ACM TechNews
ACM A. M. Turing Award laureate Charles Antony ("Tony") Richard Hoare has died at the age of 92. Hoare is best known as the creator of the Quicksort algorithm, which he invented in 1959 and remains one of the fastest ways to sort data. Later, he devised Hoare logic, based on the Hoare triple, an important tool in reasoning about, and formally verifying, programs. He also published the Communicating Sequential Processes model, which guides how programming languages including Clojure, Erlang, and Go handle concurrent operations.

From "Quicksort Inventor Tony Hoare Dies at 92"
The Register (U.K.) (03/12/26) Liam Proven
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The U.K. has announced a coordinated set of initiatives to increase women’s participation in the technology sector and reduce the economic losses caused by female attrition. The package includes the £4-million (U.S.$5.3-million) TechFirst Women’s Program, which will fund at least 300 six-month paid tech placements. A pilot program will help experienced software developers return to the workforce after career breaks. Additional efforts focus on encouraging girls to pursue technology through coding competitions and addressing gender bias in emerging technologies like AI through the Women in Tech Taskforce.

From "U.K. Announces Co-ordinated Intervention to Boost Female Tech Talent"
Computing (U.K.) (03/12/26) Penny Horwood
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Pro-Iran hackers claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Michigan-based medical device maker Stryker, causing a global network disruption. The company said no indication of ransomware or malware was found and believes the incident is contained. The attack affected Stryker’s Lifenet system, used by emergency responders to transmit patient data, prompting hospitals to switch to radio consultations.

From "Iran-Linked Hackers Claim Cyberattack on U.S. Medical Device Maker"
CNN (03/11/26) Sean Lyngaas
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A coalition of technology researchers sued members of the Trump administration over a visa policy that has led to visa denials, detention, or deportation for foreign researchers and fact-checkers studying social media platforms. The lawsuit, filed by the nonpartisan Coalition for Independent Technology Research, argues the policy targets individuals working on misinformation, content moderation, and online safety, which threatens speech protections and academic research.

From "Tech Researchers Sue Over Visa Bans"
Barron's (03/09/26) Anuj Chopra
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In a new paper, ACM A.M. Turing Award laureate Yann LeCun and colleagues proposed a framework for the future development of artificial intelligence toward superhuman adaptable intelligence (SAI). The framework calls for new AI development goals that focus on the speed at which AI systems adapt to new tasks, rather than simply achieving human-level intelligence, and specialization over generalization. The researchers envision AI not as a universal model, but as a series of collaborative systems.

From "LeCun and Colleagues Propose SAI Framework"
36Kr (China) (03/09/26)
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is seeking public comments on a petition from Zoox, the autonomous vehicle unit of Amazon, to deploy steering-wheel-free robotaxis on U.S. roads. Zoox argues its purpose-built autonomous vehicles provide safety comparable to human-driven cars but require exemptions from federal safety standards designed for vehicles with human controls. NHTSA last year said it was streamlining reviews of requests filed by automakers seeking to deploy self-driving vehicles without required human controls.

From "U.S. Seeks Comment on Petition to Deploy Steering-Wheel-Free Robotaxis"
Reuters (03/10/26) David Shepardson
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Intel recently demonstrated its fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) chip Heracles, which was shown to be up to 5,000 times faster at FHE computing tasks than its Intel Xeon server CPU. The live demo simulated a request by a voter to ensure their ballot was registered correctly, which was handled in 14 microseconds, compared to the Xeon's 15 milliseconds. The chip's speed can be attributed to simultaneously running three synchronized streams of instructions for moving data onto and off the processor, moving data within it, and completing the math.

From "Intel Demos Chip to Compute with Encrypted Data"
IEEE Spectrum (03/10/26) Samuel K. Moore
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The U.S. Senate has approved the use of AI chatbots—including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot—for official work by aides. The tools may assist with research, drafting and editing documents, preparing briefings, and generating talking points, with data shared through Copilot Chat protected within the Microsoft 365 Government environment. Similar policies exist in the House, where AI can be used for internal tasks but requires managerial approval for constituent correspondence or decision-influencing work.

From "Chatbots Approved for Official Use in U.S. Senate"
The New York Times (03/10/26) Catie Edmondson
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Germany's Technical University of Munich (TUM) is partnering with NEURA Robotics to operate a 25,000-square-foot robotics research and training center. TUM RoboGym will provide a space for humanoid robots to learn certain tasks from humans and practice them repetitively before eventually applying these skills to real-world scenarios. In addition to amassing high-quality training data, the RoboGym will be used to train engineers and students.

From "Robot Gym in Germany to Train Humanoid Robots"
Interesting Engineering (03/10/26) Georgina Jedikovska
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Atlassian, Australia’s largest listed technology company, will cut about 10% of its workforce—around 1,600 jobs—as the company restructures to adapt to the impact of AI on the software industry. Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes (pictured) said the layoffs are part of a strategy to become an “AI-first” company and focus on long-term profitable growth. About 30% of the layoffs will occur in Australia, reflecting broader pressures on the country’s tech sector.

From "Atlassian Cuts 10% of Workforce to Adapt to AI Threat"
Financial Times (03/11/26) Nic Fildes
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Researchers at security firm Lumen's Black Lotus Labs discovered a botnet comprised of around 14,000 routers and other network devices infected by the KadNap malware. Most of the affected devices are made by Asus and located in the U.S., with smaller numbers based in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Russia. The botnet is resistant to detection and takedowns due to KadNap's ability to conceal command-and-control servers' IP addresses via distributed hash tables.

From "14,000 Routers Infected by Takedown-Resistant Malware"
Ars Technica (03/11/26) Dan Goodin
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PaperReview.ai, an agentic AI tool developed by Stanford University researchers, is being used to shrink the peer review process from months or years to a matter of minutes. The AI reviewer scans the submitted research paper and compares it to relevant research in arXiv and similar databases. It quickly identifies missing citations, weak arguments, and errors in methodology. Concerns have been raised, however, about the tool's high rejection rates.

From "Stanford's AI-Powered Peer Review System Rejects More Papers Than Ever"
ABC Money (U.K.) (03/11/26)
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Chinese state-run enterprises and government agencies are being warned not to install OpenClaw AI apps on office computers due to security concerns. Employees at state-run banks and certain government agencies are being prohibited from installing OpenClaw software on office computers or personal phones connected to the office network. The agentic AI platform has generated concerns due to its access to private data, external communication abilities, and exposure to untrusted content.

From "China Moves to Curb OpenClaw AI Use at Banks, State Agencies"
Bloomberg (03/11/26)
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