Xprize founder says global surveillance is a good thing because humans behave better when they are being watched
Xprize founder says global surveillance is a good thing because humans behave better when they are being watched

Xprize Foundation founder Peter Diamandis has joined a growing list of tech executives who believe global surveillance is a good idea, writing on X this week that “humans behave better when they’re being watched.” In a Substack essay titled “Visibility…

The US government asks OpenAI to slow its next model’s release
The US government asks OpenAI to slow its next model’s release

Sam Altman told staff Washington wants GPT-5.6 released first to a short list of trusted partners, with access approved customer by customer. For years the debate over slowing down powerful AI models was a matter for company safety teams and outside cr…

TikTok and YouTube cut 4.7 million under-16 accounts in Indonesia
TikTok and YouTube cut 4.7 million under-16 accounts in Indonesia

The number arrives with the bluntness of a government tally. TikTok and YouTube have deactivated roughly 4.7 million accounts belonging to children under 16 in Indonesia, the country’s communications minister said on 25 June. The bulk of the cuts came …

Australia’s teen social media ban works on paper, less so in practice
Australia’s teen social media ban works on paper, less so in practice

A law is only as strong as the door it actually closes, and Australia’s ban on social media for under-16s appears to have left a window open. On 26 June, six months after the world-first measure took effect, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was …

A Michigan township killed a $2.4 billion Chinese battery plant, and now the company might bankrupt it
A Michigan township killed a $2.4 billion Chinese battery plant, and now the company might bankrupt it

Less than three years ago, residents of Green Charter Township, a rural community of roughly 3,000 people in central Michigan, packed a hall to celebrate what they saw as a victory for local democracy. They had recalled every member of their town board…

Russia cracked an activist’s iPhone with Cellebrite, months after the firm said it left
Russia cracked an activist’s iPhone with Cellebrite, months after the firm said it left

A Citizen Lab report puts forensic evidence and a Russian court document behind a familiar problem: surveillance tools do not come home when the seller asks. Russian government unit broke into the iPhone of a detained opposition politician using a fore…

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says smuggled data centres are a dead end and national security comes first
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says smuggled data centres are a dead end and national security comes first

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told shareholders on Wednesday that if a commercial opportunity conflicts with US national security, the company would prioritise American interests. “National security comes first,” Huang said in a session shortly after the com…

Congress wants Big Tech to pay AI’s power bills
Congress wants Big Tech to pay AI’s power bills

Congress is moving to stop households paying for Big Tech’s AI power bills. A House panel votes this week on a package of measures. The aim is to put AI data centre energy costs back on the companies that create them. As AI drives up electricity bills,…

xLight’s $350m bet to break ASML’s chip monopoly
xLight’s $350m bet to break ASML’s chip monopoly

xLight, a US-backed startup chaired by former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger, is raising $350m to build an xLight EUV light source that could loosen ASML’s grip on chipmaking. Days earlier, a Dutch rival took aim at Nvidia. Deep-tech chips are hot again. Th…

China Telecom’s $1.7bn server deal hands Huawei a big win
China Telecom’s $1.7bn server deal hands Huawei a big win

China Telecom just ordered 40,000 servers worth $1.7bn. Huawei did not even bid, yet its ecosystem walked away with the bulk of the deal. That is not an accident. It is the template. A state-owned Chinese carrier has handed Huawei a major win without H…