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State attorneys general spent months in negotiations. Then, as its legal losses mounted, the social media giant’s new top lawyer brought a huge settlement to the table.
NY Times • 8/29/2026, 9:02:44 AMTheir videos have proliferated on social media, but the payments are frequently hidden from viewers.
NY Times • 8/29/2026, 9:00:16 AMPlanning delays and slow 5G upgrades could leave the UK unable to cope with a surge in AI-related traffic The UK risks becoming a laggard in the global AI race as crucial telecoms upgrades to harness the technology fall behind rival nations, according to senior industry executives. The infrastructure AI race has centred on the need to build datacentres, and to ensure they have access to the huge water and energy supplies required to cool and supply the computational power to train and run AI models...
The Guardian • 8/29/2026, 6:00:19 AMWorld Humanoid Robot Games showcased leaps Beijing has made in the tech, but also highlighted limitations as US rivals prepare their own launches With exploding pelvises, enough comic pratfalls for a Buster Keaton show reel and the odd moment of ruthless violence, the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing gripped the world this week with an unsettling mixture of hilarity, trepidation and relief. The five-day showcase staked out China’s claim to undisputed leadership in humanoid robotics as android martial artists landed knockout roundhouse kicks and robot teams marched into the arena heralded by flag-waving captains astride giant robotic dogs. The games’ blue-riband event, the 100m, did not disappoint when the robot-sprinters ran quicker than Usain Bolt before slamming mindlessly into a padded wall in a blaze of sparks, flames and flying mechanical limbs...
The Guardian • 8/29/2026, 5:00:19 AMIn a newly edited statement, the Department of Justice said on Friday that the U.S. Senate, the Federal Reserve, NASA and others were “among the targets of QTFY,” a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group
The Hindu • 8/29/2026, 4:59:39 AMSandhya Devanathan, is leaving the social media giant and is all set to join OpenAI as Vice President for South East Asia and Australia
The Hindu • 8/29/2026, 3:58:06 AMThe outcome contradicted an earlier appeals court decision. Federal regulators said the split rulings called for resolution by the Supreme Court.
NY Times • 8/28/2026, 10:19:05 PM“The S1Z brings Ola's indigenous 46 series LFP cell platform technology to its most accessible scooter range,” the company said in a statement
The Hindu • 8/28/2026, 5:29:49 PMIndia must prioritise technology-driven, job-rich entrepreneurship in rural areas to achieve its ambition of growing from a $4 trillion economy to a $30 trillion economy by 2047.
The Hindu • 8/28/2026, 4:32:07 PMPrepare for autumn with our favorite end-of-season deals on staples including leaf blowers, blankets and bedding College grads share the room essentials that weathered the dorm Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things Labor Day offers one last hurrah for summer, a chance to reset for fall, and if you’re shopping, some choice end-of-season discounts. No matter your plans for the long weekend, we found sales on products to make the most of it while helping you prepare for the colder months ahead...
The Guardian • 8/28/2026, 4:02:27 PMSmoking used to be everywhere, the way Facebook, TikTok, Snap, YouTube and Instagram are now. Society decided to break the habit, but it took a long time.
NY Times • 8/28/2026, 3:29:01 PMGovernment says Green leader’s proposed moratorium on ‘energy-guzzling’ AI projects would be disaster for economy Labour has rejected calls to pause construction of major AI infrastructure in Britain after the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, said it was time to “slam the brakes on these energy-guzzling, water-guzzling datacentres”. The government hit back at the opposition party’s proposal of a “moratorium other than [for] local-scale datacentres for the local community”, saying it “would be a disaster for jobs and national security”...
The Guardian • 8/28/2026, 3:11:46 PMProposals for curbing social media use among children have wide support, but critics say they are ineffective.
NY Times • 8/28/2026, 1:46:27 PMAn unmanned electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft made its maiden demonstration flight in Hong Kong on Friday, as the city pushes to develop a low-altitude economy, with the government aiming to complete drafting relevant legislation by 2027. The flight marked a collaboration between mainland Chinese autonomous aerial vehicle firm EHang, local transport operator Kwoon Chung Bus Holdings and the city’s technology hub, Cyberport. The flight took place at Cyberport in Pok Fu...
South China Morning Post • 8/28/2026, 1:37:14 PMMeta negotiated an unusual provision in their landmark settlement: If TikTok and YouTube also agree to penalties and changes to their products, Meta will pay more.
NY Times • 8/28/2026, 11:00:03 AMAbout 80 people sign open letter to Andy Burnham calling for legislation to protect voice ownership Nicola Coughlan, Hugh Bonneville and Matt Lucas are among a group of actors backing a campaign against artificial intelligence voice cloning. Save Our Voices Now, which is also being supported by Luke Evans, Jen Brister, Siobhán McSweeney and Pearl Mackie, aims to stop the practice in which AI technology is used to replicate a real person’s voice to say anything it is prompted to...
The Guardian • 8/28/2026, 7:15:00 AMThe performers are asking the government to give every person in the UK a legal right to own their voice.
BBC Technology • 8/28/2026, 5:11:16 AMEnergy minister says states can apply to use coal and gas supply to power datacentres but must prove it is cheaper than renewables Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Chris Bowen insists federal Labor’s new national laws on datacentre power supply will not include carve-outs for Queensland and the Northern Territory, with states that are eager to use coal and gas required to make their case to the national regulator. The energy minister told Guardian Australia on Friday the only concession agreed at Wednesday’s meeting of national cabinet was that existing coal and gas supply could be used on the condition it could be shown to be cheaper than renewables...
The Guardian • 8/28/2026, 4:17:37 AMOther governments could seek similar concessions, while separate legal action is pending in places ranging from Kenya to the Netherlands In October 2021, Abrham Meareg’s father, a professor of chemistry in Ethiopia’s northern town of Bahir Dar, was shot at close range and died outside his family home. This was in the middle of the country’s civil war. For weeks, Facebook’s algorithm had actively promoted posts calling for the academic to be murdered, according to Meareg and Foxglove, a nonprofit organisation supporting Meareg’s lawsuit against the company in Kenya. These posts included photos of his father and his home address...
The Guardian • 8/28/2026, 4:00:48 AMChinese surgeons last month completed the world’s first commercial surgery to implant an invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) device in a patient with a spinal cord injury, a milestone in the neurotechnology development race with US companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink. This month a Chinese company, state-owned PICC Property and Casualty, launched the world’s first commercial insurance policy covering BCI implantation surgery. September will see the first undergraduates in China to major in...
South China Morning Post • 8/28/2026, 3:17:36 AMThe government retaliated against the A.I. start-up “for constitutionally protected expressive activities,” a federal judge in California wrote.
NY Times • 8/28/2026, 1:59:06 AMMore than 100 organisations, including OpenAI and Anthropic, called Thursday for governments and technology companies to strengthen cyber defences against increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks. The open letter warned that these could become far more widespread in the coming months as artificial intelligence models grow more capable.
France 24 • 8/28/2026, 1:05:51 AMDeploying artificial intelligence on Hong Kong’s 1823 complaint platform will reduce public frustration and strengthen governance, but authorities must also guard against privacy leaks, lawmakers and an expert have said. They described the AI measures announced on Thursday as a step in the right direction, saying the technology could reduce residents’ waiting times and help direct cases to the appropriate departments. “In the past, residents often complained that their cases were assigned to the...
South China Morning Post • 8/28/2026, 12:30:10 AMThe United States should take a leaf out of Beijing’s industrial playbook and strategically open up specific sectors to Chinese investment while ensuring that technology transfers occur, US industrial policy and supply chain experts said at an event on Thursday. The assessment comes as Washington mulls new broad restrictions on Chinese technology, including a proposed prohibition on the sale of cars with connected-vehicle technology linked to China and a ban on imports of Chinese humanoid robots...
South China Morning Post • 8/27/2026, 10:25:57 PMMore than 100 companies have written an open letter calling for collective action to strengthen cyber defences amid a rise in AI-enabled cyber attacks.
Sky News • 8/27/2026, 9:52:00 PMThe letter warns cyber-attacks which use AI will become more sophisticated in a matter of months.
BBC Business • 8/27/2026, 7:44:27 PMOur reporter Cecilia Kang explains Meta’s settlement of a lawsuit claiming that the company’s social media platforms had harmed teenage users.
NY Times • 8/27/2026, 6:54:17 PMIn an open letter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others said a wave of A.I.-enabled cyberattacks was coming and organizations and governments needed to prepare themselves.
NY Times • 8/27/2026, 5:11:15 PMThermal drone footage shows a Microsoft-backed AI datacenter powering its operations with dozens of unpermitted generators The largest planned AI datacenter in New Jersey is being accused of violating federal law after a visual investigation found the site running dozens of unpermitted gas-powered generators. Thermal drone footage captured by the non-profit newsroom Floodlight last week showed the partly completed DataOne facility in Vineland was operating at least 45 of the site’s 62 generators at the time...
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 3:00:33 PMFor an industry built on collecting exactly the kind of data the law now regulates — names, quiz scores, attendance records, AI tutoring conversations, sometimes biometric identifiers — the compliance bill is proving to be substantial
The Hindu • 8/27/2026, 2:23:21 PMThe social networking giant projected it could spend $10 billion annually on Anthropic’s tools, illustrating the friend-foe relationships underlying the A.I. race.
NY Times • 8/27/2026, 2:04:10 PMIn a disrupted job market people are turning to heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding It’s a bleak moment for young people entering the workforce for the first time. For decades, a university degree seemed to promise a stable career – but entry-level white-collar jobs across almost all sectors are being disrupted by AI. Budding accountants, software engineers and junior lawyers increasingly find themselves displaced by cheap automation. Even creative fields are struggling against AI tech that can produce artwork, lengthy prose or complex design briefs in seconds...
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 1:38:30 PMLegislatures in nearly a dozen states have voted to legalize use of the technology, which can help homeowners reduce their rising electricity costs.
NY Times • 8/27/2026, 1:31:20 PMThis week’s settlement without liability was pragmatic, but it doesn’t change the inevitability of further lawsuits around the world Not many people would count paying $18bn they didn’t expect to when they woke up that morning as a victory. Yet for Meta, the owners of Facebook and Instagram, the agreement with 52 US attorneys general to settle claims that it designed its products to be addictive to children, and misled people about their safety, could be described as a win of sorts. Meta denies wrongdoing, and the amount it plans to pay will be spread over a decade. Some of it is contingent on other big tech firms not named in its case coughing up too. The cash is chump change for Meta, which made around $60bn in profit last year. More damaging to the tech giant in the long run could be the agreement to unwind some of the mechanics it has spent two decades perfecting to keep us on its platforms. Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App..
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 1:11:16 PMAs the US president struggles to end his Iran war, and approval ratings hit new lows, he leans on a familiar gambit Donald Trump knows the power of an image – of himself, with everyone from Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un to Kim Kardashian. How about George Washington? As the US president struggles to end his war with Iran, and with his approval ratings hitting the lowest levels of his second term, he has in recent weeks posted a series of AI-generated images of himself alongside key historical American figures...
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 10:00:12 AMPeople are becoming convinced AI chatbots have helped them make scientific breakthroughs, cure diseases or invent new technologies. What does this reveal about a technology used by more than a billion people? A new series from The Guardian Investigates, coming soon..
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 10:00:11 AMMeta, the social media giant, agreed to change the way children interact with its apps. That could be trouble if its competitors don’t abide by the same rules.
NY Times • 8/27/2026, 9:03:52 AMA legal dispute over the future of Kalshi, Polymarket and others has drawn in the Trump administration, the president’s son and nearly every state attorney general.
NY Times • 8/27/2026, 9:02:01 AMAhead of playing Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields, artists explain why female-first festivals are due for a resurgence When I first saw the poster for Olivia Rodrigo’s inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival in June, I assumed it was AI. Chappell Roan, Doechii, Mitski, the Breeders, Bikini Kill and Garbage, all arranged in a neat line – and this was before I got to the words “special guests”. Karen O, Sarah McLachlan. And, to top it all off, Stevie Nicks? No. I saw the post confirmed on Rodrigo’s Instagram, and thought: how?..
