Welcome to the May 7, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• CEOs Push AI, CS as Graduation Requirement
• EU Chief Touts Protections for Tech Researchers
• NSO Ordered to Pay $167 Million for Hacking WhatsApp
• 3D-Printable Open Source Humanoid Robot
• Washable Smart Shirt Tracks Workouts
• Making VR More Accessible
• Leveraging Chaos to Create Quantum Randomness
• Google to Roll Out AI Chatbot to Children Under 13
• Helping High-Performance Computers Multi-Task
• Bitcoin Mining's Outsized Impact on the U.S. Grid
• Pentagon's AI Metals Program Goes Private
• Smarter 3D Maps Help Robots Navigate, 'Think' Faster
• Self-Driving Cars Can Tap into AI-Powered Social Network

CEOs Push AI, CS as Graduation Requirement

As part of an effort led by Code.org, more than 200 CEOs have signed a letter calling on state leaders to require students take AI and computer science classes in order to graduate from high school. Among those who signed the letter were the heads of American Express, Airbnb, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Microsoft, Yahoo, Zoom, Uber, and several coding education and ed-tech companies.
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EU Chief Touts Protections for Tech Researchers

During a May 5 conference in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted several policies intended to lure foreign researchers to Europe and pledged to protect those who relocate to the region. The Commission has proposed the European Research Area Act to ensure free movement of knowledge and data across the EU, as well as €500 million ($565 million) in funding to support researchers.
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NSO Ordered to Pay $167 Million for Hacking WhatsApp

A federal jury on Tuesday ordered Israeli spyware maker NSO Group to pay $167 million for hacking more than 1,000 people through WhatsApp messages. U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton granted WhatsApp’s motion for summary judgment against NSO for violating the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and a similar California law with its Pegasus spying program.
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3D-Printable Open Source Humanoid Robot

An open source, customizable humanoid robot developed by University of California, Berkeley researchers can be produced using desktop 3D printers and standard parts for under $5,000. Dubbed Berkeley Humanoid Lite, the 2.6-foot, 35-pound robot can walk and hop and uses reinforcement learning to learn moving skills. Designs, CAD files, programming code, training resources, and other guides and manuals for the robot are publicly available via GitHub.
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Washable Smart Shirt Tracks Workouts

A smart t-shirt developed by Cornell University researchers can record the wearer's exercise and posture data through flexible conductive threads sewn into the shirt’s neck, arm, and side seams. The wearer's body poses and movements are inferred by changes in capacitances as the threads deform. The data is recorded by a circuit board at the neckline, which can be removed before laundering, and sent to a laptop via Bluetooth, where an AI model identifies the exercises performed and counts repetitions.
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Making VR More Accessible

A tool developed by computer science researchers at Canada's University of Waterloo enables people with limited mobility to play virtual reality (VR) games by customizing the games' controls according to the movements they are capable of performing. MotionBlocks modifies how controller inputs are understood by VR game platforms, allowing users to identify and tune a simple shape to capture their range of motion and configure the 3D movements needed in the VR app.
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Leveraging Chaos to Create Quantum Randomness

California Institute of Technology researchers leveraged chaos to transform classical randomness into quantum randomness. In simulations of a chaotic system comprised of numerous qubits, the researchers determined that as some qubits moved others into random quantum states, the amount of quantum randomness in the final state could be quantified. The researchers found that converting the qubits' initial state to be more classically random generated as much quantum randomness as adding an entire extra qubit.
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Google to Roll Out AI Chatbot to Children Under 13

Google said its Gemini AI chatbot will be made available to children under 13 with parent-managed Google accounts through Family Link next week. In an email to parents, Google said children can use the Gemini Apps to ask questions, create stories, and get help with homework. A Google spokesperson said Gemini data from children with Family Link accounts will not be used to train the AI.
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Helping High-Performance Computers Multi-Task

Computer scientists at the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) and Purdue University developed processor extensions to help central processing units quickly and efficiently coordinate the performance of tasks in progress with incoming requests. With extended user interrupts, UC San Diego's Tal Garfinkel said, "The processor doesn't need to immediately stop and throw away the work it was doing; instead it can treat this new event as just another set of instructions to carry out in parallel with all its other tasks."
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Bitcoin Mining's Outsized Impact on the U.S. Grid

A study of a database of 34 of the biggest Bitcoin mines in the U.S. by Harvard University researchers found they consumed 32.3 terawatt-hours of electricity from August 2022 to July 2023, 33% more than consumed by all of Los Angeles over the same period. The researchers discovered four key hotspot pockets of air pollution resulting from the generation of power for Bitcoin mines: within New York City and Houston, on the border between Illinois and Kentucky, and northeast Texas.
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Pentagon's AI Metals Program Goes Private

The U.S. Department of Defense's Open Price Exploration for National Security AI metals program has been taken over by the nonprofit Critical Minerals Forum (CMF), with the goal of reducing manufacturers' reliance on China. The AI model is intended to calculate the cost of a metal by factoring in labor, processing, and other costs and factoring out Chinese market manipulation, enabling manufacturers' to increase their metal supply deals with Western mines.
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Smarter 3D Maps Help Robots Navigate, 'Think' Faster

An algorithm developed by Northeastern University researchers improves mobile robot navigation by implementing a new scanning method that processes just the most significant data points. The algorithm, called Deep Feature Assisted LiDAR Inertial Odometry and Mapping (DFLIOM), reduces the amount of sensor data needed, lowering the computational burden on the robot and improving the accuracy of mapping in certain cases.
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Self-Driving Cars Can Tap into AI-Powered Social Network

New York University (NYU) researchers have developed an AI model-sharing framework for self-driving cars that enables them to share information about traffic patterns, road conditions, and traffic signs and signals without establishing direct connections or sharing the driver's personal information or driving patterns. With the Cached Decentralized Federated Learning (Cached-DFL) framework, self-driving cars could learn how to handle various scenarios from vehicles that have encountered such challenges in other locations.
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