technology 24 for you

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

We Are Crowd-Sourcing the Panopticon

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-illustration-of-a-phone-with-an-eye-on-it-and-several-rings-of-snake-ouroboros.jpg?id=66820296&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C313%2C0%2C313"/> A man raises his phone as police move into a crowd. The video is shaky, loud, immediate. Within minutes, it is online. Within hours, it is everywhere. This is how accountability works now. Something happens, someone records it, and that footage can show what really happened, sometimes contradicting official accounts. It can empower citizens and create consequences for officials.But the footage’s life cycle does not end there.In recent months, civil liberties groups have <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-75-organizations-sound-alarm-on-metas-plans-to-add-facial-recognition-technology-to-ray-ban-and-oakley-eyeglasses" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">warned</a> that adding facial recognition to consumer smart glasses could turn everyday recording into something more troubling: real-time <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/facial-recognition-gone-wrong" target="_self">facial identification</a>. It reflects a broader shift already underway, where <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/capitol-riot-prosecutions-technology" target="_self">images and videos captured for one purpose can later be searched</a>, matched, and used for another.An ouroboros is an ancient Egyptian symbol, a snake or dragon eating its own tail. As I began to see patterns in my broader research on surveillance corporatism and governance lag, I began using the term “surveillance ouroboros” to describe this recursive pattern of observations intended to hold power accountable becoming new input for the same surveillance infrastructure.<h2>Facial recognition changes accountability</h2>During the George Floyd protests in 2020, people filmed police in real time. Phones were pointed at officers, not at each other. The goal was simple: to show what the state was doing. That footage spread quickly and became part of a much larger pool of public data.At the same time, reporting from outlets including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-local-police-facial-recognition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">BuzzFeed News</a> showed that law enforcement agencies were using facial recognition tools, including systems built by Clearview AI. Those systems were built from billions of images scraped from across the internet, including publicly available photos and videos. The basic approach is now routine: People record the state, or anything else—as in <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/capitol-riot-prosecutions-technology" target="_self">the January 6 attack</a> on the U.S. Capitol—and the state compiles that footage and data into a searchable environment, which may later be used to identify some of the same people who made the footage.Facial-recognition systems used by law enforcement are increasingly outpacing the legal safeguards.A 2024 Government Accountability Office <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-107372" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">review</a> found that federal law enforcement agencies continued to expand their use of facial-recognition systems for criminal investigations despite ongoing concerns around training, privacy protections, civil-liberties safeguards, and oversight. Earlier GAO findings showed that agencies had conducted roughly 60,000 facial-recognition searches before formal training requirements were put in place for personnel using the systems. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-75-organizations-sound-alarm-on-metas-plans-to-add-facial-recognition-technology-to-ray-ban-and-oakley-eyeglasses" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">warned</a> that these tools could be used to identify people from images shared online, including protest-related footage. Concerns about facial recognition led some <a href="https://stateofsurveillance.org/articles/government/facial-recognition-bans-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">U.S. states and cities</a>, including San Francisco and Boston, to restrict or ban government use of the technology, while federal agencies have continued to face <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107302" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">scrutiny</a> over how such systems are tested, deployed, and audited. A 2024 analysis published in <a href="https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/data-governance-risks-facial-recognition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Internet Policy Review</a> warned that facial-recognition systems used by law enforcement are increasingly outpacing the legal safeguards meant to govern them, creating growing tensions around data protection, oversight, and proportional use.<h2>The spy network that built itself</h2>Surveillance used to require infrastructure. Cameras had to be installed and data had to be collected deliberately. That is no longer the case. People carry cameras everywhere. They record constantly and upload in real time. Events are documented from multiple angles without planning or coordination. The cumulative result is a continuous stream of usable data: faces, locations, timestamps, and interactions. The Internet of Things also waits all around us, gathering information and releasing it when people least expect it, as <a href="https://www.law.gwu.edu/andrew-guthrie-ferguson" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Andrew Guthrie Ferguson</a> describes in a recent <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/digital-surveillance" target="_self">excerpt</a> of his book Your Data Will Be Used Against You.RELATED: <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/digital-surveillance" target="_blank">“Sensorveillance” Turns Ordinary Life Into Evidence</a>Similar dynamics are emerging globally. A recent analysis in the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijlit/article/doi/10.1093/ijlit/eaaf022/8460644" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">International Journal of Law and Information Technology</a> examined how facial-recognition systems in China and Japan are expanding faster than the legal frameworks governing them. Reporting by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/mar/12/invasive-ai-led-mass-surveillance-in-africa-violating-freedoms-warn-experts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> described the limited legal protections around the rapid deployment of AI-assisted surveillance infrastructure across parts of Africa.There used to be a clear distinction between surveillance and accountability. Surveillance meant the powerful watching the people; authorities tended not to share their imagery except under <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/05/the-body-cam-hacker-who-schooled-the-police/" target="_blank">duress or a court order</a> and usually after a long delay. Accountability meant the people watching the powerful, and often publishing imagery immediately to head off or counteract official mischief. That distinction <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0539018419884410" target="_blank">no longer holds</a>. The same footage can serve both roles. A recording meant to expose misconduct can later be used to identify someone else entirely.Surveillance ouroboros is not a future risk. It is already here.This dynamic persists because people still need to record. In many places, it is one of the only tools available when formal accountability breaks down. When oversight institutions weaken or fail, public documentation becomes a substitute. In that environment, people turn to visibility. But that visibility comes with a cost. The more people that document, the more data that exists. The more data that exists, the easier it is to search, match, and store. Every video feeds the ouroboros. People are not feeding the system because they trust it. They are feeding it because the alternative is silence.Most of the people in these videos are not the focus. They are in the background, passing by or standing nearby. But that distinction does not matter once the footage enters a system. Today’s facial recognition can identify even a face that passed through the corner of a frame. Someone who did nothing can still become part of a dataset without ever knowing it. As recognition systems improve, older footage becomes more useful, and invasive. No single decision created this outcome. It emerged gradually through more cameras, better recognition, larger datasets, and easier integration. Each step made sense on its own. Together, they changed what recording means.Public recording is still necessary. Without it, many forms of abuse would remain hidden. But recording is no longer just exposure. It is also contribution. If you published imagery or video last year, you may already have contributed to a system you have never seen, but the ouroboros has.Surveillance ouroboros is not a future risk. It is already here. Every time someone presses publish, they are doing two things at once. They are exposing power, and they are helping build the system that the powerful will later use to track the less powerful. Reference: https://ift.tt/VcO93es

