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Techmeme
July 26, 2025, 2:05 PM

Top News

Wired:
The UK starts enforcing new online child safety laws, requiring websites that host porn, self-harm, suicide, and eating disorder content to verify users' age  —  Starting today, UK adults will have to prove their age to access porn online.  Experts warn that a global wave of age-check laws threatens …
Jackson Chen / Engadget:
Some users are circumventing UK's age checks by using VPNs, providing fake AI-generated photo IDs, or using images of high-fidelity video game characters  —  As of Friday, anyone trying to watch porn online in the UK will need to subject themselves to an awkward selfie or get their photo ID ready.
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
A US judge sentences an Arizona woman to 8.5 years in prison for running a “laptop farm” that enabled North Korean workers to secure IT jobs at 309 US companies  —  A U.S. District Court judge sentenced an Arizona woman to eight and a half years in prison for running a laptop farm used …
Evan Ratliff / Bloomberg:
Christina Marie Chapman, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison for aiding a North Korean remote IT worker scheme, details her time as a “laptop farmer”  —  Thousands of undercover agents feed Kim Jong Un's rocket program with millions from the likes of Google and Amazon.
Washington Post:
Sources: DOGE has built an AI tool aiming to cut 50% of federal regulations, or around 100,000 rules, by the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration  —  An internal proposal suggests how the Trump administration is planning to slash federal regulations, but obstacles loom.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
US insurance giant Allianz Life says hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its customers, staffers, and employees, in a mid-July breach  —  U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life has confirmed to TechCrunch that hackers stole the personal information of the …
Financial Times:
China's premier Li Qiang proposes creating an organization for global cooperation in AI and says “bottlenecks” in chip supplies are hindering AI innovation  —  Premier Li Qiang warns ‘bottlenecks’ in chip supplies are hindering innovation  —  William Langley in Guangzhou and Eleanor Olcott and Ryan McMorrow in Shanghai
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
Source: India orders ISPs and app stores to block 25 streaming services, like Ullu and ALTT with millions of downloads, for allegedly promoting obscene content  —  India has ordered the blocking of 25 streaming services — many with millions of viewers and even paying subscribers …
Andrew Martin / Bloomberg:
The SharePoint hacks increase pressure on Microsoft's Secure Future Initiative, which the company calls an ambitious effort expected to take years to complete  —  Three months ago, Microsoft Corp. issued a progress report on what it described as the largest cybersecurity engineering project in history.
NBC News:
Tea says hackers accessed a database from more than two years ago, leaking 72,000 images, including 13,000 verification photos and images of government IDs  —  The viral app requires new users to take selfies, which it says it deletes after review.  —  Hackers have breached the Tea app …
Bloomberg:
China's Unitree is marketing the R1, a humanoid robot that has multimodal AI and weighs 25kg, for $5,900, drastically lowering the entry price for such machines  —  Unitree Robotics is marketing one of the world's first humanoid robots for under $6,000, drastically reducing the entry price …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Mark Zuckerberg names Shengjia Zhao, the former OpenAI researcher who co-created ChatGPT, as chief scientist at Meta Superintelligence Labs  —  Shengjia Zhao — formerly of OpenAI — will be chief scientist at Meta's new Superintelligence Lab, Mark Zuckerberg announced on Threads on Friday.
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:

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Emma Haidar / Bloomberg:
Dylan Martin / CRN: