The code WIRED identified is gone from the latest version of Meta AI, the companion app for the company’s smart glasses. Meta won’t say why or whether it’s coming back.

The UK government gave technology companies three months to switch on device-level tools blocking children from taking, sending or viewing nude images, warning action will be taken if they fail to do so.

The UK Home Office said companies including Apple and Google must implement built-in protections across smartphones and tablets used by children in a move it claimed would make Britain “the first country in the world where it is impossible for children to take, share or view naked pictures on their devices”

If tech companies do not act within the deadline, the government plans to enforce legislation mandating the activation of the technology. Proposed penalties could include fines, with criminal liability for tech bosses under consideration “as a last resort”.

On privacy, the government framed the proposal as on-device blocking, stating there would be “no data collection, no monitoring and no reporting”. Users over the age of 18 would still be able to access adult content by providing proof of age.

The initiative aims to stop predators from exploiting underage victims through their devices and limiting children’s access to pornography. The Home Office noted 91% of online child sexual abuse reports recorded in 2024 contained self-generated content, adding children as young as five were being groomed or coerced into creating explicit images.

Speaking at London Tech Week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer (pictured) said the industry must address the issue as a matter of urgency. “If we are serious about unlocking the opportunities that tech can bring, then we must also be serious about preventing our children from those who look to abuse it – the online predators,” he explained, arguing technology should “adapt to the needs of society, not the other way round”.

Starmer warned if technology players “choose not, then we will act and we will change the law”.

The post Big tech faces UK child safety ultimatum appeared first on Mobile World Live.

A WIRED timeline shows how dozens of governments, companies, and other organizations across Europe are moving, or planning to shift, away from US Big Tech.

Amazon committed to invest more than €10 billion on upgrading its facilities in Europe with next-generation robotics, part of a wider push to modernise and expand its operations network in the continent.

Announced at the company’s Delivering the Future event in London, the technology giant stated it plans to create more jobs across the region, while using robotics to expand ultra-fast delivery options to more international cities and invest in employee upskilling.

Its pledge reflects a broader push to use AI and robotics to support its workforce, taking aim at “repetitive and physically demanding tasks”, freeing up employees to focus on higher skilled roles while customers get better service.

As part of its next-generation robotics development, Amazon introduced Proteus, an upgraded autonomous robot that is able to move items across different sites. Through AI advances, employees can apparently direct Proteus with plain, conversational text-based prompts without the need for technical commands or programming interfaces.

According to Amazon, once an employee instructs Proteus on what needs to be done, the robot figures out the priority, route and timing.

Proteus is designed to take on physically demanding tasks, move heavy carts and cover long distances. It is currently being piloted in Amazon labs, with deployment planned for the first half of 2027.

Through its €10 billion commitment, Amazon added it will expand Vulcan, its first robot with a sense of touch and STARK, a new robotics system that works alongside employees. STARK will be deployed across 15 sites in Europe by 2027.

This week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also talked up the robotics opportunity within industry, as he unveiled work on a new model for academics using hardware from Unitree and Sharpa.

The post Amazon to pump €10B into European robotics appeared first on Mobile World Live.

Activists say it’s the first time Big Tech employees have publicly called for regulations governing data center projects.

by Willow Tohi | Natural News Google confirmed it uses web content to train AI-powered search features (e.g., Gemini) even when publishers opt out, as its search division operates under different rules than general AI training policies. To fully block AI training, publishers must opt out of Google Search indexing via robots.txt. But this renders their content invisible in search results, harming traffic and ad revenue. The Justice Department proposes drastic measures, including forcing Google to divest Chrome, end default-search payments, and share search/AI data with competitors to curb dominance. Publishers and authors accuse Google and OpenAI of exploiting copyrighted […]

by Tim Hinchcliffe | The Sociable The RAND Corporation wargames scenarios to see if AI could contribute to human extinction by facilitating nuclear war, creating and deploying pathogens, and malicious geoengineering. According to three simulations conducted in the new RAND report called “On the Extinction Risk from Artificial Intelligence,” AI is currently unlikely to wipe out humanity on its own; however, it could still cause considerable devastation if it were programmed to do so, if it were given enough access to critical systems, and if it were granted decisionmaking powers. “The capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) have accelerated to the […]

by Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge Since President Donald Trump took office in mid-January, the Trump administration has employed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to streamline government operations. This initiative eliminates redundancies, fraud, and waste while leveraging artificial intelligence to automate and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies. On Sunday, Elon Musk attended the closed-door Milken Institute Global Conference, where he provided further details on deploying AI to eliminate government inefficiencies, potentially replacing some public sector workers, according to Bloomberg, citing an attendee of the prestigious conference at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Musk told financier Michael Milken at the closed-door […]

by Nicolas Creed | Substack I will preface this roundup by reminding readers that the overwhelming majority of Bangkok’s visible population are walking around like zombies staring at their phones. In the parks, most people just want to find a quiet spot in beautiful nature, to spend quality time with their phones. It is getting more difficult to use cash as vendors rarely have change. People love to pay for things using their phones via QR code scanning with banking apps. Bangkok is ground zero for all things technocratic to be battle tested. There is no resistance. There shall be […]

by Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net At the United Nations Committee on Information’s 47th session, now in progress through May 9, delegates delivered impassioned speeches condemning the spread of false information online. But while much of the discussion focused on the dangers of disinformation, a growing undercurrent of concern emerged over the potential use of these efforts as a pretext for censorship and control over speech. The Israeli delegation described the spread of online falsehoods and incitement as not merely a technical hurdle but a “moral obligation” to confront, stating that “the fight against disinformation is not only a […]

by Willow Tohi | Natural News The U.K. government is developing an AI-driven “homicide prediction” system that analyzes personal data — including ethnicity, mental health and past police interactions — to identify potential future murderers, drawing comparisons to sci-fi film “Minority Report.” The system aggregates sensitive personal data from crime victims, witnesses and non-convicted individuals, raising concerns about racial profiling, wrongful targeting and erosion of civil liberties. Advocacy groups warn it could criminalize vulnerable people preemptively. Experts compare the project to flawed U.S. predictive policing tools (e.g., NYPD’s CompStat), citing bias, inaccuracy and disproportionate harm to marginalized communities. Past attempts, like […]

by Kit Knightly | Off-Guardian Last week, alternative video-sharing platform BitChute announced they would no longer allow UK-based users to view content on their site. The opening of their official statement makes the reason quite clear [you can read the whole thing here]: After careful review and ongoing evaluation of the regulatory landscape in the United Kingdom, we regret to inform you that BitChute will be discontinuing its video sharing service for UK residents. The introduction of the UK Online Safety Act of 2023 has brought about significant changes in the regulatory framework governing online content and community interactions. Notably, […]

by James Bovard | Mises Wire On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk—who was wearing a hajib—is a Fulbright scholar working on a doctorate at Tufts University. She was abducted and vanished into the maw of the federal prison system. The Trump administration ignored a federal court order and took Ozturk from Massachusetts to Louisiana federal detention facilities. But the Trump administration knew Ozturk had criticized the government of Israel a year earlier, enough to seal her doom according to the latest iron-fisted political correctness dictates. She […]

Soon-to-be-laid-off Meta contractors say they’re being treated differently than Mark Zuckerberg’s full-time employees, who stand to receive more generous severance packages.