Latest news

In France, a law came into force on August 11, 2026, which prohibits telemarketing and telesales.

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, the law was driven by about a dozen consumer organizations, and at their initiative, the French parliament drafted the legislation that has now come into force.

The law prohibits both companies and individuals from making unauthorized marketing calls. At the same time, the French state launched a website where those violating the law can be reported.

However, there are a couple of exceptions in the law: a consumer can personally give permission for telesales, but permission can only be given to a specific company, which cannot transfer or extend the consent to other companies. An example of such a situation is when a customer requests a quote from a company via its website and, at the same time, ticks their approval for the company to make sales calls to the customer, both in the form of an offer call and in the future.

The second exception concerns situations where the consumer already has an existing customer relationship with the company. For example, a publishing house may market its other magazines to a customer who already subscribes to one of the group's magazines.

YouTube's ad-free, paid version - YouTube Premium - has become a huge hit around the world. But its price tag is too hefty for some potential subscribers - it currently costs more than $20 per month in some countries.

To address this, YouTube introduced a few years ago a kind of lightened version of the full YouTube Premium subscription, called YouTube Premium Lite.

The main difference of Premium Lite compared to the full version is that ads are shown as usual with music videos. Other video content is ad-free (with certain, relatively rare exceptions) for Premium Lite subscribers.

Another significant difference is that the full version of the Premium subscription also includes the YouTube Music Premium music service, which Premium Lite does not include.

Like the full version, YouTube Premium Lite allows you to play videos in the background, even when the phone screen is off - meaning videos can be used as a kind of podcast substitute, as audio only.

Unfortunately, Premium Lite has only been available in a handful of countries: for example, in Europe, most countries don't have it as of now.

According to media reports, Sony is building an in-house team to bring advertising into PlayStation games.

According to DigiDay's information, Sony has actively started recruiting advertising professionals to its PlayStation unit.

Sony's recruitments have specifically targeted ad sales professionals, meaning it is by no means a question of developing Sony's own advertising through recruitments - but rather Sony wants to start selling ad space itself.

The trend is logical in itself, as game budgets have grown significantly in recent years, but at the same time, game companies do not dare to raise game prices too much, fearing a consumer backlash.

So, by bringing advertising into games, Sony hopes to achieve a situation where game sales prices can largely be kept at current levels, but the additional revenue generated from advertising better covers the increased game development costs.

Sony tried to build an in-game advertising platform already during the PlayStation 3 era, but the project was eventually quietly shelved. Other game companies, such as Microsoft and EA, have at least experimented with bringing advertising into games.

Especially among programmers operating on a tighter budget, alongside AI models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, more affordable, often Chinese, large language models are also popular.

Their popularity is based on their significantly more affordable price - whether the application is actual programming work or software that uses AI itself.

The best known and most popular of these "alternative" AI providers has long been the Chinese DeepSeek.

But now DeepSeek has warned its customers, both in China and abroad, that it intends to raise its prices "significantly" in the near future. The price increase specifically concerns DeepSeek's programming interface (API), which is utilized in both programming and software.

According to the South China Morning Post, this is the company's first significant price increase ever.

Smart glasses have this year, for the first time in the product category's history, truly become products used by even ordinary people.

But as is usually always the case with new and innovative tech, there is always a certain segment of people who are just ruining the fun for everybody.

In other words, the camera technology found in smart glasses has been increasingly used for secretly filming people (usually women), even in people's own homes. This has then led to a situation where a very strong public opinion has quickly risen against smart glasses, specifically criticizing how they destroy the privacy of other people.

Whereas users of first-generation smart glasses were called glassholes in the US in the 2010s - largely for the same reason - with this newer smart glasses trend, the glasses themselves have begun to be called pervert glasses.

Into this rebellious spirit steps the American, privacy-respecting DuckDuckGo, which has released its own sunglasses.

The refreshing idea behind DuckDuckGo's glasses is that they have no smart features at all. They are just ordinary, polarized sunglasses with the company's logo on the temples.

The massive corporate acquisition, announced in September 2025 and approved by shareholders in December, has now been officially completed. Electronic Arts (EA), one of the most well-known companies in the gaming industry, has been acquired by an investor consortium and will be delisted from the NASDAQ stock exchange. The total value of the deal was approximately 55 billion dollars, or about 47 billion euros, and shareholders will receive 210 dollars per share in cash for the completed transaction.