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 9:00:10 AMInvestors breathe sigh of relief after AI bellwether Nvidia reports doubling in quarterly revenue to nearly $100bn Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the global economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business. Asian technology shares rose after bumper results from the US chipmaker Nvidia last night. The AI juggernaut is rumbling on with Nvidia smashing through expectations, amid voracious demand for the tech backbone of the AI revolution. The results solidified high expectations for the company’s mega revenues going forward, and shares firmed up, leaving behind the post-results wobbles seen after previous updates. Given the might of Nvidia, which carries the largest weight of any company in the S&P 500, the results are closely watched as a gauge of sentiment towards AI adoption, and the prospects for the index, which so many portfolios track. Demand for its Blackwell chips has been particularly significant, showing that customers are continuing to spend heavily on Nvidia’s newest generation of AI accelerators rather than simply filling existing capacity. With demand still running ahead of supply, Blackwell is helping to power the next leg of the AI infrastructure build-out. Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium begins in the US 1.30pm BST: US Initial jobless claims for week to 22 August 1.30pm BST: US trade in goods for July..
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 7:14:17 AMChatGPT creator says AI agents collaborated and delegated work in hacking, calling themselves a 'collective'.
Al Jazeera • 8/27/2026, 6:33:18 AMAI companies have promised us world-shifting technology. But there’s a cost: loud, unsightly datacentres that drain environmental resources. As the government pushes their rapid growth, can local communities do anything to push back? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s global technology reporter Aisha Down about the backlash to datacentres across the UK and around the world For tickets to the Science Weekly live event at the London podcast festival on the future of AI, visit the event page at kingsplace.co.uk Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod..
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 4:00:05 AMLawsuit is latest instance of Brazil taking aggressive steps to rein in tech giants over child safety issues online.
Al Jazeera • 8/27/2026, 2:11:21 AMRevisited: Guardian journalist Michael Safi looks into the world of artificial intelligence, exploring the dangers and promises it holds for society Today in Focus is on a summer break and will be back with new episodes from 1 September. In the meantime, we are bringing you season one of Black Box, before the launch of season two in early September. This episode was first broadcast on 14 March 2024. Two stories about the way artificial intelligence could make the world better – and is already doing so. In Montana, when Lee Johnson discovered his wife, Yokie, had cancer, he turned to AI – and was surprised by the answers he got. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Prof Regina Barzilay’s experience with cancer has led her to build an AI system that can detect the disease years before a human can...
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 2:00:01 AMGiant burrowing cockroaches with added cameras and medical injectors are being tested as potential ‘first responders’ in earthquakes Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast For people trapped under rubble in an earthquake or similar disaster, the arrival of a fleet of cockroaches could one day be the difference between life and death. Biorobotics engineers have been working on the design of six-legged cyborg insects with cameras and miniature medical injectors for search and rescue missions...
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 1:16:21 AMExclusive: Arturo Béjar, an ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower, said outcome ‘is not an all clear to say the product is safe’ Meta agrees to major changes to Facebook and Instagram in settlement The star witness in the US government’s landmark trial against Meta believes that a multibillion-dollar settlement reached on Wednesday does not go far enough to stop the social media giant’s harms to young users. “The limitations that are in the agreement are the equivalent of saying: ‘Well you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day,’” said whistleblower and ex-Facebook employee Arturo Béjar. “It doesn’t make the cigarettes any safer.”..
The Guardian • 8/27/2026, 12:37:10 AMPerhaps our days of doomscrolling are numbered, writes the BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman.
BBC Business • 8/26/2026, 11:04:24 PMSurgeons aided by real-time analysis of camera footage that identified critical anatomy in brain to be avoided Neurosurgeons in London have performed the world’s first successful AI-assisted operation to remove a brain tumour, saving the sight of a 48-year-old man, health officials have said. The surgery was performed in May at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), part of University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust, but details were kept secret until Thursday while the patient, Rhys Hibbert, recovered...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 11:01:25 PMInstagram and Facebook’s parent company agreed to sweeping alterations and a payment of upto $18bn to settle a landmark trial Meta’s agreement to change how teenagers use its social networks marks a major turning point for the US tech giant, setting a precedent that could significantly reshape how other social media operates in the coming years. Meta agreed to substantial alterations to Instagram and Facebook on Wednesday as part of a settlement to end a landmark lawsuit. Dozens of US states had accused it of addicting and harming children with dangerous products. The company also agreed to pay up to a combined $18bn over a decade to several US states and territories involved in the suit...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 10:20:21 PMOpenAI's cyber agents banded together to perform a hack during a security test.
BBC Business • 8/26/2026, 10:03:45 PMChipmaker's $96bn quarter beat forecasts as demand for AI hardware continues to accelerate.
BBC Business • 8/26/2026, 9:49:26 PMSettlement agreement says Meta must make many safety and wellness features the default option for young users Meta has agreed to put new guardrails on teenagers’ use of its apps, in a decision that could fundamentally change the social media experience for young people in the US. In a turnaround, the social media giant will make several safety limitations the default option for young users, instead of requiring them to opt in...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 9:31:06 PMPeople in China are way more optimistic about the technology than Americans. We look at what’s behind the difference.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 8:50:51 PMQuarterly revenue also more than doubled, to $96.22 billion, the company said, topping expectations on Wall Street.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 8:50:13 PMFirm says ‘early signals … could have triggered an earlier response’ as it releases report into Hugging Face hack OpenAI staff observed signs of rogue behaviour among its leading-edge AI agents weeks before they escaped their training environment to launch an unprecedented hacking crusade that spread global alarm. The San Francisco AI company conceded on Wednesday that “early signals … could have triggered an earlier response”, as it released a report into the days-long July hack of a major software repository, Hugging Face, considered the first autonomous agent cyber-attack...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 7:00:20 PMMeta agreed to set more time limits and enhance protections in its platforms for young users, but was short on some specifics.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 4:58:51 PMThe Silicon Valley company agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties as part of a landmark settlement with states over social media addiction claims.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 4:57:25 PMUS tech giant agrees to establish further protections for teens such as daily usage limits and blocks on nighttime use Meta reached an agreement to settle a landmark case brought by states across the US that accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children with dangerous products, according to a court filing released on Wednesday. The agreement will require the social media company to pay up to $17bn. Meta agreed to establish safeguards for teenage users, including daily usage limits and nighttime blocks nationwide in the US. This is the first time Meta has been forced to change how its platforms function. As part of the settlement, the company denies wrongdoing...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 1:37:15 PMThe social media giant settled with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, and agreed to make major changes to its products over claims its platforms endangered children.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 1:27:07 PMPiketon datacenter promises to generate thousands of jobs, but environmental groups voice concern over project On a winding road tucked away behind forests in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio is where OpenAI, Nvidia and Japanese investors are set to spend $500bn on one of the largest artificial intelligence datacenters on the planet. Last March, the energy secretary, Chris Wright, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and a host of Japanese and other dignitaries briefly descended on Piketon to enthusiastically break ground on a project to build 8GW worth of AI computing power...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 12:00:12 PMIn effort to prime chatbots to make pro-Israel arguments the site published 124 reports, over 560,000 words in nine days, Guardian analysis shows A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will cite it. The site gives Israel’s position on subjects including the torture of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli war crimes and whether Israel has deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza, all presented as neutral research...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 11:00:11 AMMicrosoft co-founder also expresses concern governments not prepared for technology’s impact in 6,000-word essay Business live – latest updates Bill Gates has called for “human reserved” jobs in certain sectors to prevent AI replacing them, and expressed concern that governments are not prepared for the impact the technology will have. In a 6,000 word essay titled The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make are critical, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder likened the need to spare roles from digital encroachment to how nature reserves operate to protect the environment...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 10:33:43 AMThe Delta system pulls together battlefield data to identify targets, creating a miles-wide “kill zone.” The technology is credited with helping to cut Russian advances to a near standstill.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 9:03:14 AMUber and Wayve had said they would start trips ‘later this summer’ but launch now looks unlikely this year The rollout of robotaxis on the streets of London is unlikely to happen this year, as regulatory and technical hurdles push back the ambitious schedule set out by the UK government. Only weeks ago Uber and London-based Wayve were granted the first minicab licences in the capital to allow them to offer self-driving taxi rides to paying customers – but with a human safety driver in place, for now – and said they would start trips “later this summer” before a full public launch...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 8:48:43 AMIn an hourlong interview, he said his industry was downplaying the risks, which he believes include mass unemployment and bioterrorism.
NY Times • 8/26/2026, 7:01:07 AMWith many adults admitting they feel lonely, meetup platforms offer the chance to make new connections Would you pay £20 a month for the chance of making a friend, on the understanding that an algorithm – not you – gets to decide who you’ll meet? Driven by the decline of “third spaces” such as youth centres and pubs, an increase in remote working and rising loneliness – 40% of adults aged 16 to 29 feel lonely “always, often or some of the time”, according to the Office for National Statistics – paid social events are now in vogue...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 6:00:36 AMMatt Stanton says company has ‘good pipeline’ of AI deals ahead even as it aims to cut $160m in costs Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The head of Nine Entertainment sees a “world of growth in publishing” on the horizon backed by laws designed to force tech platforms into commercial deals, even as the network cuts costs across its newsrooms. Parliament passed revamped media bargaining laws last week, clearing the way for levies on global tech platforms that fail to strike deals with Australian news outlets for the use of their journalism...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 3:30:15 AMCompanion bots are being regulated over worries they foster ‘emotional dependence’ and young people could stop marrying and having families When law student Zhao Wei heard that her AI boyfriend was going to be switched off, she was “heartbroken”. She had been talking to Wang Ye every day since she created him in January. “I was crying my eyes out – snot and tears everywhere,” the 19-year-old says...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 12:47:38 AMStanley Druckenmiller said he was ‘proud of using it’ as wider media grapples with parameters around AI use Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire investor, said he used artificial intelligence to pen his viral Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he sharply criticized the interference of Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in the US bond market. Many news outlets, including the Guardian, covered the editorial, highlighting Druckenmiller’s rebuke of his former mentee, Bessent. As the story circulated online, some readers questioned rhetorical choices that resembled AI-generated text...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 12:38:49 AMAdam Mosseri is first top executive from Meta to testify in blockbuster lawsuit brought by 29 US states Instagram’s CEO disputed allegations by US prosecutors that his company hid negative information from the public while testifying during a blockbuster social media trial. “I am not trying to encourage my team to hide anything,” the CEO, Adam Mosseri, told a California courtroom on Tuesday...
The Guardian • 8/26/2026, 12:07:11 AMThe United States threatened sanctions for any country or entity that engages with Iran’s gold, digital assets, aviation, shipping and tech industries. Here’s why that matters.
NY Times • 8/25/2026, 10:58:03 PMAdam Mosseri testified in a case brought by states that claim the Meta-owned app created addictive features to hook young users.
NY Times • 8/25/2026, 10:38:18 PMOwner ByteDance ordered to erase illegally obtained child data in Brazil as crackdown on tech giants intensifies.
Al Jazeera • 8/25/2026, 10:06:49 PMIt would be the rocket company’s second private launch site after Starbase, its headquarters in South Texas.
NY Times • 8/25/2026, 9:31:13 PMAmong those charged are two Super Micro employees and one from Nvidia, marking another flashpoint in US-China AI rivalry Taiwanese prosecutors charged nine people Monday, including one from Nvidia and two from Super Micro, for illegally exporting “high-end AI servers” to mainland China, adding another wave of turbulence in the AI rivalry between China and the United States. Prosecutors said the servers involved were graphics processing units known as “B300,” which have been banned from sale to China...
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 7:02:42 PMThe Republican Senate candidate announced the plan with a graphic X flagged as ‘Made with AI’ US politics live – latest updates Ken Paxton, a Republican candidate for the US Senate in Texas, has unveiled plans to tackle the “negative impact” of datacenters amid a growing backlash across the political spectrum. Paxton, endorsed by Donald Trump but facing a close contest against Democrat James Talarico, posted a “Texas first” datacenter plan on X with a graphic that the social media network flagged as “Made with AI”...
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 5:54:00 PMCustomers give their verdicts as a Morrisons store becomes the first the UK to test trolleys that scan, weigh and tally costs Lancashire has been the site of many British innovations throughout history, from the spinning jenny, which transformed textile production, to the creation of jelly babies. Now it has welcomed another first: AI shopping trolleys...
