Good morning and welcome to Thursday. We’ve kept you long enough today, so let’s just dive right in.
1. EU coming for big bad tech
Starting in Europe this morning and the EU is now coming out and saying what they, and everybody else, already knows. The six big tech companies, including Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft, are the “gatekeepers” of our modern online ecosystem. These companies now have to make sure that all of the 22 designated platforms under their respective portfolios adhere to regulations that prevent them from monopolising their digital domains, such as allowing consumers to decide what apps they want on their phone and to delete pre-loaded software such as Google or Apple Music.
2. Google to require AI labels for election content
Zoning in on Google now and brought to our attention by Reuters, the Search giant will make it mandatory for all election advertisers to add a clear and conspicuous disclosure starting mid-November when their ads contain AI-generated content. Per a blog post, Google said the policy would apply to image, video, and audio content, across its platforms. This should go some way to thwarting deepfakes, if the content doesn’t also fool Google. Separately, the AP is reporting that 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have reached an agreement in principle with Google to settle a lawsuit filed in 2021 over the tech giant’s alleged monopolistic control of app distribution for Android. It’s like items 1 and 2 are colliding here.
3. AFP, Monash to use AI for good
Back down under and the AFP has announced a new joint research centre with Monash. AiLECS (AI for Law Enforcement and Community Safety Lab) will harness machine learning, natural language processing, network analysis, and other techniques to support law enforcement in countering child abuse material, detecting and classifying illegal firearms, recognising misinformation, and analysing large online criminal networks. It’s an expansion on an initiative, My Pictures Matter, the two organisations set up last year to help stop child exploitation.
4. The latest in the Microsoft hack
Back in June, Microsoft’s Office suite was facing pretty severe service issues. A hacktivist group claimed responsibility, saying it flooded the sites with junk traffic in distributed denial-of-service attacks. Per AP we learned that Microsoft disclosed that DDoS attacks by the group were indeed to blame. But today, the Wall Street Journal has added a little more (scary) context. The report notes that a “series of technical missteps … including the hack of a company engineer, gave the Chinese government access to emails of top Biden administration officials”. There’s so much more to it, so read the WSJ piece over here.
5. CBA buys lending startup
Ending with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia today and the yellow and black bank has announced its venture-scaling arm, x15ventures, has entered an agreement to acquire cloud-based invoice lending platform Waddle. “Acquiring Waddle and bringing the technology in-house will enable CBA to accelerate the growth of its Stream Working Capital product, while continuing to benefit from the first-class automation and flexibility the Waddle platform is known for”, the bank said in a statement.
BONUS ITEM: RGB cup noodles, anyone?
Have a fabulous day.