San Francisco’s city attorney has hit Meta with a cease-and-desist letter telling the company to stop “allowing” paid advertisements that include AI-generated child sexual abuse content and asked it to explain how the ads repeatedly ran on its platforms.

On Tuesday, WIRED reported that Meta has run more than 350 ads in recent months that transformed still images of minors—some of them confirmed as real individuals, including a member of a European royal family—into short videoclips that can depict them performing sexual acts. When clicked, these ads would direct people to download AI image- and video-generation apps, some of which could be used to digitally undress people or create other nonconsensual intimate imagery.

The ads, which were discovered by researchers at the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), included some identical ads that had been uploaded multiple times, and in total they reached more than 29,000 accounts in countries in the European Union. The ads that were shown across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads also targeted accounts in the US, Australia, and India. WIRED initially reported on a batch of 53 of the ads at the start of August, but more than 250 of the total number of ads ran on Meta’s platforms after this initial report.

“Meta has failed to address a known issue of AI-generated child sexually explicit ads, while profiting from them,” San Francisco city attorney David Chiu says in a statement to WIRED. “These ads are deeply disturbing and cause harm to real children. Meta claims to have zero tolerance for child exploitation, yet the scale and persistence of these issues suggest current efforts are woefully inadequate. This is unacceptable, and Meta must do better.”

“No company—particularly one that claims all advertisements are reviewed and approved prior to distribution and then accepts payment for that distribution—should permit its advertising systems to be used in this manner,” Chiu writes in the four-page letter his office sent to Meta’s lawyers.

The letter raises a host of questions about how Meta’s ad policies and safety systems operate and asks that the company’s legal, child-safety, and advertising staff engage in “prompt discussions” with the city office. “These findings are especially troubling because they do not appear to reflect an isolated failure that Meta corrected when first alerted to the problem,” Chiu writes.

Meta says there is “no indication” that the ads were displayed in San Francisco and this means they are “outside the city attorney’s jurisdiction.” While Meta’s ad library, which is a repository of ads, includes some data about ads published in the US, it does not break down where in the US ads may have run.

In response to Meta’s jurisdictional claims, City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Alex Barrett-Shorter tells WIRED that, because “San Francisco consumers can access the unlawful ads through Meta online spaces,” the matter is the the city of San Francisco’s business.

“We find Meta’s response astonishing. Meta appears less concerned about whether they’re guilty of exploiting children than whether San Francisco should say anything about it,” Barrett-Shorter says. “Meta has bigger problems to solve here than determining our jurisdiction.”

Meta previously told WIRED that many of the ads identified by the TTP researchers had already been removed before they were reported—all of them have now been removed for violating its policies—and most had “fewer than 200 impressions” from accounts. “We don’t tolerate nudify apps or any kind of child exploitation, whether real or AI-generated,” a Meta spokesperson previously said. The company said the “total ad spend” for the 300-plus ads found by the researchers was “under $5,000.”

• The expanding market for data centers and associated renewable energy supplies has attracted the insurance industry
• Data centers alone could represent a $91 billion market
• A destroyed AI data center could cost $50 billion to replace

The cost of data centers continues to rise, with insurance now added to real estate, communications, energy, and environmental impact. Several reports indicate that not only is insurance a growing cost for big guns like OpenAI and Meta, it’s a market that looks set to expand alongside the increase in data centers.

A new report by the Swiss Re Institute indicates the insurance industry could collect $91 billion in premiums from AI data centers between now and 2030, with a further $111 billion from renewable energy installations linked to the data centers.

We may not want to pay $2,000 for it, or couldn’t spend that even if we wanted to thanks to RAMaggedon-high prices, but there’s no doubt that the centerpiece of Apple’s primary iPhone launch this year was the foldable iPhone Duo. From a bread-and-butter perspective, though, the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, despite a price increase, were the highlight of the Surprise and Shine event. Apple took the opportunity to raise the prices of much of the rest of the line, though.

Much of what we’re treated to during these launch events is a recap of the new capabilities of their operating systems, which have usually been available in beta since the developers conferences where they get announced. 

For Apple, that means demonstrations of its updated iOS 27 and WatchOS 27, announced at WWDC in June running on the new hardware. But we’ve been using the OSes for a while and don’t have to rely on passing demos during the hardware announcement: Here’s our  experience with the beta and what to know about iOS 27 before you start using it as well as our take on the new Siri in WatchOS. 

On the upside, the memetic reaction to the Duo brought out the creative snarkers of social media.