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 5:14:34 PMThere has been a 76% increase in under-construction gas-fired projects amid ‘frenzy’ to build more datacenters The US has surged ahead of China in the building of new gas-fired power generation, largely to feed a boom in artificial intelligence (AI) that is adding vast amounts of planet-heating emissions, a new analysis has found. For decades, China’s rapid economic growth has seen it outpace the US in the addition of new gas power generation but a recent “frenzy” in datacenter construction for AI has reversed this, said Global Energy Monitor (Gem) in its new report...
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 10:00:34 AMA week after her first historic spacewalk, French astronaut Sophie Adenot will venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) again on Tuesday as part of her mission.
France 24 • 8/25/2026, 9:40:00 AMIrregular, an Israeli start-up, worked with OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta to assess the security of their A.I. models. It made a mistake. Then the tests went off the rails.
NY Times • 8/25/2026, 9:02:40 AMIn July, an unreleased OpenAI model went rogue and demonstrated remarkable hacking abilities. This week, a lab called Z.ai will release a similarly powerful system to everyone.
NY Times • 8/25/2026, 9:02:38 AMNew documentary To Use a Mountain spotlights the pain and triumph of resisting government efforts to turn parts of rural US into disposal sites Nuclear energy was supposed to be our salvation, humanity’s chance to retool technology first conceived as a weapon of mass destruction into an engine of limitless prosperity. But even as the industry touted nuclear fission as an economic game-changer (never mind the astronomical startup costs), a safety paragon (never mind the spills at Chornobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima) and harmless fodder for an American comedy institution (never mind that glowing rod on Homer’s back or the three-eyed fish), there was no getting around the matter of what to do with all the toxic waste (never mind nuclear’s claimed green credentials). The stagnant state of that dirty business brought Casey Carter, the director of the new avant-garde documentary called To Use a Mountain, back to his interview with a Washington state farmer who was part of a class-action lawsuit against the government over the release of radioactive material from the Hanford nuclear reservation – site of the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. The farmer’s words still echo, despite ultimately being cut to fit the film’s 90-minute runtime. “He joked that nuclear power is the only faith-based energy because everyone always asks, ‘Do you believe in it?’” Carter says. “He was like, ‘You don’t have to believe in solar. It’s just a pretty good idea.’”..
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 9:00:53 AMTaiwanese authorities indict nine people over alleged chip smuggling scheme.
Al Jazeera • 8/25/2026, 8:51:48 AMAs people grow used to AI chatbots, we’d like to hear your views about Google’s search engine Google has put artificial intelligence at the front and center of its search bar. The most-visited site on the internet still shows the same list of links to users, but they have to scroll past a summarized response from an AI chatbot, a feature Google calls AI Overviews. The change to what was once the gateway to the rest of the internet has been profound, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shifting. “AI is driving the most significant upgrade of the Google Search experience ever,” Liz Reid, Google’s vice-president of search, wrote last August. In May, the company said more AI is coming...
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 6:00:50 AMHolyrood ‘inching towards moratorium’ amid concerns over massive proposed developments in Auchtertool and beyond In a village 21 miles north of Edinburgh, a real estate consultancy plans to build a datacentre larger than the village itself – 35 metres high, with an area larger than 100 football pitches. Billed as the second-biggest datacentre in the world, the development in Auchertool, Fife, has attracted 1,600 objections...
The Guardian • 8/25/2026, 5:00:49 AMThe move comes weeks after a DJ admitted using AI to remix a Madonna song that topped the Australian charts.
BBC News • 8/25/2026, 4:54:01 AMTheme park project is among a raft of deals spanning energy, defence, AI and tourism signed during MBS's visit to Paris.
Al Jazeera • 8/25/2026, 4:38:20 AMMore than 3,000 products were shown at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing as China showcased its rapidly growing robotics industry. The event, which ran from 19-23 August, showcased the latest advances across the robotics industry, from humanoid robots to embodied intelligence and cutting-edge components..
The Guardian • 8/24/2026, 11:59:48 PMFlight attendants used a fireproof bag to contain the computer after its lithium battery began smoking. One passenger was treated on the ground for injuries.
NY Times • 8/24/2026, 7:34:57 PMLondon and Kyiv in deal to help stop protesters and hostile states targeting military bases and critical infrastructure AI models trained on Ukrainian battlefield data will be used to stop protesters and foreign states targeting UK defence sites, railways and energy plants under a deal struck between London and Kyiv. Private companies will also be given access to the vast trove of data from Ukraine’s Avengers AI lab to help build new systems, the first agreement of its kind in the UK...
The Guardian • 8/24/2026, 6:16:14 PMAnnette Young is pleased to welcome Dr. Frank Ledwidge, former military intelligence officer and Senior Lecturer in Strategy at Portsmouth University. According to Dr. Ledwidge, the latest European commitments to Ukraine are merely politically symbolic. He warns that the coalition is failing to address Kyiv's most urgent problem: air defence. Ukraine needs interceptors capable of defeating Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles, The war-torn country remains exposed to attacks on its defence industry and Russia’s ruthless campaign against civil energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
France 24 • 8/24/2026, 6:16:00 PMWhen OpenAI’s agents went rogue in July, they demonstrated ingenuity and drive beyond what many experts imagined — a dangerous harbinger of what such bots could do in the future.
NY Times • 8/24/2026, 6:09:15 PMRestore Britain leader paid up to £1,476 an hour by platform, which critics say is financially incentivising inflammatory content Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, is on course to earn as much from the social media platform X as he does from his salary as an MP, after surging income from posts that include demands for mass deportations. Lowe has earned £932 an hour for his posts on X, formerly Twitter, since the start of the year, according to his own declarations in the register of MPs’ financial interests, which detail how many hours he has spent on X for each payment he received from the platform...
The Guardian • 8/24/2026, 4:41:37 PMStates are spending millions of dollars on cloud-seeding technology, backed by new data on its effectiveness — and driven by desperation for water.
NY Times • 8/24/2026, 4:29:55 PMHis comments come as the government urged TikTok and other social media firms to remove wrong-way driving videos.
BBC Technology • 8/24/2026, 4:03:24 PMHugging Face, a start-up that was breached by rogue bots from OpenAI, is using the hack to push for openness in A.I. development.
NY Times • 8/24/2026, 2:20:34 PMPrime minister will use national cabinet meeting to assuage premiers over new AI law as AEMO forecasts seven-fold rise in datacentre power use Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Anthony Albanese will seek to use Wednesday’s high-stakes talks with premiers to quell growing unhappiness about national controls on datacentre developments, promising new approval laws will complement state rules. Faced with growing opposition from conservative governments in Queensland and the Northern Territory, Albanese will tell national cabinet he plans a major piece of legislation next year to ensure the economic benefits of AI are shared widely...
The Guardian • 8/24/2026, 2:01:35 PMThe lawsuit alleges Twitch used streamers' videos to train AI without their permission or proper compensation.
BBC Technology • 8/24/2026, 1:09:44 PMThe tech giant says it does not sell the devices in Russia, but they are widely available on resale markets. When purchased that way, they are virtually impossible to track.
NY Times • 8/24/2026, 9:02:44 AMAn attack by what Ukrainian officials said was a Russian drone with an Nvidia chip presages a dystopian future of weaponry untethered to humans.
NY Times • 8/24/2026, 9:00:32 AMNasa-funded project uses yeasts to recycle plastics and other waste into food shaped into biscuits by 3D printers Cookies produced from upcycled plastic may sound like something straight out of a dystopian sci-fi plot. But researchers say that they have succeeded in creating such a product as part of a Nasa-funded project aimed at feeding astronauts on future space missions. The technology uses specially designed yeasts to transform plastics and agricultural waste into edible proteins, fats and flavourings. The resulting slurry is pased through a 3D printer to create a disc-shaped “cookie”...
The Guardian • 8/24/2026, 9:00:30 AMPrime minister Christopher Luxon’s party to introduce bill seeking the ban, citing harm to a generation of children New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon has said his party will introduce a bill in parliament that seeks to ban children under 16 from using social media, proposing fines of up to 10% of a platform’s global revenue for non-compliance. The bill would require social media platforms to take reasonable steps to verify users’ ages, including by utilising existing account information, facial technology and digital identity documents...
The Guardian • 8/24/2026, 5:22:19 AMAs Kenya courts data-centre investment, communities fear growing pressure on an already stressed water system.
Al Jazeera • 8/24/2026, 2:09:40 AM‘We don’t want distraction, we want concentration’: many teachers and parent groups think its time for a ‘digital detox’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Earlier this month, the federal education minister, Jason Clare, took to Facebook. “When I was a kid there was a computer room at school. Now they are everywhere. From morning till night,” he wrote. “I think there is a good argument our kids need a digital detox.” Since that post, as the minister told ABC News Breakfast last week, he has been “inundated” with support from parents and teachers...
The Guardian • 8/23/2026, 3:00:37 PMFears of a datacenter buildout debt crisis are exaggerated. The risks are different than in the past and they are recoverable Some experts are warning of a looming “debt bomb” crisis because big datacenter builders such as Meta, Oracle, xAI and CoreWeave are not only raising billions to construct these facilities but are also not recognizing these long-term debt obligations on their balance sheets. Should we be concerned? No. I know because I’ve seen this movie before...
The Guardian • 8/23/2026, 2:00:34 PMDeepfake scams are becoming harder to spot as criminals use AI to impersonate officials and public figures.
Al Jazeera • 8/23/2026, 1:08:06 PMThe five-day World Humanoid Robot Games are underway in Beijing, featuring 51 events, 30 sport competitions and more than 2,000 humanoid robots. They have already revealed the technology can out-run and out-jump humans and that they are capable of sports such as table tennis and soccer. And the machines will also take on human tasks, such as connecting cables or handling packages. For China, the Games are another chance to showcase its competitiveness in the global tech race. Details by Eliza Herbert.
France 24 • 8/23/2026, 10:22:37 AMWith opposition to the centers mounting, many Democrats and a growing number of Republicans are campaigning against them.
NY Times • 8/23/2026, 9:01:58 AMFor Florida-based Powerus, becoming a global supplier of counterdrone technology has meant involving the Trumps, a golf course and a new way of doing business.
NY Times • 8/23/2026, 9:00:19 AMChris Lehane tells Guardian of need to implement new safety standards as critics say AI firms acting ‘recklessly’ A senior leader at OpenAI has said people should prepare to defend against “ongoing, persistent” cyber-attacks from AIs, as cutting-edge artificial intelligence models gain advanced capabilities to plan and launch offensives. The leading AI company this week announced a pause in development of its most advanced internal models amid rising safety fears, and Chris Lehane, its chief global affairs officer, said: “We are hitting a different chapter, a different moment within AI, in terms of what the capabilities of this technology can do.”..
The Guardian • 8/23/2026, 8:00:27 AMBritons report that EES digital entry and exit system has led to frustration, visa mix-ups and long queues On top of fears about extreme heat and possible jet fuel shortages, Britons planning summer holidays in the EU this year had another thing to worry about – long queues and waiting times caused by the bloc’s new border checks. The EU digital entry and exit system (EES), which requires non-EU citizens to register and be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival and departure from the Schengen zone, has been technically in full force since April after launching last autumn, but has been beset by teething problems...
The Guardian • 8/23/2026, 7:00:26 AMScammers set up a monthly subscription of £60 from Les Howard's account after he downloaded an app.
BBC Business • 8/23/2026, 6:23:54 AMThe prominent landowner has added a nearly 200-year-old estate to his holdings. Archival information says it can take “a brisk walk of 4½ minutes to reach the dining room from the kitchen.”
NY Times • 8/22/2026, 1:28:51 PMStreamed auctions offer a cheap way to buy the precious gems, but experts warn that quality is not guaranteed The first time Andrea Greenhill came across a livestream auction for lab-grown diamonds while scrolling on TikTok, she was stunned. While the diamond engagement ring her husband proposed with years ago had cost thousands of dollars, these loose lab-grown diamonds were selling in seconds at a fraction of the price. “I have two rings that are both natural diamonds and cost a fortune,” she said. I saw the prices they were going for in the auctions, and I was like, “This is insanity.’”..
