technology 24 for you: August 2026

Monday, August 31, 2026

This Teen Helped Native American Students Earn Ham Radio Licenses

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-teenage-girl-smiling-as-she-stands-in-front-of-a-table-displaying-her-kelvin-water-dropper-project.jpg?id=67701388&width=1200&height=400&coordinates=0%2C417%2C0%2C417"/> For many high school students, summer vacation is a time to unplug. For Ruchira Shree, a rising sophomore at <a href="https://www.west-windsor-plainsboro.k12.nj.us/schools/high_school_south" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">West Windsor–Plainsboro High School South</a>, in New Jersey, the break allows her to ramp up her extracurricular pursuits.Much of her time is spent assisting with <a href="https://site.ieee.org/pcjs/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Princeton Central Jersey Section</a> activities. She got involved with the PCJS because of her mother, IEEE Senior Member <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubha-bommalingaiahnapallya-315b4a6/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shubha Bommalingaiahnapallya</a>, who is the section’s vice chair. Bommalingaiahnapallya is a principal engineer at <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/company-overview/company-overview.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Intel</a>.“I started going to the IEEE meetings when I was little,” Shree says. “I used to go with my mom and just sit in the back of the room.”This summer she says she’s focusing on improving her mathematics skills by attending the <a href="https://algorithmicthinking.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Program in Algorithmic and Combinatorial Thinking</a> summer course on math and computer science. She wants to qualify for the <a href="https://maa.org/news/2025-26-aime-thresholds-are-now-available/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">American Invitational Mathematics Examination</a>, an event for the top <a href="https://maa.org/student-programs/amc/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">American Mathematics Competitions</a> scorers. She earned a place on the AMC 8 honor roll—a recognition awarded to the top 1 percent of participants in the national competition—when she was in seventh grade.Shree’s IEEE involvement and her advanced math skills caught the attention of an internship recruiter for the <a href="https://aimathcircles.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Alliance for Indigenous Math Circles</a>, a group dedicated to expanding STEM opportunities for Native American students. The AIMC organizes and sponsors weeklong overnight camps. Interns assist with activities and teach some of the sessions. Shree met a recruiter at one of the section’s events, and she interned at one of the camps last year.<h2>The IEEE-math camp connection</h2>Shree’s involvement with the PCJS evolved naturally as she got older, she says, along the way preparing name badges and tackling similar assignments. She met <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/francis-o-connell-8a43281/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Francis O’Connell</a>, an IEEE life senior member and founder of <a href="https://fxoinc.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">FXO</a>, in Plainsboro, N.J. O’Connell is the treasurer of the IEEE <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/1801287/all-proceedings" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Integrated STEM in Education Conference</a> (ISEC).He has been a mentor to Shree for the past two years, he says.At last year’s ISEC, she assisted at the registration desk and met Harini Frederickson, an AIMC intern recruiter for New Jersey.Frederickson invited Shree, along with nine other students, to volunteer at an upcoming camp being held in Santa Fe, N.M.“Ruchira is a real go-getter,” Frederickson says. “When she has an idea, she follows through and doesn’t get easily discouraged.”The AIMC was created to address an important need, says math teacher <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnafernandez345/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Donna Fernandez</a>, codirector of the organization. U.S. Indigenous students have <a href="https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20212/participation-of-demographic-groups-in-stem" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the lowest rate of pursuing STEM studies</a> across all demographics, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation. Systemic barriers such as a lack of role models in STEM fields, socioeconomic inequities, and Eurocentric teaching frameworks are some of the reasons, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rechel-shrisunder-2195ab1a4/?skipRedirect=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rechel Shrisunder</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-figueiredo-b549b5162/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dwight Figueiredo</a> wrote in <a href="https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/1208282" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a chapter</a> of <a href="https://www.intechopen.com/books/1004306" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Minorities: New Challenges and Horizons</a>, a book edited by <a href="https://www.intechopen.com/profiles/422052" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">John R. Hermann</a>.Indigenous people have a long tradition of mathematics, Fernandez says. She cites the <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indian-code-talkers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Navajo code talkers</a> from World War II as examples. The Navajo, along with 14 other Indigenous tribes, used their native languages to code and transmit critical messages for the U.S. military during the war.There was a student at camp whose grandfather was a code talker, Shree says.Navajo people also use math to build <a href="https://www.navajorug.com/blogs/news/hogans-the-center-of-the-navajo-world" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">hogans</a>: conical dwellings that require precise calculations to construct. Native communities have used math when building the structures for centuries, Fernandez says.Fernandez believes typical classroom math curricula overlook the importance of mathematics in Indigenous cultures. Combining STEM activities with cultural elements helps Indigenous students better understand their ancestors’ role as mathematicians, she says.That, in turn, helps the students see themselves in those careers, she adds.The AIMC was built upon a program already in place: the <a href="https://mathcircles.org/circles/navajo-nation-math-circles/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Navajo Nation Math Circles</a>, founded in 2012 by three university professors. Their goal was to provide the Navajo Nation’s students with tools to overcome barriers to STEM education.To expand the <a href="https://mathcircles.org/about/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">math circle</a> program, the AIMC was added to reach Indigenous students in the Four Corners area of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.Since 2017, the organization has run two camps every year at the <a href="https://navajoprep.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Navajo Preparatory School</a> in Farmington, N.M. In 2025 one camp was moved to the <a href="https://www.sfis.k12.nm.us" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Santa Fe Indian School</a>.During each weeklong event, students and interns work in math circles. It’s a cooperative way to solve problems creatively, organizers say. Students collaborate on STEM-focused projects and learn from Indigenous STEM professionals. Interns also get the opportunity to experience an off-site cultural event.The camps are free for students, thanks to sponsorships and donations. Teachers and interns cover their own travel expenses. Shree secured a US $1,500 sponsorship grant through the PCJS.