Welcome to the February 21, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• South Korea Bans Downloads of DeepSeek's AI App
• Researchers Store Terabytes of Data in Crystal Memory
• Russian Hackers Snoop on Ukrainian Signal Accounts
• China Debuts Two-Way Brain-Computer Interface with 100x Efficiency
• National Science Foundation Fires 10% of Its Workforce
• 'Superhuman' Vision Systems for Robots
• No Need for One Country to Control Chip Industry, Taiwan Official Says
• Trump Administration Gives Schools Deadline to End DEI Programs
• Virginia Tech Researchers Raise Red Flags About Mixed-Reality Security
• Building Fabs in the U.S. vs Taiwan: Twice as Long, Twice as Expensive
• Open Source LLMs Hit Europe's Digital Sovereignty Roadmap
• Nokia to Put First Cellular Network on the Moon

South Korea Bans Downloads of DeepSeek's AI App

South Korea said on Monday it had temporarily suspended new downloads of an AI chatbot made by China's DeepSeek. Regulators said the app service would resume after they verified it complied with South Korea’s laws on protecting personal information. The app had become one of the country’s most popular downloads in the AI category. Earlier this month, South Korea directed many government employees not to use DeepSeek products on official devices.
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Researchers Store Terabytes of Data in Crystal Memory

University of Chicago (UChicago) researchers used an ultraviolet laser to transform a crystal into a memory storage device capable of holding terabytes of data. The laser stimulates the lanthanides (rare earth ions) in an yttrium oxide crystal, releasing electrons trapped by defects in the crystal. The researchers guided the charged defects (ones) and uncharged defects (zeros) to create a memory storage device.
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Russian Hackers Snoop on Ukrainian Signal Accounts

Google said Russian state-linked hacking groups have gained access to the Signal messenger accounts of some Ukrainian military staffers. The hackers have leveraged the "linked devices" feature to connect victims' accounts to their own devices, or linked the victims' accounts to their interfaces using malicious group invite links or QR codes. Signal has responded by rolling out a new user interface, additional authentication steps, and notifications for new linked devices.
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China Debuts Two-Way Brain-Computer Interface with 100x Efficiency

Researchers at China's Tianjin and Tsinghua universities claim the two-way adaptive brain-computer interface (BCI) they developed is the first to enable the brain and the device to learn from each other. They reported the system was 100 times more efficient than conventional BCIs, which only decode brain signals, while using less than 1% of the energy.
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National Science Foundation Fires 10% of Its Workforce

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) terminated 168 employees, about 10% of its workforce, without severance on Feb. 18 to comply with an executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump calling for federal workforce reductions to improve efficiency. Probationary employees and temporary employees deemed "intermittent experts" were the primary targets of the firings. Many were program officers tasked with managing research programs.
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'Superhuman' Vision Systems for Robots

University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed a radio-based sensing system that could enable robots to “see” through smoke and rain, or around corners. A spinning array on the robot sends radio waves in all directions; the robot can sense reflections of those radio waves. An onboard AI system uses that data to create a 3D view of the robot's surroundings.
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No Need for One Country to Control Chip Industry, Taiwan Official Says

Wu Cheng-wen, head of Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council, said there is no need for a single country to control the semiconductor industry, which is complex and needs a division of labor. His comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the island's chip dominance. Wu said each country has its own strength regarding chips, from Japan making chemicals and equipment to the U.S., which is "second to none" on the design and application of innovative systems.
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Trump Administration Gives Schools Deadline to End DEI Programs

A memo issued by the U.S. Department of Education on Feb. 14 gave schools and universities two weeks to end diversity initiatives to ensure they do not lose their federal funding. The memo said "racial preferences" can no longer be used as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring, or other areas. Scholarships for students from certain racial backgrounds also were targeted by the memo.
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Virginia Tech Researchers Raise Red Flags About Mixed-Reality Security

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University researchers found that mixed-reality systems could be compromised by click redirection attacks, object occlusion attacks, and latency attacks. Their study involved Microsoft's HoloLens 2 headset, which was discontinued last year. The researchers, who acknowledged the HoloLens 2 platform is outdated, called for safety features to be built into mixed-reality headsets so users are aware of the objects around them and are alerted to security threats.
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Building Fabs in the U.S. vs Taiwan: Twice as Long, Twice as Expensive

SEMI's latest World Fab Forecast report revealed that 18 new fab construction projects are set to begin this year, including three 200-mm and 15 300-mm facilities. At the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium, Exyte's Herbert Blaschitz said it takes about 20 months from permitting to design to build a large fab facility in Taiwan, versus 38 months in the U.S. and 34 months in Europe. It also costs about twice as much to build a fab in the U.S. versus Taiwan.
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Open Source LLMs Hit Europe's Digital Sovereignty Roadmap

The OpenEuroLLM project, co-led by computational linguist Jan Hajic at the Charles University in Prague and Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of Finnish AI lab Silo AI, plans to develop open-source AI language models for all EU languages to preserve "linguistic and cultural diversity." The project is designed to ensure transparency, preserve linguistic diversity, and enable AI growth in Europe. The initiative hopes to contribute a high-quality, open-source AI foundation that can be adapted by European businesses.
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Nokia to Put First Cellular Network on the Moon

A 4G cellular network developed by researchers at Nokia Bell Labs Solutions Research will be part of Intuitive Machines' second lunar mission slated to launch later this month. This "network in a box" features components able to survive radiation, extreme temperatures, and substantial vibrations and will facilitate communications between the lander, a rover, and a hopper for a few days.
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