Trump Media & Technology Group has unveiled a paid-for, licensed data feed that will give banks and trading firms “the fastest” access to posts from influential Truth Social accounts, such as President Donald Trump’s, whose posts often move global markets. The product, called ‘Truth API,’ will deliver posts from the 10 most influential accounts to customers at a significantly faster pace than a regular push notification on the Truth Social platform, a spokesperson said. The feed is designed for organizations “most impacted by the cost of a delay in information,” such as algorithmic trading firms, the company said in a statement. “Until now… firms that prioritize tracking influential Truth posts have relied on manual monitoring. Truth API closes the gap.”

In an order, the CCI said that HP India worked with five resellers to coordinate their bid prices for government contracts to increase the chances of an HP partner winning the contracts. The company was fined 1.3 billion rupees (about $13.1 million). […] HP was also fined 119.8 million rupees (about $1.2 million) for “indulging in cartelization in sale and supply of supplies products comprising of toner, cartridges, and other consumable used with print hardware products,” CCI said in its announcement. The agency also fined 21 HP resellers 35.2 million rupees (about $365,335).

In a separate order, the CCI said that WhatsApp records showed that HP and 16 of its Tier-2 reseller partners operated “in a collusive arrangement” and that the messages show the companies engaging in “bid rigging, including cover bidding, price fixation, and customer allocation during 2017-2020.” HP India played a central role, the regulator said.

Per the order, HP India said that high printing supply prices led some resellers to threaten to “shift to low-cost counterfeit products to compete on price.” “HP India was commercially forced into a position where it had to support the collusive arrangement adopted by the Tier-2 resellers,” the order reads. For its part, the order said that HP India “humbly objects to HP India’s role being characterized as a ‘kingpin’ of the entire collusive arrangement.” […] The CCI also ordered HP India and its channel partners to “cease and desist from anti-competitive conduct” and to hold competition compliance training programs within 60 days.

As AI-related demand continues to jump and needs for computing power from data centers surge, TSMC has been expanding chip fabrication plants in the U.S., Japan and Taiwan. It said it is increasing its annual capital expenditure budget for this year to $60 billion-$64 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $52 billion-$56 billion.

TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple. It had previously already committed $165 billion in the U.S. for building plants in Arizona, with six fabrication facilities planned. The extra $100 billion in investments are to “support the strong multiyear demand from our leading U.S. customers,” C.C. Wei, chairman and CEO of TSMC, said during the company’s quarterly earnings conference Thursday. An additional four fabrication plants in Arizona will likely be built with the new investments, TSMC said. They will focus on making some of the most advanced chips that are 2-nanometer and below.

In issuing the two new rules, the commission said it found that AI agents not made by Google were unable to function on Android phones at the same level as Google’s Gemini. Google must now allow voice-activation of these alternative AI agents and enable them to run background tasks like booking restaurants via third-party apps. By January 2027, Google must also begin sharing anonymized search data with some rivals. The commission said the move is meant to level the playing field since Google controls a vast trove of user data that no competitor can match.

1Password has launched a Claude integration that allows the AI agent to sign in to websites using credentials stored in a 1Password vault. The password manager says Claude never sees the password or one-time code. Instead, users approve each request, and 1Password injects the credentials directly into the target website while locking down access to the rest of the vault.

The design appears safer than simply handing passwords to an AI model, but it does not remove every risk. Once Claude is authenticated, it may still be able to view private data, change settings, place orders, or perform other actions available inside the account. Users may want to limit the feature to low-risk tasks until browser-based agents become more predictable.

In 2022, due to “evolving licensing agreements” with distributor StudioCanal, German and Austrian users had hundreds of movies disappear from their PS accounts, long after buying them through Sony. Then in 2023, it happened again in America, specifically when Sony ended its licensing agreement with Discovery after the Warner Bros. merger, which, of course, has since been bought by Paramount Skydance. That resulted in customers having hundreds and hundreds of episodes of TV shows deleted from their accounts. Nowhere in any of this were there refunds, of course. No recompense at all, actually. Just a thing you thought you’d bought taken away from you by the very people you thought you bought it from.

