Ireland's Data Protection Commission has imposed a €403 million ($463M) fine on Google following a probe into three features—Web & App Activity, Location History, and Location Accuracy—that operated during the GDPR's early enforcement window from May 2018 to February 2020. The regulator concluded Google failed to properly justify its processing of location data and kept that data longer than necessary, while also falling short on transparency requirements across all three tools.
Australia's government is considering banning camera-equipped smart glasses from public workplaces, a move Reuters says would be the first of its kind. Separately, more than 70 plaintiffs have filed an amended class-action lawsuit against Meta in a California federal court, alleging its smart glasses recorded intimate moments—including bathroom and bedroom footage—without users' knowledge, which was then reviewed by contractors in Kenya training Meta's AI.
Prominent hardware leaker Kopite7Kimi says Nvidia's next-generation RTX 60 series, built on the Rubin architecture, won't launch until 2028 at the earliest, later than the previously rumored late-2027 window. Nvidia declined to comment, saying it doesn't discuss rumors or unannounced products.
TXR is a programming language created by Kaz Kylheku in 2009 that pairs a whole-document pattern-matching and extraction system with a full data-processing language, letting users run quick one-liners or write complex scripts to pull structured data out of messy text. The project has grown substantially over the years, with its reference manual now spanning hundreds of pages and offering many ways to solve the same extraction problem.
Researchers introduce RetroChimera, a retrosynthesis model that combines two neural architectures with different inductive biases through a learned ensembling method. It outperforms existing baseline models across varying data scales and generalizes well even with limited examples per reaction type. In blind evaluations, professional chemists preferred RetroChimera's suggested synthesis routes over both published reference reactions and predictions from other AI systems.
Data firm Luminate has published a report analyzing the factors that determine whether television shows get renewed or cancelled in today's streaming-heavy landscape. The report identifies specific viewership and engagement metrics that networks and streaming platforms increasingly rely on to make these decisions.
Retailers including Best Buy and Staples let customers drop off old laptops, printers and computers for free recycling, regardless of where the item was purchased, and some locations offer trade-in credit or discounts on new purchases in return. The only preparation needed is a proper factory reset or data-wiping tool to erase personal information before handing the device over.
At this year's Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, discussions shifted from the usual festive tone to serious debate over artificial intelligence and data center risks. Rep. Troy Carter said nearly all 62 CBC members would back legislation establishing guardrails, transparency requirements, and safety guidelines for AI, arguing that competing with China should not override protecting communities from potential harms.
A 192GB archive of Grand Theft Auto V development data, originally leaked in 2022, is now being combed through by fans who found an early playable build of the GTA VI map dating to 2014-2015, plus files for a canceled Liberty City DLC and an unreleased single-player expansion called Agent Trevor. The GTA VI map fragment appears built from satellite and Street View imagery and runs within GTA V, while the Liberty City content exists only as an outline accessible through the CodeWalker map editor.
Conservative activists like Molly McCann Sanders of the Eagle Forum are publicly rejecting Trump's pro-data-center stance, citing pollution and land-use fears. Polling from the New York Times shows over 60% of Americans, including nearly half of Republicans, oppose new data center construction, and GOP strategists have warned in internal memos that supporting AI infrastructure could hurt candidates in the midterms.
Data center technicians spend their shifts walking miles of server rows, sniffing for burning smells, and checking equipment for damage—including from birds—as they keep facilities powering the AI build-out running smoothly. The work combines physical inspection routines with constant vigilance for small warning signs that could signal bigger equipment failures.
OONI Probe is a tool that, once run, automatically submits its test results in near real-time to a public database. This allows anyone running it to contribute to a growing, open record of internet censorship observed across different networks and regions.
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