<h2>Building relationships through STEM activities</h2>Relationships are an influential part of the week, Fernandez says: “One of the best things we see at the camp is that students return the following year and ask, ‘Is so-and-so intern coming back this year?’ They remember the relationships they developed, especially the cultural exchanges they had.“Those exchanges go both ways, benefiting the interns too.”Students spend mornings at camp working in math circles, then gather for a wrangle, during which each team defends its math circle answer and challenges other teams’ solutions. Shree and the other interns are on hand to answer questions and observe the teams as they work through the math circle problems.“Math problems typically have very binary answers,” she says. “But in math circles, you focus more on talking through your answers to open-ended questions and learning from each other.”Students spend afternoons working on projects. In one, the students used household items to create a replica of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batmobile" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Batmobile</a>, Shree says. The car was required to be self-propelled without an engine. Balloons were a popular alternative.Another activity focused on the Indigenous tradition of basket weaving. Students learned the cultural meaning behind traditional designs while understanding how geometry concepts influenced the finished product. <img alt="Native American middle school students sitting on a classroom floor while solving a mathematical pattern-matching game together." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d9ca995e82df9126dad8b761afa9da8c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="c2506" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/native-american-middle-school-students-sitting-on-a-classroom-floor-while-solving-a-mathematical-pattern-matching-game-together.jpg?id=67701402&width=980"/> These Native American middle school students work on solving a mathematical pattern-matching game, one of the activities held at the summer camp.Ruchira Shree<h2>Role models inspire students</h2>“Because there’s a lack of Indigenous STEM role models, many Native American students don’t see themselves in mathematics or science,” Shree says.To bridge that gap, Fernandez ensures Indigenous role models are part of the camp. Some of the people who spoke with students during Shree’s internship were <a href="https://bse.berkeley.edu/jessica-benally" target="_blank">Jessica Benally</a>, a Ph.D. student in the learning sciences and human development program at the <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of California, Berkeley</a>, and engineers from the <a href="https://ess.unm.edu/programs/k-12-opportunities/nm-mesa.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New Mexico Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement</a> program, which supports underrepresented preuniversity students.“I believe the students were very inspired,” Shree says, “because they could see how they themselves could pursue STEM careers. They had people to look up to in the field who had come from backgrounds just like theirs.”<h2>Interns in action</h2>The interns’ primary responsibility was leading a two-hour, after-dinner Radio Weaves session. They taught students about a popular communication technology that doesn’t require the Internet or cell towers.<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/ham-radio" target="_self">Ham radio</a>, also known as <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tag/amateur-radio" target="_self">amateur radio</a>, is a communication method that uses designated frequencies. In the United States, anyone can listen to amateur radio transmissions; to legally transmit on the frequencies, though, a user needs a <a href="https://www.fcc.gov" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Federal Communications Commission</a> license. The Radio Weaves project is designed to prepare students to pass the FCC <a href="https://www.arrl.org/getting-your-technician-license" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">technician license exam</a>.To make that happen, the interns customized <a href="https://www.gimkit.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gimkit</a>, a learning game, loading it with radio-specific content that mirrored topics that could appear on the test.Each intern worked with two or three students to complete the Gimkit materials.Frederickson, who was on hand for the camp, says the aim was to send students home with something tangible that demonstrated their STEM accomplishments.Nearly all the students passed the exam on the first try, she says, and she worked with those who didn’t to retake the test.All the students ultimately received their license, she says.<h2>Inspiration comes in several forms</h2>The interns took an afternoon off to attend a <a href="https://indianpueblo.org/feast-days/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pueblo Feast Day</a>, a celebration filled with music and dance that culminated in visits with nearby families, with whom they shared dinner.“The tradition is very generous and community-based,” Shree says. “It represents that every home in the village will welcome any guest to have a meal.”The feast was the highlight of Shree’s week, she says: “I got to really experience Native American culture firsthand.”The students inspired her, she says.“Seeing the joy on their faces when they passed the technician exam or when they got a math problem correct showed me how much joy they find in learning,” she says. “It made me realize that I want to help provide more opportunities for them to learn and challenge themselves.”“Because there’s a lack of Indigenous STEM role models, many Native American students don’t see themselves in mathematics or science.” —Ruchira ShreeThat realization spurred her idea for a new initiative. After she returned home, she founded <a href="https://www.rukiecookie.org" target="_blank">Rukie Cookie</a> to create “safe, inclusive, and inspiring spaces where youths explore STEAM [and] build curiosity, strategic thinking, and innovation—empowering them to become confident leaders and active contributors to a more just and equitable society,” according to the project’s website.Baking is one of Shree’s hobbies, and she sees it as a way to fulfill a financial need she observed at camp.“I noticed that at lunch breaks, they [camp students] used to play chess on the side, but they couldn’t actually participate in tournaments because that requires a <a href="https://new.uschess.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">U.S. Chess Federation</a> (USCF) membership fee, which they couldn’t afford,” she says. Shree bakes cookies and sells them at PCJS events. Proceeds go toward youth chess classes and USCF memberships for children in underrepresented communities.She has raised enough money to sponsor six USCF memberships, five of whom are camp attendees, she says.“I hope that the students I have gotten a membership for will continue growing their passion for chess,” she says, “but also that it will encourage them to challenge themselves with difficult problems.”<h2>What’s next?</h2>Shree planned to attend an AIMC camp this year, she says, but it was canceled due to resourcing issues. She says she intends to return next year with goals of adding a formal chess component to the schedule and continuing to help more students overcome financial hurdles to join the USCF.She’s also writing a novel about Alzheimer’s disease and identity loss, and she’s conducting independent research on cognitive decline at the <a href="https://www.njit.edu" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">New Jersey Institute of Technology</a>. Watching her great-grandmother struggle with the condition sparked her interest in the subject, she says.She is confident STEM will be part of her future, she says. Math and cognitive science are areas of interest she plans to study, but she’s still undecided about a major. Her interest in Alzheimer’s research and a desire to apply AI to health care will influence her decision, she says.She adds that she plans to join IEEE once she’s eligible. Reference: https://ift.tt/wtYVb2I

