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New Delhi Pollution Hits Five-Year High

2 weeks ago
Air pollution in New Delhi hit a five-year high this week, as Diwali fireworks combined with farming fires to shroud the city in a toxic haze. From a report: The annual spike has become something of a tradition in the megalopolis, with some parts of the city this week recording an air-quality index reading of 1,800 -- 20 times higher than levels the World Health Organization deems healthy. The news points to the challenge facing Indian authorities as they look to combat pollution and cut carbon emissions: The country has made huge progress in deploying renewable energy, but will still need up to $21 trillion in new investments in order to meet its 2070 net-zero target, according to government plans reported by Bloomberg.

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Apple and Google Face Enforced Changes Over UK Smartphone Dominance

2 weeks ago
Google and Apple face enforced changes to how they operate their mobile phone platforms, after the UK's competition watchdog ruled the companies require tougher regulatory oversight. From a report: The Competition and Markets Authority has conferred "strategic market status" (SMS) on the tech firms after investigating their mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers. It means Apple and Google will be subjected to tailormade guidelines to regulate their behaviour in the mobile market. The CMA said the two companies have "substantial, entrenched" market power, with UK mobile phone owners using either Google or Apple's platforms and unlikely to switch between them. The regulator flagged the importance of their platforms to the UK economy and said they could be a bottleneck for businesses. [...] Changes under consideration by the CMA include allowing users to be "steered" out of app stores to make purchases elsewhere, like on a company's own website. App developers have long taken issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. The CMA also wants both companies to ensure users have a "genuine choice" over the services they use on their devices, like digital wallets on Apple.

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Reddit Sues Perplexity For Scraping Data To Train AI System

2 weeks ago
An anonymous reader shares a report: Social media platform Reddit sued AI startup Perplexity in New York federal court on Wednesday, accusing it and three other companies of unlawfully scraping its data to train Perplexity's AI-based search engine. Reddit said in the complaint that the data-scraping companies circumvented its data protection measures in order to steal data that Perplexity "desperately needs" to power its "answer engine" system.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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