Coal use hit a record high around the world last year despite efforts to switch to clean energy, imperilling the world's attempts to rein in global heating. From a report: The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall, according to the annual State of Climate Action report, published on Wednesday. The report painted a grim picture of the world's chances of avoiding increasingly severe impacts from the climate crisis. Countries are falling behind the targets they have set for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which have continued to rise, albeit at a lower rate than before. Clea Schumer, a research associate at the World Resources Institute thinktank, which led the report, said: "There's no doubt that we are largely doing the right things. We are just not moving fast enough. One of the most concerning findings from our assessment is that for the fifth report in our series in a row, efforts to phase out coal are well off track."

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YouTube has added a new Shorts feature that makes it easier to manage how much time you're spending watching videos. From a report: Mobile users can now set a customizable daily limit that restricts how long they can scroll Shorts feeds, aiming to help viewers better manage their time instead of endlessly scrolling. When a user reaches their time limit, they will receive a notification saying Shorts has been paused for the day. This notification is dismissible, however, so it's on the user to honor these self-imposed restrictions.

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Air pollution in New Delhi hit a five-year high this week, as Diwali fireworks combined with farming fires to shroud the city in a toxic haze. From a report: The annual spike has become something of a tradition in the megalopolis, with some parts of the city this week recording an air-quality index reading of 1,800 -- 20 times higher than levels the World Health Organization deems healthy. The news points to the challenge facing Indian authorities as they look to combat pollution and cut carbon emissions: The country has made huge progress in deploying renewable energy, but will still need up to $21 trillion in new investments in order to meet its 2070 net-zero target, according to government plans reported by Bloomberg.

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Google and Apple face enforced changes to how they operate their mobile phone platforms, after the UK's competition watchdog ruled the companies require tougher regulatory oversight. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority has conferred "strategic market status" (SMS) on the tech firms after investigating their mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers. It means Apple and Google will be subjected to tailormade guidelines to regulate their behaviour in the mobile market. The CMA said the two companies have "substantial, entrenched" market power, with UK mobile phone owners using either Google or Apple's platforms and unlikely to switch between them. The regulator flagged the importance of their platforms to the UK economy and said they could be a bottleneck for businesses. [...] Changes under consideration by the CMA include allowing users to be "steered" out of app stores to make purchases elsewhere, like on a company's own website. App developers have long taken issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. The CMA also wants both companies to ensure users have a "genuine choice" over the services they use on their devices, like digital wallets on Apple.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Social media platform Reddit sued AI startup Perplexity in New York federal court on Wednesday, accusing it and three other companies of unlawfully scraping its data to train Perplexity's AI-based search engine. Reddit said in the complaint that the data-scraping companies circumvented its data protection measures in order to steal data that Perplexity "desperately needs" to power its "answer engine" system.

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Meta removed a deepfake video from Facebook that falsely depicted Catherine Connolly withdrawing from Ireland's presidential election. The video was posted to an account called RTE News AI and viewed almost 30,000 times over 12 hours before the Irish Independent contacted the platform. The fabricated bulletin featured AI-generated versions of RTE newsreader Sharon Ni Bheolain and political correspondent Paul Cunningham announcing that Connolly had ended her campaign and the election scheduled for Friday would be cancelled. Connolly responded in a statement that she remained a candidate and called the video a disgraceful attempt to mislead voters. Meta confirmed the account violated its community standards against impersonating people and organizations. Ireland's media regulator Coimisiun na Mean contacted Meta about the incident and reminded the platform of its obligations under the EU Digital Services Act. An Irish Times poll published last Thursday found Connolly leading the race with 38% support.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: As it rushes to meet its pledge for "100 percent" of trips in electric vehicles by 2030, Uber is offering grants of $4,000 for drivers to swap their gas-guzzlers for zero-tailpipe emission vehicles. The company is also dropping its "Uber Green" branding in favor of the more simple "Uber Electric." Uber has said it will be completely carbon neutral in North America and Europe by 2030 and in all global markets by 2040. But when it first announced this pledge in 2020, it said it wouldn't directly pay drivers to ditch their gas-burning vehicles in favor of EVs. Now, the company is reversing that decision in the hopes that direct payments can help accelerate EV adoption.

