Author: Elodie Qian

The EU has warned Meta that its “pay or consent” model could be in violation of consumer protection laws, demanding changes by September 1.  The EU’s Consumer Protection Cooperation has highlighted concerns over Meta’s “free” service description for its platforms, which lacks transparency in regard to user data consent for advertising.

Delta is still grappling with the aftermath of a global cyber outage that has led to the cancellation of over 4,000 flights since Friday. Delta has assured that its crews are fully staffed and ready to serve, and the company has increased incentive pay for pilots and flight attendants to encourage them.

Toyota is buying back $5.2 billion of its shares from banks and insurers, to enhance shareholder returns and corporate governance.

Negotiations on a global tax agreement have extended beyond June 30, with governments eyeing progress at the upcoming G20 meeting. The high stakes of these negotiations could lead to the reinstatement of taxes on US tech giants by several countries if a final agreement is not reached.

Grab acquires Singapore’s Chope to expand its services, including dinner reservations, to outcompete rivals in the Southeast Asian market. The acquisition sees Chope’s team joining Grab, with no job losses, and strengthens Grab’s ecosystem and advertising capabilities.

Eve has unveiled its full-scale “flying taxi” prototype, an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft set to reshape urban travel. Eve has secured substantial investments and loans, guaranteeing its financial stability and progression towards certification for the eVTOL project.

Tech giant Kakao Corp faces a new legal challenge as the South Korean court reviews an arrest warrant for its billionaire founder, Brian Kim. This scrutiny may complicate Kakao’s venture into AI services and the fundraising plans of its subsidiaries, including potential IPOs.

The Australian Signals Directorate has issued an alert on the appearance of malicious websites and code after a global digital outage. The digital outage has had a wide-reaching impact on various sectors, including banking and aviation. CrowdStrike has released a fix currently, but it could take days.

OpenAI is in talks with Broadcom to create a new AI chip, aiming to tackle the shortage of graphic processing units, Information reported. Open AI is hiring ex-Google staff who produced Google’s own AI chip, the TPU and is set to develop its own AI server chips.

Microsoft cloud service issue led to flight delays and cancellations, notably at Frontier Airlines and Sun Country Airlines on July 18. The disruption was linked to Microsoft’s Azure platform, affecting key airline operations and prompting responses from affected carriers.

OpenAI has introduced GPT-4o Mini, which employs “instruction hierarchy” safety technique to protect chatbots from deceptive commands. OpenAI’s update to GPT-4o Mini is particularly timely given the ongoing debates about AI safety and transparency, with internal and external calls for improved practices.

Ocado has received a significant order from its partner Kroger for an array of new automated technologies to be deployed in its warehouses. Kroger is set to adopt Ocado’s latest innovations across its operational network of customer fulfilment centres (CFCs) and in future CFCs.