Think twice before installing this device promising free movies

As online services get better at blocking malicious traffic, the attackers and scammers behind them have been forced to find new ways to reach their targets. The alternative of choice is now what are known as residential proxy networks. These systems funnel millions of home Internet connections into a unified network, and the proxy operators allow attackers to route their malicious traffic through these connections for a fee. The online services see only IP addresses with good reputations and geolocations that don’t stand out. More often than not, the home users have no idea that their connections are being used to facilitate crime and occasionally even <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/09/china-state-hackers-are-camping-out-in-cisco-routers-us-and-japan-warn/">nation-state attacks</a>. Users who do know often don’t care much. In exchange for leasing out part of their unlimited bandwidth to others, many get free movie and TV show streaming. Several less tech-savvy people I know who own such digital media players have told me, after I explain how the media players piggyback off their connections, that the bonanza of content is worth it. They find the tangible benefits outweigh the abstract harm they pose. <h2>Infecting already compromised devices</h2> Research published Monday brings the threat into much clearer view. Security firm Plume cataloged a vast ecosystem of malware that preys squarely on users of <a href="https://mysuperboxtv.com/">SuperBox</a>, just one of many media players offering pirated content. These malicious apps can be surreptitiously installed by remote attackers even when the devices are positioned behind a router. While Monday’s deep-dive analysis focused exclusively on SuperBox, Plume warned that dozens of similar streaming devices pose precisely the same threat.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/how-some-media-streaming-devices-open-home-networks-to-a-world-of-harm/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/how-some-media-streaming-devices-open-home-networks-to-a-world-of-harm/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/XZnDi1a

