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ESA's BepiColombo mission, a joint effort with Japan and the US costing nearly $2 billion, has released the Mercury Transfer Module that powered and propelled the spacecraft since its 2018 launch. The jettison follows nine gravity-assist flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury designed to slow the craft enough for Mercury's gravity to eventually capture it into orbit later this year.
Eric Selin, founder of Statichost.eu based in Stockholm, has launched a static website hosting service built entirely on European infrastructure. The platform avoids American providers like AWS and Cloudflare at every layer, from git-based deployment to content delivery.
Windrose, an electric trucking startup positioning itself as a Tesla rival with China-Europe operations, has lost roughly 100 employees in China after failing to pay them on time. The mass departures represent a significant portion of its Chinese workforce and point to deeper financial strain at the company.
Volkswagen's Executive Board has formally approved a restructuring program dubbed Future Plan 2030, confirming it will eliminate 50,000 jobs, including management positions, to hit a nine percent operating margin target by 2030. The plan also involves halving its model lineup, cutting product complexity by 75 percent, and reportedly retiring the Seat brand while keeping Cupra. Volkswagen says European factories are running over 500,000 units above demand, and it will decide the fate of plants in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and Neckarsulm by mid-2027.
A former UK Competition and Markets Authority official has filed a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) lawsuit against Apple on behalf of app developers, alleging that its App Tracking Transparency system imposes tougher restrictions on outside developers than on Apple's own services. Apple maintains that all developers face identical requirements under the policy.
A two-part historical essay examines the intellectual roots of Hans Freudenthal's Lingua Cosmica, a language designed for communicating with extraterrestrial intelligence. The first installment traces its lineage back to 17th-century English efforts to build a universal 'philosophical language,' motivated by the practical chaos of European trade, diplomacy and colonial missionary work, and continuing through the rise of mathematical logic in the 20th century.
Nintendo says it will stop supplying new original Switch hardware to European retailers by mid-February 2027, citing EU rules mandating user-replaceable batteries. The company will continue manufacturing the Switch, Switch Lite, and Switch OLED through 2026, keeping them widely available in Europe, though no timeline has been given for the US or Japan. Existing owners will still be able to use their games and accessories, and online services will continue for the foreseeable future.
European regulators have designated ChatGPT as a search engine under EU digital regulations, placing it under stricter oversight requirements. Reddit and Roblox have also received similar classifications, bringing them under the same heightened regulatory scrutiny.
The European Commission classified ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine and Reddit and Roblox as Very Large Online Platforms after each surpassed 45 million average monthly EU users. This designation subjects all three to the Digital Services Act's toughest compliance requirements, joining 28 other services already under this heightened oversight.
Researchers analyzing blood samples from 17,710 people found that those with the highest xylitol levels were 57% more likely to die or suffer a heart attack or stroke within six years than those with the lowest levels, with elevated risk persisting for decades. The findings, presented at the European Society of Cardiology's annual congress in Munich, showed a dose-dependent relationship between xylitol blood levels and cardiovascular events.
The EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which took initial effect August 12, replaces the 1994 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive and now applies to any business shipping goods into the bloc's 27 member states. Independent tabletop RPG creators like Johan Nohr and Josh Fox say the rules, combined with Extended Producer Responsibility fees that differ by country and sometimes recur annually, are proving costly and confusing to navigate. Fox, of Black Armada, says the compliance burden may force his company to halt sales in the EU.
The European Space Agency signed contracts totaling hundreds of millions of euros with three European launch startups—Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space and Isar Aerospace—to fund continued development of their small launch vehicles. RFA received 186.9 million euros, PLD Space 158.9 million euros, and Isar Aerospace 197.8 million euros, mostly financed by their home nations with contributions from partner countries. A separate deal with MaiaSpace is reportedly close to finalization.