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Google announced Wednesday that its quantum computer achieved the first verifiable quantum advantage, running a new algorithm 13,000 times faster than a top supercomputer. The algorithm, called Quantum Echoes, was published in the journal Nature. The results can be replicated on another quantum computer of similar quality, something Google had not demonstrated before. The quantum computer uses a chip called Willow, which was announced in December 2024. Hartmut Neven, head of Google's Quantum AI research lab, called the work a demonstration of the first algorithm with verifiable quantum advantage and a milestone on the software track. Michel H. Devoret, who won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics and joined Google in 2023, said future quantum computers will run calculations impossible with classical algorithms. Google stopped short of claiming the work would have practical uses on its own. Instead, the company said Quantum Echoes demonstrated a technique that could be applied to other algorithms in drug discovery and materials science. A second paper published Wednesday on arXiv showed how the method could be applied to nuclear magnetic resonance. The experiment involved a relatively small quantum system that fell short of full practical quantum advantage because it was not able to work faster than a traditional computer. Google exhaustively red-teamed the research, putting some researchers to work trying to disprove its own results. Prineha Narang, a professor at UCLA, called the advance meaningful. The quantum computer tested two molecules, one with 15 atoms and another with 28 atoms. Results on the quantum computer matched traditional NMR and revealed information not usually available from NMR. Google's research competes against Microsoft, IBM, universities and efforts in China. The Chinese government has committed more than $15.2 billion to quantum research. Previous claims of quantum advantage have been met with skepticism.

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The proliferation of difficult-to-treat bacterial diseases represents a growing threat, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance Report. Wired: The report reveals that, between 2018 and 2023, antibiotic resistance increased by more than 40 percent in monitored pathogen-drug combinations, with an average annual increase of 5-15 percent. According to data reported by more than 100 countries to WHO's Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS), one in six laboratory-confirmed bacteria in 2023 proved resistant to antibiotic treatment, all related to various common diseases globally. For the first time, this edition of the report includes prevalence estimates of resistance to 22 antibiotics used to treat urinary tract, gastrointestinal, bloodstream, and gonorrheal conditions. The analysis focused on eight common pathogens: Acinetobacter spp, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, non-typhoidal Salmonella spp, Shigella spp, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus pneumoniae. The results show that resistant gram-negative bacteria pose the greatest threat. Of particular note are Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which are associated with bloodstream infections that can lead to sepsis, organ failure, and death. "More than 40 percent of E. coli and more than 55 percent of K. pneumoniae strains worldwide are now resistant to third-generation cephalosporins, the first-choice treatment for these types of infections," the report warns.

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More than 1,100 public figures have signed a statement calling for a prohibition on the development of superintelligence. The signatories included Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, former chief strategist to President Trump Steve Bannon and Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio. The statement was organized by the Future of Life Institute, led by Anthony Aguirre, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It proposes halting work on superintelligence until there is broad scientific consensus on safety and strong public support. The institute's biggest recent donor is Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum. Notable tech executives did not sign the statement. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in July that superintelligence was now in sight. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month he would be surprised if superintelligence did not arrive by 2030.

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Early Monday, an Amazon Web Services outage disrupted banks, games, and Peloton classes. Eight Sleep customers faced a different problem. Their internet-enabled mattresses malfunctioned. People woke to beds locked in upright positions, excessive heat, flashing lights, and unexpected alarms. Matteo Franceschetti, the company's chief executive, apologized and said engineers were building an outage-proof mode. By Monday evening, all devices functioned again, though some experienced data processing delays. The mattresses adjust temperature between 55 and 110 degrees and elevate bodies into different positions. They activate soundscapes and vibrational alarms. The advanced models cost over $5,000. A yearly subscription of $199 to $399 is required for temperature controls.

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The German Koblenz Regional Court has banned the internet service provider 1&1 from marketing its fiber-to-the-curb service as fiber-optic DSL. The court found that the company misled customers because its network uses copper cables for the final stage of connections, sometimes extending up to a mile from the distribution box to subscribers' homes. Customers who visited the ISP's website and checked connection availability received a notification stating that a "1&1 fiber optic DSL connection" was available, even though fiber optic cables terminate at street-level distribution boxes or building service rooms. The company pairs the copper lines with vectoring technology to boost DSL speeds to 100 megabits per second. The Federation of German Consumer Organizations filed the lawsuit. Ramona Pop, the organization's chairperson, said that anyone who promises fiber optics but delivers only DSL is deceiving customers.

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JetBrains released its annual State of the Developer Ecosystem survey in late October, drawing more than twenty-four thousand responses from programmers worldwide. The survey declared that PHP and Ruby are in "long term decline" based on usage trends tracked over five years. Shortly after publication, JetBrains posted a separate statement asserting that "PHP remains a stable, professional, and evolving ecosystem." The company offered no explanation for the apparent contradiction, The Register reports. The survey's methodology involves weighting responses to account for bias toward JetBrains users and regional distribution factors. The company acknowledges some bias likely remains since its own customers are more inclined to respond. The survey also found that 85% of developers now use AI coding tools.

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TikTok changed its policies earlier this year on sharing user data with governments as the company negotiated with the Trump Administration to continue operating in the United States. The company added language allowing data sharing with "regulatory authorities, where relevant" beyond law enforcement. Until April 25, 2025, TikTok's website stated the company would notify users before disclosing their data to law enforcement. The policy now says TikTok will inform users only where required by law and changed the timing from before disclosure to if disclosure occurs. The company also softened its language from stating it "rejects data requests from law enforcement authorities" to saying it "may reject" such requests. TikTok declined to answer repeated questions from Forbes about whether it has shared or is sharing private user information with the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The timing difference prevents users from challenging subpoenas before their data is handed over.

