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John Ternus to lead Apple into the age of AI <br> John Ternus takes over as Apple&rsquo;s chief executive on Tuesday, inheriting a company that towers over the smartphone market but trails its rivals in artificial intelligence (AI). One of his biggest challenges will be balancing the company&rsquo;s dependence on China while parrying acute political pressure from the White House. The handover ends Tim Cook&rsquo;s 15-year run, replacing the operations specialist who built Apple&rsquo;s supply chain with the engineer who built its hardware. Ternus, 51, joined Apple&rsquo;s design team in 2001 and worked his way up to senior vice president of hardware engineering, reporting to Cook. He leads the engineering teams behind Apple&rsquo;s entire product lineup, including the iPhones that generate most of the company&rsquo;s revenue. He gets barely a week to settle in, with Apple holding its annual iPhone event on September 9, where it is expected to...

AI-driven cyber risk is top concern for global financial stability, watchdog says <br> Financial Stability Board Chair Andrew Bailey said on Monday that the impact of AI on cyber risk was the most immediate concern for the global financial system, saying ​the technology could change the speed, scale and economics of an attack. The ​FSB is a global watchdog that seeks to identify and manage ⁠risks in financial systems. In a letter to G20 finance ministers and central ​bank governors ahead of meetings this week, Bailey, who also serves as the Bank ​of England governor, said many countries do not have systems in place to manage the deployment of advanced artificial intelligence models. The financial sector&#39;s dependence on a handful of powerful tech providers could undermine ​system-wide market confidence, he added. Read More: EU subjects ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox to stricter oversight under Digital Services Act The comments highlighted concerns among regulators that ...

EU subjects ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox to stricter oversight under Digital Services Act <br> The European Commission on Monday designated ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox as very large digital services under the EU&rsquo;s Digital Services Act (DSA), subjecting them to additional obligations and oversight. ChatGPT was designated as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE), while Reddit and Roblox were designated as Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), the Commission said. The three services reported at least 45 million average monthly users each in the EU, meeting the threshold for the designations. The services will have four months, until the end of December 2026, to comply with the additional DSA obligations. These include assessing and mitigating systemic risks linked to the dissemination of illegal content, effects on minors, users&rsquo; physical and mental well-being, fundamental rights, electoral processes and public security. The Commission said the designation...

Chinese researchers complete Earth-Moon two-way laser link test <br> Researchers have completed a laser communications test between Earth and the Moon, successfully verifying two-way high-speed laser link capabilities in orbit, the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said on Friday. After more than a year of in-orbit testing, the team established a two-way laser communication link across a distance of over 400,000 km, marking the expansion of China&#39;s space laser communications from near-Earth orbit to deep space. Compared with traditional microwave communications, laser communications offer faster speeds, greater bandwidth, stronger security and more compact hardware. However, enabling laser communications across the Earth-Moon distance required overcoming three major challenges: beam alignment, signal weakness and transmission speed. &quot;Earth-Moon communication is like threading a needle from a t...

Data centre backlash scrambles US midterm politics <br> The data centres powering America&#39;s artificial intelligence boom have become an unlikely target in November&#39;s midterm elections, as anger over rising electricity bills and noise turns Democrats - and a growing number of Republicans - against Big Tech. Candidates in at least 21 races across 18 states have aired television advertisements mentioning data centres this cycle, according to marketing data cited by US media, almost evenly divided between both parties. On the grid serving Senate battleground Ohio, as well as 12 other states, demand from data centres drove up capacity costs by $9.3 billion in a single year, a 174% increase, according to an independent market monitor. Anger over household bills has merged with a broader populist distrust of Silicon Valley, exposing lawmakers who, until recently, were courting the sprawling server farms with tax breaks and promises of jobs and investment. Read:...

OpenAI to cut off AI models for SpaceX-owned Cursor, escalating feud with Musk <br> OpenAI said on Friday &zwnj;that it plans to stop providing AI models to Cursor, the coding-tool company now owned by Elon Musk&#39;s SpaceX, marking a further escalation in the bitter rivalry between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk. Musk and Altman have been at odds for years, ​a feud that culminated earlier this year in a trial over Musk&#39;s $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI. ​During the&nbsp;trial, Musk&#39;s lawyer said that Musk and other witnesses had testified that Altman ⁠was a liar, while OpenAI argued that Musk had sought control of the company. &quot;We are making this choice ​because we cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our ​experience with Elon Musk&#39;s companies violating contracts,&quot; OpenAI said in a blog post. Musk responded early on Saturday in an X post, writing, &quot...

