Welcome to the January 22, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Tech Giants Announce U.S. AI Plan Worth up to $500 Billion
• Executive Order Pauses TikTok Ban in U.S.
• Trump Scraps Biden’s Sweeping AI Order
• Paralyzed Man Flies Virtual Drone Using Brain Implant
• China Probes U.S. Chip Subsidies over 'Harm' to Chinese Mature Node Chipmakers
• Robotic Exoskeleton Can Train Pianists to Play Faster
• Russian Disinformation Campaigns Eluded Meta’s Efforts to Block Them
• World's First Chatbot Resurrected
• Amazon Pauses Drone Delivery After Crashes
• Linux Kernel Update Cuts Energy Use in Datacenters
• FBI Warns Agents of Call Log Thefts by Hackers
• AI Assembles Quantum Computer From Cold Atoms
• FTC Reports on Individualized 'Surveillance Pricing'

Tech Giants Announce U.S. AI Plan Worth up to $500 Billion

OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank on Tuesday announced a partnership to build datacenters and other infrastructure to power AI, in partnership with MGX, a tech investment arm of the United Arab Emirates government. The Stargate initiative aims to invest $100 billion "immediately" and $500 billion over the next four years. U.S. President Donald Trump said the plan is a "resounding declaration of confidence in America's potential."
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Executive Order Pauses TikTok Ban in U.S.

President Trump signed an executive order on Monday pausing implementation of a law banning TikTok in the U.S. and providing a liability shield to the app’s business partners. The order pauses implementation of the law for 75 days, giving the administration time "to pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans,” according to the text of the order.
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Trump Scraps Biden’s Sweeping AI Order

U.S. President Trump rescinded an executive order by former U.S. President Biden regulating AI, immediately halting implementation of safety and transparency requirements for AI developers. Biden’s order required leading AI companies to share safety test results and other critical information for powerful AI systems with the federal government. It also prompted the creation of the U.S. AI Safety Institute, housed under the U.S. Commerce Department, to create voluntary guidelines and best practices for the technology’s use.
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Paralyzed Man Flies Virtual Drone Using Brain Implant

A paralyzed 69-year-old man flew a virtual drone using a brain–computer interface (BCI). University of Michigan in Ann Arbor researchers trained the BCI to differentiate neural signals produced when the man thought about moving his right thumb, first and second fingers, or third and fourth fingers. The researchers linked the decoded finger movements to the speed and direction of an onscreen virtual drone, allowing the man to manipulate the drone through rings on a virtual basketball court.
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China Probes U.S. Chip Subsidies over 'Harm' to Chinese Mature Node Chipmakers

China’s Commerce Ministry said it will investigate U.S. government subsidies to its semiconductor sector over alleged harm caused to Chinese mature node chipmakers. As a result of the subsidies, "U.S. enterprises have … gained an unfair competitive advantage and exported relevant mature node chip products to China at low prices, which has undermined the legitimate rights and interests of China's domestic industry," the Ministry said in announcing the probe.
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Robotic Exoskeleton Can Train Pianists to Play Faster

A robotic hand exoskeleton developed by Shinichi Furuya at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Japan and colleagues can help expert pianists learn to play even faster by moving their fingers for them. The exoskeleton can raise and lower each finger individually, up to four times a second, using a separate motor attached to the base of each finger.
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Russian Disinformation Campaigns Eluded Meta’s Efforts to Block Them

Finland's Check First, Reset.Tech in the U.K., and France's AI Forensics found that a Russian organization linked to Kremlin influence campaigns posted more than 8,000 political advertisements on the social media platform despite EU and U.S. restrictions. The organization, called the Social Design Agency, evaded lax enforcement by Facebook to place an estimated $338,000 worth of ads over a period of 15 months, even as the platform itself highlighted the threat.
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World's First Chatbot Resurrected

ELIZA, the world's first chatbot, was brought back to life by researchers at the U.K.'s University of Sussex, Stanford University, and colleagues. ELIZA was developed in the 1960s by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Joseph Weizenbaum (pictured) in a now-defunct programming language. Resurrecting ELIZA required the team to clean and debug the code and to create an emulator that would approximate the kind of computer that would have run ELIZA in the 1960s.
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Amazon Pauses Drone Delivery After Crashes

Amazon has suspended commercial drone deliveries after two of its newest models crashed in rainy weather at a testing facility. The company said drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona have been halted to fix the aircraft’s software. The MK30 drones were cleared to commence operations by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in October.
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Linux Kernel Update Cuts Energy Use in Datacenters

Researchers at the Cheriton School of Computer Science at Canada's University of Waterloo modified the Linux kernel in a way that could reduce energy consumption in datacenters by as much as 30%. The modification, presented at ACM SIGMETRICS 2024, rearranges operations within the Linux networking stack, improving the efficiency and performance of traditional kernel-based networking. The researchers said the kernel change was accomplished through just 30 lines of code.
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FBI Warns Agents of Call Log Thefts by Hackers

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that months of agents' call and text logs were likely stolen in a cyber breach that hit AT&T in April 2024, in which data from about 109 million customer accounts containing records of calls and texts from 2022 were illegally downloaded. The breach reportedly compromised all FBI devices using its AT&T public safety service. According to an FBI report, the stolen records could connect agents to their confidential sources.
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AI Assembles Quantum Computer From Cold Atoms

A quantum computer developed by researchers at China’s University of Science and Technology features 2,024 atoms assembled by AI into an ultracold grid. The researchers developed an AI algorithm capable of recommending a sequence of laser beams and atoms to form the grid within 60 milliseconds, regardless of the grid's size.
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FTC Reports on Individualized 'Surveillance Pricing'

A new report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) details how personal data is used by some companies to show different prices for the same products, dubbed by the FTC as "surveillance pricing." The agency said retailers are hiring "intermediary firms" to algorithmically tweak and target their prices. The findings come after the FTC last year asked eight “middlemen” companies to reveal how they combine computer algorithms and people’s personal information to adjust pricing.
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