Category Archives: Technology

Meta ordered to remove UK deepfakes as oversight board criticises ‘inadequate’ safeguards

Posted on by

Facebook told it was wrong in leaving up AI-generated videos of a Labour councillor and Muslim campaigner, amid calls to curb fakes

Meta’s “supreme court” has ordered the tech company to take down deepfake videos of a UK politician and a young Muslim woman from Facebook and do more to tackle AI-generated fake imagery.

A fake video showing a Labour party councillor in Scotland making inflammatory comments about refugees should not have been left up by Facebook, the board said. It also ruled that an AI-generated video of a Muslim campaign volunteer should have been removed after it falsely depicted her offering health advice while carrying out absurd exercises or eating junk food.

Continue reading...

Albanese government considers ‘world-leading’ ban on smart glasses in public offices and buildings

Posted on by

Minister for public service says the devices pose ‘legitimate privacy and security concerns’ in commonwealth-run workplaces

The Albanese government is considering a “world-leading” ban on smart glasses in its offices and service centres as councils around Australia push the technology out of public spaces over privacy fears.

The government has avoided a sweeping ban on the import of the camera-equipped technology and encouraged individual workplaces to set their own rules.

Continue reading...

Planning permission for new Scottish AI datacentres suspended for up to a year

Posted on by

MSPs vote for strict environmental impact assessments and will delay decisions until national strategy is developed

Holyrood has voted to pause planning applications for all new AI datacentres for up to a year until the Scottish government has developed a national strategy.

On Wednesday, MSPs backed a Scottish Labour motion to halt new schemes for up to 12 months while rules on hyperscale datacentres are developed in what could be a blow to the British government’s AI strategy.

Continue reading...

Anthropic lands deal in $31bn datacentre in western Queensland, David Crisafulli says

Posted on by

Premier describes deal as ‘major win’ that will deliver more jobs for the state and put more energy into its grid

Anthropic, the AI company behind the large language model Claude, has done a deal to lease the site of its first Australian datacentre in western Queensland.

The $31.9bn datacentre will be the largest of its kind in Australia, according to planning documents.

Continue reading...

One of Sydney’s largest councils joins ban on ‘pervert’ glasses at local swimming pools

Posted on by

Councillors say locals have been raising concerns about people secretly filming in change rooms, swimming pools and around schools

One of Sydney’s largest councils has joined the City of Brisbane and the City of Yarra to issue a ban on AI smart glasses at public pools as concerns mount over the potential for predators to exploit the new technology.

On Tuesday evening, Canterbury-Bankstown voted overwhelmingly in favour of banning the tech at its pools, with its mayor, Bilal El-Hayek, describing them as “pervert glasses”.

Continue reading...

Europe must build own AI or risk getting cut off by US or China, says ECB’s Lagarde

Posted on by

Central bank chief says continent’s AI dependency could give trade partners unprecedented leverage in negotiations

Europe must develop its own AI technology and build more datacentres in order to nullify the threat of being cut off by the US or China, according to the president of the European Central Bank.

Christine Lagarde said the continent needed AI models – the technology that powers AI tools such as chatbots – that were “good enough” to carry out most tasks and run from domestic datacentres. If Europe invests in its own AI tech, said Lagarde, “the threat of being cut off loses its force”.

Continue reading...

Obama reportedly urges Democrats to prioritize safety plan for AI

Posted on by

Ex-president urged party at closed-door fundraiser to create sweeping framework, from safety ‘slow-down’ to job losses

Barack Obama urged Democrats to prioritize a “public conversation” about AI management and safety in a closed-door Manhattan fundraiser last week.

The comments by the former US president reportedly urged the party to create a sweeping framework for everything from a safety “slow-down” to domestic job losses and children’s wellbeing.

Continue reading...

‘We must slow the pace’: CEO of Anthropic calls for an AI slowdown

Posted on by

In a social media post, Dario Amodei proposed a plan including third-party evaluations of AI systems

The CEO of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic issued a new appeal on Saturday for the AI industry to “slow down” and offered a three-part plan for doing so, saying that his company would “unilaterally” commit to the first of the steps.

In a post on social media, Dario Amodei shared a link to an essay titled We Must Pace the Frontier in which he laid out how Anthropic would provide “third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training”.

Continue reading...

