The Japanese government has made a formal request asking OpenAI to refrain from copyright infringement. The request came after Sora 2 began generating videos featuring copyrighted characters from anime and video games. Minoru Kiuchi spoke at the Cabinet Office press conference on Friday and described manga and anime as "irreplaceable treasures" that Japan boasts to the world.

The request was made online by the Cabinet Office's Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters. Sora 2, which launched recently, generates twenty-second videos at 1080p resolution. Social media is getting filled with videos showing characters from One Piece, Demon Slayer, Pokemon and Mario. Digital Minister Masaaki Taira expressed hopes that OpenAI would comply voluntarily. He indicated that measures under Japan's AI Promotion Act may be invoked if the issue remains unresolved.

"I'm here to say we have to give these AI bubble predictions a rest," says Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi. First of all, AI is a real technology being deployed in real ways inside of Corporate America. Second, this technology is requiring more physical assets in the ground — which are being built to support AI's real-world application. What Zach Dell (son of Michael Dell) is working on at startup Base Power (which just raised $1 billion) impressed me this week. It's addressing a key issue — power availability and costs in part because of rising stress on the grid due to AI development.

Next, the spending on AI infrastructure doesn't strike me as reckless. I talk to CFOs and they walk me through their thinking, which seems logical. They aren't foaming at the mouth with wild-eyed predictions of grandeur similar to the late '90s. Plus, the tech giants making the biggest AI investments are fueling their ambitions by cash on hand — not loading up balance sheets with debt. The upstarts in AI are well funded, not being 100% stupid in their organizational build-outs. They're working on tangible technology that has actual orders behind it...

Lastly here in my scolding of the AI worrywarts is that valuations don't support the warning calls. According to new research out of Goldman Sachs this week, the median forward P/E ratio across the Magnificent Seven is 27 times, or 26 times if excluding Tesla (TSLA), which has a much higher multiple than the other companies. This is roughly half the equivalent valuation of the biggest seven companies in the late 1990s, while the dominant companies in Japan (mostly banks) traded at higher valuations still. What's more, the current enterprise-to-sales ratios are also much lower than those of the dominant companies in the late 1990s.

"So it is true that valuations are high but, in our view, generally not at levels that are as high as are typically seen at the height of a financial bubble," said Goldman Sachs strategist Peter Oppenheimer.

A new HSBC survey shows that over half of wealthy entrepreneurs are considering moving abroad, not for tax reasons but for business expansion, investment access, and lifestyle improvements. Singapore tops the list of preferred destinations, followed by the UK, Japan, and Switzerland -- while the U.S. has slipped to fifth place. CNBC reports: The bank polled 2,939 business owners with at least $2 million in investible assets or a total net worth of $20 million during April and May of this year. A whopping 57% reported they were considering adding a new residence over the next 12 months, up from 55% in last year's survey. Wanderlust is greater among Gen Z entrepreneurs, with just over three-quarters in that cohort reporting they were considering a move.

When asked about their reasons for moving to a new country, only a third of all respondents cited tax efficiency as a motivator. Tax savings ranked eighth overall behind other factors such as improved security and safety (47%) and better education opportunities (52%). Respondents to the survey could select multiple options. The most popular motives at 67% each were to expand their business to new markets or to gain access to new investment opportunities. The desire for a better quality of life came in a close third at 63%. Taxes, the report said, "create acres of news coverage, but among the majority of our entrepreneurs, this does not appear to be the deciding factor about where to live."

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: IDC says global PC shipments jumped 9.4 percent in Q3 2025, reaching nearly 76 million units. Asia and Japan led the growth thanks to school projects and corporate refreshes tied to Windows 10's end of support. North America was the weak link, with tariffs and economic unease keeping buyers on the sidelines even as aging fleets strain under Windows 11 pressure.

Lenovo kept its top spot with 25.5 percent market share, followed by HP at 19.8 and Dell at 13.3. Apple and ASUS both posted double-digit growth. IDC's takeaway is clear: the PC market is not surging on flashy new features, it is being pulled forward by deadlines, old batteries, and the reality that five-year-old laptops do not cut it anymore.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Tucked in the foothills of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains is a factory that has figured out a way to manufacture in America that's cheaper, quicker and better. It's the home of a famous American writing implement: the Sharpie marker. Pen barrels whirl along automated assembly lines that rapidly fill them with ink. At least half a billion Sharpie markers are churned out here every year, each one made of six parts. Only the felt tip is imported, from Japan.

It didn't used to be this way. Back in 2018, many Sharpies were made abroad. That's when Chris Peterson, who was the CFO of Sharpie maker Newell Brands challenged his team to answer a question: How could they keep Newell from becoming obsolete compared with factories in Asia? "I felt like we had an opportunity to dramatically improve our U.S. manufacturing," he said. Peterson is now the CEO. And these days, most Sharpies -- in all 93 colors -- are made at this 37-year-old factory. Newell did it without reducing the employee count, and without raising prices. But to get to this place took close to $2 billion in investments across the company, thousands of hours of training and a total overhaul of the production process. The result is a playbook for making low-cost, high-volume products domestically, albeit one that requires long-term planning and a lot of investment.

