By Hisan Kidwai Inspired by the beloved anime series Naruto, Ninja Time (previously called The Time of Ninja) is…
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By Nadeem Sarwar One of the best ChatGPT tools is Deep Research, but so far, it has required a subscription. OpenAI now offers a lighter version and expanded it to free users.

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By Nick Godt Slate has unveiled a $20K electric truck that transforms into an SUV.

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By Luke Edwards If you want a watch that will still be going even after your puny human body is done and dusted, then the Garmin Instinct 3 Tactical is the watch to outlast you. Garmin has just unveiled the latest in its Tactical line-up of Instinct wearables as its toughest and most feature rich yet. This watch […]

Source:: Digital Trends

By Thomas Macaulay As our favourite Dutch holiday approaches, TNW is celebrating the tech titans shaping the future in the Netherlands. Our beloved home country is the proud parent of a prodigious brood of digital talent. It’s given birth to cultivated meat, raised Booking.com to become the world’s largest online travel agency, and watched with joy as ASML grew into Europe’s most valuable tech company. The family also includes a gifted group of startups and scaleups. In recent years, economic headwinds, geopolitical turbulence, and questionable government policies have blown some of their progress off course, but Dutch tech continues to punch well above…This story continues at The Next Web

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By Siôn Geschwindt Researchers at Toshiba Europe have used quantum key distribution (QKD) cryptography to send messages a record 254km using a traditional fibre optic cable network. It’s the first time scientists have achieved a coherent quantum communication using existing telecomms infrastructure. The breakthrough marks a step closer to ultra-secure quantum encryption, which could fend off hacks from even the most advanced classical and quantum computers of the future.   QKD is a form of communication that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to securely share encryption keys between two parties. It transmits information in the form of light. These photons carry qubits, the…This story continues at The Next Web

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A growing chorus of European technology executives is calling for the continent to assert control over its digital future, with Danish IT services giant Netcompany leading the latest push for technological self-reliance.

In an open letter published on Wednesday — coinciding with the symbolic illumination of the Statue of Liberty replica in Paris a day before — Netcompany CEO André Rogaczewski explicitly challenged Europe’s dependence on foreign technology platforms and urged the region to “bring our data home.”

“From social media to cloud infrastructure, from applications to algorithms, we are dependent on technologies developed elsewhere, by actors who may not share our values,” warned Rogaczewski, whose firm employs over 8,000 technology consultants across Europe.

The high-profile campaign comes amid escalating tensions in global technology markets, with the European Commission recently intensifying scrutiny of US cloud providers’ market practices and ahead of upcoming EU-US discussions on trans-Atlantic data governance frameworks.

“We are calling for European solutions — built by European companies, run on European data, and accountable to European citizens,” Rogaczewski stated, directly challenging the market dominance of American tech giants including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services, which collectively control a significant majority of Europe’s cloud infrastructure market according to industry reports.

Europe’s strategic pivot in digital policy

The remarks come amid a concerted push by European governments and institutions to localize control over key digital systems. Recent EU policies — the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the AI Act — are part of an evolving legal framework to strengthen regional oversight of platforms, algorithms, and cloud-based services.

A month ago, leading European companies and lobbying groups — including Airbus, Element, and Nextcloud — under the umbrella of “EuroStack Initiative” signed an open letter urging the creation of an EU sovereign infrastructure fund to boost public investment in innovative technologies and build strategic autonomy in key sectors.

“Building strategic autonomy in key sectors is now a recognised urgent imperative across Europe. As part of this common effort, Europe needs to recover the initiative, and become more technologically independent across all layers of its critical digital infrastructure,” the EuroStack letter read.

These initiatives follow a global trend where technology is no longer seen purely through the lens of innovation or efficiency but as a strategic national asset. The US has tightened its grip on semiconductor exports to China. China, in turn, is accelerating its own domestic tech stack and enforcing data localization. In this shifting context, Europe’s historical reliance on the US and Chinese digital infrastructure has become a liability.

Building a European tech ecosystem

Netcompany, a publicly listed IT services provider with operations across Europe, is among a growing number of regional firms advocating for digital sovereignty. Their CEO’s comments underline the urgency to reduce reliance on US-based cloud giants and software vendors. Instead, the letter encourages a continental effort to cultivate indigenous technologies that align with European legal standards and ethical norms.

