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ACM Media Center

Jie Ren at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, the University of Utah's Amit Samanta, and Xuan Wu at Oregon State University were named recipients of the 2026 ACM/IEEE Computer Society George Michael Memorial High-Performance Computing (HPC) Fellowship. Ren was recognized for advancing GPU-accelerated linear algebra through algorithm-architecture co-design, Samanta for advancing leadership-scale HPC infrastructure efficiency and sustainability, and Wu for pioneering error-controlled methods for compressing, retrieving, and analyzing scientific data.

From "ACM, IEEE Announce 2026 George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship Recipients"
ACM Media Center (09/09/26)
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CBS News

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday signed new laws to protect children from harms associated with social media and AI chatbots. The measures allow penalties of up to $1 million per child for social media companies found negligent in harming children, while banning autoplay scrolling and algorithmic feeds based on user history for users under 16. Newsom also signed into law measures requiring independent organizations to evaluate AI safety risks and creating a registry for financially independent AI auditors.

From "New Laws in California Promote Online Safety for Children, AI Oversight"
CBS News (09/10/26)
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Financial Times

The latest edition of the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) survey of comparative educational performance found reading and mathematics performance among 15-year-olds across Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries has fallen sharply since 2018, with average reading scores down 25 points and math scores down 22. Researchers link the decline to growing “digital distraction,” including short-form social media. Frequent AI use also was associated with weaker science performance.

From "Reading Scores Plummet as ‘Digital Distraction’ Harms Students"
Financial Times (09/08/26) Chris Smyth; Andrew Jack
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IEEE Spectrum

Google DeepMind’s newly released AlphaGenome Atlas is a public database containing AI-generated predictions for all 9 billion possible single-letter changes in the human genome. The Atlas predicts how DNA variants may affect gene expression and other regulatory activity, allowing researchers to investigate genetic changes without running the computationally demanding model. DeepMind used techniques including model distillation, GPU optimization, and removal of redundant calculations to create the roughly 1-petabyte dataset.

From "Google DeepMind Maps 9 Billion Possible DNA Variants"
IEEE Spectrum (09/08/26) Greg Uyeno
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Independent (U.K.)

U.K. charity Guide Dogs has launched a pilot program that converts standard 20-week pregnancy ultrasound scans into 3D-printed tactile models for parents and grandparents with visual impairment. The First Hello initiative allows families to upload a 2D ultrasound image, which is transformed into a render and then printed as a model that can be explored by touch.

From "Pilot Turns Ultrasounds into 3D-Printed Molds for Parents with Sight Loss"
Independent (U.K.) (09/07/26) Storm Newton
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NBC News

In an alert published Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) accused six major Chinese AI developers of systematically using “distillation” to extract capabilities from American AI models. The agencies said the activity, which may have occurred with Chinese government awareness, could undermine U.S. intellectual property and AI safety protections. Among other things, the agencies recommended U.S. AI companies strengthen customer verification and share information about suspicious activity.

From "U.S. Agencies Say Top Chinese AI Companies Systematically Copied American Models"
NBC News (09/09/26) Kevin Collier; Jared Perlo
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