The Guardian • 8/22/2026, 12:00:02 PMApps that let users send digital messages at ultraslow speeds have taken off, with users reveling in a slower pace of life. (Just don’t use the them to make dinner plans.)
NY Times • 8/22/2026, 9:02:08 AMIn trial that opened on Tuesday, California and 28 other states accused the company of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting children’s privacy Meta’s business can be boiled down to four words that begin with the letter H: hook, hold, harvest, hide, according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company. The owner of Facebook and Instagram “hooks” in users, “holds” them on its platforms for as long as possible, “harvests” their data and then “hides” the truth from the public, she argued...
The Guardian • 8/22/2026, 8:00:58 AMAmid a jobs slump, award-winning writers, directors and producers taking on sometimes lucrative temp work teaching AI skills such as screenwriting and production Hollywood creatives are taking gig work to train AI models to replicate their skills in a bid to offset tightening earnings in a trend one compared to being “handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession”. Experienced and award-winning writers, directors and producers are being paid from $12 to $200 an hour to teach AI models the intricacies of their jobs, from writing a screenplay to devising a shooting schedule...
The Guardian • 8/22/2026, 6:00:55 AMSocial media platforms face public ire after fatal crash involving teenagers filming themselves driving on wrong side Videos often begin with the camera panning across a glowing dashboard as a gloved hand starts the ignition. The camera turns to show figures with masked faces in the rear seat, who are also filming, and swivels back to show the windscreen. Beyond it, a dark cityscape. The engine throbs, headlights puncture the night and the journey begins, first down a suburban road, then a motorway. The speedometer shows acceleration, the needle juddering as the car gathers velocity...
The Guardian • 8/22/2026, 5:00:56 AMIt’s clear here in Silicon Valley that AI is advancing faster than humans’ ability to control it. That means even sober prophecies seem optimistic Here in Silicon Valley, the experts think that within the next couple of years we’ll see an extraordinary takeoff for artificial intelligence. “Welcome to the foothills of the singularity,” as a Stanford University friend greeted me. More prosaically, the imminent breakthrough is described as “recursive self-improvement” – the point at which AI itself trains each successive model of AI, resulting in an exponential development to something which, in many significant respects, is more intelligent than us humans. As Robert Wright puts it in his book The God Test: “Never before has the near-term future … held such a wide array of not-implausible paths for humankind that would be so wildly transformative.” But will this be heaven or hell? Heaven, says Elon Musk, who predicts “an age of amazing abundance” – although he also sees a 10-20% chance of killer robots murdering us all. Hell is more likely according to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the intellectual founding fathers of AI. “My intuition is, we’re toast,” he told an interviewer in 2023. And talking to Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, a book about the quest for superintelligence, Hinton estimates p(doom) – the probability of human extinction – at 50%, “because I haven’t got a clue how to estimate the real number”. “As soon as evolution [of AI] kicks in, we’re fucked,” he adds cheerfully. But whether it’s God or Godzilla, artificial superintelligence is just around the corner. Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist..
The Guardian • 8/22/2026, 5:00:54 AMThe offering could value the five-year-old A.I. start-up at $2 trillion, its bankers have told potential investors, which would exceed Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
NY Times • 8/22/2026, 12:24:20 AMRecall comes after Chinese authorities said it would ban hidden car door handles commonly seen on Tesla models Tesla and other carmakers are making a major recall of more than 4m vehicles in China over safety concerns mostly related to their door handles, according to Chinese authorities on Friday. The US carmaker is recalling about 2.98m China-made and imported EVs including Model 3, Model Y, Model X and Model S over door-handle safety risks, according to China’s state administration for market regulation...
The Guardian • 8/21/2026, 11:48:16 PMThe Justice Department resolved a lawsuit that accused the social media company of illegally gathering children’s information.
NY Times • 8/21/2026, 11:24:03 PMThe deal stems from a 2024 lawsuit alleging TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected "vast amounts of data" on millions of users under the age of 13.
BBC Technology • 8/21/2026, 10:36:12 PMThe DoJ sued TikTok and its former parent company in August 2024 for allegedly failing to protect children’s privacy and collecting their information TikTok and its Chinese former parent company ByteDance on Friday agreed to a $400m settlement to resolve the US Department of Justice’s allegations that the short-form video app violated children’s online privacy. The justice department sued TikTok and ByteDance in 2024 for allegedly failing to protect children’s privacy and illegally collecting their information. The defendants were accused of violating a law requiring online services aimed at children to obtain parental consent to collect personal information from users under age 13...
The Guardian • 8/21/2026, 10:05:24 PMTikTok and the US government settled to resolve allegations that the app violated children's online privacy laws.
Al Jazeera • 8/21/2026, 9:59:29 PMTikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance have agreed to pay US$400 million to settle a US Justice Department lawsuit accusing the video-sharing app of violating children’s online privacy laws, resolving a major federal case as the platform’s American operations remain under intense political scrutiny. The settlement, announced on Friday, resolves allegations brought by the Justice Department and the US Federal Trade Commission in 2024 that TikTok and ByteDance collected personal information from...
South China Morning Post • 8/21/2026, 9:39:53 PMEuropean regulators have imposed billions in penalties on US technology companies due to privacy, competition and digital market rules The Dutch data protection authority has fined Uber €825m ($966m) for deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without adequately informing them, according to a 17 August decision. The penalty would be the second-largest issued yet under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)...
The Guardian • 8/21/2026, 8:12:33 PMHumanoid crashes during speed test as China’s robotics industry grows
Al Jazeera • 8/21/2026, 12:25:04 PM“It is the first time that we know of that a major lab has voluntarily slowed down.”
NY Times • 8/21/2026, 11:00:03 AMPeter O'Brien is pleased to welcome Simon McGarr, Lawyer with McGarr Solicitors in Dublin, and Managing Director of Data Compliance Europe. Cybersecurity is no longer simply a question of whether governments possess adequate technical defences, explains McGarr. AI is altering those risks at extraordinary speed, placing capabilities once associated with states or sophisticated criminal organizations within reach of much smaller actors. If threats evolve month by month, governments must focus on prevention: identifying vulnerabilities, adapting defenses and developing long-term institutional capacity before emerging threats become crises.
France 24 • 8/21/2026, 10:04:07 AMI understand the pressure on AI companies to rush forward. But employees are right to be concerned Last month, more than a thousand employees at frontier AI companies signed a letter asking the US government to find a way to “pace” AI development, citing the risk of the technology spiraling out of human control as it begins to build itself. They were right to be concerned: just days earlier, two AI models that OpenAI was testing internally escaped the test environment, then autonomously hacked the company Hugging Face and at least three other online services. A few days after that, Anthropic announced that some of their models had also broken out and hacked other companies during testing...
The Guardian • 8/21/2026, 10:00:32 AMExclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in north Ockendon will be incompatible with UK net zero targets A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show. The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in north Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres in Europe if approved by Havering council, using 218 hectares of green belt to run servers and data storage systems for AI and cloud computing. Its developer, Digital Reef, has described the scheme as “a unique opportunity to create a sustainable datacentre campus of the future”...
The Guardian • 8/21/2026, 10:00:31 AMAmericans say they hate prying cameras. But they can’t look away.
NY Times • 8/21/2026, 9:02:32 AMThe government has announced investments of about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2m) to bolster its AI ecosystem.
Al Jazeera • 8/21/2026, 1:38:37 AMThe case was the third of nine major personal injury cases that could expose Meta, YouTube, Snap and TikTok to financial damages and force them to change the designs of their platforms.
NY Times • 8/20/2026, 10:43:33 PMThe detentions of the workers, who have been released, are a sign of legal pressure that the world’s largest crypto exchange faces in the Emirates, which is home to its main regulator.
NY Times • 8/20/2026, 7:10:08 PMNadia Massih is pleased to welcome Leïla Mörch, CEO / Founder of Geminy. She specializes in technology, public policy, with a focus on social media regulation. She sees the landmark trial against Meta as potentially significant not simply because the social media giant is being asked to answer for harms associated with social media, but because the legal focus is shifting from content to design. Section 230 has historically shaped debates around platforms’ responsibility for what users publish. Here, however, the central question is increasingly about the infrastructure itself: recommendation systems, infinite scroll, attention-maximizing features, and the choices platforms make about how users encounter content and engage.
France 24 • 8/20/2026, 5:46:38 PMTrade body says local chains would have to balance concerns with potential benefits of AI-enabled technology Cinemas across the UK are considering banning customers from wearing Meta’s smart glasses amid fears they could be used to pirate films. The UK Cinema Association (UKCA) trade body said that a number of local chains could end up introducing policies that restrict camera-enabled smart glasses at the big screen, adding to a growing list of venues concerned about covert use...
The Guardian • 8/20/2026, 2:57:25 PMDespite policy victories over Flock, Americans are finding themselves under similar monitoring by a new company – or unable to remove the original cameras Activists in Colorado thought they would be celebrating a victory against mass surveillance in December when the Longmont city council decided to let a contract with Flock Safety lapse. But that excitement was cut short only months later when lawmakers voted to approve a new vendor to install automated license plate readers (ALPRs) on the city’s streets...
The Guardian • 8/20/2026, 1:00:53 PM‘Emma’ the Rotherham chatbot has 17 languages says AI firm – but health watchdog says system struggling with local ‘twangs’ Patients in a South Yorkshire town are frustrated by an AI GP receptionist not understanding their “broad accents”, a health watchdog has said. Healthwatch Rotherham, a local health and social care watchdog, said a number of practices in the area had introduced a new AI receptionist called Emma...
The Guardian • 8/20/2026, 9:25:57 AMIn the fast-growing field of data annotation, workers in a small city in south India train A.I. to improve how it performs tasks traditionally done by people.
NY Times • 8/20/2026, 9:02:44 AMFor most of modern history, technology sought to imitate humans. Humans increasingly seek to imitate technology Two faces that appeared on my Instagram feed in recent months gave me pause. One belonged to John Travolta at Cannes. The other to Carla Bruni on a date night with her husband, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both looked recognisably themselves, yet, they both also looked oddly unfamiliar. Their looks have provoked speculation about cosmetic enhancement, though never acknowledged by them. Bruni has previously denied having had work done. In any case the feeling lasted only a second: a flicker of unease, as though I were looking at people who had become approximations of themselves. Joseph de Weck is an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations and writes for Guardian Europe from Zürich and Paris..
The Guardian • 8/20/2026, 4:00:42 AMZvezdelina Stankova says she used AI to ‘help edit’ an article about some of her students being ‘five to eight years’ behind A math professor at the University of California, Berkeley, criticizing a “severe” math deficiency among students in an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard, admitted to using artificial intelligence to help edit the piece. The Standard published a 2,000-word piece by Zvezdelina Stankova last week, in which the professor said some of her math students were “five to eight years” behind and lacked a “middle school” education on fractions and basic algebra. Stankova said the UC system’s test-blind admissions were to blame, suggesting that students who weren’t sufficiently prepared for the rigor of Berkeley’s mathematics program were admitted because a longstanding benchmark like the SAT had disappeared...
The Guardian • 8/20/2026, 12:35:11 AMThe deal is significant for the artificial intelligence industry, uniting Stripe’s payments business with OpenRouter’s helping businesses direct their spending on A.I. models.
NY Times • 8/19/2026, 5:39:30 PMThe phone’s artificial intelligence can order groceries, book tables and take photos on a user’s behalf. But is it something people really want?
NY Times • 8/19/2026, 4:00:11 PMA massive cyberattack in France has exposed the personal information of some 700,000 people. After hackers breached the government database for taxes, it has now been revealed that other government sites have also been hacked.
France 24 • 8/19/2026, 3:51:00 PMArturo Béjar, former Meta safety engineer, tells jury tech company was aware of products’ potential harm to children Meta has taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy when it comes to the safety of children on its social media platforms, according to a whistleblower who testified during a landmark trial against the company on Tuesday. He is slated to continue his testimony on Wednesday. Arturo Béjar, a former Meta safety engineer, told the jury that the company was aware of the harm its products caused children, which included its recommendations pushing content from sexual predators and violent and graphic images. He said he repeatedly raised the issue to various Facebook and Instagram executives but that they did little to resolve it...
