Google, Meta, Spotify and Sony fight Belgium’s creator-pay law at the EU court
Google, Meta, Spotify and Sony fight Belgium’s creator-pay law at the EU court

Google, Meta, Spotify and Sony have taken Belgium to Europe’s top court. They say its copyright law forces platforms to pay creators far beyond what the EU intended. Four of the biggest names in tech asked the EU’s Court of Justice on Tuesday to rein i…

Scotland could freeze new datacentres, threatening the UK’s AI plan
Scotland could freeze new datacentres, threatening the UK’s AI plan

Scotland’s governing party wants to freeze every new datacentre in the country. If ministers agree, a core pillar of the UK’s AI strategy could stall. The Scottish government is weighing a sweeping moratorium on new datacentres. Last Sunday, the Scotti…

Waymo’s robotaxis stalled, snarled traffic, and drove into fireworks on July 4
Waymo’s robotaxis stalled, snarled traffic, and drove into fireworks on July 4

Waymo’s robotaxis had a rough Fourth of July. In San Francisco they ran out of charge, snarled traffic for hours, and one drove over a lit firework and caught fire. Over the holiday weekend, driverless Waymo cars became the story instead of the technol…

Predatorgate victims sue the spyware maker for €8M
Predatorgate victims sue the spyware maker for €8M

Greece’s Predator spyware scandal has reached the courts. Eight people it spied on want €1 million each from the firm that built it. Eight victims of Greece’s “Predatorgate” wiretapping scandal have sued the Athens surveillance firm Intellexa and 13 pe…

ECB tells Europe’s big banks to plan for AI cyber threats
ECB tells Europe’s big banks to plan for AI cyber threats

Europe’s banking regulator has a new fear: an AI model clever enough to break into the financial system. It wants every big bank to have a plan by October. The European Central Bank has a warning for the euro area’s largest banks. Frontier AI now poses…

The Pentagon calls this Chinese firm a military company. Its lidar runs US robotaxis anyway
The Pentagon calls this Chinese firm a military company. Its lidar runs US robotaxis anyway

A lidar maker the Pentagon brands a Chinese military company quietly wires up America’s robotaxis, trucks, and even an airport. Nvidia is one of its partners. Hesai makes many of the sensors self-driving machines use to see. The Shanghai firm also sits…

China weighs curbing overseas access to its top AI models
China weighs curbing overseas access to its top AI models

China’s open AI models have been a gift to developers everywhere. Now Beijing may pull them back in. Chinese officials have discussed limiting who outside the country can use the nation’s best AI models, Reuters reports. The Ministry of Commerce ran th…

The Supreme Court lets Texas turn Apple and Google into the internet’s age gate
The Supreme Court lets Texas turn Apple and Google into the internet’s age gate

Texas can now make Apple and Google check how old you are before you download an app. The Supreme Court just let the rule stand. The US Supreme Court has refused to block a Texas law aimed at app stores, the Associated Press reports. The rule forces Ap…

Google defends a ‘crisis actor’ video at Australia’s antisemitism inquiry
Google defends a ‘crisis actor’ video at Australia’s antisemitism inquiry

A Google executive told an Australian inquiry that a video smearing a shooting survivor as a “crisis actor” meets YouTube’s standards. So it stays online. Google has defended keeping up a conspiracy video about a mass shooting in Sydney, the Associated…

South Korea’s ‘fake news’ law is live, and it can cost you five times the damage
South Korea’s ‘fake news’ law is live, and it can cost you five times the damage

Post something a South Korean court later rules false, and it could cost you five times the damage. The country’s new “fake news” law is now in force, and journalists are alarmed. South Korea has begun enforcing a tough law against false information on…