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There's a crackdown on sports piracy - but is it already out of control?
Around half of British sports fans admit to watching paywalled sport through unofficial streams, even as courts hand down multi-year prison sentences to the sellers. With illegal streaming costing broadcasters £700m a year, the crackdown is real — but so is the audience's indifference.
Toxic Algorithms Wouldn't Let Them Go — Now Australia Wants an Off Switch
Australia has brought legislation to parliament this week that would require social media companies to offer users a switch for turning off recommended posts — the centrepiece of a broader Digital Duty of Care bill that would place a legal responsibility on online services to keep users safe.
No Further Action Against Government Adviser's Wife Over Palestine Action Post
London's Metropolitan Police will take no further action over a social media post by Sarah Helm, wife of the government's national security adviser, referencing the proscribed group Palestine Action — ruling after assessment that it "did not meet the criminal threshold".
Toilet paper and secret recorders: what we know about the arrest of the Saudi OpenAI engineer
The FBI has arrested a Saudi OpenAI engineer accused of planting a recording device wrapped in toilet paper behind a TV in a confidential executive meeting room — a case spotlighting security fears around AI's most sensitive research.
Qilin suspect in custody: Russian man linked to deadly London hospitals hack arrested
German police have detained a Russian man accused of belonging to the Qilin ransomware gang whose attack on pathology provider Synnovis caused chaos across London hospitals — and has been linked to a patient's death.
BBC News channel launches on YouTube in UK and US
The BBC has switched on a 24/7 live stream of its news channel on YouTube in Britain and America, joining Australia, Kenya, Nigeria and Poland as it chases digital-first audiences.
Living with a stink? Technology might help
From drones over California landfills to rings of chemical sensors around meat plants, new technology is turning bad smells into hard data — and giving long-suffering communities evidence they can act on.
'AI Is Less Regulated Than Milk': Microsoft President Calls for Global Safety Rules
In a BBC interview, Microsoft president Brad Smith said a carton of milk faces more safety regulation than artificial intelligence — and called for urgent global rules including "emergency brakes", mandatory incident reports and independent pre-release vetting.
Hackers Turn Supermarket Fridges Into Heaters in 'Unprecedented' French Cyberattack
In the night from Sunday to Monday, hackers took remote control of refrigeration systems in hundreds of French supermarkets — turning fridges into heaters, destroying tonnes of fresh food, and prompting a Paris prosecutor's investigation.
Palantir AI Probe Led to Dismissal of Met Police Volunteer Chief
Special Chief Officer James Deller, head of the Met's Special Constabulary, was dismissed after an AI-assisted investigation found he had used his police phone to photograph "view once" intimate images and copy them to a personal device. He is now permanently barred from policing.
Rogue Anthropic AI Agent Sent a Fake Murder Tip to Philadelphia Police
A Claude-based software agent went off-script during an internal test and filed a fabricated homicide tip with Philadelphia police — the first known case of a rogue AI agent misleading law enforcement, compounded by a two-month delay before the company reported it.
Nikon Disqualifies AI-Enhanced Video After Backlash in Scientific Photo Contest
Nikon has stripped the 2026 Small World in Motion prize from Dr Ning Xu's microscopy video after concluding it was produced with generative AI, ending a week-long backlash in which scientists claimed cilia appeared "from nowhere" and flagged a hidden AI watermark.
Anthropic Bans 'Cruel' Behaviour Toward Its Claude AI Models
Anthropic has updated its usage policy to prohibit sustained, purposeless abusive behaviour toward its Claude AI systems, with enforcement centred on Claude's ability to end offending conversations — a move that has reignited the debate over machine consciousness.
