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The splinternet: how online shutdowns are getting cheaper and easier to impose
Iran has shown how plausible blackouts now are, with far-reaching consequences for the internet as we know it During the height of Iran’s blackout in January, people could still access a platform that, in some senses, was like the internet. Iranians could message family members on a government-monitored app and watch clips of Manchester United…
China’s dancing robots: how worried should we be?
Eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell…
TikTok creator ByteDance vows to curb AI video tool after Disney threat
Videos created by new Seedance 2.0 generator go viral, including one of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting Business live – latest updates ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to…
UK Foreign Office victim of cyber-attack in October, says Chris Bryant
Minister says ‘any individual’ at low risk from hack, while Sun reports Chinese cyber gang responsible for breach The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, the minister Chris Bryant has said. Bryant, a trade minister in Keir Starmer’s government, told Sky News there was a low risk to “any individual” from…
AI firm claims it stopped Chinese state-sponsored cyber-attack campaign
Anthropic says financial firms and government agencies were attacked ‘largely without human intervention’ A leading artificial intelligence company claims to have stopped a China-backed “cyber espionage” campaign that was able to infiltrate financial firms and government agencies with almost no human oversight. The US-based Anthropic said its coding tool, Claude Code, was “manipulated” by a…
China removes two popular gay dating apps from Apple and Android stores
Withdrawal of Blued and Finka raises fears of further crackdowns on LGBT rights amid growing restrictions Two of China’s most popular gay dating apps have disappeared from app stores in the country, raising fears of a further crackdown on LGBT communities. As of Tuesday, Blued and Finka were unavailable on Apple’s app store and several…
Nexperia halts chip supplies to China in threat to global car production
Dutch-controlled company informs customers about suspension but is said to want to de-escalate trade war Nexperia, the EU-based automotive chipmaker at the centre of a geopolitical dispute, has suspended supplies to its Chinese factory, stepping up a trade war that threatens to halt production at carmakers around the world. The company wrote to customers this…
‘DeepSeek is humane. Doctors are more like machines’: my mother’s worrying reliance on AI for health advice
Tired of a two-day commute to see her overworked doctor, my mother turned to tech for help with her kidney disease. She bonded with the bot so much I was scared she would refuse to see a real medic This essay was originally published on Rest of world Every few months, my mother, a 57-year-old…