Malay Mail - Tech-gadgets

Xiaohongshu is coming for Instagram, TikTok, and your travel plans — all at once

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:04:12 +0800

BEIJING, July 13 — Competition is fierce for professional photographers at Beijing’s tourist hotspots, including a scenic lake where women in flowy traditional robes pose for snaps to share on Xiaohongshu, China’s massively popular lifestyle app.

The platform, which is reportedly preparing to file to go public as soon as this year, has shaken up the tourism industry in China, where domestic travel is booming to record levels.

Known as RedNote in English, Xiaohongshu’s interface is similar to the US social network Pinterest, but it is sometimes nicknamed “China’s Instagram” as users can post photos, videos and even livestream.

Travellers use the app to discover new destinations and plan their itineraries around photogenic locations, like the lake in the capital’s historic Shichahai area – one of many “daka” or “check-in” spots where Xiaohongshu is driving even more footfall.

On a recent Monday, photographer Li Geng, 18, stood with a camera slung across her neck, touting her services to wandering tourists whom she charges 10 yuan ($1.47) per photo.

Metres away, other photographers yelled instructions to ornately dressed young women who held their fingers in victory signs and arched their backs for the camera.

Li told AFP many of her competitors have a significant social media presence, including one who has 45,000 followers on Xiaohongshu and charges lower prices for photos.

That has caused “more customers to flock to him while putting a massive amount of pressure on the rest of us”, she said.

In contrast Li, who has no big online following, can “only rely on calling out to people on the street to get customers”.

A Xiaohongshu user opens the application (top right corner) as she visits the Forbidden City in Beijing on July 11, 2026. — AFP pic

Travel inspiration

Domestic travel in China hit record highs last year, Xinhua news agency reported in March, with trips by residents exceeding 6.5 billion, up more than 16 per cent on-year.

Meanwhile, Xiaohongshu’s user base has grown to 350 million monthly active users, data analysis platform Qiangua said in May, from 300 million a year earlier.

The app has boosted lesser-known businesses and sent tourists in droves to unconventional locations such as Zibo, a quiet industrial city in Shandong, after its cheap, marinated barbecue skewers went viral.

Xiaohongshu is now the first place “a lot of younger travellers” seek inspiration, said Ming Yii Lai, senior strategy consultant at Daxue Consulting.

Tourist Mina Chen, visiting the Shichahai area with her sister, had planned her Beijing trip using recommendations from other Xiaohongshu users.

Searching popular keywords like “citywalk” on the app brought up itineraries for the day, including where to eat and convenient routes from one attraction to another.

“It is now indispensable (to me),” the 20-year-old student from Hunan province told AFP.

A woman (centre) looks at her phone as people visit the Shichahai scenic area in Beijing on July 10, 2026. — AFP pic

‘TikTok refugees’

Xiaohongshu-driven travel has caused issues including overtourism at viral spots and businesses becoming too dependent on platform traffic, Lai told AFP.

Paid posts from food bloggers “who sing high praises about shops or destinations” have also drawn complaints when their recommendations are disappointing.

The app took the global spotlight last year when a proposed US government ban on the social media platform TikTok sent American users, dubbed “TikTok refugees”, flocking to RedNote.

And it has made headlines in recent weeks over its preparations to confidentially file for an initial public offering in Hong Kong, according to outlets including the Wall Street Journal, which said its market debut could be as early as the end of 2026.

AFP has contacted Xiaohongshu for comment.

Young women in more affluent cities remain the app’s core user base, according to Qiangua.

But it is also gaining traction with Chinese speakers in countries like Malaysia and Singapore – and not just among young women.

Singaporean retiree Ernest Phua turned to Xiaohongshu to plan trips to Guangdong and Yunnan in China, searching for “travel strategy” in Mandarin to find recommendations.

There is “a great difference” viewing travel content about China on the app compared to other platforms like YouTube, 58-year-old Phua told AFP.

“If we want to know what it is really like in China” and what locals like to do, eat and go to, “Xiaohongshu has lots of content”, he said.

Meng Jiaxuan, 20, dolled up in her traditional outfit at Shichahai, said she had even researched poses for her photoshoot on Xiaohongshu.

“No matter what it is, I just search for it on Xiaohongshu,” she said. — AFP

Music industry launches AI-generated content labels

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 10:02:42 +0800

NEW YORK, July 11 — Several major music industry organisations yesterday unveiled a labeling system for content created with generative artificial intelligence that they would like to see widely adopted.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced the voluntary labels alongside six other groups including the Grammys.

“Fans want to know whether and how generative AI has been used,” the chief executives of IFPI and RIAA said in a prepared statement.

“These labels will provide an immediately understandable and easily scalable approach to transparency.”

They unveiled two labels. The first would indicate music that is primarily “AI-generated” — cases where artificial intelligence “was used to generate the entirety or the primary portion of the creative elements of the recording.”

This includes tracks generated “entirely” from AI prompts, as well as lead vocals and “key” instrumental tracks that are AI-generated, according to the statement.

The second label applies to “AI-assisted” music recording which are still “created substantially by humans and expresses human creativity” but contain “some expressive elements” that were generated with AI.

However, humans must perform the lead vocals and primary instrumental tracks.

This voluntary labeling system is designed for “broad, global adoption,” including on streaming services.

Music streaming site Deezer systematically flags tracks generated with AI, which the company recently said appear in close to half of new uploads. In June, it launched an “AI music detector” which it said is 99.8 per cent accurate.

Earlier this year, an Apple Music executive told Billboard that more than one third of new uploads were entirely created with AI.

The Digital Media Association, a trade group representing streaming companies including Apple Music, Amazon and Spotify, said it was following the labeling announcement closely and looks forward to receiving more detailed and accurate AI metadata as a way to “strengthen our ability to give fans the transparency they deserve.”

“DIMA has long advocated for the creators, owners, and distributors of music to provide accurate and timely metadata on all music released and distributed to streaming services,” the association’s CEO Graham Davies said in a statement.

In April, Spotify launched a “Verified by Spotify” label to signal that users can “trust the authenticity” of an artist, and last year the company announced new efforts to support AI disclosure and combat impersonation.

Spotify declined to comment yesterday. Apple Music and the Digital Media Association did not respond to requests for comment. — AFP

Meta’s Muse Image: How to stop your Instagram photos from being used for AI

Malay Mail — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:09:16 +0800

KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — Meta has introduced Muse Image, an AI image generator that allows users to create new AI-generated visuals based on existing Instagram photos.

The feature has sparked significant privacy concerns because any adult with a public Instagram account was automatically opted in, meaning their published photos can be used by others to generate new AI content without prior notification.

How does it work?

Using the stand-alone Meta AI app, a user can tag a public Instagram account and instruct the chatbot to generate new images based on the photos found on that specific profile.

Meta’s documentation notes that the AI can pull from "part or all of your published photos."

How do I opt out?

If you do not want your public photos used to train or generate AI images, you have two primary options:

1. The quickest fix: Go Private

The most effective way to protect your account is to set your Instagram profile to Private. Private accounts and users under 18 are automatically excluded from this feature.

2. Manual toggle (For public accounts)

If you wish to keep your account public but disable the AI feature:

Open Instagram Settings.
Scroll down to the "Share and Reuse" tab.
Locate the section: "Allow people to reuse your content on Instagram and with AI features."
Toggle this setting to Off.

You can also adjust AI settings for individual photos and videos. However, Meta has stated that users cannot currently stop their audio, text, and comments from being reused by the company's AI.

Who is protected?

Meta has implemented two main safeguards:

Minors: Users under 18 are excluded from having their images used for AI generation, regardless of whether their account is public.
Teens: Teen users are barred from using the feature to generate images of other people.

How does this compare to other AI tools?

Meta's "opt-out" approach differs from other industry players. For example, OpenAI’s video generator, Sora, required users to opt in before their likeness could be used.

Muse Image is part of Meta's aggressive integration of AI across its ecosystem, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Threads.

This rollout includes "AI characters" with distinct personalities and the upcoming release of Muse Video, an AI video generator.

Backdoor or bugbear? China and Anthropic clash over Claude Code

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:07:38 +0800

BEIJING, July 9 — A Chinese industry regulator warned users on Wednesday of a “security backdoor” embedded in versions of Anthropic’s Claude Code, but the US artificial intelligence company described the mechanism as an anti-abuse measure.

Claude Code is an AI agent that can generate computer code, debug software and review code based on user prompts.

Anthropic prohibits users and companies in China and other nations it deems adversarial from accessing it, but users can sometimes get around this through VPN or third-party proxy services.

Allegations of a backdoor first emerged in specialist tech media last week, and on Wednesday China’s National Vulnerability Database (NVDB) – a cybersecurity platform affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology – said it had recently detected “security backdoor risks, posing a severe threat”.

Anthropic told AFP Wednesday that the mechanism checked a device’s timezone and whether a request was routed through a domain tied to an unsupported region or a known problematic entity.

It said it was a standard way to detect fraud and abuse.

China’s NVDB advised relevant institutions and users “to conduct a comprehensive check immediately” and “promptly uninstall or upgrade to the latest secure version from which the relevant backdoor code has been removed”.

It also urged organisations to strengthen network traffic monitoring to prevent the unauthorised leakage of sensitive data.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba told employees last week that the use of Claude Code would be banned from July 10 due to security concerns, people familiar with the matter said.

Anthropic has previously accused Alibaba of reverse-engineering its AI models to mimic their abilities in a process known as “distillation”.

Claude Code engineer Thariq Shihipar responded in an X post last week to reports alleging that the tool was tracking certain data from Chinese users.

“This is an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorised resellers and protect against distillation,” Shihipar wrote.

“The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we’ve actually been meaning to take this down for a while... this should be fully rolled back in tomorrow’s release.” — AFP

AI safety report gives the industry a reality check — and everyone flunks the toughest test

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:26:10 +0800

NEW YORK, July 8 — US artificial intelligence lab Anthropic topped a new global AI safety ranking, but a report released on Tuesday warned that the industry as a whole is still falling short when it comes to tackling “existential” risks posed by advanced AI.

Meta climbed two places to fourth in the rankings, while xAI dropped three spots to seventh, just ahead of China’s DeepSeek and France’s Mistral, which finished last.

The rankings were compiled by the US-based AI safety think tank Future of Life Institute, which assessed nine of the world’s leading AI companies.

Seven researchers and governance experts evaluated the companies using publicly available information as well as data provided by the firms themselves.

They assessed performance across six categories: risk assessment, current harms, safety frameworks, existential safety, governance and accountability, and information sharing.

No company received an “A” grade in any category.

Anthropic achieved the highest overall score with a “C+”.

Mistral, which appeared in the rankings for the first time, disputed the assessment.

Asked by AFP about its last-place finish, the French company said the report’s framework was not suited to its approach to developing AI.

Unlike rivals such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Google DeepMind, which mainly develop closed AI systems, Mistral focuses on open models that users can download and modify.

“I was very disappointed to find that they came last, especially since Europe has really...been a leader in AI safety,” said Max Tegmark, an MIT professor and president of the Future of Life Institute.

“We reached out many, many times,” Tegmark added, saying Mistral did not respond to the organisation’s survey.

According to the institute, Alibaba, xAI and DeepSeek also declined to participate.

Three Chinese AI developers that produce open models also ranked in the lower half of the list: DeepSeek in fifth, Alibaba Cloud in sixth and Z.ai in eighth.

‘Questionable’ practices

The report said several companies that had previously pledged not to allow their technology for military use had since softened those positions.

It specifically criticised Anthropic over what it described as “questionable military engagements”.

According to various media reports, the US government used Anthropic’s technology during military operations involving Venezuela and Iran over the past year.

The company was also recently barred by the Pentagon over disagreements related to AI safety, though that restriction was later lifted.

The report concluded that all nine companies remain inadequately prepared to address “existential” threats associated with artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI systems capable of matching human-level intelligence.

While researchers acknowledged that “constructive attempts exist”, they said industry-wide efforts remain “entirely inadequate”.

The report also highlighted concerns that advanced AI could be misused to conduct cyberattacks or carry out tasks harmful to people.

Anthropic recently attracted attention after unveiling its most powerful AI model to date, Mythos.

The San Francisco-based company initially made the model available only to a small group of trusted organisations in April because of concerns its cyber capabilities could be exploited by malicious actors.

On June 12, the US government blocked Anthropic from releasing Mythos to foreign users on national security grounds.

The Trump administration lifted the restriction on June 30. — AFP

OpenAI is about to drop its next AI models — and the countdown is on

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:06:36 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, July 8 — ChatGPT maker OpenAI said its latest powerful artificial intelligence model series will be released to the public on Thursday, as the US government reportedly approved a broader launch.

The company’s new GPT-5.6 offerings and other cutting-edge AI models, including Anthropic’s Mythos series, have drawn concern over their supposedly unprecedented ability to identify weaknesses in code that hackers can exploit.

That has raised national security fears, and OpenAI said in late June it had shared preview access to GPT-5.6 with a limited group of trusted US-based partners at Washington’s request.

Large language models are the technology that underpins chatbots and many other AI tools, with their capacity to crunch through colossal amounts of digital data.

The GPT-5.6 series has three tiers: Sol, the company’s new flagship model; Terra, a mid-range version for everyday work; and Luna, a fast, low-cost option.

“GPT-5.6 Sol, along with Terra and Luna, will launch publicly this Thursday. We’re expanding preview access globally now,” OpenAI said in an X post Tuesday, without giving further details.

US news outlet Axios reported, citing a source familiar with the situation, that the Trump administration had given the company the green light for a broad launch of GPT-5.6, following technical testing and meetings between the company and government officials.

AFP has contacted OpenAI, the White House and the US Department of Commerce for comment on the Axios report.

It follows a similar story at OpenAI’s archrival Anthropic, the startup behind the Claude chatbot.

Last week, Anthropic said it would begin restoring access to its most powerful AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, after Washington lifted a restriction on where they could be released.

Before Mythos’s arrival, President Donald Trump’s administration wanted fewer rules on AI companies, not more, hoping that would help the US beat China in the AI race.

The government is now drawing up criteria for which AI models would fall under new security restrictions, in accordance with an executive order from the White House.

OpenAI said in June that “we don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default” as it “keeps the best tools” from users, businesses and others who need them.

The company added that it was working with Washington “to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a repeatable process for future model releases.”