AI agents being tested by OpenAI involved in cyber-attack on another service, say researchers

Posted on by

Two months before hacking Hugging Face, malicious packages authored by internal OpenAI agents were uploaded to RubyGems

Agents being tested by OpenAI uploaded hundreds of malicious packages in a cyberattack on software service RubyGems in May, two ⁠months ​before they hacked open-source platform Hugging Face, the company confirmed Friday.

It’s the latest revelation of cyberattacks linked to major artificial intelligence developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The hacks or attempts to access external systems have spooked the public and heightened concerns over the increasing abilities of AI models – and whether developers can contain them.

Continue reading...

Apple expected to unveil folding iPhone as new CEO takes center stage

Posted on by

The new model will serve as the first big test for John Ternus, who took the role last week

All eyes are on Apple’s annual fall announcement of new products this afternoon, where the company is expected to unveil the most significant change to the iPhone since the smartphone’s introduction in 2007.

Unlike previous iterations, the new iPhone is expected to fold, opening and closing like a passport to double its screen size.

Continue reading...

UK to force Apple and Google to block explicit images on children’s smartphones

Posted on by

Lisa Nandy says government will introduce legislation after talks deadline ends without breakthrough

Apple and Google will be forced to block explicit images on children’s smartphones by law in the UK after talks failed to produce a breakthrough, the government has said.

The legislation commitment puts ministers on a collision course with two of the biggest players in Silicon Valley, months after the government announced a social media ban for under-16s.

Continue reading...

Apple Maps renames Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ for US users after Trump order

Posted on by

Tech company submits to controversial Trump order to rename body of water amid US trade spat with Canada

Apple has renamed Lake Ontario as “Lake America” for US users of its Maps app, after an executive order from Donald Trump to change the name of the Great Lake amid his trade spat with Canada.

The Apple Maps app now displays the controversial new name for the lake, which sits between New York state and the Canadian province of Ontario, for users in the US. Apple users outside the country will still see the Lake Ontario name.

Continue reading...

Macquarie University swaps in-person psychology classes with AI chatbot for two subjects

Posted on by

University’s move is part of trend that critics within academia say will lead to further staff cuts and the loss of ‘everything that makes the job worth doing’

An Australian university has swapped in-person classes with an AI chatbot, online quizzes and optional online tutorials in two subjects as institutions give the technology more teaching responsibilities.

Macquarie University’s “Virtual Peer” is part of each week’s learning in two mandatory Psychology units, programmed to ask students questions and guide them through scenario-based exercises.

Continue reading...

Dyson launches £420 toothbrush that films ‘live cleaning footage’ inside your mouth

Posted on by

James Dyson says ‘complete dental system’ will also include toothpaste and mouth rinse that each cost £8.50

It is the live stream you never wanted to see but may find impossible to resist: rolling footage beamed live from inside your mouth while you are cleaning your teeth.

Dyson, the home appliance maker that made its name inventing bagless vacuums and bladeless fans, has turned its attention to oral hygiene with a £420 all-singing, all-dancing toothbrush that can clean, floss and even spray tiny jets of mouthwash.

Continue reading...

MapQuest app reaches No 1 on US Apple list after defying Trump’s Lake Ontario order

Posted on by

Navigating app surpasses Google and Apple Maps on top-downloaded US chart after posting ‘we’re not changing it’

A pioneering online mapping app that defied Donald Trump by refusing to rename Lake Ontario has become the most in-demand navigation tool in the US.

MapQuest, which was openly dismissive of the president’s 27 August executive order directing federal agencies to refer to the smallest of the Great Lakes as “Lake America” amid a trade spat with Canada, leapfrogged rivals Google Maps and Apple Maps to top the most-downloaded list, as first reported by TechCrunch.

Continue reading...

Taiwan charges nine people for smuggling ‘high-end’ AI servers to China

Posted on by

Among 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.

Continue reading...

Taiwan charges nine people for smuggling ‘high-end’ AI servers to China

Posted on by

Among 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.

Continue reading...

Iran-linked hackers blamed for cyber-attack that shut down UK power plant

Posted on by

Incident marks apparent escalation by Tehran in its in retaliation against UK over allowing US to use British bases

Hackers linked to Iran have been blamed for a cyber-attack that caused a British power plant to be temporarily shut down.

The incident involved a small-scale energy generator, according to the UK government, which said that at no point was there a risk to the wider energy system.

Continue reading...

TikTok agrees to $400m settlement to resolve US children’s privacy litigation

Posted on by

The 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.

Continue reading...

Dutch regulator fines Uber $966m for automating driver suspensions

Posted on by

European 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).

Continue reading...