Check out our complete coverage of Apple’s September 2026 iPhone launch and play-by-play commentary on the event in our archived live blog.

Preorders for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max and Watches start soon and they ship a week later the Duo is up for preorder starting and ships at the end of October. And don’t forget the cases.

John Ternus’ event debut as CEO

After the initial cinematic opening to promote the new variable aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and Max, Tim Cook provided a clever, well-done segue to Ternus’ first Apple launch as CEO.

Ternus came up through product design, and it showed during the event. If memory serves, we were provided with more specific hardware information about chips, device builds, cooling systems and so on than in a lot of earlier launches. That might not appeal to everyone, but it’s the type of thing that keeps me awake as we head into the second hour of these things.

There also seemed to be a lot more video shot in lots of locations around LA. This was likely to drive home the association between Apple and “pro” cameras, but it made a very nice change from a lot of static Apple Park and heartwarming family video.

Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET

Perks of the iPhone Duo

In addition to being its first foldable, the iPhone Duo brought a much longed-for feature back into the…fold.

Touch ID disappeared along with the iPhone’s Home button; the last holdout was the iPhone SE which was discontinued in 2022. Even if you’re fine with Face ID, having a fallback method for logging in and approving purchases makes sense, and its certainly more convenient than having to enter a PIN code.

But it unfortunately replaced Face ID rather than supplement it. 

We had some in-chat mockery about ability to register multiple fingerprints for the Touch ID, but as someone who occasionally has dirty, greasy or otherwise electronics-objectional hands, being able to use a clean finger sounds nice to me.

I like the simultaneous front and rear camera feeds, which lets use the outer screen flipped towards the subject. It reminds me of methods introduced to get pets’ attention from the early days of phones and before phones had cameras; I remember using an app that mimicked different cat vocalizations, though I really spent a lot of time wiggling my fingers above my head.

Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET

I’m also a huge fan of the nano-texture screen layer, which comes from Apple’s desktop displays and MacBook Pros. With its excellent anti-reflective properties, it makes the most sense on a phone. I’d like to see it on more than just the Duo.

My biggest concern about the Duo was the size. The iPhone 16 Pro Max I currently have occasionally feels a hair too big to use comfortably single handed. But the folded Duo is a bit narrower.

Variable aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max

Apple made a big deal about its mechanical aperture for the new 48MP main cameras on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and it is a breakthrough for a phone. 

Electronic apertures used by most small cameras and phones simply limit or increase the amount of light the sensor absorbs. A mechanical, bladed aperture physically changes the shape of the hole which controls the exposure, and that determines what bokeh and bright highlights look like as well as how naturally the depth of field is rendered.

So introducing a mechanical aperture should allow for more control over the quality of the look (as opposed to the quality of the image) looking photos and videos. That’s notable.

But don’t expect a truly pro-lens look, though. It’s a six-bladed diaphragm, which isn’t even as good as some entry-level kit lenses, and 8 blades is more or less the minimum for really nice-looking, soft bokeh. In its video showing off the camera, there was very little of it.

There are four aperture settings, f1.48-f4, which highlights the constraint of the small phone sensor and module. By f4 on a sensor that small you’re essential at infinite focus, where on a larger sensor you might get up to f16 or f32. The bottom line is you don’t have a lot of depth-of-field variability to play with for that variable aperture.

I’m reserving judgement on the underscreen front camera for the moment, though.

Burgundy Pro, Night Sky Duo

I’m a fan of deep, rich colors for phones, though I usually just cram it in a case and never see it again. At least based on the livestream, the burgundy looks like a nice change from the aggressive orange of the previous generation (though I do like it), and the navy-black Night Sky seems a lovely choice after my MacBook Pro-favorite Space Gray. 

A20 Pro 

In a switch-up from previous years, Apple launched its new laptop and desktop chip, the M6, ahead of the A20 Pro, which is incorporated by all three iPhones. Usually the mobile processor comes first and the computer chip inherits its major architectural changes from that. In this case, the A20 has the same 2nm process size as the M6, down from 3nm in previous generations. 

A smaller process size allows for a denser die, which ultimately lets you fit more circuitry in the same size package. 

In this case, it has the doubled Neural Engine of the M6, used for the on-device AI processing, from 16 to 32 cores. That’s likely an essential upgrade for decent performance with on-device Siri AI. 

There are also more cores, both GPU and CPU, plus the change from performance cores to super cores, which can run at faster clock speeds. 

