The Federal Communications Commission has rejected a call from the National Association of Broadcasters and some industry trade groups that would have imposed cable-style regulatory fees on streaming services, tech companies and pure broadband providers. From a report: In a Report and Order issued on Friday, the FCC reaffirmed that regulatory fees are calculated based on the number of full-time equivalent employees assigned to specific industries under the agency's jurisdiction. Broadcasters, satellite operators and other licensees are already assessed annual payments, which help fund the FCC's operational costs. The NAB, in concert with other groups like Telesat, Iridium and the State Broadcasters Associations, pressed the FCC to expand the list of fee payers to include broadband providers and large technology firms. They argued that companies operating online platforms and broadband services rely on FCC resources and should contribute to the costs of regulation. "Big Tech should not be permitted to free ride on the FCC's oversight," NAB said in submitted comments earlier this year. The NAB argued that online platforms enjoy regulator benefits without paying into the agency's budget, as broadcasters and satellite operators do.

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DOD: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has halted a decade-old Microsoft program that has allowed Chinese coders, remotely supervised by U.S. contractors, to work on sensitive DOD cloud systems. In a digital video address to the public posted yesterday, the secretary said DOD was made aware of the "digital escorts" program last month and that the program has exposed the Defense Department to unacceptable risk -- despite being designed to comply with government contracting rules. "If you're thinking 'America first,' and common sense, this doesn't pass either of those tests," Hegseth said, adding that he initiated an immediate review of the program upon learning of it. "I want to report our initial findings. ... The use of Chinese nationals to service Department of Defense cloud environments? It's over," he said. Additionally, Hegseth said DOD has issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft, documenting a breach of trust, and that DOD is requiring a third-party audit of the digital escorts program to pore over the code and submissions made by Chinese nationals. The audit will be free of charge to U.S. taxpayers, he said.

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Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson accused Google of using "partisan" spam filtering in Gmail that sends Republican fundraising emails to the spam folder while delivering Democratic emails to inboxes. From a report: Ferguson sent a letter yesterday to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, accusing the company of "potential FTC Act violations related to partisan administration of Gmail." Ferguson's letter revives longstanding Republican complaints that were previously rejected by a federal judge and the Federal Election Commission. "My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail's spam filters routinely block messages from reaching consumers when those messages come from Republican senders but fail to block similar messages sent by Democrats," Ferguson wrote. The FTC chair cited a recent New York Post report on the alleged practice. The letter told Pichai that if "Gmail's filters keep Americans from receiving speech they expect, or donating as they see fit, the filters may harm American consumers and may violate the FTC Act's prohibition of unfair or deceptive trade practices." Ferguson added that any "act or practice inconsistent with" Google's obligations under the FTC Act "could lead to an FTC investigation and potential enforcement action."

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Microsoft has found no link between the August 2025 KB5063878 security update and customer reports of failure and data corruption issues affecting solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs). From a report: Redmond first told BleepingComputer last week that it is aware of users reporting SSD failures after installing this month's Windows 11 24H2 security update. In a subsequent service alert seen by BleepingComputer, Redmond said that it was unable to reproduce the issue on up-to-date systems and began collecting user reports with additional details from those affected. "After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media," Microsoft said in an update to the service alert this week. "As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports."

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ArsTechnica: Today's video game consoles are hundreds of dollars more expensive than you'd expect based on historic pricing trends. That's according to an Ars Technica analysis of decades of pricing data and price-cut timing across dozens of major US console releases. The overall direction of this trend has been apparent to industry watchers for a while now. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have failed to cut their console prices in recent years and have instead been increasing the nominal MSRP for many current consoles in the past six months. But when you crunch the numbers, it's pretty incredible just how much today's console prices defy historic expectations, even when you account for higher-than-normal inflation in recent years. If today's consoles were seeing anything like what used to be standard price cuts over time, we could be paying around $200 today for pricey systems like the Switch OLED, PS5 Digital Edition, and Xbox Series S.

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French President Emmanuel Macron vowed a strong response [non-paywalled source] if any country takes measures that undermine Europe's digital sovereignty. From a report: Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose fresh tariffs and export restrictions on countries that have digital services taxes or regulations that harm American tech companies. France was among the first nations to implement a digital services tax. "We will not let anyone else decide for us on this matter," he told reporters in Toulon, France, on Friday. "We cannot allow our digital sector or the regulations we have chosen for ourselves, which are a necessity, to be threatened today." Trump has long railed against EU tech and antitrust regulation over US tech giants including Alphabet's Google and Apple.