This Teen Helped Native American Students Earn Ham Radio Licenses

The EU’s AI Drive Undermines Its Own Chip Strategy

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/illustration-of-a-microchip-with-eu-flag-symbols.jpg?id=67681157&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C62%2C0%2C63"/> This story was <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/the-eus-ai-boom-could-undermine-its-own-chip-strategy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">originally published</a> by <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Tech Policy Press</a>.The European Union’s push for technological sovereignty faces an uncomfortable contradiction.As the EU rolls out AI factories, gigafactories, and new data centers, it is creating a surge in demand for the advanced semiconductors that underpin artificial intelligence. Yet Europe produces fewer than 10 percent of the world’s chips and remains heavily dependent on U.S. designers and Asian manufacturers for the most advanced processors.That tension sits at the heart of <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/europe-tech-sovereignty-package" target="_self">Chips Act 2.0</a>, the European Commission’s planned overhaul of its flagship semiconductor strategy.The original Chips Act, adopted in 2023, sought to raise Europe’s share of global semiconductor production to 20 percent by 2030. But the European Court of Auditors has warned that target is unlikely to be met, while the Commission’s own projections put Europe’s market share at about 11.7 percent.The Commission now wants to correct what officials see as a major weakness in the first law: It focused on expanding supply without doing enough to stimulate demand. To address that gap, Chips Act 2.0 is expected to introduce demand-side measures, including public procurement tools, demand accelerators, and closer coordination between semiconductor producers and industrial users. The Commission’s calculation is straightforward: Stronger domestic demand will encourage companies to invest in designing and manufacturing chips in Europe.But the strategy carries a paradox. The AI infrastructure that the Commission hopes will anchor a European semiconductor ecosystem will initially rely almost entirely on advanced processors designed by U.S. companies and manufactured in Asia.“Key positions are held by a small number of firms, mostly outside Europe,” Claire Godfrey, executive director of the Balanced Economy Project, told Tech Policy Press.<h2>AI factories create a demand trap</h2>The European Commission’s <a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/ai-continent-action-plan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AI Continent action plan</a> includes 19 <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/competitiveness-coordination-tool-projects/ai-gigafactories_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AI factories</a>, computing facilities that integrate energy sources, specialized chips, and other infrastructure for running AI models and applications, plans for up to five AI gigafactories (since <a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/eu-launches-ai-gigafactories-call-boost-europes-computing-capacity-and-unlock-more-eu30-billion" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">upgraded to seven</a>), and a proposal to at least triple the bloc’s data center capacity within five to seven years under the <a href="https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cloud-and-ai-development-act" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cloud and AI Development Act</a>. That expansion will require a large supply of advanced AI processors.The Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS) estimates that each planned AI factory site requires up to 25,000 advanced chips, while a gigafactory requires at least 100,000.Almost all of those processors are expected to come from Nvidia. The company supplies most of the graphics processing units deployed in Europe, while its proprietary CUDA software underpins much of the AI software ecosystem. CEPS warns this could create an “Nvidia dependency trap,” where computing infrastructure is physically located in Europe but remains technologically dependent on a single U.S. supplier.Recent AI infrastructure projects in Europe illustrate the problem. Mistral has lined up 13,800 Nvidia GPUs for a data center near Paris. Deutsche Telekom’s Munich Industrial AI Cloud is being built with nearly 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. And Nscale says its Sines deployment for Microsoft will start with more than 12,600 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra GPUs before expanding to more than 66,000 in 2027.<h2>Europe still doesn’t control the chip supply chain</h2>The challenge extends well beyond Nvidia. Even if Europe succeeds in expanding semiconductor manufacturing, the global supply chain limits how much autonomy any single region can achieve.“Europe depends on both the United States and Asia, but at different stages of the value chain,” Toni Roldán-Monés, economist and assistant professor of public policy at IE University, told Tech Policy Press.“The United States maintains a dominant position in areas such as chip design, intellectual property, and certain frontier equipment. Meanwhile, the manufacturing of the most advanced semiconductors is highly concentrated in Asia, especially in Taiwan and South Korea, while China plays a fundamental role in various materials, industrial processes, and critical minerals,” said Roldán.Europe’s reliance on third countries is more evident in some parts of the chip value chain. In fabrication, Taiwan produces around 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips. In packaging, assembly, and testing, the EU holds just 4 percent of the market and remains highly dependent on Asia, according to Laith Altimime, President of SEMI Europe.“The objective is… to avoid excessive dependence on a single country, company, or technology.” Toni Roldán-Monés“No top 20 assembly, test, and packaging company is headquartered in the EU,” Godfrey said. “There is also the materials issue. China dominates several inputs used in key parts of the semiconductor and advanced electronics supply chain.”Europe nevertheless retains important advantages.The region is home to <a href="https://www.asml.com/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ASML</a>, the Dutch company that dominates the market for <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/high-na-euv" target="_self">extreme ultraviolet lithography systems</a>, and to Belgium’s <a href="https://www.imec-int.com/en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Imec</a>, one of the world’s leading semiconductor research centers. Europe also remains a key supplier of specialist materials and power electronics.Those strengths, however, “do not translate into autonomy across the semiconductor value chain,” Roldán said.<h2>Sovereignty means resilience, not self-sufficiency</h2>Few experts believe complete semiconductor self-sufficiency is achievable.Instead, the goal should be to reduce strategic vulnerabilities rather than eliminate international interdependence. “It is not conceivable that one country can rebuild the supply chain. Global collaboration is key,” SEMI Europe’s Altimime told Tech Policy Press. SEMI forecasts that by 2028 the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region will only manufacture about 68 percent by volume of the non-memory semiconductor chips it demands.“The challenge is to reduce dependencies that could become geopolitical vulnerabilities,” argues Roldán. “The sensible approach is to strengthen critical parts of the value chain, diversify suppliers, protect sensitive data, and develop domestic capabilities in strategic sectors. That can coexist perfectly well with foreign suppliers: The objective is not to expel them, but to avoid excessive dependence on a single country, company, or technology.”That distinction is especially relevant for Europe’s sovereignty ambitions. As Godfrey notes, “European firms are building around Nvidia hardware, CUDA, cloud infrastructure, and the software choices that come with them. That leaves Europe with two problems. It relies on Asian manufacturing and materials chokepoints. It is also at risk of trying to address that exposure by tying itself more closely to U.S.-controlled AI and cloud infrastructure. The Chips Act 2.0 needs to deal with both, or it will miss a large part of the problem.”Roldán said Europe’s greatest vulnerability is dependence on partners willing to use global supply chains for geopolitical leverage. Whether Chips Act 2.0 reduces that risk, experts say, will depend on whether it diversifies suppliers rather than just shifting dependence from Asian manufacturers to U.S. technology companies. Reference: https://ift.tt/RYd1GkU

