Category: Biz Tech

Meta is testing a paid Instagram tier for everyday users, opening a fresh experiment in how far people will pay for privacy, reach and tighter audience control inside one of the world’s biggest social apps. The test, branded Instagram Plus, centres on Stories and includes anonymous viewing, expanded audience lists, replay insights, longer visibility windows and tools designed to push a Story closer to the front of followers’ feeds. Meta confirmed to one outlet that the subscription is being tested

Anthropic has acknowledged that an internal release mistake exposed part of the source code behind Claude Code, its AI coding assistant, in an incident that has sharpened scrutiny of the startup’s internal controls at a time when it is selling safety, reliability and enterprise trust as core parts of its pitch. The company said the exposure was caused by a packaging error linked to human mistake rather than an external intrusion, and added that no customer data or credentials were

Mistral has raised $830 million in debt financing to build a large AI computing hub near Paris, a move that places the French start-up at the heart of Europe’s effort to develop home-grown artificial intelligence infrastructure and rely less on overseas cloud providers. The funding, the company’s first debt raise, will be used to buy 13,800 Nvidia chips for a data centre at Bruyères-le-Châtel, south of the French capital, with operations expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026.

Apple has brought end-to-end encryption for RCS messages back into developer testing with iOS 26.5 beta, reviving a privacy feature that appeared in the iOS 26.4 beta cycle but was withheld from the public release. The move sharpens focus on how quickly Apple can close one of the last major security gaps between iPhone and Android texting, even as the feature remains labelled beta and is not yet available across all devices or carrier setups.The return matters because RCS

Samsung is betting that a minute of low-frequency audio can help settle uneasy stomachs on the move, launching its Hearapy app with a claim that a 100Hz tone played through earbuds can reduce motion-sickness symptoms for up to two hours. The pitch is simple: listen before or during travel, stimulate the inner ear’s balance system, and blunt the sensory mismatch that often triggers nausea, dizziness and cold sweats.The company’s own app listing ties the feature closely to the Galaxy

Apple has added a new safeguard in macOS Tahoe 26.4 that warns users before potentially dangerous text is pasted into Terminal, a move aimed at disrupting ClickFix-style scams that trick people into infecting their own devices. The feature appears in the latest macOS release even though Apple’s public feature summary for version 26.4 does not spell it out directly, while the company’s broader security pages confirm 26.4 is the current macOS version and list separate security fixes delivered with the

Apple has begun offering unusual stock awards worth as much as $400,000 to members of its iPhone product design team, moving to shore up one of its most prized groups as OpenAI and other artificial intelligence rivals intensify their push into consumer hardware. The bonuses, reported by Bloomberg, were granted outside Apple’s normal compensation cycle and are structured to vest over four years, tying the awards to employee retention.The move underscores how the contest over AI is no longer

Australia has moved towards court action against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube after officials said the platforms may have failed to keep children under 16 off their services, escalating a world-first test of how far governments can force technology groups to police the age of their users. The warning follows the first compliance review of the law, which took effect on 10 December 2025 and allows penalties of up to A$49.5 million for each systemic breach.The five platforms

Big Tech’s plan to pour about $635 billion into artificial intelligence infrastructure this year is coming under sharper scrutiny as higher energy costs, grid bottlenecks and tighter financing conditions test the durability of the market’s enthusiasm for the sector. The warning, highlighted by S&P Global Visible Alpha, lands at a delicate moment for equity markets after AI-driven optimism helped lift major indexes through 2025 before momentum faded amid a broader energy shock linked to the Middle East conflict.Microsoft, Amazon,

Google has moved a set of anti-ransomware tools for Drive from beta into full global release, adding a stronger layer of detection and bulk file restoration for organisations using Drive for desktop. The rollout, announced on 31 March, turns ransomware detection on by default for Workspace users, sends alerts to administrators when suspicious encryption activity is detected, and enables file restoration by default to help recover from damage on infected endpoints.The launch marks the formal release of a feature

Global shipments of OLED monitors jumped 92 per cent in 2025, giving Asus the leading position in a fast-growing segment of the display market as falling prices, broader model line-ups and stronger gamer demand pushed the technology further into the mainstream. Industry tracker TrendForce said shipments reached 2.735 million units last year and forecast another 51 per cent rise in 2026, suggesting that momentum is carrying into a new product cycle.Asus finished 2025 with a 21.6 per cent share

DeepSeek is investigating a prolonged disruption that knocked its chatbot offline for more than seven hours in China, in the most serious outage yet for the Hangzhou-based artificial intelligence company since its rise into the global mainstream. The company’s public status page showed web and app service problems began late on Sunday night, rolled into Monday morning, and were not fully marked resolved until 10:33 a. m. China time after a string of updates and monitoring notices.DeepSeek hit by

