TECHNOLOGY

TikTok will permanently remove a feature in a spinoff app in France and Spain that rewards users for watching and liking videos, bowing to pressure from European regulators, the EU and the Chinese-owned company said Monday.

The agency alleged that its account was "report bombed by pro-nuclear groups" to suppress its dissenting views on nuclear energy.

US tech giants saw their shares fluctuate this week as investors tried to gauge whether artificial intelligence will fill coffers or drain them.

Meta on Wednesday reported profit of $13.5 billion in the recently ended quarter, beating market expectations and causing its share price to jump.

The European Union's landmark law on artificial intelligence came into force on Thursday, which Brussels vows will drive innovation while protecting citizens' rights.

The Senate inquiry warned that the shutdown could cause widespread disruption to essential services and infrastructure, such as critical medical equipment, fire alarms, EFTPOS machines and waste and water infrastructure.

Researchers have criticised billionaire Elon Musk for promising that his brain implant technology could eventually provide patients with vision superior to normal human sight.

UN member states meet Monday seeking to finalize an international treaty on the fight against cybercrime, a text strongly opposed by an unlikely alliance of human rights groups and big technology companies.

A long-haired sorcerer wearily checked his smartphone as elves and androids bustled past at the digital entertainment expo ChinaJoy on Friday, the crowds a testament to the local gaming industry's tentative recovery after a period on pause.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta, has become an unexpected evangelist for open source technology when it comes to developing artificial intelligence, pitting him against OpenAI and Google.

Google-parent Alphabet on Tuesday reported profit and revenue that beat expectations as its AI-amped cloud and search ads businesses thrived.

EU consumer authorities told Facebook owner Meta on Monday to take action to assuage European consumer groups' fears over its new "pay or consent" model or face further action.

Australia's Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neill said the impact caused by the outage could last "one to two weeks."

Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts warned on Friday.

NAB, Westpac, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, Bendigo Bank and Suncorp stated their functioning was impacted by the outage.

Identifying each customer and informing them of the hack was not financially viable for the company, MediSecure stated, adding that 6.5 terabytes of data was stolen.

TikTok lost an appeal Wednesday to escape new digital rules that seek to rein in the power of big tech after an EU court rejected its challenge.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk's X platform is misleading users with its blue checkmarks for certified accounts, and is also violating EU content rules, Brussels said Friday, in a finding that could lead to hefty fines.

Japanese eSports gamer Mashiro is blind and often relies on a companion to get around Tokyo -- but he hopes that artificial intelligence, hailed as a promising tool for people with disabilities, can help him travel alone.

Microsoft has ditched plans to take up a non-voting position on the board of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, according to a letter seen by AFP on Wednesday, as regulators step up scrutiny of deals involving AI companies.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland stated that stocktaking could be an ongoing process. "This I actually think going forward, given the threat level, given the amount of concern over foreign interference, this is may well be something that continues into the future, and rightly so."

Australia has been in the news in recent weeks following the launch of the ASX's first spot Bitcoin ETF, and for an industry expert, the latest development could be a key driver in the country's crypto literacy bid.

China's AI sector showed confidence this week at a major fair in Shanghai that it would overcome restrictions imposed by the West, with companies rolling out cutting-edge products developed by a growing pool of young talent.

Threads, Meta's alternative to X (formerly Twitter), has hit 175 million monthly users a year after its out-of-the-blue launch.

Run by Amazon Web Services and Australian Signals Directorate, the project will harness artificial intelligence with Australian government maintaining sovereignty over the cloud.

Microsoft is to invest 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in a huge data centre project in northeastern Spain, regional authorities said Wednesday as the area seeks to establish itself as a cloud storage hotspot.

Researchers found personal photos of Australian children, including infants, toddlers, and females in swimwear at school functions, were included in a well-known dataset called LAION-5B to train AI models that produce hyper-realistic photographs.

Google made major changes to its search algorithm and spam filters earlier this year to get rid of low-quality content -- but the effects have proved devastating to some smaller websites.

The EU accused Facebook owner Meta on Monday of breaching the bloc's digital rules, paving the way for potential fines worth billions of euros.