Welcome to the June 13, 2025 edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for computer professionals three times a week.

HEADLINES AT A GLANCE

• Social Media Algorithms Boost L.A. Protest Misinformation
• AI Turns Paralyzed Man's Brainwaves into Speech
• EU Launches DNS Resolver That Can Filter Dangerous Traffic
• NIST Offers 19 Ways to Build Zero Trust Architectures
• Chinese AI Firms Block Features amid University Entrance Exams
• FDA to Use AI in Drug Approvals to 'Radically Increase Efficiency'
• Photonic Processor Could Streamline 6G Wireless Signal Processing
• Largest-Ever Data Leak Exposes Over 4 Billion User Records
• Single-Material Electronic Skin Gives Robots the Human Touch
• 2D Material Computer Built Without Silicon
• Cyberattacks on Smartphones Hit New High
• News Sites Hit by Google's AI Tools

Social Media Algorithms Boost L.A. Protest Misinformation

Social media algorithms are promoting dated and fake content about the Los Angeles protests. On TikTok, an AI-generated video purporting to be a livestream by a National Guardsman preparing for "today's gassing" of protesters had garnered more than 960,000 views. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue reported that some posts on X spreading conspiracy theories about paid or government-backed protesters had more than 1 million views.
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AI Turns Paralyzed Man's Brainwaves into Speech

A brain-computer interface developed by University of California, Davis researchers enabled a man who lost the ability to speak due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to hold real-time conversations, and even sing. The researchers implanted 256 electrodes into areas of the brain that control the facial muscles used for speaking, then recorded his brain activity while he read sentences aloud in specific intonations. The data was used to train an AI model to associate certain neural activity patterns with his intended words and inflections.
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EU Launches DNS Resolver That Can Filter Dangerous Traffic

The EU has launched the DNS4EU domain name system (DNS) resolver as an alternative to Google, Cloudflare, and other U.S.-based public DNS services. DNS4EU, available at no cost to home users, has a built-in filter to block malicious domains and offers add-on filters to block ads, malware, and adult content. A dedicated version for EU government entities and telecom providers is also available.
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NIST Offers 19 Ways to Build Zero Trust Architectures

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NISE) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence has published guidance to help organizations build their own zero trust architectures (ZTAs). The publication, developed in partnership with 24 industry collaborators, provides 19 examples of ZTAs implemented using commercial, off-the-shelf technologies. It includes implementation details and test results based on real-world scenarios common among large organizations.
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Chinese AI Firms Block Features amid University Entrance Exams

Leading domestic AI companies froze certain features during the hours of China's national college entrance exam (gaokao) this year. Tencent, DeepSeek, and Kimi were among those that prevented users from uploading photos of test papers. Some schools also deployed real-time AI patrol and surveillance systems to prevent suspicious behavior in the exam room. China also employs facial recognition technology, drones, and cellphone-signal blockers, among other real-time surveillance and anti-cheating measures, during the gaokao.
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FDA to Use AI in Drug Approvals to 'Radically Increase Efficiency'

In a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials said the agency will use AI to "radically increase efficiency" in determining whether new drugs and devices receive approval. The FDA has rolled out a ChatGPT-like large language model called Elsa, which it plans to use to prioritize inspections of food and drug facilities, describe side-effects in drug safety summaries, and handle other basic-product review tasks.
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Photonic Processor Could Streamline 6G Wireless Signal Processing

An AI hardware accelerator developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers can perform machine learning computations at the speed of light and classify wireless signals within nanoseconds. Around 100 times faster than the top-performing digital alternative and 95% accurate in signal classification, the photonic chip could be used in future 6G wireless applications.
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Largest-Ever Data Leak Exposes Over 4 Billion User Records

Bob Dyachenko of cybersecurity company Security Discovery, and researchers at independent media outlet cybernews uncovered a 631-gigabyte database without a password that contained 4 billion records, marking what could be China's largest-ever data breach. The database included WeChat data, Alipay card and token information, residential data with geographic identifiers, banking information, IDs, phone numbers, and usernames. The database was taken down quickly, preventing the researchers from identifying the database owners.
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Single-Material Electronic Skin Gives Robots the Human Touch

A flexible, conductive "skin" developed by researchers at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge and University College London could enable robots to recognize different types of touch. Made from electrically conductive hydrogel, the material can be melted and cast into various complex shapes. The researchers tested the robotic skin on sensations such as heat and pressure, and used the resulting data to train a machine learning model to identify the meaning of each type of touch.
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2D Material Computer Built Without Silicon

Pennsylvania State University researchers developed a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) computer using transistors made from 2D materials instead of silicon. The researchers used metal-organic chemical vapor deposition to fabricate molybdenum disulfide n-type transistors and tungsten diselenide p-type transistors. Although the 2D CMOS computer operates at slower speeds than traditional silicon CMOS circuits, it can perform basic logic operations at frequencies up to 25 kilohertz using one type of instruction.
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Cyberattacks on Smartphones Hit New High

Kaspersky security researchers reported a 27% increase in detected malware samples on mobile devices from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025. The samples were blocked on more than 12 million smartphones in the first quarter, up 36% from the prior quarter. Said Kaspersky's Anton Kivva, “Users may mistakenly believe their smartphones are inherently more secure than PCs, but the reality is that mobile malware, like the sophisticated Trojans we explored over the last months, are increasingly active.”
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News Sites Hit by Google's AI Tools

Online news publishers are being forced to rethink their strategies as traffic declines with the introduction of AI tools that replace Google searches with chatbots that eliminate the need to click on links leading to their sites. The New York Times, for example, saw its share of traffic coming from organic search to the paper’s desktop and mobile websites drop to 36.5% in April 2025 from almost 44% three years earlier, according to software development and data aggregation company Similarweb.
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