And now it’s happening again. Due to another licensing agreement fallout with StudioCanal, hundreds of movies and TV shows are being ripped from the accounts of PS Store customers, and there appears to be fuck all that they can do about it. [Kotaku reports:] “This news was brought to people’s attention by X user somatyk, who posted the notification they had received from PlayStation this week. Along with the unapologetic news that the purchased movies would be deleted from their account on September 1, the message concluded with, ‘Click here for a full list of affected titles that will no longer be supported. Thank you.’ The same warning is now reproduced in full on the PlayStation website, along with the list of 551 films and TV series that are being pulled from people’s libraries.”

As Kotaku notes later in their post, part of what is striking in all of this is the sheer mundanity of the announcement. Because there have been no consequences, or any action at all from the public or government, Sony treats this all as if it’s perfectly normal and no big deal. You can tell me all you want about how the Ts and Cs in these purchases do in fact note that the nature of the purchase is a temporary licensing of the content for an undetermined time period… but I can promise you that the public in general doesn’t understand that. They think they’re buying a thing, not a license.

Along with the name change, Google is rolling out an update announced last month that allows Gemini Notebook to connect to a secure cloud computer to write and execute code. This feature is available to Google AI Ultra and Workspace business customers, but will come to Pro users on the web “over the coming weeks.”

As a part of its shutdown in global regions, OnePlus has confirmed that its flavor of Android, OxygenOS, is going away. Instead, all active OnePlus devices will be moving over to Oppo’s ColorOS starting with their Android 17 updates. This includes in India, where OnePlus is adamant it will continue operations — reliable reporting disagrees.

OnePlus explains: “As part of an operational adjustment to our software strategy, following the official release of ColorOS 17, users globally with existing OnePlus devices that fall within the eligible upgrade scope will have the option to voluntarily update to the latest ColorOS. This enables us to streamline software development, accelerate update delivery, improve software quality, and make better use of our shared engineering and R&D capabilities.”

[…] OnePlus will continue “maintenance support” for OxygenOS versions on older models not included in the Android 17 update scope, but newer devices will likely need to make the switch to ColorOS for all forms of continued support. OnePlus does explain that rollback versions to OxygenOS will be available for those who prefer the prior experience: “OnePlus devices will be able to choose whether to update to the latest ColorOS system. Older models that are not included in the update scope will also continue to receive version maintenance support. If users update to ColorOS, they will be able to roll back to OxygenOS. The specific rollback versions available will be subject to future official announcements.”

Yesterday, the Commission announced that new product categories would be exempted from complying with its Batteries Regulation, including wearable devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smart glasses. This will likely be good news for companies like Apple, Google, Samsung, and Meta, which won’t have to redesign their devices to include user-replaceable batteries for consumers in the EU market.

The EU’s Batteries Regulation will come into effect in February 2027, which is when Nintendo plans to stop selling all models of the original Nintendo Switch in the EU. While Nintendo had no choice but to redesign its handheld console to keep selling it in the EU, it probably didn’t make sense for the company to put in the same effort for the OG Switch, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in March 2027.

South Korea’s government has posted a tender seeking suppliers to build a universal basic AI chatbot, and an AI agent for government services. The “AI for everyone” plan calls for private entities to create and operate the AI systems under contracts that expire in the year 2031. Bid documents reveal that Seoul will provide up to 256 Nvidia B200 GPUs to successful bidders. Winners must match government funding. The aim of the policy is to ensure that every resident of South Korea can access a free-to-use quality AI chatbot, a tool Seoul has decided no local should be without.

The tender also calls for creation of an agentic system that allows citizens to interact with government services. South Korea’s government wants to ensure that residents can always access a locally hosted and operated service, to reduce reliance on overseas providers and ensure that AI services reflect local culture. Successful bidders must therefore use locally developed AI models as the foundation for the services. Bidders have until August 11th to file their proposals. South Korean media reports suggest local tech giants Kakao, Naver, SK Telecom, and LG are all keen to participate.

