Welcome to the January 24, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.
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 ACM named 55 Fellows for their transformative contributions to computing science and technology. The 2024 Fellows are members of organizations around the globe who work in areas including computer graphics, cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, data management, machine learning, AI, algorithms, visualization, and more. "Computing technology has had a tremendous impact in shaping how we live and work today,” said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. "In announcing a new class of Fellows each year, we celebrate the impact some of our community’s pioneers make and highlight the many technical areas of computing in which they work."
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ACM Media Center (January 22, 2025)
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The Trump administration has dismissed all members of the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), including those investigating the China-linked hacking group Salt Typhoon. The CSRB was established through an executive order by the previous administration and tasked with reviewing major cyber incidents affecting the U.S. government.
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CSO; John Leyden (January 22, 2025)
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At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told attendees that social media owners should be held responsible for harming society and democracy. "The owner of a small restaurant is responsible if their food poisons customers; social media tycoons should be held responsible if their algorithms poison our society," he said.
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Reuters; Inti Landauro; Charlie Devereu (January 22, 2025)
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President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order revoking past government policies on AI that “act as barriers to American AI innovation.” To maintain global leadership, “We must develop AI systems that are free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas,” the order states. While the order does not specify which policies are hindering AI development, it calls for a review of “all policies, directives, regulations, orders, and other actions taken” as a result of the former administration's AI executive order.
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Associated Press; Matt O'Brien; Sarah Parvini (January 23, 2025)
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The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating whether Apple and Google's mobile ecosystems adhere to that nation’s new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, a law designed to curb the power of large tech companies. The probes will assess the companies’ dominance in spaces like mobile phone operating systems, app stores, and Web browsers and determine impacts on users and developers.
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The Wall Street Journal; Edith Hancock (January 24, 2025)
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Chinese startup DeepSeek recently unveiled an AI system that could match the capabilities of the latest chatbots from companies like OpenAI and Google. In a research paper accompanying the release of its DeepSeek-V3, the team explained how they used about 2,000 specialized computer chips from Nvidia to train their system. By comparison, the world’s leading AI companies train their chatbots with supercomputers that use as many as 16,000 chips, or more.
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The New York Times; Cade Metz; Meaghan Tobin (January 24, 2025)
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President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order under which his administration will evaluate whether to create a "national digital asset stockpile." The order also reversed a Biden administration directive to research a central bank digital currency (CBDC), claiming such currencies "threaten the stability of the financial system, individual privacy, and the sovereignty of the U.S."
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NBC News; Rob Wile (January 23, 2025)
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 Anil K. Jain of Michigan State University and Michael I. Jordan of the University of California, Berkeley, won the Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies from the BBVA Foundation for “core contributions” to machine learning, which have unlocked developments in biometrics and AI. Jain’s research has focused on pattern recognition, while Jordan’s efforts have focused on unified algorithms for statistical and probabilistic inference.
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BBVA (January 21, 2025)
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An underwater robot developed by researchers at China's Harbin Engineering University could allow scientists to study seabeds without disturbing them. Featuring an angular acceleration feedback control, the robot also has external disturbance observation algorithms and sensors that can identify and resist external disturbances and map out a course in real time. The researchers say the robot could travel 20 centimeters above the seafloor without disturbing it.
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IEEE Spectrum; Liam Critchley (January 21, 2025)
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In late February, Lonestar Data Holdings plans to launch a fully assembled datacenter on a trip to the Moon via SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The datacenter, which will integrate with an Athena moon lander made by Intuitive Machines, will be powered via solar energy and utilize solid-state drives that are cooled naturally. Datacenter firm Flexential will provide ground-based backup.
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Reuters; Akash Sriram (January 21, 2025)
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A miniature computing chip developed by researchers in South Korea can self-learn and correct errors much like the human brain does. When processing video streams, for example, the chip teaches itself how to separate moving objects from the background, improving its performance over time. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said the new chip "is like a smart workspace where everything is within reach instead of moving between a desk and a filing cabinet."
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Chosun Biz (South Korea); Hong A-reum (January 17, 2025)
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Canadian non-profit Open Quantum Design (OQD) has rolled out an open-source, full-stack, trapped-ion quantum computer, with the goal of making quantum hardware, software, and educational materials freely available. The first partners to join OQD's platform include Canada's University of Waterloo and Xanadu Quantum Technologies, the nonprofit Unitary Foundation, and quantum software firm Haiqu. The platform is intended to help overcome challenges facing quantum computing, including a lack of hardware access and skilled talent.
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Interesting Engineering; Aman Tripathi (January 17, 2025)
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The European Commission has asked X for internal documents related to its "recommender system" algorithms, as it investigates whether the social media platform has breached EU rules on content moderation. X has been under investigation since December 2023 under the EU’s Digital Services Act over how it tries to control the spread of illegal content and information manipulation.
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The Guardian (U.K.) (January 17, 2025)
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