A new proposal this week from the European Commission, if enacted, would set some of the tightest restrictions yet on technology products, from social media to games to AI chatbots.

The EU Kids Act would follow, and in some ways surpass, similar measures that have been imposed in Australia, the UK, China and India, and would require tech companies such as Meta, Google, YouTube and Roblox to change the way they do business. But first, the legislation will need to be vetted, debated and voted on.

Its pillars include a social media ban for kids under 13, age verification for online accounts and requirements for tech companies to provide proof that their online services are safely designed. The proposal is the formal version of what’s been discussed for months and is a result of mounting public pressure for governments to get a handle on easily accessible technologies that have been shown across research and in court judgments to cause harm to children, such as internet addiction and vulnerability to contact from predators.

“Our Kids Act is reversing the burden of proof — it is for platforms to show they are safe by design,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement Thursday. “And we put parents back in the driving seat, giving them the tools to help their children navigate a safer online world.”

Megan Jenkins, an analyst at Assembly Research who studies AI and online safety, said the Kids Act “goes further than other legislation proposed so far, and represents a big shift from the blanket social media bans we’ve seen in countries such as Australia.”

Jenkins said the biggest change from some of those laws is creating a burden of proof for tech companies to demonstrate that their products are safe, which would be the first law of its kind. “If tech companies can’t prove this, they would be unable to provide services to minors,” she said.

What’s in the EU Kids Act

Discussion of what would and wouldn’t be in the Kids Act began days earlier when drafts of the proposal were leaked. Ultimately, what ended up in the Kids Act is broader than what was expected — in addition to a tiered age system for when teens can access social media, it would require companies that make online games, AI chatbots or companions, and social networks to prove that they’re safe and free from features like infinite scrolling that could be considered manipulative or addictive to children.

The biggest component is the social media ban for those under 13 years of age. For teens under 15, parents could create a mini account accessible through their own account on age-appropriate social media or video-sharing platforms. Screen time would be limited to an hour per day. Teens aged 16 to 18 could create anonymous accounts without parental consent.

Two other major pillars of the proposal are aimed at tech companies. They would be required to include no addictive design features and would need to provide easy-to-use parental controls, recommendation algorithms that are safe for kids and no options for minors to livestream. They would also be required to verify ages for new accounts or anyone logging in to an existing account.

The last part of the proposal covers enforcement: The EU would speed up the time it takes to investigate violations, with the goal of concluding them within 90 days. Companies with 45 million or more active users would need to submit a compliance plan for any new services or features and face a review of up to 30 days. New features, services or functionalities that don’t meet a “positive opinion” from the European Commission would not be allowed.

The age verification ‘sticking point’

Even if the EU proposal is passed without too many changes, enforcing it will be a challenge. It would likely face legal challenges from some of the world’s biggest tech companies and, as countries such as Australia have found, it’s hard to impose constraints that teens can’t find ways to get around.

“These restrictions are also not likely to be successful, as seen with other age verification and social media bans that have been consistently circumvented by tech-savvy kids,” said David Inserra, a fellow for free expression and technology at the Cato Institute.

Inserra added that the age verification technologies themselves pose privacy issues, “creating massive amounts of sensitive identification data that will be subject to hacks and data breaches” for teens as well as adults.

Jenkins agreed that age verification has remained a “bit of a sticking point” for online safety regulation due to privacy concerns, but said she believes the Kids Act is a positive step in moving away from blanket social media bans for kids.

Omar Gallaga has covered technology, digital culture and other topics for outlets including CNET, NPR, WIRED, Texas Monthly, MSNBC, Consumer Reports, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic and the Austin American-Statesman, where he was a longtime tech reporter, editor and podcaster. He lives in the Texas Hill Country.

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Roku is giving its users a chance to try experimental apps before they become part of the wider platform, with a new programme called Roku Labs. Unlike more closed beta schemes, the programme is available to any Roku owner directly from the home screen.

Roku Labs launches with four apps in development. Backdrops Studio lets you customise your Roku background with your own art and images, while Roku Immerse offers another way to create custom screensavers. There’s also Roku Weather, a dedicated weather app, and Roku Stocks, which does exactly what you’d expect by bringing stock tracking to the platform.

Fixed wireless has a practical advantage: it can usually be self-installed. Instead of waiting for a new cable or fiber line on the property and a technician visiting your home, you can often set up the provider’s gateway yourself and find a spot where it receives a good signal.