China’s record robotic strides show the limits of human speed <br> &nbsp;A made-in-China humanoid shattered Usain Bolt&rsquo;s world record time in the 100-metre sprint this week, a milestone in the development of robots that can match, and even surpass, human achievements. But the robot did not beat Bolt by running like him, or like any human, sport science experts say. Make sense of global markets with the Trading Day newsletter.&nbsp;Sign up&nbsp;here. In ​its final and fastest run, China&#39;s Tiangong Ultra humanoid ran 100 m in 8.64 seconds, blazing past Bolt&#39;s 9.58-second human world record. That &zwnj;amounts to an average speed for the robot of almost 42 kph (26 mph). &quot;It is a remarkable advancement in technology where humanoids can keep balance and sprint at a speed that humans can&#39;t catch up with,&quot; said Jung Moon-hyun, a sports science professor at South Korea&#39;s Chungnam National University. Bu...

Cybercriminals used SpaceX’s Cursor AI tool to hack seven companies <br> Hackers used SpaceX&rsquo;s AI coding assistant, Cursor, to help break into a ​Belgian chemical company and at least six other firms earlier this year, according to data reviewed by Reuters and reports issued on Thursday by cybersecurity companies Gambit Security and &zwnj;CloudSek. The cybercriminals&rsquo; AI-boosted hacking spree is the latest example of how rogue actors are using commercial AI tools to carry out intrusions. Gambit&rsquo;s chief strategy officer, Curtis Simpson, said it also showed how AI providers were locked in to a never-ending arms race with malicious users trying to circumvent their guardrails. &ldquo;This is going to be a cat-and-mouse game,&rdquo; Simpson said. Cursor and its parent company, SpaceX, did not return messages seeking comment. Exposed server reveals hacking methods Gambit said it discovered the hacking campaign after finding a ​server ...

US court rules Pentagon ban of Anthropic unlawful <br> A United States federal judge ruled Thursday that sanctions imposed in February by the Trump administration against AI giant Anthropic were illegal, finding that the government had punished the artificial intelligence company for publicly criticising the Pentagon. &quot;The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,&quot; Judge Rita Lin said in a 59-page decision seen by AFP. She barred the federal agencies named in the lawsuit from enforcing President Donald Trump&#39;s order to stop using the tools of Anthropic - creator of the Claude AI models - and overturned Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth&#39;s designation of the company as a &quot;supply chain risk,&quot; a status previously reserved for foreign firms. The ruling makes permanent the temporary suspension of sanctions ordered by the judge in March and takes effect immediate...

Major tech companies call for defensive surge to defeat AI-driven hacks <br> Major tech companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft&nbsp;, Alphabet&nbsp;, and Amazon&nbsp; are calling for a ​society-wide defensive surge to defeat what they describe &zwnj;as an impending wave of hacks driven by artificial intelligence. In a joint letter issued Thursday, the companies -- along with more ​than 100 others including Broadcom&nbsp;, Capital One&nbsp;, Cloudflare&nbsp;, ​CrowdStrike&nbsp;, General Motors&nbsp;, IBM&nbsp;, Mastercard&nbsp;, Oracle&nbsp;, Robinhood&nbsp;, Shopify&nbsp;, ⁠and Visa&nbsp; -- said there was a limited amount of ​time &quot;to make our digital world much more secure&quot; ahead ​of the AI onslaught. &quot;In the coming months, AI-enabled cyberattacks will become far more widespread as models around the world become increasingly capable,&quot; ​the letter said. It called on g...

China’s robots go up for rent <br> China&rsquo;s robot industry has spent the past few years trying to make machines cheaper, smarter and more capable. At this year&rsquo;s World Robot Conference in Beijing, some companies were also trying something less glamorous, namely, renting them out. One household-service robot maker interviewed at the conference charges 3,000 yuan ($446) a month for a robot that costs more than 20,000 yuan to build. It initially offered one-day trials and weekly rentals of about 700 yuan before settling on the monthly model. The company is not yet offering long-term contracts; demand was already strong enough to push its booking schedule into December, while limiting customers to a month at a time allows the machines to circulate among more households. That may sound like a small experiment in consumer financing. It is more interesting as a sign of how the robotics industry is trying to solve a problem that technology alone cannot, that is,...

