ІНСАЙДЕР УКРАЇНА

Sydney — Australia’s online safety regulator fined messaging platform Telegram about $640,000 on Monday for its delay in answering questions about measures the app took to prevent the spread of child abuse and violent extremist material.

The eSafety Commission in March 2024 sought responses from social media platforms YouTube, X and Facebook to Telegram and Reddit, and blamed them for not doing enough to stop extremists from using live-streaming features, algorithms and recommendation systems to recruit users.

Telegram and Reddit were asked about the steps they were taking to combat child sexual abuse material on their services. They had to respond by May, but Telegram submitted its response in October.

“Timely transparency is not a voluntary requirement in Australia and this action reinforces the importance of all companies complying with Australian law,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.

Telegram’s delay in providing information obstructed eSafety from implementing its online safety measures, Grant said.

Telegram said it had fully responded to all eSafety’s questions last year, with no outstanding issues.

“The unfair and disproportionate penalty concerns only the response time frame, and we intend to appeal,” the company said in an email.

Australia’s spy agency in December said one in five priority counterterrorism cases investigated involved youths.

The messaging platform has been under growing scrutiny around the world since its founder Pavel Durov was placed under formal investigation in France in August in connection with alleged use of the app for illegal activities.

Durov, who is out on bail, has denied the allegations.

Grant said Big Tech must be transparent and put in place measures to prevent their services from being misused as the threat posed by online extremist materials poses a growing risk.

“If we want accountability from the tech industry we need much greater transparency. These powers give us a look under the hood at just how these platforms are dealing, or not dealing, with a range of serious and egregious online harms which affect Australians,” Grant said.

If Telegram chooses to ignore the penalty notice, eSafety would seek a civil penalty in court, Grant said. 
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SUSONO — Woven City near Mount Fuji is where Japanese automaker Toyota plans to test everyday living with robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous zero-emissions transportation.

Daisuke Toyoda, an executive in charge of the project from the automaker’s founding family, stressed it’s not “a smart city.”

“We’re making a test course for mobility so that’s a little bit different. We’re not a real estate developer,” he said Saturday during a tour of the facility, where the first phase of construction was completed.

The Associated Press was the first foreign media to get a preview of the $10 billion Woven City.

The first phase spans 47,000 square meters (506,000 square feet), roughly the size of about five baseball fields. When completed, it will be 294,000 square meters (3.1 million square feet).

Built on the grounds of a shuttered Toyota Motor Corp. auto plant, it’s meant to be a place where researchers and startups come together to share ideas, according to Toyoda.

Ambitious plans for futuristic cities have sputtered or are unfinished, including one proposed by Google’s parent company Alphabet in Toronto; “Neom” in Saudi Arabia; a project near San Francisco, spearheaded by a former Goldman Sachs trader, and Masdar City next to Abu Dhabi’s airport.

Woven City’s construction began in 2021. All the buildings are connected by underground passageways, where autonomous vehicles will scuttle around collecting garbage and making deliveries.

No one is living there yet. The first residents will total just 100 people.

Called “weavers,” they’re workers at Toyota and partner companies, including instant noodle maker Nissin and Daikin, which manufactures air-conditioners. Coffee maker UCC was serving hot drinks from an autonomous-drive bus, parked in a square surrounded by still-empty apartment complexes.

The city’s name honors Toyota’s beginnings as a maker of automatic textile looms. Sakichi Toyoda, Daisuke Toyoda’s great-great-grandfather, just wanted to make life easier for his mother, who toiled on a manual loom.

There was little talk of using electric vehicles, an area where Toyota has lagged. While Tesla and Byd emerged as big EV players, Toyota has been pushing hydrogen, the energy of choice in Woven City.

Toyota officials acknowledged it doesn’t expect to make money from Woven City, at least not for years.

Keisuke Konishi, auto analyst at Quick Corporate Valuation Research Center, believes Toyota wants to work on robotic rides to rival Google’s Waymo — even if it means building an entire complex.

“Toyota has the money to do all that,” he said.
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After China’s DeepSeek gained global recognition, some argue that the U.S.-China rivalry in AI may be upended. In addition, the Chinese Communist Party is actively offering to help developing countries strengthen their AI capacity building. Observers said that China is selling its AI software to targeted regions, which can challenge U.S. AI and serve as a strategy for Chinese companies to get more business overseas.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin. 
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BRUSSELS — The European Commission said Thursday it had approved 920 million-euro of German state aid, or $960 million, to Infineon Technologies for the construction of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dresden.

The measure will allow Infineon to complete the MEGAFAB-DD project, which will be able to produce a wide range of different types of computer chips, the Commission said.

Chipmakers across the globe are pouring billions of dollars into new plants, as they take advantage of generous subsidies from the United States and the EU to keep the West ahead of China in developing cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The European Commission has earmarked 15 billion euros for public and private semiconductor projects by 2030.

“This new manufacturing plant will bring flexible production capacity to the EU and thereby strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and technological autonomy in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act,” the Commission said in a statement.

The Commission said the plant — which is slated to reach full capacity in 2031 — will be a front-end facility, covering wafer processing, testing and separation, adding that its chips will be used in industrial, automotive and consumer applications.

The aid will take the form of a direct grant of up to 920 million euros to Infineon to support its overall investment, amounting to 3.5 billion euros. Infineon, Germany’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, which was spun off from Siemens 25 years ago, has said the plant will be the largest single investment in its history.

Infineon has agreed with the EU to ensure the project will bring wider positive effects to the EU semiconductor value chain and invest in the research and development of the next generation of chips in Europe, the Commission said.

It will also contribute to crisis preparedness by committing to implement priority-rated orders in the case of a supply shortage, in line with the European Chips Act. 
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