Japan's parliament has enacted a controversial law introducing criminal penalties for desecrating the national flag. The passage of the legislation on Friday is part of an ongoing drive by staunchly conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to promote traditional patriotism and correct what her supporters call a "wrong" legal double standard. Under the newly enacted law, violators who publicly damage, remove or defile the national flag in a manner that causes others "extreme discomfort or disgust" face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to 200,000 yen ($1,250). According to Japanese broadcaster Kyodo News, the law covers physical acts of vandalism such as stomping, burning, or throwing mud in public spaces, as well as livestreaming such acts. The law drafting committee, led by former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, carved out highly specific legal exemptions. The ruling party clarified that the new law completely exempts physical paintings, digital media including anime, manga, video games, and generative AI, and even the miniature paper flags famously used to decorate children's restaurant meals.

A $10K Bounty Aims to Make Sony's PlayStation 5 a Computer Again Bet it could probably run Linux too. Using your PlayStation to play games is just fine. But what if you could use your Sony console to vibe code with your AI agents on Linux instead? That's what the ownership advocacy organization Fulu wants to make possible, and it's willing to pay $10,000 to prove it can be done. Helmed by YouTuber Louis Rossmann and fellow consumer advocate Kevin O'Reilly, Fulu pays bounties to the first person who proves they can fix or bypass product features that Fulu deems to be hostile to device owners.

The City Attorney's Office sent the tech giants cease-and-desist letters this week telling them to stop profiting from 13 "face-swap" apps that are overwhelmingly used to target women and girls. Apple and Google have been ordered to take down apps that can "nudify" or "undress" people and told that they must stop profiting from the harmful technology, according to cease-and-desist letters sent to the companies seen by WIRED. On Thursday, San Francisco city attorney David Chiu sent legal notices to Apple and Google demanding that they remove from their app stores 13 face-swapping apps, which allow users to create AI-generated nonconsensual nude images. The letters say the Silicon Valley giants should stop "aiding and abetting" the sale of explicit deepfake images and "sever" business relationships with the app developers. "Generating non-consensual intimate images is illegal, harmful, and completely unacceptable," Chiu tells WIRED.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. The Democrats have made affordability and the economy their defining midterm messaging, playing off elevated inflation and prices for groceries. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search.

Models wearing garments created by Cap_able, which which markets them as making AI recognition more difficult. Models wearing garments created by Cap_able, which which markets them as making AI recognition more difficult. 'Adversarial clothing': are garments designed to confuse facial recognition systems about to go mainstream? As facial recognition technology is rolled out across Britain's public spaces, a new generation of designers say privacy could be the next big fashion trend. Companies have started incorporating "adversarial patterns" in their garments - carefully designed arrangements of shapes, colours and repeated motifs said to exploit weaknesses in some computer vision systems.

The 225-issue Nikkei stock average slipped below 63,000 on Friday for the first time in about a month on an intraday basis. The 225-issue Nikkei stock average temporarily plunged over 4,100 points Friday afternoon due to selling of issues related to semiconductors and artificial intelligence following overnight falls in their U.S. counterparts. At 1:41 p.m., the index of 225 major issues listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime section stood at 62,704.60, down 4,130.94 points, or 6.18%, from Thursday's closing. It slipped below 63,000 for the first time in about a month on an intraday basis. In the Tokyo market, memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings and other key Nikkei component issues came under selling pressure. "We can't help thinking that the boom in generative AI-related stocks is about to end," an official of a bank-affiliated securities firm said.

Australian Olympic cyclist Rohan Dennis has pleaded guilty to driving despite a five-year ban placed on him after a 2023 incident where he struck his wife with a car. Dennis, 36, appeared in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday to face a charge of driving while disqualified after police pulled him over last month when he was behind the wheel with two children as passengers. Last year, Dennis received a suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to one aggravated count of creating the likelihood of harm under a plea deal where prosecutors dropped two more serious charges. The court found he was not criminally responsible for Melissa Hoskins' death but had been reckless in his actions. During last year's case, the court heard that the couple - who got married in 2018 - had been arguing about kitchen renovations before Dennis got into his car to leave.

The Philippines has condemned the dehumanising and racist portrayal of the country as a timid monkey strong-armed by the US and Japan to take Beijing on over the South China Sea . Last week, China Daily posted an AI-generated video featuring a monkey in a Filipino shirt. It screams as arms bearing the Japanese and US flags shove it onto a rickety karaoke stage set up in a boat. After it gets scolded for singing the wrong song, it pulls out a sheet reading South China Sea arbitration award. It is then flung into the sea and blasted by a water cannon.

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Charges filed with the NLRB accuse Xbox of bad faith bargaining. Following another round of mass layoffs and studio upheavals at Xbox, Communications Workers of America has filed unfair labor practice charges against Microsoft with the National Labor Relations Board. The CWA accuses Microsoft of bad faith bargaining, coercive actions, contract repudiation and failing to provide notice to employees, according to the charge on the NLRB site . The case was filed on July 15 in the United States, and CWA Canada is taking legal action against Microsoft as well, as reported by Game Developer . On July 6, Microsoft announced it would immediately cut 1,600 jobs across its Xbox division, with plans to lose another 1,600 employees over the coming fiscal year.