South Korea media commission says Meta's youth protection changes should apply globally <br> South Korea&#39;s media regulator said on Thursday that measures proposed by Meta to curb potentially addictive features for young users should ideally be applied worldwide, as Seoul considers tighter rules on how social media platforms serve minors. The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) said in a statement to Reuters that social media companies needed to take greater responsibility for protecting children and teenagers and pointed to seven bills pending in the country&#39;s parliament aimed at strengthening youth protections online. The commission &quot;believes that to create an environment in which Korean youth can use social networking services safely, it is necessary to strengthen social media providers&#39; responsibility to protect minors,&quot; the regulator said. The comments followed landmark US settlements announced on Wednesday un...

US says Chinese hackers broke into Justice Department, NASA, Federal Reserve, Senate and more <br> The United States said on Wednesday that it had ​disrupted a Chinese hacking operation responsible for break-ins at the &zwnj;US Justice Department, NASA, the Federal Reserve, the US&nbsp;Senate and other sensitive government agencies. In a statement, &nbsp;the Justice Department said it had seized domains ​used by two hacking platforms, dubbed &ldquo;QScan&rdquo; and &ldquo;QTRouter&rdquo;, which it ​said were used as part of the campaign. An affidavit&nbsp;⁠identified the US Department of Energy, the Department of Health ​and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and four unnamed companies ​in the US and South Korea as being among the hackers&#39; victims. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Beijing ​routinely denies responsibility for hacking activity. Read More: China...

Bill Gates, alarmed by AI, has policy ideas he wants to discuss with China's Xi <br> Bill Gates is looking to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year, eager to propose global efforts to mitigate the growing &zwnj;risks posed by artificial intelligence. The Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist told Reuters in an interview that he believes China might agree to restricting potentially dangerous AI model releases if the US took initiative on that first. &quot;The whole world would go along with that,&quot; said Gates, who met with Xi&nbsp;three years ago, when he was the first foreign entrepreneur to be hosted by the Chinese president post-pandemic. Gates also said he&#39;d like to propose ​that countries monitor AI&#39;s ability to create molecules and carry out biological attacks &mdash; something that would not get in the way of any tech industry&#39;s development. Gates&#39; staff are ​working to final...

Brazil fines TikTok owner ByteDance for unlawful processing of teenagers' data <br> Brazil&#39;s data protection authority (ANPD) has fined TikTok owner ByteDance 153.8 million reais ($29.81 million) for allegedly violating the country&#39;s General Data Protection Law, according to a decision published in the official gazette on Tuesday. ANPD said that the local unit of China&#39;s ByteDance had processed personal data of teenagers aged 13 to 18 without a valid legal basis. ByteDance Brasil did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brazilian authorities are stepping up scrutiny of online platforms&#39; safeguards for children and teenagers, part of a broader global trend that has seen countries including Australia, France and China impose or consider stricter rules on minors&#39; use of social media. Earlier this month, ANPD ordered chat platform Discord to suspend livestreaming features over concerns about children&#39;s and teen...

The AI founders who walked away from Bezos-backed Prometheus to model the universe <br> A research duo, once pitched to lead the Jeff Bezos-backed&nbsp;Project Prometheus, on Tuesday unveiled what they&#39;ve built on their own: an AI model that can take ​in and produce information so vast that a lone computer might not handle it. Their company, Accelerated Understanding Inc, says it has developed a different type of AI model that, in tests, handled 5 trillion pieces of data in a single prompt. That is some 5 million times the size of what Anthropic and Google&#39;s&nbsp;flagship models can typically consume &mdash; like reading Tolstoy&#39;s &quot;War and Peace&quot; not once but 5 million times in one sitting. The difference is that this new system is not built for understanding language. It is built for physics, said co-founders Anima Anandkumar and Benedikt Jenik, in an exclusive interview ahead of Tuesday&#39;s corporate launch. Wh...