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Locked in heated rivalry with researcher, Microsoft fixes 0-day they disclosed

Microsoft on Tuesday released fixes for two high-severity zero-days that were disclosed by a researcher who has been locked in a testy beef with the software giant. Nightmare Eclipse, the pseudonym the researcher goes by, released a handful of high-severity vulnerabilities in recent months, making them zero-days that had the potential to be exploited in the wild. The researcher has said the disclosures, which included proof-of-concept code, came after Microsoft reneged on an arrangement the two made regarding vulnerabilities they had discussed. <h2>Disclosure drama</h2> “But someone violated our agreement and left me homeless with nothing,” Nightmare Eclipse <a href="https://deadeclipse666.blogspot.com/2026/03/">wrote</a> in March. “They knew this will happen and they still stabbed me in the back anyways, this is their decision not mine.”<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/locked-in-heated-rivalry-with-researcher-microsoft-fixes-0-day-they-disclosed/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/locked-in-heated-rivalry-with-researcher-microsoft-fixes-0-day-they-disclosed/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/s8EFjQ6

The Computer Science Degree Isn’t Dead

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-illustration-of-stylized-people-wearing-business-casual-clothing.webp?id=65257424&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C50%2C0%2C50"/> <h1></h1>This article is crossposted from IEEE Spectrum’s careers newsletter. <a href="https://engage.ieee.org/Career-Alert-Sign-Up.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sign up now</a> to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies, written in partnership with tech career development company <a href="https://www.parsity.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Parsity</a> and delivered to your inbox for free!<h1>The CS Degree Isn’t Dead. The Entry-Level Pipeline Is</h1>There is no shortage of people telling recent engineering graduates that their degree was a mistake and that AI is coming for their jobs before they even land one. I respectfully disagree.I have been a software engineer for 12 years, done well over 100 interviews on both sides of the table, and run Parsity, an AI engineering program. A few patterns emerge consistently in who actually breaks through in today’s job market. Here’s why I think the job market isn’t as dire as it looks, and what I would do if I were looking for my first tech job.<h2>The Numbers Need Context</h2>The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently placed unemployment for recent CS graduates in the United States at 6.1 percent, with computer engineering graduates at 7.5 percent. Compared to philosophy majors at 3.2 percent and art history graduates at 3.0 percent, those figures look alarming. They require more context than most headlines provide.When researchers factor in underemployment (graduates working jobs that don’t require a college degree), then engineers are doing relatively well, coming in <a href="https://e.vnexpress.net/news/tech/tech-news/us-s-computer-science-grads-face-5th-highest-unemployment-rate-5048578.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">below 20 percent, against a 42 percent average</a> across all recent graduates. Many majors reporting lower unemployment are achieving that figure by accepting work entirely unrelated to their field. Scored across unemployment, underemployment, and early-career earnings together, CS and computer engineering <a href="https://www.encoura.org/resources/wake-up-call/the-labor-market-for-recent-college-graduates-part-2-labor-market-tradeoffs/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">still rank among the top fields</a> for overall labor market outcomes.The degree is not the problem. The hiring pipeline is. Job postings labeled “entry-level software engineer” <a href="https://www.nucamp.co/blog/the-junior-developer-hiring-crisis-in-2026-how-to-get-your-first-full-stack-job" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">grew roughly 47 percent</a> between late 2023 and late 2024, while actual hiring into those roles <a href="https://ravio.com/blog/tech-hiring-trends" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">dropped approximately 73 percent</a> in the same window. So-called “ghost jobs,” used to create an illusion of company growth, are everywhere. This makes the front door harder to find, but it exists.