This IEEE Senior Member Develops AI Tools for E-Commerce Sites

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-professionally-dressed-indian-man-smiling-with-a-trophy-in-one-hand-and-an-award-certificate-in-the-other.jpg?id=67657769&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C83%2C0%2C84"/><br/><br/><p><a href="https://balajiingole.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Balaji Ingole</a> rarely saw televisions while growing up in Udgir, India. No one in the small Maharashtra village had computers or phones. Only one household owned a television, and neighbors often gathered there to watch shows together.</p><p>Ingole never even saw a computer growing up. It wasn’t until he reached middle school that he encountered a computer lab, an experience he says changed his life. Almost immediately, he says, the machine felt like a window into a different scale of possibility for him.</p><h3>Balaji Ingole</h3><br/><p><strong>Employer </strong></p><p><strong></strong>Amla Commerce in Milwaukee</p><p><strong>Title </strong></p><p><strong></strong>Project manager</p><p><strong>Member grade</strong> </p><p>Senior member</p><p><strong>Alma maters </strong></p><p><strong></strong>COEP Technological University and Welingkar Institute of Management, both in India</p><p>“I was very studious and not very social, always reading or solving problems in a math textbook,” he says. “At the computer lab, I began learning the <a href="https://www.c-language.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">C programming language</a>—which was like discovering a whole new world. I was fascinated that you could create something with just a few lines of code.”</p><p>His early interest grew into a self-directed education. Outside of Ingole’s formal classwork, he taught himself to build database-backed applications, wire up hardware, write software, and trace error logs.</p><p>Today the IEEE senior member similarly splits his time. During the week, he’s a project manager in Milwaukee at B2B e-commerce company <a href="https://www.amla.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amla</a>, leading AI-driven digital transformation initiatives to help the company’s clients boost their sales. On weekends, he leads a similarly demanding life as an independent researcher. His current projects include developing AI-enabled health care diagnostic tools and assistive technologies to support people with physical disabilities.</p><p>“I believe in ‘learn by doing,’” he says. “I really like to test my knowledge and prototype ideas to find out if they truly work.”</p><h2>A college project becomes an inspiration</h2><p>Ingole’s tendency to go beyond his coursework continued after he graduated high school in 2004. As a mechanical engineering undergraduate at <a href="https://www.coeptech.ac.in/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The College of Engineering, Pune (now COEP Technological University)</a>, in India, he participated in several extracurricular activities. One was interviewing entrepreneurs and writing about them for <em><em>The COEP College Magazine</em></em>. The experience helped him gain confidence, he says, giving him the push he needed to pursue interviews for the publication with two Indian entrepreneurs he admired: <a href="https://www.infosys.com/about/management-profiles/narayana-murthy.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">N.R. Narayana Murthy</a>, cofounder of IT giant <a href="https://www.infosys.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Infosys</a>; and his wife, philanthropist <a href="https://sudhamurty.in/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sudha Murty</a>. The Murtys cofounded the <a href="https://www.infosys.org/infosys-foundation.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Infosys Foundation</a>, a nonprofit that runs educational, health care, women’s empowerment, and sustainability <a href="https://www.infosys.org/infosys-foundation/initiatives.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">programs</a> in underserved areas of India.</p><p>“Every week I would fax them: ‘Please give me an interview time,’” Ingole says. Eventually, Sudha Murty’s office offered him a phone interview, but he requested to meet her in person at Infosys’s Bengaluru offices. She agreed, but the offices were 940 kilometers from Pune, and he didn’t have the money to travel or stay overnight in a hotel.</p><p>Ingole and a classmate borrowed money from friends and traveled through the night on multiple buses and trains to get to Bengaluru. They freshened up in a public bathroom before heading to the Infosys campus to meet Murty.</p><p>Impressed by their persistence, she surprised them by also arranging a brief chat with Narayana Murthy.</p><p>“Narayana Murthy handwrote a personal message to the engineering students of [my college]—which we proudly published in our college magazine,” Ingole says. “In his note, Murthy shared that we are at an extraordinary moment in India’s history and that the future looks even brighter. His words encouraged us to work hard and make the most of this time.</p><p>“I still have that note,” Ingole says. “They are billionaires, and I was just a regular student. The fact that they took the time to do this really motivated me.”</p><p>During the final semester of his engineering studies, Ingole joined the <a href="https://in.linkedin.com/company/tata-research-development-and-design-centre-trddc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tata Research Design and Development Center</a> in Pune for a six-month internship. After earning his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 2008, he became a graduate engineering trainee at <a href="https://automation.honeywell.com/us/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Honeywell Automation</a> in Pune.