It also has the packaging with the memory placement optimized for better heat dissipation because smaller process sizes and denser dies can generate a lot more heat than bigger ones. That plus the switch to super cores required it.

Apple also dealt with heat by adding a vapor chamber and adding a dissipation layer beneath the screen.

Efficiencies introduced by the chip theoretically improve battery life, according to the company.

iPhone Handoff

If you’ve got two iPhones, iPhone handoff will let you share a single phone number, designating one eSIM as primary and the other as a companion. It sounds interesting, and would let you leave one phone at home or, with careful scheduling let someone else pick up (for say an elderly relative or young child) but it’s one of those features that could suffer if it’s badly implemented. I’m not sure if it lets you save the cost of a second line, because you’ve still got to have an activated SIM in the companion phone. I also wish it could work with a non-Apple phone.

It’s also kind of confusing, since Apple already has Handoff for sharing tasks across devices.

Watch Ultra 4 improved sensors 

More sensitive, frequently polling sensors are an unambiguous win if you use them in a watch, as long as they don’t overwhelm the rest of the system (which I have no reason to think they do here). Better sensors in the Watch Ultra 4 mean more accurate readings and more easily recognized outliers.

Audio Intelligence sound recognition

The Watches’ Audio Intelligence can, among other things, decode sounds into visual notifications for the hearing impaired. That’s a nice accessibility perk. 

An AI-driven feature that I could really use, though, is real-time accent compensation in AirPods; the AirPods 5 received some tweaks inherited from the higher-end model, including improved active noise cancelling. Translation is nice, but I have a lot of trouble understanding people with heavy accents of all kinds — a big drawback when you live in New York City.

It’s not all sunshine, though. There are a lot of things I just say “nope” about.

Always on AI

On one hand, I like the idea of a Watch that can catch parts of conversations I routinely miss (Live Rewind), either because I’ve gone space cadet or because my hearing glitched, as it tends to do. But I’m also one of those Luddites who doesn’t like or use devices with always-on listening or recording.

I’m not a big fan of Apple’s “it only stays on our servers” Private Cloud Compute privacy narrative, which surfaced once again today, especially since Apple Intelligence/Siri AI can also use hybrid (local plus cloud) and third-party-integration models. Even if it stays on your device, you still never know until after the fact what has obtained access to your data — and it may now include a lot of health data. 

It may also be because I don’t find a lot of the commonly trotted out use cases very compelling. Apple Intelligence, and the upcoming dedicated Siri app, can do the things everybody’s on-device AI can, which seems to be writing email, summarizing calendars, travel scheduling, creating shopping lists, generating wallpaper and so on. 

To me, a lot of the AI used by the Watch Series 12/Ultra Health and related apps and on similar devices, such as Stuff, goes too far into the micromanaging-your-life zone. If it’s going to give a Readiness score of my ability to handle activities, I’m going back to bed and pulling the covers up over my head, because my body tells me it’s not ready for anything. 

The iPhone Duo’s drawbacks

While the Duo has the same 48MP main camera as the iPhone 18 Pro and Max, it doesn’t have the same mechanical aperture or high-end features. This is actually a notable negative which I’d weight heavily when considering the phone.

The other thing I suspect will make things awkward are the screen aspect ratios. Folded, each side is just shy of 3:2 — it’s 1.45 instead of 1.5 — which has become nonstandard. 1.5 is the aspect ratio of full-frame camera sensors, which conceivably makes it nice for displaying them, but neither video or games use it. Opened, the large screen has a 1.4 aspect ratio, which is even more novel.

As a result, Apple has had to alter iOS 27’s screen layout settings, both to take advantage of the extra screen real estate (good), as well as to change where control appear so you can use them comfortably (bad). Apple spins these as “optimizations.” But it means inconsistent user experiences and interface conventions between the Duo and the rest of the iPhone line.

Additionally, it means that the operating system will have to adapt a lot of existing non-Apple apps and content on the fly to run right on the device. That’s always a bumpy road.

While the Duo supports the Apple Pencil, it’s just plain odd. It works with the original, USB-C Pencil rather than the more recent Bluetooth version, which seems inconvenient for carrying around and using — it requires physical pairing with the device and plugged-in charging. Plus it’s not really designed to use with the phone, since there’s no way to dock it. It seems like the least-effort solution possible to a stylus.

Lori Grunin

Senior Editor / Computers and Gaming Hardware

I’ve been reviewing hardware and software, devising testing methodology and handing out buying advice for more than 25 years.

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We finally have an Apple foldable!