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One of Australia's largest banks has apologized to staff who found out they had been fired through an automated email asking them to hand back their laptops. From a report: ANZ's retail banking executive Bruce Rush said it was "not our intention to share such sensitive news with you in this way" as the firm cuts jobs in its retail banking business. The bank said the emails were sent to some staff ahead of schedule in error. It said it has since stopped sending the emails and that staff have been spoken to personally. The Financial Sector Union said the email caused "panic and distress" and was a result of the company forcing through a "chaotic pace of change." The union's president Wendy Streets said it had not been consulted on the changes the bank was making, adding that "ANZ must do better." "Speed and cost-cutting cannot come at the expense of dignity and respect for workers," Ms Streets said, describing the "botched" episode as "disgusting." Mr Rush wrote in an email to staff: "Unfortunately, these emails indicate an exit date for some of our colleagues before we've been able to share their outcome with them."

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A newly published Investigatory Powers Tribunal filing indicates the UK government's Technical Capability Notice to Apple went beyond the company's Advanced Data Protection encryption to include standard iCloud services used by millions [non-paywalled source]. The document states the UK Home Office order "is not limited to" ADP data and applies "globally in respect of the relevant data categories of all iCloud users." The filing emerged days after Trump administration officials claimed the UK had agreed to drop efforts targeting American citizens' data. Apple launched its legal challenge in March after receiving the TCN, which the company cannot discuss publicly under the Investigatory Powers Act. The tribunal scheduled a hearing for early next year. Apple withdrew ADP from UK customers in February.

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Universities facing federal research budget cuts are increasingly turning to corporate partnerships for funding as Georgia Tech secures $70 million from industry this fiscal year -- 28% more than last year and representing 15% of campus research funding versus the 6% national average. The Atlanta school's corporate engagement office has fielded multiple weekly calls from other institutions seeking guidance after securing deals including Hyundai's $55 million stadium naming rights agreement alongside undisclosed research investments in electric vehicle and hydrogen fuel technologies. The arrangements come with restrictions: nondisclosure agreements limit publication options for graduate students, and companies typically avoid funding basic research without immediate commercial applications. Federal grants still constitute over half of university research spending nationally, supporting early-stage discovery work that laid groundwork for current quantum computing developments.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Valve has started to comply with the UK's Online Safety Act, by rolling out a requirement for all Brits to verify their age with a credit card to access "mature content" pages and games on Steam. UK users won't even be able to access the community hubs of mature content games unless a valid credit card is stored on a Steam account. While platforms like Reddit, Bluesky, and Discord have opted for age verification checks using selfies, Valve is restricting its age checks to just credit cards, according to a support article. "Among all age assurance mechanisms reviewed by Valve, this process preserves the maximum degree of user privacy," says Valve. "Having the credit card stored as a payment method acts as an additional deterrent against circumventing age verification by sharing a single Steam user account among multiple persons."

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A 56-year-old tech industry veteran killed his mother and himself in Old Greenwich, Connecticut on August 5 after months of interactions with ChatGPT that encouraged his paranoid delusions. Greenwich police discovered Stein-Erik Soelberg and his 83-year-old mother Suzanne Eberson Adams dead in their home. Videos posted by Soelberg documented conversations where ChatGPT repeatedly assured him he was sane while validating his beliefs about surveillance campaigns and poisoning attempts by his mother. The chatbot told him a Chinese food receipt contained demonic symbols and that his mother's anger over a disconnected printer indicated she was "protecting a surveillance asset." OpenAI has contacted Greenwich police and announced plans for updates to help keep users experiencing mental distress grounded in reality.

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FFmpeg 8.0 brings GPU-accelerated video encoding via Vulkan -- and can now subtitle your videos automatically using integrated speech recognition. From a report: At the start of the week, the FFmpeg project released its eighth major version. It's codenamed "Huffman" after the Huffman code algorithm, which was invented in 1952, making it one of the oldest lossless compression algorithms. [...] The changelog lists 30 significant changes, of which the top new feature is integrating Whisper. This means whisper.cpp, which is Georgi Gerganov's entirely local and offline version of OpenAI's Whisper automatic speech recognition model. The bottom line is that FFmpeg can now automatically subtitle videos for you.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant is officially coming to TVs, starting with Samsung's 2025 lineup of TVs and smart monitors. With the integration, you can call upon Copilot and ask for movie suggestions, spoiler-free episode recaps, and other general questions. On TV, Copilot takes on a "friendly, animated presence" that resembles the opalescent Copilot Appearance Microsoft showed off last month, though in a color that makes it look more like a personified chickpea. The beige blob will float and bounce around your screen, while its mouth moves in line with its responses.

