Welcome to the August 29, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

In observance of the U.S. Labor Day holiday, ACM TechNews will not be published on Monday, Sept. 1. Publication will resume Wednesday, Sept. 3.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• FBI Warns Chinese Hacking Campaign Expanded to 80 Countries
• South Korea Bans Phones in School Classrooms
• Hacker Used AI to Automate 'Unprecedented' Cybercrime Spree
• Quantum Memory Array Brings Us Closer to Quantum RAM
• MRI-Like Scan May Prevent Bridge Disasters
• U.S. Soldiers Learn to 3D-Print, Fly Drones in New Army Course
• Teacher-less AI Private School Opening in Virginia
• Street-Corner Sensors Track Flooding in Real Time
• Companies Chase ‘AI Native’ Talent, No Work Experience Required
• 3D-Printed Superconductor Achieves Record Performance
• Hackers Sabotage Iranian Ships
• Malaysia Unveils First AI Device Chip
• Erasing Seams Between Virtual, Physical Worlds

FBI Warns Chinese Hacking Campaign Expanded to 80 Countries

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and globally allied intelligence agencies warned that a Chinese-government hacking campaign has expanded far beyond U.S. telecom firms, targeting at least 200 U.S. organizations as well as entities in 80 countries. The joint advisory named three private companies that allegedly participated in the attacks, saying they provided services to multiple units in China's People’s Liberation Army and Ministry of State Security.
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South Korea Bans Phones in School Classrooms

Under a new law, South Korea will ban mobile phones and other smart devices in classrooms during school hours starting March 2026, to combat smartphone addiction and its impact on students’ learning and development. Teachers can enforce the ban, with exemptions for disabilities, emergencies, or educational use. While many schools in that nation already restrict phone use, the law formalizes it nationally. The law also requires schools to educate students on responsible device use.
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Hacker Used AI to Automate 'Unprecedented' Cybercrime Spree

Anthropic revealed that a hacker exploited its Claude AI chatbot to run what it called the most advanced AI-driven cybercrime spree yet, targeting at least 17 companies. Over three months, the hacker used Claude to identify vulnerable firms, build malware, organize stolen files, analyze sensitive data, and draft ransom emails. Victims included a defense contractor, a financial institution, and several healthcare providers, with stolen data ranging from medical records to defense-regulated files.
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Quantum Memory Array Brings Us Closer to Quantum RAM

A solid-state quantum memory system developed by researchers at ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Spain uses a praseodymium-doped crystal array with 10 memory cells that can be controlled individually. The system stores qubits in arbitrary combinations of memory cells using acoustic-optical deflectors and allows for on-demand retrieval. It utilizes both path encoding and time-bin encoding, with the latter enabling photons to be stored in several time-slots in each memory cell.
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MRI-Like Scan May Prevent Bridge Disasters

University of Texas at Arlington's Suyun Ham developed a mobile bridge inspection system to address infrastructure damage from extreme heat, which deteriorates bridges over time. His trailer-mounted device uses mechanical waves, sensors, ground-penetrating radar, and cameras to rapidly scan bridges while being towed by a pickup truck, collecting comprehensive structural data in seconds. The "portable MRI" system also employs AI to analyze vibration signals, identifying cracks and other structural problems without requiring lane closures.
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U.S. Soldiers Learn to 3D-Print, Fly Drones in New Army Course

The U.S. Army has launched the Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course (UALC), a three-week program at Fort Rucker that will teach soldiers drone operation and 3D-printing skills. Led by the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence, the three-week course will train participants to build and fly first-person-view drones from scratch using 3D-printed components. Students will work with both FDM and resin 3D printers and various materials, including carbon fiber, as well as learning to generate custom STL files with CAD software.
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Teacher-less AI Private School Opening in Virginia

Alpha School, an AI-driven private school, is opening a Northern Virginia campus this fall, charging up to $65,000 annually. Students will spend two hours daily on academics via adaptive apps like IXL, then focus on life skills and workshops. Instead of teachers, AI “guides” oversee learning and activities. Backed by billionaire investors, Alpha is expanding to 12 campuses nationwide while seeking approval to adapt its model in charter schools.
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Street-Corner Sensors Track Flooding in Real Time

FloodNet, a New York City initiative launched in 2020, uses over 250 low-cost sensors to measure water levels and stream street-level data online, with plans to expand to 500 sensors by 2027. The project was spurred by flooding during Hurricane Ida. Unlike satellites or costly streamgages, FloodNet offers granular, real-time urban flood tracking.
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Companies Chase ‘AI Native’ Talent, No Work Experience Required

Base salaries for nonmanagerial workers in AI with up to three years’ experience increased by 12% from last year to this year, the largest gain of any experience group, according to a new report by Burtch Works. The AI staffing firm also found that people with AI experience are being promoted to management roles roughly twice as fast as their counterparts in other technology fields.
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3D-Printed Superconductor Achieves Record Performance

Cornell University researchers developed a one-step 3D-printing method to create superconductors. Using a copolymer–inorganic nanoparticle ink, the material self-assembles during printing and is then heat-treated into a porous crystalline superconductor. The technique simplifies traditional multi-step fabrication and allows precise structural control at the atomic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic scales. In tests, a niobium-nitride superconductor produced through this process achieved an unprecedented upper critical magnetic field of 40–50 Tesla, key for advanced magnets such as those in MRI machines.
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Hackers Sabotage Iranian Ships

Researchers at U.K.-based Iranian opposition activist group Nariman Gharib found that hackers had launched a coordinated cyber assault on Iran's sanctioned tanker fleets earlier this month by infiltrating Fanava Group, the IT provider that manages their satellite communications. The attackers gained access to a centralized database by exploiting vulnerabilities in outdated iDirect Falcon terminals running legacy Linux systems. The hackers simultaneously disrupted email, weather updates, communications, and port coordination across 64 ships with a single orchestration script and overwrote storage partitions on satellite modems so remote recovery was impossible.
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Malaysia Unveils First AI Device Chip

Malaysia introduced its first domestically designed AI processor, the MARS1000, marking the country's entry into the competitive global semiconductor race. Developed by SkyeChip, the edge AI processor is intended to power devices like cars and robots internally. This comes as the government has committed 25 billion ringgit (U.S.$6 billion) to advance the nation's capabilities in chip design, wafer fabrication, and AI datacenters, building on existing investments from major tech companies like Oracle and Microsoft.
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Erasing Seams Between Virtual, Physical Worlds

Princeton University computer scientists have developed a system that merges virtual reality with physical robots to create seamless mixed-reality experiences. Users wearing mixed-reality headsets can virtually select and place objects, which physically materialize through an "invisible" robot that delivers the items. The technology uses hand gestures for object selection and 3D Gaussian splatting to digitally map the physical space.
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