<h2>Here Is What To Do About It</h2>Do a broad search of your (real-life) network. Roughly <a href="https://www.codesmith.io/blog/tech-hiring-trends-2025" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">26 percent of job offers</a> come through referrals. Look at your actual network—classmates, professors, past internship contacts, relatives—and identify people at companies that might be hiring. The goal is a warm introduction to someone who is or knows a decision maker. One introduction carries more weight than a hundred cold applications through a portal.Find symmetric risk. A junior engineer is a risky hire by definition. A startup carries a matching risk profile, meaning potentially lower compensation, no certainty of longevity, and higher performance expectations. But that shared risk creates mutual interest. The learning curve is steep, the exposure is broad, and the track record transfers directly. For engineers whose longer-term goal is a large organization, a startup is not a detour. It can be how you build the experience those organizations eventually want to see. The first job is for validation and learning. It is not a life sentence.Manufacture experience rather than waiting for it. Employers want experience but will not hire you to get it. The way through is to create it: a deployed project, an open-source contribution, building something real for a small business or family member. Recruiters are skeptical of toy projects. A deployed application solving a real problem, combined with the ability to talk clearly about the decisions you made and why, still moves the needle.Gain practical AI engineering skills, not just AI tool fluency. Using Cursor or Copilot is now a baseline expectation. What differentiates candidates is going one level deeper. Most working engineers, including senior ones, have not built a RAG pipeline or designed a multi-agent system. Understanding how to chunk documents, generate embeddings, store and query them from a vector database, and wire it into a production application puts a candidate ahead of a significant portion of the market on a skill in rapidly growing demand. AI and data science roles <a href="https://www.roberthalf.com/us/en/insights/research/data-reveals-which-technology-roles-are-in-highest-demand" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">grew 163 percent</a> in job postings in 2025. The engineers who understand how these systems actually work, not just how to prompt them, are in the shortest supply.Stop optimizing around conditions you cannot predict. Nobody anticipated the 2021 hiring boom. Nobody predicted this correction. Build durable skills. The demand for engineers who can reason clearly about systems is not going away. Where you start is not where you end.—Brian<h2><a href="https://theconversation.com/meta-and-microsoft-have-joined-the-tech-layoff-tsunami-is-ai-really-to-blame-281436" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Meta and Microsoft have joined the layoff tsunami. Is AI really to blame?</a></h2>More major workforce reductions are on the horizon at Big Tech companies: Meta announced it will cut 10 percent of its workforce, or about 8,000 employees, and Microsoft plans to offer buyouts for 7 percent of its U.S. employees in a voluntary retirement program. The cuts are understood by many to be linked to AI. But is AI really to blame? For The Conversation, two academics at the University of Sydney give their two cents.<a href="https://theconversation.com/meta-and-microsoft-have-joined-the-tech-layoff-tsunami-is-ai-really-to-blame-281436" target="_blank">Read more here. </a><h2><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/roboticist-turned-teacher-eniac-replica" target="_self">This Roboticist-Turned-Teacher Built a Life-Size Replica of ENIAC</a></h2>Tom Burick got his start as a roboticist. But when a financial downturn forced him to close his robotics business, he thought of the effect teachers had on his life and decided to pay it forward. Burick now works as a technology instructor at a school for students with autism, where he recently led a project building a full-scale replica of ENIAC, an historic computer celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/roboticist-turned-teacher-eniac-replica" target="_blank">Read more here. </a><h2><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/chinese-robots-us-ban" target="_self">Proposed Chinese Robot Ban is Latest U.S. Tech Sovereignty Move</a></h2>Across several industries, the United States has been moving toward limiting the use of sensitive technology made in China. Now, legislation has been introduced to extend the trend to ground robots, including humanoids, dogs, and crawlers. This could benefit some U.S.-based robotics firms—but many of these companies still rely on Chinese-made components. “The U.S. robotics industry is in a pickle,” writes Spectrum tech policy editor Lucas Laursen. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/chinese-robots-us-ban" target="_blank">Read more here. </a> Reference: https://ift.tt/kRJH4s3

