Technology

As the global population ages, older adults face growing psychological challenges such as loneliness, cognitive decline, and loss of social roles. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including chatbots and voice-based systems, offer new pathways to emotional support and mental stimulation. However, older adults often encounter significant barriers in accessing and effectively using AI tools. This review examines the current landscape of AI applications aimed at enhancing psychological well-being among older adults, identifies key challenges such as digital literacy and usability, and highlights design and training strategies to bridge the digital divide. Using socioemotional selectivity theory and technology acceptance models as guiding frameworks, we argue that AI—especially in the form of conversational agents—holds transformative potential in reducing isolation and promoting emotional resilience in aging populations. We conclude with recommendations for inclusive design, participatory development, and future interdisciplinary research.

Despite the extensive, highly detailed and good-faith engagements by rightsholder communities throughout this process, the final outcomes fail to address the core concerns which our sectors – and the millions of creators and companies active in Europe which we represent – have consistently raised. The result is not a balanced compromise; it is a missed opportunity to provide meaningful protection of intellectual property rights in the context of GenAI and does not deliver on the promise of the EU AI Act itself.

The feedback of the primary beneficiaries these provisions were meant to protect has been largely ignored in contravention of the objectives of the EU AI Act as determined by the co-legislators and to the sole benefit of the GenAI model providers that continuously infringe copyright and related rights to build their models. In 2024, the cultural and creative sectors across Europe welcomed the principles of responsible and trustworthy AI enshrined in the EU AI Act, intended to ensure mutually beneficial growth of innovation and creativity in Europe.

Today, with the EU AI Act implementing package as it stands, thriving cultural and creative sectors and copyright intensive industries in Europe which contribute nearly 7% of EU GDP, provide employment for nearly 17 million professionals and have an economic contribution larger than European pharmaceutical, automobile or high-tech industries, are being sold out in favour of those GenAI model providers. The deployment of GenAI models which also make extensive use of scraping is already underway. The damage to and unfair competition with the cultural and creative sectors can be seen each day. The cultural and creative sectors must be safeguarded, as they are the foundations of our cultures and the Single Market. We wish to make it clear that the outcome of these processes does not provide a meaningful implementation of the GPAI obligations under the AI Act.

We strongly reject any claim that the Code of Practice strikes a fair and workable balance or that the Template will deliver “sufficient” transparency about the majority of copyright works or other subject matter used to train GenAI models. This is simply untrue and is a betrayal of the EU AI Act’s objectives.

Despite QUIC handshake packets being encrypted, the Great Firewall of China (GFW) has begun blocking QUIC connections to specific domains since April 7, 2024. In this work, we measure and characterize the GFW’s censorship of QUIC to understand how and what it blocks. Our measurements reveal that the GFW decrypts QUIC Initial packets at scale, applies heuristic filtering rules, and uses a blocklist distinct from its other censorship mechanisms. We expose a critical flaw in this new system: the computational overhead of decryption reduces its effectiveness under moderate traffic loads. We also demonstrate that this censorship mechanism can be weaponized to block UDP traffic between arbitrary hosts in China and the rest of the world. We collaborate with various open-source communities to integrate circumvention strategies into Mozilla Firefox, the quic-go library, and all major QUIC-based circumvention tools.

Uber Canada says it has updated its safety protocols for emergency situations after an incident in March where company representatives refused to contact a driver after he drove off with a child.

Julia Viscomi said Uber customer support refused to help her or Toronto police contact the driver after he left with her 5-year-old daughter asleep in the backseat in North York, CBC Toronto reported in April.

Police ended up finding the child without receiving help from Uber, about an hour and a half after the driver left with her, Viscomi said.

Sada Social Center expresses its deep concern and strong condemnation regarding TikTok’s appointment of Erica Mindel—a former instructor in the Israeli army’s Armored Corps—as the platform’s new Manager of Hate Speech Policy.

According to reports reviewed by Sada Social, Mindel previously worked with the U.S. State Department under Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden Administration’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Prior to that, she served as an instructor in the Israeli army’s Spokesperson’s Unit. In her new role, Mindel will be tasked with formulating TikTok’s hate speech policies, shaping relevant legislative and regulatory frameworks, and monitoring trends—particularly those related to antisemitic content.

Sada Social views this appointment as a highly concerning indicator for the future of digital freedoms for Palestinians. The center warns of the serious implications that Mindel’s military background may have on TikTok’s moderation practices, especially regarding Palestinian reports of incitement, bias, and the silencing of their narrative. Assigning someone affiliated with an army currently under international investigation for genocide in Gaza to lead hate speech policy only entrenches existing biases and undermines the principles of fairness and digital justice.