The First Battery Was Inspired By a Dead Frog

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-collage-of-historic-images-showing-two-men-in-18th-century-garb-with-background-illustrations-of-a-device-with-two-columns-and.jpg?id=67685016&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C113%2C0%2C114"/> In a display case on the lower level of the Faraday Museum at the Royal Institution in London, there’s an unassuming stack of gray metal discs and blotting paper. It’s not at all obvious that this humble object is the starting point of today’s multibillion-dollar global battery industry. The object’s invention in 1799 grew out of a disagreement that <a href="https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/alessandro-volta/" target="_blank">Alessandro Volta</a>—the Italian physicist for whom the unit of measurement for electrical potential is named—had with his friend <a href="https://nationalmaglab.org/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/pioneers/luigi-galvani/" target="_blank">Luigi Galvani</a> over a dead frog.<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe height="110px" id="noa-web-audio-player" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=q5m19e&id=https://spectrum.ieee.org/voltaic-pile-first-battery?draft=1&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=1b1b1c&playColor=1b1b1c&progressBgColor=F5F5F5&progressBorderColor=bdbbbb&titleColor=1b1b1c&timeColor=1b1b1c&speedColor=1b1b1c&noaLinkColor=556B7D&noaLinkHighlightColor=FF4B00&feedbackButton=true" style="border: none" width="100%"></iframe></div><h2>The Debate Over Animal Electricity </h2>Galvani was a well-respected Italian physician. In the 1770s, he began investigating the use of electricity to stimulate the muscles of dissected frogs. Armed with an electrostatic generator and an early type of capacitor called a Leyden jar, he was able to create a charge, store it, and then zap his animal specimens at will. He was intrigued when the frog legs twitched as if they were still alive. He spent the last three decades of the 18th century studying the phenomenon, and in 1791, he published <a href="https://archive.org/details/AloysiiGalvaniD00Galv" target="_blank">De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari commentarius</a> (Commentary on the Effect of Electricity on Muscular Motion). <img alt="Historic illustration of a man in 18th century garb holding a pair of tongs that in turn hold a pair of frog legs." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9fd4a27b2960fb61edf9e003759bba8a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="bb0ac" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/historic-illustration-of-a-man-in-18th-century-garb-holding-a-pair-of-tongs-that-in-turn-hold-a-pair-of-frog-legs.jpg?id=67685030&width=980"/> Luigi Galvani spent decades investigating what he believed to be a natural electric force emanating from animals. Universal History Archive/Getty ImagesGalvani saw the frog as embodying an “animal electricity,” an innate vital force that activated nerves and muscles, similar to what had been observed in (living) electric eels and torpedo rays. For Galvani, the frog was an electrical machine analogous to a Leyden jar. The brain was the source of the electrical charge; the nerves conducted the electrical fluid; and the muscles stored opposite charges. The illustrations in his 1791 book are fabulous—frog legs spread all over his laboratory table! <img alt="Historic illustration showing dissected frog legs arrayed on a table, with disembodied hands holding wires attached to each frog specimen." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="17b1adae22ba25b0f9b67be53746ca68" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="bd6c5" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/historic-illustration-showing-dissected-frog-legs-arrayed-on-a-table-with-disembodied-hands-holding-wires-attached-to-each-frog.jpg?id=67685103&width=980"/> Galvani was wrong in thinking that his frogs were electrical machines, but he was right that the muscle contractions were caused by electric signals.SSPL/Getty ImagesAt first, Volta, chair of physics at the University of Pavia, concurred with his friend. But after beginning his own experiments, he concluded that Galvani was wrong and that the frog generated no electricity at all. He thought of the frog as nothing more than an electroscope, an instrument to indicate the presence of an electrical charge. Volta posited that the source of the charge Galvani observed came from two different metals in contact with the frog. He termed this “metallic electricity.” <img alt="Historic illustration of a man in 18th century garb." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="36d9bc1ea744c8970c376037f98d2d6c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="927c3" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/historic-illustration-of-a-man-in-18th-century-garb.jpg?id=67685036&width=980"/> Alessandro Volta came to disagree with Galvani’s theory of animal electricity.Apic/Getty ImagesTo prove his point, Volta created an “artificial electric organ.” He stacked alternating discs of copper and zinc, separated by cardboard, blotting paper, or cloth soaked in brine or acid. When the top and bottom plates were connected, an electric current flowed through the stack. As opposed to a Leyden jar, which is essentially a capacitor that can store an electric charge and release it in a brief powerful discharge, his stack of discs generated its own electricity through a chemical reaction and delivered a sustained low-current output.Volta didn’t publicly demonstrate or announce his artificial electric organ until after Galvani died in 1798. But when he finally did, in 1799, it immediately began upending science. Just six weeks after Volta wrote to the Royal Society about his invention, the English scientists William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle used a voltaic pile to run a current through water to separate it into hydrogen and oxygen. They had discovered chemical electrolysis. Humphry Davy later used a large voltaic pile to isolate a number of elements, including potassium, sodium, calcium, strontium, and barium. Early piles petered out after a few hours. Users who stacked up more metal discs to make more powerful piles found the weight of the discs squeezed out the moisture in the paper or cloth. <img alt="Photo of a stack of gray discs supported by vertical pieces and sitting atop a square wooden stand." class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6f234a4a2f16d78dc8d2daa8fa43961c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="7f40b" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/photo-of-a-stack-of-gray-discs-supported-by-vertical-pieces-and-sitting-atop-a-square-wooden-stand.jpg?id=67685094&width=980"/> Invented in 1799, Volta’s “artificial electric organ” (later known as the voltaic pile) was the first battery. Volta presented this one to Michael Faraday in 1814.Royal Institution of Great Britain/Science SourceOne of the most enthusiastic users of the voltaic pile was Galvani’s nephew, <a href="https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/giovanni-aldini/" target="_blank">Giovanni Aldini</a>, who spent much of his career defending his uncle’s ideas. Aldini created spectacles across Europe in which he used voltaic piles to shock the carcasses of livestock and, occasionally, the bodies of recently executed convicts. Vivid descriptions in the popular press, as well as <a href="https://archive.org/details/commentaryonthee002243mbp/page/n25/mode/2up" target="_blank">Aldini’s own writings</a>, raised the question of whether electricity could bring the dead back to life. Mary Shelley provided her answer in her 1818 novel, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/84/pg84-images.html" target="_blank">Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus</a>. In an introduction to an <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42324/42324-h/42324-h.htm" target="_blank">1831 edition</a>, Shelley cites galvanism as one of her inspirations for the monster’s reanimation process.<h2>Beyond Winners and Losers in Scientific Debates</h2>Scientists and historians share a common trait: They like stories with clear winners and losers. The narrative of competition helps drive a narrative of progress that makes it look like humanity is always moving forward. In the case of Galvani and Volta, Volta is usually depicted as the clear winner in the debate over animal versus metallic electricity. The Encyclopedia Britannica goes as far as to write that “with his announcement of the first electric battery in 1800, victory was assured for Volta.”But both science and history are more nuanced than that. In fact, Galvani and Volta were both partially right and partially wrong. There was no universal force of animal electricity, but Galvani was correct that electrical signals caused muscle contractions, which he discussed in his anonymous 1794 publication Dell’uso e dell’attività dell’arco conduttore nella contrazione dei muscoli (On the Use and Activity of the Conductive Arch in the Contraction of Muscles). Volta was right to push back on Galvani’s animal electricity theory, but he was wrong that electrophysiological effects require two different types of metal, or any metal at all; the circuit in the voltaic pile was closed by the wet paper or cloth.It seems a little presumptuous for the Encyclopedia Britannica to declare Volta the winner and Galvani the loser. Volta definitely thought his friend was wrong, but he waited until after Galvani’s death to make his views public. It’s closer to the truth to say they were both genuinely curious to understand the nature of electricity. In the process, they unknowingly helped develop different fields of inquiry: electrophysiology for Galvani and electrochemistry and battery science for Volta.RELATED: <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/lithium-ion-battery-2662487214" target="_blank">Who Really Invented the Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery?</a>Such an outcome is actually quite common in scientific disagreements. For example, Isaac Newton’s dispute with Christiaan Huygens over the nature of light—did light consist of particles, or corpuscles, as Newton termed them, or waves, as Huygens contested—breaks down today into quantum optics and classical optics. Similarly, Louis Pasteur’s and Justus von Liebig’s debate over fermentation (microorganisms versus chemical decomposition) led to two complementary fields: microbiology and biochemistry.Maybe instead of looking for winners and losers, we would be better off expanding our horizons and considering the multiple paths of inquiry and discovery. Writing in 1816, toward the end of his career, Volta graciously acknowledged Galvani’s pioneering work, saying “it contains one of the most beautiful and surprising discoveries and the germ of many others.” What new revelations are waiting to develop out of today’s scientific debates?Part of a <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/collections/past-forward/" target="_self">continuing series</a> looking at historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.An abridged version of this article appears in the September 2026 print issue as “The First Battery.” <h3>References</h3> On 20 March 1800, a year and three months after the death of Luigi Galvani, <a href="https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/l-and-p_11_137?page=1" target="_blank">Alessandro Volta wrote a letter</a> (in French) to Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, describing his invention of an artificial electric organ. It was read before the Society on 26 June and <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstl/article/doi/10.1098/rstl.1800.0018/121243/XVII-On-the-electricity-excited-by-the-mere" target="_blank">published in </a><a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstl/article/doi/10.1098/rstl.1800.0018/121243/XVII-On-the-electricity-excited-by-the-mere">Philosophical Transactions</a> on the last day of that year as “On the electricity excited by the mere contact of conducting substances of different kinds.”The Smithsonian Institution Libraries used their rare books in the online exhibit <a href="https://library.si.edu/exhibition/fantastic-worlds/body-electric" target="_blank">The Body Electric</a>, which has more information on both Galvani and Aldini.The website of the Whipple Museum in Cambridge, England, has a number of pages devoted to <a href="https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/explore-whipple-collections/frogs/frogs-and-animal-electricity" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">frogs</a>, including a very informative description of the role frogs played in Galvani’s experiments and how those led to Volta’s work. Reference: https://ift.tt/sHRwzqL

Sunday, August 30, 2026

Inside Meta’s push to put robots to work in data centers

Meta is testing robots that can plug in cables, reset servers, and handle other tasks inside its <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-data-centers-broke-american-politics/">data centers</a>, according to several current and former workers familiar with the projects. The ongoing effort, which has not been previously reported, may eventually allow <a href="https://www.wired.com/tag/meta/">Meta</a> to operate its rapidly expanding data center footprint with fewer humans, keeping labor costs in check as its spending on <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-google-meta-2025-earnings/">AI infrastructure soars</a>. Meta is using robots and related hardware from several different vendors, including Watney Robotics, Kinova, and ABB, according to the same workers, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. Kinova and ABB declined to comment. Watney didn’t respond to requests for comment. In one experiment, Meta is evaluating whether a Kinova Gen3 robotic arm could be used for power cycling or cutting off electricity to servers. The company is also testing a different robot to swap networking cables. One Meta data center worker estimates that if it’s successful, the bot could replace up to 80 percent of some people’s workloads. “We thought those of us performing the physical tasks were safe for a while, but not anymore,” says the worker. “It’s coming for us all, unfortunately.”<a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/inside-metas-push-to-put-robots-to-work-in-data-centers/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/08/inside-metas-push-to-put-robots-to-work-in-data-centers/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/nqi5DEQ