</p><p>He left the company in 2009, and during the next 13 years, he held different software engineering and project management positions at IT companies across India.</p><p>He earned a master’s degree in business administration from the <a href="https://www.welingkar.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai,</a> in 2017.</p><p>In 2022 he accepted a project-manager role at <a href="https://marssg.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mars IT Solutions in Madison, Wisc.</a> The following year, he left to join <a href="https://www.gainwelltechnologies.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gainwell Technologies</a>, also in Madison, as a senior project manager. At Gainwell, he managed projects for the core IT systems multiple U.S. state health departments use to administer <a href="https://www.medicaid.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Medicaid</a> benefits, manage provider enrollment, and verify member eligibility. The experience managing projects that directly enabled patients’ access to health care gave Ingole a special appreciation for and interest in this area, he says.</p><p>“Health care data is not like other data,” he says. “The stakes are high, compliance requirements are different, and the margin for error is effectively zero.”</p><p>Ingole says he enjoyed the rigor of data governance combined with the potential to positively impact lives, and that also applies to his current work at Amla.</p><h2>Agentic AI in e-commerce</h2><p>Ingole joined Amla in July 2025. He helps manufacturers and B2B customers modernize their <a data-linked-post="2650248208" href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/who-invented-ecommerce" target="_blank">e-commerce</a> operations. He also builds AI tools for them and for his internal team.</p><p>For Amla’s customers, he’s developing AI-enabled chatbots that help manufacturers set up and manage large product catalogs in e‑commerce platforms. Such product setup traditionally has been a manual, tedious, error-prone process: Companies upload thousands of products, adjust item names, enter prices, update images, and more.</p><p>“Product setup has been one of the most painful processes in e-commerce, and it can take [our] customers two to three months to complete,” Ingole says. “We’re creating an AI agent that will guide them, step-by-step, to get everything set up in two weeks.”</p><p>Ingole relies on AI agents for some of his own tasks at Amla. Project managers historically have spent 10 to 12 hours each week assembling and sending status reports to stakeholders. Ingole built an AI agent to handle much of the work.</p><p>“It runs every Monday morning and reads through my emails to extract highlights, risks, timelines, and upcoming releases, then sends me a written status report,” Ingole says. The process might sound simple, but the agent’s workflow involves at least a dozen steps including defining parameters, managing temporary files, and integrating with existing tools.</p><p>With the information-gathering work handled, it frees up Ingole and his colleagues to spend more time on deeper-thinking work, he says.</p><h2>Publishing as idea refinery</h2><p>For nearly a decade, Ingole has spent some of his free time conducting independent research projects in data analytics and AI-enabled applications in health care. He has written <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/790405442038687" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">more than 40 peer-reviewed papers</a>, which are in the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/free-access-to-thousands-of-covid19-research-documents" target="_self">IEEE Xplore Digital Library</a>. He has been granted six patents in the United Kingdom and India. In the U.K., he is a registered coinventor of an AI-powered, cloud-connected <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388234716_AI-POWERED_CLOUD-CONNECTED_WEARABLE_DEVICE_FOR_PERSONALIZED_HEALTH_MONITORING" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wearable device for health monitoring</a> and an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389874948_AI-BASED_BREAST_CANCER_DETECTION_DEVICE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AI-based breast cancer detection tool</a>.</p><p>Ingole’s patent for the breast cancer detector, he says, reflects his belief that when engineers apply data and AI correctly, they can help doctors diagnose patients more quickly and accurately.</p><p>That, he says, is both a power and a responsibility.</p><p>He is part of a team helping patients who are paralyzed and nonverbal control items in their environment. His goal, he says, is to develop a brain-computer interface to let patients turn on a fan, switch off a television, and complete similar tasks.</p><p>Publishing research requires both academic rigor and peer scrutiny, and Ingole says the function has been critical to improving as both a project manager and a researcher-inventor.</p><p>“Lots of research ideas never make it to paper,” he notes. “But when you write for journals or conferences, you’re bombarded with questions from Ph.D.s and experienced researchers. This forces me to refine my methodology, and to combine use cases and technical architecture in a way that stands up to expert review.”</p><h2>Finding a professional hub</h2><p>Ingole joined IEEE in 2022, and he says the affiliation has become central to both his research and his professional identity.</p><p>“I use the <a href="https://cis.ieee.org/activities/membership-activities/ieee-member-directory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Member Directory</a> often and contact engineers through my IEEE email address, which gives me credibility because they know it’s a genuine research connection,” he says.</p><p>The organization has given him a platform to contribute to the research space beyond his own papers, he says. He has served as a conference session chair, keynote speaker, technical program committee member, and peer research reviewer for various conferences and events. His IEEE membership, he says, has opened doors to other communities, helping support his entry into the <a href="https://www.bcs.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">British Computer Society</a>, which has stringent acceptance criteria.</p><p>Those opportunities have helped him build a global network of collaborators with whom to discuss upcoming research, seek advice, and share data, he says.</p><p>“IEEE is important for me to continue as an independent researcher,” he says. “It lets me contribute to the community, and I get a lot in return.”</p> Reference: https://ift.tt/MO6RBwH

