The Motion Picture Association is asking Meta to stop referring to content shown to teen accounts on Instagram as “guided by PG-13 ratings” [File]
| Photo Credit: AP
The Motion Picture Association is asking Meta to stop referring to content shown to teen accounts on Instagram as “guided by PG-13 ratings,” saying it is misleading and could erode trust in its movie ratings system.
A lawyer on behalf of the MPA sent Meta Platforms a cease-and-desist letter asking the tech giant to “immediately and permanently disassociate its Teen Accounts and AI tools from the MPA’s rating system.”
The MPA says Meta’s claims claims that its Teen Accounts will be “guided by” PG-13 ratings and that its Teen Account content settings are “generally aligned with movie ratings for ages 13+” are “false and highly misleading.” The association’s movie ratings, which range from G to NC-17, are done by parents who watch entire movies and evaluate them to come up with a rating.
“Meta’s attempts to restrict teen content literally cannot be ‘guided by’ or ‘aligned with’ the MPA’s PG-13 movie rating because Meta does not follow this curated process,” the association’s letter says. “Instead, Meta’s content restrictions appear to rely heavily on artificial intelligence or other automated technology measures.”
In a statement, Meta said it updated its teen content policies to be “closer to PG-13 movie standards— which parents already know” so parents can better understand what their teens see on Instagram.
“We know social media isn’t the same as movies, but we made this change to support parents, and we hope to work with the MPA to continue bringing families this clarity,” the company said. Meta added that its intent was never to suggest that it partnered with the MPA or that the material on Instagram had been rated by the movie association.
A chemical commonly found in consumer products and used in dry cleaning has been shown to triple the risk of liver fibrosis. Liver disease is most often linked to three main causes: heavy alcohol use, fat buildup in the liver associated with obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol, or infection with hepatitis B or C. However, […]
FILE PHOTO: Snap beat third-quarter revenue estimate and said it has partnered with Perplexity AI to integrate its AI-powered search engine into Snapchat.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Snap beat third-quarter revenue estimate on Wednesday and said it has partnered with Perplexity AI to integrate its artificial intelligence-powered search engine into Snapchat, sending the social media firm’s shares surging around 23% after the bell.
AI startup Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million over one year in cash and equity, with revenue contributions expected from 2026. The integration of Perplexity AI will offer verifiable answers to users’ questions within the Snapchat app.
The deal positions Snap to better compete with larger rivals such as TikTok and Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, which currently are the preferred destinations for advertisers thanks to their larger user base.
Snapchat’s parent has been leaning on direct-response ads, designed to prompt specific actions such as app downloads or website visits, to bolster digital advertising, even as brand-awareness campaigns show some signs of weakness.
Direct response ad revenue surged 8% during the third quarter, driven by strong demand for “Pixel Purchase” and “App Purchase” ad optimizations that enable businesses to target users most likely to complete a purchase on their website or within their app.
The company’s third-quarter revenue rose 10% to $1.51 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $1.49 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Its net loss narrowed to $104 million from $153 million a year ago.
Daily active users (DAUs) of Snapchat increased 8% to 477 million globally, compared with the estimate of 476.3 million.
“They rebounded from an ad platform hiccup in the second quarter, they grew their consumer revenue business, all while continuing to grow their user base,” said Max Willens, principal analyst at Emarketer.
Snap, however, warned that overall DAUs may decline in the fourth quarter, citing changing investment priorities and anticipated impacts from age verification and evolving regulatory landscapes.
Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age bill, set to take effect in December, is among the regulations that Snap expects would impact user engagement.
The company forecast fourth-quarter revenue between $1.68 billion and $1.71 billion, while analysts expect $1.69 billion.
New research reveals that children with eczema who received the COVID-19 vaccine experienced fewer infections and allergic conditions than those who didn’t. The study of over 11,000 pediatric patients found lower risks of asthma, rhinitis, and skin infections among vaccinated children. COVID-19 Vaccine May Offer Added Protection for Children With Eczema Children diagnosed with atopic […]
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data centre projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically-made artificial intelligence chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centres that are less than 30% complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage will be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said.
The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a pause in trade hostilities between Washington and Beijing, and achieve its quest for AI chip self-sufficiency.
China’s access to advanced AI chips, including those made by Nvidia, has been a key point of friction with the U.S., as the two wrestle for dominance in high-end computing power and AI.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday following talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week that Washington will “let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced” chips.
The latest move by Beijing, however, would dash Nvidia’s hopes of regaining Chinese market share, while giving local rivals, including Huawei, yet another opportunity to secure more chip sales.
It is unclear whether the guidance applies nationwide or only to certain provinces, sources said. The sources did not identify which Chinese regulatory bodies had issued the order. They declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Besides Nvidia, other foreign chipmakers that sell data centre chips to China include AMD and Intel.