Once broadly available, Terra will be priced at half the cost of its predecessor GPT-5.5, OpenAI has said, as it seeks to lock in customers amid fierce competition from Anthropic and Google.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidential IPO documents with US regulators and are targeting public listings at valuations approaching US$1 trillion (RM4.24 trillion), raising the commercial stakes of the AI arms race between them. — AFP

Europe’s crackdown on loot boxes could change gaming for millions of children

Malay Mail — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 11:11:48 +0800

KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 — Europe’s tightening rules on children’s access to video games could cost the global gaming industry billions of dollars, with regulators targeting features such as loot boxes that critics say resemble gambling, according to Bloomberg.

The report said regulators are increasingly concerned that minors are being exposed to games and in-game features deemed unsuitable for their age, with loot boxes — paid digital treasure chests offering random rewards — coming under particular scrutiny.

In June, the Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) body began classifying games containing loot boxes as unsuitable for players under 16.

The European Union is also considering banning loot boxes in games accessible to minors under proposed legislation known as the Digital Fairness Act, which is expected to be passed next year.

Bloomberg reported that the UK has already introduced age verification requirements for video game companies under its Online Safety Act, while Brazil has moved to ban the sale of loot boxes to minors.

Video game economist and designer Catalin Alexandru told Bloomberg the regulations could reduce user numbers, advertising revenue and in-game spending, potentially costing the industry billions of dollars annually.

Chance-based mechanics such as loot boxes generated about US$23 billion (RM93.6 billion) globally last year, according to S&P Global research cited by Bloomberg.

The report noted that many game developers make product changes globally rather than by region, meaning stricter European rules could affect players and revenues worldwide.

Bloomberg also reported that government scrutiny has intensified after studies found many games failed to properly disclose the presence of loot boxes or obtain parental consent before allowing minors to make purchases.

Gaming companies argue that optional in-game purchases help keep many games free to play, while industry groups have warned that excessive regulation could hurt innovation, consumer choice and the competitiveness of the sector.

Recent signs of the impact have already emerged.

Bloomberg noted that gaming platform Roblox saw its shares fall sharply in May after introducing stricter age verification measures, saying the changes had slowed user growth and prompted it to lower its annual bookings forecast.

Dutch robot centre opens as Europe tries to close gap with China’s fast-moving humanoid race

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:23:35 +0800

SCHIEDAM (Netherlands), July 3 — In a squat building housed on a drab business park just outside Rotterdam, sleek white humanoid robots scuttle around, accompanied by a grey robotic dog performing various canine tricks.

Welcome to the Humanoid Application Center: a hub that opened Thursday to bring together firms, researchers and technicians with the aim of closing Europe’s yawning robotics gap with the United States and China.

Humanoid robotics technology is advancing at a breakneck speed, boosted even further by artificial intelligence, said the centre’s chief executive officer Evert Jaap Lugt.

“In five years from now, you will not see the difference anymore between a human being and a robot if you are, let’s say, five metres away from it,” Lugt, 66, told AFP in an interview, as humanoids whizzed around behind him.

Lugt forecast a future where dead loved-ones are replaced in the home by humanoid “companion robots” that look and act just like the departed person but with AI-powered super brains.

The centre aims to link companies with technicians to harness humanoid robots to solve problems in the corporate sector.

One corporate boss, real estate director Niels Langenhuizen, told AFP he planned to introduce the first humanoid robot onto one of his building sites by the end of the year.

His company builds pre-fab houses in a bid to ease the housing crisis crippling the Netherlands but he said he was limited by employing only humans.

“As long as we depend on manual labour, we’re never going to reach 24/7 (production) and we’re never going to get to 100,000 houses a year,” he said, referring to the Dutch government’s target.

“We need humanoids to be able to speed up this process, to make housing more affordable, to make it more flexible, to make it quicker,” the 41-year-old Langenhuizen told AFP.

Lugt said the aim of the HAC centre was to “kickstart” a European fightback in the domain of robotics that is totally dominated by China.

Robots of all shapes and sizes can be seen in many places in China, from hotels to shopping centres and in factories.

The country accounted for 85 per cent of the world’s humanoid installations last year, according to Barclays bank.

“Europe is almost nowhere, like always, with all these new technologies. And this is really terrifying. Because this is about the future earning models of our society,” said Lugt.

“We are lagging behind. So the only opportunity we probably have is that we look at appliances and also the adoption of this technology. Maybe we can lead over that.” — AFP

Penang-made video game serves up Malaysian kuih, culture and heritage to players around the world

Opalyn Mok — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 14:59:14 +0800

GEORGE TOWN, July 2 — When Twilight Foundry Games founder William Chong began exploring his Peranakan heritage, it inspired him to preserve local culture and traditions through a video game.

He said it was unfortunate that many millennials, as well as those from Generation Z and Generation Alpha, knew little about Malaysia’s rich cultural heritage.

Combining his passion for local culture with his love for traditional kuih, Chong created Kooeh: A Timeless Delight, a cosy restaurant management game released last month.

“The game was inspired by our heritage, our food, and the stories that live in both of them,” Chong said at a press conference with Penang executive councillor Zairil Khir Johari during the game’s launch.

He said kuih in Southeast Asia was more than just food, as it carried memories, traditions and a sense of community.

“Through our game, we wanted to turn the cultural richness into an interactive experience that players can enjoy, understand, and remember,” he said.

As an independent studio, Chong said the team faced the challenge of transforming a culturally rooted concept into a polished commercial product while working with limited resources and tight deadlines.

“We believe that the story mattered, and we believe Malaysian creativity deserves a larger stage,” he said.

Chong said the studio comprises just seven people and emphasised that the game was created entirely by humans.

“Every illustration, every animation, every line of writing of the story and the dialogues, every design decision, the gameplay, the cultural detail in the game was created by our team of humans,” he said.

He added that the game’s illustrator, Chini Choong, is a talented one-handed artist based in the Klang Valley who completed all the artwork using her right hand.

“So, I’m proud to say this really clearly: Kooeh is made entirely by humans, for humans,” he said.

While AI may shape the tools of the future, Chong said culture, emotions, memories and storytelling would always come from people.

“We are also especially proud that this marks a meaningful step for Penang and for Malaysia’s growing creative industry,” he said.

He hopes the game’s launch sends a message that world-class games can be made in Penang by local talent, based on local stories and for a global audience.

In Kooeh: A Timeless Delight, players manage a kopitiam in an alternate world, serving traditional Malaysian kuih and drinks to animal customers inspired by Southeast Asia’s endangered wildlife.

Rather than centring the game on internationally recognised Malaysian dishes, Chong said the team deliberately chose to spotlight kuih.

“We felt like, ‘Hey, people aren’t talking about kuih.’ At the same time, I like kuih. I specifically like dodol, that’s why I put it inside there,” he said.

“We realised there was a lot of stories and communities tied behind those. Each of the kuih has a story,” he added.

Players can prepare 26 menu items, including dodol, kuih lapis, ondeh-ondeh and vadai, alongside drinks such as sirap bandung, teh tarik and kopi O.

“You run a kopitiam in an alternate world. That’s why you serve customers that are animals,” Chong explained.

He said the animal characters were deliberately chosen to highlight endangered species from the region, including tapirs, tigers, elephants, crocodiles, hornbills and water buffaloes.

Development of Kooeh took more than three years.

“Eventually the last two years were accelerated because we received funding from Microsoft’s Xbox Grant and Cradle’s CIP Spark,” Chong said.

“We didn’t need to do outsource jobs to generate cash flow, so that’s where we got to do it faster,” he added.

Meanwhile, Zairil said Kooeh is Penang’s first commercially developed video game to launch internationally on both Steam and Microsoft Xbox, following its release on June 17.

“While we always think of Penang as just a tech manufacturing hub, this shows that our digital content on the creativity side is also doing well,” he said.

“I hope that this will inspire other would-be game designers from Penang,” he added.

Kooeh: A Timeless Delight is currently available in English on Steam and Xbox, with Indonesian and Brazilian Portuguese language support planned depending on player demand.

It retails at US$10.99, with a 20 per cent discount for players in Southeast Asia.

Fear and anger inside Meta as AI push triggers layoffs, surveillance and internal revolt

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:00:00 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, July 1 — A frenzied push for artificial intelligence dominance comes with a different kind of cost for Meta, where massive layoffs, employee surveillance and departures have fuelled reports of a heated internal climate.

As Meta spends billions annually to build out its AI capabilities, employees at Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are increasingly unhappy with their Mark Zuckerberg-led parent company.

Meta employees have weathered frequent layoffs since early 2025, including this spring when the company cut 10 per cent of its workforce — some 8,000 jobs — and reshuffled another 7,000 employees.

For those who remain, an internal AI training initiative has drawn accusations of surveillance.

The company also underwent a major reorganization of its AI research division, into which Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, has poured billions of dollars.

The malaise stands in stark contrast to Meta’s robust finances — driven by advertising, which makes up nearly 98 per cent of its revenue. In the first three months of 2026, Meta’s net income rose to more than US$26 billion (RM106 billion).

However, the bill for its AI investments is also exploding, prompting Zuckerberg, who has near-absolute power over the company, to impose sweeping cuts and increased monitoring of employees in the name of efficiency and savings.

The cuts are funding a massive race for infrastructure: Meta plans to spend up to US$145 billion on AI investments this year, nearly twice last year’s figure.

Harvesting data

After thousands of employees were reassigned to Meta’s AI division, some, speaking anonymously to US media, have complained of “mind-numbing” tasks designed to train machines, or even automate away their own jobs.

That controversial program, called the Model Capability Initiative, was rolled out in April and suspended on June 22. It captured clicks, keystrokes and browsing activity of US employees to train AI agents — software capable of independently performing tasks.

Zuckerberg, who has made AI the company’s North Star, defended the programme during an internal meeting: “AI models learn by watching really smart people do things,” he said, according to Wired.

But the tool sparked a revolt. More than 1,600 employees signed a petition calling for it to end, with some likening the company to a “data extraction factory,” according to media reports.

The pause came after private conversations and performance data inadvertently became accessible to all staff. The system risked drawing the attention of European regulators, since it captured exchanges between employees on both continents.

In a statement to AFP Tuesday, a Meta spokesperson said the program was designed with privacy safeguards.

“While we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we’re pausing it while we investigate,” the statement said.

One employee summed up the mood with a meme from “The Office,” posted on an internal company forum, reading: “0 days since our last nonsense.”

‘Dead end quest’

All of these efforts aim to make up for a persistent lag behind Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, which dominate the race for cutting-edge AI models. Meta’s own models, repeatedly delayed, have proved disappointing even internally.

To regain ground, Zuckerberg invested over US$14 billion last year into Scale AI, a San Francisco-based startup, and poached its CEO Alexandr Wang — who was 28 years old at the time — to run a “superintelligence” lab inside Meta.

The expensive bet has yet to win people over. Several key figures have since walked out, among them Yann LeCun, considered one of the “godfathers” of modern AI, who had led Meta’s AI research since 2013.

LeCun suddenly found himself reporting to Wang, more than 35 years his junior. He left Meta at the end of 2025 to launch his own startup.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the Turing Award winner lamented that, although “he learns fast,” Wang has “no experience with research” and was on “a dead end” quest.

The stakes for Meta go beyond its social networks now. The company is also doubling down on consumer electronics with smart glasses and is considering a new prediction-market app called Arena, potentially in partnership with Polymarket and Kalshi, according to The New York Times.

Lawsuits also threaten to consume time and resources.

For the first time, a Los Angeles jury in March found Meta liable for the effects of social media addiction, just one day after a separate ruling in New Mexico said Meta had failed to protect minors.

Meta has appealed, but more lawsuits are expected this year. — AFP

Google Play, Steam restrict Gorebox in Philippines after deadly school shooting

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:01:32 +0800

MANILA, July 1 — The Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Centre (CICC) today announced that the controversial mobile and PC game Gorebox has been taken down from the Google Play Store and Steam in the Philippines in line with its ban last week.

According to the Philippine News Agency (PNA), the CICC said Google has granted the Philippine government’s request to block access to the game in the country, with the game’s online gaming component also blocked.

The restriction placed on Gorebox will prevent users in the Philippines from downloading it and will also render the game unresponsive beyond its loading screen for those who have installed it before the ban.

Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Aguda welcomed Google and Steam’s decision to work with the Philippine government in its efforts to promote a safer online environment for children.

“With this restriction, we are assured that minors will no longer be able to access such a violent game,” Aguda said.

The game was blocked following a meeting between the DICT, CICC and representatives from Google Philippines and Google LLC on Monday, where Aguda reiterated the Philippine government’s request to restrict nationwide access to Gorebox until they can ensure that minors cannot easily access the game.

PC gaming platform Steam has also complied with the temporary restriction placed on Gorebox.

Last Tuesday, the CICC announced a temporary ban against Gorebox after a police investigation into the deadly school shooting incident at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City found that one of the two teen shooters was an avid player of the game. — Bernama

Virtual boyfriend game ‘Love and Deepspace’ faces massive player backlash over werewolf character, historical references

Malay Mail — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:07:51 +0800

BEIJING, June 30 — Papergames’ hit otome game Love and Deepspace is engulfed in what appears to be its most severe crisis since release, following the unveiling of its sixth romanceable male character, Ao Yin, and a series of contentious in-game content that has sparked widespread player outrage.

The controversy erupted on June 22 when the developer introduced Ao Yin during a surprise livestream. The character—a 26-year-old werewolf clan leader and technology conglomerate chairman—is scheduled to debut alongside Version 6.0 on July 9. But instead of excitement, the announcement triggered a torrent of criticism that has only intensified over the past week.

Player anger has coalesced around three core issues.

The first concerns Ao Yin’s visual design. His red-haired, wolf-eared appearance diverges sharply from the more realistic, East Asian-inspired aesthetic of the game’s five existing male leads. Many players have lambasted the design as inconsistent with the game’s established art style, with some deriding him as the “ugliest male lead in Chinese otome games”.

The second issue involves the timing of his introduction. The main storyline has gone more than 500 days without a major update, and several existing love interests have yet to receive new character chapters. Against this backdrop of what players call “insufficient production capacity,” many fear that a new character will further dilute resources and delay content for the five original male leads.

The third and most explosive controversy involves a piece of in-game text. In the “World Depths” storyline updated on April 21, players discovered a “human drug trial experiment file” labeled with the number “A-0731”. The number “731” immediately evoked the infamous Imperial Japanese Army Unit 731, which conducted lethal biological and chemical weapons experiments on human subjects during World War II.

Compounding the outrage, players noted that a character in the same storyline—a registrar named “Yan Song”—has a name that phonetically resembles “Iwao Matsui,” a Japanese army general classified as a major war criminal after the war. Critics accused the game of trivializing historical trauma and crossing a red line of national sensitivity.

