The first coronavirus digital contact-tracing app using OS updates from Google and Apple is now in a large-scale pilot test. Dubbed as SwissCovid, the app is based on the decentralized protocol, where operations that have data privacy implications are not stored or conducted through a centralized server, but on the phone of individual users. Employees at EPFL, ETH Zurich, the Swiss Army, and select hospitals and cantonal administrations can now download the app for tracing contacts at risk of transmission of COVID-19.

Mathias Payer and Hui Peng have developed a USB software security tool called USBFuzz. The researchers plan to release USBFuzz on GitHub as an open source project following their presentation at Usenix.

As the name implies, the international Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing project (DP3T) focuses on data privacy and negates any chance of data being misused by hackers.

The research paper “Who is listening? Spokesperson Effect on Communicating Social and Physical Distancing Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic” is authored by Andreas Spitz and Ahmad Abu-Akel (Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne) and Robert West (School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL).

A group of five researchers at EPFL’s Embedded Systems Laboratory (ESL) have developed an artificial intelligence-based system that allows you to record your cough and have it analyzed almost instantly to indicate whether you have COVID-19. In a few weeks’ time, the team will release an app, aptly named Coughvid, which will be available for free and direct download to your devices.

JEDI has appointed a high-profile scientific committee to run the ‘Billion Molecules against COVID-19’ challenge, including Babak Falsafi and Bryan Ford from EPFL’s School of Computer and Communication Sciences.

Researchers from EPFL and ETH Zurich have developed a digital contact tracing technology by working closely with a large number of European colleagues. They are now very close to releasing a solution called DP-3T (Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing).

In a major breakthrough last year, EPFL and the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) collaborated to develop a secure software called the MedCo system. The system took shape in the Laboratory for Data Security (LDS), headed by Professor Jean-Pierre Hubaux, and is based on software libraries developed by the Decentralized and Distributed Systems (DEDIS) Lab, headed by Professor Bryan Ford.

To steer clear of false or misinterpreted information during the pandemic, Robert West advises a three-pronged strategy: check the sources of data interpretations and of the data itself; check whether graphs representing coronavirus data are linear or logarithmic; and retain the correct perspective by staying updated about data on the virus.

The nanodevice has the capacity to generate terahertz waves that are 20 times more powerful than any existing device today. That is a revolutionary advancement in the field because terahertz waves, despite their immense potential, are extremely difficult to achieve.