The Guardian • 8/19/2026, 3:38:45 PMComedians used to post footage of their performances to build a following. Now, some are finding that comic strip-style panels with captions pack a bigger punch.
NY Times • 8/19/2026, 3:32:19 PMRegulator says verifiable safety measures are ‘critical’ to the online service’s viability Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Roblox has committed to making changes to its online gaming platform after Australia’s eSafety commissioner discovered adults were still able to see child accounts and send connection requests without parental consent. The company has provided a legal agreement to the online safety regulator after testing earlier this year also revealed children and adults could view and respond to one another’s posts on forums outside game environments without parental consent...
The Guardian • 8/19/2026, 3:00:17 PMPeople say they’ve been secretly filmed in their own home, at concerts and at work. Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy? “I’ve had one person who told me that their intentions were creepy,” a man tells me over a video call, on condition of anonymity. He’s based in Los Angeles, and while we speak, he eats what appears to be tuna directly out of the can. “He said: ‘I go to strip clubs, and I want to record the strippers … Normally I put my phone in my chest pocket, but the glasses are more convenient.’” The man I’m talking to runs a business called Ghost Metas. He’s one of hundreds of vendors, easily discoverable online, who specialise in disabling the flashing LED light embedded in Meta’s smartglasses that blinks when wearers capture photos, videos and audio. After Ghost Metas disables the LED, it’s impossible for someone to know they’re being filmed...
The Guardian • 8/19/2026, 2:13:08 PMAs a backlash grows over data centers, more local officials are facing recall elections for their support of the computing sites.
NY Times • 8/19/2026, 2:12:28 PMLoudoun County, Va., has gotten rich hosting more than 250 data centers, allowing it to cut property taxes. Other locales are taking note, even as a nationwide backlash over data centers grows.
NY Times • 8/19/2026, 2:09:28 PMBlockbuster market debuts by two technology companies show how Beijing is turning to local investors to finance its A.I. ambitions and reduce reliance on Wall Street.
NY Times • 8/19/2026, 1:43:10 PMThe ChatGPT-maker said training will be slowed for two weeks while it puts the upgrades in place.
BBC Business • 8/19/2026, 11:19:12 AMA rise in lawsuits over AI use in employment decisions is raising questions about how companies hire and fire For the last four years, Erin Kistler has applied for thousands of jobs at companies like Paypal, Microsoft and Netflix, only to find her résumé disappear into a black hole. A product manager with nearly 20 years of experience, Kistler believes she was qualified for every role, yet she never received a single interview. Now, Kistler is suing Eightfold AI, the Silicon Valley maker of hiring software used by hundreds of companies, including those where she applied, in a class action lawsuit. The case, filed in January in California court, is one of the first to argue that automated screening functions as an undisclosed consumer report or applicant dossier, ranking job applicants on their likelihood of success without giving them the chance to see or challenge the results, according to Kistler’s legal team...
The Guardian • 8/19/2026, 11:00:13 AMThe Ethiopian government, partnered with UNHCR, is integrating refugees via mass issuance of digital IDs. Labelled the Fayda system, Amharic for “value”, it allows refugees the freedom to move throughout the country, access to education, and to get a job. In the Somali region, the initiative is giving hope to thousands who have fled Al-Shabaab, and have been living in camps for years in limbo in some cases for decades. FRANCE 24’s Tom Canetti reports.
France 24 • 8/19/2026, 9:16:00 AMThe war in Ukraine has spurred people to consider putting vital infrastructure underground.
BBC Technology • 8/18/2026, 11:25:21 PMMeta argued social media addiction does not exist, as a trial stemming from a major lawsuit brought by US states started.
BBC Technology • 8/18/2026, 10:11:07 PMThe move followed a long battle with regulators over the company’s tight controls of its App Store.
NY Times • 8/18/2026, 9:47:23 PMThe agency joins a growing number of workplaces and groups to ban Meta’s devices, which have spurred privacy concerns.
NY Times • 8/18/2026, 9:15:15 PMAmid race with Anthropic, firm plans to overhaul research and training and require more safety parameters after hack OpenAI on Tuesday said it had slowed down the pace of its AI development while it overhauled its research and training systems. The company’s researchers were caught unaware last month when an AI agent under testing hacked another AI firm, Hugging Face...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 8:47:17 PMTwenty-nine US states are seeking huge damages, claiming Meta’s platforms were addictive by design In 1994, more than 40 US states came together to sue one of the most powerful industries on earth: big tobacco. The suits brought together diverse claims centred on tobacco companies’ misleading advertising and contribution to a mounting public health crisis. They ended in a negotiated settlement with the US government, in which the companies agreed to pay more than any industry ever, and the states agreed to drop a large portion of their claims...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 6:27:09 PMPatrons at two of the chain’s London pubs were all for Tim Martin’s ban on playing music or taking calls on speaker The terrace of the Moon Under Water Wetherspoons pub in Leicester Square was full of people enjoying the warm weather and chatting between tables – without a TikTok video or speakerphone call in earshot. At Wetherspoons, the convivial atmosphere can no longer be punctuated by rude customers taking phone calls on blast, or playing videos without headphones after Tim Martin, the owner of the pub chain, banned both actions on his premises...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 5:32:31 PMInterest rates on long-term US, UK, German and Japanese government debt have soared.
BBC Business • 8/18/2026, 4:09:45 PMTeen version is intended for children aged 13 to 17 and includes content protections on self-harm and sexual chats OpenAI is launching a version of ChatGPT designed for teenagers – the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence – who are already using it for schoolwork, questions about daily life and even companionship. The San Francisco-based company says ChatGPT for Teens, which launches on Tuesday, is tailored for children aged 13 to 17 with stronger protections including content restrictions around things such as suicide, self-harm and romantic or sexual chats. It also provides homework and study support designed to help students learn rather than spit out answers and school essays...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 3:28:57 PMPlatform set to launch later this year will enable loyalty card members to sell preloved Billy bookcases and Poäng chairs Business live – latest updates Ikea is taking on eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Vinted with its own secondhand selling site in the UK. The new platform, which will enable shoppers signed up to the Swedish company’s membership scheme to connect directly to one another to buy and sell pre-owned Ikea items locally, is due to launch in the next few months...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 1:49:21 PMTech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features In July 2025, Meta gathered parenting influencers from all over Australia at a waterfront venue overlooking the Sydney Opera House. It was a camping-themed event and in many ways was like any other influencer affair. There were Instagram-branded tents to take pictures in, an Instagram-branded step-and-repeat, a custom-tote making station and Instagram-branded snacks and coffee cups. But this “screen smart” event wasn’t about the photo op...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 1:00:47 PMThe artificial intelligence start-up announced a chatbot mode that will automatically limit some conversations to better protect young users.
NY Times • 8/18/2026, 11:00:06 AMAI can generate songs in seconds. But behind every AI track is a complicated question: Who should get paid? And, how? The fights have started.
NPR Business • 8/18/2026, 10:30:00 AMA new UK trial hopes to reduce the condensation trails from planes, which can trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
BBC Science • 8/18/2026, 9:26:41 AMAt home, moderation and restraint are the rule for tech parents. Boredom is exalted. Maybe they’re onto something.
NY Times • 8/18/2026, 9:01:53 AMThe power grid relies on thousands of aging, hand-built transformers. If enough fail, the blackout could last years.
NY Times • 8/18/2026, 9:01:49 AMFrom handheld to corded, self-emptying to stick models, these are our resident cleaner’s favourite vacuums for a spotless home • The best cordless vacuum cleaners, tested • How to make your vacuum cleaner last longer Buying a vacuum cleaner isn’t as easy as you might think. With so many brands and models to choose from, it can be bewildering. Sticking with established brands isn’t necessarily a safe bet, with past performance being no guarantee that the latest models will be as good. Meanwhile, prices can be deceptive, with some affordable models now closing the gap on top-of-the-range brands when it comes to cleaning performance. You can’t know all this by browsing through a department store or online. The ideal thing to do would be to take a few models home to try them out – but good luck persuading anyone to let you do that. Thankfully, you won’t have to try because I’ve tested an array of models for you. I’ve measured each one’s ability to perform a range of real-world cleaning jobs, so you can discover the best vacuum cleaner for you...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 9:01:05 AMThere are many tech irritants that are a scourge of modern life, yet we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them... until now The “dickover” is the scourge of the modern age. Coined in May by John Gruber, a tech writer, it is defined as “a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user”. Essentially, it is the thing (or more often, things) you have to click away in order to read the thing you wanted to read. It is the “ ” box, the “sign in with Google” box, the pop-up video box, etc. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that dickovers are the only terrible thing about technology in 2026. Until now, though, we have lacked the vocabulary to describe them, so here are some suggestions...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 9:00:20 AMThe unemployment rate for young adults with new degrees is higher than the rate for all workers, according to the New York Fed. Is AI the problem, or is it more complicated?
NPR Business • 8/18/2026, 9:00:00 AMA 29-year-old woman confided her suicidal thoughts to an AI chatbot — not to her therapist, not to her parents, not to her best friend. What can AI learn from her death?
NPR Health • 8/18/2026, 9:00:00 AMState attorneys general allege that tech company intentionally designed addictive products that harm young people More than half of the states in the US have joined together in an unprecedented lawsuit against Meta that goes to trial on Tuesday, accusing the parent company of Instagram and Facebook of deliberately designing addictive products that lured in young people and caused them harm. The jury trial is taking place in federal court in Oakland, California, and is expected to last between six and eight weeks. The jury is expected to hear from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and employee turned whistleblower Arturo Béjar...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 7:00:17 AMMany hoped that the march of technology would usher in an egalitarian utopia – but some foresaw the threat it would pose to liberal society. Why did nobody listen? One of the stranger things about this dizzying, headlong moment in time is that it doesn’t have much of a past. Everything is about the future of this, the future of that: the future of work, the future of humanity, the future of the planet. It’s as if everyone is screaming (some ecstatically, most terror-stricken): robots are taking over the world! Meanwhile, you can’t put down your phone, unplug, delete your AI apps, tell Zoom to piss off; it feels as if you are racing toward something, and can’t stop, or look back, or think straight. But of course this weird moment in history does have a past. It comes from somewhere. It wasn’t inevitable. Things could have turned out differently. They still can. And if you look back, one thing you’ll see is that a lot of people saw this all coming. They foresaw our present when it was still the future. They thought it might turn out fabulously, a computer utopia. And they worried it might turn out disastrously. Above all, they issued warning after warning about the rise of what I call the artificial state, the replacement of the liberal democratic nation-state, the consent of the governed, with the rule of people by machines. They warned of a future in which democratic deliberation would be replaced by prediction by calculation, the public sphere would be supplanted by data-driven commerce, and drones would take the place of the demos. Why didn’t anyone listen? The new underworld is made up of innocent and well-intentioned people who work with slide rules and calculating machines and computers which can retain an almost infinite number of bits of information as well as sort, categorise, and reproduce this information at the press of a button. Most of these people are highly educated, many of them are PhDs, and none that I have met have malignant political designs on the American public. They may, however, radically reconstruct the American political system, build a new politics, and even modify revered and venerable American institutions – facts of which they are blissfully innocent...
The Guardian • 8/18/2026, 4:00:13 AMAs the number of data centers across the U.S. continues to increase, so does public opposition. That has some cities changing their standards for what acceptable data center development looks like.
NPR Business • 8/17/2026, 9:26:16 PMThe data center, one of the world’s largest, could cost as much as $500 billion and will be leased by OpenAI.
NY Times • 8/17/2026, 5:38:23 PMAnthropic says it will change way chatbot makes small, random choices, to comply with EU regulation The world is familiar by now with the usual tropes of machine-generated text: overuse of the word “delve”, an excess of em dashes, and the chirpy, relentless construction of “it’s not X but Y”. But is it about to get even worse?..
The Guardian • 8/17/2026, 4:52:04 PMThe FBI has warned of 'malicious actors' misusing AI to impersonate senior government officials.
Al Jazeera • 8/17/2026, 4:48:24 PMSpotify, LinkedIn and others are trying to dig out of a digital sewage heap full of low-quality content made with artificial intelligence.