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I think it’s basically a question of timing. A lot of people are sensing that the pace of capabilities is picking up. We’re already pushing from human to superhuman in many areas, like coding, hacking, math, and I think people are aware of this. Even if there’s a lot of talk in the press about things being hyped, I think people see that things are just not slowing down.

That’s one reason, and two is the recent safety incidents, which have updated a lot of people around the sci-fi–sounding doomer concerns not really being so sci-fi after all. Both of these have been gradual trends over the last few years. Things like the models being aware of when they’re being tested has been a thing for a while now. Maybe three years ago, that was a sci-fi concern. Then, about a year ago, that became a real thing.

Those two things mean that people are quite receptive to someone working on AI saying, “Yeah, in the next year, things could get pretty bad, pretty fast.”

You mentioned the recent incidents. Can you be more specific about what you’re referring to and why it led to you speaking out now?

I think the big classic example here is the attack on Hugging Face on the part of OpenAI’s agent swarm. What’s so shocking about this one is the agents did this hack as part of a general strategy for understanding more about the grader. They were trying to understand the world they found themselves in, trying to understand the thing that was doing the grading. They decided that it would make sense to go on this very concerted effort to hack into some infrastructure, and they succeeded.

This previously sounded like science fiction. Two years ago, an evaluation of an AI would have been running a model on some math questions. Now we’ve got cases where, while the AI is being evaluated, it runs for days, comes up with all sorts of ideas of its own, and decides to hack into some third party and actually compromises their infrastructure. It looks like it does this all of its own volition, with no priming on the part of the human. This just happened while it was being tested.

Some people think the Hugging Face incident is a sign that the AI companies are moving recklessly fast, while others think it’s a sign that the AI models are just very good at hacking now, and then some think it’s both. I’m curious what your exact takeaway from it is.

I don’t want to focus too much on the Hugging Face attack, because I do also think there is plenty of evidence that we don’t know how to align models properly. When we train models, we push them through this set of training environments and then hope that what comes out at the end will, like, largely behave sensibly, but we still can’t precisely control how the AI behaves.

We can’t make sure that it won’t do things like try and randomly decide to impersonate a human online in order to achieve something—we don’t know how to guarantee that. I think that’s the main takeaway.

Audio-Technica has released its first ever pair of wireless open-backed headphones in the ATH-AL5NC.

This new launch builds on a line-up already established through the R-Series for music production and the recently expanded ADX Series for audiophile listening, with the ATH-AL5NC extending Audio-Technica’s open-back design into wireless territory for the first time.

Specially designed 53mm dynamic drivers produce the detailed soundstage associated with open-back listening, while the open housing improves airflow around the earcups compared with sealed, closed-back alternatives that trap more heat during long sessions.

That focus on comfort extends to the build itself, with the ATH-AL5NC weighing 240 grams, so listeners can wear these headphones for hours without a break.

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Wireless use is backed by a battery life of up to a massive 75 hours, and a 15-minute charge restores up to 8 hours of playback when the battery does run flat.

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A multipoint pairing function keeps the headphones linked to two Bluetooth devices at the same time, while support for LDAC enables 24-bit/96kHz high-resolution audio over a wireless connection.

If you choose to use the headphones through a wired and not wireless connection, the Audio-Technica includes a 1.2 metre cable with a 3.5mm stereo mini-plug and its own in-line microphone, while the headphones’ built-in microphone covers calls made over Bluetooth.

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Beyond the hardware, the A-T Connect mobile app extends the ATH-AL5NC with a low-latency mode for gaming and video, an EQ, and a soundscape function that layers ambient sounds over music for focus or relaxation.

A noise-reduction function sits on the right earcup and stays active even when listeners plug in the supplied cable. The app also unlocks a Sound Leakage Reduction mode aimed at open-back headphones used in shared spaces, though Audio-Technica notes that leakage cannot be eliminated entirely at higher volumes and that the mode does alter the sonic signature of the headphones.

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The ATH-AL5NC is available now, priced at £219 / €249 / $279 / $499 AU dollars. We don’t see many wireless open-back headphones aside from the Grado GW100x, which still command a price of £249 / $279 despite launching several years ago, so these less headphones could give Grado more of a robust challenge.

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Massachusetts became the latest state to force data centers to bring their own power, but this time there’s a twist. A new state mandate would require developers building data centers larger than 25 megawatts to provide clean power or pay into a ratepayer protection fund.

