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PolicyEU plans an under-15 ban spanning social media, games and AI chatbots
A leaked European Commission draft would bar children under 15 from opening their own accounts on social media, video platforms, online games and AI chatbots. Ages 13–14 could use tightly limited parent-controlled introductory accounts, while younger children would get only fully supervised, child-safe services. Platforms would have to verify age, remove addictive design and harmful feeds, and pay a supervisory fee. The EU Kids Act still faces months of negotiation with member states and Parliament.
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ChinaDeepSeek hires its first CFO as a domestic IPO comes into view
DeepSeek plans to recruit GL Ventures partner Yan Wentao as its first finance chief, another step from founder-funded research lab toward public company. Reuters says the startup has already hired CITIC Securities to prepare a possible Shanghai STAR Market listing and is raising money at about a $74 billion valuation. The company raised roughly $7.4 billion in June and is spending more on data centres, chips and talent after its low-cost models challenged the assumption that frontier AI demands US-scale budgets.
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ResearchHardFlow makes generative AI obey hard safety limits without retraining
MIT researchers turned constrained generation into a control problem: let a model explore freely while sampling, then steer the trajectory so its final answer satisfies rules that cannot bend. The plug-in method needs no retraining and can optimise quality at the same time. In tests across robot manipulation, maze navigation and image editing, HardFlow met every constraint while beating baselines on solution quality - including finding faster collision-free robot paths instead of merely avoiding obstacles.
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NeurotechOne brain implant lets a paralysed user speak and gesture at once
A multifunctional brain-computer interface decoded intended speech while simultaneously turning attempted arm movements into avatar gestures, letting a participant communicate with words and body language in real time. The work matters because most brain implants focus on one output channel at a time; combining them could make conversation feel less mechanical and restore social cues such as pointing or emphasis. Nature reports the system as an early research result rather than a ready clinical product.