“Technology lies at the heart of our wealth creation,” Rogaczewski said. “It drives our competitiveness and sits at the very center of how we communicate, learn, and develop as societies.”

This vision extends beyond public discourse into concrete initiatives. GAIA-X, a European cloud infrastructure initiative, exemplifies this push toward a sovereign tech ecosystem, alongside other strategic programs including SiPearl and the EU’s AI Continent Action Plan that target capabilities in cloud infrastructure, semiconductors, and AI.

US tech giants have not been idle in response to these sovereignty concerns. Amazon Web Services, for instance, has committed to a €7.8 billion ($8.9 billion) investment in an “AWS European Sovereign Cloud” and maintains that its approach has been “sovereign-by-design” from the beginning, with customers having “complete control over where they locate their data” within European regions and verifiable control over who can access it.

“While complete technological independence is a complex and long-term goal, Europe is clearly building momentum toward digital and AI sovereignty,” said Shreeya Deshpande, senior analyst at Everest Group, highlighting how the coordinated nature of such efforts reflects growing momentum across Europe.

While challenges remain, particularly in scaling and integrating across fragmented markets, the political will and regulatory backing for European tech nationalism is growing.

Sovereignty without isolation

Rogaczewski’s appeal reflects a growing consensus among European stakeholders that sovereignty does not mean isolation. Rather, it signals a recalibration of Europe’s role in the global digital order. Europe is seeking to maintain open markets and innovation, while ensuring that core digital infrastructure and sensitive data remain under regional control.

“Emerging mechanisms, such as data embassies and sovereign cloud frameworks, offer a practical middle path — enabling countries to maintain legal and operational control over data and AI systems while remaining interoperable with global platforms,” Deshpande added.

The message resonates with policymakers who see technology not just as a tool of commerce but as a pillar of democratic governance. “This places our security, sovereignty, and democracy at risk,” Rogaczewski warned, referring to Europe’s current dependency on foreign platforms.

The lighting of the Statue of Liberty — once gifted by France to the US as a symbol of shared democratic values — served as a potent backdrop to Rogaczewski’s message. He framed his letter as both a reminder of historical ties and a warning that those values are now “under heavy pressure.” “Our modern societies are based on the very same principles of freedom and democracy,” he wrote. “We must stand united in our commitment to these values and fight for them each and every day.”

Source:: Computer World

If it looks like a trade war, swims like a trade war, and quacks like a trade war, then it’s probably a trade war that has now broken out — this time between the US and the EU as the White House condemns Europe’s punitive fines against Apple and Meta, fines the companies intend to appeal.

Europe hit Apple and Meta with fines of €500m and €200m, respectively, yesterday, punishing both companies for noncompliance with Europe’s Digital Markets Act, a piece of legislation that pretends to be about opening up markets but seems custom-designed to impact the US tech giants.

The White House has called these fines a “novel form of economic extortion” and has warned Europe that the US will not tolerate the magnitude of these fines.

Custom-fitted penalties

The steep fines surprised most commentators, as whispers coming out of the bloc had hinted that the EU would impose minimal fines against both tech companies in order to avoid reprisals from the US administration. This doesn’t seem to be what happened, unless we assume that €700m is now seen as small change by Europe’s leaders, who appear to have given themselves the right to charge US companies even more. 

The fines come as Europe and the US attempt to forge new trading agreements in response to pressure from the US administration and its tariff threats. While the impact of tariffs will hurt US consumers most, repercussions will also be felt by manufacturers and trading partners who have fed US demand until now.

The effect will also soon be felt on a wider basis as a trade barrier-induced slump hits shipping and distribution globally in the coming weeks, reflecting the slowdown in demand around the imposition of those tariffs. 

Playing at leadership

Despite the looming risk of consequences for their own economies, both in terms of manufacturing demand and the impact on their own manufacturing businesses of an onset of low-cost consumer goods originally destined for the US market, Europe’s leaders seem to want to cosplay at playing hardball.

European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier recently said the EU “will enforce our tech legislation without any doubt, and this has nothing to do with the trade negotiations currently ongoing with the US.”

That may be how Europe’s leaders see it, but their self-perception means little to a White House that sees these fines as extortionate reprisals against some of America’s biggest and most successful firms.