Stop Hunting, Start Solving: Accelerating Root Cause Analysis with Agentic AI

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/spotfire-logo-with-circular-icon-and-stylized-black-text.png?id=67657308&width=980"/><br/><br/><p><strong>About this Webinar</strong></p><p><strong>Turn Yield Excursions into Faster, More Confident Root Cause Analysis</strong></p><p>When a yield issue emerges, the answer rarely lives in a single system. Critical clues are spread across metrology data, tool traces, chemical analysis, and facilities systems, while growing data volumes make traditional dashboards slow, fragmented, and difficult to act on.</p><p><strong>What You’ll Learn:</strong></p><p>Discover how a purpose-built semiconductor analytics platform can help engineers connect insights across domains without moving data. See how Agentic AI, semiconductor-specific visualizations, and push-down compute enable faster investigation of yield excursions and process issues, even across billions of data points. In the session, a live demonstration shows how to conduct a multi-domain root cause investigation using Spotfire® Industry Pro.</p><p><strong>Key Takeaways:</strong></p><ul><li>Understand why siloed manufacturing data delays yield recovery and inflates costs</li><li>Learn how Agentic AI automates complex cross-domain analytics and visualization generation</li><li>Explore methods for scaling high-performance analytics across massive fab datasets</li></ul><p><strong>Who Should Attend:</strong></p><p><span>Yield, Process, and Integration Engineers; Fab and Manufacturing Operations Managers; Quality and Reliability Engineers; and Data & Analytics leaders supporting wafer fabs, foundries, OSATs, and IDMs who need to identify issues faster while maintaining confidence in decision-making.</span></p><p><strong>Save Your Spot!</strong></p><p><span></span><span>Join this webinar to learn how leading semiconductor teams are accelerating root cause investigations, scaling analytics across massive datasets, and transforming disconnected data into actionable manufacturing intelligence. Reserve your seat today.</span></p><p><span><span><a href="https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/5460332/DAFEFF7A68EE900DEA7A14356089B553?utm_source=IEEE&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=922" target="_blank">Register now for this free webinar!</a></span></span></p> Reference: https://ift.tt/dEvY8Hb

Waymo doubles spending on lobbying in robotaxi battle with Uber

<p>Waymo has sharply increased its lobbying spending as it seeks to persuade US regulators to clear a path for fully autonomous taxi services, intensifying its battle with rival Uber over the future of robotaxis.</p> <p>The Alphabet-owned company spent more than $1 million between April and June on lobbying the federal government, more than double its outlay a year earlier, according to filings. That put Waymo’s spending close to Uber’s and well ahead of rivals including Amazon’s Zoox and Tesla.</p> <p>The rise in lobbying comes as Waymo and Uber push competing visions for the future of ride-hailing. Waymo wants a faster route to fully driverless commercial services, while Uber is advocating a staggered rollout in which robotaxis operate alongside human drivers.</p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/08/waymo-doubles-spending-on-lobbying-in-robotaxi-battle-with-uber/">Read full article</a></p> <p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/08/waymo-doubles-spending-on-lobbying-in-robotaxi-battle-with-uber/#comments">Comments</a></p> Reference : https://ift.tt/eoRZbrt

Grok exfiltrates user data when malicious instructions are encrypted

<p>Earlier this week, researchers outlined an attack that used a secret input provided by Microsoft 365 Copilot for enterprise to cause the AI assistant to exfiltrate a password present in the user’s inbox. Now, a separate team has devised a similar attack against Grok. The new data theft hack employs a deceptively simple trick to force the Elon Musk-owned LLM to steal user chats and other personal information. At the time this post went live, the assistant continued to cough up the data, despite xAI being informed of it in June.</p> <p>The lesson from both this week’s episodes—and the countless other ones that have come before it—is that LLMs are incapable of solving the root causes for prompt injections, the most severe vulnerability classes they’re most prone to. That leaves AI developers with no other option but to build a guardrail that steers the model away from the harmful actions. As I noted in <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/microsoft-copilot-reveals-secret-input-that-allowed-it-to-be-hacked/">Tuesday’s story</a>, the approach is tantamount to a road traffic safety engineer erecting a protective rail around a dangerous bend rather than banking the curve.</p> <h2>Cryptographic Context Injection in the house</h2> <p>Prompt injections exploit LLMs' training to comply with user requests whenever possible. Attackers can capitalize on the predilection by smuggling harmful instructions into emails or webpages the assistant is instructed to summarize. Because LLMs can’t reliably distinguish between content in an email sent by an untrusted party and user instructions entered directly into a prompt, the overly solicitous LLM faithfully follows them. To date, Grok and other LLMs' only recourse is to create guardrails that flag suspicious instructions and forbid them from being executed.</p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/grok-exfiltrates-user-data-when-malicious-instructions-are-encrypted/">Read full article</a></p> <p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/grok-exfiltrates-user-data-when-malicious-instructions-are-encrypted/#comments">Comments</a></p> Reference : https://ift.tt/WQhPU5L

