Welcome to the May 19, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Pope Leo’s Name Carries a Warning About AI
• Apple Joins Push for Kids' Online Safety Law
• China Building a Supercomputer in Orbit
• Nature Inspires New Generation of Robots at MIT
• VMware Hack Earns $150,000 Prize
• Digital Replica Allows Films to Be Set in Auschwitz
• Quantum Computer Simulates Real-Time Chemical Dynamics
• AI Shapes NFL Schedule
• Your Next Password Could Be a Piece of Plastic
• Terrorists Pay for Check Marks on X
• NextSpace Testrig to Derisk 3D Printing in Space
• Datacenters Warm Homes in the Nordics

Pope Leo’s Name Carries a Warning About AI

When Robert Francis Prevost announced he would take the name Leo XIV as pope, he gave the rise of AI as the reason for his choice. Prevost explained that the most recent Pope Leo served during the Industrial Revolution and criticized the new machine-driven economic systems turning workers into mere commodities. Now, with AI ushering in a “new industrial revolution,” the “defense of human dignity, justice, and labor” is required, Prevost said.
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Apple Joins Push for Kids' Online Safety Law

The bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was reintroduced in the U.S. Senate on May 14, now with the backing of Apple. Under KOSA, social media companies must take "reasonable" care to avoid product design features that put minors at risk of self-harm, substance abuse, or sexual exploitation; require the strongest privacy settings to be activated by default for minors; and permit disabling of "addictive" product features.
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China Building a Supercomputer in Orbit

China has launched into orbit 12 satellites, each equipped with intelligent computing systems and inter-satellite communication links, aboard a Long March 2D rocket, according to local reports. The satellites are part of the Three-Body Computing Constellation, space-based infrastructure being developed by innovation platform Zhejiang Lab which, once complete, would support real-time, in-orbit data processing with a total computing capacity of 1,000 peta operations per second, according to the reports.
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Nature Inspires New Generation of Robots at MIT

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are looking beyond humanoids to robots inspired by nature. Under director Daniela Rus, work at the lab has led to the creation of a robotic sea turtle designed to help monitor sea life. Lab researchers also created algorithms inspired by the neural networks of worms to power robot brains.
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VMware Hack Earns $150,000 Prize

Hackers attending Pwn2Own in Berlin successfully deployed a zero-day exploit against VMware ESXi, marking the first time in Pwn2Own’s 18-year history the hypervisor has been successfully exploited. Nguyen Hoang Thach deployed a single integer overflow exploit to earn his STARLabs SG team a $150,000 prize. The competition also saw three zero-days compromising Windows 11.
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Digital Replica Allows Films to Be Set in Auschwitz

At the Cannes film festival last week, organizers of the Picture from Auschwitz project said they harnessed “cutting-edge 3D scanning technologies” to build a digital model of Auschwitz that matches the site in its current state “down to every single brick." This will allow filmmakers to set their pictures in the Nazi death camp in Poland without defiling it. A second phase of the project will involve 3D-scanning the adjacent Birkenau site, as well as building historically accurate digital replicas of the crematoriums and gas chambers that were destroyed by the Nazis prior to their retreat.
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Quantum Computer Simulates Real-Time Chemical Dynamics

Researchers at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) used a quantum computer to simulate the real-time chemical dynamics of molecules, capturing electronic and vibrational changes that are difficult for classical computers to model. The study builds on previous research in which the scientists simulated abstract generic quantum dynamics by slowing the process down 100 billion times. USyd's Ivan Kassal said the approach they used was "about a million times more resource-efficient" than a conventional approach.
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AI Shapes NFL Schedule

The NFL used Fastbreak AI to create the schedule for its upcoming season. Fastbreak's AI model considers various road trip rules and multiple broadcast and streaming partners, among other variables, assigning a score for each road trip. Fastbreak's John Stewart said, "Every time we find a new score, that becomes sort of a starting point. It keeps throwing it out there until it gets lower and lower scores. So it's looking for schedules that violate no rules, and it's searching literally billions and billions and trillions of potential schedules to get to that point."
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Your Next Password Could Be a Piece of Plastic

University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) researchers stored and decoded an 11-character password encoded in the molecular makeup of a piece of plastic. The researchers designed molecules that contain sequences of electrochemical information, which could be read using electrical signals. “Molecules can store information for very long periods without needing power," explained UT Austin's Praveen Pasupathy, adding that his team's work "takes us a step closer to storing information in an everyday material.”
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Terrorists Pay for Check Marks on X

The Tech Transparency Project found that X continues to accept payments from terrorist organizations and other U.S.-sanctioned groups for subscription accounts on the social media platform. The nonprofit reported last year that 28 accounts belonging to U.S.-sanctioned groups had obtained blue check marks, prompting X to strip the badges or suspend the accounts. Several such groups purchased badges again within a month. The Tech Transparency Project said blue check marks have been purchased by more than 200 terrorist-linked or sanctioned groups in all.
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NextSpace Testrig to Derisk 3D Printing in Space

The NextSpace Testrig developed by researchers at the U.K.'s Glasgow University and The Manufacturing Technology Centre aims to provide a facility for testing the structural integrity of materials manufactured in space using 3D printers. The facility contains a vacuum chamber that produces space-like conditions. Glasgow University's Gilles Bailet called 3D printing “a very promising technology for allowing us to build very complex structures directly in orbit instead of taking them into space on rockets,” adding that the facility will help researchers "ensure that any materials they plan to 3D-print in space will work safely."
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Datacenters Warm Homes in the Nordics

Datacenters in Finland and Sweden are utilizing a system of pipes and pumps to deliver their cast-off heat to nearby homes. A datacenter in Mantsala, Finland, provided enough energy last year to heat the equivalent of 2,500 homes, and datacenters being built by Microsoft in Espoo, Finland, will supply enough heat to support around 100,000 homes once completed.
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