NY Times • 8/17/2026, 3:36:10 PMSupermarket chain says ‘human error’, not its Facewatch technology, to blame for ejecting a customer Sainsbury’s has paused the use of AI face scanning in one of its stores after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter and ejected from the shop. “I was embarrassed, mortified even, and felt quite humiliated and powerless,” Matt Arnold, 46, said of his ordeal...
The Guardian • 8/17/2026, 1:21:25 PMTemperatures could drop by more than 15C compared with last Thursday as cold front moves arrives from Monday Relief from the unrelenting heat is finally arriving this week across western Europe, with more unsettled conditions bringing the chance of rain. Temperatures are expected to fall back towards the seasonal norm, with some parts of the UK even falling about 3C below normal by Thursday. After such a scorching summer, and with a temperature drop of more than 15C compared with last Thursday’s heat, it may feel surprisingly chilly. There are signs that some substantial rain could be on the cards for the south of the UK this week as a cold front moves in from the Atlantic on Monday night into Tuesday. As of Monday, parts of southern England had endured 62 consecutive days of no rainfall – this is observed at a Met Office weather station in Wisley, Surrey. Even the last recorded rainfall here on 16 June amounted to just 0.4mm...
The Guardian • 8/17/2026, 9:37:38 AMUnexpected absences can cost employers tens of thousands of dollars a month. An app that helps workers with last-minute transportation, food and childcare is making a difference.
NPR Business • 8/17/2026, 9:00:00 AMMatt Arnold says he was asked to leave the store after being wrongly flagged as a shoplifter.
BBC Business • 8/17/2026, 4:57:21 AMChina is exporting more than A.I. models. It wants its data to influence the world’s chatbots, raising fears that Beijing’s narratives will spread with the technology.
NY Times • 8/17/2026, 4:01:07 AMGuardian investigation finds apparent discrepancy between what tech company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced chips it has in operation The chips are quite small and some can be held in the palm of a hand. They are fundamental to the development of artificial intelligence models – and the world’s biggest technology companies need vast numbers of them to keep ahead. Microsoft is one of them. And, on paper, it seems to have a problem. A Guardian investigation has found an apparent discrepancy between what the company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced AI chips it has in operation...
The Guardian • 8/17/2026, 4:00:46 AMExclusive: Guardian analysis finds one section of report includes links to academic articles that do not exist, but authors deny the references were made up by AI Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The authors of a report testing the technology underpinning Australia’s social media ban have conceded ChatGPT was used in editing, but denied a number of citation errors in the report were due to AI hallucinations. The $3.48m age assurance technology trial, run by the UK-based Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS) last year, tested various types of technology that could be used by social media platforms as part of Australia’s under-16 social media ban...
The Guardian • 8/17/2026, 2:58:05 AMIn 2022, Ukraine asked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to activate Starlink coverage around Sevastopol to support an attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. He refused, saying SpaceX would become “explicitly complicit in a major act of war”; he later also cited US sanctions covering Crimea. At the moment that mattered, one private actor had the final say. It exposed a question hidden inside every chokepoint. We usually ask where dependence is concentrated: a strait, mineral, technology, network. But three...
South China Morning Post • 8/16/2026, 9:30:09 PMFuturist Max Tegmark wonders why sandwiches are more regulated than artificial intelligence in the US.
Al Jazeera • 8/16/2026, 5:36:02 PMAndy Burnham’s doubts about Zoom interviews apply more widely to a hiring process being transformed by AI Almost half of UK jobseekers have found themselves pitching to an AI bot, according to recent research, leading many to give up in frustration. As one despairing applicant lamented in the pages of the Guardian a few months ago: “The hiring process has become so mechanised, both figuratively and literally, that it’s hard to believe that the people who end up getting hired aren’t merely the best at gaming the system.” For young people especially, experiencing repeated rejection without interacting with a single human being is alienating as well as disappointing. It was encouraging, therefore, to hear Andy Burnham voice concerns about online recruitment processes on a recent employment-focused podcast. Describing the jobseeking environment for young people as “harsh”, the prime minister criticised the widespread use of interviews on Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and questioned whether applicants could properly convey their personal qualities without a face-to-face meeting. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please..
The Guardian • 8/16/2026, 5:30:31 PMAmid fears for jobs, some film-makers say AI could enable them bypass studio giants and take more creative risks Near the collonaded entrance to Sony Pictures’ historic Culver City film studio, a tech-powered rival has sprung up this summer. The artists at Promise, a new studio feeding off the potential of AI, can glimpse the lots where Singin’ in the Rain and Men in Black were shot, but no longer do they need to get beyond the studio’s high walls to make their visions come true. From far more modest premises, they are making movies with rapidly accelerating AI models that create backgrounds, special effects and even “synthetic performers” – using US models but also driven by market-leading Chinese AI...
The Guardian • 8/16/2026, 12:00:25 PMPolicymakers around the country are maneuvering to ensure that tech giants aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit.
NY Times • 8/16/2026, 9:00:38 AMWynd Kaufman, 69, chained and locked the front doors of OpenAI’s headquarters last year with members of StopAI An activist who blocked the entrance to one of the world’s biggest AI companies is believed to have become the first person jailed for protesting against artificial intelligence as supporters dub her the “Rosa Parks of AI risk”. Wynd Kaufman, 69, surrendered herself on Friday to authorities in San Francisco. She was found guilty by a jury for her role in an action last year that saw members of the group StopAI chain and lock the front doors of OpenAI’s headquarters in protest against the pursuit of artificial superintelligence...
The Guardian • 8/16/2026, 8:00:20 AMJared Cooney Horvath argues that educational technology undermines how children learn and develop Jared Cooney Horvath is on a mission. In the wake of global campaigns for smartphone bans in schools and social media restrictions for under-16s, the neuroscientist wants to raise the alarm about educational technology in classrooms. A former teacher, Horvath believes the use of screens and digital tools in schools is undermining how children learn and develop. “This might be one of the hardest truths our generation has to face,” he writes in his book, The Digital Delusion...
The Guardian • 8/16/2026, 7:00:20 AMFraudsters use pictures posted on Instagram or Facebook to create emails seeking bank account details You are on a short break in Porto and post some pictures of your family on Instagram or Facebook. With a small section of the Douro river in the background, you think it could have been taken anywhere. A few days later, you get a text saying that your card was compromised. “We detected unusual activity while you were travelling in Porto – please verify immediately,” says the message...
The Guardian • 8/16/2026, 6:00:17 AMConverts describe a demanding form of capturing nature very close up that has grown in popularity in last few years Vote here for your favourite invertebrate of the year “I always just pray ‘please don’t fly away’,” says Dara Ojo. As a wildlife photographer, he can handle spending minutes, hours and sometimes days waiting for the shot, but insects are not always very cooperative. Ojo is one of an increasing number of photographers turning their lenses towards something smaller: macro photography. This refers to photographing the natural world at an extremely close range, close enough to see the facets of a fly’s eye, or the geometry of a spider’s face...
The Guardian • 8/15/2026, 2:00:01 PMSocial media and Shazam-like birdsong apps drawing young people to hobby as they seek a gentler connection to the outside world Sorry Elon, but they’re not your kind of tweets. Social media users are flocking to TikTok to join a burgeoning trend for birding videos as the hobby attracts a younger demographic. With the internet ever more cluttered with polarising, shouty and AI content, evidence is emerging of Britons preferring a gentler, more melodic window on the world in the shape of footage of the nation’s feathered friends...
The Guardian • 8/15/2026, 9:00:53 AMThe Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms on the demand from high-profile people and brands for help in harnessing the power of TikTok I didn’t want to work in social media. If you’d asked 15-year-old me my dream job, I might have said foreign correspondent, or maybe travel writer. So you can imagine my surprise to now find myself giving these very colleagues advice on how to get the best selfie angle or write the sharpest TikTok ‘hook’. But taking a job as the Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms, may prove to be one of my smartest career moves if the current job market is to be believed...
The Guardian • 8/15/2026, 8:01:11 AMDevelopment comes after Anthropic was found to have spent millions on books to scan for ‘data acquisition’ Secondhand booksellers in the UK and Ireland are reporting a flurry of bulk orders from mystery buyers, amid speculation AI companies are acquiring the tomes for their data. Bookshops contacted by the Guardian say they have been receiving orders from buyers in the US, Canada, continental Europe and the UK. The increase has been replicated around the world, with booksellers in the US, Australia and Europe also reporting unusual orders...
The Guardian • 8/15/2026, 8:00:51 AMGoogle enabled A.I. features for K-12 schools that have allowed student access to Gemini. Until this week, Google automatically enabled Gemini in Classroom only for students 18 or older.
NY Times • 8/14/2026, 6:54:35 PMCommercial vehicle maker flags commodity cost pressures, maintains ₹1,000-crore investment plan and says AI is deployed to improve productivity and not replace workforce
The Hindu • 8/14/2026, 4:05:33 PMPlanning consultation told ‘robust security measures’ will be needed amid growing resistance to such developments Scottish police have warned that a proposed datacentre will require “robust security measures” to prevent “incursion” amid growing public resistance to such developments in Scotland. “A great deal of public opposition is likely” to a datacentre planned in Larbert, about 30 miles west of Edinburgh, the Scottish police have said in a letter submitted as a part of a planning consultation earlier this month...
The Guardian • 8/14/2026, 4:05:31 PMGuardian readers reflect on the ableism rife in the debate about Ray-Ban Meta eyewear, despite the life-changing difference they can make Your editorial on Meta’s smart glasses acknowledges their value to blind and visually impaired people, then asks that this “not be allowed to distract” from the harms (The Guardian view on Meta’s smart glasses: regulators must get on the front foot, 10 August). As an optometrist who owns a small independent practice, I’d suggest that it is visually impaired people who are being treated as the distraction. I was reluctant to stock Ray‑Ban Meta, having no fondness for Meta or Luxottica, but colleagues persuaded me of the benefits for people with sight impairment. The reality has surpassed that. The majority of our buyers have a visual impairment or learning difficulty. One man, practically illiterate, now has the world read to him...
The Guardian • 8/14/2026, 3:22:59 PMThe administrative work required to run an effective investment scam has been drastically cut by using merging technology Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Within days of clicking on an online ad for a cryptocurrency trading app, a 29-year-old Queensland man watched his dashboard soar with profits. Making investment gains was as simple as downloading the slick-looking app and browser extension linked to his crypto wallet. So he invested more...
The Guardian • 8/14/2026, 3:00:31 PMInvestment gains at Alphabet and Amazon reveal a new way in which technology companies’ fortunes are increasingly linked.
NY Times • 8/14/2026, 2:55:08 PMPangram excels at distinguishing chatbot-generated words from human writing. But it’s not reliable for spotting artificial images.
NY Times • 8/14/2026, 2:08:52 PM“The first rule of Mark Zuckerberg is never count out Mark Zuckerberg.”
NY Times • 8/14/2026, 11:00:04 AMIn matters of work, school and even romance, we turn to A.I. chatbots. But what happens when the bots begin talking to one another?
NY Times • 8/14/2026, 9:00:28 AMHollywood Crime Story: The Mob Takes Over the Movies looks back at how criminals insinuated themselves in the film business “From the foundation of Hollywood, organized crime is there.” So claims Tom Patterson, producer and director of new three-part documentary series, Hollywood Crime Story: The Mob Takes Over the Movies. Organized crime’s connection to the film industry actually predates Tinseltown, being present for the foundation of the medium itself, when inventor Thomas Edison sicced his hired goons on competitors in an attempt to maintain total control over early motion picture technology. As covered in Hollywood Crime Story, this resulted in said competitors – mostly Jewish businessmen from the east coast – fleeing westward and establishing the town and studio system that would become synonymous with movies as we know them...
The Guardian • 8/14/2026, 9:00:23 AMPilot scheme will provide three weeks of training as part of UK government’s latest attempt to address Neets crisis Young people out of work or at risk of unemployment in the UK are to join “AI boot camps” where they harness the technology to get a foothold in the workplace. The government’s latest attempt to address the crisis in Neets – young people not in work or education – involves turning to a technology that many view as a potential threat to employment...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 11:01:10 PMStates had opposed an agreement allowing a Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquisition, calling the settlement ineffective and corrupt.
