Welcome to the July 9, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• The Coder 'Village' at the Heart of China's AI Frenzy
• 2025 Kyoto Prize Laureates Announced
• 'Cybersecurity' Behind Decision to End Defense Satellite Sharing of Hurricane Data
• Marco Rubio Impostor Using AI to Contact High-Level Officials
• Hacking Group Starts Turf War
• EU Reviewing Big Tech Rule Book
• OpenAI, Microsoft Bankroll AI Training for Teachers
• More Than 70% of U.K. Parents Say Kids Aren't Taught Coding at School
• Tennis Players Criticize AI Technology Used by Wimbledon
• Embedding Invisible Digital Information in Printed Documents
• AI Cameras Change Driver Behavior at Intersections
• Quantum Computers Are Surprisingly Random
• Call of Duty Takes PC Game Offline After Reports of RCE Attacks on Players

The Coder 'Village' at the Heart of China's AI Frenzy

Hangzhou, China, and its Liangzhu suburb have lured tech workers with low rents and proximity to DeepSeek and Alibaba. Coupled with provincial and local government subsidies and tax breaks for startups, the city has become China's AI hub. Mindverse founder Felix Tao's home in Liangzhu serves as a gathering place for "villagers," coders in their 20s and 30s seeking to leverage AI in launching their own firms.
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2025 Kyoto Prize Laureates Announced

Japan's Inamori Foundation awarded its Kyoto Prize in the field of Advanced Technology to Shun-ichi Amari of Japan's RIKEN Brain Science Institute and Teikyo University. Amari, one of three 2025 Kyoto Prize laureates, was recognized for his work in IT, specifically on neural network dynamics and learning theory, and for the creation of "information geometry," an academic field that serves as the foundation for practical algorithm development. Amari's work has contributed to the evolution of AI.
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'Cybersecurity' Behind Decision to End Defense Satellite Sharing of Hurricane Data

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the U.S. Department of Defense is ending its Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), which provides data for hurricane forecasting, by the end of July "to mitigate a significant cybersecurity risk" to government "high performance computing environments." Meanwhile, NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC), Google DeepMind, and Google Research have agreed to explore how a new AI weather forecast model can improve the forecasting of hazardous weather.
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Marco Rubio Impostor Using AI to Contact High-Level Officials

An impostor used AI-powered software to impersonate U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in calls and texts with foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a member of the U.S. Congress. The culprit was probably attempting to manipulate officials “with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts,” according to a cable sent by Rubio’s office to State Department employees. The State Department said it would “carry out a thorough investigation and continue to implement safeguards to prevent this from happening in the future.”
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Hacking Group Starts Turf War

DragonForce, a ransomware-as-a-service group associated with recent cyberattacks against U.K. retailers, is engaged in a turf war with one of its biggest competitors, RansomHub. Researchers at U.K. computer security company Sophos said DragonForce is also believed to be responsible for attacks on the sites of other rivals. Google Threat Intelligence Group's Genevieve Stark said, "Instability within the extortion ecosystem can have serious implications for ransomware and data theft extortion victims."
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EU Reviewing Big Tech Rule Book

The European Commission is accepting public comments through Sept. 24 on the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect last year and regulates the activities of Meta, Google, Alphabet, Apple, ByteDance, and Amazon. The Commission has requested feedback on the DMA's real-world impact, whether the law has added fairness and contestability to digital markets, and whether the Commission should modify the core platform services covered by the law, or its prescriptions and prohibitions.
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OpenAI, Microsoft Bankroll AI Training for Teachers

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) said on Tuesday it would start an AI training hub for educators with $23 million in funding from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The second-largest U.S. teachers’ union said it would open the National Academy for AI Instruction in New York City, starting with hands-on workshops for teachers this fall on how to use AI tools to generate lesson plans, and for other tasks.
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More Than 70% of U.K. Parents Say Kids Aren't Taught Coding at School

More than 70% of U.K. parents polled by the Raspberry Pi Foundation said coding is not part of their children's normal school lessons. The survey found 60% of parents consider coding an important skill, and more than 50% said it should be a mandatory subject. Further, about 60% of parents said learning to code at school would make their children more likely to have a good career.
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Tennis Players Criticize AI Technology Used by Wimbledon

Numerous tennis players criticized AI technology used at the Wimbledon tournament. This is the first year the tournament replaced human line judges with an AI-driven electronic line calling system. Players complained that the system made incorrect calls, sometimes leading to point losses. Said Debbie Jevans, chair of the organization that hosts Wimbledon, “When we did have linesmen, we were constantly asked why we didn’t have electronic line calling because it’s more accurate than the rest of the tour.”
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Embedding Invisible Digital Information in Printed Documents

The Imprinto system, developed by researchers at Spain's Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Adobe Research, uses infrared ink to embed digital information in printed documents that is invisible to the human eye but can be detected with near-infrared cameras. The system allows for advanced interaction with physical documents without changing their visible appearance, relying on QR codes, or adding external devices.
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AI Cameras Change Driver Behavior at Intersections

An increasing number of local governments in the U.S. are deploying AI-powered cameras at intersections in hopes of changing driver behavior, as technology companies try to bring the results seen in Europe to U.S. streets. Stop for Kids' AI cameras detect vehicles that violate traffic laws at intersections and automatically issues citations. In a 2022 pilot in Saddle Rock, NY, compliance with stop signs jumped from 3% to 84% within 90 days of installation of the company's cameras.
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Quantum Computers Are Surprisingly Random

California Institute of Technology researchers demonstrated that randomness can be produced by quantum computers more easily than previously believed. Fewer shuffles of qubits than originally thought are necessary to produce random sequences, which the researchers indicated could pave the way for using randomly arranged qubit sequences once deemed too complex to implement on larger quantum computers.
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Call of Duty Takes PC Game Offline After Reports of RCE Attacks on Players

The PC version of Call of Duty: World War 2 was removed from the Microsoft Store on July 5 while "reports of an issue" were being investigated, according to the video game's X account. Players using Xbox's GamePass service posted videos indicating a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability was being exploited to take over their PCs during live multiplayer matches. Cybersecurity firm MalwareBytes attributes the issue to the transition of older games from dedicated servers to peer-to-peer networking by many video game companies.
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