The backlash was further fueled by promotional material showing Ao Yin breaking into the protagonist’s home, forcibly picking her up and throwing her onto a bed while she struggles, with dialogue including “Let me take a look inside”. A scene described as “gene anchoring, forced execution” left many female players feeling disgusted.

For a game that had built its reputation on respecting female players—even featuring features like menstrual cycle tracking—many saw this as a direct betrayal of its core values. “This isn’t romantic,” one player commented. “It feels like a workplace or real-life security threat”.

Papergames issued an open letter in the early hours of June 28, apologising for “shortcomings in how Ao Yin was presented and how information was communicated”. The developer promised that existing love interests’ storylines would not be affected and distributed compensation equivalent to 20 free character pulls to all players.

A second statement on June 29 offered further clarifications, insisting that “A-0731” was a randomly generated placeholder date with no intended meaning, and that “leading the wolf into the house” promotional text was merely thematic packaging for the werewolf character. The company also denied rumours of “region-specific characters” and “all-audience game” positioning.

Neither statement calmed the storm. The initial apology letter alone accumulated nearly 300,000 comments on Weibo, with the most upvoted responses rejecting the new character, demanding his removal, or calling for refunds. One popular comment summarised the sentiment: “Translation: We heard your feedback, we’re not changing anything. Here are some free pulls to brush you off”.

The game’s app store ratings have plummeted. Its Apple Store rating dropped to 2.0, Android app store rating fell to 2.6, and TapTap score declined to 2.8. Player reviews have been flooded with negative feedback.

Beyond the numbers, industry observers note a deeper crisis: the erosion of trust between the developer and its female player base. Papergames had built its reputation over more than a decade on being a company that “understands women, respects women, and values female players’ emotional investment”. That trust, many now say, is collapsing.

As one analysis put it: “What players want to know is why a company that has grown on the emotional investment of female players would show such insensitivity toward women’s safety, historical trauma, and the boundaries of intimate relationships”.

WhatsApp introduces usernames in major privacy update

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:24:15 +0800

PARIS, June 30 — The hundreds of millions who use Meta-owned messenger WhatsApp to chat with family, friends or businesses will no longer need to share phone numbers under a coming update, the company said yesterday.

Instead, people will be able to pick unique usernames to share with others, in a move “designed to protect the privacy of your phone number,” WhatsApp said in a statement.

Restricting access to phone numbers would mean they are not shared automatically in cases such as being added to a large group chat or messaging person or business for the first time, the company added.

What’s more “there’s no directory to browse and no suggestions, so people need to know your exact username to contact you,” Meta said.

As with other social media services, the sheer number of people — Meta claims over three billion — using WhatsApp means many may not get their first choice of handle.

The company said it would gradually roll out username reservations worldwide “over the coming months”, notifying users in each country when they open there.

Meanwhile “creators, small businesses and organizations” will be allowed to claim WhatsApp usernames that they already use on fellow Meta products Facebook or Instagram. — AFP

Meet AIko: Japan’s AI police chief is taking on a US$2b scam crisis (VIDEO)

Malay Mail — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:59:35 +0800

TOKYO, June 29 — Japan’s newest police chief doesn’t patrol the streets, carry a firearm or even exist in the real world.

Instead, she appears on YouTube with the face and voice of a young woman, calmly explaining why anyone claiming to be a police officer over a video call is almost certainly trying to steal your money.

Her name is AIko, and she is the Osaka Prefectural Police’s latest weapon against a fraud epidemic that drained victims of a record more than US$2 billion (RM8 billion) last year — a crisis authorities say is increasingly fuelled by social media and sophisticated criminal networks operating across South-east Asia.

Introduced in late May, AIko’s name combines the abbreviation for artificial intelligence with “ko”, a common suffix in Japanese female names. The virtual police chief fronts a series of crime prevention videos aimed at younger internet users — an audience traditional public awareness campaigns have struggled to reach.

According to Kyodo News, AIko walks viewers through real conversations between scammers and victims, warning against increasingly common schemes involving fraudsters posing as police officers, celebrity investment gurus and even romantic partners.

In one video titled Chief AIko’s Crime Prevention Class, she delivers a blunt reminder: “No police officers show their IDs and arrest warrants online.”

The message reflects how dramatically Japan’s scam landscape has evolved.

While older people remain frequent targets, preliminary police data cited by South China Morning Post show that nearly half of fraud victims in Osaka last year were aged below 65, underscoring how online scams have become an all-ages problem rather than one confined to retirees.

Behind the avatar is Toshinori Hirano, a visiting professor at Kagawa University’s Cyber Security Centre who had advised Osaka police before creating AIko.

He told Kyodo he hoped the virtual officer would “heighten crime prevention awareness by utilising technology”.

The campaign comes as Japan confronts an increasingly sophisticated fraud ecosystem. According to NHK, victims lost a record more than US$2 billion last year to investment scams, romance fraud and other confidence schemes that frequently begin on social media before moving to encrypted messaging platforms.

Police say many victims are tricked by criminals impersonating law enforcement officers during convincing video calls, complete with fake identification cards and fabricated arrest warrants.

Investigators believe many of the syndicates behind these operations are based in scam compounds across mainland South-east Asia, particularly in the border regions of Myanmar and Cambodia, where organised crime groups have built industrial-scale fraud operations targeting victims across Asia.

Japan has stepped up international cooperation in response. According to NHK, National Police Agency Organised Crime Department director-general Ohama Takeshi met Cambodian National Police deputy commissioner-general Dy Vichea and other officials last week to discuss coordinated enforcement efforts against fraud syndicates operating in Cambodia.

The two sides also discussed efforts to locate and rescue dozens of Japanese nationals believed to be missing in Cambodia. NHK reported that more than 30 Japanese nationals were arrested in the first five months of this year for allegedly participating in fraud operations across South-east Asia, prompting Japan’s National Police Agency to deploy liaison officers across the region.

AIko’s debut also comes as Japan accelerates the use of artificial intelligence across government.

The Japan Times reported that the government’s Digital Agency plans to roll out Gennai — a secure generative AI platform for around 180,000 civil servants across 39 agencies — following a large-scale pilot programme. The platform is designed to assist with drafting official documents, transcribing meetings, translating texts, conducting legal research and preparing parliamentary responses within a closed government network.

Digital Minister Hisashi Matsumoto has said he intends to use the platform himself to draft parliamentary replies, while Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has urged civil servants to embrace trustworthy AI as Japan seeks to catch up with global leaders in the technology.

Dead pangolins, live chimps and rhino horn — Facebook accused of hosting world's biggest wildlife black market

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:33:30 +0800

BANGKOK, June 29 — The ghostly white creature curled up on a weighing scale is almost unrecognisable in the Facebook post offering it for sale. Only closer inspection reveals it to be a dead pangolin.

The animal, one of the world’s most endangered and trafficked mammals, has been stripped of its scales and is being advertised by a Thai account selling “seasonal wild delicacies”.

The post is one of dozens reviewed by AFP that illustrate what conservationists call rampant illegal wildlife trafficking across social media platforms, particularly those belonging to Facebook parent company Meta.

A report by several NGOs released today accuses Meta of hosting the world’s “largest single known illegal wildlife trade market” and effectively encouraging the trade by sharing advertising revenues with users and allowing them subscription models.

The report follows recent research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), which warned Facebook is now “the central public infrastructure through which online wildlife trafficking is being concentrated, discovered and scaled”.

Meta declined to respond to questions from AFP, and pointed to policies that restrict the sale of endangered species on its platforms.

But conservationists say those policies have done little to prevent Meta’s platforms being used for the illegal wildlife trade.

The GI-TOC research found over 20,000 adverts for more than 260,000 wildlife products on social media platforms between April 2024 and March 2026.

Nearly three-quarters were on Facebook, and many remained up even after being reported, said Russell Gray, a data scientist and ecologist who co-authored GI-TOC’s April report.

“Even the unredacted accounts and groups we reported on publicly in the report are still live and active,” he told AFP.

‘Mindboggling’

Conservationists and wildlife experts said that was common.

“I have not once received a response or seen any action taken,” said Tom Taylor, chief operating officer of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand.

“Accounts that are openly breaking the law should be closed, and investigations into the criminal activities behind them should be launched.”

Conservationists argue Meta is not only failing to remove content that violates its policies, but may effectively be encouraging it by allowing popular accounts to monetise content through advertising revenue and subscription models.

“This content monetisation that Facebook and Instagram push is actually incentivising people to commit illegal acts,” said Daniel Stiles, an independent wildlife trafficking investigator.

“The more interaction and engagement they get on their account, the more money they can make,” added Stiles, who co-authored the report released today by NGOs including Freeland, Education for Nature Vietnam and International Wildlife Trust.

Meta does not make public which accounts are in its content monetisation programmes.

But those enrolled in its subscription programme are publicly identifiable, and include an account apparently in Laos purporting to show poaching of wildlife including pangolins.

“How Meta can allow that is mindboggling,” said Stiles.

‘Lip service’

Animals and wildlife products are offered across Meta platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, research shows.

But other platforms, including TikTok and Snapchat — popular because of its disappearing post settings — are also increasingly used by traffickers.

AFP reviewed examples offering everything from chimpanzees intended as pets to rhino horn for traditional medicine and pangolins for consumption.

Some of the content is oblique — vendors often post images of animals or parts for sale without any price or explanation. Interested commenters are told to message them directly.

But much of the content is clear, including a public Facebook account offering dead pangolins, monitor lizards and other protected wildlife for consumption in Thailand.

The algorithmic nature of social media platforms means that users who engage with wildlife trafficking accounts are offered up more.

After reviewing just a handful of public accounts advertising illegal wildlife trade, an AFP journalist’s Facebook feed began routinely displaying posts selling wildlife and endangered animal parts.

Meta was among 11 tech firms that announced this month they would work to eliminate wildlife trafficking on their sites.

But the company has been a member of the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online since 2018, and the problem has continued to grow, said Steve Galster, founder of Freeland.

He warned the latest announcement risked being “more lip service”.

“Until Meta is compelled to rid its platforms of illegal wildlife trade, and prove that it is not profiting from it, the online wildlife trade will only get worse.” — AFP

Want OpenAI’s newest AI? You’ll have to wait as White House says GPT-5.6 is for US first

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 09:31:25 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, June 27 — OpenAI on Friday launched a US-only preview of its latest powerful AI model series to a limited group of partners at the request of the US government, the company said.

The release comes two weeks after the White House took Silicon Valley by surprise by ordering OpenAI’s rival Anthropic to ban all foreign nationals from accessing its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, citing national security concerns.

Anthropic swiftly shut down all access to those models, saying it could not reliably comply with the restriction on foreign nationals.

The latest models from leading AI companies, such as Anthropic’s Mythos series and now OpenAI’s GPT-5.6, have drawn major concerns over their reportedly unprecedented ability to identify software vulnerabilities — weaknesses in code that hackers can exploit.

Under pressure over the novelty of their capabilities, Trump earlier this month signed an executive order setting up a voluntary federal review of national security risks in advanced AI models before their release.

The White House has communicated little about how it will enforce its executive order – in which companies are understood to be participating voluntarily – and what models would fall under its review rules.

The intervention was striking for a White House that has otherwise pushed to loosen AI oversight — even moving to block states from writing their own rules.

The strong action against Anthropic has drawn accusations of government overreach, and OpenAI said it was uncomfortable with the process it was required to follow for its new models.

OpenAI said it briefed the US government on its new models’ capabilities ahead of the launch and, at the government’s request, is beginning with a limited preview for a select group of trusted partners whose identities have been shared with authorities.

The partners are US-based, but OpenAI said overseas employees at those companies or entities would also have access to the new models.

“We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI said in a blog post.

“It keeps the best tools from users, developers, enterprises, cyber defenders, and global partners who need them. We are taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks.”

When Anthropic was initially targeted, some believed the safety-focused company was being unfairly singled out by the Trump administration for political reasons.

In an earlier clash with the White House, Anthropic angered Trump’s team by refusing to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, leading the Pentagon to cancel its contracts with the company.

That feud is now being litigated in two separate lawsuits.

Three new models

OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 series comprises three new models: Sol, the company’s new flagship; Terra, a mid-range model for everyday work; and Luna, a fast, low-cost option.

Once broadly available, Terra would be priced at half the cost of its predecessor GPT-5.5, the company said, as it seeks to lock in customers amid fierce competition from Anthropic and Google.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed confidential IPO documents with US regulators and are targeting public listings at valuations approaching US$1 trillion (RM4.08 trillion), raising the commercial stakes of the AI arms race between them. — AFP

Bad news, Apple fans: AI just made MacBooks and iPads a lot pricier

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 17:07:53 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, June 26 — Apple said Thursday it was raising prices for its MacBook computers, iPad tablets and other products, citing spiralling memory and storage costs sparked by the rise of artificial intelligence.

The price hikes — the first concrete change stemming from outgoing CEO Tim Cook’s repeated warnings about rising costs — sent Apple shares plummeting more than 4.7 per cent in morning trade.

On its US website, price increases ranged from US$30 (RM125) to US$300. The 14-inch MacBook Pro, which once sold for US$1,700, now retails for US$2,000, while the iPad Air increased from US$600 to US$750.

The Apple TV streaming device rose from US$130 to US$200.

For now, the price of the iPhone — the company’s main source of revenue — remained unchanged.

“The rapid expansion of AI data centres has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement sent to multiple media outlets.

“We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”

Apple did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant — which notched an all-time revenue record of US$416 billion in the last fiscal year — insisted it had “shielded our customers from these increases so far” but could no longer do so.

Last week, Cook set the stage when he told The Wall Street Journal that price increases were “unavoidable.”

“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” Cook said, deeming the spike in prices a “hundred-year flood.”

The rapid buildout of AI data centres has sent the cost of memory chips and RAM skyrocketing — as the components are found in nearly all electronic devices — with the chips undergoing quarterly price increases of at least 50 per cent since late 2025.

It will fall to John Ternus to handle the fallout at Apple — he will succeed Cook as CEO on September 1, just days before the new generation of iPhones is unveiled. — AFP

Microsoft raises Xbox prices globally, Series X hits US$800 as chip costs soar

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:06:06 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, June 26 — Microsoft said Thursday it will raise the price of its Xbox video game consoles worldwide by US$100 (RM409) to US$150 starting August 1, blaming a component-cost surge fuelled by artificial intelligence.

