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July 10, 2026
 

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ALPHABET

Waymo autonomous taxis on Bush Street in San Francisco earlier this month
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Dec 28, 2025
Waymo’s San Francisco outage raises doubts over robotaxi readiness during crises
Driverless taxis from Alphabet unit Waymo, a ubiquitous feature on the city’s streets, were stuck at intersections with their hazard lights turned on.
A child looks at his phone in Melbourne on Nov. 27 ahead of Australia's ban on children under 16 from using social media.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 11, 2025
Australian content creators feel sting of losing young fans to social media ban
Follower counts primarily on Instagram have dropped, creators said, while engagement patterns — likes, comments and views — have also changed.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells speak to the media during a visit to St. John Paul II College in Canberra, Australia, on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 11, 2025
Australian leader defends social media ban as teens brag about staying online
The rollout of the ban was always going to be bumpy but would ultimately save lives, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says.
The European Commission on Friday imposed a €120 million penalty on Elon Musk's X for breaching European Union online content rules.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 6, 2025
Europe continues Big Tech crackdown with X fine in defiance of Trump
Europe is forging ahead with its crackdown on Big Tech, levying fines on Alphabet's Google and Elon Musk's X and opening new investigations, asserting its sovereign right to enforce its laws in defiance of U.S. President Donald Trump.
AI-powered photo-editing tools show immense potential for restoring and manipulating images for consumers and advertisers, but current limitations and the high risk of misuse highlight challenges for both technology and regulators.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2025
Photoshopping, not chatbots, might be AI’s killer app
Enforcement across the world wide web remains an open question and rising mistrust of digital media could trigger stricter interventions elsewhere.
Google is one of the few companies that produces what the industry calls the full stack in computing, and it has a data goldmine for constructing AI models from its search index, Android phones and YouTube.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 26, 2025
Google, the sleeping giant in global AI race, now ‘fully awake’
Google’s newest multipurpose model, Gemini 3, won immediate praise for its capabilities in reasoning and coding, as well as niche tasks that have tripped up AI chatbots.
KDDI said its AI service, which will be launched in spring 2026, will “protect the rights of content providers.”
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 29, 2025
KDDI enters into ‘responsible’ AI agreement with Google
The “responsible” AI service would only shows content that creators have given consent to.
OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, a long-anticipated artificial intelligence-powered web browser built around its popular chatbot, in a direct challenge to Google Chrome’s dominance.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 22, 2025
OpenAI launches AI browser Atlas in latest challenge to Google
The browser could accelerate a broader shift toward AI-driven search, as users increasingly turn to conversational tools instead of relying on traditional keyword-based results.
Oracle is among some of the firms expected to thrive in an artificial intelligence future.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 29, 2025
Magnificent Seven is passe, but what can take its place?
Wall Street’s most powerful collection of stocks is missing some of the firms that are also expected to thrive in an artificial intelligence future.
Google could be forced to sell a part of its online advertising business as antitrust enforcers bring their latest case against the tech giant.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 23, 2025
Google seeks to avoid ad tech breakup as antitrust trial begins
The case comes after regulators recently failed in a separate bid to make Google sell its Chrome browser earlier this month.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill high-skilled jobs during a visit to the world headquarters of Snap-On, a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on April 18, 2017.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 22, 2025
H-1B workers abroad race to U.S. as Trump order sparks dismay and confusion
Tech companies and banks sent urgent memos to employees, advising them to return before a deadline of 12:01 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time Sunday.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a warning via social media after the EU announced it was fining Google almost €3 billion ($3.5 billion) and ordering the search giant to stop favoring its own advertising technology services.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 6, 2025
Trump threatens trade actions after EU fines Google over ads
The EU announced that it was fining Google almost €3 billion ($3.5 billion) and ordering it stop favoring its own advertising technology services.
Icons for the Google Chrome and Safari apps on a laptop in Riga, Latvia, on Aug. 13. In a win for Google, Tuesday's federal court ruling didn't bar the company from making payments to third parties including Apple for default browser placement in browsers or on mobile devices.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 3, 2025
Google can keep Chrome and keep paying to be default search, federal court rules
