Mistral Chief Executive Arthur Mensch has accused leading global artificial intelligence companies of using the debate over the safety of the technology as a cover-up for their “negligence.” “The debate that we’ve seen in the U.S. has been a cover for the negligence of some of our competitors,” Mensch told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach, adding that it was necessary to make systems that can contain the AI agents. […]

“When you give them a lot of tools, those systems [AI agents] are very dynamic, so they can go and do things that you do not expect,” Mensch told CNBC. “You need to have the right monitoring in place, and the enterprises we work with, we give them those kind of monitoring systems,” he said.

Mistral also develops AI models but takes a different approach to OpenAI and Anthropic by working with individual companies to create custom AI tools to suit their needs and integrate them with their businesses. But unlike its competitors, Mistral has no plans to slow down development of advanced models. The lead that U.S. labs have is “not extremely large,” Mensch said, adding that his company was confident that its next-generation model will close the gap “very significantly.”

“We have been raising the capital needed to scale the compute that we need to train bigger and more powerful models, in order for us to own our own destiny,” he said. Earlier this month, Mistral raised 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) in fresh funding led by memory chip giant Samsung, as it looks to position itself as a European alternative to rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Reuters got a look at the interface that franchisees use to access this technology and it’s pretty creepy. Messages show stuff like “your restaurant is showing MEDIUM SENSITIVITY to price” based on “customer willingness to pay in your area.” Cost differences at nearby locations can be stark. Researchers found that a Bic Mac at a Fresno, California store cost $5.69, but the same burger cost $6.89 at another branch two miles down the road. That’s a 21 percent difference.

The company acknowledges that using this dynamic pricing system could open up franchisees to legal hurdles, all while continuing to push the platform. The pricing portal’s terms of service reportedly warns that owners “may be competitors of each other” and “it is particularly important for all Users of the Tool to understand and comply fully with antitrust and competition laws.” The document also reiterates that franchisees are “always free to determine the final price,” thus potentially absolving corporate from any antitrust concerns.

McDonald’s has decried Reuters’ reporting as “speculative and uninformed.” The company says the pricing portal is “a tool, not a mandate, designed to provide restaurant-specific recommendations to help franchisees deliver value for customers and make informed business decisions.” The company has been using some version of this technology since at least 2019, according to Reuters. In 2023, however, CEO Kempczinski boasted to investors that it had developed proprietary tools to evaluate pricing at individual restaurants.

British Transport Police said that since the extension there had been three positive confirmed alerts of people who were subsequently confirmed to be complying with sexual harm prevention orders or other imposed court conditions. When Transport for London announced its support for the extension of the trial, it said LFR technology “will target and identify people on police watchlists at key stations chosen for maximum impact” and would “specifically tackle violence against women and girls, whose travel behaviors are shaped by experiences of sexual harassment and sexual offenses.”

Fraser Sampson, a former biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner for the UK, said the police needed to show that the use of the technology was proportionate. “There many variables and all need to align: the choice of location, times of day, make up of the watchlist and likelihood of people being present and many more.” Sampson, who is now a non-executive director of Facewatch, a company that operates facial recognition systems in shops, added: “We know the technology works, but using it in supermarkets to deter shoplifters and prevent attacks on staff is very different from deploying it to catch people on a public transport network.”

“Success in a shop means no such people coming in. Success for the police trying to catch people means people being caught. In that respect the trial doesn’t appear to have been very fruitful. Everything depends on the police watchlists; if you’re not on a watchlist, the live FRT cameras do not “see” you and they don’t retain your image in the same way as CCTV cameras. However, they are processing special category personal data and the technology must be used in a way that is appropriate, proportionate and necessary. It’s for the police to show how any deployment meets those criteria and — as the ICO [information commissioner’s office] has recently reported — for their oversight boards to hold them firmly to account in doing so.”

