Author: Frank Salvato
Slovenia has announced plans to draft legislation that would ban access to major social media platforms for children under the age of 15, a move the government says is intended to protect youth from harmful online content and addictive digital design. Deputy Prime Minister Matej Arcon told reporters that the Education Ministry initiated the proposal and that specialists in education and digital technology will help shape the law, which would apply to platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. This proposal positions Slovenia alongside a growing list of countries — including Spain and Greece in Europe and Australia globally —…
The New South Wales (NSW) government in Australia has introduced the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Bill into the state parliament, aiming to make NSW the first jurisdiction in the country to explicitly hold employers responsible under work safety law for harms caused by artificial intelligence, algorithms, automation, online platforms and other “digital work systems” used in the workplace. Under the proposed changes to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, a “digital work system” — defined to include AI tools — would be treated as a specific workplace hazard that a business must design, monitor and…
Experts say a recent claim from the social media platform X’s product chief that the Chinese government deliberately floods search results with pornography during moments of political unrest illustrates an evolving form of digital authoritarianism aimed at drowning out real-time information and dissent online. According to reports, Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, stated that Beijing floods certain search terms with pornographic content to make it harder for users—especially Chinese-language users—to find legitimate updates related to unrest or political developments, a tactic some analysts warn could be replicated by other authoritarian states and threatens open internet liberty. Independent observers have…
Amazon MGM Studios is gearing up to significantly accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence in film and television production, launching a closed beta program in March that invites industry partners to test proprietary AI tools designed to streamline costly production workflows and enhance creative support. These tools, developed within a dedicated AI Studio formed last summer, aim to improve areas such as character consistency, pre-production planning, and post-production editing while keeping human creatives actively in control of storytelling decisions. The initiative, led by veteran entertainment executive Albert Cheng and backed by collaborations with notable Hollywood professionals, reflects Amazon’s broader push…
acific Fusion, a U.S. fusion startup, has announced results from a series of experiments conducted at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z Pulsed Power Facility that suggest its pulsed-power inertial confinement fusion design could reduce the cost and complexity of future reactors by eliminating some of the most expensive components traditionally used to start fusion reactions; by tweaking the design of its fusion targets to allow magnetic fields to “pre-magnetize” fuel pellets before compression, the company could dispense with costly laser preheating systems, potentially saving over $100 million in capital and maintenance costs and moving the technology closer to a commercially viable,…
A prolific cybercrime gang known as ShinyHunters has publicly released millions of personal records it claims were stolen during late-2025 data breaches at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), following failed ransom demands from both Ivy League schools. ShinyHunters published over 2 million records on its leak site, reportedly containing email addresses, phone numbers, home and business addresses, details of donations and alumni engagement, and other biographical data tied to students, alumni, staff, and donors. The breaches originally occurred through social engineering attacks last autumn, with UPenn confirming access to select development and alumni systems and Harvard reporting…
Spotify is expanding far beyond music and podcasts by entering the physical book market and upgrading its audiobook features in a major push to become a one-stop media platform. In a strategic partnership with Bookshop.org, the streaming giant will allow U.S. and U.K. users to browse and buy physical books directly within the Spotify app beginning later this spring. Complementing this move, Spotify is introducing “Page Match,” a new feature that uses a phone’s camera to scan printed pages and instantly sync to the corresponding spot in an audiobook, making it easier for readers to switch between listening and reading.…
Sapienza University of Rome, one of the largest universities in Europe with around 120,000 students and staff, has been knocked offline for several days after an apparent cyberattack that forced the shutdown of its entire digital infrastructure, including email, administrative systems, and its main website, and left students and faculty without access to essential services as technicians work to restore operations from secure backups. The university confirmed the attack in social media posts and said it acted as a precautionary measure, while Italian media report that a suspected ransomware — potentially linked to a group known as Femwar02 using BabLock…
The Trump administration this week unveiled a major initiative to build a multibillion-dollar strategic reserve of critical minerals—known as Project Vault—to secure supplies of rare earths, lithium and other essential materials needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines, semiconductors and defense production in the years ahead. The plan will tap roughly $10 billion in financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and roughly $2 billion in private contributions to create a stockpile intended to reduce the nation’s dependence on China’s dominant position in the mining and processing of these materials, a strategic shift that many see as tacit acknowledgment that the future…
NASA has announced that for the first time in its history, astronauts will be allowed to bring their personal smartphones—including iPhones and Android devices—on upcoming spaceflights, beginning with the Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station and the Artemis II mission around the Moon, overturning decades of protocol that restricted personal consumer electronics due to safety and certification concerns and opening the door for more spontaneous and higher-quality photos and videos from space as part of a broader shift toward modern hardware use on crewed missions. Sources https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/05/nasa-astronauts-can-now-bring-their-phones-with-them-on-their-mission-to-the-moon/https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/nasa-clears-smartphones-for-moon-mission-after-decadeshttps://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nasa-allows-iphones-artemis-moon-mission-which-iphone-could-fly-why-smartphones-are-now-being-1776757 Key Takeaways • NASA has revised longstanding spaceflight rules to let astronauts…