stored in files. However, as many cloud storage services have been found to use unsecured configurations, data on thousands of mobile applications could be at risk.

A main challenge arises when the task of securing the configurations of these services falls upon the app developers rather than the provider, such as Amazon AWS, Google’s Firebase Storage or Azure by Microsoft. When developers use these services for the very purpose of having their API security taken care of, they invest the majority of their efforts into building the apps rather than protecting stored information. Such an oversight could threaten many app developers as well as their employers and users.

In 2021, the mobile security company Zimperium found that over 14 percent of using cloud storage face risks due to unsecured configurations. This research has revealed that, globally and across all industries, various apps are vulnerable to the exposure of publicly identifiable information (PII), fraud and unregulated internal IP/configuration sharing.

Nanoprinted high-neuron-density optical linear perceptrons perform near-infrared inference on a CMOS chip

Today, machine learning permeates everyday life, with millions of users every day unlocking their phones through facial recognition or passing through AI-enabled automated security checks at airports and train stations. These tasks are possible thanks to sensors that collect optical information and feed it to a neural network in a computer.

Scientists in China have presented a new nanoscale AI trained to perform unpowered all-optical inference at the speed of light for enhanced authentication solutions. Combining smart optical devices with imaging sensors, the system performs complex functions easily, achieving a neural density equal to 1/400th that of the human brain and a more than 10 orders of magnitude higher than electronic processors.

Imagine empowering the sensors in everyday devices to perform artificial intelligence functions without a computer—as simply as putting glasses on them. The integrated holographic perceptrons developed by the research team at University of Shanghai for Science and Technology led by Professor Min Gu, a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, can make that a reality. In the future, its neural density is expected to be 10 times that of human brain.

DARPA Launches Entrepreneurial Initiative to Propel over 150 Cutting-Edge National Security Innovations to Market

In partnership with InQtel Emerge, DARPA is expanding its successful Embedded Entrepreneurship Initiative to aggressively accelerate 150 DARPA-backed technologies out of the lab and into products. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2021-02-23a

National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence issues report on how to maintain U.S. dominance

The 15-member commission calls a $40 billion investment to expand and democratize AI research and development a “modest down payment for future breakthroughs,” and encourages an attitude toward investment in innovation from policymakers akin that which led to building the interstate highway system in the 1950s. Ultimately, the group envisions hundreds of billions of dollars of spending on AI by the federal government in the coming years.

The National Security Commission on AI report makes recommendations ranging from 5G and China to immigration policy and civil rights.

How Apple’s locked down security gives extra protection to the best hackers

You’ve heard of Apple’s famous walled garden, the tightly controlled tech ecosystem that gives the company unique control of features and security. All apps go through a strict Apple approval process, they are confined so sensitive information isn’t gathered on the phone, and developers are locked out of places they’d be able to get into in other systems. The barriers are so high now that it’s probably more accurate to think of it as a castle wall.

HPQ Receives TREKHY®, First Mini-Generator Based On Clean Hydrogen Produced By Combining Water And Powder Packet

Innovative silicon solutions provider HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. (“HPQ” or the “Company”), announced that it has received the TREKHY® system, a portable hydrogen-based mini-power generator, jointly developed by the French companies Apollon Solar SAS (“Apollon”) and Pragma Industries SAS (“Pragma”).

While continuing to work with Apollon on the development of new generations of more efficient silicon powders for hydrogen production, HPQ signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Apollon and Pragma to study the commercial potential of the TREKHY® autonomous power generator in Canada.

The TREKHY® provides energy on demand. The system uses a compact fuel cell to provide electrical power. The integrated fuel cell combines hydrogen and oxygen to provide useful electricity + H2O. Hydrogen is produced through a chemical reaction resulting from contact between water and a powder bag. Each bag delivers 30W of power for more than one hour. (Video of the system in operation). In January 2021, a Japanese distributor purchased 300 TREKHY® systems to equip the survival shelters of the Japanese Civil Security.

Explainable AI: A must for nuclear nonproliferation, national security

We’ve all met people so smart and informed that we don’t understand what they’re talking about. The investment advisor discussing derivatives, the physician elaborating about B cells and T cells, the auto mechanic talking about today’s computerized engines—we trust their decisions, even though we do not completely grasp the meaning of their words.

Ai-Da — The World’s First Humanoid, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Robot Artist

The Aidan Meller Galley (www.aidanmeller.com) is Oxford’s longest established specialist gallery dealing in Modern, Contemporary and Old Master works.

Today we are joined by Aidan Meller, the Gallery Director, who with 20 years’ experience in the art business, works closely with private collectors, is often consulted by those who wish to begin, or further develop their collections, and is the creator of the Aidan Meller Art Prize, a valuable resource for the development of the arts.

Aidan regularly has original works in the gallery by the likes of Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, as well as older works such as John Constable, Turner and Millais, was involved in a discovery of a collection of Pre-Raphaelite cartoons for stained glass, is working with other experts in the field of scientific procedures for the authentication of artwork, and has been interviewed on a variety of current affair topics including the exhumation of Salvador Dali.

On today’s show we are going to be focusing on a rather new artist in the Meller portfolio, and that would be Ai-Da (www.ai-darobot.com), the world’s first ultra-realistic, humanoid, artificial intelligence (AI) robot artist, who makes drawings, painting, and sculptures.

Ai-Da is named after the mathematician Ada Lovelace, combines the latest in computing, robotics, and AI innovations, including those developed at Leeds University, and University of Oxford, and represents a fascinating milestone in AI innovation, human collaboration and creativity.

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