The administration is far more likely to cleave to the opinion of Meta and Apple:

“The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards,” Meta said.

“Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,” Apple said.

Who designed the rules, and for what purpose?

While Regnier insists the rules are being applied fairly and would be applied against any firm, no matter where they are from, critics argue that the DMA seems to have been expressly drafted to constrain the power of US firms.

The US is not blind to this conjecture. “Extraterritorial regulations that specifically target and undermine American companies, stifle innovation, and enable censorship will be recognized as barriers to trade and a direct threat to free civil society,” said a White House spokesperson.

The bellicose response emerging from within the US administration suggests it is quite willing to issue its own set of reprisals against Europe’s attempts to fine the tech firms — but that response may not be immediate, pending the result of any legal appeals to those decisions on the part of Apple and Meta.

The scenario doesn’t equate to the best mood music.

At a time when the administration is practicing a very blunt approach to making deals, European leaders seem to want to hide the true nature of their own equally self-serving responses behind unconvincing veneers of respectability (such as the DMA).

Will the future be better tomorrow?

In this kind of context, the idea that relationships may become worse before they get better isn’t just a problem waiting to happen. It appears to be a problem that’s already here.

Like a squawking duck, this particular sequence of events certainly seems to be forming up to become exactly what it sounds like as the US administration puts its own perception of national interest first, unleashing a challenging set of circumstances for businesses worldwide, including those of Apple and Facebook, the US business entities it probably sees itself as trying to protect. 

Ironically, the consequences of these combined sequences of events probably won’t unleash a great deal of benefit for anyone — except, possibly, for some wealthy individuals who want to sell apps via their own App Store.

US President George W. Bush once famously said, “The future will be better tomorrow.”

Right now, in the absence of positive dialogue, that’s not what I see coming down the pipe.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Source:: Computer World

By Adarsh Verma Vidu, the generative video startup by ShengShu Technology, is back with a new model it calls…
The post Vidu Q1 Launches Cinematic-Grade Visual Effects and Audio Generation To Take On VFX appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Nick Godt The Audi Q6 e-tron, Buick Enclave, and Nissan Armada earn top safety marks.

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By Hisan Kidwai The PS5 is a fantastic console, with some of the best performance and graphics. However, despite…
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By Siôn Geschwindt German biotech startup Ovo Labs has developed new technologies to “rejuvenate” human eggs during in vitro fertilisation (IVF), potentially boosting the chances of conception.  The first baby was born via IVF more than 40 years ago. Since then, the technology has helped millions of women get pregnant.  However, IVF can put significant emotional, psychological, and financial strain on patients. It is often unsuccessful on the first attempt. Some try multiple times without success, leaving many couples unable to have children at all.  Ovo Labs wants to improve the odds. Based on 20 years of fertility research, the startup has developed…This story continues at The Next Web

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By Nick Godt Cadillac releases teaser images of the 2026 Optiq-V, the brand’s second all-electric model.

Source:: Digital Trends

A broad coalition of AI experts, economists, legal scholars, and former OpenAI employees is urging state regulators to keep OpenAI’s nonprofit foundation in control of the company.

Their concern: that the company’s planned restructuring would abandon its legally mandated nonprofit purpose and place control of artificial general intelligence (AGI) in the hands of private investors.

“We write in opposition to OpenAI’s proposed restructuring that would transfer control of the development and deployment of artificial general intelligence (AGI) from a nonprofit charity to a for-profit enterprise.” the coalition wrote in an open letter addressed to the Attorneys General of California and Delaware, who together are the company’s primary regulators.

The letter’s signatories include Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Joseph Stiglitz and AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. They argue that the proposed restructuring would violate OpenAI’s Articles of Incorporation, which explicitly state the organization is “not organized for the private gain of any person.”

The coalition is urging California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings to exercise their oversight authority to prevent OpenAI’s proposed restructuring, which they argue would undermine the organization’s original charitable mission.

The coalition’s appeal is supported by a separate amicus curiae brief filed by twelve former OpenAI employees in an ongoing federal lawsuit. Together, the letter and brief present a rare, coordinated public challenge to the internal governance of one of the world’s leading AI companies.