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Apple's effort to reinvent the iPad by adding a giant foldable screen has hit development hurdles, potentially delaying the planned launch. Bloomberg: The company has been working on the device -- projected to cost around $3,000 -- for several years and had most recently aimed for a 2028 release. But engineering challenges tied to weight, features and display technology have pushed its potential debut to 2029 or later, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple is working with Samsung Display Co. to develop the roughly 18-inch panel for the device, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work isn't public. The screen minimizes the crease seen on foldable displays, matching an approach that Apple is also using with its upcoming foldable iPhone. The iPad project is part of a broader push to bring more innovative devices to market. Apple just introduced its first new iPhone design in years -- the ultrathin $999 Air model -- and is working on everything from smart glasses to a tabletop robot device.

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France and Spain are calling on the European Union to stick with plans to ban combustion engine cars in the bloc after 2035, at odds with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ahead of a meeting of leaders in Brussels this week. From a report: The European Commission, the bloc's executive branch, is currently reviewing rules designed to accelerate the automotive sector's green transition. Merz has called on the bloc to give up its 2035 deadline to help Germany's troubled car industry. France and Spain "hope that the upcoming review will preserve the 2035 cap and the environmental ambition of the CO2 emissions trajectory that underpins it," a paper presented to climate ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday, and seen by Bloomberg says. "This revision should in no way call into question the zero emissions exhaust target in 2035."

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OpenAI released ChatGPT Atlas on Tuesday, an AI-powered web browser that CEO Sam Altman described as "smooth" and "quick" during a livestream announcement. The browser is available globally on macOS while versions for Windows, iOS, and Android are expected soon. Atlas includes memory features that personalize the browsing experience and an agent mode that allows ChatGPT to perform tasks such as booking reservations and flights or editing documents. Users can manage these stored memories through the browser's settings and can open incognito windows. The browser displays a split-screen view by default when users click links from search results. The view shows both the webpage and the ChatGPT transcript simultaneously. Atlas also offers webpage summarization and a feature called "cursor chat" that allows users to select text and have ChatGPT revise it inline.

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Apple lashed out at the European Union's attempts to tame the power of Silicon Valley in the most far-reaching legal challenge of the bloc's Big Tech antitrust rules. From a report: The iPhone maker's lawyer Daniel Beard told the General Court in Luxembourg on Tuesday that the Digital Markets Act "imposes hugely onerous and intrusive burdens" at odds with Apple's rights in the EU marketplace. The DMA came onto the EU's books in 2023 and is designed to clip the wings of the world's largest technology platforms with a slew of dos and don'ts. But over recent months, the law has also drawn the ire of US President Donald Trump and plagued EU-US trade talks. Apple -- seen as the biggest renegade against the EU's crackdown -- challenged the law on three fronts: EU obligations to make rival hardware work with its iPhone, the regulator's decision to drag the hugely profitable App Store under the rules, and a decision to probe whether iMessage should have faced the rules, which it later escaped.

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London police finally understand why 80,000 phones disappeared from the city's streets last year. The answer involves budget cuts [non-paywalled source] that hollowed out British policing in the 2010s, the arrival of electric bikes that made theft easy, and a lucrative black market in China where stolen British phones retain full functionality. The Metropolitan Police discovered an industrial-scale operation in December when officers traced a woman's iPhone to a Heathrow warehouse on Christmas Eve. Boxes labeled as batteries and bound for Hong Kong contained almost 1,000 stolen iPhones. The police arrested two men in their thirties in September as suspected ringleaders of a group that sent up to 40,000 stolen phones to China. The epidemic took root after Conservative-led austerity measures reduced police numbers and budgets. In 2017 the Metropolitan Police announced it would stop investigating low-level crimes to focus resources on serious violence and sexual offenses. Thieves on rented electric bikes began mounting sidewalks to snatch phones at high speed while wearing balaclavas and hoods. Police data shows only 495 people were charged out of 106,000 phones reported stolen between March 2024 and February 2025. Thieves earn up to $401 per device. The phones sell for up to $5,000 in China because Chinese network providers do not subscribe to the international blacklist for stolen devices.

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President Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee will apply only to new visa applicants outside the country, the government confirmed in new guidance on Monday. From a report: That means that under the new policy, employers won't need to pay the fee for anyone already living in the U.S., such as international students. The new guidance: Under the new guidance published on Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the $100,000 fee will apply only to new applicants living outside the country. Employers will need to pay the fee after their prospective employee's visa is approved, allowing them to move to the U.S. Previously, the White House had said the fee would apply to all new visa applicants, except those who work for companies or industries that have secured a special waiver. In 2024, roughly 54% of the 141,000 new H-1B visas issued went to immigrants who were already in the U.S. on a different visa type, according to government statistics. If that trend holds, the new fee wouldn't apply to over half of the applicants.

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