Sada Social’s 2024 Digital Index revealed that 27% of all digital violations targeting Palestinian content occurred on TikTok. According to TikTok’s own transparency report for the second half of 2024, the platform complied with 94% of the Israeli government’s content removal requests, all while imposing strict censorship on Palestinian content. This included the deletion of videos with clear journalistic value, and the targeting of accounts belonging to journalists, media outlets, activists, and supporters of the Palestinian cause.

Sada Social also underscores that TikTok has failed to undertake any meaningful internal review of its policies, even after the South African government submitted video evidence to the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—footage that was published on TikTok and depicted Israeli soldiers celebrating the destruction of Palestinian homes, mocking victims, and writing messages on bombs before they were dropped on Gaza. Instead of responding to these disturbing violations, TikTok has continued its partnerships with a political and military regime currently under international investigation.

Open Letter.

• Fears that content covering Palestine protests could be incorrectly removed as platforms are incentivised to censor content not protect freedom of expression
• Clarification needed over how platforms define ‘support’ for Palestine Action
• British public have no independent mechanism to challenge wrongful takedowns

When Jennifer Meissner’s small pipe welding business landed a multimillion-dollar contract to help build a sprawling new Texas headquarters for Tesla, she was convinced it was her company’s big break.

Instead, she says the deal led her into personal and professional bankruptcy – unable to pay dozens of her workers at Christmastime. Meissner said that was her last resort after Tesla, which is owned by the world’s richest man, stopped paying her company for work they’d already done.

The study shows that gaming-adjacent platforms, which allow users to chat and live stream while playing, are being used as “digital playgrounds” for extremist activity and that video game players are being deliberately “funnelled” by extremists from mainstream social media platforms to these sites, in part because of the challenges faced in moderating them.

Google has sharply reduced its support for nonprofit groups devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion, in what appears to be another sign the company is falling in line with President Trump’s anti-DEI crusade, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) has found.

Google publishes a list of organizations that receive the “most substantial contributions” from the company. In early 2025, Google removed more than 200 groups from the list, its biggest purge in at least five years. The largest category of removals related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), a concept that has come under sustained attack by the Trump administration. A total of 58 DEI-related groups disappeared from the list.

It is unclear if Google stopped funding these organizations or is simply seeking to hide its support for them. However, either scenario suggests Google is taking further steps to distance itself from DEI programs.

After Trump took office and began rolling back DEI efforts, Google removes references to diversity, equity, and inclusion from its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and ended diversity-related hiring goals. Like other Big Tech companies and executives, Google donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

Google and most of the groups removed from Google's list did not respond to questions. One of the groups, the ACLU of Illinois, declined to comment and directed questions to Google.

In a statement to CNBC, which covered this report, Google said, “We contribute to hundreds of groups from across the political spectrum that advocate for pro-innovation policies, and those groups change from year to year based on where our contributions will have the most impact.”

TTP identified Google’s disappearing DEI groups while updating its Tech Funding Database. The searchable database, which is linked on TTP’s website, provides information on whether organizations have received funding from Big Tech firms, based on company disclosures. The latest update adds disclosures from 2021 to the most recent available.

• Artificial intelligence is driving the promise of autonomy in everything from self-driving cars, to digital health and smart cities.
• True autonomy emerges from the convergence of sensing, connectivity, computing and control – not isolated intelligence.
• Accordingly, biological intelligence must serve as the foundational design principle for building next-generation autonomous systems.

A Florida jury on Friday found Tesla liable in the 2019 fatal crash of an Autopilot-equipped Model S, and ordered Elon Musk’s automaker to pay $329 million to the family of a deceased woman and an injured survivor.

Jurors in Miami federal court ordered Tesla to pay $129 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages to the estate of Naibel Benavides Leon and to her former boyfriend Dillon Angulo.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the trial was the first involving the wrongful death of a third party resulting from Autopilot. The plaintiffs had sought $345 million.

Thousands of South Dakotans have been publicly labeled as applicants for government assistance and thousands more have had their email address and phone number exposed, due to a new state law and the way the state’s election office is implementing it.

Although the legislation creating the law received some Democratic votes, it’s a product of the Republican-dominated Legislature. Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed it into law and Republican Secretary of State Monae Johnson is carrying out its provisions.

Several legislators, both Democrats and Republicans, are now telling South Dakota Searchlight they did not intend for the law to expose sensitive information — especially the identity of public assistance applicants.

“This is what happens when you put the wrong people in charge,” said state House Minority Leader Erin Healy, D-Sioux Falls, who voted against the bill. “We talk a lot about freedom and privacy in this state, so it’s a shame that this legislation led to this type of breach.”