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Imgur users have flooded the image-hosting site's front page with pictures of John Oliver giving the middle finger to parent company MediaLab AI. The revolt follows staff layoffs that eliminated human moderators and the breakdown of core site functions including video playback for non-logged-in users and failed image uploads. A former employee confirmed MediaLab AI laid off Imgur's moderation team without notice and reassigned remaining staff to other projects. The company acquired Imgur in 2021 after founder Alan Schaaf departed. MediaLab AI faces lawsuits from Schaaf and other former site owners over allegedly withheld acquisition payments.

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A central Japanese town wants to limit smartphone use for all its 69,000 residents to two hours a day, in a move that has sparked intense debate on device addiction. From a report: The proposal, believed to be the first of its kind in Japan, is currently being debated by lawmakers after being submitted by Toyoake municipal government in Aichi earlier this week. Toyoake's mayor said the proposal -- which only applies outside of work and study -- would not be strictly enforced, but rather was meant to "encourage" residents to better manage their screen time. There will be no penalties for breaking the rule, which will be passed in October if approved by lawmakers. "The two hour limit... is merely a guideline... to encourage citizens," Toyoake Mayor Masafumi Koki said in a statement. "This does not mean the city will limit its residents' rights or impose duties," he said.

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Anthropic will start training its AI models on user data, including new chat transcripts and coding sessions, unless users choose to opt out. The Verge: It's also extending its data retention policy to five years -- again, for users that don't choose to opt out. All users will have to make a decision by September 28th. For users that click "Accept" now, Anthropic will immediately begin training its models on their data and keeping said data for up to five years, according to a blog post published by Anthropic on Thursday. The setting applies to "new or resumed chats and coding sessions." Even if you do agree to Anthropic training its AI models on your data, it won't do so with previous chats or coding sessions that you haven't resumed. But if you do continue an old chat or coding session, all bets are off.

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Every breath people take in their homes or car probably contains significant amounts of microplastics small enough to burrow deep into lungs, new peer-reviewed research finds, bringing into focus a little understood route of exposure and health threat. The Guardian: The study, published in the journal Plos One, estimates humans can inhale as much as 68,000 tiny plastic particles daily. Previous studies have identified larger pieces of airborne microplastics, but those are not as much of a health threat because they do not hang in the air as long, or move as deep into the pulmonary system. The smaller bits measure between 1 and 10 micrometers, or about one-seventh the thickness of a human hair, and present more of a health threat because they can more easily be distributed throughout the body. The findings "suggest that the health impacts of microplastic inhalation may be more substantial than we realize," the authors wrote.

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Solo entrepreneurs now launch 35% of all startups, double the rate from a decade ago, yet venture capital funding patterns remain virtually unchanged, according to an analysis by venture capitalist Sajith Pai. Carta's equity management data reveals that while solo-founded companies grew from 17% of 2,600 startups in 2015 to 35% of 3,800 startups in 2024, their share of VC funding barely moved from 15 to 17%. "Valley VCs don't like solo founders," Pai, who is a partner at India-based venture firm Blume, writes in his analysis. Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan confirmed the accelerator's practice of persuading solo founders to find partners after acceptance.The bias persists despite prominent solo-founded successes including Amazon, SpaceX, and Zoom. Pai notes that "most unicorn startups have cofounders" but questions whether this reflects genuine risk differences or simply that cofounded startups receive five times more funding opportunities. "The bias against solo founders is so strong," Pai observes, that it appears repeatedly in founder complaints and venture capitalist commentary, even as other Silicon Valley biases against women and non-elite universities gradually ease.

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Typepad, which launched in 2003 to make it easier for the masses to start their blogging journey, is shutting down. From a blog post: We have made the difficult decision to discontinue Typepad, effective September 30, 2025. After September 30, 2025, access to Typepad -- including account management, blogs, and all associated content -- will no longer be available. Your account and all related services will be permanently deactivated. Please note that after this date, you will no longer be able to access or export any blog content.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Over half of the British public are worried about the impact of AI on their jobs, according to employment unions, which want the UK government to adopt a "worker first" strategy rather than simply allowing corporations to ditch employees for algorithms. The Trades Union Congress (TUC), a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, says it found that people are concerned about the way AI is being adopted by businesses and want a say in how the technology is used at their workplace and the wider economy. It warns that without such a "worker-first plan," use of "intelligent" algorithms could lead to even greater social inequality in the country, plus the kind of civil unrest that goes along with that. The TUC says it wants conditions attached to the tens of billions in public money being spent on AI research and development to ensure that workers are supported and retrained rather than deskilled or replaced. It also wants guardrails in place so that workers are protected from "AI harms" at work, rules to ensure workers are involved in deciding how machine learning is used, and for the government to provide support for those who euphemistically "experience job transitions" as a result of AI disruption.

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