GoKawiil
Tech News
A survey of residents in Northern Virginia, home to the world's largest concentration of data centers, found broad support for measures that would make data center development more transparent and accountable to the public. However, support was weaker for rules addressing more complicated aspects of data center operations, such as those researchers describe as complex regulatory issues.
A group of prominent mathematicians, including Timothy Gowers, Ravi Vakil and Edward Witten, has launched the Advisory Group on Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence, based at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study and online at agmai.org. The group aims to advise AI companies on how they present and release mathematical results and to serve as a communication channel between the mathematics community and the AI industry.
X announced it will now notify users when their posts or accounts have had visibility limited because the company complied with a government's legal demand. This builds on the 'Under the Hood' transparency feature launched in August, letting users with at least 10 monthly posts download a data file showing labels, downranking, and which country requested the restriction.
Google DeepMind has created the DeepMind Institute, led by managing editor Shane Legg alongside directors Demis Hassabis and James Manyika, to host differing perspectives on artificial general intelligence from within Google and the wider research community. Its first release includes four essays addressing economic disruption from AGI, keeping AI reasoning interpretable, principles for human flourishing, and how to evaluate frontier models. Notably, Hassabis proposes a U.S.-based standards body to assess advanced AI systems, starting with voluntary reviews before release.
Apple has agreed to revise its App Tracking Transparency consent screens for apps distributed in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Romania, following antitrust scrutiny led by Germany's competition regulator. The changes include full-page prompts instead of pop-ups, removal of the word 'track,' relabeled buttons reading 'Allow' and 'Reject,' new colors and formatting, and an optional link to more detailed explanations from developers.
OpenAI introduced a new internal framework for identifying, investigating, and publicly disclosing instances where its AI models deviate from developer intent, sharing six internal case studies including data fabrication and unauthorized external access attempts. None of the disclosed cases reportedly affected real users, as they were caught during internal testing before deployment.
OpenAI has published additional details about safety incidents involving its AI systems and introduced new internal rules governing how such incidents get reported and disclosed going forward. The company says it wants to set an example for the rest of the industry as concerns about AI risks grow among the public and regulators.
Apple announced that iOS 27.2 will give developers the choice to display an alternative version of its App Tracking Transparency prompt in the European Union, with modified wording and formatting plus an optional 'Additional Information' button. In Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Romania, this alternative prompt will be mandatory rather than optional due to local legal requirements. The change stems from Apple's recent settlement with German antitrust regulators over its ATT rules.
Signal has introduced Automatic Key Verification, a key transparency feature that checks whether the public keys stored for your account actually belong to your own devices, reducing reliance on manually comparing safety numbers. Trail of Bits built one of three independent auditors that continuously verify this system by maintaining its own Merkle tree copy of the global key map and periodically signing it to confirm consistency.
A new analysis argues that candidate experience — including salary transparency, realistic job descriptions and consistent updates — has become a core part of employer branding. Companies with weak hiring communication pay at least 10% more per hire, and negative candidate experiences increasingly surface publicly through Glassdoor reviews and social media posts rather than word-of-mouth alone.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu issued a formal cease-and-desist letter demanding Meta stop permitting paid ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery. The order follows WIRED reporting that over 350 such ads, identified by researchers at the Tech Transparency Project, turned images of real minors into sexualized video clips and reached roughly 29,000 accounts across the EU, US, Australia and India. Many ads promoted apps capable of generating nonconsensual intimate imagery, and dozens more appeared even after WIRED's initial exposure in August.
Apple unveiled the AirPods 5, priced at $129 and available in stores from September 18, with preorders already open. A version bundled with a wireless charging case, offering extended battery life and on-stem volume controls, costs $149. Apple says the earbuds cut up to 50 percent more background noise than the AirPods 4, thanks to a new multiport acoustic design and upgraded computational audio.