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Tech News
The Florida Department of Transportation issued a memo on Aug. 31 revoking permits for automated license plate recognition cameras, often known by the brand name Flock, installed along state highway rights-of-way. Local law enforcement agencies have 30 days to remove the devices or FDOT will take them down itself, citing rapid growth in deployments and concerns about misuse and surveillance.
Canada announced on August 27 that its universities have hired 64 researchers globally, 48 of them from the United States, through a new recruitment initiative. The scientists will share roughly CA$500 million ($360 million) in funding over eight years under the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs and Canada Impact+ Emerging Leaders programs, launched in December as part of a broader push to draw foreign talent.
Prediction market platform Kalshi has permanently barred former Congressman George Santos from its service, marking the company's first-ever lifetime ban. The action stems from allegations that Santos manipulated betting markets tied to whether he would attend President Trump's State of the Union address earlier this year.
The FTC and 22 state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit accusing Amazon of concealing surcharges within its advertising auctions for more than six years, allegedly extracting over $20 billion from advertisers who didn't know they were paying inflated rates. Internal documents cited in the suit reportedly show employees flagged the pricing tactic as risky for long-term trust even as it boosted short-term revenue. Amazon has pushed back, saying the suit misrepresents its ad auction mechanics and lacks evidence that consumers paid more as a result.
The FTC and a bipartisan coalition of 22 states have sued Amazon, claiming it secretly manipulated its advertising auctions to charge advertisers more than they should have paid under the stated 'second price' bidding rules. The complaint alleges Amazon pocketed roughly $20 billion since 2019 by making Sponsored Products advertisers pay their full winning bid nearly 80% of the time instead of one cent above the next-highest bid. Amazon has called the lawsuit 'misguided' and denies misleading advertisers or consumers.
Prediction market Kalshi has permanently banned former Rep. George Santos after finding reasonable cause he bet on whether he would attend Trump's State of the Union address, allegedly netting him nearly $18,000. Kalshi also fined him over $71,000 and separately suspended or penalized several other political candidates, including Ben Midgely, Laurie Buckhout and Stephen Cloobeck, for allegedly wagering on their own races.
A donor grant received in summer 2025 has enabled organizers to begin indexing the long-stored collection of the former Computer Museum of America and San Diego Computer Museum, which has sat in the basement of SDSU's Love Library for over two decades. The archive includes not just vintage computers and hardware but magazines, newsletters, software, books and manuals documenting the rise of the Information Age. Organizers are also launching fundraising and marketing efforts to raise awareness of the collection's existence and value.
Prediction market Kalshi has permanently banned former congressman George Santos and fined him $71,356, marking the platform's first-ever lifetime ban. Santos had allegedly profited over $17,500 by betting he'd skip the State of the Union due to travel issues, then selling those contracts after claiming publicly he would attend. Kalshi says it flagged the scheme to regulators and imposed the harsher penalty because Santos failed to cooperate fully with its internal investigation.
Scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba built a solid-state cooling prototype that uses a shape-memory titanium-nickel film to convert heat directly into the mechanical motion needed to drive elastocaloric cooling, replacing the usual electric actuator. In tests, heating the actuator film to 86°C produced a 4.0 K temperature difference across the cooling device, and swapping in an external 130°C heat source still yielded a 2.2 K span, showing waste heat alone can power the cycle.
Sony will air two consecutive livestreams on September 3 ahead of Tokyo Game Show, starting at 9AM ET. The first broadcast covers updates from PlayStation Studios and partners worldwide, closing with an extended look at Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, followed immediately by a Japan-focused stream spotlighting Asian developers.
Tony Greenstein, a Jewish socialist and peace activist, was prosecuted over three social media posts and a blog piece criticising Israel's actions in Gaza, facing up to 14 years in prison for allegedly inviting support for Hamas. He chose to address the jury directly rather than risk his barrister being punished for a robust defence, and after the judge dismissed his speech as rambling, jurors acquitted him within two hours.
A researcher attended the scientific track of the State of the Map (SotM) conference held August 29-30, marking their first time back at the event since 2011. The academic sessions featured around 20 peer-reviewed papers, a small slice of the more than 1,250 OpenStreetMap-related papers indexed on OpenAlex in 2025 alone. The author also noted receiving a Test of Time award in June from IEEE Pervasive Computing for a 2008 paper on OpenStreetMap.