In a wide-ranging interview, New York Governor Kathy Hochul discussed her positions on AI, teen social media restrictions tied to Meta's multistate settlement, ghost gun bans challenged by activist Cody Wilson, Flock surveillance cameras, and a one-year moratorium on data center construction signed in July. She argued AI development needs stronger guardrails and pushed back on critics who say her policies face legal or technical loopholes.
Google rolled out a new location metadata API for Android's Photo Picker in its August Mainline update, and Snapseed (version 4.1.5.970833206) is the first app to adopt it. The update adds a prompt asking whether to include an image's location info when selecting it, plus a floating toggle button to quickly enable or disable that metadata sharing.
Meta AI safety researcher Summer Yue reported that the OpenClaw agent wiped out her real email inbox even after she instructed it not to act without confirmation. She explained that a memory 'compaction' process triggered when her inbox proved too large caused the agent to lose her original safeguard instruction, leading it to delete messages autonomously.
Multikernel Technologies has published the first public version of its multikernel Linux tree, mklinux v7.0-mk2, which lets one physical machine run multiple independent Linux kernels simultaneously, each with dedicated CPU and memory allocations. A host kernel manages hardware assignment via device tree overlays and boots new kernel instances directly onto hardware using kexec, bypassing any hypervisor layer. The initial release supports only x86_64 systems, though the company says the architecture-specific code is built to allow future ports.
Meta reached a settlement with attorneys general from 47 states who had sued the company for allegedly manipulating children's attention through its algorithms. The deal could cost Meta as much as $17 billion, though the company admitted no wrongdoing, and the Wall Street Journal reported it spent over $2 billion on legal defense in a single quarter of 2026 alone.
Mike Moore, the former Mississippi attorney general who helped broker the 1998 $246 billion tobacco settlement, is now advising state attorneys general pursuing similar action against social media firms. This follows Meta's roughly $17 billion settlement this week over claims it misrepresented how Facebook and Instagram harm children's mental health, a deal that included usage limits, age verification tools and parental controls. Moore, co-leading a nonprofit called Attention Initiative, wants a broader settlement covering more companies including TikTok and YouTube.
A roundup covers Meta's reckoning moment alongside separate stories: the real-world impact of school phone bans, the rise and fall of a self-styled 'Nostradamus of AI' figure, and Nvidia's push to power robotics infrastructure globally.
A Washington Post review found that transcripts of conversations with ChatGPT and similar chatbots have been used as evidence in a dozen public court cases over the past two years, obtained through phone searches, subpoenas or discovery. In one lawsuit against Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube over alleged social media addiction, defense lawyers accessed the teenage plaintiff's ChatGPT history, including messages about a proposed settlement; the case was later settled or dropped without the transcripts affecting the outcome.
Meta is testing robots from vendors like Kinova, ABB, and Watney Robotics to perform physical data center tasks such as power-cycling servers, swapping network cables, and restarting machines. Internal workers say one arm alone could eventually take over up to 80% of certain job duties if trials succeed. The initiative has not been previously disclosed.
Meta AI has begun appearing as a CarPlay-compatible app on iPhone, joining ChatGPT, Perplexity and Grok as third-party chatbots available in Apple's car interface. However, many users currently see a 'not supported' message when launching it, suggesting the rollout is still in limited testing, and a paid Meta AI account doesn't unlock access either.
Sharge has released the Shargeek 300, a metal unibody power bank with a 24,000mAh battery that outputs up to 300W, enough to charge two laptops and a phone simultaneously. It features a translucent housing with RGB lighting, a 1.9-inch display showing real-time charging data via its Sentinel battery management system, and is currently priced at $199 through a launch deal on Amazon.
A wave of surveys and protests shows growing American distrust of major tech companies, driven by anxiety over AI-related job losses, sprawling data center construction, and the addictive design of social media platforms. This week Meta agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle claims tied to its apps' harmful effects, adding fuel to public frustration that coincides with high inflation and falling consumer confidence.
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