Dots are frontier intelligence that have your back. Powered by GPT-6 Astra, they have their own cloud computer, learn from feedback over time, and can work towards your goals 24/7. Through our ecosystem of plugins, they can readily connect to over 4,000 apps, giving them the tools to help wherever you need them.

Your dot is always within reach, whether it is through ChatGPT, Slack, or Teams. You can ask questions, explore ideas, and give feedback along the way; or you can simply hop on a voice call when you need to talk something out. The more you work together, the more your dot learns your preferences, how you think, and what good looks like to you.

The magic of dots is when they bring you work done the way you would do it, sometimes before you even think to ask. With dots alongside you, ambitious ideas and projects you haven’t had the time or support to pursue start to feel achievable.

Starting with Chromebook updates, Google says that “Chromebooks you have today will continue to receive updates through their supported lifetime,” with all Enterprise and Education management capabilities remaining in place as well: “We will maintain support for current Chromebook devices running ChromeOS as outlined in our Auto Update policy and the Chromebooks you have today will continue to receive updates through their supported lifetime…”

Google adds that similar management tools will be coming to Googlebook, but they’re not available yet. Apparently they’re planned for the second half of 2027. Meanwhile, Google says that “many” existing Chromebook models will be eligible to transition from ChromeOS to Googlebook OS. More details are coming “soon.” A later note specifies that Google is referring to “newer commercial Chromebook models.”

Notably, Google specifies a year when ChromeOS updates will come to an end in a later note — 2034. Chromebooks with a 10-year update policy that extends past 2034 will be eligible to move to Googlebook OS. […] Finally, in regards to apps, Google says that it is “committed” to web developers despite an increased focus on Android apps on Googlebooks.

The governor’s office pointed to reports that about a million investors lost an alleged $3.8 billion on their purchases of the memecoin released by President Donald Trump in 2025 as a the motivation behind the new rule.

“No official should profit off their office — and we’re putting stronger protections in place to ensure it doesn’t happen in our state,” Newsom said. The bill also prohibits a company, related or not, from making a memecoin using “the likeness or image” of a public official.

The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a “reckless, unacceptably risky product” without the deployment of “third-party approved safety guardrails.” The new legal motion (PDF), filed Monday morning, is part of a civil lawsuit the state of Florida originally filed in June, arguing that ChatGPT represented “a threat to the public safety of Floridians,” specifically by preying on vulnerable populations like children and violent or delusional adults. […] In arguing for this injunction, the state points to the Hugging Face incident as well as recent high-profile misalignment cases involving unintended and unauthorized attempts to access Australian and US government servers. Florida also cites AI industry leaders, including many from OpenAI, in arguing that the AI industry is literally asking for this kind of outside regulation.

The motion points to statements from Paul Christiano, who said on joining the company’s board this month that he believes “there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term.” The motion also points to OpenAI’s own “An Alien Mind” essay and an open letter from 1,300 AI industry employees, both of which call for enforced slowdowns on frontier AI development, if necessary. Citing laws that allow the state to exercise control over companies that are a “public nuisance,” Florida argues that OpenAI is “the greatest public nuisance ever created by the hand of man, capable of laying waste to global civilization.”

The latest data shows the temperature rise at the heart of El Nino in the Pacific Ocean has now reached 3.05C. That is higher than the 3.02C set in late November 2015, the previous high set in the 150 years of modern records. This temperature is measured against the average of 1991-2020. The preferred measure of most meteorologists uses a 30-year rolling average as a reference and so takes account of human-caused global heating. This metric, called ONI (Nino3.4), is on the brink of breaking the record, just one-hundredth of a degree below the 2015 record. Both metrics are underpinned by data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The most recent forecasts predict a peak of 4.0C in November and December, according to the average of 14 different models assessed by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. That is a level so far above previous events that Hausfather called it “mind-blowing,” while others have described it as “Godzilla-level.” Any temperature rise above 0.5C is deemed an El Nino; above 2C is officially called a “very strong” El Nino — often referred to as a “super” El Nino. The current El Nino is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere in which temperatures are already rising rapidly due to human-caused global heating. This double whammy means 2027 is expected to “blow apart” previous records and become the hottest year ever recorded.

