In Brief

Apple ordered to open up in-app purchases in Brazil

Brazil’s antitrust regulator Cade has ruled that Apple must lift restrictions on in-app purchases within 20 days, Reuters reports. Otherwise, if the iPhone maker doesn’t comply, it faces fines of $43,000 per day. This decision is the result of a complaint filed by e-commerce merchant Mercado Libre in 2022. If you’ve been following recent changes […]

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Volkswagen slashes the value of its stake in Northvolt, the beleaguered battery manufacturer

Volkswagen bet big on European-made batteries a few years ago with two massive investments in Northvolt, the Swedish manufacturer. Now, the automaker’s €1.4 billion stake is worth less than half that, according to Reuters. The write downs occurred throughout the current fiscal year as the situation at Northvolt deteriorated.  It’s unclear what Volkswagen’s current stake

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Authorities catch ‘SMS blaster’ gang that drove around Bangkok sending thousands of phishing messages

Thai authorities announced last week the arrests of two organized fraud gangs, one of which was accused of driving through the streets of Bangkok while blasting hundreds of thousands of malicious SMS text messages to nearby cellphones. This so-called “SMS blasting” attack relies on using technology that impersonates cellular base stations, and are capable of

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Italian food delivery app Foodinho eats another privacy fine

Not for the first time, food delivery firm Foodinho has been spanked by Italy’s privacy watchdog. Per Reuters, the Glovo-owned on-demand delivery app has been fined €5 million ($5.20 million) after it was found to have unlawfully processed the data of more than 35,000 riders registered on the platform. Issues identified included riders’ geolocation data

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EU closes antitrust probe into Apple’s e-book and audiobook rules after complaint withdrawn

The European Commission (EC) has quietly closed a longstanding antitrust investigation into Apple over rules it enforces against third-party e-book and audiobook app developers. The EC opened the probe back in 2020 after receiving complaints over how Apple forced competing e-book and audiobook app developers to use Apple’s own in-app payment system, while also preventing

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Hackers break into Andrew Tate’s online ‘university,’ steal user data and flood chats with emojis

Hackers have breached an online course founded by ostensible influencer and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate, leaking data on close to 800,000 users, including thousands of email addresses and private user chat logs. The Daily Dot, which broke the news Thursday, reported that the hackers accessed the user data, then flooded the online course’s chatroom with

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Apple is reportedly building a more conversational Siri powered by LLMs

Apple is developing a new version of its voice assistant, Siri, powered by advanced large language models (LLMs), according to sources cited by Bloomberg. This more conversational Siri is part of Apple’s attempt to catch up in AI, where competitors have released impressive features, like Google’s Gemini Live, that are far more natural to talk

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Former X policy chief joins Sam Altman’s Tools for Humanity

X’s former top policy chief has taken a job at Tools for Humanity, the company building the tech to support World Network (formerly Worldcoin). Nick Pickles, previously head of global affairs at X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, will serve as chief policy officer for Tools for Humanity, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-founded five

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Apple Pay, Cash App, PayPal and other apps to be treated more like banks

Some digital services look like banks, act like banks, but aren’t banks — meaning they can, for instance, close down your account without notice. Or be difficult to contact when you want to dispute fraud. This is about to change: the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has just ruled that all digital services that

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