EU opens antitrust probe into Align over Invisalign and scanner tying
EU opens antitrust probe into Align over Invisalign and scanner tying

The European Commission has decided to look closely at how you straighten teeth, or more precisely, at the machine a dentist uses to scan them. Brussels has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Align Technology, the American company behind Invi…

Germany wants Helsing to build the brain of its next air war
Germany wants Helsing to build the brain of its next air war

Germany is quietly building its own brain for future air warfare, and it wants Helsing to write the code. Berlin is lining up a €580mn contract for the Munich AI firm. The software would link fighters, drones, satellites and sensors, according to docum…

As a deadly heatwave grips Europe, Rome leans on a bracelet to watch its elderly
As a deadly heatwave grips Europe, Rome leans on a bracelet to watch its elderly

Dina Gazzella is 85, and on her wrist is a small black band that looks like a watch and does rather more than tell the time. “If I feel unwell, this is a lifesaver,” she told Reuters. In a summer that has turned lethal across Europe, that is not a figu…

Trump threatens 100% tariffs over digital services taxes
Trump threatens 100% tariffs over digital services taxes

The ink was barely dry. The EU had just signed a trade deal with Washington. A day later, Trump threatened to blow a hole in it. On Friday, the president posted the threat on Truth Social. Any country that imposes a digital services tax on US firms, he…

Peec AI doubles its valuation betting GEO is the new SEO
Peec AI doubles its valuation betting GEO is the new SEO

For 20 years, marketing meant one thing: rank on Google. That deal is breaking. A Berlin startup has just doubled its valuation on a bet about what comes next. Peec AI is in talks to raise new funding at a pre-money valuation of $200M, Sifted reported,…

ETH Zurich’s bidirectional pixel could turn screens into cameras
ETH Zurich’s bidirectional pixel could turn screens into cameras

A pixel has always done one job. On a screen it emits light to build a picture. In a camera it absorbs light to record one. A team in Switzerland has now made one that does both. Researchers at ETH Zurich have built the first bidirectional pixel, in wo…

Germany’s AI rollout is being sold as a fix for its worker shortage
Germany’s AI rollout is being sold as a fix for its worker shortage

The case for artificial intelligence in Germany is being made, increasingly, in the language of arithmetic rather than ambition. The country does not have enough workers, and AI is being pitched as a way to need fewer of them. The concrete version of t…

Austria asks the EU to consider giving Anthropic a home in Europe
Austria asks the EU to consider giving Anthropic a home in Europe

European government has, in writing, asked the European Union to find a way to host an American artificial-intelligence company. The request is unusual enough that the official making it conceded, in the same breath, that people would doubt it could be…

Volkswagen reportedly plans to cut 100,000 jobs
Volkswagen reportedly plans to cut 100,000 jobs

Volkswagen reportedly wants to cut 100,000 jobs, about 15% of its workforce, and close German plants. It would be the biggest overhaul in the carmaker’s history, and the unions are vowing to fight. Europe’s car industry is shrinking, and its biggest na…

France’s statistics department hit by cyberattack on staff directory
France’s statistics department hit by cyberattack on staff directory

The institution that counts France found itself counting victims this week. INSEE, the national statistics department, said a cyberattack had exposed personal data belonging to about 12,800 current and former staff, along with members of the civil-serv…