Labor government under pressure to create social media watchdog as new online safety standards bill passes lower houseFollow our Australia politics live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe federal government wants to ban AI chatbots which seek to create “emotional intimacy” after prime minister Anthony Albanese raised the alarm in a heartfelt speech about children treating these agents as their “best friend”.But Labor is coming under increasing pressure to empower the telecommunications ombudsman to become a watchdog for social media and AI to give Australians an external complaints mechanism and allow the “naming and shaming” of big tech.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s Politics, really newsletter here Continue reading...
The AI industry is still defined by a careening intensity that’s taking the world’s finances along for the rideThis was originally published in TechScape, a newsletter about how technology shapes our lives. Sign up to receive it here.Today in tech, we’re discussing Anthropic’s astronomic growth, how a settlement over social media safety dented Meta’s revenue, and Lula’s accusations of interference against Meta.‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth HolmesElizabeth Holmes is back in the spotlight: why can’t we look away?Anthropic’s Claude AI model accessed Georgia voter data in USThe datacentre next door: on the frontline of tech’s latest David v Goliath battleMeta plans $95bn stock offering to help cover AI expansioniPhone Duo owners report cracks in Apple’s first foldable handsetMicrosoft to reportedly offer buyouts to 60,000 employees in latest cutsUkraine’s military says Starlink satellite connection stable after recent restrictionsExperts cast doubt on Anthropic report detailing how AI has altered work at the company‘Black October’: cybersecurity experts sound the alarm over new era of AI-enabled hacking Continue reading...
After live exploitation of PHP2Shell was verified at the weekend, the US' Cisa cyber agency updates its vulnerability catalogue, urging organisations to prioritise their fixes.
Tesla tycoon launched Grok project after criticising Christoper Nolan’s diverse casting for his Homeric blockbusterElon Musk has released an AI-generated rival to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey after pledging to make a version “true to the art of Homer”.Having criticised the hit movie in the summer, the tycoon said he would use Grok Imagine to make a “historically accurate” adaptation. Continue reading...
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to the keynote stage at Oracle AI World, calling for the security community to keep focus in the face of AI-enabled vulnerability discovery.
GSMA’s Jawad Abbassi says the event will bring together telecoms operators, policymakers and technology leaders as Gulf countries accelerate investment in 5G, AI and datacentres
A survey of US users has found that businesses are paying significantly more to host Microsoft apps on non-Microsoft public clouds
At TechEd 2026 in Berlin, SAP unveiled AI developments including deploying its RPT-2 tabular data AI model aboard the International Space Station
Cloud carbon data is complex, attributed, and often opaque. Buyers must look past dashboard totals to understand allocation, electricity accounting, and embodied emissions
From apps that block distractions to stripped-down phones, young people are finding ways to unplug from platforms they say profit from their attentionGen Z voters: tell us what is guiding your vote in the US midterm elections?Nelissa Moukoudi, 19, a university student in Canada, noticed a shift once she joined Instagram and TikTok.“My social life completely plummeted and it felt like my life was only [using] social media and school,” she said. Continue reading...
The chancellor wants to boost UK tech sovereignty and has unveiled plans to support chip development, AI defence and biosecurity
Investigation finds dozens of ministers and civil servants moved into AI roles as government developed datacentre expansion plansThe UK’s policy on datacentres and AI was developed without any meetings with environmental groups, an investigation has found.The nonprofit organisation Spotlight on Corruption said a “considerable revolving door” shaped the government’s development of “AI growth zones”, a central plank of the former prime minister Keir Starmer’s AI and economic policy, with 38 ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers hired to positions in AI companies between July 2024 and September 2026. Continue reading...
With CVE volumes spiking amid AI-assisted vulnerability discovery, Oracle is responding with cyber initiatives and practices for its customers
The AI company’s first public financial disclosures reveal explosive growth, huge costs and risks ranging from cyber-attacks to the limits of safeguardsAnthropic has filed to go public on the US stock market, revealing for the first time the AI research lab’s financials and all the risks – more than 90 pages of them – that might negatively affect its business.The company’s investor prospectus, released on Monday, veers from hyperbolic predictions about AI’s “incredible potential” to existential risks of the technology to the reality of its current business: explosive but incredibly expensive growth. The filing to US financial regulators, known as an S-1, provides the public’s first look at an audited version of Anthropic’s finances. Continue reading...
Tasks from determining asylum seekers’ ages to border surveillance now involve AI, says Open Rights Group AI has been embedded across the Home Office in near-total secrecy, reinforcing the so-called hostile environment for immigration, according to research.Tasks from the detection of potential sham marriages to determining the age of asylum seekers and checking through the contents of phones of new arrivals now involve use of the technology, according to a report by Open Rights Group (ORG). Continue reading...
Tech firm announces two-part fundraising after Elon Musk warns hundreds of AI startups face collapseMark Zuckerberg’s Meta has announced plans for $95bn (£71bn) of fundraising to cover its AI expenditure, even as Elon Musk warned that funding for smaller players in the sector was drying up.The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is a leading investor in AI and is ploughing multibillion-dollar sums into datacentres, the central nervous systems of the technology. Continue reading...