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August 13, 2026
 

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BIG TECH

Attendees at a conference in Mumbai in September 2023. More than 30 U.S. states are suing Meta over allegations related to alleged harms to children and mental health.
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2026
Meta ordered to pay U.S. state $567 million over ¡®public nuisance¡¯ and child harm
Around three-quarters of the new $567 million fund is set to be used for mental health treatment, with the funds to be paid over five years.
TikTok and other social media companies are facing more than 3,000 individual complaints alleging that their products are addictive and have harmed the mental health of children.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 4, 2026
TikTok finalizing trio of settlements over addiction claims
The cases are part of broad litigation against the world¡¯s largest social media companies, which includes individual plaintiffs, U.S. school districts and state attorneys general.
Marine One, carrying the U.S. president, departs from the Ellipse in front of the White House as construction on the South Lawn continues in Washington, on July 17.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 4, 2026
Meta, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI to meet Trump officials about AI safety testing
Anthropic and OpenAI disclosed in recent days that their AI tools breached the systems ?of ?other companies, stirring concerns among U.S. lawmakers.
Meta has deployed an "AI Info" label on its Instagram and Facebook platforms for posts using artificial intelligence technology, ahead of the European Union's sweeping artificial intelligence transparency rules entering into force.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 28, 2026
New EU rules set to aid transparency over artificial intelligence content
The goal is to ensure Europeans immediately know whether the online content they see is real or fake.
The United States¡¯ Take It Down Act criminalizes the publication of nonconsensual sexual content and forces social media and website operators to remove such posts.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 27, 2026
Instagram and Facebook ran AI ¡®nudify¡¯ ads from China, report says
Meta¡¯s rules prohibit sexually suggestive ads or those for apps that purport to strip the persons depicted.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission aims to curb the market dominance of Big Tech companies such as Google and Apple.
BUSINESS
Jul 23, 2026
Japan antitrust watchdog to add new bureau to tackle Big Tech
The Japan Fair Trade Commission aims to curb the market dominance of companies like Google and Apple and ensure fairer transactions for small businesses.
A new report from a California-based nonprofit says the artificial intelligence features built in to Alphabet¡¯s Google Search pose an "unacceptable risk¡± to children.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 17, 2026
Google Search AI poses ¡®unacceptable risk¡¯ to kids, report finds
The ubiquitous search engine¡¯s AI features failed to detect suicide risks, said an eating disorder symptom was normal, and provided instructions for creating deepfakes, it says.
Google's bureaucracy, fragmented AI strategy and internal management problems are threatening to erode its leadership in artificial intelligence.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2026
Google¡¯s power struggles are killing its AI mojo
Google¡¯s messy history in product development, including a culture of launching new products and then moving on, has tainted its AI coding efforts and led to a lack of focus.
Australia's online watchdog says young men and boys are being targeted for sexual extortion on social media platforms, with Instagram and WhatsApp most often named in complaints.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Jul 15, 2026
Young Australian men falling victim to online sexual extortion, regulator says
Australia¡¯s eSafety Commissioner received more than 2,200 complaints in the six months to December about sexual extortion, a third of them from men age 18 to 24 years old.
Online platforms are failing to use available technologies that can identify well-known coercion ?scripts used by sexual extortion offenders, Australia's internet regulator said in a transparency report.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 14, 2026
Australia finds serious gaps in Big Tech¡¯s response to online child sexual abuse
Online platforms are failing to use available tech that can identify well-known coercion ?scripts used for sexual extortion, the nation¡¯s internet regulator said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Microsoft Build conference at the Seattle Convention Center Summit Building in Seattle in May 2024.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 11, 2026
Apple sues OpenAI for trade secret theft in pivotal case
The iPhone maker said in a suit Friday that OpenAI encouraged Apple employees to share information, components, drawings and other materials related to upcoming products.
Workers package and cube pallet bricks for shipping at Belden Brick in Sugarcreek, Ohio, in November 2025.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 8, 2026
U.S. Rust Belt factories get shock as Big Tech data centers drive up power bills
Factory electricity bills, a core expense, are rising faster than for many homes and other businesses, a review of U.S. energy data shows.
Sudanese women gather for a hot meal in al-Rahmaniyah camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region of Sudan on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 8, 2026
Misinformation inciting harm to refugees, UNHCR says
Artificial intelligence is exacerbating the spread of such misinformation and hate speech, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
During an internal sales meeting in July 2025, Judson Althoff, Microsoft's chief commercial officer at the time, touted the company¡¯s rapid artificial intelligence growth in China.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 18, 2026