Gov. Maura Healey’s executive order is the latest example of states turning against data centers. Just a few years ago, tech companies and data center developers were showered with incentives to locate facilities in a particular state. Now, they’re fighting a groundswell of public opposition as politicians seek to show voters they’re addressing their concerns.

Under Healey’s order, data centers larger than 25 megawatts of peak demand will have to bring their own power and guarantee that it adheres to the state’s clean energy requirements. Healey would prefer that they generate the clean power onsite, too. If not, they’ll need to fund the construction of new generation nearby or pay into a ratepayer protection fund.

Massachusetts is also directing communities to “avoid signing non-disclosure agreements,” according to the executive order. To give regulators time to implement the new restrictions, the governor is pausing applications for a data center sales tax exemption that went into effect last month.

Healey said data centers must meet the Massachusetts clean energy standard enshrined in state law, although it comes with some added strength. The state’s clean energy standard dictates that industry only generate a portion of their power using approved sources like wind, solar, and hydro. In 2030, for example, those sources must contribute at least 40% of the total. The amount varies by year, and it ratchets up over time. But the governor’s office clarified that data centers will be required to meet 100% of its electricity demand with clean energy generation.

With the new restrictions, Massachusetts becomes the third state in as many months to rein in data center development.

In August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that all new data centers in the state would need to submit to audits by the public utility commission and the grid operator, ERCOT. In July, New York’s governor stopped construction of new data centers 50 megawatts or larger. 

With public sentiment shifting against data centers, the tech industry is starting to push back. Pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future — which is funded by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Greg Brockman — is buying ads that seek to sway voters in battleground states ahead of midterm elections.

Update: This article was updated with information from the Massachusetts governor’s office that clarified the executive order will require data centers to meet 100% of its electricity demand with clean energy generation.

from the nasty-people-protecting-nastier-people dept

Let’s start out with the obvious (and obviously heartbreaking): this is not related to the multiple times ICE officers have murdered people. Those officers still remain at large and the DOJ and DHS have shown absolutely zero interest in following up on those cases. In fact, when any local agency attempts to do so, they’re less-than-politely told to GTFO and then the FBI (or whoever) simply shoves any and all documentation into the nearest memory-hole.

This is about an officer who shot someone in Minneapolis, which makes him not all that special. That his shooting involved him firing through a closed door makes it remarkable, but only because an open door might have resulted in another murder. But even though it wasn’t a murder, the DHS put its spin on the incident, only to have its narrative disproven mere moments later:

In the immediate wake of the shooting of Mr. Sosa-Celis, federal officials defended the agents, saying they had been attacked with a broom and shovel. Kristi Noem, who was then the secretary of homeland security, described it as “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement.” Within days, Mr. Sosa-Celis and a housemate, Alfredo A. Aljorna, who was also from Venezuela and involved in the confrontation, were charged with federal felonies.

But aspects of the government’s account soon began to unravel. The charges against both men were dropped, and federal officials said they were instead investigating the agents. Video footage of the incident obtained by The New York Times did not show a sustained attack with a shovel and more broadly contradicted the agent’s claim of a roughly three-minute beating. 

Minnesota investigators did as much investigating as they could and Minnesota prosecutors secured an assault indictment against ICE office Christian Castro. The problem was that Castro was being held in Texas and its governor (Greg Abbott) was in no hurry to grant Minnesota’s extradition request. A court ruled in favor of Texas and Castro was released… only to get picked up on the separate (but far less serious) charge of filing false reports.

While this does mean Castro will face some charges in court (and still has to deal with the assault charge brought by Minnesota), the real ugliness beneath all these twists and turns is more of the same old bullshit from Trump’s completely compromised Department of Justice.

Castro was actually facing far more serious charges from the US government before DOJ officials got involved. He could have been facing severe civil rights charges (including assault), but he’s ultimately working for Trump, which means almost no anti-migrant (or anti-ICE protester) crime will ever result in criminal charges.

Over the “strongest possible” objections from the federal prosecutor handling the case, leaders at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., quashed plans to bring civil rights charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting a Venezuelan immigrant and then lying about it.

Somehow, there are still a few prosecutors left in the Trump DOJ that are willing to actually pursue justice, rather than placate a president who firmly believes the DOJ exists solely to act as his personal weapon of retribution. This attorney tried to do the right thing:

Late on Tuesday, Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in charge of the case, told lawyers for Sosa-Celis and other victims to prepare for Castro to be charged “only with False Statements,” according to an email that was reviewed by ProPublica. 