Landmark ruling allows Google to avoid one of the most severe remedy requests from the U.S. government after the court found it had an illegal monopoly in the search market.
A new Facebook data center is under construction in Eagle Mountain, Utah, in May 2019. Manufacturers and builders are reaping windfalls from the AI-driven data center surge.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2025
The AI building boom is bound to bust
For now, the boom has room to run. The introduction of artificial intelligence into the workplace and society will match the rollout of electricity and the internet.
In a report released on Wednesday, Australia's eSafety Commissioner said YouTube, along with Apple, failed to track the number of user reports it received of child sex abuse appearing on their platforms.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 6, 2025
Australian watchdog says YouTube and others ‘turning a blind eye’ to abuse material
The regulator said some providers had not made improvements to address safety gaps on their services despite it putting them on notice in previous years.
Silver Dania, a Norwegian-owned ship suspected of cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea, whose crew are Russian citizens, in the port of Tromso, Norway, where it has been brought for investigation, on Jan. 31.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 22, 2025
Lawmakers want U.S. tech CEOs to address concerns about submarine cables
Washington has been sounding the alarm about the network of more than 400 subsea cables that handle 99% of international internet traffic and about threats from China and Russia.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority spent years setting up a regime to intervene in the operations of tech giants such as Google, only for the Labour government to say its need to grow the economy meant tough regulation was now out.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 26, 2025
U.K. politics blunts antitrust action against Google
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority spent years setting up a regime to intervene in tech giants’ operations, only for the Labour government to say tough regulation was out.
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet, presented a vision of AI that was at once optimistic about the technology’s possibilities and sober-minded about some of its present limitations, at an event at the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 5, 2025
Alphabet CEO expects to keep hiring engineers while AI advances
Alphabet’s CEO presented a vision of AI that was at once optimistic about the technology’s possibilities and sober-minded about some of its present limitations.
Toyota and Alphabet’s Waymo, along with Toyota’s automotive-technology division Woven, will seek to develop a new autonomous-driving platform, according to a joint statement Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 30, 2025
Toyota to partner with Alphabet’s Waymo on autonomous technology
Toyota and other major Japanese firms have poured money into artificial intelligence and autonomous driving for years, but have struggled to keep pace.
Microsoft signage in New York on Oct. 25, 2024. Microsoft’s sudden decision to pause work on some data centers suggests cloud computing providers may be reevaluating expenditures.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 29, 2025
Big Tech’s earnings problem is estimates may be way too high
There’s little expectation executives will be able to give estimates with any degree of confidence, given the high level of macroeconomic uncertainty.
Japanese payment processor’s collapse hits banks and restaurants
Zentoshin served around 200,000 shops, many of which rely on early payments to maintain cash flow, raising concerns over their financial stability following the disruption.
Japan needs caregivers. Young Indians are answering the call.
Young people in India's northeast are increasingly studying Japanese in hopes of building new lives and careers in Japan.
Trump says ‘Japan’ instead of Iran at meeting in Ankara
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference during a NATO leaders' summit in Ankara on Wednesday.
Wakatakakage injury casts pall over July meet, but potential new stars loom
Nicholas Tarasenko trains at Minato stable in August 2024.
Osaka trumps Tokyo as both ranked among world’s top 10 most livable cities
Osaka’s infrastructure earned higher marks than Tokyo’s in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Global Liveability Index.
The beating heart inside ‘Human Vapor’
Different forms of love and connection form the emotional backbone of Netflix’s “Human Vapor,” says actor Shun Oguri, who plays troubled detective Kenji Okamoto.
Japan bets on character IP to drive global growth
Born on social media platforms in 2022, Opanchu Usagi has become a major hit, especially among Generation Z.
Filmmaker explores history of discrimination against foreign nationals in Japan
Takashi Nishihara, the director of "Now and Then," in Tokyo on Wednesday. The director has spent 10 years traversing politically charged terrain while exploring youth-driven grassroots political movements that scrutinize the status quo.
Okinawa’s prized seaweed under threat as oceans warm
Local harvesters gather <i>mozuku</i> during low tide at Hyakuna Beach in the city of Nanjo, Okinawa Prefecture. As the planet warms, rising ocean temperatures are placing increasing pressure on the seaweed industry.
Japanese nail salons are tourists’ new obsession
Tourists in Japan have always been interested in quintessentially Japanese approaches to modern culture, and, increasingly, visits to nail salons have become the new hot thing.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
By Alex K.T. Martin

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