Gaining Leadership Backing for Your Innovations

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/conceptual-illustration-of-three-different-hands-placing-puzzle-pieces-together-in-the-shape-of-a-lightbulb.jpg?id=67643651&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C187%2C0%2C188"/><br/><br/><p><em><em>This article is part of our exclusive career advice series in partnership with the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society.</em></em></p><p>Imagine this: You have a strong idea for a new product for your company. Your coworkers encourage you to move forward because they believe it could be the organization’s next big success. The idea clearly falls outside your department’s responsibilities, however, and you have no role in the product line.</p><p>What should you do? Sit and wait for “the right group” to pick it up, or push the idea forward without knowing how or what it might mean for your current position?</p><p>Such situations occur frequently. Many end up as missed opportunities, even though they could have significantly advanced the company’s technological or market position.</p><p>Some organizations actively support such initiatives, allocating specific periods during the workday for employees to focus on developing their own ideas.</p><p>Companies known for that include <a href="https://about.google/company-info/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google</a> and <a href="https://www.3m.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">3M</a>. They allow employees to pursue projects with a portion of their time, such as one day per week. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/caim.12309" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research</a> that I conducted indicates it pays off for employee performance.</p><h2>Bootlegging and skunkworks</h2><p>At some companies, managers know such projects exist, but they deliberately turn a blind eye, allowing them to continue.</p><p>Some employees persist through bootlegging or skunkworks projects.</p><p>Bootlegging projects have not been approved by a manager or funded by the company.</p><p>Skunkworks projects involve a small team within the company that has been given authority and funding to secretly research and develop potentially groundbreaking innovations during their off-hours. The term comes from <a href="https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/who-we-are/business-areas/aeronautics/skunkworks.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lockheed’s Skunk Works</a> division, set up in 1943 in a rented circus tent to build the P-80 fighter jet in secret. It took just 143 days.</p><p>The 3M <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-it_note" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Post-it Note</a> came out of the company’s “15 percent culture,” described as a permitted bootlegging policy. It gives employees paid time off to pursue their own ideas.</p><p>The company traces the philosophy to its longtime president and later chairman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/05/archives/william-l-mcknight-who-built-a-sandpaper-company-into-3m-from-the.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">William L. McKnight</a>. Company scientist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Fry" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Arthur Fry</a> used the policy in 1974 to turn a colleague’s dormant adhesive into the first Post-it prototypes, after his own bookmarks kept falling out of his hymnal.</p><p>There are several examples of high-visibility skunkworks projects. At <a href="https://www.apple.com/supply-chain/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Apple</a>, <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/steve-jobs" target="_self">Steve Jobs</a> pulled roughly 20 people—<em><em>pirates</em></em>, as he called them—out of the company to build the original <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/apple-macintosh" target="_self">Macintosh</a> computer in a building nicknamed Texaco Towers. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Isaacson" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Walter Isaacson</a>’s biography <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em><em>Steve Jobs</em></em></a>, he frames the idea as modeled on the skunkworks approach.</p><p><a href="https://support.google.com/mail/answer/56256?hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google’s Gmail</a> system is frequently—and incorrectly—cited as a product of the company’s “20% time” policy. In a 2014 <a href="https://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">interview</a> with <em><em>Time</em></em> magazine, the system’s creator, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Buchheit" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Paul Buchheit</a>, said Gmail was in fact an official assignment. What the Gmail incubation did share with classic skunkworks projects was secrecy: For much of its three years in development, it was kept hidden from most people inside the company.</p><p class="pull-quote"><span>If you want to drive change in your organization, build a promoter triad around your idea.