Chinese users of AI-powered companion bots have bid heart-rending farewells to their virtual buddies as national regulations took effect Wednesday aimed at curbing the risk of emotional dependency. The phenomenon of artificial intelligence boyfriends and girlfriends is growing worldwide, along with the prevalence of human-like avatars that sell products or stand in for loved ones who have died. But these interactive tools must not “excessively cater to users, induce emotional dependence or addiction, and damage users’ real interpersonal relationships,” China’s new rulebook says. Major AI providers including ByteDance’s Doubao, Alibaba’s Qwen, and Tencent’s Yuanbao announced the suspension of their custom AI agent and companion features ahead of the Wednesday deadline.

In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magana-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.

A Reddit post making the rounds this week claims the U.S. has experienced at least one major power outage every month of 2026 — but is it true? I dug into several outages, the extreme weather behind them, and what we can do to help keep the lights on. […] The claim that hundreds of thousands of Americans were without power over extended periods at least once per month, every month of 2026 surprised be in two ways. First, because I had no idea if it was true — and, second, because it felt true. We try to do better than writing about things that feel true around here, however, so I did a bit of research (translation: I Googled power outages by month) and came up with the following examples in about sixty seconds

January: More than 296,000 customers still without power as winter storm freezes much of the US
February: More than 380,000 customers without power as winter storm hits US Northeast
March: Storms Cut Power to Over 1 Million Customers in U.S. Midwest, Mid-Atlantic; Ohio Hardest Hit
April: At least 29 tornadoes touched down in Central Illinois on April 17th
May: Energy Secretary Issues Emergency Order to Deploy Backup Generation in the Mid-Atlantic Amid Heatwave
June: More than 373,000 U.S. customers without power due to extreme weather

… and that list is far from comprehensive, and how you feel about it might depend on what you consider a “major” outage, of course — but consider that there are tens of thousands of Americans without power right now, and that’s not making the news. […] The lesson here is that weather-related grid outages — whether they’re caused by wildfires, mudslides, derechos, tornadoes, ice storms, hurricanes, heat waves, or some other disaster I’m lucky enough to have forgotten about — read like statistics when they’re happening over there, but get personal real quick when they’re happening to you.

The publishers argue that Google repurposed books that had been supplied for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. Those services allowed Google to use the works in specific ways — for example, to display searchable snippets or sell ebooks — but not, the lawsuit claims, to copy them for training commercial AI products. “Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of ‘Don’t be evil’ and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history,” the suit states (PDF).

According to the complaint, the tech company made copies of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, despite internal discussions acknowledging the legal risks. The filing claims Google flagged internally that it could face "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines” for using texts provided by publishers for Google Play Books. The publishers say Google’s actions are harming authors and the wider publishing industry, arguing that AI-generated content could negatively impact book sales.

It notes that, for example, Gemini could generate “a 100-page murder mystery set in a quiet seaside town filled with secrets, that substitutes for an original copyrighted murder mystery on which Gemini trained” in 20 minutes for 39 cents. “No publisher or author can compete with that.” The lawsuit names a number of specific books that the publishers allege were among the copyrighted works used without permission, including NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, and Lemony Snicket’s Who Could That Be at This Hour?

Amazon Music introduced a similar feature last year when it integrated Alexa Plus into the service. Spotify’s chatbot goes a step beyond providing AI-powered recommendations and general trivia, however, because it references your playlists, favorite artists, repeat listens, and listening data when responding to requests. That means you can ask questions about your own listening history to check when you first heard a specific song, or see what genres you’ve been into lately if you can’t hold out for the annual Wrapped insights.

The updated AI capabilities are more conversational than older features like Prompted Playlist, which automatically builds playlists based on descriptions. Now, you can ask the Spotify chatbot to “play some songs I haven’t heard before,” and control what’s being played with further instructions like requesting specific artists or asking to make it “more upbeat.” Spotify says the new conversational experience aims to make the platform “more personal and useful for every listener,” making this one of several ways that the company is trying to address complaints about its algorithm.

You can also ask the Spotify AI general questions about whatever you’re listening to, making the feature feel similar to using chatbot services like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT. That includes asking for when a song was released, exploring other titles an author has written when listening to one of their audiobooks, or checking if a podcast guest has appeared on other audio shows.