A U.K. competition authority investigation of Apple and Google’s mobile browsers has concluded that the mobile duopoly’s policies are “holding back innovation” and could also be limiting economic growth. “Mobile browsers are apps which provide the primary gateway for consumers to access the web on their mobile devices, and hence for businesses to reach them […]

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Meta is facing an AI copyright lawsuit in France that’s been brought by authors and publishers who are accusing it of economic “parasitism,” Reuters reports. The French litigation was filed in a Paris court this week by the National Publishing Union (SNE), the National Union of Authors and Composers (SNAC), and the Society of People […]

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VC funding into AI tools for healthcare was projected to hit $11 billion last year — a headline figure that speaks to the widespread conviction that artificial intelligence will prove transformative in a critical sector. Many startups applying AI in healthcare are seeking to drive efficiencies by automating some of the administration that orbits and […]

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Ahead of a May deadline to finalize guidance for providers of general purpose AI (GPAI) models on complying with provisions of the EU AI Act, a third draft of the Code of Practice was published on Tuesday. The Code has been in development since last year, and this draft is expected to be the last. […]

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Reshape Energy is betting on a more integrated approach to accelerate the decarbonization of the built environment. Founded in Munich, Germany back in May 2024, the startup is led by a team with expertise scaling energy businesses, including the German division of Octopus energy and energy price comparison platform Verivox. It’s focusing on selling energy […]

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Private search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning further into the generative AI opportunity. The non-tracking search engine has been dabbling with expanding the role of AI assistance in its product for the past year, including launching a chatbot-style interface last fall — available at Duck.ai. In a blog post Thursday, the company said the service is […]

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The European Union is once again being urged to expand its investigation of Google under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The big aim of the EU’s flagship competition reform — which came into force last spring — was to level the digital playing field by forcing platform giants into fairer dealing with rivals and […]

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Apple is challenging a U.K. Government data access order in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the Financial Times reports. The order targeted iCloud backups that are protected by end-to-end encryption. Last month, press leaks revealed the existence of the January order asking Apple to build a backdoor in iCloud’s encrypted backups. U.K. officials are exercising […]

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A U.K. startup, originating from founder Jacob Nathan’s high school science project on using enzymes to break down plastic waste, has secured an oversubscribed $18.3 million in Series A funding. Founded in 2019 in London, Epoch Biodesign is now a 30+ strong multidisciplinary team of chemists, biologists and software engineers. The startup will use the […]

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We still didn’t get a straight-up definition of exactly what an AI agent is during Bret Taylor’s Mobile World Congress fireside chat in Barcelona on Tuesday. The Sierra founder and OpenAI board chair preferred to sidestep CNN moderator Anna Stewart’s question asking how “agentic AI” is “any different to a GenAI chatbot” by suggesting everyone […]

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Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch brought a sales pitch to Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, urging delegates at the world’s biggest telecoms confab in Barcelona to invest in building data center infrastructure and “becoming hyperscalers” to boost the regional AI ecosystem. “We would welcome more domestic effort in making more data centers,” he said during an onstage […]

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The drive to decarbonize our economies through electrification and clean energy continues to generate momentum around battery technologies, as storage has a key role to play in enabling the green transition. While renewables are clean sources of energy compared to burning fossil fuels, their power output isn’t always consistent. In the case of solar — […]

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Two sharply different visions of AI were platformed on stage at the Mobile World Congress trade show on Monday. The true believer’s case for the technology’s potential — to merge with and transform human life for the better — was offered up by futurist and singularity priest Ray Kurzweil, who also has a research role […]

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Jolla, the erstwhile mobile maker turned privacy-centric AI business — via sister startup, Venho.ai — has taken the wraps off an AI assistant it says is a “fully private” alternative to data-mining cloud giants crawling all over your personal information.   The AI assistant is designed to integrate with apps like email, calendar, and social […]

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Artificial intelligence is a deep and convoluted world. The scientists who work in this field often rely on jargon and lingo to explain what they’re working on. As a result, we frequently have to use those technical terms in our coverage of the artificial intelligence industry. That’s why we thought it would be helpful to […]

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Canadian biotech startup Afynia Laboratories, a spin-out from McMaster University in Ontario, has picked up $5 million in seed funding to commercialize a blood test for endometriosis — a medical condition that can afflict people with a uterus, causing problems like chronic pelvic pain and fertility issues. Endometriosis affects nearly 200 million people worldwide. Getting […]

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Europe’s top court has weighed in to clarify the rules around interoperability requirements on Big Tech in a referral on a case related to Google’s Android Auto platform. Back in 2021, the tech giant was hit with an €100 million antitrust fine by Italy’s competition authority for refusing to let a third-party electric car charging […]

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Ofcom, the U.K.’s internet safety regulator, has published another new draft guidance as it continues to implement the Online Safety Act (OSA) — the latest set of recommendations aim to support in-scope firms to meet legal obligations to protect women and girls from online threats like harassment and bullying, misogyny, and intimate image abuse. The […]

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Social media giants Meta and X approved ads targeting users in Germany with violent anti-Muslim and anti-Jew hate speech in the run-up to the country’s federal elections, according to new research from Eko, a corporate responsibility nonprofit campaign group. The group’s researchers tested whether the two platforms’ ad review systems would approve or reject submissions […]

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Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness. The non-government organization (NGO) undertook an analysis of social media content displayed to new users via algorithmically […]

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