China blocks Windows, Intel and AMD for government use
The Chinese government has made the decision to run its IT infrastructure entirely on homegrown hardware and software. From now on, municipalities, ministries and other government agencies will not be allowed to use Windows computers or Intel and AMD chips.
In late December, China's IT security ... Read more
Microsoft scoops up Inflection AI, will pay €600 million
Microsoft took over much of the staff and licenses of AI startup Inflection AI last week. In compensation, the tech giant is now paying $650 million (€601 million).
Microsoft recently announced that it had recruited two out of three Inflection AI's founders, Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonya... Read more
36% of Dutch companies fail compliance audit
As a result, such companies are ten times more likely to become a data breach victim.
That's according to figures from Thales. Based on research among 3,000 IT professionals worldwide, including 105 from the Netherlands, Thales shares the alarming figures. Of all the companies that failed a comp... Read more
Google fined €250 million for training Gemini
The French competition authority Autorité de la concurrence has fined Google €250 million.
The multi-million dollar fine follows after Google used news reports from French media companies to train chatbot Bard, now known as Gemini. Gemini would also reproduce these French news reports.
Acc... Read more
Meta moves to nearly halve subscription price under pressure from EU
Meta plans to nearly halve the price of its data-tracking-free subscription in the European Union. This move will allow Meta to comply with the regulations of the European DMA and clarify how it may use (tracking) data from its end users to sell ads.
According to Reuters, Meta is lowering the pr... Read more
DSA investigation opened into sale of illegal products on AliExpress
The European Commission today reports the third investigation for violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA). There are already ongoing investigations against social media platforms X and TikTok, but today, the first investigation into an online sales platform is opened. In it, the commission wil... Read more
‘European Commission in breach of privacy laws due to Microsoft 365 use’
European privacy watchdog EDPS is taking the European Commission (EC) to task. The EC is alleged to have flouted several data management rules.
The EDPS points out that the EC did not sufficiently consider the data that might end up outside the EU. Now the regulator is demanding that the Commiss... Read more
Big Tech tries to make developers and users pay for DMA costs
At midnight, gatekeepers should be in place for the Digital Markets Act (DMA). It already turns out the legislation is not yet perfect, or at least not being implemented perfectly. Big Tech is cunningly trying to get out from under the rules. What goes wrong?
The DMA already proofs it is not a s... Read more
ASML turmoil drives Netherlands to better EU coordination on exports
The Dutch government will propose better coordination of export restrictions with other EU member states today. Disagreement over the sale of ASML machines has moved the cabinet to take this step.
The proposal will appear in the Dutch House of Representatives today, Bloomberg reports. The desire... Read more
OpenAI fights off Musk allegations and reveals internal emails
Last week, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, which he co-founded. Now that company is defending itself against Musk's allegation that it is unfairly pursuing a for-profit model. Indeed, old emails allegedly show that the tech tycoon himself wanted OpenAI to bring in more money to develop AI... Read more