A legally binding mission

OpenAI was created in 2015 as a nonprofit with a single, far-reaching goal: to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity. Its 2018 Charter outlines principles such as broadly distributed benefits, long-term safety, cooperative development, and technical leadership. These values were designed to steer OpenAI’s work even as it began raising external investment.

In 2019, OpenAI adopted a capped-profit model, establishing a limited partnership structure under full control of the nonprofit board. This arrangement, the letter notes, was meant to ensure that AGI development would always remain aligned with the public interest.

According to the open letter, the company is now seeking to restructure in a way that would eliminate this charitable governance by allowing private shareholders to assume control of AGI development and deployment.

The authors argued that this shift is inconsistent with OpenAI’s charitable purpose and violates both California and Delaware nonprofit law.

“As the primary regulators of OpenAI, you currently have the power to protect OpenAI’s charitable purpose on behalf of its beneficiaries, safeguarding the public interest at a potentially pivotal moment in the development of this technology,” the letter said. “Under OpenAI’s proposed restructuring, that would no longer be the case.”

Former employees validate governance concerns

The amicus brief, filed in April 2025, supports claims made in the open letter by offering firsthand accounts from within OpenAI’s leadership and research teams. The twelve former employees worked at the company from 2018 to 2024 and held roles ranging from research scientists to policy leads.

According to the brief, internal operations at OpenAI were built around the Charter. Employee performance reviews included assessments of how individuals advanced the mission, and senior leadership—including CEO Sam Altman—frequently referenced the Charter in strategic decisions.

But the brief also reveals a gradual shift in internal dynamics. The former employees claim that key governance principles began to erode as commercial interests grew, culminating in efforts to restructure in ways that would sever nonprofit control.

“Without control, the Nonprofit cannot credibly fulfill its Mission and Charter commitments, particularly those relating to broadly distributed benefits and long-term safety,” the brief stated.

Transparency and legal accountability urged

The coalition’s letter closed with a call for legal action. It urged the Attorneys General to demand full transparency about OpenAI’s current and proposed structures. If OpenAI is no longer operating in line with its nonprofit obligations, the authors argue, the state must act to preserve the public mission.

“You currently have the power to protect OpenAI’s charitable purpose on behalf of its beneficiaries, safeguarding the public interest at a potentially pivotal moment in the development of this technology,” the letter said.

With AGI development accelerating, the outcome of this governance battle may shape not just OpenAI’s future but the trajectory of AI oversight worldwide. At stake is the principle that technologies capable of reshaping economies, labor, and societies should remain accountable to the public—and not be controlled solely by shareholder interests.

Whether legal authorities respond to the coalition’s plea could mark a turning point in how the world manages the power and responsibility of frontier AI development.

Source:: Computer World

Apple has been hammered with a huge €500 million ($570 million) fine by Europe’s antitrust authorities, who have demanded changes in Apple’s business practices that will deliver little significant benefit to consumers.

Europe says Apple breached its anti-steering obligation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and is forcing changes in the company’s business practices, as well as fines.

Apple will appeal

In a statement, Apple told Computerworld: 

“Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free. We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way. We will appeal and continue engaging with the Commission in service of our European customers.”

Europe’s approach has been uniquely Apple-centric, making demands of the company that are not equally made against its competitors. As part of today’s judgment, Apple is also being forced to open up to third-party app store sales, and to permit developers to let customers know of alternative offers outside Apple’s App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases.

What Europe wants

Apple had attempted to craft an approach to these demands that tried to balance platform security and the costs of building the platforms against what Europe wanted. Under those terms, developers had been asked to agree to certain terms, including payment of a Core Technology Fee.

The Commission has rejected Apple’s approach, insisting instead that:

Apple must change the business terms through which it enables external app store sales.

The Apple Core Technology fee may need to be abolished.

Apple must make it easier to set up third-party stores.

It must make it easy for consumers to install apps from third-party stores. (I fear this also means it cannot warn customers of the risks of using external stores.)

Apple must bring itself into compliance with these demands within 60 days or risk periodic penalty payments.

It is to be noted that Meta was also fined today.

All it really means

In theory, these changes mean apps will be sold through multiple competing stores. That won’t be how things shape up, of course. Some stores will turn out to be malware-infested money traps; others will sell illegal or immoral content; others will show themselves over time to lack standards of customer, privacy, or security support; other developers will use the system to fragment the user experience. 

