2 July 2020 – In one second, the human eye can only scan through a few photographs. Computers, on the other hand, are capable of performing billions of calculations in the same amount of time. With the explosion of social media...

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New research by a team of NUS Computing professors is promising to restore privacy to individuals by making their online images unrecognisable to even the most advanced facial recognition technologies.

Led by Professor Mohan Kankanhalli, Dean of NUS Computing, the research team from NUS Computer Science has developed a technique that safeguards sensitive information in photos by making subtle changes that are almost imperceptible to humans, but render selected features undetectable by known algorithms.

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Full-time National Servicemen (NSF) who are cyber specialists can now take modules from NUS Computing’s Information Security programme, after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for a new Work-Learn Programme by Dean Mohan Kankanhalli and Defence Cyber Chief Brigadier-General Mark Tan.

The academic credits earned in the programme can be counted towards a full degree.

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According to a recent Fitch Solutions report, the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to lower levels of funding for fintech startups in the months ahead. This may start a trend of fintech startups being acquired by large corporate and tech companies.

Associate Professor Keith Carter discussed how these acquisitions can benefit both parties.

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To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the Singapore government released the contact tracing app, TraceTogether, which has been downloaded by approximately 20 per cent of the population. However, this is still far below from the recommended 75 percent adoption rate.

Professor Atreyi Kankanhalli discussed how wearable dongles can be used to supplement contact tracing efforts.

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Data privacy issues are especially hazardous for startups, as many use data to the same extent, or more, as large corporations. Professor Mohan Kankanhalli, Dean of NUS Computing and director of the NUS Centre for Research in Privacy Technologies (N-CRiPT), shared reasons why data privacy may not be high on startups’ list of priorities. NUS Computing Associate Professor Terence Sim, who is a principal investigator at N-CRiPT, added that ensuring good security of data is the first line of defence to preserving privacy.

Assistant Professor Reza Shokri, who does research on data privacy at N-CRiPT, shared insights from a paper that he worked on with NUS Faculty of Law Associate Professor Daniel Seng, which looked at whether different types of machine learning algorithms complied with privacy regulations.

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A team of NUS researchers has come up with the pH Watch, an ‘add on’ to a wearable health monitoring gadget that allows users to assess their health condition from their sweat pH. NUS Computing Professor Peh Li Shiuan and her PhD student, Mr Ananta Narayanan Balaji from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, were part of the research team.

The other team members include NUS Computing research fellow Dr Wang Bo, as well as PhD student Ms Chen Yuan and Assistant Professor Shao Huilin from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Institute for Health Innovation & Technology.

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Data protection rules governing Singapore's public sector, known as Instruction Manual 8 (IM8), will be updated in 2020 to be in line with existing rules for the private sector. The updated IM8 follows recommendations aimed to make data protection measures clearer and plug gaps.

The proposals that were announced on 27 Nov 2019 were made by the Public Sector Data Security Review Committee. NUS Computing Professor Atreyi Kankanhalli praised the steps the review committee had proposed to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors.

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Since July 2014, NUS Computing alumnus and software developer Abraham Yeo has been giving food, drinks and companionship to the homeless in Singapore. Abraham co-founded an informal volunteer group, the Homeless Hearts of Singapore, to rally like-minded people together to conduct night walks and checks on the homeless.

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NUS announced the launch of a new research centre for legal issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and data analytics on 5 December. The new Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and the Law (Trail) will be led by law faculty's Prof Daniel Seng, as well as deputy directors Prof David Tan from the Faculty of Law and Prof Chang Ee-Chien from NUS Computing.

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Final year Information Systems student Victor Yeo was one of 145 students selected to join the Schwarzman Scholars Programme held at Tsinghua University's Schwarzman College in Beijing, China. Schwarzman Scholars will pursue a Master's degree in Global Affairs that is focused on global affairs, China, and leadership.

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Before NUS Computing alumnus Huang Wei Long graduated in 2017, he secured a job as a software developer with a startup after applying to about ten companies. He even received three to five offers from companies like Facebook and IBM but chose to work in a startup as it would provide more opportunities. Wei Long is one of the many university graduates that have secured jobs in Singapore's growing technology sector as the government see through its plans to digitalise the country through its Smart Nation initiatives.

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NUS Computing alumna Guan Dian was one of ten young alumni conferred the NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award at the NUS Alumni Awards ceremony held on 27 November. Guan Dian graduated from NUS Computing in 2010 and is currently the Vice-President and co-founder of Patsnap, a search and analytics engine for users to search and analyse patents.

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Fixing bugs can be a tedious and time consuming work for programmers. Instead of having the programmer manually debug and fix faulty code, can the system suggest possible patches for the code? NUS Computing Professor Abhik Roychoudhury discussed his research in automated program repair and how this field of research can help programmers automatically rectify software errors and vulnerabilities.

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Around the world, the use of facial recognition technology has been used for an increasing variety of purposes, ranging from law enforcement to checking into flights at airports. Associate Professor Terence Sim shared the reasons for the increasing use of facial recognition and the data security concerns of using the technology.

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According to a recent McAfee report, celebrities like Alexis Bledel, Sophie Turner and Jackie Chan turn out to be the world's most dangerous people to search online due to the prevelance of harmful websites and torrent links that appear when searching for a certain celebrity. Associate Professor Chang Ee-chien shares how users can protect themselves from data leaks and security breaches while using the Internet.

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A Telegram channel, started by Computer Science alumnus Goh Wei Wen and Business school alumnus Dylan Teo, became the first in Singapore to hit 100,000 subscribers in October 2019. The pair is currently funded by a S$10,000 NUS Enterprise grant under the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practicum Award and hopes to create a platform that delivers personalised food deals for its users.

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7 November 2019 – An artificial intelligence (AI) engine built by NUS Computing's database system research group has become the first software tool from Southeast Asia to be ranked in the top 300 projects by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the largest open-source software community in the world.

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NUS Computing and global payments firm Ripple unveiled a fintech lab on 6 November 2019. The lab aims to bring academia and industry together to develop talent in the sector, as well as train the next generation of business leaders, entrepreneurs, computer scientists and professionals to develop and apply emerging technologies in fintech.

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An artificial intelligence (AI) engine built by NUS Computing's database system research group has become the first software tool from Southeast Asia to be ranked in the top 300 projects by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the largest open-source software community in the world. Apache SINGA is an open-source distributed, scalable machine learning library for deep learning models.

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