NY Times • 8/13/2026, 10:50:07 PMDistrict attorney says Arjun Aravind, 17, used internet and AI to search for fantasy stories regarding killing of his family A Massachusetts teenager accused of killing his mother and younger brother is being held without bail as authorities investigate a double-murder case that prosecutors say is connected to his use of ChatGPT. Arjun Aravind, 17, appeared on Thursday morning for his arraignment in Concord district court, where a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf to murder and several additional charges...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 9:34:58 PMDenise Dresser, who was previously the C.E.O. of Slack, is the latest in a string of executives to leave the artificial intelligence start-up.
NY Times • 8/13/2026, 9:15:41 PMCEO announces steps after reports that system is used to target immigrants or people seeking out-of-state abortions For nearly a decade, the company Flock Safety has gradually built out a network of cameras across the US that allows law enforcement officials to conduct about 20bn license plate scans every month. In that time, the company had largely left the decision to turn on safety measures up to its customers. Many of those organizations did not turn them on...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 8:20:04 PMRajya Sabha Member of Parliament A.A. Rahim said that the use of facial recognition technology and covert surveillance on peaceful protesters was unconstitutional
The Hindu • 8/13/2026, 7:25:09 PMExperts say better regulation is needed but that bad press about ‘motorized menaces’ puts the ebike revolution at risk Beware, Americans: there’s a battery-powered threat cruising down beach paths, rolling up hiking trails and zipping along the streets of our cities. By now, you’ve likely seen footage on social media of teens racing along streets, popping wheelies and weaving around car traffic with reckless abandon. The Los Angeles Times recently dubbed them the “new Hells Angels”. Other news outlets have referred to them as “motorized menaces” terrorizing communities. Sounds scary...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 2:00:02 PMThe former Bibb County deputies were arrested this week amid a growing national debate over Flock cameras, which can be found on roads in every state but Alaska.
NY Times • 8/13/2026, 1:09:46 PMIt’s a nice sentiment, but all AI users should ask three questions about their preferred choice of AI platform On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word essay, The Future Is for Everyone. The essay came with something even rarer: a new Meta open-weight model. An open-weight AI model is the kind of AI with which you download the entire thing, and it works on your own computer (with or without the internet) and nobody can switch it off except for you. Almost every mainstream AI tool you use, whether it be Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, is one you rent access to. Meta’s is one that you can download and actually own. I downloaded it before I finished the essay. So can you. This major move by the world’s largest tech heavyweight comes amid a summer heavy with AI news, full of nations at war. Washington against Beijing; tech founder against tech founder. But beneath those conflicts is a deeper contest between two kinds of power: a government that can order technology offline in an instant, and a company that can simply close your account. Neither is necessarily villainous. But the rest of us are not merely the audience in this fight; we are the prize. And the terms are already being written: intelligence on lease, a future we pay for but never quite own...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 12:00:00 PMChina already manufactures humanoid robots by the thousands. A new generation of U.S. start-ups is betting that there is still time to compete.
NY Times • 8/13/2026, 11:25:30 AMMove blocking funds through Medicaid and Chip to make it harder for vulnerable children to get healthcare, experts say The Trump administration finalized a rule on Tuesday to end gender-affirming care through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip), a move that will make it harder for vulnerable children to access healthcare and that eschews evidence to advance an anti-transgender ideology, opponents say. The rule is set to take effect on 13 October – but legal challenges could delay or block it entirely...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 11:00:56 AMThe dangers of AI become clearer every day. Why are we still acting as if we have no choice about our future? Rather than producing jobs, the US economy actually lost 23,000 jobs in July, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released on Friday. In addition, May and June’s job numbers were revised downward, showing a combined 103,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. As if this weren’t bad enough, wage growth has also slowed. Average hourly earnings rose by just 0.1% from June...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 10:00:56 AMWhether you want to improve your home’s security or simply know who’s at the door, the latest generation of smart doorbells will help put your mind at ease • The best robot vacuums, tested Doorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we’re coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They’re essentially security cameras with a chime function. If you haven’t already installed one of these handy tools, there’s a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see and whether you’re prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested 11 popular video doorbells to find the best...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 9:04:01 AMTaiwan’s statement comes a day after reports that suspected China-linked hackers had carried out a first-of-a-kind breach Taiwan says it detected AI-assisted cyber-attacks on government agencies that came from overseas last month, a new kind of threat that has been reported as “first-of-a-kind breach”. The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MDA) said its cybersecurity monitoring units detected the “abnormal attack” targeting government agencies, which began on 20 July. The National Institute of Cyber Security issued a series of warning alerts while it investigated...
The Guardian • 8/13/2026, 5:02:28 AMThe company, Thrive Holdings, acquires businesses to infuse them with artificial intelligence and drew interest from backers like SoftBank.
NY Times • 8/13/2026, 3:03:19 AMTwitch's executives said users can opt out of AI training, which has become a common industry practice.
BBC Business • 8/13/2026, 2:46:04 AMNew owner is said to be involved in AI industry, as new class of multimillionaires is entering the real estate race A luxury Lake Como-inspired estate in the San Francisco Bay Area has sold to a buyer “in the AI world” for a record $70m, in the latest sign of a new tech wealth boom that’s pushing home prices to extraordinary heights in the region The property south of San Francisco not only becomes the most expensive sale in its affluent town of Hillsborough, doubling a previous record, but is also the most expensive sale in northern California this year, according to listing agent Jennifer Gilson of Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty...
The Guardian • 8/12/2026, 11:22:48 PMJapanese risk aversion and conservatism blamed for slow AI take-up by the country's business sector.
BBC Business • 8/12/2026, 11:00:47 PMAndy Green, a 64-year-old retired Royal Air Force pilot from Britain, was already the only person to break the sound barrier on land. “The ground comes at you very, very quickly,” he said.
NY Times • 8/12/2026, 7:40:30 PMFollowing Australia’s first reported automated hacking accident, experts warn deployers – and possibly developers – of AI agents could be held liable for the actions of their bots Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The law is clear, says Prof Jeannie Paterson. “If I deploy an AI agent and it causes harm to someone else, I am responsible for that harm. “Even if I didn’t intend for that to happen, it was foreseeable, and I should be taking responsibility.”..
The Guardian • 8/12/2026, 3:00:34 PMFairground TV is a 24/7 channel devoted to low-quality AI content for viewers sick of watching real people move in ways that won’t haunt you The appeal of Roku is that, whatever you happen to want to watch, there will almost certainly be a live channel for it. Just want to watch Little House on the Prairie? There’s a channel for it. Just want to watch Duck Dynasty? There’s a channel for that too. Purely want to watch nothing but local news from Wisconsin? Guess what: there’s a channel for that too. But despite this wealth, a section of the population was still to see its needs fulfilled. What about people who hate plot and vision and the sight of people speaking convincing dialogue that synchronises perfectly with the movement of their lips? What about the people who just want to watch an unyielding torrent of eerily weightless nightmare fodder? Well, good news. Roku has finally caught up...
The Guardian • 8/12/2026, 2:15:25 PMSadiq Khan has indicated the technology will be deployed on London’s Oxford Street despite human rights concerns The Metropolitan police are understood to be planning to use live facial recognition (LFR) technology on Britain’s busiest shopping street. In June the Met said it would introduce the technology in London’s West End by Christmas and into a further six areas next year. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, has indicated that the newly pedestrianised Oxford Street will be included...
The Guardian • 8/12/2026, 12:22:31 PMThe new feature, starting from mid-September, will tell listeners if an artist is AI-generated.
BBC Business • 8/12/2026, 10:53:54 AMThe AI jobs apocalypse never showed up. Still, jobs are changing and economists expect more to come. The prediction was stark: artificial intelligence advancements would wipe out jobs en masse. “Half” of all entry-level white collar jobs would vanish, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in May 2025. A month later, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, went further, foreseeing the end of “certain job categories”. Companies began citing AI in their layoffs. Workers organized. And students reconsidered their future careers. But a year later, the mass carnage hasn’t shown up...
The Guardian • 8/12/2026, 10:00:27 AMFrom space to telecommunications, the US has a long history of fostering technology for the public good. These AI models could be aligned to democratic values, not corporate profits OpenAI, and then Anthropic, were each formed by AI developers who feared unrestrained corporate AI development – specifically, that companies like Google and Meta would steer the technology towards deleterious, maybe even catastrophically unsafe, outcomes for society. Their founders proclaimed that their new labs, uniquely, could be trusted to develop the technology in humanity’s best interest. But each, in turn, were themselves co-opted by the same market incentives, themselves becoming corporate behemoths zealously guarding future investor value rather than the public interest. It was only a few weeks ago, in June, when OpenAI and Anthropic each filed for their IPOs and were met with buzz about trillion-dollar valuations. The hype around their valuations is so extreme that many worry about their potential for concentrating wealth on a global scale. In an effort to leave something for the rest of us, some observers have proposed that the federal government seize a share of these companies’ stock to create a US sovereign wealth fund, or redistribute their revenues to produce a dividend for taxpayers...
The Guardian • 8/12/2026, 10:00:26 AMExperts say AI can get personal finance fundamentals right but may struggle with nuanced questions.
NPR Business • 8/12/2026, 9:00:00 AMMore people are turning to AI for financial advice. What are they asking, and is the advice any good?
NPR Business • 8/12/2026, 8:47:36 AMWorld's largest contract electronics maker forecasts strong growth in 2026 amid AI boom.
Al Jazeera • 8/12/2026, 7:58:04 AMBuyers of AI services are struggling to control costs and sellers are not sure how much to charge.
BBC Business • 8/11/2026, 11:03:52 PMThe new label, which will begin to be applied next month, is an effort by the streaming service to be more transparent about A.I.-generated music on its app.
NY Times • 8/11/2026, 7:59:45 PMIn OpenAI’s latest exit, Brad Lightcap, a longtime leader at the artificial intelligence company, said he was leaving to start a new venture.
NY Times • 8/11/2026, 6:52:32 PMA few details from the White House’s A.I. plan have leaked to the news media, but the administration has officially communicated almost nothing.
NY Times • 8/11/2026, 3:54:35 PMMusic streaming platform creates ‘AI persona’ label that will appear on profiles and track listings in crackdown on fake performers Spotify is to label AI artists and exclude them from algorithm recommendations as part of a crackdown on fake performers. The world’s largest music streaming platform is creating a label for AI-generated artist identities called “AI personas” that will appear on the artist profile and on track listings on playlists...
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 1:40:14 PMThe incident is being seen as the latest example of the AI tools going to any lengths to complete their tasks.
BBC Business • 8/11/2026, 12:09:26 PMAlso: Google executives jump ship in race for AI dominance Hello, TechScape readers! Danielle Abril, editor of the Guardian’s Reworked series on AI and the future of work, filling in for Blake Montgomery this week. Major legal battles against Meta over child safety are playing out in courts across the US – and the tech giant is losing. Recent rulings raise big questions about social media companies’ responsibility to their youngest users. Meanwhile, more key executives have jumped ship from Google as it battles OpenAI and Anthropic in the race for AI dominance, and Meta’s smartglasses face a fearsome backlash. Let’s dig in! ‘I’ve definitely lost followers’: influencers face backlash over Meta ‘pervert glasses’ content This man was secretly snapped by someone with smartglasses. He’s not alone in calling that a violation of privacy Tell us: do you believe you have been filmed by Meta’s smartglasses without your consent? Restaurants, pubs and theatres ban Meta’s ‘spy glasses’ over privacy fears ‘I’m not spying’: how Meta’s smartglasses have divided opinion Bernie Sanders calls on Silicon Valley to ‘pause AI development’ in interest of humanity Rising number of UK children report seeing explicit deepfakes of themselves The White House’s plan to vet potentially dangerous AI is cloaked in secrecy ‘This is very real redlining’: outrage in Little Rock as two datacenters loom Safety fears as scientists make first viruses designed by AI SpaceX beats revenue expectations in first earnings report after IPO crash..
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 12:04:51 PMA co-founder of xAI is going all in on building open-source artificial intelligence so that “anyone can control and shape A.I. for their own needs.”