Although the buyer is officially an investment consortium comprising private equity firm Silver Lake, Affinity Partners, and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), according to PC Gamer, control of the company will shift to Saudi Arabia. With the deal, the country's investment fund will control a significant 93.4 percent ownership stake in the gaming giant.

Behind Affinity Partners, which acts as a smaller representative of the consortium, is Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, who has pre-existing close financial ties to Saudi Arabia.

The excellence of modern, better robot vacuum cleaners compared to the curse-inducing contraptions of the 2010s largely lies in their ability to avoid all obstacles on the floor, cope with carpets, and generally not require you to clear the apartment at all.

But many are also concerned by the fact that almost all robot vacuum cleaners are Chinese and have cameras. Cameras are, of course, practically mandatory because precisely that excellent, life-easing obstacle avoidance is based on cameras and depth perception.

Concern for privacy is, of course, understandable. In addition, modern robot vacuums rely heavily on cloud services provided by manufacturers - which means that if the manufacturer goes bankrupt, the robot turns into an expensive paperweight. This is what happened when Neato ceased its operations.

Solutions have been developed for these problems, the best known of which is probably Valetudo, an open source alternative operating system for robot vacuum cleaners.

The U.S. communications authority FCC has expanded its list of prohibited devices, maintained in the name of national security, to cover so-called "advanced robotic devices". The decision surprisingly also extends to robot vacuum cleaners, although the agency has not named specific brands or models.

Behind the FCC's decision (PDF) is a concern that networked devices equipped with sensors and mapping technology could pose a new type of cyber and intelligence risk to critical U.S. infrastructure. Previously, the FCC banned all routers manufactured outside the United States, as well as all drones manufactured abroad.

According to the FCC, the networked features of advanced robotic systems create broad vulnerabilities and attack vectors and are capable of collecting real-world data for malicious actors. The agency's updated policy states that reliance on robotic devices manufactured outside the United States could open opportunities for citizen espionage, enhance the capabilities of foreign intelligence services, or even enable the remote hijacking of robots. The regulation broadly targets autonomous electronic devices with their own sensors and intelligent navigation - this group includes, in addition to robot vacuum cleaners, for example, robotic lawnmowers, delivery robots, and devices used in warehouse logistics.

Earlier this year, an interesting lawsuit was launched, where search engine giant Google sued small company called SerpApi.

SerpApi is a company that provides websites with information on how well they rank in Google's search results for various keywords - and how websites' competitors appear in the search results for each search term.

Google accused SerpApi of unauthorized collection of Google's search result data for its use. As a practical legal weapon, Google used the US DMCA legislation in its lawsuit, which copyright owners use to protect their content.

In practice, Google thus argued that it holds copyright to the search results of its own search engine.

In its response, SerpApi asked the court to dismiss Google's lawsuit against it. SerpApi justified its request by stating that all information Google provides in its search results originates from other websites. And Google itself has collected the information for its search engine from other sources, without ever asking if it itself infringes copyrights by displaying website content in its service.

Now the court has sided with SerpApi and dismissed Google's lawsuit. According to the court, Google's search results do not meet the threshold of originality, meaning copyright does not protect them in any way.

WhatsApp is significantly expanding its calling features by finally bringing audio and video calls to the instant messenger's browser version, WhatsApp Web. Until now, users have had to install a separate desktop application to make or receive WhatsApp calls on a computer. With this update, calls will now be possible directly from a web browser without additional software, which facilitates use especially on workstations and shared computers where installing applications is not possible or desirable.

Meta states in its blog that the so-called Web Calling feature enables both one-on-one and group audio and video calls directly in WhatsApp on the browser. The familiar Calls tab will also be brought to the browser version, where users can see their call history and favorites, just like in the mobile and desktop applications. Functions already available in calls, such as screen sharing and reactions, will also be available in the browser. According to the company, all calls remain end-to-end encrypted, with no time limits or additional charges.

Another interesting update is that calls can now be transferred from one device to another without disconnecting the call. A user can start a call, for example, on a phone or tablet while on the go and later transfer it to a computer's WhatsApp browser version or desktop application without needing to end the connection. The same works in reverse: a call started on a computer can be continued on a phone if the user needs to leave. This matches the multi-device experience offered by many other communication services and makes WhatsApp calls more flexible in everyday situations.

