Germany’s data protection commissioner has urged Apple and Google to remove Chinese AI startup DeepSeek from their app stores due to concerns about data protection. Reuters reports: Commissioner Meike Kamp said in a statement on Friday that she had made the request because DeepSeek illegally transfers users’ personal data to China. The two U.S. tech giants must now review the request promptly...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Canada is proceeding with its digital services tax on technology companies such as Meta despite a Group of Seven agreement that resulted in removing the Section 899 “revenge tax” proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax bill. The first payment for Canada’s digital tax is still due Monday, the country’s Finance Department confirmed, and...
The partnership between OpenAI and Microsoft in many ways hinges on the definition of artificial general intelligence, creating a tension that has spilled over into OpenAI research that has not been made public.
Android 16 will include a new security feature that warns users when their phones connect to fake cell towers designed for surveillance. The “network notification” setting alerts users when devices connect to unencrypted networks or when networks request phone identifiers, helping protect against “stingray” devices that mimic legitimate cell towers to collect data and force phones onto insecure...
After a long and storied history, the BSOD is being replaced. WIRED takes a trip down memory lane to wave goodbye to the iconic screen we all love to hate.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the FCC’s Universal Service Fund can continue operating, rejecting claims that the program’s funding mechanism violates the Constitution. In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Elena Kagan, the court found that Congress did not exceed its authority when it enacted the 1996 law establishing the fund and that the FCC could delegate administration to a private...
Brazil’s supreme court has ruled that social media platforms can be held legally responsible for their users’ posts. From a report: Companies such as Facebook, TikTok and X will have to act immediately to remove material such as hate speech, incitement to violence or “anti-democratic acts,” even without a prior judicial takedown order, as a result of the decision in Latin America’s largest...
theodp writes: FWD.us, the immigration and criminal justice-focused nonprofit of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — the world’s third richest person, according to Forbes with an estimated $250B net worth — has released a new research report warning that announced immigration policies will hurt American families, who can’t afford it with their meager savings. The report begins: “Inflation remains a top...
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that age verification for explicit sites is constitutional. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan warned it burdens adults and ignores First Amendment precedent.
A new study challenges previous research about which sleep stages help people achieve breakthrough moments in problem-solving. Researchers found that N2 sleep, a deeper stage of non-REM sleep, significantly increased participants’ likelihood of experiencing sudden insights during a perceptual task. The preregistered study involved 90 participants who performed a visual pattern recognition task...
Eight nations have surpassed 50% IPv6 deployment since June 2024, bringing the total number of countries in the majority IPv6 club to 21, according to the Internet Society. Brazil, Guatemala, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka, and Tuvalu all crossed the threshold over the past year. Tuvalu’s adoption coincided with the arrival of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service,...
Ahead of Telkom’s recent results announcement, I decided to revisit the annual report from 2003, the year the company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. It was like opening a time capsule. Fixed line revenue contributed 78% of the total, mobile data sales weren’t even reported (the launch of the iPhone was still four years […]
36% of all Chinese undergraduate entrants — about 1.6 million people — selected engineering degrees in 2022 (the latest year for which data are available), up from 32% in 2010, according to data from China’s Ministry of Education. In Britain and America, which have far fewer students to start with, the proportion hovers around 5%. The surge comes as China’s government directs universities to...