The company needs an experienced programmer with detailed knowledge of the RISC-V command system and the Vector Arm command system. He will join the Vector and Numerics Group (VaNG) team, which is part of the Core Operating Systems group. The Vector and Numerics Group team is responsible for developing and improving all kinds of embedded subsystems running on iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS.

Known for its secrecy, Apple does not say directly what solutions it intends to implement using RISC-V, but the job description states that the programmer should work with machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing systems. Some background in low-level, high-performance programming is required, and indeed the job description itself mentions that Apple is already working with RISC-V. It’s stated explicitly that they would be working in a team which is already “using innovative RISC-V solutions.

Today, Apple has dozens of products of all kinds. For example, high-performance products like the Mac, including the MacBook, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablets and Apple TV set-top boxes use chipsets based on custom Arm Cores. In addition, devices like the Apple Watch, AirPods and Homepod Mini use Arm SiP technology, and Arm cores are also used in controllers like the T2, W3 and U1.

In addition to chipsets for high-performance devices, each Apple device uses multiple Arm cores (although individual devices still use chips based on x86 architecture). Apple pays licensing fees for the use of each core, and as the number of cores in devices like SSD controllers and smartwatches continues to increase, we have to pay more and more. In this regard, the use of open and accordingly free RISC-V architecture looks extremely attractive, it could save the company millions of dollars in royalties.

At the same time, integration of custom cores based on RISC-V architecture into Apple’s ecosystem requires software preparation and verification of hardware and software compatibility. This is where programmers familiar with both RISC-V and Arm are needed.

Considering that Apple is already working on RISC-V based solutions, it is still a matter of time before some core types are replaced by an alternative architecture. It is known that RISC-V is mostly used today for auxiliary solutions with low performance, but with the evolution of technologies we cannot rule out more interesting solutions.

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According to Qichacha analysts, China now has 439,000 registered AI-related companies. In 2020, the number of new organizations in the field of AI was 172 thousand, and in the first half of 2021 such organizations were registered another 153 thousand. Thus, the growth of registrations for the year was 150.8%, and the year is not over yet!

The transition from 2019 to 2020 showed an increase in the number of new AI companies in China at 292.8%, and 2021 promises to be even more “fruitful” for the field of AI in China.

The issue of finance is extremely interesting. Most Chinese AI companies declare quite large share capital. Apparently, local investors are willing and invest a lot of money in AI development. For example, companies with registered capital of less than 1 million yuan ($155,000) account for only 24% of the registered companies, while those with registered capital between 1 and 5 million yuan account for 39%, and those with capital over 5 million yuan (from $755,000 and more) account for 37%.

It is also interesting to note that the most AI companies in China are registered in three neighboring provinces on the southeast coast of the country: Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. There are 64,000, 50,000 and 40,000 AI companies in each, respectively. Programmers have always been drawn to the south and to the sea, which in the case of Chinese regional development programs is further supported by subsidies for provincial economic development.

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The attack relies on the way compilers handle Unicode identifiers used to determine the orientation of text (left to right or vice versa). The weak point is the Unicode Bidi algorithm, which allows to combine words written from right to left and from left to right. For example, thanks to this algorithm, it is possible to combine words in Arabic and English. It also allows the text written from right to left to be read from left to right and vice versa.

In some cases the sequencing set by the Bidi algorithm is not sufficient for switching the display order of character groups and in such cases special control characters are used. Bidi redefinition even makes it possible to display individual characters in an order different from their logical encoding.

Exploitation of the vulnerability makes it possible to add commands that will be displayed as part of a comment or line when the programmer checks the code. The source notes that this type of attack has previously been used to mask the file extensions of malware distributed via email in phishing campaigns. This approach allows vulnerabilities to be built into the source code and, unless they make significant changes to the logic, are difficult to detect during code review.

The researchers made their work publicly available a few months after its completion. During that time, several patches were prepared to fix the problem for developers using the Rust language. Additional recommendations to solve this problem for other programming languages will be published later.

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