Rocketlane has raised $60 million in a Series C round led by Insight Partners, as the software company moves to expand an AI-driven platform aimed at professional services teams that are increasingly being asked to turn enterprise AI spending into measurable operating results. The funding, announced on March 25, takes the company’s total capital raised to $105 million and comes as more corporate buyers shift attention from AI pilots to deployment, integration and business outcomes.The company said the new

Artificial intelligence is redrawing the economics of data centres at a speed that is forcing developers, utilities and investors to rethink where digital infrastructure can be built and how it can be financed. A new 2026 marketplace report from Colliers says global investment in data centres topped $580 billion in 2025, up 27 per cent from a year earlier, as hyperscalers and infrastructure groups poured money into facilities built for AI training and inference. The same report says more than

Anthropic’s accidental exposure of internal material about an unreleased AI system dubbed Claude Mythos has jolted investors, sending cybersecurity shares sharply lower and adding to pressure across risk assets, while reviving a deeper debate over whether frontier AI is moving faster than the safeguards meant to contain it. The leaked material, first reported by Fortune on March 26 and 27, described Mythos as Anthropic’s most powerful model yet and said it showed unusually strong performance in coding, reasoning and cybersecurity

London Internet Exchange has completed a broad upgrade of its 17-site LON2 network in the capital, handing Nokia a deeper role in one of the UK’s most important interconnection systems at a time when traffic growth, AI-led workloads and the retirement of older equipment are forcing operators to rethink how core internet infrastructure is built and scaled.The overhaul covers LINX’s secondary London interconnection fabric, known as LON2, which runs alongside the primary LON1 network and is designed to give

Instagram is working on a feature that could let users watch Reels without a live internet connection, according to a leak from app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi that points to automatic downloads and offline playback controls inside the app. The feature has not been announced by Meta, and there is no public timeline for a wider test or launch.The leaked interface suggests Instagram is experimenting with a “Manage offline downloads” setting for Reels, with options to enable automatic downloads, restrict

 Qatari billionaire Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani has taken a stake in German robotics company Neura Robotics, adding Gulf capital to one of Europe’s biggest funding pushes in humanoid and cognitive machines. The investment places the former Qatari prime minister alongside Amazon in Neura’s latest financing, while corporate filings cited by Bloomberg show he became a shareholder through Prime Capital SA, a unit of his holding structure.The move matters beyond a single cap-table change. Neura, based in

Reflection, an artificial intelligence startup supported by Nvidia, is seeking to raise $2.5 billion at a valuation of about $25 billion, positioning itself as a high-profile contender to China’s rapidly advancing open-source AI ecosystem led by DeepSeek.The fundraising effort, still under discussion with investors, underscores intensifying competition between proprietary AI models backed by large capital pools and open-source alternatives gaining traction across Asia and beyond. Reflection’s strategy signals a direct challenge to the cost-efficient, open-weight model approach that has elevated

Google has introduced a significant upgrade to its Gemini platform, enabling users to generate full-length songs of up to three minutes through integration with its advanced Lyria 3 Pro music model, marking a notable step in the evolution of generative artificial intelligence for creative applications.The enhancement positions Gemini as a more competitive tool in the fast-growing field of AI-generated music, where technology firms are racing to refine models capable of producing coherent, structured, and commercially viable compositions. The integration of

A US jury has found Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google liable for contributing to a young woman’s compulsive use of social media, marking a significant legal shift in how courts may assess the responsibilities of technology companies for user behaviour.The case, brought by a 20-year-old plaintiff, argued that prolonged exposure to platforms such as Instagram and YouTube fostered addictive patterns that harmed her mental health and disrupted her daily functioning. Jurors concluded that the companies failed to adequately warn users

OpenAI has moved to shut down its experimental social media platform Sora following mounting scrutiny over the misuse of AI-generated video, including the creation of non-consensual content and increasingly convincing deepfakes that alarmed regulators, creatives and digital safety advocates.The decision comes after months of debate surrounding the rapid adoption of generative video tools, with Sora gaining traction for its ability to produce short-form clips from simple text prompts. What began as a showcase of technical progress quickly evolved into a

Semiconductor chips have moved beyond their traditional role as hardware components to become strategic gateways shaping the trajectory of the global artificial intelligence economy, according to legal and technology analysts tracking the sector’s rapid evolution.At the centre of this shift stands Nvidia, which continues to command a dominant share of the market for graphics processing units used in AI training. Its high-performance chips, particularly those tailored for large-scale machine learning workloads, have become foundational infrastructure for companies building advanced AI