Plan terms can be attractive too, but they depend on the provider rather than the underlying technology. For example, T-Mobile’s current Rely plan includes unlimited data, has no yearly contract and carries no early termination fee. Those aren’t universal features of 5G home internet, but are good examples of why it pays to compare the complete plan rather than speed alone.

Also, availability can make the decision for you. A provider needs the right wired infrastructure to serve your address with fiber, cable or DSL, while fixed wireless depends on whether the carrier has enough coverage and network capacity at your location. Having 5G service on your phone at home doesn’t guarantee that 5G home internet will be offered at your address.

A useful place to start is the FCC National Broadband Map. Entering an address shows which providers report offering service there, whether they use fiber, cable, DSL or fixed wireless, and their maximum advertised download and upload speeds. The FCC notes that the map shows reported availability and advertised speeds, not actual network performance or affordability.

From there, compare the plans you can actually buy. Check expected download and upload speeds, latency, the full monthly price, equipment or installation charges, data limits and what happens when any promotional pricing ends. For fixed wireless, a trial period is especially useful because the quality of the cellular connection can vary from one address to another.

If competitively priced fiber reaches your home, that’s generally the best mix of affordability, performance and speed. But if your wired alternatives are slow, expensive or inconvenient to install, a good fixed-wireless connection can be superior to choosing a physical cable simply because it’s wired.

Some sad news to start this week off — after 52 years in business, Sherline has announced they are winding down their manufacturing operations. By the end of October they estimate they’ll have produced their last tool, and although they will no longer be making new products, they plan on supporting their existing customers for as long as possible. Although from the sound of the press release, that may mean simply keeping the website up and selling through their inventory of spare parts.

The company offered a range of American-made miniature lathes and mills, and while their manual machines may have been better known in our community, they did eventually branch out into CNC. The press release doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the chain of events that led up to this decision, but it does mention the challenges of modern manufacturing and the lingering aftereffects of the COVID pandemic.

At first blush, it might seem strange that the company would falter just as desktop CNCs appear to finally be gaining momentum, but of course that doesn’t change their ability to compete with overseas manufacturing in terms of price.

Of course, keeping competitive is only a concern when you actually have competitors in the first place. That’s the situation that NASA and Boeing may find themselves in should SpaceX decide to retire the Crew Dragon after 2030. While the International Space Station will (probably) be out of the equation by that point, the US space agency will still need the capability to fly humans to… somewhere, and that means there will be lucrative government contracts up for grabs.

The chances of any other American company developing and launching a human-rated spacecraft between now and the end of the decade are pretty much zero, which means Boeing will have to pick up the slack with their Starliner capsule. Or at least, try to, as Starliner hasn’t exactly had the best track record so far. Although by the 2030s SpaceX plans to have transitioned most, if not all, of its operations to Starship, one does wonder if a big enough check from Uncle Sam could change its mind.

While the market for putting humans into orbit might be shrinking, there’s no shortage of new ways to move stuff around here on terra firma. IEEE Spectrum has the details on a rather unique electric vehicle from startup Revoy that’s designed to sit between a traditional diesel semitruck and its cargo trailer. This essentially turns the combined rig into a hybrid, with the EV module capable of pushing the load for up to 400 kilometers (250 miles). Though it might seem rather low-tech, this approach offers a major advantage in that fleets won’t need to replace their existing vehicles to take advantage of the efficiency gains promised by electrification — with the company claiming that it can cut a truck’s total fuel consumption by up to 85%.

If the day has been going a little too smoothly for your liking and you need something to be frustrated about, here’s something to agonize over. Reality Check shows you images and tasks you with determining if they’re AI-generated or not. As the timer ticks down, you’ll be furiously searching the background for malformed bits of text or extra fingers, but even that trick won’t necessarily save you in this era of increasingly capable image models.

Finally, while AI is getting very good at fooling grandmothers on Facebook, we can take some comfort in the knowledge that it’s finding the business world far more difficult to dominate. Drew Magary recently wrote up the experience of visiting a store “managed” by an AI model for SFGATE, and it sounds like things are going just as poorly as you’d imagine.