The Cyberspace Administration of China and the National Development and Reform Commission, two of Beijing’s most powerful regulators, did not respond to requests for comment. Nvidia and AMD did not respond, while Intel declined to comment.
NVIDIA THE BIGGEST CASUALTY
AI data centre projects in China have drawn over $100 billion in state funding since 2021, according to a Reuters review of government tenders. Most data centres in China have received some form of state funding to aid their construction, but it is not immediately clear how many projects are subject to the new guidance.
Some projects have already been suspended before breaking ground as a result of the directive, including a facility in a northwestern province that had planned to deploy Nvidia chips, one of the sources said.
The project, being developed by a private technology company that received state funding, has been put on hold, the source said.
Beijing has long been irked by Washington’s export controls aimed at impeding China’s tech progress and has taken a series of measures, including retaliatory moves, to wean itself off U.S. technology.
The U.S. has justified its restrictions by alleging the Chinese military would use the chips to increase its capabilities.
China discouraged local tech giants from purchasing advanced Nvidia chips over security concerns this year, while showing off a new data centre powered solely by domestic AI chips.
And in 2023, Beijing banned the use of Micron’s products in its critical infrastructure, which paved the way for a decision this year by the largest U.S. memory chipmaker to exit the server chip market in China, Reuters reported last month.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly lobbied Trump and his cabinet to allow the sale of more AI chips to China, arguing that keeping its superpower rival’s AI industry dependent on U.S. hardware was good for America’s interests.
Its current share of the Chinese AI chip market is zero, compared to 95% in 2022, according to the company.
Excluding foreign chipmakers like Nvidia from big state projects would eliminate a significant portion of their China revenue, even as a deal is agreed to allow the resumption of advanced chip sales to China.
The new guidance on data centres covers Nvidia’s H20 chips, the most advanced AI chip the U.S. firm is allowed to sell to China, but also more powerful processors such as the B200 and H200, the sources said.
While the B200 and H200 are barred from being shipped to China by U.S. export controls, they remain widely available in China through grey-market channels.
BOON AND RISKS FOR DOMESTIC FIRMS
With the latest directive, the Chinese government is carving out even more market share for domestic chipmakers. China has a range of AI chip companies, from the most prominent, Huawei Technologies, to smaller players such as Shanghai-listed Cambricon and startups including MetaX, Moore Threads, and Enflame.
Products from these Chinese companies already rival some of Nvidia’s offerings, but they have struggled to crack the market. Developers used to Nvidia’s reliable software ecosystem have been reluctant to adopt domestic alternatives.
While the move would help boost sales of domestically developed chips, it also risks widening the U.S.-China gap in AI computing power.
U.S. tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI have spent or allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centres powered by Nvidia’s most advanced chips.
Meanwhile, leading Chinese chip manufacturers like SMIC are facing supply constraints due to U.S. sanctions on semiconductor manufacturing equipment that have hit advanced chip production capacity.
FILE PHOTO: Microsoft and Abu Dhabi’s G42 announced a 200-megawatt expansion of data centre capacity in the UAE as part of an over $15 billion investment commitment.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Microsoft and Abu Dhabi’s G42 on Wednesday announced a 200-megawatt expansion of data centre capacity in the United Arab Emirates as part of an over $15 billion investment commitment by the U.S. tech giant in the Gulf country.
The expansion will be delivered through Khazna Data Centers, a unit of G42, and it is expected to start coming online before the end of next year, the two firms said in a joint statement, without providing further details.
Microsoft said this week its investment in the UAE will reach $7.3 billion between 2023 and the end of this year, with a further $7.9 billion earmarked for 2026-2029.
It also announced that President Donald Trump’s administration had approved the export of advanced Nvidia chips for its data centres in the Gulf country, which has been spending billions of dollars to become a global AI hub.
Microsoft invested $1.5 billion last year to take a minority stake in G42, which is also backed by private equity firm Silver Lake, Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, and the family office of billionaire investor Ray Dalio.
The expansion will provide further AI and cloud infrastructure to the UAE, “strengthening Microsoft Azure’s secure, scalable, and sovereign cloud services,” the two firms said on Wednesday.
Scientists have discovered that human stomach cells can be genetically reprogrammed to act like pancreatic beta cells and produce insulin. This approach could one day help people with Type 1 diabetes generate their own insulin without injections. Understanding Type 1 Diabetes and Its Challenges Type 1 diabetes develops when the pancreas fails to produce enough […]
“China is going to win the AI race,” Huang told the newspaper on the sidelines of the Financial Times’ Future of AI Summit [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has warned that China will beat the United States in the artificial intelligence race, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
“China is going to win the AI race,” Huang told the newspaper on the sidelines of the Financial Times’ Future of AI Summit.
“As I have long said, China is nanoseconds behind America in AI,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement posted on X late on Wednesday.