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Noodling on Nuclear Engines

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/hand-drawn-schematic-of-turbine-powered-heat-pipe-system-with-labeled-components.png?id=67675201&width=1200&height=800&coordinates=0%2C64%2C0%2C65"/> One day in 1982, Joseph “Rod” Canion and two colleagues from Texas Instruments sat down at the House of Pies in Houston and used a<a href="https://custom-powder.com/napkin-sketches-the-story-of-compaq-computers/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> napkin to sketch out</a> what would become Compaq’s portable PC. In 1996, Felix Zandman, founder of Vishay Intertechnology, dined at Husker Steak House in Columbus, Neb., grabbed a napkin and drafted a design for a power metal strip resistor, which became crucial to power-management components in industrial, automotive, and consumer applications. Now that wispy piece of paper resides at the<a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_744736" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History</a>. Perhaps most famously, Robert Metcalfe, working at Xerox PARC in 1973,<a href="https://digibarn.com/collections/diagrams/ethernet-original/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> roughed out some early designs for what would become the [?] Ethernet</a>, though contrary to popular belief, no napkin was involved. Yet another napkin was pressed into service last year, when <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtpolzin/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kurt Polzin</a>, chief engineer of the space nuclear propulsion project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, met Robert Schleicher of General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at a conference and started talking about nuclear rocket design. “They did the classic let’s-sketch-out-an-idea-on-a-napkin,” says IEEE Spectrum’s Special Projects Editor and our in-house spaceflight expert Stephen Cass. “This rocket engine is still at the paper-planning stage, which, to be fair, is where most of NASA’s humans-to-Mars planning has been for the last 60 years.”Meanwhile, the world’s richest person is pushing for humans to <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/elon-musk-spacex" target="_self">colonize Mars</a> in time for him to escape our hospitable blue marble for a completely barren red planet. One big problem with this idea: It takes a long time in hostile space to get there. “Here’s our napkin. Noodle on this with us and tell us what you think.” —Stephen CassThere’s an old saw, mostly used in the context of road safety, that speed kills. But when it comes to sending humans on interplanetary missions, the faster the better. As Cass pointed out, “Once you get outside the Van Allen belts, there’s so much natural radioactivity—that’s the real killer.” Nuclear electric propulsion could both minimize launch costs and the time fragile human bodies are subjected to microgravity and radiation. And that makes a synchronal bimodal nuclear engine that could both power and propel a spaceship an attractive alternative to a conventional rocket.Polzin and Schleicher think their nuclear engines could halve the time it takes to get to Mars. There may be ways to tweak the design to go even faster and further. But for now, the idea sits on the drawing board, awaiting feedback and refinement. “They’re pulling together a lot of fairly mature technology,” says Cass, who edited Polzin and Schleicher’s article, “<a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/bimodal-nuclear-spacecraft" target="_blank">A Reimagined Nuclear Rocket.</a>” “Electric propulsion is mature. Nuclear thermal propulsion is not, but thanks to [previous efforts], we have a good idea how to do it. The new part is merging them together, and that of course throws up its own challenges.”Thanks to Cass and illustrator John MacNeill, Polzin and Schleicher’s idea has moved from a napkin to the pages of this month’s issue. Says Cass, “The whole point of the article is to say, ‘Here’s our napkin. Noodle on this with us and tell us what you think.’” We invite you to do so in the comments beneath the web version of this article. Or do it the old-fashioned way and mail the authors your own napkin. Reference: https://ift.tt/nOsa8WJ