In the United States, the cheapest Xbox, the Series S, will increase to US$500 this summer, and the Series X will increase to as much as US$800. The company has not yet released prices for Europe, where the Series X currently sells for around €600.

The 2 terabyte model will be discontinued.

This is the third price increase for Xbox after a worldwide hike in May 2025 and a second, limited to the United States, in October.

All consumer electronics are affected by price hikes for tech components: in recent months, Sony and Nintendo have also raised the prices of their game consoles, and Apple announced on Thursday substantial increases for its Macs and iPads.

The accelerated construction of data centers for AI training and applications has sent the cost of memory and storage chips soaring. They are found in virtually all electronic devices.

This market — dominated by giants such as South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix and US-based Micron — has suffered from major shortages for several months, which has driven prices up.

The cost of storage and memory has more than doubled and is expected to double again by late 2027, Microsoft said on Thursday.

The Redmond, Washington–based company also noted that consoles, unlike phones or computers, “are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make.”

Its Japanese rival Sony raised the price of its PlayStation 5 by €100 in Europe in early April, bringing the standard version to €650.

Nintendo has announced an increase of more than 6 per cent as of September 1 for its Switch 2. On Monday, US-based Valve launched its new Steam Machine at over US$1,000 for the base version, more expensive than expected.

The third-largest console maker after Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft had conversely cut the price of its Xbox Game Pass subscription in April, which players considered too expensive.

Microsoft’s gaming division, which accounted for about 8 per cent of its revenue in its fiscal year 2025, underwent a major restructuring in February amid declining revenue, particularly from Xbox sales, and disappointing performance from new games. — AFP

Good boy, aibo: Sony’s beloved robot pup heads for retirement in Japan

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 13:59:24 +0800

TOKYO June 26 — Sony is halting sales of its robotic puppy “aibo” in Japan, the company said, eight years after the latest model of its interactive android pet became an instant hit.

The announcement marks the end of an era for loyal fans of the high-tech toy, which develops its own personality and can perform tricks like waving and mimicking its owner.

The ERS-1000 aibo model – a 30-centimetre (one-foot) long hound with flapping ears, eyes that show emotions, and a nose camera – charmed customers on its launch in 2018, clocking up 20,000 sales in the first six months.

It was also a big comeback for Sony’s robot dog.

The earliest iteration of aibo came out in 1999, followed by numerous different models, from angular silver bots to more cuddly round-faced versions.

More than 150,000 units sold during the period until 2006, when Sony, facing a tough business environment, pulled the plug on the canine gadget, seen as something of a frivolous luxury.

Sony said in a statement Thursday that Japan sales of the current ERS-1000 model will be discontinued once stock runs out.

Services such as access to tech support, replacement parts and subscriptions to online cloud plans to store the robodog’s memories will be maintained, it said.

When asked about plans for a potential new generation of aibo, Sony told AFP that “the aibo business will continue”.

“While we are unable to provide any specific details regarding future product plans at this stage, we will continue to expand our range of new products and services so that aibo remains a partner cherished by its owners and continues to grow alongside them,” it said.

Sony declined to give a total sales figure for the aibo model released in 2018.

But it said that sales will continue in the United States, where aibo retails for more than US$3,000 (RM12,302).

It is not sold in any other countries.

Japanese fans had a vocal reaction to the news.

“I’ve been in a daze ever since I saw the announcement. Until more information comes out, I need to be careful not to mess up my daily life from overthinking,” wrote X user Yachi.

“So it’s over already? It didn’t last until the golden age of physical AI,” Yusuke Ando wrote.

Another X user called Daiyamondo had a suggestion for Sony: “Next time you develop one, could you make it half the size, and cat-shaped?” — AFP

Apple hits delete on Russia’s homegrown social media giant VK

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:03:28 +0800

MOSCOW, June 26 — Apple has removed VKontakte, one of Russia’s largest social networks, from its App Store, the Russian company said on Thursday, with the Kremlin calling for an explanation from the California-based tech giant.

VKontakte (VK) was launched in 2006 as Russia’s answer to Facebook and has since grown to become one of the most popular websites and social media platforms in the country.

“Apple has removed VK apps from the App Store without warning or explanation. VK Group apps are no longer available for download or updates on Apple devices,” VKontakte’s parent company, VK, said in a statement.

“Apple is restricting Russian users’ access to popular services used daily by tens of millions of people, including social networks, messaging apps, video platforms, email, and educational products,” the statement added.

Apple told AFP that it complies with the laws of the jurisdictions where it operates and that it removed VK from the App Store to comply with sanctions.

VK said it had never been subject to US sanctions.

The move follows a similar decision from Apple earlier this month to remove the state-backed Max messenger, developed by VK, from the App Store.

Moscow has for months been pushing Russians to install Max and has throttled WhatsApp and Telegram, the country’s two largest messengers, forcing state entities to move their communications onto Max.

The Kremlin called Apple’s decision to remove VKontakte “bizarre”.

“Our relevant authority will contact the service and demand an explanation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including from AFP.

“Naturally, this raises questions about the service’s reliability and the extent to which it can be trusted as a service provider,” he added.

Russia’s digital development ministry said in a statement that it considered Apple’s move “a politically motivated decision”.

It said it has not “received a reasoned explanation from Apple regarding any sanctions-related requirements” and said “there are no grounds for blocking the VK apps”. — AFP

Anthropic says Alibaba orchestrated largest known attack on its Claude AI models

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:39:41 +0800

NEW YORK, June 25 — US AI company Anthropic accused Alibaba, the Chinese technology and e-commerce giant, of illicitly extracting its Claude AI model capabilities in what it said was the largest known attack of its kind on the company, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The strike by Alibaba is described as a “distillation” effort, which Anthropic has said involves training a less capable model on the outputs of a stronger one.

Anthropic said the campaign was conducted between April 22 and June 5, 2026, and generated more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts.

Anthropic said in the letter that distillation is a way to help accelerate China’s ability to reach Anthropic’s advanced Mythos Preview capabilities.

It said the campaign was conducted by operators affiliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba’s AI lab. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letter, dated June 10, was sent to Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the US Senate Banking Committee, ahead of a scheduled hearing on AI.

In April, the White House accused China of stealing US AI labs’ intellectual property on an industrial scale.

Anthropic said in the letter it was supportive of the US government’s efforts to combat the attacks, including partnering with private sector AI companies through threat-intelligence sharing and other exercises.

Anthropic said in a February posting that it had identified a campaign by Chinese AI startup DeepSeek — whose low-cost AI model sent shockwaves through the technology world in January 2025 — and two other Chinese AI labs to illicitly extract capabilities from its Claude AI platform.

It said DeepSeek’s operation involved over 150,000 exchanges, while Moonshot AI was at a scale of over 3.4 million and MiniMax over 13 million.

It also said at the time that the campaigns were growing in “intensity and sophistication” and that addressing the threat would require “rapid, coordinated action among industry players, policymakers and the global AI community.”

Alibaba was added to the Pentagon’s Chinese military companies list this month, a designation it is challenging.

But the Commerce Department has held off placing DeepSeek on a trade blacklist, as Reuters exclusively reported this month, despite it being deemed a national security risk by an interagency governmental committee, as the department tries to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.

Meanwhile, on June 12, two days after Anthropic sent the letter, the Commerce Department imposed controversial restrictions on Anthropic’s latest Mythos and Fable AI models because officials feared they could be deployed by military intelligence users in China and other countries of concern. The restrictions resulted in Anthropic disabling access to the models globally. — Reuters

Fresh off ‘F1’ success, Apple eyes more movies for cinemas and streaming

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:36:05 +0800

CANNES, June 25 — Apple aims to release “better and more” TV shows and movies on its streaming service and in movie theaters, senior executive Eddy Cue told Reuters as he accepted an entertainment industry honor in France.

The iPhone maker began offering original TV series and films through the Apple TV+ streaming app in 2019. The company found success with Oscar best picture winner CODA, box-office blockbuster F1 and Emmy-winning shows such as The Studio and Ted Lasso.

Cue, who oversees Apple’s media and entertainment businesses, was recognized this week as the 2026 Entertainment Person of the Year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

In an interview with Reuters, Cue said that Apple’s incoming chief executive, John Ternus, “has been a huge supporter and lover of our content” and he expected the company’s commitment to entertainment to continue.

“We want to keep getting better and more,” Cue said. “So that’s what we’re aiming to do. And I know that John would agree with that.”

Writers are working on the script for a planned sequel to F1, Cue said.

The racing drama starring Brad Pitt as a Formula 1 driver hauled in more than US$634 million (RM2.608 billion) at the global box office.

Apple plans to make additional movies for its streaming service and for movie theaters, Cue added. Last year, the company dropped the plus sign and renamed the streaming service Apple TV.

“The types of movies that we’re creating, some of them will go to streaming,” Cue said. “But we know that we’re making movies that are to go to theaters, and we’ll keep doing that.”

“I think it’s very complementary,” he added. “I think going theatrical did not hurt us with F1. People loved it when we brought it out on Apple TV and people loved it in the theater.” — Reuters

Relief over GTA VI's RM331 price tag gives way to debate over missing game discs

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:13:44 +0800

PARIS, June 25 — Gamers were relieved to learn there was only a minimal price increase for Grand Theft Auto VI when preorders launched at midnight on Thursday, but some fans and retailers criticised the decision not to provide a physical disc.

Predicted to be the biggest-selling cultural product of all time, speculation had been rife that GTA VI would cost players far more than a typical high-end title.

In the end, Rockstar and parent company Take-Two Interactive announced a price tag around US$10 (RM41) higher than the base version in the United States, landing at US$80 (RM331), and US$100 (RM414) for an “Ultimate” edition with additional content like weapons and vehicles.

Six years of development for GTA VI are estimated to have cost up to US$2 billion (RM8.28 billion), which had prompted fears it could cost as much as US$100 (RM414).

“If there is one game that can price at US$80 (RM331) without garnering significant player pushback, Grand Theft Auto VI is that game given its massive scale and anticipation,” said Andrew Marok of specialist consultancy Raymond James.

As preorders went live on Thursday, the price in Europe was €80 (RM376) (US$90; RM373).

In Japan, the PlayStation store listed the game at ¥9,800 (US$61; RM253). In New Zealand, it was listed at NZ$140 (US$79; RM327), similar to the price in Australia. In the UK, it was priced at £70 (US$92; RM381).

Preorders have not launched yet in the Americas.

Disc disappointment

Fans of the GTA series, which dates back to 1997 when the very first 2D game was released, have been waiting 13 years for a new instalment since 2013’s GTA V.

The 230 million copies moved made GTA V the second-best-selling game in history after Minecraft.

Finally getting his hands on the game “doesn’t exactly feel like a real thing that would ever happen”, said Red Young, a 26-year-old Scotsman who helps run fan site GTABase. It “is borderline a miracle.”

Anticipation was only stoked by successive delays: first from autumn 2025 to May this year, and next to November.

Some players were nevertheless shocked to learn that physical copies sold at retailers would contain a redeemable download code — likely meaning there will be no disc containing the game data.

There were grumbles on social media that the lack of a physical disc would eliminate any second-hand market for the title.

But these days, around 80 per cent of game sales on PlayStation and 90 per cent on Xbox are digital versions delivered over the internet, according to specialist firm Niko Partners.

Two independent North American retailers, Video Games Plus and Loot Box Gaming, announced on X that they would not sell the game unless a physical disc becomes available.

“The full launch including pre-orders will be the biggest entertainment launch ever ... bigger than any movie, TV series, music concert or album,” said Piers Harding-Rolls of the UK-based data firm Ampere Analysis.

Analysts at the investment bank Piper Sandler expect around 45 million units to have already sold when the game is released.

Courting controversy

That should put GTA VI on track to top the record for the fastest cultural product to make a billion dollars (RM4.14 billion) in sales, set by its predecessor, GTA V, in barely three days.

Although millions of fans have been kept busy with the multiplayer version GTA Online, the anticipation for a true successor has been fierce.

The GTA saga’s action-adventure titles set in a sprawling open world have immersed players in high-definition imaginary cities heavily inspired by American metropolises.

This instalment’s Bonnie and Clyde-style protagonists will roam Vice City, a fictional version of Miami.

Each game offers players a huge degree of freedom to either carry out missions that advance the plot, or simply to explore the world on foot or at the controls of a fleet of vehicles — with the option to explode into guns-blazing criminal mayhem at any time.

Story missions often involve illegal activity ranging from burglary to murder and drug trafficking.

The focus on crime has created long-running controversy around the series, with some critics warning about its impact on young gamers.

All of its titles are rated for players aged 18 and over under Europe’s PEGI classification system. — AFP

‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ gets US$79.99 price tag ahead of November launch

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:01:12 +0800

LOS ANGELES, June 24 — Take-Two Interactive Software today priced Grand Theft Auto VI at US$79.99 (RM330) and stuck to its previously announced November 19 release date, bringing the industry’s most anticipated title closer to launch after multiple delays.

The price makes GTA VI one of the most expensive base versions of a top-tier game, pushing it above the US$69.99 ceiling that blockbusters such as Sony’s Ghost of Yōtei and Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have held for years.

The Ultimate Edition of the game will cost US$99.99 and add exclusive vehicles, weapons and apparel woven into the story of Jason and Lucia, the protagonists of the game, Take-Two said.

Shares of Take-Two rose more than 3 per cent in premarket trading.

Fans have been waiting for GTA VI for over a decade, and analysts expect it to be an instant hit with billions of dollars in sales within days due to the franchise’s popularity and the strong track record of its creator, Rockstar Games.

The previous entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto V, was released in 2013 and has sold around 230 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video games ever.

That makes GTA VI crucial not just for Take-Two but for the wider video-game market, as the franchise typically drives console sales and PC upgrades. Industry watcher Newzoo said last year that the delay in the title’s release weighed on the market’s growth.

Take-Two said earlier this month GTA VI pre-orders will start on June 25. All pre-orders before November 20 include the Vintage Vice City Pack of retro in-game items, with digital buyers also getting a free month of GTA+, a membership that unlocks in-game perks and access to GTA V and other titles.

First unveiled in late 2023 with a trailer that now has nearly 300 million views on YouTube, the game features a “Bonnie and Clyde”-like duo blitzing their way through a fictional version of Miami, Florida, called “Vice City”. — Reuters

China’s LineShine overtakes US rival to become world’s fastest supercomputer

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:39:59 +0800

WASHINGTON, June 24 — A Chinese machine has seized the title of world’s most powerful supercomputer, ending nearly a decade of US dominance and underscoring Beijing’s drive to build advanced computing power with homegrown technology.