Enceladus isn’t the only place in our solar system with water — so, why is it so exciting in the search for life? Well, it has to do with the seafloor of its extensive, liquid ocean. Down deep at the bottom of this body of water, scientists think hydrothermal processes, or movement or reactions with hot water under the surface, are taking place. The plumes shooting upward from the ocean also contain trace amounts of salts and organic compounds. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft found these traces when it flew through the plumes over a decade ago. Between the hydrothermal activity and the organics and minerals in the water, this moon’s ocean has a number of aspects that could be involved in supporting life.

What’s more, using a combination of Cassini data, theoretical models and laboratory experimentation, in Postberg’s new study the team found that the plume’s water droplets blasting out into space at up to 621 miles per hour (1,000 kilometers per hour) don’t freeze as quickly as expected. Before, scientists thought the freeze would happen instantaneously once the droplets reached space, but Postberg and fellow researchers say they found the freezing would actually happen much slower.

They also found that during this freezing process, the salt, organic compounds (and maybe possible signs of life) in the water droplets separate from one another. Not only that, but the team says that as the particles are blasted out into space, they should often collide with the icy cracks of the planet’s surface. This ultimately would leave behind tiny shards of frozen droplets with individually separated out components. Essentially, it’s like the planet has organized its oceanic ingredients into tiny, frozen particle fragments.

It is the bane of every fruit bowl: sliced banana that turns brown before it has reached the table. But such woes could soon be a thing of the past, with gene-edited bananas that keep their freshly peeled color now one step closer to reaching British shoppers. According to Tropic, the Norwich-based agricultural-biotechnology company that developed the fruit, the bananas have the same taste and texture but stay “fresh, yellow and appetizing long after peeling and slicing.”

Gilad Gershon, the chief executive of Tropic, said the flesh of the new banana resisted browning for an extra day or two — and longer if chilled. He added that the innovation could make it easier to add bananas to prepackaged products such as fruit salads and breakfast pots, as well as reducing waste. […] Tropic developed the bananas by using a gene-editing technology called Crispr-Cas9 to alter all three copies of a single gene within the fruit. As a result, they were able to reduce the production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes browning. A similar approach has been effective in reducing browning in other produce, including mushrooms.

Tropic said the non-browning bananas could reduce food waste and CO2-equivalent emissions along the supply chain by more than 25%. “This could support an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of over 9m tonnes in the banana export market alone,” the company said. […] Gershon said Tropic had gained regulatory approval for the non-browning bananas in 10 other countries including Japan, Brazil and the Philippines. The fruit is already being grown in Latin America.

China has expanded overseas travel restrictions for top AI professionals in private firms to include the families of key personnel, further tightening measures designed to prevent the outflow of critical know-how and information to the US. Government agencies have recently begun to share the wider restrictions with affected people, which include prominent startup founders as well as the heads of strategically important companies in AI-related fields, people familiar with the matter said. Direct relatives such as spouses and children of certain AI and chip executives, whose work is considered paramount to state security, are now required to obtain approval from Beijing before going abroad even for short trips, the people said.

That marks a broadening of existing curbs on the freedom of movement of China’s most influential tech talent — a category that encompasses entrepreneurs, researchers and executives. While not an outright ban on travel, the new requirement is likely to exert a further chilling effect on a tech sector already facing unprecedented curbs. China has restricted foreign travel for top AI professionals in private firms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and DeepSeek since earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported in May, reflecting Beijing’s determination to safeguard its technology as it makes big strides in AI and chipmaking.

It’s unclear whether all those people’s families need to follow the new strictures, the people said. China is also separately implementing rules, which became effective Sept 15, for enforcing exit bans in cases ranging from criminal investigations to potential violations of the country’s industrial and technological security. Beijing’s plan is to add relevant individuals to the list as time goes by, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. Government departments have already notified several people of the need to clear family travel, two of the people said.