The European Commission has issued two binding designation measures to Google under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). These decisions requires the advertising giant to open both its Android operating system and its search data to competitors during 2027.

The Commission's goal is to ensure that alternative AI services and search engines can compete on equal terms with Google's own services, such as Gemini and Google Search.

Recently, Google's top security management warned that EU regulation could expose everyone's search histories to hackers and undermine phone security. According to Google, its own researchers managed to break the anonymization planned by EU decision-makers in less than two hours.

However, the Commission assures in its recent decision that the new measures include robust safeguards to protect user privacy and device integrity.

The first of the changes mandated by the Commission concerns AI services on Android devices, which are set to open up to competition in July 2027. Currently, AI assistants from other companies have only limited access to the operating system's core functions, while Google's own Gemini assistant has full rights.

OnePlus' discontinuation in Europe has been obvious for quite some time. The company's phones have gradually disappeared from retailers' stocks, and new models have no longer been delivered to Europe at all - neither for sale nor for reviews.

But an official announcement about the final fate of the phone brand favored by Finns has been awaited for months already.

Now, the WinFuture website reports, referring to its insider sources (in German), that clarity is finally coming to the matter - already this week.

According to information received by WinFuture, OnePlus' parent company Oppo would be announcing in the coming days that OnePlus will completely withdraw from both the European and North American markets.

This information would align with rumors and other insider hints that have been circulating about OnePlus' future in recent months. It has also been reported in them that OnePlus would become a brand that would exist only in the Indian and Chinese markets.

Oppo, on the other hand, aims to strengthen its own visibility in Europe At the same time, Oppo's other sub-brand, Realme, has also made a strong comeback to Europe - company's flagship phone Realme GT 8 Pro was the best-selling phone in some European countries in June, 2026 (although boosted by very lucrative discounts).

Elon Musk's AI-space-social media company SpaceXAI also has an AI tool developed to assist programmers.

The tool, Grok Build, is very similar to, for example, the hugely popular Anthropic's Claude Code or OpenAI's Codex, meaning it is a comprehensive AI-assisted software development solution.

But cybersecurity company Cereblab made a very concerning discovery about Grok Build when the company investigated what various AI-assisted programmer tools actually do.

While all other tools send only the source code files that need to be modified with the help of AI to the software development company's server, Grok Build operated very differently.

Grok Build, in fact, sent the entire software project with its source codes, i.e., the so-called repository, to SpaceXAI's servers.

The action was also not an accident, as Cereblab tried to modify Grok Build's prompt to explicitly instruct it to send only the files it needed for modification along with the prompt. Despite this, Grok Build sent absolutely all project-related files (the entire repo) to SpaceXAI.

Google released Android 17 in June 2026. At the same time, naturally, the latest operating system version also became available for download on supported Google Pixel phones.

But after Google, the race always begins to see which Android manufacturer will be the first to release a major Android update for their own mobile phones.

This year, the winner was Chinese Xiaomi, which released today official, stable versions of Android 17 for two of its mobile phone models.

The company's flagship phones, Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, were the first to receive the latest Android.

The update is being rolled out globally and will arrive on phones automatically through an OTA. Visually, the update is very modest, as Xiaomi uses its own, heavily modified user interface on Android, which goes by the name HyperOS. The newly released update is based on the latest Android 17, but still uses the old HyperOS 3 visual style.

One of the world's most well-known movie-focused websites, Letterboxd, is reportedly looking for a new owner.

Letterboxd is especially known as a gathering place for true movie fans, a kind of social media for movies - and for the extensive, in-depth movie reviews created by its users.

The site was originally founded in 2011, but its founders sold a majority stake in the service in 2023 to a Canadian investment company.

Now, the said investment company thus wants to convert its investment into cash.

According to Variety's information, the company is reportedly negotiating with several movie studios about the sale of the service. At least Sony Pictures and Paramount have been mentioned as buyer candidates.

In addition, The Puck reports that Netflix would also be interested in buying the service.

In all mentioned cases, a kind of conflict of interest arises for Letterboxd's administrators: would the site's new host want the service to better highlight the parent company's films - or will the service be allowed to continue independently.