The system, called LineShine, topped the closely watched TOP500 ranking unveiled Monday at the major computing ISC conference in Hamburg, Germany.

It is the first time since 2017 that a Chinese supercomputer has led the list, which has been published twice a year since 1993 and serves as an informal scoreboard for the world’s computing superpowers.

LineShine knocked the previous champion, the US Energy Department’s El Capitan, into second place.

Located in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the machine hit a sustained speed of 2.2 “exaflops” — a measure of how many calculations a computer can perform each second.

Crucially, LineShine was built entirely with Chinese-designed processors, rather than the US-made chips that power most of the world’s top systems.

The United States still claims three of the top four spots, with El Capitan, housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, coming in at second place.

Out of Europe, Germany’s JUPITER Booster rounds out the top five. — AFP

YouTube blinks first in landmark teen social media addiction lawsuit

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:29:16 +0800

SAN FRANCISO, June 24 — YouTube reached a confidential settlement with a 15-year-old American who accused the Google-owned platform and other social media networks of harming his mental health, three months after an unprecedented verdict in a similar case.

Google spokesman Jose Castaneda confirmed the deal, saying the company had “built YouTube responsibly” for more than a decade and that its “focus remains on building age-appropriate products and parental controls.”

The agreement includes no admission of liability.

Plaintiff’s attorneys John Morgan and Emily Jeffcott said YouTube’s “decision to resolve this case before having to face a jury speaks for itself,” accusing social media executives of “strategising for years to hook children early” through features like autoplay and infinite scroll.

Instagram owner Meta, TikTok and Snapchat remain defendants in the case — the second of its kind in the United States — which is set to go to trial July 27 in Los Angeles.

The plaintiff, identified by his initials RKC, is a teenager from Florida who claims compulsive social media use contributed to anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts for which he continues to receive treatment.

His case was selected as a bellwether to help resolve thousands of similar lawsuits across the country.

A first bellwether trial concluded in March, when a Los Angeles jury ordered Meta and Google to pay a 20-year-old woman, KGM, US$6 million (RM25 million) — a historic first.

Snap and TikTok had settled before that trial for undisclosed amounts.

Another case in New Mexico found Meta liable for misleading consumers about the safety risks its platforms pose to children.

The jury ordered Meta to pay US$375 million in damages.

In May, Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube reached confidential settlements with a Kentucky school district, averting another landmark trial in Oakland.

In a separate case, more than 30 US states are suing Meta over similar allegations, with a potential trial set for August in Oakland. — AFP

Oscar winner Cate Blanchett wants you to tell AI ‘hands off’

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:36:41 +0800

BRUSSELS, June 24 — Cate Blanchett brought Hollywood starpower to Brussels yesterday as she launched a free tool to give people the right to decide how their image can be used by AI firms.

Blanchett announced the Human Consent Registry was live at the European Parliament also attended by Hollywood directing heavyweight Steven Soderbergh.

The public tool available online will allow anyone to register how they want their identity — name, image, voice, likeness, movement and/or other personal attributes — to be used by artificial intelligence systems.

They will have three options: allowed, allowed with terms, or prohibited.

“Human consent is not an impediment to progress. Human consent does not diminish the struggles and the joys of technological innovation or inhuman creativity,” Blanchett said at the event in the parliament’s library.

She insisted the issue did not just affect public figures like herself, but for anyone who has been photographed “or simply lived some part of their life online”.

The registry has been launched by RSL Media, co-founded by Blanchett, a non-profit organisation focused on ensuring consent in AI use.

RSL Media hopes AI companies will voluntarily consult the registry.

Blanchett has been a staunch proponent of protecting rights in the age of generative artificial intelligence.

She was among over 800 creatives including fellow actor Scarlett Johansson as well as director Guillermo Del Toro, who published an open letter accusing AI giants of “theft” in January this year.

Hosting yesterday’s event was EU lawmaker Eva Maydell who hailed the new tool.

The registry “represents an ambitious attempt to turn the principles into practice and make consent more accessible and feasible, to make rights more transparent, and to make trust more scalable”, Maydell said.

Soderbergh hailed “a template that we think really works for both the companies and the creative community”.

Storytelling

The European Parliament has garnered international attention after the EU became the first in the world to regulate AI so comprehensively.

Maydell had been one of the key EU negotiators of the landmark AI Act.

Top parliament official Sabine Verheyen said the EU needed “robust concept mechanisms so creators retain control over their own image, voice” and more.

Blanchett and Soderbergh weren’t the only Hollywood figures in town to talk AI.

Acclaimed American film-maker Darren Aronofsky told an audience of creatives at the EU parliament in another event hosted by MEP Maydell how his AI studio Primordial Soup was using the technology for storytelling.

Aronofsky felt that, while the models often created “incredible” images, they lacked the “power of emotion and the power of our humanity”.

With that discovery, he said he realised “we need to figure out how to use this incredible technology” and “turn them into storytelling machines”. — AFP

Google launches initiatives to help Malaysian newsrooms navigate AI, changing audience habits

Malay Mail — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:14:15 +0800

PENANG, June 24 — Google has launched two new initiatives aimed at helping Malaysian news organisations adapt to artificial intelligence (AI) and changing audience behaviours as the media industry undergoes rapid digital transformation.

Announced at the National Journalists’ Day (HAWANA) 2026 celebrations, the programmes — Project Sigma 2.0 and Project Berita — are being rolled out in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Majlis Media Malaysia (MMM).

Project Sigma 2.0 builds on a pilot programme launched in 2024 and will support up to 20 small and medium-sized news organisations with tools, frameworks and consultancy support aimed at helping publishers better engage Generation Z audiences.

In a media statement, Google said the initiative was designed to help newsrooms experiment with new formats, platforms and audience engagement strategies as younger Malaysians increasingly consume news differently from previous generations.

Alongside the programme, Google and MMM also introduced Project Berita, which focuses on addressing skills and capacity gaps across the journalism sector as AI becomes more widely adopted in media organisations.

The initiative will provide training for aspiring journalists, working media practitioners and newsroom leaders.

Under the programme, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia will roll out the #AiYOH (AI Literacy Empowerment Workshop) initiative at universities nationwide, while the Malaysian Press Institute will conduct specialised AI and newsroom management training for journalists and senior editors.

Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said the government remained committed to ensuring media practitioners had opportunities to strengthen their understanding of emerging technologies, particularly AI.

He said Project Sigma 2.0 would help equip media professionals with the tools, insights and skills needed to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment while using AI responsibly.

MMM chairman Nallini Pathmanathan said collaboration among publishers, journalists, educators and industry experts was crucial to strengthening public trust and supporting the long-term sustainability of Malaysia’s journalism ecosystem.

Google managing director of News Partnerships for Asia-Pacific Kate Beddoe said the programmes aimed to combine newsroom experimentation, industry expertise and practical training to help journalists and publishers navigate an increasingly AI-powered media landscape.

Further details on Project Sigma 2.0 and Project Berita are expected to be announced at a later date.

Spy agencies warn AI could outpace cyber defences within months

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:30:22 +0800

SYDNEY, June 23 — The most advanced artificial intelligence models are improving quickly enough to outsmart prevailing cybersecurity know-how within months, the Five Eyes spy agency alliance has warned.

The risk posed by AI-enhanced hacking is in the spotlight, after US startup Anthropic said in April that its cutting-edge Mythos models had unprecedented abilities to find software vulnerabilities.

The security agencies of Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand urged governments and businesses to act swiftly to prepare themselves as AI evolves.

“The rapid pace of frontier AI development means cyber risk assumptions can become outdated in months, not years,” said a joint statement dated Monday.

AI “lowers barriers for malicious actors and increases the speed and complexity of attacks”, the Five Eyes advisory said.

“Breaches will occur. Preparedness helps you contain them quickly and prevent escalation into major operational and financial crises.”

To improve cyber defences, organisations should integrate AI tools into their security operations, update old systems and limit access to critical systems among other steps, they said.

Anthropic this month suspended access to Mythos 5 and a restricted version called Fable 5 to comply with a US national security order.

Just days after publicly launching Fable 5, the company said it had received a government directive banning all foreign nationals from accessing the two models.

The intervention is striking for a White House that has otherwise pushed to loosen AI oversight -- even moving to block states from writing their own rules. — AFP

Blame AI: Valve’s new Steam Machine will cost gamers over US$1,000

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:53:39 +0800

NEW YORK, June 23 — Video game heavyweight Valve yesterday launched a new console, dubbed the Steam Machine, that will set gamers back more than one thousand US dollars due to chip prices inflated by the global AI race.

The US company behind the popular Steam game marketplace and subscription platform — the namesake of the new console — attempted a similar launch in 2015, but abandoned the project in 2018 after it had tepid sales.

But the successful launch of the handheld Steam Deck console in 2022, which the company says sold millions of units, gave new impetus to a Steam Machine stand-alone device.

The Steam Machine is not quite a traditional console in the vein of an Xbox or a PlayStation, but rather a PC tailor-made for high-end gaming, and can function as a traditional computer when not used for gaming.

Valve — the company behind famous video game titles like Counter-Strike, Half-Life, and Left 4 Dead — says Steam Machine units will start shipping on June 29.

But the exploding cost of memory chips — also used in the massive, global AI data centre boom — will see the entry-level version of the console priced at US$1,049 (RM4,500).

Prices for memory chips have more than tripled over the last year or so.

The current iterations of Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox are priced at US$599, though they were released more than five years ago.

“The prices we’re sharing today reflect the state of the world for manufacturing; or, more accurately, it reflects the price of the components as we’ve secured them over the past 6 months,” the company said in a statement.

It added that high demand for the chips has created a shortage, which “has impacted the number of units we’ve been able to produce for launch.” — AFP

Even Wikipedia doesn’t trust AI to edit Wikipedia

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:39:36 +0800

LONDON, June 23 — Wikipedia does not trust artificial intelligence enough to let it play a direct role in editing articles on its platform, cofounder Jimmy Wales told AFP yesterday.

The problem of AI “hallucinations” — in which fabricated output is confidently presented — has been reduced with newer AI models but remains “very, very bad”, Wales said on the sidelines of a climate action week event in London.

He added, however, that AI agents could prove useful in alerting Wikipedia’s community of millions of editors to certain niche news that would otherwise be missed.

“We would not let it edit directly because you can’t really trust it enough,” he said.

Artificial intelligence platforms, meanwhile, rely on Wikipedia’s content to answer users’ questions.

That has contributed to an overall growth in visitors to the site from AI bots, while human traffic has dropped eight per cent.

Wales, who sits on the board of trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, described the fall in human traffic as “meaningful” but “not a disaster,” for the online encyclopaedia, which ranks among the 10 most visited websites in the world.

The site, created in 2001, depends on donations from users so its business model does not directly rely on traffic.

Wales encouraged AI companies to “pay their fair share”, because “hammering us with millions of requests costs real money,” in the cost of running servers.

Wikipedia has already been “very successful” in signing agreements with several tech giants, the founder said.

“We’re starting to block the ones who aren’t behaving themselves, but we’ll see how that goes.” — AFP

This viral South Korean app lets you order food that never arrives — and that’s the whole point

Malay Mail — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 10:29:01 +0800

SEOUL, June 22 — If you’ve ever spent 20 minutes scrolling through a food delivery app only to close it without ordering, South Korea’s latest viral app may have been made for you.

Called FoodNeverComes, the app looks and behaves just like any other takeaway platform. Users can browse restaurant menus, customise their orders, enter a delivery address, choose a payment method and even track a courier on the map.

The twist? Nothing is ever cooked, paid for or delivered.

According to Fast Company, the unusual app is part of a growing wave of South Korean “dopamine sites” — digital platforms designed to recreate the thrill of shopping without spending a single cent.

It sounds absurd at first glance, but the idea is rooted in psychology. Dopamine, the brain chemical linked to pleasure and motivation, is often released while anticipating a reward rather than when the reward actually arrives. In theory, simply pressing the “buy” button can satisfy the craving, even if no purchase is ever completed.

The app was created by a South Korean developer known as Malhee, who said the idea came during “one of those nights when I kept opening and closing delivery apps.”

“I started it as a joke at first, but surprisingly, just satisfying that urge to ‘order something’ made it weirdly fulfilling without actually ordering,” Malhee said to Fast Company.

The developer said the app was inspired by a habit many people have developed — opening food delivery apps not because they’re hungry, but simply out of boredom.

“Everyone’s like that these days, right? Not because you’re hungry, but out of habit, boredom, your hand just opens the delivery app first. This app’s made to break that pattern, just once,” Malhee added.

“Anyone who wants to quit delivery apps but can’t, who’s on a diet but keeps reaching for the app, or just wants to check out a quirky app — you’re all welcome.”

The internet, however, has been split over whether the concept is ingenious or just plain depressing.

As screenshots of FoodNeverComes spread across social media over the weekend, many users questioned what the trend says about modern life.

“The world is such a depressing place, man,” one viral post read.

Another quipped that it was “window shopping for people who can’t touch grass.”

Yet not everyone dismissed the idea.

On Reddit, members of a shopping addiction community debated whether apps like FoodNeverComes could actually help curb compulsive spending.

One user compared it to drinking non-alcoholic beer while recovering from alcohol addiction.

“Scratches the itch, especially in the beginning,” they wrote. “You end up moving on from it, but it can be a really helpful stepping stone.”

Others weren’t convinced.

“This would not work for me,” another user wrote. “It would just piss me off knowing nothing is actually coming.”

Perhaps the most memorable description came from one commenter, who likened the experience to “playing pretend for adults.”

“We’re basically experiencing play shopping like a child again,” they wrote.

The wait is almost over: Five things to know before ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ arrives

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 14:45:44 +0800

WASHINGTON, June 21 — Pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI, one of the most anticipated entertainment releases in years, will open on June 25, developer Rockstar Games said Thursday, the latest milestone in the rollout of a title widely expected to be the biggest game of the decade.

The announcement, which came alongside the reveal of the game’s official cover art, follows years of feverish anticipation and speculation among fans.

GTA VI is set to launch November 19 after two delays, capping a wait of more than 13 years since the previous instalment.

Here are five things to know about GTA:

Trailblazer

The first two games in the series, which debuted in 1997, offered a top-down view of the action as players took on the role of a criminal on missions around cities.

But GTA III set the standard in 2001 for what games could be like, offering a combination of a three-dimensional open world, advanced graphics and gameplay that won widespread critical acclaim and legions of fans.

Each new GTA title since then has been hailed by both industry analysts and gamers for pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the medium.

Cash cow

And they have all been bestsellers, bringing in billions of dollars for Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company.

Despite not releasing a flagship GTA game for more than a decade, the series has remained a cash cow, especially thanks to its multiplayer online version, where users can spend money on in-game items.

The last game in the franchise, GTA V, was released in 2013 and reached US$1 billion (RM4 billion) in retail sales “faster than any entertainment release in history,” Take-Two has said.

GTA V has sold around 230 million copies, according to the company’s most recent figures, making it the second best-selling game of all time, behind Minecraft.

The entire GTA franchise has sold a mammoth 470 million units, according to Take-Two.

Magnet for controversy

With the wild success came a wave of controversies. Critics have from the start accused the series of glorifying violence and encouraging players to engage in criminal behavior — allegations Take-Two executives have denied.

GTA games have also faced strong criticism for misogynistic portrayals of women, caricatures of ethnic minorities and depictions of torture.

Despite being praised for their often-biting cultural satire, the level of violence in the games has at times led to bans and restrictions in some countries.

Target Australia stopped selling GTA V in 2014, citing customer concerns. GTA games also carry a content rating for mature audiences only. Take-Two executives have said customers should be free to choose what games they buy.

A cultural institution

GTA has become a cultural institution despite the criticism, with its content spawning countless online memes and fans around the world referencing its scenes and dialogue.

Its growing influence has attracted some of the biggest names in entertainment to its cast. Tommy Vercetti, the main character in 2002’s GTA: Vice City, was voiced by Hollywood star Ray Liotta.

Other cameos in the series include Samuel L. Jackson, Burt Reynolds, musician Phil Collins and comedian Ricky Gervais. A 2021 expansion for GTA V was centred on hip-hop superstar Dr Dre.

The next chapter

Fans have been growing restless for years following the unprecedented success of GTA V as they wait for the next chapter.

Rockstar confirmed the game was in development in 2022, and that September hackers stole and leaked gameplay footage in one of the biggest breaches in gaming history. The studio formally revealed GTA VI in December 2023.

The new game is set in Leonida, a fictionalised version of Florida that includes a return to the Miami-inspired Vice City. It follows a criminal couple, Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos — with Lucia becoming the first female protagonist in the series’ main line.

Originally targeted for late 2025, GTA VI was pushed back twice before settling on its November 19 release date on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.

Rockstar has not disclosed pricing, which it said would come with pre-orders. Take-Two predicts that the release will deliver record sales and analysts have described it as potentially the biggest entertainment release ever. — AFP

Ubisoft co-founder Claude Guillemot dies in plane crash in France

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 10:42:58 +0800

PARIS, June 21 — Two people were killed when a plane crashed in western France, including a co-founder of video game giant Ubisoft, German Press Agency (dpa) reported, citing authorities and the company yesterday.

The twin-motor plane crashed into a field near the town of La Baule on Friday evening while approaching the local airfield, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

Ubisoft said it had learned “with great sadness” of the death of co-founder Claude Guillemot. The French company is known for blockbuster global franchises including Assassin’s Creed.

The aircraft had taken off from Rennes, where Guillemot lived. Prosecutors said he owned the plane, but stopped short of officially identifying him as one of the victims.

An investigation has been opened on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter. The exact circumstances and cause of the crash have not yet been determined.

Guillemot, 69, co-founded Ubisoft with his brothers in 1986. More recently, he served as head of the Guillemot Corporation, which sells computer gaming accessories and related products.

French junior minister for artificial intelligence and digital affairs Anne Le Hénanff paid tribute to Guillemot on X, writing that the French video game industry had lost “one of its pioneers.” — Bernama-dpa

Europe’s robot race is on, and China is the rival to beat

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 15:35:10 +0800

PARIS, June 20 — Humanoid robots able to perform tasks from grape harvesting to welcoming visitors were front and centre at France’s Vivatech trade fair this week, with European firms looking to fill niches beyond what dominant Chinese giants can offer.

French company Enchanted Tools was showing off its Mirokai, a “social” robot with long orange ears and wide blue eyes.

Able to communicate in over 50 languages, prototypes of the Paris-based firm’s machine are already out in the wild welcoming people to hospitals and airports, marketing chief Richard Malterre said on a Vivatech stage.

The start-up hopes its first mass-produced models will arrive by the end of this year.

“At least 60 per cent of the robot is manufactured in Europe, and we’re fighting to keep it that way,” Malterre told AFP.

But some of the AI robotics know-how is “not necessarily available” in Europe, he said, such as the graphics processors from American chip giant Nvidia that power Mirokai’s brain as well as the broader generative AI boom.

‘Dark factories’

When it comes to sheer robotics production capacity, China is unrivalled thanks to companies including Unitree and Agibot.

Their androids’ tightly choreographed displays wowed visitors to Vivatech, the latest fair to show them off in recent months.

Around 87 per cent of the 13,000 humanoid robots deployed worldwide in 2025 rolled off a Chinese production line, according to the UK-based consultancy Omdia.

“China is definitely on the forefront” as its companies increasingly show off “dark factories” where robots work largely without human supervision, said Joern Buss, a robotics expert at the consultancy Arthur D. Little.

Nevertheless, Europe is “catching up” behind Japan and Korea, he added, boasting “some good robotics players” including longstanding firms.

New players on the European scene include Germany’s Neura, which builds humanoid industrial and household robots as well as a platform for training them to carry out human tasks.

The company recently announced it had raised US$1.4 billion (RM5.8 billion).

“We get requests for everything, even dentists, everyone is calling us and asking if they can have a robot as a supporter, because they can’t find people,” chief executive David Reger told AFP.

Like other advanced economies around the world, Europe faces an ageing population that could squeeze the labour supply in both manufacturing and services.

Reger called robots like Neura’s the continent’s “last chance”, saying “Europe does require this economic pillar to sustain” itself.

He cited familiar challenges for European tech firms including tight regulation and a tougher search for financing than competitors in the United States.

But Reger has no plans to uproot Neura’s business, which is collaborating with German car component suppliers Bosch and Schaeffler on factory automation.

He vaunts Neura’s order book of over US$1 billion.

Data protection

“If all robot production goes to Japan or China, that could be a big problem when it comes to sovereignty,” said Francesco Ferro, chief executive of Spain’s PAL Robotics.

His company was at Vivatech showing off its latest models bolted together in Barcelona.

One is a black biped that has been dubbed Kangaroo, while the Tiago machine is fitted with jointed arms that have been put to use in logistics as well as picking grape harvests.

Robotics developers use vast quantities of data to train their machines’ movements, and they collect still more information as they carry out their tasks.

The continent should aim to create “a totally European supply chain, without thinking only about price”, as that could lead prospective clients to buy Chinese robots, Ferro said.

That would risk seeing valuable or sensitive data “falling into the wrong hands”, he warned.

French-American start-up Genesis AI plans to re-shore production of its Eno multifunctional robot next year after making it in China.

Prospective customers include “the big industrial base in France, Italy and Germany,” co-founder Theophile Gervet told AFP.

Enchanted Tools’ Malterre also believes the demand exists, and “I’m confident in our ability and creativity to endure”.

“We need to be ready for a fight, not throw in the towel.” — AFP

The feed has replaced the front page: Report says AI, TikTok and creators are changing how we get news

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 14:30:00 +0800

KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 — Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, short-form video, and independent content creators are rapidly transforming how people consume news worldwide, posing new challenges to traditional media organisations struggling to retain audiences, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026.

The latest report, based on nearly 100,000 interviews with online news consumers across 48 markets, found audiences are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools, video platforms, and personality-driven content for news, accelerating a shift away from traditional news publishers.

It reported a growing use of AI chatbots as one of the most significant developments in digital news consumption, with users beginning to rely on conversational AI to summarise, explain and personalise news content instead of visiting news websites directly.

“The use of AI chatbots for news is growing quickly but not as quickly as AI use for other purposes: 10 per cent of people use AI chatbots for news, up from seven per cent last year.

“Usage is predominantly by those most interested in news and is more concentrated among younger audiences (16 per cent of under-35s report using AI chatbots for news),” according to the report released by Reuters Institute this week.

The research also found the continued rise of news video, particularly among younger audiences, as social media platforms increasingly become the primary gateway to news consumption.

Alongside this trend is the growing influence of independent news creators and influencers who are attracting audiences through personality-led content that many users perceive as more relatable and authentic than institutional journalism.

“Around a quarter (27 per cent) of respondents globally get some news from news-focused individual creators or influencers, and almost half (46 per cent) get some news from creators of any type.

“Respondents say creators are more entertaining, easier to understand, and more relatable than traditional news outlets. On average, people think creators are less trustworthy and less impartial compared to other attributes such as authenticity and relatability,” it said.

It noted that since the pandemic, growth in the use of third-party platforms has been concentrated among platforms which are video-led rather than text-based.

The first wave of social media growth hit newspapers hardest. Now the second wave is affecting news organisations’ TV and video interests.

It said that while Facebook remains the biggest platform overall for news consumption, TikTok and Instagram have been identified as the fastest growing video-led networks in driving much of the change alongside YouTube.

The report also found interest in news, together with trust in news, are falling.

Since 2021, the proportion of people saying they are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ interested in the news has fallen by an average of 13 per cent across the markets surveyed, while a quarter said they are now casual or passive news users who typically only consume news once a week and say they have little to no interest in it, up from 16 per cent in 2021.

“Trust in news has fallen in 29 of our 48 markets this year, resulting in a drop overall to the lowest level we have recorded since we started to measure trust in 2015 (37 per cent).

“Some of this worldwide drop in trust reflects wider anxieties beyond the news industry — trust in institutions and leaders is widely declining, and journalism is also often under direct attack from high-profile politicians,” the report added.

It claimed that this reduction in trust is related to changes in the news consumption mix.

Social media and video networks have long been trusted less than traditional news media, so trust overall is prone to go down as more people’s consumption tends towards using social media and video networks (and AI chatbots) for news at the expense of legacy sources.

“We can probably expect trust in news overall to fall further in future, but trust for many established news providers appears to be defying this trend.

Concerns about fake news are also up, by four per cent to 62 per cent on average, with jumps of more than five per cent in 11 markets.

The findings also suggest traditional news organisations are facing mounting pressure to retain audiences.

“2026 represents a significant milestone: for the first time, social media and video network consumption is now ahead of other news sources as the most widely used source of news globally (54 per cent of all audiences),” the report said.

The use of both TV news and news organisations’ websites and apps has fallen by 13 per cent and 12 per cent respectively since 2020.

“The relative decline of television as a source of news is well recognised across the industry. What is perhaps less well acknowledged is that people’s use of news websites and apps has declined at a similar rate in recent years,” the report said.

The continued drift away from traditional sources of news can lead news organisations to battle for a share of attention in the places where audience intent and loyalty are lowest, and the prospects for monetisation are most challenging.

Many publishers are starting to reflect on what their social media strategy is actually yielding, while at the same time focusing on how to maximise the engagement and value of the smaller but more loyal audience which continues to read, watch, and listen to news organisations’ own outlets, it added. — Bernama

Meet Alter-Ego: The eyebrow-raising robot helping Milan doctors spend more time being human

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 13:52:23 +0800

MILAN, June 20 — A robot with expressive eyebrows that is designed to perform basic tasks to free up healthcare workers is being given a trial run by a hospital in Milan.

Named “Alter-Ego”, the 1.2m tall robot can stand in for a doctor working remotely, bring a patient a bottle of water or guide them to treatment.

Daniel Senna, a 31-year-old patient at the Maugeri Hospital, transmits his pain level on a screen attached to the robot’s chest.

“Hi Dani. How are you? Do you need anything?” Ego asks wheelchair-bound Senna, as the data collected is sent instantly to the ward’s nurses.

The robot has been undergoing testing since April in a department which treats people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease.

“At first, we were afraid the patient might have a negative reaction,” Christian Lunetta, director of the hospital’s neuromotor rehabilitation department, told AFP.

But they soon were “very satisfied, because the robot was designed to spark curiosity and its movements, or at least its functions, suggest a wide range of potential uses”.

Ease burden

The project is a collaboration between the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Pisa in northern Italy and is currently being remotely controlled by an operator.

From July, the robot will work autonomously.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly accelerated progress in robotics but robots still need a great deal of training to operate independently.

The aim with the Milan experiment is to work with patients and caregivers to better understand the limits of what a robot can or should do in a hospital ward, said Manuel Catalano from the Italian Institute of Technology.

“Alter-Ego” could also eventually assist patients and their caregivers at home, he said.

Lunetta pointed out that hospitals “have repetitive tasks” which “could be delegated to a good robot”.

“This would also allow us to better value human beings, giving them the time to focus on the human relationship they must maintain with the patient,” he said.

Nurses monitor patients while handing out medicine, picking up signals about physical or mental health.

“Alter-Ego” may seem capable but “no-one has considered directly delegating the administration of pills” to it, neurologist Rachele Piras said.

It can be helpful in other ways though, “as the (neurodegenerative) disease progresses”, she said.

Patients could find it liberating to be able to directly ask the robot for things, while doing so would also reduce the tasks of a caregiver, allowing him or her to “revert to simply being a companion, mother or daughter”. — AFP

Explained: The AI scam using fake Down syndrome creators to drive sales

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:52:22 +0800

MONTREAL, June 19 — Videos appearing to show people with Down syndrome and urging users to buy from their struggling businesses pull in millions of views, but many of them are AI-generated fakes.

The crush of posts hawking resin lamps, crochet handbags and clay bowls fits into a wider pattern of AI-generated clips that seek to score sales by stirring empathy for people who have disabilities or are otherwise perceived as disadvantaged, such as Black people or the elderly.

Advocates and researchers say this practice perpetuates negative stereotypes and harms the lives and business of real people.

Across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, the AI characters claim they are being bullied for selling crafts against a backdrop of insults using disparaging language about people with disabilities.

Nathan Rowe, programme director at Down Syndrome International, told AFP the videos play into the stereotype that people with the genetic condition caused by an extra chromosome need to be pitied.

“They’re preying on people who have maybe a bit sympathetic, slightly paternalistic view of Down syndrome,” he said.

The accounts link to suspicious online storefronts, including one touting multiple “five-star reviews” which all feature the same filler text.

AFP found some of the pottery products first appeared in content from real creators, before being appropriated. One crochet bag design may not be handmade, appearing for sale on Shein, a popular site for dropshippers, who are online retailers operating storefronts without keeping physical inventory.

The videos “crowd-out” posts from actual entrepreneurs with Down syndrome, potentially siphoning away business, Rowe said.

