Singapore, Germany to Mutually Recognize IoT Cybersecurity Labels

IOT security direction particularly important.     Why 

Singapore, Germany to Mutually Recognize IoT Cybersecurity Labels

By ZDNet,  October 27, 2022

Singapore and Germany have agreed to mutually recognize their respective smart computer product cybersecurity rating labels, with Germany the second European company to do so after Finland.

The pact stipulates that products issued with Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) label would be designated as satisfying Level 2 of the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA)'s cybersecurity labeling system.

CSA's system rates smart devices into four asterisk-demarcated levels, with each asterisk indicating an additional tier of completed testing and assessment; products rated Levels 2 through 4 must meet "enhanced" cybersecurity mandates, including device and data requirements.

The mutual CSA-BSI recognition would apply to consumer Internet of Things devices like smart TVs, smart toys, health trackers, smart lighting, and smart thermostats.

CSA said it would add more product categories under the bilateral agreement in cooperation with BSI.

The mutual recognition will apply to consumer Internet of Things devices including smart televisions, smart toys, health trackers, smart lighting, and smart thermostats.

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AI System Predicts How to Prevent Wildfires

 AI System Predicts How to Prevent Wildfires

Aalto University (Finland)

September 9, 2022

A neural network model developed by researchers at Finland's Aalto University can predict the effectiveness of different land management strategies in preventing wildfires. Their analysis concentrated on Borneo's Central Kalimantan province, and the model predicted the distribution of peatland fires from measurements captured before each fire season from 2002 through 2019. The researchers analyzed 31 factors, then forecast the likelihood of a peatland fire at each spot on the map, resulting in an annual expected fire distribution that was correct 80% to 95% of the time. They then simulated the effects of different land management strategies on such fires, and found that converting shrubland and scrubland into swamp forests would cut fire incidence in half.

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Making Pseudo Coffee

 I did technical analysis work for one of the world's largest coffee companies.  So this was interesting.  But I disagree that the environmental issues here are paramount.   They are minor.  Coffee can be grown with considerable environmental consideration.   I have tasted pseudo coffees and they they are less than ideal.  Black tea is not coffee.  And consider the farmers, which we did.   

Scientists Are on a Quest to Create the Perfect Cup of Coffee—Without the Beans   By Vanessa Bates Ramirez - in the Singularity Hub

Ahh, coffee. Is there anything more delicious, more satisfying? It’s always there when you need it, be it first thing in the morning or for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. According to the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, global consumption of this vital brew is around 600 billion cups per year (I know—I would have guessed higher, too).

But as with many of the products we consume, there’s a cost beyond what we pay at the store. Producing coffee—like producing meat, or almonds, or corn, or pretty much anything—has an environmental cost, too.

It’s that cost that’s led innovative entrepreneurs to seek a more Earth-friendly way to produce everything from beef to milk to salmon. Now coffee is joining the club, with startups in the US and Europe experimenting with new ways to make crave-worthy coffee—sans any coffee beans.

One of these is Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre. VTT uses a technique called cellular agriculture to grow its pseudo-coffee, filling bioreactors with cell cultures then adding nutrients that encourage growth. Heiko Rischer, VTT’s head of plant biotechnology, described one of the first cups brewed with his company’s product as tasting like something “in between a coffee and a black tea.”

If Finland seems like a surprising location for one of the first artificial coffees to be made—I personally would have guessed Italy, or maybe Spain—it makes sense when you put together a couple key factors. First, Nordic countries tend to be a few steps ahead of the rest of the world in terms of environmentalism ....'

Chatbot explains Apps

Intriguing idea.  Could a similar means explain potential security issues with an App or system?  Or its uses in context.  I like the idea of explanatory analyses available for complex systems.  Could have used them to deliver alongside systems we delivered to decision makers.

Chatbot Can Explain Apps, Show How They Access Hardware or Data  By Aalto University (Finland)

Researchers at Finland's Aalto University, the University of Luxembourg, and Germany's University of Bayreuth developed a chatbot that can help designers and developers create new apps and explain apps to end-users.

Hey GUI (Graphical User Interface) answers questions with images, screenshots, and simple text phrases.

Aalto's Kashyap Todi said, "Hey GUI eliminates the need for coding skills or technical expertise. Anyone can use it to search for information on, for example, which one of my apps is asking for permission to use the camera, or where is the search button on this screen."

The researchers surveyed more than 100 people to determine the most desirable chatbot features, and how users preferred to interact with chatbots.

Said Todi, "This is an important first step towards developing chatbots that can help users find information about apps using

From Aalto University (Finland)

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Finns Claim Quantum Measurement Breakthrough

Once again accurate measurement is the key to understanding value.

Finnish researchers claim quantum computing breakthrough in Techxplore

Scientists have created a device which could make it easier to harness super-fast quantum computers for real-world applications, a team at Finland's Aalto University said on Wednesday.

Quantum computers are a new generation of machines powered by energy transfers between so-called "artificial atoms"—electrical circuits a fraction of a millimetre across. Scientists believe the devices will eventually be able to vastly outperform even the world's most powerful conventional supercomputers.

Last October, Google announced it had reached "quantum supremacy" by creating a machine which executed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken a classic computer 10,000 years to complete.  Although a remarkable leap in the field, Google's Sycamore computer was held back by errors in its processing, caused in part by shortcomings in how the device measured the energy being stored in its memory. ... '

Source:    R. Kokkoniemi et al. Bolometer operating at the threshold for circuit quantum electrodynamics, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2753-3   Journal information: Nature 

Synthetic Data to Support Research

In a much less complex sense we used a method, connected to real sensors on systems, to construct sample datasets.  The resulting ML could then be used as a testbed for proposed solutions.   We were not worried in this case about the security of the data, but I can see how that could be effectively used.

Producing Data Synthetically to Help Treat Diseases Like Covid-19
Aalto University
June 25, 2020

Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI) researchers have developed a machine learning-based method that can synthetically generate research data and help in designing better treatments for diseases like Covid-19. The team based a newly released application on the technique, allowing academics and companies to exchange data while maintaining the privacy of individuals involved in the research. Researchers enter the original dataset into the app, which produces a synthetic dataset that can be shared securely with other scientists and companies. FCAI investigators are currently using synthetic data to construct a model that anticipates whether a subject's coronavirus test is positive or negative, based on certain biomarkers.  ... " 

Drone Detection and Usage Database

Also would seem to create a useful database for detailed matching to contexts and task usage.

Research Improves Drone Detection
Aalto University
March 18, 2020

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland, Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, and New York University have compiled radar measurement data from different types of aerial drones, to enhance the detection and identification of unmanned aerial vehicles. The researchers measured the Radar Cross Section of commercially available and custom-built drones, which indicates how each reflects radio signals, as a way of identifying their size, shape, and structural materials. Aalto's Vasilii Semkin said the publicly available results are intended to form the basis of a uniform drone database. Said Semkin, “There is an urgent need to find better ways to monitor drone use. We aim to continue this work and extend the measurement campaign to other frequency bands, as well as for a larger variety of drones and different real-life environments.” .... '

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