“It’s vital that America wins by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide,” he added.
The artificial intelligence chip leader’s chief in October said that the U.S. can win the AI battle if the world, including China’s massive developer base, runs on Nvidia systems. He, however, lamented that the Chinese government has shut it out of its market.
China’s access to advanced AI chips, particularly those produced by Nvidia — the world’s most valuable company by market capitalisation — remains a flashpoint in its tech rivalry with the United States, as both nations vie for supremacy in cutting-edge computing and artificial intelligence.
“We want America to win this AI race. No doubt about that,” Huang said in the Nvidia developers’ conference held in Washington last month.
“We want the world to be built on American tech stack. Absolutely the case. But we also need to be in China to win their developers. A policy that causes America to lose half of the world’s AI developers is not beneficial in the long term, it hurts us more,” he added.
Nvidia has not applied for U.S. export licenses to sell the chips in China, citing Beijing’s stance toward the company, CEO Jensen Huang previously said. Trump added that Washington would allow China to engage with Nvidia, but “not in terms of the most advanced” semiconductors.
Smartphone prices have gone up by up to ₹2,000 in India due to sustained price escalation of the storage components used in mobile phones, and is likely to affect new smartphone launches this year and in 2026 with prices expected to go up by up to ₹5,000. The new prices are effective from November 4, 2025. Indian rupee depreciation against the U.S. Dollar also added to the cost.
The initial impact of this component cost inflation is already being passed on to consumers. The prices of Vivo’sT series, including T4 Lite 5G series and T4x 5G series, have already been increased by ₹1,500. Similarly, Oppo’s Reno 14 series and F 31 series have seen price hikes ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹2,000.
Samsung’s A17 model has increased by ₹500. Furthermore, Samsung supplies without a bundled charger will translate to an additional consumer cost of approximately ₹1,300, resulting in a net impact of ₹1,800 per device.
The All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) has issued a stern warning regarding an impending sharp and sustained increase in mobile phone prices, driven by a global surge in the cost of key storage components.
“The industry is grappling with a severe supply shock. The price of essential storage components like NAND Flash, DRAM, and SSDs has seen a dramatic, sustained escalation. As a direct result, the cost of all end-segment products will inevitably rise, a fact confirmed by leading Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) representatives,” said Kailash Lakhyani, AIMRA Chairman.
As per the document shared by OEMs, the prices of chips and memory components have been steadily increasing since August 2025. The continued shortage in memory supply has further intensified this situation, and as per industry research, the prices of chips, memory, and other key raw materials are expected to remain on an upward trend through the end of 2026.
Francis Wong, Chief Marketing Officer, Realme India, highlighted the issue on X saying, “2025 has brought a new challenge to the entire smartphone industry — a sharp, sustained rise in the cost of storage components like NAND Flash, DRAM, and SSDs. It’s not limited to one brand or price segment. Whether you’re building premium flagships or dependable mid-range devices, everyone is feeling the pinch.”
He added that AI revolution has rewritten the rules, creating massive demand for high-end memory that fuels data centers and machine learning systems. “The same chips once used in smartphones are now heavily pulled toward powering generative AI models — leaving the industry to rethink how we build, price, and innovate devices.”
The fluctuation of global prices and the strength of the U.S. dollar against Indian rupee have amplified cost pressures on local assemblers. “We try our best to absorb the increased cost and not transfer such cost to consumers, and not impact our upcoming two new products in 2025,” said Mr. Wong.
“This immediate and significant pricing hike in the smartphone segment, which is a backbone of the digital economy, will cause our businesses to ‘nose down’ in the coming days, reversing the recent market gains,” warned Mr. Lakhyani.
When there’s an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease, state health officials typically take certain steps to alert residents and issue public updates about the growing threat. That’s standard practice, public health and infectious disease experts told KFF Health News and NPR. The goal is to keep as many other vulnerable people as possible from getting sick and to remind the public about the benefits of vaccinations.
But in Louisiana this year, public health officials appeared to have not followed that playbook during the state’s worst whooping cough outbreak in 35 years.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease that’s particularly dangerous for the youngest infants. It can cause vomiting and trouble breathing, and serious infections can lead to pneumonia, seizures, and, rarely, death.
Madison Flake, a pediatric resident in Baton Rouge, cared for a baby who was hospitalized during this year’s outbreak. Less than 2 months old, he was sent to the intensive care unit.
“He would have these bouts of very dramatic coughing spells,” Flake said. “He would stop breathing for several seconds to almost a minute.”
Infants are not eligible for their first pertussis vaccine until they are 2 months old, but they can acquire immunity if the mother is immunized while pregnant.
By late January, two babies had died in Louisiana.
But the Louisiana Department of Health waited two months to send out a social media post suggesting people talk to their doctors about getting vaccinated. The department took even longer to issue a statewide health alert to physicians, send out a press release, or hold a news conference.
