France’s under-15 social media ban is struck down two weeks before it starts
France’s under-15 social media ban is struck down two weeks before it starts

The decision lands about two weeks before the ban was due to start, Bloomberg reported. Platforms were to stop creating accounts for under-15s from 1 September. Parliament gave the law final approval on 21 July. The desk covered that final vote at the …

Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases
Flock Safety cuts data retention to seven days after dozens of police abuse cases

Garrett Langley, the company’s chief executive, set out the package in a post on Flock’s own blog on 13 August. It covers six areas. Privacy, accountability, data ownership, data security, data accuracy and transparency. Most of the Flock Safety privac…

Private US companies can now run cyber operations abroad. State-backed hackers are excluded
Private US companies can now run cyber operations abroad. State-backed hackers are excluded

Donald Trump signed the memorandum on 12 August and the White House published it that night. It runs to five sections. A National Coordination Center creates and manages the programme. Two Program Executive Directors oversee it. The Attorney General de…

Europe’s ‘Made in EU’ rules start at 5%, and they do not mention software
Europe’s ‘Made in EU’ rules start at 5%, and they do not mention software

The Industrial Accelerator Act arrived on 4 March 2026 as COM(2026)100, alongside an impact assessment and three staff working documents, per the European Commission. Its formal title says what it is for. It establishes a framework for accelerating ind…

Microsoft told Google it was overreacting in 2010. It has spent five years quietly leaving China
Microsoft told Google it was overreacting in 2010. It has spent five years quietly leaving China

Corporate filings show the closures, Reuters reported in an exclusive. The revenue figure is the one that explains the rest. China accounted for 1.5% of global revenue as of 2024. Microsoft has no current plan to exit. It has simply stopped growing the…

Meta removed 756,000 Australian accounts. Its real ask is that Apple does the checking
Meta removed 756,000 Australian accounts. Its real ask is that Apple does the checking

Representatives of Meta, TikTok, Google and Snap give evidence to an Australian parliamentary inquiry on Friday, Reuters reported. Regulators and government officials appear too. Meta went first, and it went alone. On Wednesday it published its enforce…

Europe built the world’s largest electric plane. It flew in New York
Europe built the world’s largest electric plane. It flew in New York

Heart Aerospace flew its X1 demonstrator at Plattsburgh International Airport on 12 August, the company announced. The aircraft taxied, took off, climbed, manoeuvred and landed. It reached 335 metres, and its all-electric propulsion produced more than …

Cloudflare and Trail of Bits now audit who Signal says you are talking to
Cloudflare and Trail of Bits now audit who Signal says you are talking to

Here is the problem, and it is easier to state than most people expect. End-to-end encryption scrambles a message so only the recipient can read it. That works perfectly, provided you were handed the recipient’s real key. The app fetches that key from …

Volkswagen can build a $17,175 car. Just not in Europe
Volkswagen can build a $17,175 car. Just not in Europe

Start with the Volkswagen, because it is the one that should give Europe pause. SAIC Volkswagen, the joint venture with China’s state-owned SAIC Motor, opened preorders for the ID. Era 5S saloon this week. The introductory price is 115,900 yuan, which …

An AI-written article needs no label. Your proofread email gets one
An AI-written article needs no label. Your proofread email gets one

Start with what the mark actually is, because it is not a stamp on the page. When a model writes, it picks each word from a set of reasonable options. A watermark quietly splits those options into two groups using a secret key, then nudges the model to…