High-severity vulnerability in Linux caused by a single errant character

Researchers have analyzed a high-severity vulnerability in Linux that’s able to escalate untrusted users to root by exploiting a bug you don't often see: a single errant character inside the kernel. The vulnerability, tracked as <a href="https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23111">CVE-2026-23111</a>, is located in nf_tables, a subsystem of the Linux kernel that provides packet filtering capabilities. It’s used to manage firewall rules and replaces older subsystems such as iptables, ip6tables, arptables, and ebtables. <h2>!!!WTF!!!</h2> The presence of a single mis-issued exclamation point in code implementing nf_tables introduced a use-after-free, a class of vulnerability that corrupts memory by placing malicious code at memory addresses that haven’t been properly freed of their previous contents. CVE-2026-23111 can be exploited by an unprivileged user or process to elevate system rights to root.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/a-single-errant-character-in-the-linux-kernel-allows-attacker-to-gain-root/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/a-single-errant-character-in-the-linux-kernel-allows-attacker-to-gain-root/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/wmiASWa

Beyond Dexterity: Why Contact May Define the Next Era of Robotics

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/humanoid-robot-with-four-arms-holding-a-red-balloon-sculpture-at-a-tech-expo.jpg?id=66870200&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C1"/> This article is brought to you by <a href="https://www.agilink-ai.com/" target="_blank">AGILINK</a>.Throughout the exhibition hall at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics (ICRA), in Vienna, one demonstration seemed to attract a disproportionate amount of attention.Two robotic hands were making a balloon dog. Slowly and deliberately, the robot twisted a long balloon into loops, bends, and joints without popping it. Visitors stopped, watched, and often returned with colleagues to watch again. <img alt="Crowd at a robotics expo watches a humanoid robot demonstrate its arm movements." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="29a8797093705fd5d7f3a0b18b28e8a0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="821bd" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/crowd-at-a-robotics-expo-watches-a-humanoid-robot-demonstrate-its-arm-movements.jpg?id=66870218&width=980"/> AGILINK’s balloon dog demonstration draws a crowd at ICRA 2026.AGILINKAt first glance, the demonstration appeared almost playful. Among roboticists, however, balloon twisting is widely recognized as an unusually difficult manipulation task.A balloon is lightweight, highly deformable, slippery, and extremely sensitive to force. Every twist changes its geometry and internal pressure, turning a seemingly simple activity into a continuously changing physical interaction problem.Humans navigate those changes almost intuitively. While making a balloon animal, people rarely think consciously about force regulation, slip prevention, or contact stability. They simply adjust.For robots, those adjustments remain remarkably difficult. The challenge is not merely moving fingers to the right positions. The harder part is maintaining stable interaction while the object itself is changing. <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eoGcFGwQNkw?rel=0" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>Highlights from AGILINK’s ICRA 2026 demonstrations, including visuotactile sensing, in-hand manipulation, balloon-animal shaping, and other contact-rich tasks enabled by the company’s latest OmniHand platform.AGILINKThat distinction helps explain why the balloon dog drew so much attention in Vienna. What appeared to be a dexterity demonstration was, in many ways, a demonstration about contact itself.As robotic manipulation continues to advance, a growing number of researchers are arriving at a similar conclusion: many of the hardest problems in robotics begin only after contact occurs.<h2>Motion and Contact Intelligence for Robot Manipulation</h2>Balloon twisting combines two challenges that robotics has traditionally struggled to solve simultaneously: long-horizon task execution and contact-rich manipulation.The first concerns motion.A balloon dog is not created through a single grasp or twist. It emerges through a carefully ordered sequence of manipulations, each setting the conditions for what follows. A small rotational error introduced early may appear insignificant at first, yet several steps later it can prevent the final structure from forming altogether.In that sense, balloon twisting is a long-horizon task. Success depends not only on performing individual actions correctly, but also on preserving the future feasibility of the entire manipulation process.To address this challenge, <a href="https://www.agilink-ai.com/" target="_blank">AGILINK</a> began by collecting demonstrations from professional balloon artists. Human actions were mapped onto robotic hands to establish an initial manipulation policy. But successful demonstrations alone were insufficient.In practice, some of the most valuable learning occurred when execution began to drift toward failure. Whenever instability emerged, human operators intervened and corrected the manipulation in real time. Those interventions were recorded and incorporated into reinforcement-learning cycles, allowing the system to learn not only how successful demonstrations unfold, but also how experienced operators recover when things start to go wrong.Through this process, the robot gradually acquired the capabilities required for long-horizon task execution—a collection of abilities that AGILINK groups under the term motion intelligence: the ability to generate actions, coordinate bimanual behaviors, and execute extended manipulation sequences under real-world uncertainty. <img alt="Two robotic hands, one white open palm and one black forming an OK gesture, on display." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7fb13b51d34cf6b0574f614644438b3b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="779ba" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/two-robotic-hands-one-white-open-palm-and-one-black-forming-an-ok-gesture-on-display.png?id=66870278&width=980"/> OmniHand 3 Ultra-M on display at ICRA 2026.AGILINKYet motion alone does not explain why balloon twisting remains difficult. The second challenge is contact.The robot must continuously regulate force, adjust contact locations, and respond to subtle changes in the object’s state. These decisions are difficult to encode through explicit rules. Even skilled human operators often rely on tactile intuition developed through experience rather than consciously articulated strategies.Analysis of those interventions revealed that many failures did not originate from incorrect action sequences, but from the breakdown of contact itself.To better capture those interaction dynamics, AGILINK collected contact-centric intervention data and incorporated those interactions into reinforcement-learning training. Rather than learning only which motions to perform, the system also learned how humans maintain stability when contact conditions begin to deteriorate.AGILINK describes this capability as contact intelligence: the ability to establish, maintain, and adapt physical interaction as force distribution, friction, deformation, and contact geometry continuously evolve.The distinction between the two capabilities is subtle but important. Motion intelligence determines what the robot intends to do. Contact intelligence determines whether it can continue doing it. For balloon twisting, both are necessary. One provides the sequence of actions. The other keeps those actions physically viable. <img alt="Robot makes balloon animal for visitor at tech expo booth." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a214019840e864e15e6b91d8d70e6e74" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="431a1" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/robot-makes-balloon-animal-for-visitor-at-tech-expo-booth.jpg?id=66870268&width=980"/> YouTuber KhanFlicks follows OmniHand’s motions while learning to fold a balloon dog at the AGILINK booth.AGILINKBetween a balloon slipping away and a balloon bursting lies a narrow region of stability. Successful manipulation depends on finding that region—and remaining within it throughout the task.<h2>Introducing the OmniHand 3 Ultra-M Dexterous Hand</h2>The balloon dog demonstration showcased a manipulation capability. It also revealed a broader question. How much contact intelligence can be achieved through learning alone? A robot can only regulate what it can perceive. It can only respond as quickly as its hardware allows.As manipulation tasks become increasingly complex, researchers are finding that progress depends not only on better policies, but also on richer sensing and faster physical response.That realization formed the backdrop for AGILINK’s second major announcement at ICRA 2026. Alongside the balloon dog demonstration, the company introduced the <a href="https://www.agilink-ai.com/ultra-m.html" target="_blank">OmniHand 3 Ultra-M</a>. <img alt="Two robotic hands beside a human hand, all raised open on a display table." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c59fb0ca42c4a24bb1b54d98d25513f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="e7eda" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/two-robotic-hands-beside-a-human-hand-all-raised-open-on-a-display-table.jpg?id=66870269&width=980"/> OmniHand 3 Ultra-M closely matches the size of an adult human hand.AGILINKThe two exhibits represented different stages of the same technological trajectory. If the balloon dog demonstrated what contact intelligence can already accomplish today, Ultra-M was designed to explore what contact intelligence may require next.<h2>Building Hardware for Contact Intelligence</h2>Roughly the size of an adult human hand, the <a href="https://www.agilink-ai.com/uploads/upload/files/20260530/a7b12675ce5e3b4e9b913801c0c6f659.pdf" target="_blank">OmniHand 3 Ultra-M integrates 20 active degrees of freedom</a> within a human-scale form factor.Its most distinctive feature is a fully direct-drive architecture. By adopting direct-drive actuation throughout the system, the hand is designed to enable faster and more transparent force regulation and higher force-control bandwidth, enabling faster response as contact conditions change. For contact-rich manipulation, responsiveness can be as important as sensing itself.By adopting direct-drive actuation throughout the system, the OmniHand 3 Ultra-M is designed to enable faster and more transparent force regulation and higher force-control bandwidth, enabling faster response as contact conditions change.The platform also incorporates tactile sensing across nearly the entire hand. Each fingertip contains a miniature vision-based tactile sensor, while more than 300 three-dimensional tactile sensing points are distributed throughout the palm. Together, they provide information not only about where contact occurs, but how contact is evolving.The system is designed to estimate pressure distribution, shear forces, local deformation, slip tendencies, and other interaction dynamics that often remain invisible to conventional position-based control systems.According to AGILINK’s tests, individual sensors achieve force resolution of approximately 0.005 N—roughly equivalent to detecting the weight of a sheet of paper resting on a fingertip. Spatial resolution reaches approximately 0.04 mm, while sensing density approaches 50,000 sensing points per square centimeter. <img alt="Robot arm delicately holds a feather, inset shows colorful dotted texture close-up." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c9f9836a2a34c6020d974a51c0da7158" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="8f1f1" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/robot-arm-delicately-holds-a-feather-inset-shows-colorful-dotted-texture-close-up.png?id=66870273&width=980"/> OmniHand 3 Ultra-M recognizes feather texture through vision-based tactile sensing.AGILINKFor dexterous robots, contact has traditionally been a largely hidden process. Ultra-M is designed to make that process more observable.Rather than simply detecting that contact has occurred, the system attempts to resolve where interaction is happening, how forces are distributed, whether instability is beginning to emerge, and how manipulation strategies should adapt in response.The balloon dog offered a glimpse of what contact intelligence can already accomplish. Ultra-M explores a different question: what capabilities may be required to push contact intelligence further?<h2>The Physical World Remains the Hardest Benchmark</h2>The significance of contact intelligence extends far beyond balloon animals. Many tasks that continue to resist automation involve unstable or deformable interaction: cable insertion, garment handling, flexible packaging, delicate assembly, connector mating, tool use, and household manipulation.These tasks are difficult not because robots cannot reach the correct location, but because maintaining stable interaction after contact begins remains extraordinarily hard.For decades, robotics achieved many of its successes by reducing uncertainty. Factories were engineered to make robotic motion predictable, repeatable, and highly structured. The physical world behaves differently.A growing share of robotics research is shifting toward interaction itself—understanding how robots can establish, maintain, and adapt physical contact within environments that remain fundamentally unpredictable.Objects shift. Materials deform. Friction changes. Contact evolves. Real environments rarely follow scripts. Seen through that lens, the balloon dog was never really about the balloon dog. What attracted attention at ICRA was not simply a visually impressive demonstration, but what it revealed: intelligence in the physical world is ultimately measured through interaction.As motion generation continues to mature, a growing share of robotics research is shifting toward interaction itself—understanding how robots can establish, maintain, and adapt physical contact within environments that remain fundamentally unpredictable.For robots moving beyond structured environments and into less predictable real-world settings, managing contact may become as important as motion itself. Reference: https://ift.tt/GO2Mfi1