[…]

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“This is being directed by the Main Justice and the US Attorney,” Evans wrote in a remarkably candid account of internal deliberations. “I objected in the strongest possible terms and fought it as hard as I could. It wasn’t enough.” 

Evans probably knew this would be the last email he would write as a DOJ prosecutor. What everyone expected to happen happened shortly thereafter. For being honest about the end result and advocating for charges he clearly felt the ICE officer deserved, Evans was immediately kicked to the curb by his [cough] “superiors.”

A federal prosecutor in Minnesota who was investigating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer for possible civil rights crimes has been fired, four sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Evans was investigating ICE officer Christian Castro over the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant earlier this year. The Justice Department ultimately charged Castro this week with making false statements about the incident, but the indictment remains sealed…

Evans tried to secure more severe charges against ICE officer Christian Castro. That was strike one. That he told the victims of Castro’s crimes that his efforts had been overridden by DOJ officials was strike two. That’s an out, at least the way this administration counts balls and strikes. It probably would have preferred to punch him out on strike one, but Evans apparently moved faster than the forces of injustice.

Now that Evans has been fired for doing his job, the administration spin machine is whirring away again.

Three sources told CBS News that Evans is under investigation by the Justice Department. Two sources said the investigation focuses on allegations of leaking.

Hey, you don’t get to investigate him! You fired him! Leave him the fuck alone! I mean, if we’re going to play this game, then let’s re-open every investigation of any law enforcement officer (federal or otherwise) that was abandoned because the officer chose to quit, resign, or agree to be terminated rather than stick around until an investigation reached its conclusion. All this says is that the Trump and his DOJ loyalists want to keep punishing people they’ve already punished, or, if nothing else, stumble across something that might justify a vindictive firing after the fact.

This is all bullshit. The ICE officer is on the fast-track for a wrist slap. Meanwhile, the state that still wants Castro to face assault charges will have to wait around indefinitely for a clearly disinterested DOJ to go through the motions of “prosecuting” an officer it never wanted to prosecute.

Filed Under: christian castro, dhs, doj, ice, mass deportation, mat;thew evans, minneapolis, minnesota, police violence, trump administration

Google Research and NASA JPL have released a deep learning model that maps methane plumes globally at 60 metres, finding about 50% more than human analysts and 23,000 additional plumes, including at 24 of the 25 largest-emitting landfills. Europe’s Methane Regulation ordered a satellite monitoring tool and a super-emitter alert system, but it covers only oil, gas and coal.

Google Research and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have released a deep learning model that maps methane plumes worldwide from space, Google Research said. It flags around 50% more plumes than human analysts, and 23,000 more than the existing product.

The model is a vision transformer trained on 3.6 million simulated plumes. It reads raw spectra from EMIT, a NASA instrument on the International Space Station, at 60 metres per pixel.

Europe already runs a version of this. The Copernicus atmosphere service switched on a methane hotspot explorer in February last year, built by Dutch researchers on Sentinel-5P data.

The two are not doing the same job. Sentinel-5P covers the planet daily at roughly 5.5 by 3.5 kilometres per pixel, a region rather than a site.

Sixty metres resolves a landfill cell. The paper reports plumes at 24 of the world’s 25 largest-emitting landfills, against 17 for the NASA product it replaces. UCLA built last year’s list of the worst sites from Carbon Mapper analysis of EMIT and Planet Labs data.

Which is where Europe’s own rules stop short.

The Methane Regulation applies to oil, gas and coal. It obliges the Commission to build a global monitoring tool on satellite data, and Article 31 alerts member states to super-emitting events.

Waste is outside it. Prognos and the ifeu Institute estimated in January that municipal waste landfilled in Europe between 2022 and 2050 will release roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent as methane.

Europe’s high-resolution answer is still being built. AIRMO raised EUR 5M in March to launch its first satellite in early 2027, and the Copernicus CO2M mission is due in November of that year.

What is available now costs nothing. The plume database sits on Earth Engine under a Creative Commons licence, the model is on Kaggle and the code on GitHub.

The limit is where the instrument looks. EMIT was built to map mineral dust in arid regions, and it flies on a space station orbit inclined at 51.6 degrees. Europe was never the target.

So the sharpest methane map in existence is a by-product of an American dust mission, given away.

European Earth observation has the opposite trouble, as TNW has reported: plenty of data and too few buyers. A regulator wanting facility-level methane attribution tomorrow would download Google’s file, then find the emitters it resolves best are the ones the regulation does not reach.