Over time we will see stores fail, fall foul to fraud, or go out of business, leaving no clear path for customer compensation or app longevity. Ultimately there will be one or two surviving stores, as well as Apple, and all three will be owned by corporations, rather than by any up-and-coming European tech firm.

That latter isn’t going to happen, and if it does, will only be in specific domains. Through these inevitable evolutions, it will be Apple Support that customers first call for help when things do go wrong, even if responsibility rests with the third-party store. Perhaps this is an improvement, but I don’t see it.

This fragmentation will also expose European customers to security and privacy attacks, as some of these stores will not hold the same degree of respect for privacy as Apple.

Rewarding good behavior?

There is a little good news for Apple in Europe’s judgement, which says the company worked ‘constructively’ with EU regulators on the overall antitrust inquiry. Another strand to this had been an investigation into how Apple enabled user choice on its platforms. Europe has closed that strand of the case, saying Apple has acted to regain compliance. Those actions include giving users in the EU choices of alternative apps and an easy interface through which to make such changes.

One thing that isn’t clear is the extent to which Europe is demanding that Apple makes all its new features available to third-party competitors from day one.

Ostensibly to ensure competition, Apple had complained that this restriction forced the company to develop for its competitors for free, and that the cost of delivering this would require it to develop for multiple operating systems before launch, slowing innovation and costing a lot of cash. Apple already has 500 developers working on EU compliance, which means Europe becomes an increasingly expensive place to do business.

Politically driven nonsense

One more thing to highlight is the extent to which Apple has become a punching bag for increasing tension between Europe and the US following the imposition of trade tariffs. In the prelude to today’s announcement, some industry watchers had reported that Europe intended to demand a lower fine from the companies it was about to punish. In the case of Apple, that fine still came down to more than half a billion dollars.

Perhaps that is seen as small change in Europe, which has given itself the right to demand up to 10% of a company’s global revenue for offenses against the DMA, but it is unlikely to placate the US administration, which has already warned it will act against nations that act against US tech firms.

Apple, which is already being punished by the deteriorating relationship between China and the US, may yet end up seeing further challenges if a tit-for-tat trade war between the US and the EU breaks out.

At what point do Europe’s own consumers become casualties of increasing the cost of doing business there?

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Source:: Computer World

By Nick Godt Tesla says that production of an affordable EV remains on track for June.

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By Siôn Geschwindt UK startup Aquark Technologies has used Boaty McBoatface — the internet’s best-loved submarine — to test its quantum sensing technology underwater for the first time. The NATO-backed company put its so-called “cold atom” system inside the autonomous submarine. Boaty McBoatface then descended to the bottom of a giant indoor tank at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton. The idea was to test how Aquark’s quantum tech — which must be completely isolated from external disturbances to function — would fare in the temperatures and pressures of an underwater environment.  Boaty Mcboatface with its quantum payload being lowered into the…This story continues at The Next Web

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By Deepti Pathak If you’re new to Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) and you’re looking to figure out the ranking and…
The post All CS2 Ranks and Rating System Explained: 2025 Guide appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Siôn Geschwindt Europe can dramatically cut its dependence on imported fossil fuels by adopting electricity-based technologies, according to a new report. Electric vehicles, heat pumps, and renewables could cut global reliance on imported fossil fuels by 70% when used to replaced them in transport, heating, and power, according to energy think tank Ember. They would also save importers an estimated $1.3 trillion (€1.14 trillion) globally each year, Ember found. The think tank refers to this trio of technologies as “electrotech.” Cutting reliance on US, Russian fossil fuels Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 exposed one of Europe’s greatest vulnerabilities — its reliance…This story continues at The Next Web

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One of the biggest problems with today’s AI models is that they tend to simply make up answers when they don’t know what’s going on, something called hallucinations.

You would think that the number of hallucinations would decrease over time, but according to internal tests from Open AI, the opposite is true. The o3 and o4-mini reasoning AI models produce more hallucinations than their predecessors o1, o1-mini, and o3-mini, Techcrunch reports.

In one of the tests, the o3 model hallucinated in 33% of responses, compared to 16% for the o1 and 14.8% for the 03-mini.

Open AI has no idea why this is the case, but the company’s developers are looking into it and hopefully it will get better in the long run.

Source:: Computer World