</span></p><p><span></span>At <a href="https://abc.xyz/" target="_blank">Alphabet</a>, Google X—now known simply as <a href="https://x.company/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">X</a>—operated as a secretive “<a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/8-of-the-coolest-projects-to-come-out-of-x-googles/326836" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">moonshot</a>” lab, kept hidden from most Google employees, according to a 2011 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/technology/at-google-x-a-top-secret-lab-dreaming-up-the-future.html?_r=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article</a> in <em><em>The New York Times</em></em>. Google’s self-driving car project graduated from X to become <a href="https://waymo.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Waymo</a>, and <a href="https://x.company/projects/glass/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Glass</a> was likewise incubated there. The X team is now developing the second edition of <a href="https://developers.google.com/glass-enterprise" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Glass Enterprise</a>, a successor aimed at industrial rather than consumer use.</p><p><a href="https://developers.google.com/glass-enterprise" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amazon</a> runs a comparable model through <a href="https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/teams/devices-and-services/lab126" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lab126</a>, which, according to an <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3040383/following-fire-phone-flop-big-changes-at-amazons-lab126" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article</a> in <em><em>Fast Company</em></em>, evolved from a small skunkworks Amazon subsidiary into a hardware maker with nearly 3,000 employees. Lab126 delivered the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/kindle/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kindle</a> in 2007 and the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/alexa/shop-echo-devices" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Echo</a> in 2015.</p><p>Then there are so-called <em><em>submarine projects</em></em>, which employees work on without permission and despite explicit disapproval. They can lead to disciplinary action and termination. </p><h2>Innovation management</h2><p>Innovation management theory offers a more structured and robust approach. It argues that successful organizational change requires support at several levels, according to “Teamwork for Innovation: The ‘Troika’ of Promoters,” published in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14679310" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em><em>R&D Management</em></em></a>. The promoter theory, developed around 25 years ago, consistently shows that change projects are far more likely to succeed when they are supported on multiple organizational levels. A good idea alone is not enough; you need a network of technology, process, and power promoters to turn a concept into a fully implemented, scalable solution.</p><p>First, you need a technology promoter: the person who has the idea, such as a new product, and possesses technical expertise and specific knowledge about the field or industry. Art Fry at 3M would be such an individual.</p><p>How can you put that into practice as an individual? Start by clearly formulating your idea into a concise concept paper or one-page summary including benefits, technical feasibility, and potential business impact.</p><p>Identify potential technology promoters (experts who can validate and refine your idea), and approach them early to strengthen the technical foundation.</p><p>In parallel, map the relevant stakeholders and decision-makers, and identify process promoters who understand how decisions are made in your company. They could be colleagues in innovation, R&D, or business development who understand your idea and how it can benefit the company.</p><p>The second is a process promoter: someone who might not know all the technical details but understands the organization’s formal and informal networks and knows how to navigate its processes, committees, and decision-making paths. This person can ensure the idea reaches the right stakeholders at the right time.</p><p>In the 3M case, it would be a person from the organizational management department, often called an <em><em>innovation manager</em></em>. The key role here is to connect inventors such as Fry with people from other departments needed for further project development, such as manufacturing, quality control, and sales.</p><p>Lastly, there’s the power promoter: a person in a leadership position who might not know the technical details but can allocate resources, eliminate obstacles, and maneuver through the company’s political dynamics. This individual has hierarchical power and acts as a sponsor of the idea or project. In the case of Fry, the person could be, say, the chief technology officer, but it also could be a middle manager who has the power for an individual field of action.</p><p>The three-level promoter structure applies regardless of whether the change concerns a new product, new service, or internal process innovation.</p><p>Engage potential power promoters by presenting a low-risk, small-scale pilot and a clear value proposition. Leaders are more likely to support ideas that are well prepared, vetted for potential risks, and backed by a small coalition. </p><h2>Building the promoter triad</h2><p>In short, don’t work in isolation. Systematically build alliances across expertise, networks, and hierarchical levels to create lasting change. If you want to drive change in your organization, build a promoter triad around your idea.