Monday, June 8, 2026

IEEE Celebrates Technology’s Brightest Minds at Annual Event

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-dimly-lit-ballroom-filled-with-dinner-tables-during-an-awards-ceremony.jpg?id=66857734&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C83%2C0%2C84"/> New York City was the backdrop of this year’s IEEE <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-2026-honors" target="_self">Honors Ceremony</a>, held on 24 April.The event celebrates engineering pioneers who have developed technologies that have changed how people connect and learn about the world. This year’s celebrants included the engineers behind innovations such as text-to-donate technology, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/abhishek-appaji-ai-diagnostic-tool" target="_self">AI-powered diagnostic tools</a>, and the graphics processing unit, among many others.Prior to the Honors Ceremony, IEEE hosted a forum on 23 April for a select group of early-career achievers to exchange ideas and experiences with laureates and awardees, speakers, and IEEE leaders. Attendees from around the world, working in a variety of technical areas, shared their journeys and explored the intersections of technologies, disciplines, and missions. The event culminated in Friday evening’s black tie Honors Ceremony, where IEEE celebrated medal laureates, including <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/2026-ieee-medal-of-honor" target="_self">Jensen Huang</a>, who received IEEE’s highest recognition, the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/ieee-medal-of-honor" target="_self">IEEE Medal of Honor</a>. Huang is a cofounder of <a href="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nvidia</a> and its chief executive. “IEEE has always been a home to those who see the future before others see it,” <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-presidents-note-engineering-renaissance" target="_self">Mary Ellen Randall</a>, IEEE president and CEO, said in her welcome speech. <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/ieee-awards-videos/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Video highlights</a> and <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/events/photo-and-video-gallery/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">photos from the event</a> are available on the <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Awards website</a>.<h2>Exploring mission-driven tech and AI in art</h2>Friday morning began with a conversation between Randall and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OignKQOJT-U" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Marian Croak</a>, the recipient of this year’s <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/award/ieee-founders-medal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Founders Medal</a>. Croak was honored for “leadership in communication networks, including acceleration of digital equity, responsible artificial intelligence, and the promotion of diversity and inclusion.”Croak, who serves as vice president of engineering at <a href="https://about.google/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google</a>, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., pioneered Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies. When a person speaks into a telephone, VoIP converts their voice into digital signals that are transmitted over the Internet rather than traditional phone lines. Her work enabled audio and video conferencing. She also developed text-to-donate technology to raise money for those affected by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hurricane Katrina</a>, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. The technology enables customers to donate money to a charity via their mobile service provider, which then bills them. “Empathy has always been a driving force in the engineering that I’ve done,” she said.She shared advice on how to stay creative: “Get out of the office. Go to an art museum, exercise, or play with children.” Croak said her grandchildren inspire her.<h3>An inside look at microchips</h3> During Friday evening’s Honors Ceremony cocktail hour, attendees explored the history of microchips at the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/history-center/globalmuseum" target="_blank">IEEE Global Museum</a>’s Microchips That Shook the World exhibit. The Global Museum, an IEEE History and Heritage program, develops traveling and digital exhibits focused on the history of technology. The museum’s mission is to promote awareness of how technological progress unfolds over generations and how engineers and researchers build on past achievements to benefit humanity.Drawing from <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/" target="_self">IEEE Spectrum</a>’s <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/welcome-to-the-chip-hall-of-fame" target="_self">Chip Hall of Fame</a>, the Microchips That Shook the World exhibit conveys the roles integrated circuits play in fields such as signal processing, audio engineering, and <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/topic/telecommunications/" target="_self">telecommunications</a>.Co-curators <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/stephen-cass" target="_self">Stephen Cass</a>, Spectrum’s special projects editor, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-jon-mitchell-726b131b2" target="_blank">Daniel Mitchell</a>, the IEEE senior historian, served as onsite docents for guests. The <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/commodore-64" target="_self">Commodore 64</a>, one of the artifacts on display, brought up many treasured childhood memories for guests who used the home computer. The exhibit also featured a preview of IEEE’s immersive video project “Inside the Microchip,” which delves beneath the silicon surface of the Nvidia NV20 microchip thanks to forensic photography and sophisticated computer-generated renders. The video, which will be released later this year, aims to teach preuniversity students about the technology.Microchips that Shook the World is possible thanks to donations from semiconductor company <a href="https://www.asml.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ASML</a>, the <a href="https://themenschfoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bill and Dianne Mensch Foundation</a>, and the <a href="https://eds.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Electron Devices </a>and <a href="https://eps.ieee.