Friday, August 28, 2026

Oscar Winner Brings Monsters to Life With His Simulation Software

<img src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-white-man-in-business-casual-attire-seated-at-his-desk-with-a-laptop-and-desktop-computer-each-playing-a-different-movie-on-t.jpg?id=67690500&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C156%2C0%2C157"/> While walking to school as a child, <a href="https://viterbi-web.usc.edu/~jbarbic/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jernej Barbič</a> would marvel at how beautiful his home was. He was born and raised in a picturesque village in northwestern Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia), located in the European Alps. Surrounded by alpine and beech trees, Barbic dreamed of replicating their swaying in the wind for others to enjoy.At the time, he didn’t have the tools or the knowledge to create a system that could do that, but it sparked his interest in <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/history-of-computer-graphics-industry" target="_self">computer graphics</a>, he says.<h3>Jernej Barbič</h3> Employer University of Southern California, in Los AngelesTitle Professor of computer scienceMember grade Senior memberAlma maters University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia; Carnegie MellonTwenty years later, in 2016, Barbič, a professor of computer science at the <a href="https://www.usc.edu/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Southern California</a>, in Los Angeles, made his mark. His <a href="https://www.dneg.com/creative-technology/ziva" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ziva VFX</a> software system allows for the creation of realistic muscle, fat, and skin simulations for 3D digital humans and creatures.The technology was launched in 2016 by a startup he helped found, <a href="https://vimeo.com/zivadynamics" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ziva Dynamics</a>, headquartered in Vancouver. It was acquired in 2021 by <a href="https://unity.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Unity Technologies</a> of San Francisco.Ziva VFX has been used in more than 60 movies including <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9663764/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom</a>; <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14539740/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire</a>; and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7097896/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Venom: Let There Be Carnage</a>.For the design and development of Ziva VFX, Barbič, an IEEE senior member, received a 2025 technical achievement <a href="https://www.oscars.org/sci-tech/ceremonies/2025" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Academy Award</a>. It was a “tremendous honor,” he says, as the award recognizes technologies that have had a significant impact on motion picture production.“Computer graphics and simulation can sometimes feel like a specialized technical field,” he says, “but the award showed that these ideas affect not just science but also art and how stories are told on screen.“The digital characters enabled by mathematics become important parts of people’s lives.”<h2>Sparking an interest in computer graphics</h2>Barbič says he was inspired to pursue engineering by his father, an engineer who headed a cement factory’s research department and invented a technology that uses magnetic resonance imaging to test the integrity of cement. His father’s work showed him that “mathematics and physics are beautiful on their own, but engineering lets you build something that other people can use,” he says.It was Barbič’s mother, an elementary school teacher, who introduced him to computer science. When he was 8 years old, the school his mother taught at bought a <a href="https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/424/Sinclair-ZX-Spectrum-48k/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ZX Spectrum computer</a>. With permission from the principal, she brought it home for her son to play on for two weeks. But he didn’t just play games; he created his own game using the <a href="https://www.minitab.com/content/dam/www/en/uploadedfiles/content/products/spm/BasicProgLang.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">BASIC</a> programming language.The machine came with a booklet that contained instructions on how to write a computer program, he says.“At first,” he says, “I copied them verbatim without understanding what they did. But then I started realizing there is structure, and I modified the instructions.” <img alt="Close-up of a realistic 3D-animated King Kong gorilla\u2019s face. " class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d462bcae3096a1d597e3482ec387d18c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="ea4c0" loading="lazy" src="https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/close-up-of-a-realistic-3d-animated-king-kong-gorilla-u2019s-face.jpg?id=67690503&width=980"/>Of all the creatures brought to life using his technology, Barbič is particularly enamored with King Kong from 2024’s Godzilla vs. Kong.DNEG/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc./LegendaryBy the end of the two weeks, he’d developed a computer game where players guided a snowman along a winding road. It shifted unpredictably to the left or right, and players accumulated points by remaining on the road for as long as possible.Barbič went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 2000 from the <a href="https://www.uni-lj.si/eng/" target="_blank">University of Ljubljana</a>, in Slovenia. The following year, he moved to the United States to begin a doctoral program in computer science at <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/" target="_blank">Carnegie Mellon</a>. It was a major turning point in his life, he says.His doctoral research focused on developing simulation methods for objects that can change their shape when an outside force is applied to them, known as “deformable objects.”That project shaped much of his later research, he says: “I became interested not only in making simulations accurate but also in making them practical: fast enough, robust enough, and controllable enough to be used in real applications.”After earning his Ph.D. in computer science in 2007, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at <a href="https://www.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT</a>. Two years later, he joined USC as an assistant professor.<h2>Making movie magic possible</h2>It was at USC that Barbič merged his passion for computer science with film. He developed Vega FEM, an open-source software program that allowed people to animate realistic 3D deformable objects. But Vega FEM was narrow in scope and not exactly what filmmakers needed, he says, so he started exploring how to create a version suitable for the movie industry.“A major theme of my career has been the translation of research ideas into practical tools,” he says. “Academic research often produces beautiful algorithms, but it can be difficult to make those algorithms usable by artists, engineers, or production teams. I have always been interested in that bridge: taking rigorous computational methods and turning them into systems that people can actually use.”In 2011 he attended an <a href="https://www.acm.org/" target="_blank">Association for Computing Machinery</a> conference presented by its <a href="https://www.siggraph.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques</a> (SIGGraph). There he met <a href="https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jamesj" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">James Jacobs</a>, the creature supervisor at visual effects company <a href="https://www.wetafx.co.nz/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Weta FX</a> of Wellington, New Zealand. The company is behind the effects in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lord of the Rings</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(film_series)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Hobbit</a> trilogies and other movies. Jacobs used Barbič’s software to create animals and fantastical creatures.Two years later, Weta FX offered Barbič a summerlong <a href="https://careers.wetafx.co.nz/working-at-weta-fx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">research position</a> in New Zealand. He accepted and spent the time studying the process of creating visual effects and learning what roadblocks existed in the film industry, he says.At the time, the technology to create realistic soft-tissue and anatomical simulation for digital characters didn’t exist.“The visual effects industry had reached a point where surface-level realism was not enough,” Barbič says. “A creature could have beautiful skin textures and detailed geometry, but if the bones, muscles, and fat underneath did not move correctly, the illusion would break.“The problem was especially difficult for creatures and characters that need to feel alive: animals, monsters, fantasy creatures, or digital doubles. Their bodies may have unfamiliar anatomy, but the audience still anticipates them to move in a way that matches real-world expectations. Muscles should bulge and contract, skin should stretch and slide, fat should have inertia, and tissue should respond to motion and impact.” <iframe frameborder="0" height="auto" lazy-loadable="true" scrolling="no" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dIl_9L_dkWk?rel=0&start=76" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;" width="100%"></iframe>In an effort to solve the problem Jacobs in 2014 approached Barbič about founding a startup. In 2015 they launched Ziva Dynamics, where they began what is now Ziva VFX.The software uses physics-based simulations to model the internal anatomy of a character. It numerically solves the partial differential equations of nonlinear elasticity for musculoskeletal human and creature tissues, Barbič says. The equations describe how muscles, fat, skin, and connective tissue deform, interact with bones, and connect, and how muscles activate. Instead of animating only the outside surface, artists can create a model with underlying muscles, bones, soft tissue, and fat. Each component is assigned material properties, constraints, attachments, and activations. The simulator then computes how they deform and interact over time.The technology uses ideas from computational mechanics, finite element methods, numerical optimization, contact handling, and computer graphics, Barbič says. Finite element simulation, a method used to predict how a product or structure reacts to heat and other real-world forces, provides a way to model deformable materials volumetrically, not just as surfaces, he says. The tool computes internal elastic forces and solves the equations of motion so the character’s tissues respond plausibly to animation, pose changes, muscle activation, and dynamic motion.But the system had to be designed for artists, Barbič says. In production, he says, the goal is not only physical realism but also controllable realism.“Artists need to direct the result, iterate, and fit the simulation into a larger animation pipeline,” he says. “So the technology had to combine scientific simulation with practical controls, robustness, and integration with visual effects workflows.”Barbič says Ziva VFX has been used in more than 60 movies. Of all the creatures brought to life using his technology, he is particularly enamored with King Kong from 2024’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5034838/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Godzilla vs. Kong</a>.“When King Kong is walking, you can see the muscles, how they’re very pronounced, and how they influence the shape of the skin. You can really feel the strength of King Kong,” he says. “And this was made through my software, so I think it’s amazing.”After Ziva Dynamics was acquired by Unity, Barbič consulted for the company for almost two years.In 2024 <a href="https://www.dneg.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">DNEG</a>, a London-based visual effects and computer animation company, acquired the exclusive license to Ziva VFX.<h2>Animating the human hand</h2>Barbič strives to improve visual effects as an entrepreneur and an academic. His most recent research, funded by the U.S. <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National Science Foundation</a>, focused on the modeling, simulation, and animation of human hands. The goal is to create computer models of hands that can be used to design tools, medical prosthetics, and robotic hands.“The hand is a fascinating and difficult system,” Barbič says. “It contains many small bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, fat, and other soft tissues, all packed into a compact structure and interacting mechanically in complex ways.”He and his team built a digital twin of the human hand.He aimed to move toward “anatomically meaningful simulation,” he says. He used medical imaging, geometric modeling, finite element methods, and multibody simulation to represent the internal structures of the hand and its motions.“IEEE lets me place my work not only in the world of images and animation but also in the world of engineering systems that must be accurate, stable, interactive, and useful.”He worked with <a href="https://bohanwang123.com/" target="_blank">Bohan Wang</a>, who at the time was a USC doctoral candidate, and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-matcuk-8020152" target="_blank">George Matcuk</a>, an associate professor of radiology. Wang is now an assistant professor of computer science at the <a href="https://www.nus.edu.sg/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">National University of Singapore</a>.Barbič, Wang, and Matcuk scanned four people’s hands with an <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-superconducting-shields-behind-mris" target="_self">MRI machine</a>. The two men and two women would position their hands in 12 poses, which allowed the team to gather data about how the bones, muscles, and fat move with each pose.The <a href="https://viterbi-web.usc.edu/~jbarbic/hand-mri-dataset/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">data sets are available</a> for anyone to use in their own studies.“This project can help medical doctors learn more about how the hand is moving,” Barbič says. “It’s also great for roboticists to better understand how the human hand actually works, so [the movements] can be replicated.”<h2>IEEE: Integral in interdisciplinary research</h2>Barbič joined IEEE in 2008, when he published his research paper on <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4610261" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">simulation methods for deformable objects</a> in the inaugural issue of the <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=4543165" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Transactions on Haptics</a>. He has since published several papers in the <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=2945" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics</a>, which he says connected his work to a wider community interested in visual computing and computational methods. You can find his research in the <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/author/37085505798" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">IEEE Xplore Digital Library</a>.“IEEE recognizes the engineering side of computer science,” he says. “My work is often presented as computer graphics, but at its core, it is also simulation, mechanics, numerical methods, haptics, visualization, and software systems.“IEEE is a community where that broader identity makes sense. It lets me place my work not only in the world of images and animation but also in the world of engineering systems that must be accurate, stable, interactive, and useful.”He believes the organization is key in supporting a healthy interdisciplinary research ecosystem at a global scale—which, he says, is why he has served as an associate editor for Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics and Transactions on Haptics.Being a member has made it easier for Barbič to connect with engineers in different fields, he says.“My research often lives between categories: It is mathematical but also practical; visual but also mechanical; artistic but also engineering-driven,” he says. “IEEE is one of the professional communities where that mixture is understood.” Reference: https://ift.tt/OnL6JxK