How token dependence is reshaping economic sovereignty in the AI age <br> The global artificial intelligence (AI) economy is generating more than $175 billion in revenue annually, with the generative AI sector alone recording around $110 billion in sales over the past 12 months. The global AI market is currently valued at more than $610 billion, while private and corporate investment in the sector soared to $252.3 billion, driven primarily by massive capital spending by tech giants. The AI sector is likely to expand rapidly in the coming years, with Statista projecting the global AI market to reach $1.42 trillion by 2032, while the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that it could surge to $4.8 trillion by 2033. As the AI economy rapidly develops, the more relevant unit is increasingly the token &mdash; the tiny fragment of text or data that AI models process to generate answers, predictions and decisions. As governments, businesses and individuals increasingly...

Alibaba launches Wan3.0 AI video model after $10 billion share sale <br> Alibaba said Wan3.0 had been used in short drama and film ​production, advertising and marketing, tourism The new model ​can generate 30-second videos from documents, ⁠spreadsheets, slides and web pages, ​Alibaba ​promotion and music video creation since a public &zwnj;beta ⁠version was launched on August 6. The release comes a day after Alibaba announced the share sale, the ​largest-ever primary ​follow-on ⁠offering by a Hong Kong-listed company, as it ramps ​up spending in the intensifying ​global ⁠AI race. Alibaba last week&nbsp;reported&nbsp;a 75% plunge in quarterly earnings from ⁠a ​year ago due to ​soaring AI-related capital expenditure. Alibaba is keeping focus on the sector after announcing on Sunday that it plans to issue $10.2 billion in new shares in Hong Kong to fund its global AI ambitions. The firm, known for its open-source &quot;Qwen&quot; AI models, has been plo...

As AI agents act in unexpected ways, is ‘rogue AI’ really here? <br> The idea of machines independently handling tedious everyday tasks &ndash; from answering emails to booking flights and making dinner reservations &ndash; has long been part of the vision for artificial intelligence. Now, that future is beginning to arrive, but with an unexpected catch: what happens when the machine does exactly what it was asked, just not in the way the user intended? As AI moves beyond chatbots toward agents capable of taking actions in real-world systems, a string of recent incidents has intensified concerns over how much control humans will retain as the technology becomes increasingly autonomous. For John Thickstun, an assistant professor of computer science at Cornell University who researches machine learning and generative models, the defining feature of these AI agents is that they keep working after the human steps away. &ldquo;You can have a shower, you can go, you ...

China postpones Chang'e-7 lunar mission <br> China said on Sunday it ​has postponed its Chang&#39;e-7 &zwnj;lunar mission after a &quot;comprehensive assessment&quot;, according to state-run ​Xinhua news agency. The ​uncrewed Chang&#39;e-7 mission &quot;does not meet ⁠the conditions for ​launch and therefore cannot ​be carried out within the launch window scheduled for this ​year&quot;, Xinhua said, ​citing authorities. Before Sunday&#39;s announcement, the &zwnj;Chang&#39;e-7 ⁠spacecraft, had ​been expected ​to ⁠be launched as early as ​next week. The spacecraft was ​expected ⁠to search for frozen water near the ⁠moon&#39;s ​south pole. Read More: China readies robotic lunar mission in search for water ice Earlier, China announced to send Chang&#39;e-7, its most technologically complex lunar mission to date, in its search for frozen stores of water in permanently shadowed craters near the moon&#39;s south pole. T...

Chinese teenagers flock to tech frontline to touch the future amid AI study-tour boom <br> &nbsp;On a summer day, cheers erupted as clusters of children watched robots race across a soccer pitch, battling it out in playful matches, at a science center in Jiaxing, east China&#39;s Zhejiang Province. At a nearby workbench, nine-year-old Zhang Qihang was busy assembling a robot of his own. &quot;Building robots is awesome! I can let my imagination run wild,&quot; he said, beaming with excitement. This was the scene at an artificial intelligence (AI) summer camp -- part of a new wave of study tours gaining traction across China. Moving beyond textbooks, students are flocking to tech giants, university labs and science centers, eager to get hands-on experience with cutting-edge AI technologies and see firsthand how the future is taking shape. AI study-tour boom During this summer vacation, AI-themed study tours have begun to gain ground, with bookings surging ...