</p><p>The tech experts and leadership promoters are easier to identify. Process promoters are often found in corporate innovation management, R&D management, or strategy functions, but they also can emerge in line units with strong internal networks.</p><p>Innovation management, as the promoter model describes it, looks nothing like the management structure most engineers are trained to expect. Traditional technical management runs on a single reporting line. With the promoter model, influence is spread across three people—technology, process, and power promoters—who may be in different departments, at different levels of seniority, and who might never share a reporting line.</p><p>What holds the trio together isn’t a formal structure; it’s the idea itself, for as long as it takes to move the idea forward.</p><p>That makes innovation management closer to networked, matrix-style leadership than to the pyramid most engineers picture when they hear the word <em><em>management</em></em>. It’s worth understanding both models before you decide which kind of impact you’re actually optimizing for.</p><p><em><em>The Institute</em></em> has covered the tension from the individual’s side in “<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/thinking-like-an-entrepreneur" target="_self">Tips for How to Think Like an Entrepreneur</a>,” “<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/management-versus-technical-track" target="_self">Management Versus Technical Track</a>,” both published in partnership with the <a href="https://www.ieee.org/membership-catalog/productdetail/showProductDetailPage.html?product=MEMTEM014" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society</a>, and “<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ic-or-manager" target="_self">What to Consider Before You Accept a Management Role</a>” from the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/files/81653/careeralert-06-02-25.html" target="_self"><em><em>IEEE Spectrum</em></em> Career Alert</a> newsletter. All are worth a look if you’re weighing a formal management track against staying close to the technology itself.</p><p>Remember: You don’t have to build your promoter network alone or only inside your own company. IEEE <a href="https://www.ieee.org/communities-connection/societies-councils-and-communities/societies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">societies</a>, <a href="https://www.ieee.org/communities/geographic-activities" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sections and chapters</a>, and <a href="https://www.ieee.org/communities/societies/about-technical-communities" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">technical committees</a>, as well as the networking platform <a href="https://www.ieee.org/about/collabratec-volunteers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Collabratec</a>, function as a ready-made cross-company network. They are practical places to find technology promoters with deep expertise in a field you don’t fully own yet, or to meet process and power promoters at other organizations who have built a promoter coalition around a similar idea.</p><p>For more tips on how to advance your career, check out our <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/collections/career-advice/" target="_self">Career Advice for Engineers, From Engineers collection</a>. <br/></p> Reference: https://ift.tt/EPoqAiO

Microsoft Copilot reveals secret input that allowed it to be hacked

<p>It’s not every day that attackers can force a frontier AI model to cough up user passwords and other sensitive data without user confirmation. That’s exactly what researchers recently did to Microsoft 365 Copilot Enterprise. Even more unusual is the source they tapped to discover the critical vulnerability that made their exploit possible. Rather than employing reverse engineering or other traditional vulnerability-hunting methods, they asked Copilot. The LLM assistant readily complied.</p> <p>Researchers at security firm Varonis knew they wanted to create an exploit that would exfiltrate user data when a user did nothing more than click on a link. Like most AI assistants today, Copilot steadfastly refused and made clear that sensitive prompts like that require explicit user consent in the form of a gesture, such as pressing a return key or other key. In response, the researchers peppered Copilot with questions about the guardrails that required user confirmation before the assistant can execute powerful commands.</p> <h2>Loose lips sink ships</h2> <p>The dialog was like a game of 20 questions. Each answer provided a new clue that divulged information about the complex safety mechanism. Why was auto-execution impossible, they asked. What URL structures and deep links were involved? What happens when a page is loaded with input already in the prompt field? Each answer provided a deeper view into the guardrail and its limits. Eventually, Copilot provided a stunning Microsoft trade secret—an undocumented prompt parameter that completely bypassed the requirement for user consent.</p><p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/microsoft-copilot-reveals-secret-input-that-allowed-it-to-be-hacked/">Read full article</a></p> <p><a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/microsoft-copilot-reveals-secret-input-that-allowed-it-to-be-hacked/#comments">Comments</a></p> Reference : https://ift.tt/AYtxKpv

IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship Honors Teen Innovators