Microsoft makes big AI inroads in China by selling OpenAI models
The tech giant counts ByteDance, Ant Group, Meituan and Tencent Holdings among its Chinese customers.
A growing number of young consumers are turning to analog and single-purpose devices like cyberdecks and e-readers as a form of resistance to AI-first platforms and automated digital systems.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2026
What is the hottest Gen-Z tech trend? Anti-AI
Many of the models now being hunted online were released before their new owners were born.
Visitors attend Google's I/O 2026 developer conference in Mountain View, California, on May 19. The event primarily focused on the next generation of artificial intelligence and developer tools.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2026
Google¡¯s AI shift is causing a collective freak-out
The new dark art of search engine optimization is known as GEO (generative is now the first word) and it paradoxically has a more human flavor than the era of backlinks.
Google and Apple are among a group of technology companies that have expressed opposition to a proposed law in Canada allowing police more access to citizens¡¯ data.
BUSINESS / Tech
May 27, 2026
Apple and Google blast Canada¡¯s plan to give police more access to citizen data
The Canadian government is defending the Lawful Access Act, saying it¡¯s designed to ensure police have the legal tools to ¡°prevent, investigate and respond¡± to modern crime.
Apple CEO Tim Cook applauds as the iPhone 17 series goes on sale at the Apple Store in New York City last September.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2026
Apple grandmaster Tim Cook is playing 3D chess with AI
The smartphone is the most valuable choke point in the modern economy. It¡¯s the primary entry to the electronic world ¡ª and Apple dominates.
Liberal Democratic Party cybersecurity affairs leader Masaaki Taira speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
May 19, 2026
Â鶹´«Ã½ Mythos response ¡®must involve Big Tech,¡¯ says LDP cybersecurity chief
Anthropic allows only a limited number of companies and groups to access the AI model given the risks it poses.
Alphabet, the parent of Google, sold ?576.5 billion ($3.6 billion) in bonds in the largest ever yen deal by a non-Japanese company as competition to fund data centers and AI infrastructure intensifies.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 15, 2026
Alphabet sells biggest yen bond on record by foreign issuer
The Google parent sold ?576.5 billion ($3.6 billion) of bonds as competition to fund centers and AI infrastructure intensifies.
Gut bacteria may be behind many of Â鶹´«Ã½ colorectal cancer cases
A Japanese research team found that a toxin produced by certain E. coli strains, colibactin, caused genetic mutations in nearly half of colorectal cancer cases studied
¡®Total whiplash¡¯: Foreign residents react to Â鶹´«Ã½ changing permanent residency rules
The entrance to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau in Minato Ward, Tokyo, in March. For some foreign residents of Japan, tightening measures for permanent residency have become one factor in a broader calculation over whether remaining in the country makes financial sense over the long term.
She is Russia¡¯s richest woman. Her business empire is going up in flames.
Tatyana Kim, the head and co-founder of Wildberries, speaks about Ukrainian drone attacks on the company's warehouses in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, at an unidentified location, in this still image from a handout video released on July 31.
Severe tropical storm Chan-hom makes landfall near Tokyo
Severe Tropical Storm Chan-hom made landfall around Ibaraki Prefecture, near Tokyo, on Tuesday night.
What Â鶹´«Ã½ language rules for permanent residency should look like
Potential health care workers hoping to find work in Japan take Japanese language instruction in Jakarta. Not all applicants for permanent residency should be expected to reach this level of proficiency.
Where do foreign residents in Japan want to die?
The Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery is one of the few cemeteries in Japan that allows burials, albeit with conditions for the deceased, including foreign nationality and permanent residency in Kanagawa Prefecture.
¡®Total whiplash¡¯: Foreign residents react to Â鶹´«Ã½ changing permanent residency rules
The entrance to the Tokyo Immigration Bureau in Minato Ward, Tokyo, in March. For some foreign residents of Japan, tightening measures for permanent residency have become one factor in a broader calculation over whether remaining in the country makes financial sense over the long term.
As Â鶹´«Ã½ concrete jungles sizzle, urban forestry offers an all-natural fix
People and birds find relief from the sun in Tokyo's Nakano Ward earlier this month. While experts agree that urban greening is crucial to mitigating the impact of climate change, trees are becoming even more scarce in Japanese cities.
Â鶹´«Ã½ brewers experiment with a secret ingredient: music
At Smoke Craft, a craft beer brewery in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, music isn't just a background to the brewing process ¡ª it's an ingredient.
As countries ban social media for children, Japan mulls a different approach
Data from NTT Docomo¡¯s Mobile Society Research Institute released in June found that 55% of respondents across all age groups said they fiddled with their phones when they had nothing to do, even when another person was in front of them.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo¡¯s ¡®stadium of desire¡¯

Longform

Disaster relief workers Taichi Kato (left) and Seiji Yoshimura enter the collapsed living quarters at Kyuganji temple in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture.
What Kumamoto revealed about Â鶹´«Ã½ earthquake readiness
By Alex K.T. Martin

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