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Welcome to the September 5, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.
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Europe’s General Court upheld a transatlantic data transfer pact between the EU and the U.S. The agreement, struck in 2023 after two previous frameworks were invalidated, was challenged by French lawmaker Philippe Latombe, who argued it failed to adequately protect Europeans from bulk U.S. surveillance. The European judges dismissed these concerns, ruling U.S. oversight mechanisms offered sufficient safeguards. The case could still proceed to the European Court of Justice, which has the final word on the region’s data protection law.
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Reuters; Foo Yun Chee; Sudip Kar-Gupta (September 3, 2025)
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Big tech CEOs including Microsoft's Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Apple’s Tim Cook gathered at the White House Thursday to show their support for Melania Trump's plan to help America’s children learn to use AI. The first lady last month launched a presidential AI challenge that seeks to foster students and educators’ interest in the technology.
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Financial Times; Joe Miller; Stephen Morris; Cristina Criddle (September 3, 2025); et al.
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As federal science funding declines under the Trump administration, the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has become a national model for industry partnerships, securing nearly 15% of its research budget—over $70 million—from corporations. The school is emphasizing long-term, multilayered collaborations, such as with Nvidia, which equipped a supercomputing hub on campus in 2024 that students use for AI projects.
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The Wall Street Journal; Nidhi Subbaraman (August 30, 2025)
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 Africa is home to over a quarter of the world’s languages, yet many have been excluded from AI development. The Africa Next Voices project, supported by a $2.2-million Gates Foundation grant, created datasets in 18 African languages from Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. At South Africa’s University of Pretoria, computer science professor Vukosi Marivate said, "We think in our own languages, dream in them, and interpret the world through them. If technology doesn't reflect that, a whole group risks being left behind."
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BBC News; Pumza Fihlani (September 4, 2025)
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An algorithm developed by University of Colorado Boulder researchers helps robots make safer decisions around humans in unpredictable settings. Inspired by game theory, the system enables robots to adopt “admissible strategies,” focusing on minimizing harm rather than completing tasks at all costs. By factoring in concepts like regret, robots can adapt actions to prioritize safety, even when humans behave unexpectedly.
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Interesting Engineering; Mrigakshi Dixit (August 29, 2025)
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 Hackers claiming to be from a group called Scattered LapSus Hunters have threatened to leak Google databases unless the company fires employees Austin Larsen and Charles Carmakal, both of whom work in Google’s Threat Intelligence Group. The hackers also demanded a suspension of investigations into their network. The group reportedly consists of members from Scattered Spider, LapSus, and ShinyHunters. No proof of database access has been provided, but in August reports indicated that ShinyHunters obtained data from Salesforce, a Google third-party provider.
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Newsweek; Theo Burman (September 1, 2025)
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SeeMe, an AI system developed by Stony Brook University (SBU) researchers, detects microscopic facial movements in comatose patients to identify signs of consciousness invisible to doctors. The researchers recorded videos of 37 patients with recent brain injuries who outwardly appeared to be in a coma. They tracked the participants’ facial movements at the level of individual pores after they were given commands such as “open your eyes” or “stick out your tongue.”
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Scientific American; Andrew Chapman (August 31, 2025)
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U.S. schools have shifted from banning ChatGPT to embracing AI for instruction, homework assistance, and administrative tasks, though teacher adoption lags. Companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft push AI products and training into schools, sometimes raising concerns about bias, privacy, and commercialization. Educators aim to integrate AI responsibly while emphasizing critical thinking, student independence, and harm reduction.
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Bloomberg; Vauhini Vara (September 1, 2025)
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Scientists at Germany's University of Duisburg-Essen’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine have created an open-source tool that converts complex tables into interactive HTML reports without requiring programming skills. The Datavzrd tool enables sorting, filtering, and linking data directly in a Web browser, even for datasets with millions of rows. Reports can be shared easily by email or attached to publications, maintaining full interactivity.
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SciTechDaily (September 3, 2025)
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A software tool developed by researchers at Germany's Technical University of Munich and Leibniz Supercomputing Centre enables integration between quantum computers and supercomputers. The sys-sage tool, originally designed as a central interface for supercomputers, organizes detailed information about system architecture and topology, creating a map of how components are connected. The researchers' expanded version unifies quantum and high-performance computing structures into a single interface, allowing both systems to work together and determining which platform is best for any particular task.
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Technical University of Munich (Germany) (September 2, 2025)
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 Microsoft researchers unveiled a breakthrough in hollow-core fiber cables that achieve an optical loss of just 0.091 decibels per kilometer, making them faster and more efficient than conventional optical fibers. The new design refines the “double nested antiresonant nodeless” approach with ultra-thin membranes that guide signals effectively, offering 45% faster transmission speeds, five to ten times wider bandwidth, and reduced need for amplification.
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The Register (U.K.); David Meyer (September 1, 2025)
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Amazon Web Services (AWS) will invest NZ$7.5 billion (U.S.$4.4 billion) in New Zealand to build and operate datacenters, launching a new cloud services region. The investment is expected to create over 1,000 full-time jobs. AWS said the datacenters will support growing demand for cloud services while contributing to digital skills development through local hiring and training, adding that it plans to build and operate datacenters in Chile, Saudi Arabia, and Europe.
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The Wall Street Journal; Kimberley Kao (September 1, 2025)
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Researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz developed Pulse-Fi, a system that measures heart rate using low-cost Wi-Fi devices without the need for wearable devices. By analyzing subtle changes in Wi-Fi signals caused by heartbeats, a machine learning algorithm distinguishes those variations from other environmental noise. Tested on 118 participants in multiple positions, Pulse-Fi achieved clinical-level accuracy within five seconds. The system works with inexpensive ESP32 and Raspberry Pi chips and at distances of up to three meters.
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UC Santa Cruz; Emily Cerf (September 2, 2025)
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