Welcome to the December 18, 2024 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• When AI Vies with Taylor Swift
• Biden to Target Chinese Legacy Chips with Trade Investigation
• U.K. to Tweak Social Media Rules
• House Task Force Releases End-of-Year AI Report
• Quantum Computing's Threat to Bitcoin Quantified
• Waymo Heads Overseas
• Telegram Pushes Extremist Groups to Users
• JavaScript Still Number One
• Hackers Can Jailbreak Digital License Plates
• Texas Probes Tech Firms over Safety of Minors
• China Creates AI Standards Committee
• Robot Sophia Wins Hearts at Zimbabwe Innovation Fair
• Military History Buffs Wage War Against Virginia Datacenters

When AI Vies with Taylor Swift

The NeurIPS Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems held last week in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, drew more than 16,000 attendees. The crowds were so large that the conference began a day later than usual, so AI scientists would not fight for hotel rooms the same night as a Taylor Swift concert. The number of sponsors of NeurIPS jumped this year to more than 120, and the number of research papers accepted increased tenfold.
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Biden to Target Chinese Legacy Chips with Trade Investigation

The U.S. is reportedly gearing up to launch an investigation into Chinese production of "legacy" or "foundational" chips. The government is concerned China's increased investments in new factories to manufacture older-model semiconductors could put those in the U.S. and allied countries out of business, making the U.S. supply chain more dependent on China and U.S infrastructure and weaponry vulnerable to cybersecurity threats.
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U.K. to Tweak Social Media Rules

The U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom) released the first guidelines for the Online Safety Act, giving social media companies three months to complete an assessment of illegal harms on their platforms. The regulator said noncompliance could result in fines up to 10% of a platform's global revenue, or a court order to block access to its services "in very serious cases."
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House Task Force Releases End-of-Year AI Report

The U.S. House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence released a comprehensive end-of-year report Tuesday, laying out a roadmap for lawmakers as it crafts policy for the technology. The report examines how the U.S. can harness AI in social, economic, and health settings, while acknowledging the technology can be harmful or misused in some cases.
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Quantum Computing's Threat to Bitcoin Quantified

Researchers at the U.K.'s University of Kent School of Computing said a protocol update that would take Bitcoin offline for 76 days is needed to effectively defend the cryptocurrency from the threat of quantum computing. More likely, the researchers calculated, Bitcoin would instead designate 25% of its server to a protocol update and allow its users to continue to mine and trade the cryptocurrency at a slower pace.
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Waymo Heads Overseas

As part of its international expansion plans, Alphabet's Waymo will begin testing autonomous vehicles in Tokyo beginning early next year. Waymo will partner with Japanese taxi operator Nihon Kotsu and the taxi app GO, with Nihon Kotsu overseeing the management and servicing of Waymo's Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in Japan.
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Telegram Pushes Extremist Groups to Users

A report by the civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center revealed an algorithm used by the social media platform Telegram recommends extremist content through the "similar channels" feature, even when users are browsing mundane topics. Those searching for extremist content would see content promoting other extremist ideologies in their recommendations, according to the study of 28,000 Telegram channels.
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JavaScript Still Number One

According to JetBrains’ State of the Developer Ecosystem Report 2024, JavaScript is the most-used programming language in the world, while the languages with the most promising growth prospects are TypeScript, Rust, and Python. The report found 61% of developers worldwide use JavaScript to create Web pages. Python was the second most-used programming language (named by 57% of responding developers), followed by HTML/CSS (51%), SQL (48%), Java (46%), and TypeScript (37%).
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Hackers Can Jailbreak Digital License Plates

IOActive researcher Josep Rodriguez demonstrated that Reviver's digital license plates can be hacked within minutes, allowing drivers to evade automatic license plate readers used to catch drivers for toll evasion, speeding, and parking violations, or to track criminal suspects. The "jailbreak" technique involves rewriting the plate's firmware by removing a sticker on the back and attaching a cable to its internal connectors. Custom firmware would allow a hacker to change the plate's display, even potentially putting another driver's license plate number on the screen.
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Texas Probes Tech Firms over Safety of Minors

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (pictured) announced an investigation into chatbot company Character.ai and 14 other tech companies over their privacy and safety practices regarding minors. The focus on Character.ai follows two high-profile legal complaints, including a lawsuit by a woman who said the company’s chatbots encouraged her autistic 17-year-old son to self-harm and to kill his parents for limiting his screen time. The other suit was filed by a mother whose 14-year-old son killed himself after extensive interactions with a chatbot.
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China Creates AI Standards Committee

China's industry ministry said on Dec. 13 that nation will establish an AI standardization technical committee, with representatives from the tech giant Baidu, Peking University, and other top academic institutions. The 41-member committee will be tasked with developing industry standards for large language models, AI risk assessments, and more.
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Robot Sophia Wins Hearts at Zimbabwe Innovation Fair

Sophia, a humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong's Hanson Robotics, was on display this week at the University of Zimbabwe during an Artificial Intelligence and Innovation event. Sophia held conversations with Cabinet ministers, academics, and students, making eye contact and using hand gestures and facial expressions, and took selfies with attendees. The robot was brought to Zimbabwe by the United Nations Development Program, which expressed hope it would "inspire Zimbabwe's youth to explore careers in AI and STEM fields."
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Military History Buffs Wage War Against Virginia Datacenters

The American Battlefield Trust has filed lawsuits in Prince William and Orange counties in Virginia to halt the development of datacenters on land near historic battlefields. The lawsuits target the Digital Gateway in Prince William County, where 37 datacenters could be located on around 2,000 acres next to the Manassas National Battlefield Park, and Wilderness Crossing in Virginia's Orange County, where a datacenter could be located near the Wilderness Battlefield site.
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