“There’s lots of really talented people with Down syndrome out there who are making things, but it kind of reinforces the narrative that people with Down syndrome can’t and it must be AI,” he said.

Ongoing trend

This is not the first trend of its type, appropriating disadvantaged people for attention or profit online.

Down Syndrome International complained to Meta about sexualized deep-fakes of people with Down syndrome and this resulted in the removal of many videos. But Rowe said social media companies should be more proactive in preventing this kind of content from spreading.

AFP reached out to Meta about the new product-promoting trend but did not receive a response. According to TikTok’s community guidelines, the platform bans accounts engaging in deceptive or manipulative activity or discrimination. YouTube has similar policies about misleading spam.

While many of the videos AFP examined are no longer live, other accounts are still sharing the AI-generated clips redirecting users to products.

“The people behind the scenes are probably motivated by profit and have no regard for the damage they do in the process,” Rowe said.

Simple to generate

Jeremy Carrasco, co-founder of the AI research firm Riddance, said the number of accounts pushing this type of content indicates that the videos are working as a profit-making scheme.

“There’s a lot of system-wide failures that are compounding to make this worse,” he said, pointing out that the videos are exceedingly easy to create and difficult to keep track of.

“It’s why these have exploded to the degree that they have.”

He said there were countless videos featuring the AI-generated figures with Down syndrome and said the same accounts had been trying to sell identical products using elderly synthetic characters.

AFP previously investigated a multilingual trend of videos stealing seniors’ identities to bait users into sympathetic purchases of slippers and dog collars.

“It feels like we’re hitting kind of the bottom of what is permissible, and if they keep going further, I think something’s going to happen,” Carrasco said. — AFP

The ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ grind officially begins as pre-orders open June 25 (VIDEO)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:41:50 +0800

WASHINGTON, June 19 — Pre-sales of Grand Theft Auto VI, the feverishly anticipated video game release, will begin on June 25, Rockstar Games said yesterday.

GTA VI, due to be released on November 19 after two delays, is the latest entry in the blockbuster franchise and is set to arrive more than 13 years after GTA V, the second best-selling video game in history.

Rockstar Games, owned by New York-based Take-Two Interactive, announced the date in a post on X, saying pre-orders would begin across digital platforms and at select retailers.

Rockstar also released the game’s official cover art but did not disclose pricing.

Analysts believe the game will be available at a base price of US$80 (RM330), based on recent comments from Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick and industry reports.

Some analysts and online rumours had speculated the figure could climb toward US$100 and reset industry norms.

As popular as it is notorious for its sexual and violent content, the franchise has allowed players to roleplay as criminals doing dirty deeds across sprawling cityscapes since its first entry in 1997.

The newest game was originally due to be released in 2025, with a trailer having shown that it would be set in Miami-like Vice City and would feature a playable female protagonist for the first time.

Critics have from the start accused Grand Theft Auto of glorifying violence and encouraging players to engage in criminal behaviour — allegations rejected by Take-Two Interactive.

GTA players sell drugs, fight, rob, go on car rampages and more. Gameplay options also include assaulting sex workers and visiting strip clubs, raising the ire of activists.

Asked about the soaring expectations, Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick recently called the situation “very, very exciting and terrifying because the expectations are so high.”

The new game returns to Vice City and follows a criminal couple, Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos.

The release’s 2013 predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V, reached US$1 billion in sales within three days — at the time the fastest any entertainment release had hit that mark.

It has since sold more than 230 million copies, trailing only Minecraft among the best-selling games ever and its online version has remained a steady earner for more than a decade.

The game’s development has not been without turbulence.

A 2022 breach saw unfinished footage leaked online in one of the largest such incidents in gaming history, and Rockstar’s firing of dozens of employees last year drew accusations of union-busting from labour organisers. — AFP

Inside the clash that led India to block Telegram over alleged exam paper leaks

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:14:36 +0800

NEW DELHI, June 18 — India privately rebuked Telegram for not proactively removing accounts offering purported leaked exam papers while the company accused New Delhi of misrepresenting meeting records, an impasse that led to an unprecedented ban of the app, documents show.

Telegram has challenged the ban by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in the Delhi High Court. The government invoked emergency powers to block Telegram in the country until June 22 amid concerns the platform was being abused to defraud candidates for NEET, a prestigious national entrance test for medical colleges.

The exam results were cancelled in May on suspicion that question papers were leaked, and the test been rescheduled for June 21.

Telegram, which has 150 million users in India, its biggest market, has said in its court papers the ban undermines constitutional protections and free speech rights. The fight marks the latest tussle between a tech company and Modi after the government fought Elon Musk’s X last year in court over the company’s strict restrictions on taking down content.

Documents seen by Reuters show the June 16 Telegram ban order followed two weeks of back-and-forth exchanges and meetings between India’s IT ministry and company officials, with New Delhi accusing Telegram of “inaction” on channels like “NEET PAPER LEAKED” and “Paper Leaked NEET” which it said clearly indicated their suspicious nature. Some demanded money by claiming they could provide the “full (exam) paper”.

Telegram retorted in subsequent e-mails, saying it was “surprised at the suggestion that it has been inactive in addressing unlawful content” and it does not permit the use of its services for any such activity.

India’s IT ministry and Telegram did not respond to Reuters queries.

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in India with over 500 million users, but Telegram has a unique attraction. Its groups can hold up to 200,000 members - far beyond WhatsApp’s cap of 1,024, and it allows users to interact without exposing a phone number.

Those features have also made it a favoured platform for fraud and other illicit trade, critics say, though Telegram denies these allegations and says it acts promptly against rogue elements.

Telegram expressing frustration

The Indian government says the issue of purported frauds linked to the NEET exam is “most pronounced on Telegram”.

The undergraduate medical entrance exam at the centre of the dispute is taken by more than 2 million students, and the cancellation of the results caused a political storm, including demands for the resignation of the country’s education minister.

Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov has said the Indian government’s ban “is a mistake” which punishes its users while leaks can just move to other apps.

It has also taken a dig at the move without referring to India.

“Over 300,000 people die of drowning each year. In order to protect society, it is now illegal to consume or possess water,” Telegram said in one post on its X account.

Fight over meeting record

Behind closed doors, tensions rose between Telegram and Indian officials after a June 3 meeting, with the company saying in an e-mail to Indian officials that minutes of the meeting did not accurately capture their discussions.

The government records said Telegram stated in the meeting it had limitations in proactively detecting “more subjective” content linked to exams, instead of “objective issues” like child sexual material and pornography.

Telegram rebutted, writing in a June 5 e-mail that it was not that it didn’t have proactive measures for such content, but it was only that they require more moderation.

In its court petition against the ban, the messaging app has taken stronger objection to the government’s minutes, calling them a “one-sided and inaccurate account of the discussions” that “deliberately” omitted details of the company’s proactive processes.

The government is yet respond to those allegations in court. — Reuters

OpenAI chief Sam Altman tells G7 to ‘not cede responsibilities’ to AI giants

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 09:23:42 +0800

EVIAN, June 18 — OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman urged world leaders at the G7 summit yesterday not to surrender control over artificial intelligence to the companies building it, calling on governments to set global standards for deploying the rapidly advancing technology.

“Do not cede your responsibilities to AI labs like mine,” Altman told leaders and tech executives during a session of the summit in the French Alpine resort of Evian-les-Bains, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the company.

The appeal from the head of one of the world’s most valuable AI firms effectively asked democratic governments to keep the most consequential choices about the technology out of corporate hands — including his own.

“We develop the technology, and the citizens of the free world make the rules,” Altman said. “Technologists have special knowledge about AI, but they don’t have any special wisdom about humanity.”

Altman told leaders that the question of whether AI is useful “has been settled” and that within a year or two he expects systems of “astonishing power” capable of reshaping human life on a scale unmatched “since the harnessing of electricity”.

His remarks came at a time when the United States and Europe disagree about how tightly AI should be controlled.

The European Union — including G7 members France, Germany and Italy — has passed strict rules that sort AI systems by how risky they are and place tough requirements on ones that could cause the most harm.

The United States, under President Donald Trump, has moved in the opposite direction, rolling back rules in hopes of speeding up new ideas and staying ahead of rivals like China.

Yet the Trump administration has also temporarily banned foreigners from accessing the most powerful AI models made by US giant Anthropic, citing national security concerns and fuelling fears that the United States will tightly control access to the crucial technology.

Altman stressed that OpenAI, as “an American company”, would be governed by US law but said it recognised “the sovereignty of the democratic nations in this room”.

The remarks came on the final day of the three-day G7 summit hosted by France, which gathered leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States, along with invited guests including Brazil, India and Kenya. — AFP

After X comes W — at least, that’s Europe’s bet

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 09:03:38 +0800

BRUSSELS, June 18 — As Europe pushes for more tech sovereignty, social network W believes it has the X-factor to win users away from other platforms: it’s European.

The competitor to Elon Musk’s X platform was announced in January but it will be available to the public initially by invitation in the coming days and weeks.

At a launch event in Brussels, the company touted that top officials including EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde as well as EU institutions and media groups were using W.

Based in Sweden, the company has dozens of investors including entrepreneurs and executives from across Europe including Britain, France and Switzerland.

The tech team is based in Ukraine, CEO Anna Zeiter said.

Zeiter said the company wanted to create a space where humans interacted more with each other than AI bots, and under European control.

“Social media are coming from other countries outside of Europe. We are giving away the revenue. We are giving away our data. We are giving away our attention,” she said.

W is not the only fledgling network seeking to capitalise on rising transatlantic tensions under US President Donald Trump since his return last year.

There are also Bulle (French for “bubble”), Eurosky, Monnett — a hybrid of TikTok and Instagram, planned for release in July — and eYou.

The most popular social networks in Europe are Meta’s Facebook and Instagram with 259 million monthly users, Chinese-owned TikTok with 135.9 million monthly and X with approximately 115.1 million users, according to the EU. — AFP

Microsoft introduces pay-as-you-go pricing for new Copilot AI agent

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:03:36 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 — Microsoft is changing how it charges for its software for the first time in two decades, moving to bill customers with a pay-as-you-go model each time they use its new AI agent.

The change, prompted by the soaring cost of artificial intelligence, came yesterday as the company launched Copilot Cowork — an AI “agent” that can independently carry out office tasks like drafting documents, building spreadsheets and sending emails.

The tool still requires a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, but now every task it runs is billed separately, based on how much computing power it consumes.

Copilot Cowork is Microsoft’s take on so-called “agentic” AI, a wave that has gripped Silicon Valley and turned the simple chatbot into an assistant capable of acting on a user’s behalf.

Like rival tools on Google’s and Amazon’s enterprise platforms, it can be handed an assignment and run with it on its own, sometimes for several hours.

Microsoft says one customer used it to compare nearly 4,000 documents in a matter of hours, and that the assistant can prepare complex meetings by synthesizing emails, internal documentation and calendars.

The reason for the new pricing comes down to cost: running these AI systems demands vastly more computing power than a search engine or a chatbot, and usage can vary widely from one user to the next.

The new plan will be “like you’re filling up your gas tank at the pump,” Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s executive vice president for Copilot and agents, told AFP.

Under the old system “there’s not one overarching user license that makes sense,” he said, given that different users consume widely varying levels of computing power.

The turn is a notable one for Microsoft, whose office software has relied for some two decades on fixed, predictable subscription fees.

“This is a big evolution for us ... which has been a user subscription-based business for so long, for really like two decades,” Lamanna acknowledged, calling the new approach “the only way to make the model work.”

To guard against runaway bills, the service is disabled by default, and companies can cap spending per employee, per team or per department.

Microsoft is not alone in taking this route. Its programming subsidiary GitHub moved to usage-based billing in early June, sparking anger among developers, some of whom saw their bills shoot up.

Anthropic, one of the United States’ AI flagships, announced in early June that its newest cutting-edge models would soon be billed by usage rather than included in subscriptions, even premium ones.

Another way to ease the bill: users will be able to choose which model is used, more or less powerful and therefore more or less expensive.

At general availability, Copilot Cowork runs on Anthropic models, including Opus 4.8 and Sonnet 4.6, while customers on the “Frontier” tier can use the state-of-the-art GPT 5.5.

A “significantly cheaper” model, named Cowork 1, is coming soon for everyday tasks. — AFP

Snap drops RM9,000 AR glasses for the post-iPhone era

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:56:04 +0800

SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 — Snap, the parent company of social network Snapchat, yesterday launched its Specs augmented reality glasses, a major bet by a struggling company to stake out ground in the post-smartphone era.

Unveiled at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California, the Specs are the first standalone augmented reality glasses aimed at the general public, according to the company.

They will go on sale in the fall in the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and can be reserved starting Tuesday for US$2,195 (RM9,000).

Snap is targeting a middle ground: glasses more sophisticated than the models offered by Meta and soon Google, which CEO Evan Spiegel sees more as a “phone accessory,” and less bulky and costly than headsets, which he called “very capable and immersive, but ... cumbersome to wear and shut you out of the world.”

“Ultimately we believe that unless we can bring computing into the world where we live ... it’s going to be very, very hard to make it feel more human,” Spiegel told AFP.

The difference is in how they work: glasses like Meta’s Ray-Ban Display or a planned Google device simply project a flat screen in front of the wearer’s eye.

“So it feels like you have a tiny little phone screen stuck to your eye everywhere you look,” Spiegel said.

Specs, by contrast, map the surrounding world and project three-dimensional digital objects that interact with the real world seen through the lenses.

Snap is touting a price lower than that of mixed-reality headsets such as Apple’s Vision Pro, which launched at US$3,499 and whose maker has since halted development for lack of sales.

“By being able to offer Specs at US$2,195, we’re able to take this really, really advanced technology and try to put it in as many people’s hands as possible,” Spiegel said.

The market remains embryonic.

Meta dominates with its Ray-Ban glasses, more than seven million of which have been sold, but its dedicated division is losing billions of dollars.

Google has announced connected glasses for the fall, and Samsung has been selling a headset running Google’s Android XR system since October.

Asked by AFP, Spiegel disclosed no profit margins, production volumes or sales target, saying he measures the success of the Specs by developers’ creativity rather than by financial indicators.

The launch comes as Snap, which has been in the red since its 2017 stock market debut, cut 16 per cent of its workforce in April, or about 1,000 jobs.

The group claimed nearly 956 million monthly users for Snapchat in the first quarter.