Cybercriminals are exploiting the popularity of artificial intelligence tools by distributing fake ChatGPT-themed Android applications designed to steal user credentials and compromise social media accounts, according to cybersecurity researchers tracking a coordinated phishing campaign.The operation centres on abuse of Google’s Firebase App Distribution platform, a legitimate service used by developers to test applications before public release. Attackers are leveraging the platform to send invitation-style emails that mimic official app testing notifications, prompting recipients to download what appear to be pre-release

Elon Musk has unveiled a plan to integrate Tesla, SpaceX and xAI into a new semiconductor initiative in Texas, marking a deeper push into controlling the hardware underpinning artificial intelligence systems. The project, described internally as “Terafab”, aims to develop advanced chips tailored for AI training, robotics and space applications.The initiative reflects a broader shift among technology companies seeking to reduce dependence on external suppliers such as Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, whose dominance in AI chips has tightened

Amazon is developing an artificial intelligence-driven smartphone aimed at revitalising its voice assistant ecosystem, marking a strategic return to hardware after the commercial failure of its Fire Phone. The project, internally referred to as “Transformer”, is understood to centre on embedding generative AI deeply into the device’s operating system, signalling a shift from voice-first assistants to context-aware digital agents.The initiative comes at a time when large technology firms are racing to integrate advanced AI into consumer devices, transforming smartphones into

Messaging platform Telegram has fully repaid bonds issued five years ago, marking a significant financial milestone as the company signals sustained profitability and stronger investor confidence, according to a statement from its founder Pavel Durov.Durov confirmed that the debt raised in 2021 has now been cleared in full, underscoring a turnaround in the platform’s financial trajectory. The repayment follows a period during which Telegram introduced a series of monetisation initiatives that reshaped its revenue model, culminating in profitability achieved during

Microsoft is moving to scale back several artificial intelligence-driven features in Windows 11 while prioritising performance improvements, a shift that reflects mounting user feedback over system slowdowns and intrusive automation tools.The company has indicated that upcoming updates will focus on responsiveness, stability and user control, marking a departure from an aggressive push to embed AI across the operating system. The recalibration comes after months of criticism from enterprise customers and everyday users who reported increased resource usage, inconsistent performance and

Duos Edge AI has expanded its footprint in Texas with the launch of a second edge data centre in Amarillo, signalling a push to localise artificial intelligence infrastructure and reduce latency for enterprise users in underserved regions.The new facility, announced this week, is designed to support high-performance computing workloads that require rapid data processing at the network’s edge, including real-time analytics, computer vision and industrial automation. By situating infrastructure closer to end users, the company aims to address persistent bottlenecks

Escalating investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure are driving a fundamental shift in how global technology companies design, build and operate data centres, as demand for computing power accelerates beyond traditional digital services.Major technology firms are committing tens of billions of dollars to expand AI-ready facilities, reflecting a race to secure capacity for training and deploying advanced machine learning models. This surge is not only redefining the economics of cloud computing but also reshaping supply chains, energy consumption patterns and geopolitical

Barcelona-based Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech has introduced a new cloud service designed to broaden access to quantum computing, positioning itself within a fast-evolving race to commercialise next-generation processing power. The platform, branded SpeQtrum QaaS, offers remote access to what the company describes as a multimodal quantum data centre that integrates different quantum technologies under a single interface.The launch signals a shift in how quantum resources are being packaged and delivered, as companies attempt to move beyond experimental systems towards scalable, user-friendly

Crypto. com has cut roughly 12 per cent of its global workforce, targeting positions deemed misaligned with the company’s accelerating integration of artificial intelligence, marking one of the most pronounced restructurings in the digital asset sector as firms recalibrate for automation-led operations.The Singapore-based cryptocurrency platform confirmed that the reductions were part of a broader strategic shift aimed at improving operational efficiency and aligning talent with emerging technological priorities. Roles affected were described internally as those unable to “adapt” to evolving

SoftBank Group is advancing plans for a large-scale artificial intelligence data centre in Ohio, aiming to anchor one of the most energy-intensive computing hubs in the United States with electricity generated predominantly from natural gas, a strategy that underscores the growing tension between AI expansion and climate goals.The Japanese conglomerate is exploring development on federally owned land, with early estimates indicating the facility could require energy infrastructure worth about $33 billion. The project reflects surging global demand for high-performance computing

Meta has unveiled a new initiative offering guaranteed payments and enhanced visibility to content creators, signalling an aggressive push to draw talent away from rival platforms TikTok and YouTube and reinvigorate activity on Facebook.The programme, branded as a “Creator Fast Track”, is designed to attract high-performing influencers by providing upfront financial incentives alongside algorithmic boosts intended to expand their reach. The move reflects intensifying competition among social media companies for creator loyalty, as short-form video continues to dominate user engagement