Authorities arrest 2 alleged members of prolific hacking group TeamPCP

Authorities in Australia said Wednesday that they arrested two men accused of participating in cybercrimes for TeamPCP, a prolific group of hackers that, over nine months, has carried out a relentless series of supply chain attacks that infected more than 1,000 organizations worldwide. In a <a href="https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/media-release/two-wa-men-charged-following-afp-fbi-wapf-disruption-alleged-global">statement</a>, the Australian Federal Police said the two men were arrested and charged with 14 offenses. The statement said the men were members of TeamPCP, which by the authorities’ count, compromised more than 1,000 organizations worldwide. The statement didn’t identify the men, except to say they lived in the Western Australian towns of Cottesloe and Mandurah. KrebsOnSecurity, citing a lengthy investigation, provided what it reports to be <a href="https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/08/two-alleged-teampcp-hackers-arrested-in-australia/">both defendants' names</a>, along with an extensive background of their lives and the mistakes that led to their downfall. <h2>The hacks that keep on hacking</h2> TeamPCP has vexed law enforcement officials and security personnel around the world since it emerged in December. The group is best known for a sustained series of supply chain attacks that laced open source software with malware that self-propagated from one package to another. The viral infections worked by targeting organizations’ CI/CD pipelines, which are used to rapidly develop, update, and deploy software.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/authorities-arrest-2-alleged-members-of-prolific-hacking-group-teampcp/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/authorities-arrest-2-alleged-members-of-prolific-hacking-group-teampcp/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/SIBceGh

Thursday, August 27, 2026

Claude, Codex, and Hermes installed unowned code inside corporate networks

Documentation files on more than 100 websites are referencing potentially dangerous executable content that gets installed automatically when visited by many AI agents. A few dozen companies, some of them Fortune 500s, are among those that executed proof-of-concept code. At least one misconfigured site is directing visitors, human or AI, to live malware. The potentially dangerous content is in llms.txt and llms-full.txt files, an <a href="https://llmstxt.org/">emerging convention</a> websites employ to provide machine-readable summaries of the site’s content and its high-level structure. These files are the AI equivalent of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt">robots.txt</a> standard that instructs search engines how to index the site's content. Google Lighthouse, a tool for helping web developers, has more <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/agentic-browsing/llms-txt#how_the_llmstxt_audit_works">here</a>. Correctly configured llms.txt and llms-full.txt files for Cloudflare are <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/llms.txt">here</a> and <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/llms-full.txt">here</a>. <h2>How the researchers found it</h2> Researchers at a stealth startup in Israel scanned 6,214 live domains belonging to defense contractors, Fortune 500, and Big Tech companies. Of the 8,265 llms.txt and llms-full.txt files they found (many sites hosted both an llms.txt and an llms-full.txt file), 120 of them, each on a different site, pointed to one or more code packages or domain names that weren’t registered. To test what happens when an AI agent processes such files, the researchers registered a handful of the unclaimed names and hosted packages that caused any machine executing them to reach out to their server. Within an hour, the researchers received a phone-home response from a Fortune 500 company. Over time, they got a few dozen more, some from more Fortune 500 companies and others from startups. Their beacon also recorded the chain of parent processes that spawned each install, ultimately revealing that coding agents, including Claude, OpenAI's Codex, and Nous Research's Hermes, were involved. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Nous Research did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.<a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/claude-codex-and-hermes-installed-unowned-code-inside-corporate-networks/">Read full article</a> <a href="https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/claude-codex-and-hermes-installed-unowned-code-inside-corporate-networks/#comments">Comments</a> Reference : https://ift.tt/BlpDtEr