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Electronics Packaging societies</a>The daytime program also spotlighted AI’s use in the visual arts. <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/kathleen-kramer1" target="_self">Kathleen Kramer</a>, the 2025 IEEE president, interviewed artist <a href="https://refikanadol.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Refik Anadol</a>, who is scheduled to open an AI art museum on 20 June in Los Angeles. <a href="https://dataland.art/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dataland</a>’s exhibits are powered by an open-access model developed by Anadol’s studio.For the museum’s first exhibition, “Machine Dreams: Rainforest,” the model collected visual data about the natural world from the <a href="https://www.si.edu/museums/natural-history-museum" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History</a>, London’s <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Natural History Museum</a>, and the <a href="https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cornell Lab of Ornithology</a>, with their permission. The information, including up to a half billion images, will form the basis for a variety of AI-produced art, Anadol said.Anadol said he was inspired to mix AI with art by the movie <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Blade Runner</a>. He said he believes “machines can become collaborators,” as “data is a form of pigment.”Data also plays an important role in the work of artist and author <a href="https://giorgialupi.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Giorgia Lupi</a>. The artist is a partner at design firm <a href="https://www.pentagram.com/work/ieee-honors-ceremony-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pentagram</a>.Lupi said she uses data to tell stories, including chronicling her struggles with a chronic illness.“Data is an abstraction of our reality,” she said.One of her recent projects, “<a href="https://www.mta.info/agency/arts-design/digital-art/data-love-letter" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A Data Love Letter to the Subway</a>,” was shown last year in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dey_Street_Passageway" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dey Street Passageway</a> in New York City. The video was made using data from the <a href="https://www.mta.info/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Metropolitan Transportation Authority</a> about each train line, including timetables, ridership, and people’s travel habits. Based on the information Lupi gathered, she documented how commuters traveling on different subway lines encountered one another without realizing it.By exploring data on this year’s IEEE award recipients, she collaborated with IEEE to create <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/intersections/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an animated video illustrating the shared pathways and collaborations among the honorees</a>. It debuted at the Honors Ceremony.<h2>Honoring engineering giants</h2>The Honors Ceremony, held at <a href="https://ciprianievents.com/venue/new-york-42nd-street/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cipriani 42nd Street</a>, recognized more than 20 laureates and innovators.More than 92 million selfies are taken worldwide every day, <a href="https://photoaid.com/blog/mobile-photography-statistics/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">PhotoAiD estimates</a>. A selfie wouldn’t be possible without <a href="https://ericfossum.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eric Fossum</a>’s invention of the <a href="https://www.ansys.com/simulation-topics/what-is-cmos-image-sensor" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">CMOS image sensor</a>. Developed at <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NASA</a>’s <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a>, in Pasadena, Calif., the “camera on a chip” was intended for use in space, but it is now found in smartphones, medical devices, and vehicles. Fossum, an IEEE Life Fellow, received the <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/award/ieee-jun-ichi-nishizawa-medal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal</a>, which recognizes outstanding contributions to materials and device science and technology.“Engineering is a pursuit of what must be possible. [IEEE is] the spirit, the conscience, of our profession.” —Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NvidiaThe medal, he said, “is at the top of the IEEE staircase of being recognized by your peers.”The <a href="https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/award/ieee-nick-holonyak-medal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Holonyak Medal for Semiconductor Optoelectronic Technologies</a> went to <a href="https://www.materials.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/steven-p-denbaars" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Steven P. DenBaars</a>, a professor of materials and electrical and computer engineering at the <a href="https://www.ucsb.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of California, Santa Barbara</a>. DenBaars was honored for his work in semiconductors, which laid the foundation for high-resolution LED and laser displays, modern solid-state lighting, and more.“This work has always been a team effort...I’m excited and curious about the role gallium nitride micro LEDs will play in optical communications,” he said in his acceptance speech.The ceremony ended with the Medal of Honor presentation to Huang, who received a standing ovation. He was recognized for his “leadership in the development of graphics processing units and their application to scientific computing and artificial intelligence.”The IEEE honorary member donated his cash prize to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-tryengineering-20-years" target="_self">IEEE TryEngineering</a>, which provides teachers with a library of lesson plans and offers educational summer camps. The <a href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/jen-hsun-and-lori-huang-foundation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation</a> matched his gift, and the additional donation is destined to fund scholarships for new graduates. “Engineering is a pursuit of what must be possible. [IEEE is] the spirit, the conscience, of our profession,” Huang said. Reference: https://ift.tt/x4CAlRX