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/three-high-school-students-posing-with-their-individual-award-plaques-next-to-a-middle-aged-white-woman.jpg?id=67634200&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C156%2C0%2C157"/><br/><br/><p>About 16 percent of the global population—more than 1 billion people—live with some form of disability, according to the <a href="https://www.who.int/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World Health Organization</a>. Many of the disabilities affect independence and mobility.</p><p>Three high school students working on inventions to help people with disabilities restore movement, translate thoughts, and navigate rough terrain had their work showcased at Regeneron’s <a href="https://www.regeneron.com/responsibility/fueling-stem-innovators/isef" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)</a>, held in May in Phoenix. Their projects earned them this year’s <a href="https://www.ieee.org/education/preuniversity/scholarship" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship</a> awards.</p><p>IEEE President <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/maryellen-randall" target="_self">Mary Ellen Randall</a> presented the awards at a <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=HW1uGgQk_7U" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ceremony</a> held during the fair. They also received an IEEE President’s coin, which students said was a highlight of their experience.</p><p>Hollie Tang won this year’s IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her <a href="https://isef.net/project/sftd046-tonguage-tongue-based-hmi-for-motor-disabilities" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wheelchair navigation system</a>. The award is payable over four years of undergraduate university study and includes a complimentary IEEE student membership.</p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/partap-sidhu-2a3561358/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Partap Sidhum</a>, the second-place winner, received a $600 scholarship for his mind-controlled lower-limb exoskeleton. Third-place winner <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvinshung/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Calvin Shang Hung</a> received a $400 scholarship for his rough-terrain robot. Sidhum and Hung also got complimentary IEEE student memberships.</p><p>Established by the <a href="https://www.ieeefoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Foundation</a> and administered by <a href="https://ea.ieee.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Educational Activities</a>, the <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-presidents-scholarship" target="_self">Presidents’ Scholarship</a> recognizes high school students who demonstrate an exceptional grasp of electrical engineering, computer science, or another IEEE field of interest.</p><h2>Controlling movements with a tongue</h2><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="An Asian-American high school student standing in front of her research poster about tongue-based HMI for motor disabilities." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b92a5c4100d9d27533604722317a5248" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="d6f87" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/an-asian-american-high-school-student-standing-in-front-of-her-research-poster-about-tongue-based-hmi-for-motor-disabilities.jpg?id=67634203&width=980"/> <small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Holly Tang won the 2026 IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship of US $10,000 for her Tonguage project, which is a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Lynn Bowlby</small></p><p>Tang, a sophomore at <a href="https://wihs.hlpschools.org/" target="_blank">Wilson High School</a> in Hacienda Heights, Calif., secured the top prize for her <a href="https://isef.net/project/sftd046-tonguage-tongue-based-hmi-for-motor-disabilities" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tonguage</a> project: a noninvasive, computer-vision-based human-machine interface. Using tongue movements and a standard camera, the interface lets users control a computer and other digital tools as well as assistive technologies including wheelchairs. The tongue pad, one of the system’s core features, allows the user’s tongue to function as a directional cursor, while eye blinks serve as mouse clicks.</p><p>Tonguage translates the person’s tongue and eye motions into actionable commands in several ways, such as the tongue’s position inside the mouth and continuous movement patterns. The system’s multimodality combines input from the tongue with other facial cues.</p><p>The system includes a face-tracking feature for error prevention that verifies commands are coming from the intended user, disregarding anyone else who moves into the camera’s frame.</p><p>That is a critical safety measure for a wheelchair-navigation application, Tang says.</p><p>Accessibility was central to Tang’s mission. She built the system to run on relatively affordable, readily available laptop cameras rather than more costly specialized hardware.</p><p>“Mobility conditions don’t discriminate,” she says. “They can affect anyone of any income, gender, and socioeconomic status.”</p><p>Tang initially imagined Tonguage as a simple substitute for a keyboard and mouse. The more research she did, though, the more she realized that it could offer autonomy through applications such as wheelchair navigation, robotic arm control, and gaming, she says.</p><p>“We’re so focused on trying to give people autonomy over just basic human tasks that we often leave out things like gaming,” she says. “They deserve the freedom to play games and enjoy entertainment as well.”</p><p>Tang, who plans to pursue biomedical engineering, says a visit to a rehabilitation center solidified her purpose.</p><p>“Including empathy in your technological solution is so important,” she says. “Empathy is hard to teach in a classroom, but it can be learned through experience, and through actually meeting people whose lives your work might change.”