US courts will start publishing how often the government uses spyware

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told TechCrunch that it will start disclosing how many times judges authorized the use of spyware to wiretap suspected criminals.

Apple wants to pay publishers per use, not per year, to give Siri the news
Apple wants to pay publishers per use, not per year, to give Siri the news

Alexandra Bruell reported the talks for the Wall Street Journal on 12 August, citing people familiar with the matter. Apple has approached publishers over recent months. The content would give Siri AI access to current news and information, the kind th…

Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases
Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases

Garrett Langley, the company’s chief executive, set out the package in a post on Flock’s own blog on 13 August. It covers six areas. Privacy, accountability, data ownership, data security, data accuracy and transparency. Most of the Flock Safety privac…

Private US companies can now run cyber operations abroad. State-backed hackers are excluded
Private US companies can now run cyber operations abroad. State-backed hackers are excluded

Donald Trump signed the memorandum on 12 August and the White House published it that night. It runs to five sections. A National Coordination Center creates and manages the programme. Two Program Executive Directors oversee it. The Attorney General de…

Airbnb’s CEO says nobody builds AI for normal people. He is on Y Combinator’s board
Airbnb’s CEO says nobody builds AI for normal people. He is on Y Combinator’s board

The Airbnb chief executive made the argument on the Yahoo Finance podcast Power Players with Brian Sozzi this week. His diagnosis has two parts. “I think part of it’s a narrative issue that we’re not talking about AI correctly,” he said. The second par…

Microsoft is killing its AI mascot, ten months after building it
Microsoft is killing its AI mascot, ten months after building it

The cull lands on Tuesday. Group Chat, Podcasts, Copilot Labs and consumer Deep Research all retire that day, according to Microsoft’s own support page. Mico goes at the same time, out of the voice experience and into Learn Live as a tutor. The whole t…

Microsoft told Google it was overreacting in 2010. It has spent five years quietly leaving China
Microsoft told Google it was overreacting in 2010. It has spent five years quietly leaving China

Corporate filings show the closures, Reuters reported in an exclusive. The revenue figure is the one that explains the rest. China accounted for 1.5% of global revenue as of 2024. Microsoft has no current plan to exit. It has simply stopped growing the…

Lightspeed is selling its OpenAI stake to a fund it will also run
Lightspeed is selling its OpenAI stake to a fund it will also run

The firm calls the deal Project Mercury, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with it. It gathers assets from two Lightspeed funds, Select V and Opportunity II, plus a separately managed account. OpenAI is the anchor. Coller Capital is the lead b…

A Massachusetts teen is charged with killing his mother and brother, and prosecutors point to ChatGPT
A Massachusetts teen is charged with killing his mother and brother, and prosecutors point to ChatGPT

A 17-year-old in Massachusetts has been charged with murdering his mother and younger brother, and prosecutors say that in the period before the deaths he had used ChatGPT to explore what they described as fantasy scenarios about killing his family. It…

Europe built the world’s largest electric plane. It flew in New York
Europe built the world’s largest electric plane. It flew in New York

Heart Aerospace flew its X1 demonstrator at Plattsburgh International Airport on 12 August, the company announced. The aircraft taxied, took off, climbed, manoeuvred and landed. It reached 335 metres, and its all-electric propulsion produced more than …