For the 2nd time in weeks, Microsoft packages laced with credential stealer

Dozens of cryptographically verified open source packages from Microsoft were compromised late last week to add advanced credential-stealing code that was triggered when developers opened them in AI coding agents. In all, <a href="https://www.stepsecurity.io/blog/miasma-worm-hits-microsoft-again-azure-functions-action-and-72-other-repositories-disabled-after-supply-chain-attack-targeting-ai-coding-agents">multiple</a> researchers <a href="https://opensourcemalware.com/blog/miasma-reaches-azure">said</a>, 73 packages were flagged as malicious when automated systems on GitHub blocked them on the platform. Rather than noting they are malicious—and that developers who used AI agents to work with them should assume their systems are compromised—the Microsoft-owned GitHub said it disabled the packages “due to a violation of GitHub's terms of service.” The text went on to encourage the package owner to contact GitHub. <h2>Devs: Assume compromise and proceed accordingly</h2> It wasn’t until Monday that Microsoft even raised the possibility the packages were infected. In an email, the company stated: “We have temporarily removed some repositories as we investigate potential malicious content.”<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/for-the-2nd-time-in-weeks-microsoft-packages-laced-with-credential-stealer/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/06/for-the-2nd-time-in-weeks-microsoft-packages-laced-with-credential-stealer/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/oDiTSer