News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Computer scientists at Columbia Engineering have shown for the first time that it is possible to analyze how thousands of Android apps use cryptography without needing to have the apps' actual codes. The team's new tool, CRYLOGGER, can tell when an Android app uses cryptography incorrectly--it detects the so-called 'cryptographic misuses' in Android apps. When given a list of rules that should be followed for secure cryptography, CRYLOGGER detects violations of these rules.

Researchers from the University of Bristol's Quantum Engineering Technology Labs (QET Labs) and Université Côte d'Azur have made a new miniaturized light detector to measure quantum features of light in more detail than ever before. The device, made from two silicon chips working together, was used to measure the unique properties of "squeezed" quantum light at record high speeds.

USC scientists find right-leaning bot accounts outnumber left-leaning ones 4-to-1. A combination of right-leaning bots and users were responsible for millions of election-related tweets in the runup to Nov. 3. Besides Russia, foreign interference also has come from Nigeria and Ghana.

The Fourier transform is a mathematical operation essential to virtually all fields of physics and engineering. Although there already exists an algorithm that computes the Fourier transform in quantum computers, it is not versatile enough for many practical applications. In a recent study, scientists from Tokyo University of Science tackle this problem by designing a novel quantum circuit that calculates the Fourier transform in a much quicker, versatile, and more efficient way.

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), which aim to construct a pathway for people to interact with computers directly by thought, have received great attention in recent years. An electroencephalogram-based BCI speller, which allows the user to input text to computer using brain signals, is one of the most popular BCI systems. However, researchers in China show that these BCI spellers can be easily attacked, exposing a critical security concern in EEG-based BCI systems.