Given agency to pick the items it wanted to sell in the store, the computer stocked the shelves with bric-a-brac that has no obvious overarching theme, and although there’s a human staffer behind the counter, purchases apparently need to be negotiated with the AI via voice chat. The store is burning through its initial investment money with no profit in sight, made all the worse by the fact that one of the line items on the budget is the token cost to run the AI that’s mismanaging the whole thing in the first place.

It’s an entertaining read, and a refreshing splash of cold water on the general AI hype that seems so prevalent these days. But its impact as a condemnation of machine learning in business is undermined a bit when the bottom of every page on SFGATE reminds readers that they are producing content with the assistance of generative AI. C’est la vie.

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Apple has hidden tiny “hello” signs inside its retail stores, giving customers something to hunt for and a reason to try out the new iPhone 18 Pro’s cameras.

The signs feature Apple’s iconic cursive “hello” script. And they’re small for a reason: Apple has tucked them into spots that make them natural targets for the iPhone 18 Pro’s telephoto camera.

Apple’s new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max both offer up to 8x optical-quality zoom through the 48MP Fusion Telephoto camera. These cute little signs are as much a demo as they are a decoration.

And, as MacRumors points out, their tiny size confers a third benefit: a launch-day Easter egg perfect for sharing on social media.

Heading to X, and likely any other social media platform, shows customers worldwide snagging shots of it.

The little “hello” sign is a clever way of demonstrating a feature without simply putting a spec sheet in front of a customer. Placing them deliberately out of reach encourages customers to use the camera to get a closer look.

If you switch between two iPhones regularly, you’re going to love this new feature.

Setting up iPhone Handoff

Why and how to use iPhone Handoff

Mathematician Tristan Buckmaster believes OpenAI used his work to rush ahead and beat him to solving a legendary math problem with a $1 million bounty.

But that’s not been enough for him to stop using the company’s models—and he’s not the only mathematician that feels that way.

“Even if you don’t agree with any of this, you’re kind of stuck. With AI being so useful, it’s hard to completely prevent oneself from using it,” Buckmaster tells WIRED. “These companies have a monopoly, and there is not much choice,” he adds.

In the week and half since the New York University professor accused OpenAI of copying his approach, Buckmaster has been using the company’s coding agent Codex to tidy up his research papers. When he has time to do math (which he says is rare, since the fallout thrust him into the spotlight), the tool has been helping him understand the logical steps OpenAI’s agents might have taken to get from his earlier workings to the final proof.

Buckmaster had used Codex as well as Anthropic’s competing Claude to work on what’s known as the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem, alongside Anthropic researcher Levent Alpöge. OpenAI deployed tens of thousands of agents to reach the solution, but only after it learned the equation was close to being solved, Buckmaster says.

When Buckmaster went public with his claims, it ignited a firestorm about artificial intelligence and whether it would make human mathematicians obsolete. It also led OpenAI to do an investigation and amend its announcement about solving Navier-Stokes to say it “confirmed that Buckmaster’s Codex prompts over the two months preceding this announcement and paper on September 8, 2026, could not have influenced the system in any way, including through training.” The company pointed WIRED to its announcement in an email.

Showing that AI was pushing the boundaries of mathematics was “more important than the result,” Buckmaster says. But churning out solutions to long-standing math problems without fully crediting the human work undergirding them—especially ahead of major IPOs—is irresponsible and “childish,” he says.

Other mathematicians have raised similar concerns. Only a handful of people on the planet understand the techniques in geometric group theory that German mathematician Andreas Thom has dedicated the last two decades to developing. So when OpenAI said in August that its Astra model had used them to prove a long-standing problem he had been working on, “I was amazed,” says Thom. “And of course I was wondering, how did they learn about it?”

So he says he asked OpenAI researchers Mark Sellke and Sébastien Bubeck. In an August email, he pointed out that the firm’s assertion that “no progress” had been made on the problem in the last decade overlooked a 2019 paper of his, as well as other mathematicians’ work. The company amended its press release. He and a colleague had been using ChatGPT to assist their work on the problem in the months running up to the result, but when he asked if their interactions had been fed into training data, Thom says Sellke replied: “That did not happen.”

“I set it aside,” Thom recalls. “I’m not so much interested in these political things; I want to work on mathematics.”

While Thom has seen OpenAI’s statement that Buckmaster’s prompts couldn’t have influenced the system, he says he doesn’t trust this and concedes he will probably never know whether his work actually fed the result.

“AI really kills this entire idea that you could trace back who contributed what,” he says. “That is probably over.”