AI researchers expect world models will be able to help develop robots and other physically-grounded artificial intelligence applications. AMD plans to keep World Labs separate from its chipmaking business until the transaction closes later this year. The lab’s research on next-generation models will allow AMD to plan for what its AI chips need to be capable of years in advance.

World Labs was founded by AI researcher Fei-Fei Li, who is widely seen as an AI pioneer as a Stanford professor, and who previously worked for Google leading AI research. Li will become an AMD’s chief scientist and an executive vice president at the company.

In a demo presented by Li and AMD CEO Lisa Su earlier this year, the two executives showed a World Labs model called Marble creating a three-dimensional scene out of a few images. “Intelligent agents, whether it’s robots or vehicles or even tools, can learn inside very-rich physics-aware digital worlds before they even need to be deployed into the real one, making them much safer,” Li said at the presentation.

A trial had been set to begin on Monday in the southern US state over claims by Alabama that TikTok misled parents about tools meant to shield children from harmful content. […] Attorney general Steve Marshall hailed Friday’s settlement as “a great day for Alabama parents.” He said: “Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction.”

Under the settlement, TikTok will send $100m to Alabama and could possibly pay up to $300m in total if 40 other attorneys general sign similar agreements with the company within a specified timeframe. In addition, the Alabama deal includes a conditional restriction that Meta also agreed to: expanding the night-time shutdown period to 10pm to 7am if other platforms also commit to do the same.

“TikTok’s priority has always been fostering a safe and positive space where people can be creative, discover what they love, and connect with their community,” a company spokesperson told AFP. “This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens,” the spokesperson added. More than a dozen other states, including California and New York, still have suits against TikTok.

NorthPoint Development wants to build a data center on 1,300 acres in the Pocono foothills, near Hazle Township, Pennsylvania. As well as seeking to charm the local government with various funding packages, it has proposed paying checks of $10,000 per household. Despite the Pennsylvania town’s median income of $60,000, the offer isn’t being warmly welcomed by locals, reports the Wall Street Journal. Those interviewed were widely against the data center development plans and cited several reasons for being averse to accepting the payout. The major concerns regarded potential impacts on property values, the specter of noise pollution, and a distrust of both the AI moguls and local government representatives.

Offer letters began to be received by Hazle Township back in June. The WSJ recently talked to several residents about NorthPoint’s $10,000 offer. While some say the $10,000 would be handy, it couldn’t find many residents who were “eager to welcome the data center for the payout,” in the journal’s words. […] Traditionally, developers have offered towns and cities packages worth tens of millions, including funding for local services. But direct cash payments to residents represent a new phase of their charm offensive, the WSJ indicates. Perhaps the idea for the direct payments to residents came after “a raucous public meeting last year, where angry locals asked what they had to gain by supporting the data center,” ponders the source.

The locals won’t just get the direct payout, though. Other funds up to $120 million over the next 15 years have been dangled like a carrot for community and local services investments — improved schools, emergency services, and so on. Meanwhile, Hazle Township’s government already rejected the data center project on zoning grounds last year, and it has enacted a temporary moratorium on data center construction. Finally, the $10,000 offer to households is simply not enough in many interviewed folks’ opinions. Residents could feel insulted by it, regarding the offer as a bribe, concludes the WSJ report.

Desai, a veteran technology executive, took over the role from Dev Ittycheria. MongoDB has appointed Ittycheria as interim CEO as it searches for a permanent replacement. “While the departure is disappointing, we believe MongoDB remains well-positioned strategically and view the share-price reaction as overdone,” brokerage Piper Sandler said in a note.

[…] Desai will directly report to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the newly created role of chief enterprise platform officer and will focus on turning the company’s AI stack into products and services that companies can deploy for their own businesses. Before joining MongoDB, Desai led product and engineering at Cloudflare and spent nearly eight years at ServiceNow, including as president and chief operating officer.