Technology

Thousands of Google workers demand layoff protections amid AI boom in petition to CEO
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

The petition to Sundar Pichai, the CEO, included more than 4,500 signatures and included calls for buyout options

Google workers on Thursday delivered a petition calling for layoff protections as tech giants continue to slash their workforces while pouring billions into AI.

“Make no mistake: this is a company that is enjoying massive, unprecedented success,” Parul Koul, Google software engineer and Alphabet Workers Union president, said outside the company’s California headquarters after delivering the petition to the office of the CEO, Sundar Pichai’. Koul pointed to Google’s $4tn valuation, which has quadrupled over the last six years: “These layoffs and cuts are not difficult decisions, but simply profit being put over the people that make this company run.”

Trump made $1.4bn from crypto in one year. Is Justin Sun the man who helped him do it?
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

The entrepreneur is known in Washington as the financial power behind the president’s crypto fortune. How did Sun’s business love-in with the Trump family spiral into dueling lawsuits?

The most infamous financial scandal in US presidential history – the 1920s Teapot Dome affair – involved then president Warren G Harding’s interior secretary, Albert Fall, taking roughly $400,000 in bribes. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $6m today. Last year, Donald Trump made at least $2.2bn; his single year of income is on the order of 200 to 300 times larger than the bribe that defined “presidential corruption” in the American imagination for a century.

It’s taken for granted that Trump flogs items like Bibles and gold sneakers as a way to wring more money from his loyal base. But of the president’s $2.2bn, at least $1.4bn came from his crypto businesses. That’s an extraordinary achievement, even for an unscrupulous sitting president. How exactly did he do it without any prior background in crypto?

‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI – podcast
Posted on Friday July 17, 2026

Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists make any difference?

By Robert P Baird. Read by Simon Darwen

Read the text version here

Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/longreadpod

Musk’s xAI sues user who allegedly used Grok to create child sexual abuse material
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

Case is one of first brought by an AI company against a user ⁠for allegedly using a tool to generate child abuse material

Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup xAI has sued a South Carolina man arrested ⁠earlier this year on charges of sexually exploiting minors, alleging he misused the company’s AI system Grok to ⁠create child sexual abuse ⁠material.

xAI alleged in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas on Tuesday, that Terry Harwood violated the company’s ⁠terms of service. The case is one of the first brought by an AI company against one of its users ⁠for allegedly using an AI system to generate child sexual abuse material.

‘Keys to the kingdom’: hackers who gained access to heart of London transport network jailed
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

Thalha Jubair, 20, and Owen Flowers, 19, sentenced to five and a half years each for cyber-attack that cost Transport for London £39m

The data of millions of commuters was stolen, Londoners were left out of pocket and 27,000 Transport for London staff were forced to reset their passwords.

Over four days in 2024 a pair of teenage hackers had London’s transport network at their mercy. Thalha Jubair and Owen Flowers had burrowed into the heart of Transport for London’s IT systems and held the “keys to the kingdom”.

TikTok facing UK investigation amid fears over age checks and harm to children
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

Ofcom concerned TikTok’s age verification is ineffective, leaving some exposed to posts on suicide, self-harm and pornography

TikTok is under formal investigation over concerns it has failed to protect children from harmful content, the UK’s online regulator, Ofcom, has announced.

The social media platform’s approach to checking the ages of users has sparked “particular concerns” at the watchdog, almost a year after measures to protect children from the worst of online content came into effect under the Online Safety Act.

Moroccan intelligence insider reveals widespread use of Pegasus hacking software
Posted on Thursday July 16, 2026

Whistleblower suggests internal security services deployed spyware from 2017 against key domestic and foreign targets

A former member of Morocco’s domestic intelligence service has helped to provide an unprecedented insight into how the north African state used hacking software – including Pegasus spyware – to target journalists, human rights defenders, French politicians and Spanish cabinet ministers and police officers.

Pegasus, which is manufactured by the Israel-based NSO Group, allows its operator to access everything on a target’s mobile phone, including emails, text messages and photographs. It can also activate the phone’s recorder and camera, turning it into a listening device.