</p><h2>Mind-controlled exoskeleton </h2><p>Sidhu, a junior at <a href="https://www.bethpagecommunity.com/o/bhs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bethpage High School</a>, in New York, took second place for <a href="https://isef.net/project/robo024-mind-controlled-lower-limb-pneumatic-exoskeleton" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">NeuroGait</a>, a mind-controlled, lower-limb <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/soft-exoskeleton-motor-free" target="_self">exoskeleton</a>. He says he was inspired by his volunteer work at a community center that lacked elevators. He saw individuals with mobility issues struggle to navigate the three flights of stairs.</p><p>NeuroGait<em> </em>operates by reading the Bereitschaftspotential (BP), a faint electrical pattern that emerges one to two seconds before a person consciously initiates movement. Using a custom electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and a convolutional neural network (CNN), the system classifies intended movements and sends commands to a 3D-printed exoskeleton. Rather than rigid motors, the suit relies on pneumatic artificial muscles that Sidhu designed to mimic human anatomy.</p><p>“The pneumatic artificial muscle in itself is so compliant that it’s able to adjust to the limitations of the human body,” he says.</p><p>The technical specifications are striking: The CNN achieves a 99.9 percent accuracy in detecting a person’s intended movement, while the full system—from the brain’s signal to physical movement—operates at 95.2 percent accuracy, according to the results from 500 trials Sidhu conducted. </p><p>Perhaps most impressively, Sidhu built the entire system for about $276, less than 1 percent of the $40,000 to $100,000 price tag of commercial exoskeletons, according to a <a href="https://www.rootsanalysis.com/reports/medical-exoskeleton-market.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2025 revenue report</a> from Roots Analysis.</p><p>He says he hopes to bring NeuroGait<em> </em>to the community center where the idea for the project began.</p><p>He attributes his success to staying current with research from institutions and organizations such as <a href="https://bostondynamics.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Boston Dynamics</a> and <a href="https://www.mit.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MIT</a>.</p><p>“To be successful in research,” he says, “you have to know what’s being done right now.”</p><h2>A spider-inspired robot </h2><p>Hung, a sophomore at <a href="https://ecgauchos.wccusd.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">El Cerrito High School</a>, in California, took third place for <a href="https://www.societyforscience.org/press-release/regeneron-isef-2026-special-awards-ceremony/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Math Into Motion: Robotic Hexapod for Hazardous Environments</a>. The six-legged robot is designed to traverse terrain too unstable for humans or conventional robotic systems.</p><p>With only weeks before the science fair deadline for entries and no prior electrical engineering experience, Hung began with an idea inspired by his interest in spaceflight: an insectlike robot. He had spent years watching rovers such as<em> </em><a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em><em>Curiosity</em></em></a> and <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em><em>Perseverance</em></em></a><em> </em>struggle on uneven surfaces, leading him to hypothesize that a hexapod design would be better for rugged ground.</p><p>As the project progressed, the humanitarian applications for his robot became clearer, he says. Watching news reports of the earthquake that struck Türkiye in 2023, as well as conflicts around the globe, Hung adapted his robot for use in disasters. The hexapod’s stable tripod walking gait, in which three legs stay grounded while the other three move, makes it well suited for navigating in collapsed buildings to locate survivors or to carry sensitive supplies such as insulin in conflict zones.</p><p>The current version moves using three mathematical techniques. Inverse kinematics converts a target leg position into the motor angles needed to reach it. Linear interpolation breaks each movement into a series of smaller steps for smoother motion. And Euclidean transformations translate the robot’s travel direction into instructions that each leg can follow, regardless of the way a leg happens to be facing.</p><p>Hung taught himself how to design a printed circuit board. He also taught himself 3D modeling, coding, and soldering. Figuring out the complicated mathematical transformations to coordinate legs facing different directions proved to be the toughest hurdle, he says.</p><p>After seven months of development and trial and error, a critical circuit board failure in his third version nearly ended the project, he says.</p><p>“There was a really strong moment of ‘Should I just give up?’” he recalls.</p><p>He simplified the design and rebuilt it from the ground up.</p><p>“I just decided to double down,” he says. The fourth version of the robot was the first that successfully walked across his living room floor.</p><p>He advises aspiring engineers that “if you find the right project and it truly becomes your passion, designing it almost starts to feel like fun, and that’s what carries you through.”</p><p>As the three young innovators demonstrate, the future of engineering goes far beyond technical ingenuity. Much is rooted in empathy and a commitment to human welfare.</p><p>Through initiatives such as the IEEE Presidents’ Scholarship, the IEEE Foundation showcases and nurtures bright minds poised to shape the next era of assistive technology and robotics.</p><p>For Tang, Sidhu, and Hung, the ISEF stage is just the beginning. They can look forward to impactful careers dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.</p> Reference: https://ift.tt/MyoiBQC