YouTube Paid $8 Billion to the Music Industry Over the Past Year
YouTube has paid out more than $8 billion to the music industry over the 12 months between July 2024 and July 2025, the company announced Thursday — marking a record milestone for the platform. “Today’s $8 billion payout is a testament to the fact that the twin engine of ads and subscriptions is firing on all cylinders,” said Lyor Cohen,...
ChatGPT maker launches web browser Atlas to rival Google Chrome
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has launched a new artificial intelligence-powered web browser called Atlas, positioning it as a potential rival to industry giants like Google, which dominates the market with Chrome — the world’s most widely used browser. Unlike traditional browsers, ChatGPT Atlas eliminates the address bar, a defining feature of search navigation. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the...
AWS outage highlights UK’s growing vulnerability to cloud dependence
A major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage that brought down the digital operations of dozens of major organisations has underscored the growing risks of the UK’s dependence on a small group of dominant cloud providers, a legal expert has cautioned. The disruption, which stemmed from a DNS issue at AWS, affected a wide range of services on Monday morning —...
Spotify partners with major labels to develop AI music tools
Spotify, the world’s leading music streaming platform, has revealed plans to collaborate with major record labels to develop artificial intelligence (AI) tools in a “responsible” and ethical manner. The company said its goal is to create AI-driven features that “put artists and songwriters first” while protecting their copyright. As part of this initiative, Spotify will license music from the industry’s three...
Anthropic Unveils New, More Efficient Version of Haiku Model
On Wednesday, Anthropic unveiled Claude Haiku 4.5, the latest update to its smallest model — now promising performance on par with Sonnet 4, but “at one-third the cost and more than twice the speed,” according to the company’s blog post. The company backed up its claims with a series of new benchmark results. In internal testing, Haiku 4.5 scored 73%...
OpenAI to Allow Erotica on ChatGPT for Verified Adult Users
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed in a post on X on Tuesday that the company will soon ease some of ChatGPT’s safety restrictions, giving users more flexibility to make the chatbot’s responses sound friendlier, more natural, and “human-like.” The update will also introduce a new feature that allows “verified adults” to engage in erotic conversations with ChatGPT. “We made ChatGPT...
UK Security Agency Reports 50% Surge in Cyber-Attacks Over the Past Year
The number of “highly significant” cyber-attacks has surged by 50% over the past year, with the UK’s security services now confronting a nationally significant incident more than every other day, according to new figures from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). In what officials have described as “a call to arms”, ministers and national security leaders are urging organisations of...
Gladys secures £1.5m funding to expand its AI-driven home care platform
Gladys, an AI-driven technology platform designed to transform the home care sector, has raised £1.5m in seed funding. Founded in 2023, the Bath-based startup aims to tackle the ongoing crisis in UK home care by providing innovative solutions for both caregivers and those in need of support. The platform connects individuals seeking care with local carers and support workers through...
OpenAI Video App Sora Reaches 1 Million Downloads Faster Than ChatGPT
OpenAI’s latest text-to-video AI tool, Sora, has taken the internet by storm, surpassing one million downloads in under five days — a milestone it reached even faster than ChatGPT did at its own launch. The app, which currently tops the Apple App Store charts in the US, allows users to create realistic 10-second videos from simple text prompts. Despite being...
Discord reports possible leak of 70,000 user ID photos
After confirming a data breach earlier this month, Discord has now revealed that around 70,000 users may have had their government ID photos exposed. The leaked data came from IDs submitted through a third-party vendor responsible for handling age verification appeals. The platform, which boasts over 200 million users worldwide, had previously stated that only a “limited number” of users...