That lag is not typical, according to Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association.
“Particularly for these childhood diseases, we usually jump all over these,” said Benjamin, a physician who has led health departments in Maryland and Washington, D.C. “These are preventable diseases and preventable deaths.”
Because infectious diseases spread exponentially, if officials don’t alert the public quickly, they lose a key chance to prevent further infections, said Abraar Karan, an instructor at Stanford University who has worked on covid and mpox outbreaks.
“Time is perhaps one of the most important currencies that you have,” he added.
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General Promotion of Vaccines Banned
Because pertussis vaccine immunity wanes over time, cases can ebb and flow. But in September 2024, Louisiana health officials started seeing a “substantial” increase in whooping cough cases, part of a national trend.
In late January, physicians at one Louisiana hospital warned their colleagues that two infants had died in the outbreak.
He sent that email a few hours after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, won Senate confirmation as the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Also that day, Abraham posted a public memo on the state health department’s website. In it, he said public health has overstepped with vaccine recommendations, driven by “a one-size-fits-all, collectivist mentality.” Abraham has called covid vaccines “dangerous” and been a vocal supporter of Kennedy.
Four days later, in response to a request from WVUE Fox 8 News in New Orleans, the Louisiana Department of Health in an email confirmed the deaths of two infants from whooping cough for the first time. WVUE published the news on Feb. 20.
But Louisiana’s health department sent out no alerts, according to a review of external and internal communications by NPR and KFF Health News.
Over the next month, two more infants were hospitalized for whooping cough, according to internal health department emails obtained through a public records request.
In March, after inquiries from NPR and KFF Health News about the growing number of pertussis cases, the department put out its first social media communications about the outbreak and offered interviews to other journalists.
Then on May 1 — at least three months after the second infant death — the health department issued what appears to be its first and so far only official alert to physicians. It put out its first press release the next day and then held a news conference about pertussis on May 14.
By then, 42 people had been hospitalized for whooping cough since the outbreak began, three-quarters of whom were not up to date on their whooping cough immunizations, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
More than two-thirds of those hospitalized were babies under the age of 1.
Throughout the summer, pertussis cases continued to climb in Louisiana. But there were no further public communications from the state health department.
NPR and KFF Health News contacted the department for comment on Sept. 25. Emma Herrock, a spokesperson, did not answer specific questions about the lack of communications but referred to a Sept. 30 post on X by the state surgeon general.
In the post, Abraham said the department “consistently reported cases of pertussis and provided guidance to help residents stay protected” in 2025. He called the pertussis vaccine “one of the least controversial” and said he recommends it to his patients.
The X post included a year-by-year graphic of pertussis cases that omitted 2024 and 2025. The post also provided a more specific timeframe for when the infant deaths occurred — one in late 2024 and the other in early 2025.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, is a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease that’s particularly dangerous for the youngest infants.(Brianna Soukup/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)
A ‘Train Wreck’ of Cases
Louisiana should have started warning the public within days of the first infant’s death instead of waiting months, said Stanford’s Karan.
“At minimum,” he said, “it should be like heavy promotion of: ‘Hey, infants are at high risk. They get infected by people who have waning immunity. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated, get vaccinated. If you have these symptoms, get tested.’”
Deaths from a vaccine-preventable illness are tragic, but they can also serve as an opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of vaccines and try to save lives, said Joshua Sharfstein, a former Maryland health secretary and now a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“The risk of pertussis is always there, but when you have two infant deaths it’s a really good opportunity to communicate that this is a real threat to the health of children,” Sharfstein said.
Karan said that by not acting more quickly, the Louisiana Department of Health may have set itself up for a worse outbreak.
“Because then what we see is this train wreck thereafter, of like an insanely large outbreak, a lot of hospitalizations,” he said.
The Outbreak Continued
As of Sept. 20, the most recent date for which data is available, Louisiana had counted 387 cases of whooping cough in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In data going back to 1990, the previous high was 214 cases, in 2013.
Until the Sept. 30 post on X, the Louisiana Department of Health did not appear to put out any public communications about pertussis over the preceding four months, though hospitalizations continued and case levels surpassed the 2013 levels.
The health department should be responding aggressively and consistently, said Joseph Bocchini, the president of the Louisiana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Health officials should make sure “people are updated on a regular basis and reminded of what needs to be done,” he said. “Get your vaccines. Moms, if you’re pregnant, get vaccinated. And if you have a cough illness, see your doctor.”
Benjamin, with the American Public Health Association, said the ongoing goal of public health communication is to prevent the next hospitalization or death.
“The bottom line is, it’s not too late,” he said. “It’s not too late to be much more aggressive and proactive about dealing with pertussis.”
This article is from a partnership that includes WWNO, NPR, and KFF Health News.