The product unveiled yesterday is the one that activist fund Irenic Capital Management, a Snap shareholder, has demanded be shut down or sold off, denouncing an operation it says has absorbed more than US$3.5 billion. — AFP

India just hit pause on Telegram ahead of a high-stakes medical exam retest

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:22:33 +0800

NEW DELHI, June 17 — India blocked access to Telegram messenger yesterday ahead of a retest of a nationwide medical college entrance examination, after a scandal last month over a question paper leak.

The failure of the hugely competitive exam, along with a separate marking fiasco in high school tests, sparked outrage and fuelled youth protests demanding the education minister’s resignation.

The electronics ministry issued the order restricting access to Telegram until Monday, the day of the retest. Message-editing features, which allow users to alter existing posts, will remain restricted until June 30.

“Both measures have been taken in the interest of public order, in response to the organised use of the platform by cheating rackets to defraud candidates,” India’s National Testing Agency (NTA) said in a statement.

The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) is one of the country’s most competitive exams, attracting more than two million aspiring doctors.

The NEET exam was scrapped in May following allegations that the question paper was leaked in advance, including reports that it had been circulated through Telegram channels.

Responding to the electronics ministry’s decision, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov said the week-long ban “hasn’t stopped anything” but “punishes” 150 million ordinary users of the messaging app in India and “not the insiders who leaked the exam materials”.

“The leaks just moved to other apps,” Durov said in a post on X.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights group, said the ban “is a disproportionate answer to exam fraud”.

The intense pressure to succeed in the national exams has fuelled a lucrative industry, with tens of thousands of coaching centres across the country.

Fierce competition means that success often comes at a significant personal and financial cost — creating opportunities for criminal networks seeking to sell leaked examination papers to the highest bidder.

Test pilots

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested the “kingpin” alleged to be behind the leak, naming him as a chemistry lecturer involved in the examination process for the NTA.

The education ministry launched on Monday a website where the public can report “suspicious claims, unauthorised content, or fraudulent activities” related to the NEET exam.

Indian air force helicopters yesterday were seen readying for the delivery of the test papers, to “prevent any possibility of leak”, the Press Trust of India news agency reported, broadcasting images of preparations in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Despite rapid economic growth, millions of people in the world’s most populous nation still struggle to find stable and well-paying jobs, fuelling discontent.

Students spend years preparing for exams in the hope of securing a professional career, with the pressure intensified by limited opportunities and intense competition.

Indian media reported suicides of teenagers following the fiasco over the NEET exam.

The NEET scandal came on top of another controversy, related to the online marking system used for tests taken by nearly two million high school students.

Many students said the system had assigned incorrect grades or issued results to the wrong candidates.

Anger at the exam mishandling has been channelled by the satirical “Cockroach People’s Party”, which has won millions of followers on social media since its launch in May.

The movement emerged after India’s Chief Justice Surya Kant reportedly likened young people who criticised the government to “cockroaches” and “parasites” during a court hearing, sparking outrage among the youth. Kant later said his comments were taken out of context. — AFP

‘Do your job!’: Global courts face rising tide of AI-generated fake cases and quotes

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0800

LONDON, June 16 — When a US judge found fabricated quotes in a lawyer’s brief earlier this year, the attorney admitted he had used Claude, an artificial intelligence chatbot, to write the document.

That got him a fine and a mandatory course on how to use AI properly.

But this case was just one in a rising tide of AI “hallucinations” muddying the legal waters. Now some courts are trying to stem the tide by cracking down on the lawyers concerned.

It was judge Jerry Edwards Jr., of Louisiana district court, who sanctioned the lawyer in that recent US case last month. He found the AI-generated hallucinations while reviewing a motion to block evidence from being admitted in a personal injury case.

He caught seven quotes attributed to previous court rulings that either did not appear in the original decisions or had been misrepresented.

The hapless lawyer said a law clerk had caught other fabricated quotes in a first draft. Instead of learning from his mistake however, the attorney simply asked Claude to correct the errors – then submitted the brief without reviewing it.

The attorney had believed the AI’s output was accurate, said the court’s May 18 memorandum order announcing the sanctions.

“Ignorance of the risks of AI usage is no longer an excuse,” the judge wrote, fining the lawyer US$1,000 (RM4,000) and sending him on a three-hour course on AI-assisted legal practice.

But he at least granted part of the motion.

Hundreds of cases

AI-generated blunders do not necessarily destroy a lawyer’s case, French lawyer Damien Charlotin told AFP.

“The lawyer’s credibility is in tatters – but there are cases where lawyers still win, despite the hallucinations, because they were right on the merits,” he explained.

But there are other issues.

Judge Linda Kevins of New York State’s Supreme Court warned in a January ruling that such blunders wasted the time and money of both the opposing party and the court.

In addition, she said, they were “potentially harming the reputation of judges and courts whose names are falsely invoked as authors of the bogus opinions”.

Charlotin has been compiling a database of court documents containing AI hallucinations since April 2023.

So far, he has 1,600 examples from 35 countries: from fabricated quotes and cases, to plagiarised arguments or references and out-of-date advice.

Since it is a crowd-sourced database it cannot count as the definitive list, but by far the most cases – 1,116 of them – come from the United States.

Next comes Canada, with 173 cases, Australia with 74, then Britain with 59.

‘Do your job!’

“In the legal field, AI is used for research, finding precedents, and sometimes generating text,” said Charlotin.

Lawyers and litigants representing themselves who submitted documents containing AI hallucinations were most often using mainstream chatbots, particularly OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The data suggests that specialised legal AI tools, used by many law firms, are more reliable – but they are still not immune from hallucinations.

“AI thrives on recognising patterns. And legal citations and arguments are always formatted in the same way, so it’s easy for an AI to follow a template and generate fake ones,” said Charlotin.

“Because no lawyer knows all past cases, when a chatbot outputs something that looks like a law citation, the only way to know it actually exists is to check it,” he added.

But some lawyers are still not doing that, said judge Scott Schlegel, who serves on the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence.

Too many attorneys still do not understand the technology’s limits, he told AFP. Time pressures are compounding the problem, Charlotin’s database shows.

But that’s no excuse, Schlegel told AFP in February.

“At this point, I just can’t understand how we still have the issue. Just do your job and read the cases. Come on!”

Sanctions

According to Charlotin’s data, hallucinations in court filings have increased eightfold in the past year compared with the previous 12 months.

He is testing his own AI-powered tool to help lawyers spot hallucinations before they are submitted to courts. But he cannot guarantee it will not itself make mistakes.

“It’s still up to the lawyers to adapt their verification process to the issues at hand,” he said.

Databases such as Court Listener have a growing list of rulings on AI-generated calamities in the US courts. And in several such cases, judges are handing out more than just reprimands.

Last week, federal judge Sharion Aycock sanctioned lawyers on both sides of a civil case in Mississippi after they submitted AI-assisted legal briefs that cited non-existent cases.

Four lawyers were fined US$8,000 in total, and two of them were barred from appearing in the Mississippi Northern District Court for two years.

“In an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubberstamp when acting as local counsel”, she wrote in the sanctions order. — AFP

Puddin AI is the new homework monitor, and Kyushu University is testing it on students

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 21:00:00 +0800

TOKYO, June 14 — An artificial intelligence startup has developed a system that analyses academic papers to determine whether they were written by humans or generated by AI, with hopes of wider adoption by academic institutions, Kyodo News reported.

Developed by Valar Intelligence, an Osaka-based startup, the identification system, “Puddin AI”, requires users to write and submit their papers on its platform.

Kyushu University has been trialling the system in classes, while several dozen universities are considering adopting it, according to the company.

The system focuses on the writing process, recording when a user begins writing, their writing speed and the chronological order of revisions.

When the identification button is pressed, it assesses the “humanness” of a piece of writing using around 200 indicators, including common human spelling mistakes, pauses between writing sessions and the estimated amount of time typically required to produce the work.

Copying and pasting an AI-generated composition drastically shortens the writing process, allowing the system to determine that a particular piece was not written by a human.

The results are divided into three categories: AI, AI-supported and Human.

Kyushu University has been trialling Puddin AI in classes. — Picture from Facebook/Kyushu University

According to the developer, the system supports Japanese, English and four other languages, and can analyse university assignments, academic papers and corporate documents.

“I want students to take their time and write their work on their own. This system can verify originality, making fair evaluation possible,” said Andrew John Chapman, an associate professor of energy economics at Kyushu University. — Bernama-Kyodo

US bans foreign access to Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable AI models

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 09:51:02 +0800

WASHINGTON, June 13 — Anthropic said ‌on Friday it has been ordered by the US government to suspend access ‌for all foreign nationals to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models, citing national security concerns.

The company said it received the export control directive on Friday from the government, which gave no specific details of its ‌national security concern.

It is Anthropic’s ⁠understanding, however, that ⁠the government believes it ⁠has become aware ⁠of a ⁠method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking,” Fable 5, according to the company’s statement.

“The ⁠net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers ⁠to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected,” ⁠Anthropic said.

Anthropic added that it believed ⁠there ⁠was a “misunderstanding” and that it is working to restore access to the ‌models as soon as possible. — Reuters

‘Pokémon Go’ players helped map the world, now AI drones want directions

Malay Mail — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 16:23:38 +0800

LONDON, June 12 — The summer of 2016 gave us many things: an epidemic of people walking into lamp posts, strangers gathering in public parks at midnight, and the sight of office workers suddenly sprinting down city blocks because someone had spotted a Snorlax.

Pokémon Go wasn’t just a game. It was a global social experiment powered by curiosity, nostalgia and the irresistible urge to catch ‘em all.

Now, nearly a decade later, some of the data generated through those adventures has resurfaced in an entirely different context.

According to reporting by The Guardian, AI models trained using historical scans collected through Pokémon Go are connected to a partnership aimed at helping drones navigate environments where GPS signals are unavailable or compromised.

The story centres on Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go. In 2021, the game introduced a feature that encouraged players to scan real-world locations known as PokéStops in exchange for in-game rewards. Participation was optional, requiring users to actively opt in and upload footage captured on their devices.

Those scans, Niantic said, helped train its AI models to better understand physical spaces.

Fast-forward to today, and the company has confirmed a partnership with Vantor, a firm specialising in spatial detection software for drones, including some used by military organisations.

Both companies told The Guardian that Pokémon Go scans themselves were not handed over to Vantor. Instead, the scans had been used to train Niantic’s broader foundation models.

It’s a distinction that matters technically, though perhaps less so emotionally for players discovering that their quest to evolve a Magikarp may have contributed, however indirectly, to technology with potential defence applications.

The revelation taps into a growing discomfort around the afterlife of data. Information collected for one purpose can eventually find itself serving another.

Tom Sulston of Digital Rights Watch argued that while users may technically agree to terms and conditions, most people aren’t combing through lengthy legal documents before downloading a free game.

He suggested regulators should place greater emphasis on what serves the “best interests” of users and whether certain practices are “fair and reasonable”, according to The Guardian.

Researchers say this may only be the beginning. Dr Rob Nicholls, associated with the University of Sydney’s Centre for AI, Trust and Governance, noted that fitness tracking data has previously been used to identify sensitive military locations, highlighting how seemingly ordinary technologies can reveal unexpected consequences.

The broader lesson isn’t necessarily that augmented reality games are dangerous. Rather, it’s that data has a remarkably long shelf life.

The digital breadcrumbs we leave behind — our routes, routines and interactions with the world around us — can outlast the moment in which they were created.

For millions of Pokémon Go players, scanning a local mural or playground probably felt like just another side quest.

Years later, those same actions have become part of a much bigger conversation about consent, transparency and who ultimately benefits from the data we generate.

In the age of AI, it turns out that even catching Pikachu can have consequences no one saw coming.

Can AI speak baby? Japanese apps are trying to crack the code

Malay Mail — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:31:48 +0800

TOKYO, June 12 — For centuries, exhausted parents have relied on a familiar checklist when a baby starts wailing: hungry, sleepy, wet nappy, wind or simply in need of comfort.

Now, a growing number of parents in Japan are adding something else to the routine — artificial intelligence.

Meet the latest entrant into the booming world of parenting tech: apps that claim they can translate infant cries into actionable advice, turning late-night guesswork into something that looks a little more like a diagnostic dashboard.

One of the buzziest newcomers is Babylingual, a free app launched in March by 25-year-old Japanese father Moto Numazawa. The idea came not from a Silicon Valley lab, but from the living room of a first-time parent trying to prepare for the chaos of raising a newborn.

According to Kyodo News, Numazawa developed the app after his wife became pregnant, believing modern parents — especially those in increasingly common nuclear families — often have fewer relatives around to lean on for childcare advice.

In late April, he tested the app on his three-month-old son, Saku. Holding a smartphone close as the baby cried, Babylingual returned its verdict within seconds: “I’m hungry.”

The app didn’t stop there. It displayed a probability gauge comparing different possible causes of distress before suggesting: “It might be feeding time.”

The diagnosis wasn’t entirely off-base. About three hours had passed since Saku’s last feed. After being fed, he promptly drifted off to sleep in his mother Yu’s arms.

Babylingual draws on previous research indicating that babies may produce distinct vocal patterns linked to different needs. It sorts cries into five categories, while also allowing parents to save recordings to share with other caregivers and access voice-guidance features intended to help soothe infants.

Yu told Kyodo News the app had proven useful in situations where Saku’s needs were harder to decipher.

“I didn’t understand why he was crying when he had a build-up of gas in his stomach, so the app helped me,” she said.

Numazawa is quick to position the technology as an assistant rather than a replacement for parental instinct.

“Parents and children develop alongside each other,” he said. “I hope the app can help communication between them.”

Babylingual isn’t alone in this increasingly crowded corner of the AI economy.

Cross Medicine, a venture company affiliated with Tokushima University, has developed Awababy, an app trained using more than 160,000 recordings of baby cries alongside data on soothing techniques.

Awababy analyses infant vocalisations across 11 emotional categories and suggests possible responses. According to company president Koga Nakai, usage spikes during the middle of the night — precisely when sleep-deprived parents are least likely to have someone they can call for reassurance.

The company also believes the technology could help ease parental stress and potentially reduce the risk of post-partum depression. Local governments are already taking notice.

Mishima city in Shizuoka prefecture recently trialled Awababy with residents and is considering offering the service free of charge. Meanwhile, the town of Oyama has begun distributing user IDs to eligible parents of newborns.

For all the hand-wringing about AI replacing human connection, Japan’s crying-baby apps offer a different vision of the future — one where algorithms don’t take over parenting, but simply help decode one of humanity’s oldest mysteries.

After all, every parent wants the same thing at 3am: to know what the baby is trying to say.