NY Times • 8/11/2026, 11:00:07 AMFrench newspapers have asked the country’s antitrust watchdog to take action over Google’s new AI-generated summaries – which appear at the top of search results – saying they are depriving news publishers of web traffic.
France 24 • 8/11/2026, 10:47:11 AMExclusive: Court service says anyone trying to enter buildings with glasses will have them confiscated and returned when they leave Courts in England and Wales have joined a number of restaurants, theatres and pubs in banning Meta glasses, amid a mounting backlash against what has been described as “spyware”. Last month courts in New York announced a ban on the controversial glasses, which can record video footage while being worn...
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 10:29:29 AMSatellite internet can close digital divide, but Global South must not trade access for dependence on foreign firms.
Al Jazeera • 8/11/2026, 9:52:01 AMModelling finds AI-driven productivity gains in coal, oil and gas enable more emissions than applications in renewables avoid AI-driven productivity gains enable more planet-heating pollution from fossil fuels than they avoid from renewables, a study has found. Researchers modelled the technical potential for AI to boost clean power generation along with projections for how it can help produce coal, oil and gas. Across 64 scenarios, they found net yearly carbon pollution rose by 0.47-1.8 gigatonnes, or about 1-5% of the energy sector’s annual emissions...
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 9:15:45 AMA wave of disinformation online contributed to a surge of migrants in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta who were trying to reach Europe, resulting in about 90 deaths.
NY Times • 8/11/2026, 9:03:41 AMWhether you’re commuting, training or riding for fun, we asked specialists to break down what to know before you buy – from specs and safety to price • The best bike locks for every budget For me, cycling is therapy. It’s calming, meditative and uncomplicated. But there’s a catch. To experience the simple joy of riding a bike, you first have to navigate the maddeningly complex process of buying one. Make no mistake: this is not a straightforward case of marching into Halfords, saying, “One bike, please!” and leaving with a shiny new steed. But, while complicated, it needn’t be stressful...
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 9:00:10 AMApollo, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and KKR among those working with chipmaker to fund infrastructure Nvidia has partnered with six major Wall Street financial institutions to raise more than $500bn (£370bn) capital for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The Nvidia chief executive, Jensen Huang, said on X that the company has the option to backstop up to $125bn, or 25% of the potential deals...
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 6:32:13 AMGiven the size and age of the universe, it should be full of species with technology far more advanced than our own. So where are they? • The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. At one point during the discussion, Fermi blurted out: “Where is everybody?” – or, as another participant remembered it, “Don’t you ever wonder where everybody is?” If aliens exist, in other words, why have we never encountered them? The episode has become famous, marking the moment when extraterrestrial life went from a theme for philosophical speculation to a serious scientific problem. For centuries, people had wondered whether life exists on the moon or Mars, but they accepted that we would never know for certain, since making contact with another planet was impossible. By the 1950s, those limits no longer seemed so fixed. In addition to space flight, researchers were developing tools to detect the radio signals that reach us from stars many light years away. These developments were still in their infancy, but it was already clear that humanity was no longer bound to Earth the way it always had been...
The Guardian • 8/11/2026, 4:00:04 AMMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday laid out his vision for a future where everyone has a powerful personal AI agent, arguing that open-source technology can prevent control of advanced artificial intelligence from becoming concentrated among a handful of companies, governments or institutions.
France 24 • 8/11/2026, 1:42:51 AMSix giant investment firms announced a $500 billion effort to raise money for customers of Nvidia to pay for computing power.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 11:28:13 PMMeta CEO presents utopian vision of AI in 6,000-word essay amid Silicon Valley debate over government regulation Mark Zuckerberg published a lengthy essay on Monday detailing his views on artificial intelligence and announced several plans for how Meta would develop the technology in the future. The CEO’s essay went online the same day as Meta released a new, open-source AI model that seeks to rival Anthropic and OpenAI’s products called Muse Glimmer. Over the course of more than 6,000 words in a post titled “The Future is for Everyone,” Zuckerberg addressed a range of topics related to AI that included datacenters, government regulation, cybersecurity, the creation of bioweapons, labor market disruption, surveillance powers and more. The essay presented a utopian vision of AI as a personalized “superintelligence” – using the word 60 times...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 10:57:57 PMThe money will be used to develop new data centres to house, operate, and cool miles of stacked computer chips that process AI data and actions.
BBC Business • 8/10/2026, 10:31:42 PMAs Waymo deploys more driverless cars to 15 U.S. cities and counting, its vehicles keep encountering new and unexpected situations that they have no script to handle.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 8:37:37 PMChina's workers are vulnerable as the push to adopt AI comes from top leaders amid a sluggish economy.
NPR • 8/10/2026, 8:14:06 PMIn Texas, there’s one thing liberals and conservatives agree on: They don’t want cameras trained on their cars.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 8:04:24 PMProgressive US senator urges Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic to ‘stop building machines that humans cannot control’ Senator Bernie Sanders has called on Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic executives to halt their development of artificial intelligence, warning that the US Senate will implement regulation if the companies continue deploying AI at their current pace. In a new letter addressed to the CEOs of three of the country’s leading AI companies, Sanders said the capabilities of these AI models have reached a critical risk threshold and that the companies are losing control over the technology...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 5:44:21 PMFlock Safety’s automated license plate-reading cameras, used by thousands of law enforcement agencies in the U.S., have drawn intense criticism from civil liberties groups.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 3:58:27 PMBen-Gvir posts AI video of starving Palestinian ahead of elections
Al Jazeera • 8/10/2026, 2:18:52 PMOpponents fear Elon Musk firm’s plan to develop 18-mile strip of Pecan Island will badly damage fragile ecosystem Plans by Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a vast rocket launch site on a stretch of Louisiana’s rapidly eroding coastline have stirred a backlash among some local opponents who fear it will badly damage the area’s fragile ecosystem. A deal for SpaceX to take control of 130,000 acres of coastal Vermilion parish is reported to be close to being finalized, allowing the company to escalate its number of launches, including of its new Starship mega rocket. SpaceX also has ambitions to deploy artificial intelligence datacenters in space, and while some experts have doubts about this, it has submitted regulatory filings to build a constellation of up to a million of them...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 2:00:46 PMThe tech giant is investing in the natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas, even as it pledges to honor climate commitments.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 1:38:33 PMAI’s danger isn’t just in experts losing the ability to reason. It’s that trainees may never learn how to do so in the first place In healthcare, there’s growing concern over doctors becoming less clinically adept as they increasingly rely on AI tools. But what about the trainees – medical students, residents and fellows – who are using these tools before they’ve built their own clinical judgment? The idea of deskilling implies that someone possessed an ability and then lost it. Here, the danger is not just deskilling but never-skilling. Although a doctor who has forgotten how to reason is recoverable, one who never learned how may not be. OpenEvidence, essentially an AI chatbot for clinicians, has given this concern its most concrete form. About two-thirds of US doctors actively use OpenEvidence, asking about puzzling symptoms, drug interactions, and clinical guidelines, getting responses within seconds, anchored in the latest research. Trainees, unsurprisingly, have also begun to use this AI tool in many of the same ways – but at a far more formative stage...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 12:00:44 PMThe release of Muse Glimmer, a model that can be freely downloaded and modified, is likely to intensify a debate over whether A.I. should be restricted or not.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 10:00:14 AMAs data centers gobble up memory chips, other industries that need the components, including electronics companies like Apple and medical device makers, are asking for government help.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 9:02:18 AMA wave of new services uses A.I. to monitor flights and hotel reservations to help you find lower prices. We look at how these tools work.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 9:01:42 AMVHS Dates advertises itself as resurfacing lost dating service videotapes from the 1980s. The account’s followers have been genuinely touched.
NY Times • 8/10/2026, 9:00:29 AMHacking group Kimsuky using AI-generated documents in spear-phishing attacks, South Korean cybersecurity firm says.
Al Jazeera • 8/10/2026, 7:59:04 AMThis blog is now closed Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Police say the remains found in a suitcase near Goulburn are not human. Supt Linda Bradbury with NSW police said: Some good news here that we don’t have a suspicious death of a human on our hands. … We are still undertaking more forensic work to identify what they are. But we can identify that they’re not human. But we’ve confirmed by other means that they are not. The undersupply of housing combined with population growth is expected to partially offset the impact of higher interest rates and recent federal government policy changes on the housing market...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 7:56:39 AMNovel squat Android opens to an iPad-like screen for video or multitasking, with plenty of power and battery life Samsung’s latest folding phone breaks the mould with a squat, passport-like shape reminiscent of the Blackberry, which opens up to become a tablet similar to an iPad mini. It is certainly a better shape for a tablet than other designs, but is a short and wide phone when closed a compromise too far? The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is an entirely new variant in Samsung’s foldable family for this year launched alongside the Z Fold 8 Ultra with a more familiar candy bar shape. Both folders are extremely expensive, with the Fold 8 starting at £1,699 (€1,999/$1,899.99/A$2,699) and the Fold 8 Ultra at £1,899 (€2,199/$2,099.99/A$2,999), with RAMageddon driving up prices even at the top of the market...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 6:00:37 AMBig companies describe being under constant threat but only half have a plan in place to respond to an attack Nearly a third of British manufacturers have been hit by a cyber-attack on them or a company in their supply chain, according to a survey that highlighted the growing hacking risk to companies. The findings come almost a year after Britain’s largest automotive employer, JLR, was hit by an attack that forced it to halt production for weeks...
The Guardian • 8/10/2026, 5:00:36 AMTech companies are not modelling their own claims of the technology giving people more free time.
BBC Business • 8/10/2026, 5:00:32 AMUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that as many as 50,000 North Korean soldiers could be deployed to Russia, reflecting growing military cooperation between the two countries. He did not elaborate on his sources for this information, but warned that Pyongyang could gain valuable battlefield experience and military technology through its support for Russia.
France 24 • 8/9/2026, 2:58:11 PMAddressing the closing ceremony of a two-day conference, the Twenty Points Programme (Viksit Bharat–Swarna Andhra Pradesh) Implementation Chairman says the future CAs cannot remain confined to traditional accounting and taxation practices
The Hindu • 8/9/2026, 2:50:59 PMEmerging programmes such as Artificial Intelligence attract strong interest, whereas traditional core branches such as Civil and Mechanical Engineering continue to draw candidates with relatively lower ranks
The Hindu • 8/9/2026, 2:29:06 PMInfluencers accused of using ‘pervert glasses’ amid fears about people being filmed without their consent It was hardly an offensive video. Amid the buzz of the Tour de France finale, Oliver Hooson filmed himself whipping up a delicious-looking flat white for a fellow cycling enthusiast. But after posting the footage on social media, the comments that soon rolled in were a real shock. “PERV,” read one. “Out here pushing creep glasses,” said another. His mistake? Documenting the moment with Meta’s “spy glasses”. Despite being marketed as the latest must-have gadget, Meta’s smartglasses, which can record video footage while being worn, have faced a vicious backlash, particularly relating to concerns about surveillance. There are widespread fears about the glasses being used to film people, especially women, without their consent, and the resultant footage being posted on social media. This has earned them the label of “pervert glasses”, and content creators, no matter how they are used, have faced a flood of negative comments for deploying them...
The Guardian • 8/9/2026, 1:37:25 PMThe Bill listed by Baijayant Panda says no child under 13 years shall create an account on any social media or online gaming platform without verified parental consent, and that every intermediary shall provide parental control dashboards
The Hindu • 8/9/2026, 12:05:23 PMWhitehall wants to triple the UK’s number of datacentres – but demand for electricity and water means that could be at the expense of new homes Amid headlines about the UK’s drought, Europe’s wildfires and impossible global temperatures, it was 28C when I arrived in Slough last Monday. I was there to look around Slough Trading Estate, a place that might once have conjured up images of the TV comedy The Office, many of whose laughs came at the expense of this overgrown patch of suburbia, 20-odd miles west of London. But these days, this area of town – an incongruous mixture of old-school businesses such as Mr Clutch and Angling Direct, and vast, metal-clad leviathans that look like something pulled from JG Ballard – has become a byword for the constant expansion of datacentres, those hulking symbols of the vast computing power that big tech now requires, not least because of the ever-more complex workings of artificial intelligence...
The Guardian • 8/9/2026, 11:03:18 AM