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  • Silicon Valley city to give residents doorbells equipped with cameras

    Milpitas approves measure to distribute smart doorbells and says residents can upload footage to police database A Silicon Valley city will offer its residents free wireless doorbells equipped with cameras to help police collect video evidence. The city council of Milpitas, a suburb north of San Jose, California, recently approved $60,000 to provide these devices…

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  • California to impose new AI regulations in defiance of Trump call

    Gavin Newsom signs order to prioritize public safety and rights as president seeks to prevent ‘cumbersome’ rules California will impose new standards on artificial intelligence companies seeking to do business with the state, defying Donald Trump’s demands to keep the controversial industry as deregulated as possible. Democratic governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on…

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  • Meta and YouTube designed addictive products that harmed young people, jury finds

    Jury in Los Angeles awards plaintiff damages of $6m, with Meta to pay 70% and YouTube the remainder Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Meta and YouTube have been found liable for deliberately designing addictive products that hooked a young user and led to her being…

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  • Meta ordered to pay $375m after being found liable in child exploitation case

    New Mexico hails ‘historic’ win after jury finds firm misled consumers over safety and enabled harm against users A New Mexico jury on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375m in civil penalties after it found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation, against its users.…

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  • Hong Kong police can demand phone and computer passwords under amended national security law

    Refusing to comply could lead to year in jail and hefty fine, while providing false information carries up to three years in prison Hong Kong police can now demand that people suspected of breaching the city’s national security law provide mobile phone or computer passwords in a further crackdown on dissent. The amendments to the…

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  • AI boom risks widening wealth divide, says BlackRock’s Larry Fink

    CEO of asset manager says only a few firms and investors may reap rewards from growth in the technology The boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has said. The boss of the $14tn (£10.4tn)…

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  • Thousands of people are selling their identities to train AI – but at what cost?

    Gig AI trainers worldwide are selling moments of their lives, including calls and texts, to AI companies for quick cash One morning last year, Jacobus Louw set out on his daily neighborhood walk to feed the seagulls he finds along the way. Except this time, he recorded several videos of his feet and the view…

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  • Inside China’s robotics revolution

    How close are we to the sci-fi vision of autonomous humanoid robots? I visited 11 companies in five Chinese cities to find out Chen Liang, the founder of Guchi Robotics, an automation company headquartered in Shanghai, is a tall, heavy-set man in his mid-40s with square-rimmed glasses. His everyday manner is calm and understated, but…

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  • ‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’

    Absurdist video urges policymakers and users to resist deliberate deterioration of platforms and devices The video’s opening shot shows a man hiding under a bed snipping in a hole in someone’s sock. Seconds later, the same man uses a saw to shorten a table leg so that it wobbles during breakfast. “My job is to…

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  • Meta and Google trial: are infinite scroll and autoplay creating addicts?

    Features woven into the fabric of platforms have been central to landmark social media harm case in US. How do they work? It was as “easy as ABC”, claimed the lawyer prosecuting a landmark social media harm case against Meta and Google which heard closing arguments this week. The defendants were guilty, said Mark Lanier,…

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