Meta launches its AI chatbot in the UK on Facebook and Instagram

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has launched its artificial intelligence assistant in the UK, alongside AI-boosted sunglasses modelled by Mark Zuckerberg.Meta’s AI assistant, which can generate text and images, is now available on its social media platforms in the UK and Brazil, having already been launched in the US and Australia.Regulatory issues and product testing held up the UK launch, while Meta’s AI services remain unavailable in the EU due to the “unpredictable” regulatory environment.Facebook and Instagram users in the UK will now be able to access the Meta AI chatbot by tapping on an icon in their app or by buying a pair of £299 Ray-Ban Meta frames from a UK retailer and accessing its voice assistant.Zuckerberg, Meta’s co-founder, sported a pair of the Ray-Bans at a company event last month when he also announced that Meta AI would be able to respond to voice commands and use the voice of celebrities including Judi Dench, John Cena and Keegan-Michael Key

Google faces US government attempt to break it up

The US government may ask a judge to force the breakup of Google’s business as it attempts to challenge the tech corporation’s monopoly over the internet search market.The Department of Justice has filed court papers that say it is considering enforcing “structural remedies” that would prevent Google from using some of its products such as Chrome, Android and Play, which the DoJ argues give the company an advantage over rivals.Other actions being considered include blocking Google from paying to have its search engine pre-installed on smartphones and other devices.Google, which is owned by Alphabet, said it would challenge any case by the DoJ and that the proposals marked an “overreach” by the government that would harm consumers.The latest filing comes after a court ruling in August in favour of the DoJ that found Google, which controls 90% of the global search market, had violated antitrust laws and spent billions building up an illegal monopoly

Brazil lifts ban on X after Elon Musk complies with court demands

Brazilians are set to regain access to X after a supreme court judge lifted a ban introduced nearly six weeks ago as a result of Elon Musk’s failure to comply with the South American country’s laws.X was blocked in Brazil, where it had more than 22 million users, at the end of August in what was the culmination of a months-long arm wrestle between the network’s billionaire owner and the Brazilian supreme court.The immediate trigger for the ban was Musk’s failure to name a local representative and pay millions of dollars worth of fines. But the backdrop was a long-running and politically charged battle between the outspoken tech billionaire and Brazil’s top court, which was trying to combat the dissemination of far-right misinformation and anti-democratic content on the social network.Experts and Brazilian authorities partly blamed the spread of such incendiary online content for the far-right riots that rocked Brasília in January 2023

TechScape: An elite Silicon Valley school tests a tech fast

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, the technology news editor at Guardian US.I’m taking over TechScape from Alex Hern, and I’d like to introduce myself and my ideas for this newsletter.A bit about me: I started working at the Guardian the day Sam Bankman-Fried went on trial. My first holiday from my new job coincided with the shock firing of Sam Altman from OpenAI

Women’s health tech ‘less likely’ to get funding if woman is on founding team

Healthcare technology designed to target a wide range of women’s issues is less likely to get funding if there is a woman on the founding team, according to research.Female founders of femtech products – short for female technology – are also less likely to secure funding if they use “advocacy” words in their funding applications, including “women’s rights”, “take control” or “freedom”, the analysis showed.Male femtech founders, however, can benefit from increased investment if they use the same words, found Ludovica Castiglia, a researcher working in partnership with FemHealth Insights, a consultancy firm specialising in women’s health and femtech.“The depressing message is that even when you’re working in an area where 75% of companies are founded by women, and you’ve developed a product aimed specifically at women, having a woman on your founding team – even when she’s paired with a male counterpart – damages your chance of getting funding,” Castiglia said.“Instead of regarding female entrepreneurs in one of the most female-dominated sectors in the startup world as a positive, potential investors frequently see them as a negative and withhold funding as a result,” she said

Tesla Cybertruck ‘too big and sharp’ for European roads, say campaigners

Tesla’s Cybertruck is too big and sharp for European roads, transport campaigners have warned, as questions are raised about the registration of one of the first of the electric pickup trucks to hit the continent.There had been confusion about whether the Cybertruck could be driven in Europe, owing to strict road safety rules that ban sharp edges and require speed limiters on vehicles that weigh more than 3.5 tonnes when full. Tesla’s manual lists the angular steel vehicle as having a gross vehicle weight of 4 tonnes. (The equivalent of a standard family car, such as a Ford Focus, is 1