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Tech News
The European Union is preparing the EU Kids Act, a proposed law that goes beyond social media to limit children's access to video platforms, chatbots and online games. Under the draft, minors would face tiered restrictions by age, ranging from no access for under-3s to parent-supervised accounts and eventual independent access at 15, with mandatory age checks before signup or download.
Microsoft offers a downloadable Media Creation Tool that lets users create a bootable Windows 11 installation USB drive. The process involves running the tool as administrator, selecting a USB drive, and letting it download and write Windows 11 files, after which the drive can boot and install Windows 11 on another PC.
A startup called iLands is deploying AI bots with human-sounding names like Ren, Timmy, and Jackie that send unsolicited messages to Mastodon administrators asking permission to create accounts, and to writers offering to pay roughly $25 for citations of their work. Several admins say the bots first attempted to sign up without asking and were blocked before switching to polite written requests.
Rapper and activist Vic Mensa told Fast Company that his willingness to be openly vulnerable, both personally and politically, is what drove the viral success of his 'Orange Tree' video series. He also discussed the real-world costs he has faced for speaking out on social and political issues through his platform.
Jacob Komarow started selling baklava on New York City streets in 2021 while six months into recovery from drug addiction, building a mobile business called Good Baklava that operates from vans, pop-up stands and online orders rather than a fixed storefront. A viral moment handing out free pastries near Madison Square Garden and a subsequent New York Times profile drove explosive growth, with monthly revenue averaging over $20,000 and peaking near $70,000.
Governments are increasingly stepping in to curb youth social media use after years of relying on parents, schools and platform self-regulation, which proved insufficient. Australia became the first country to enact a nationwide ban on social media accounts for children under 16, covering ten platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube, while exempting messaging and gaming services like WhatsApp, Discord and Roblox. The law requires platforms to take reasonable steps to verify age and prevent account creation, though it does not restrict viewing public content without logging in.
Artificial intelligence now underpins everyday tools, from curating social media feeds to identifying people in photos and speeding up medical research. The growing popularity of chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT has intensified scrutiny of AI's energy consumption, ethical pitfalls and handling of personal data. Warnings that increasingly capable systems could eventually pose a danger to humanity have fueled demands for stricter oversight and a more cautious pace of development.
Less than two days after Automattic's board placed Matt Mullenweg on leave, he told staff on Slack that he was back in charge and that the board was again aligned with him. CFO Mark Davies, who had been named interim CEO, reportedly had his Slack account deactivated, while Mullenweg posted cryptic references including a LL Cool J video and a personal blog post about buying a tugboat that avoided addressing the leadership turmoil directly.
404 Media reports that Border Patrol's Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT) analyze Americans' financial transaction patterns to identify people they suspect of crimes, then tip off local police who stop them under unrelated pretexts. In one case, Montana driver Kyle William Olson was pulled over for an obstructed license plate after a PITT agent flagged his finances as resembling narcotics trafficking patterns, leading to DUI and drug charges over cannabis products from his legal California job.
The Honey Deuce, a vodka-and-lemonade cocktail sold at the US Open since 2007, has become a viral social-media fixture every fall, prompting other beverage brands to try to engineer similarly buzzy signature drinks. Its staying power predates modern platforms like Instagram and TikTok, yet it continues to dominate seasonal online chatter tied to the tennis tournament.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed multiple bills targeting tech risks to children, including fines up to $1 million per child for negligent social media platforms, a ban on addictive feeds for users under 16, mandatory risk assessments for AI chatbot operators, and an opt-out option for school-issued laptops. Separately, Newsom signed AI oversight measures backed by Anthropic that establish rules for independent safety evaluations of AI models and create a registry of financially independent auditors.
An Instagram executive argued that most users don't actually want their feed shown in strict time order, despite frequent requests for the option. The comment comes as Australian regulators move toward rules that would require platforms to give users control over how their feeds are sorted.