The director of a tour operation remembers two tourists arriving in a rural town in Peru determined to hike alone in the mountains to a sacred canyon recommended by their AI chatbot. But the canyon didn't exists — and a high-altitude hike could be dangerous (especially where cellphone coverage is also spotty). They're part of a BBC report on travellers arriving at their destination "only to find they've been fed incorrect information or steered to a place that only exists in the hard-wired imagination of a robot..."

"According to a 2024 survey, 37% of those surveyed who used AI to help plan their travels reported that it could not provide enough information, while around 33% said their AI-generated recommendations included false information." Some examples? - Dana Yao and her husband recently experienced this first-hand. The couple used ChatGPT to plan a romantic hike to the top of Mount Misen on the Japanese island of Itsukushima earlier this year. After exploring the town of Miyajima with no issues, they set off at 15:00 to hike to the montain's summit in time for sunset, exactly as ChatGPT had instructed them. "That's when the problem showed up," said Yao, a creator who runs a blog about traveling in Japan, "[when] we were ready to descend [the mountain via] the ropeway station. ChatGPT said the last ropeway down was at 17:30, but in reality, the ropeway had already closed. So, we were stuck at the mountain top..."

- A 2024 BBC article reported that [dedicated travel AI site] Layla briefly told users that there was an Eiffel Tower in Beijing and suggested a marathon route across northern Italy to a British traveller that was entirely unfeasible...

- A recent Fast Company article recounted an incident where a couple made the trek to a scenic cable car in Malaysia that they had seen on TikTok, only to find that no such structure existed. The video they'd watched had been entirely AI generated, either to drum up engagement or for some other strange purpose.
Rayid Ghani, a distinguished professor in machine learning at Carnegie Melon University, tells them that an AI chatbot "doesn't know the difference between travel advice, directions or recipes. It just knows words. So, it keeps spitting out words that make whatever it's telling you sound realistic..."

If we could remove the 50 most concerning pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit, there'd be a 50% reduction in the overall debris-generating potential, reports Ars Technica. That's according to Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, which calculated the objects most likely to collide with other fragments and create more debris. (Russia and the Soviet Union lead with 34 objects, followed by China with 10, the U.S. with three, Europe with two, and Japan with one.) Even just the top 10 were removed, the debris-generating potential drops by 30%.

"The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem," he points out, and "76% of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century." 88% of the objects are post-mission rocket bodies left behind to hurtle through space. "The bad news is, since January 1, 2024, we've had 26 rocket bodies abandoned in low-Earth orbit that will stay in orbit for more than 25 years," McKnight told Ars... China launched 21 of the 26 hazardous new rocket bodies over the last 21 months, each averaging more than 4 metric tons (8,800 pounds). Two more came from US launchers, one from Russia, one from India, and one from Iran. This trend is likely to continue as China steps up deployment of two megaconstellations — Guowang and Thousand Sails — with thousands of communications satellites in low-Earth orbit.

Launches of these constellations began last year. The Guowang and Thousand Sails satellites are relatively small and likely capable of maneuvering out of the way of space debris, although China has not disclosed their exact capabilities. However, most of the rockets used for Guowang and Thousand Sails launches have left their upper stages in orbit. McKnight said nine upper stages China has abandoned after launching Guowang and Thousand Sails satellites will stay in orbit for more than 25 years, violating the international guidelines.

It will take hundreds of rockets to fully populate China's two major megaconstellations. The prospect of so much new space debris is worrisome, McKnight said. "In the next few years, if they continue the same trend, they're going to leave well over 100 rocket bodies over the 25-year rule if they continue to deploy these constellations," he said. "So, the trend is not good...." Since 2000, China has accumulated more dead rocket mass in long-lived orbits than the rest of the world combined, according to McKnight. "But now we're at a point where it's actually kind of accelerating in the last two years as these constellations are getting deployed."
A deputy head of China's national space agency recently said China is "currently researching" how to remove space debris from orbit, according to the article. ("One of the missions China claims is testing space debris mitigation techniques has docked with multiple spacecraft in orbit, but U.S. officials see it as a military threat. The same basic technologies needed for space debris cleanup — rendezvous and docking systems, robotic arms, and onboard automation — could be used to latch on to an adversary's satellite.")

Toyota sold just 61 BZ models in September, reports Electrek.

"Including the Lexus RZ, which managed 86 sales, Toyota sold just 147 all-electric vehicles in the US last month, over 90% less than the 1,847 it sold in September 2024." Toyota's total sales were up 14% with over 185,700 vehicles sold, meaning EVs accounted for less than 0.1%... So, why is Toyota struggling to sell EVs when the market is booming? For one, Toyota recalled over 95,000 electric vehicles last month, including the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra, all of which are built on the same platform. The recall was due to a faulty defroster, but Toyota instructed its dealers to halt sales of the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra.

Toyota hopes to turn things around with a new and improved lineup. The 2026 Toyota BZ (formerly the bZ4X) is arriving at US dealerships, promising to fix some of the biggest complaints with the outgoing electric SUV. Powered by a larger 74.7 kWh battery, the 2026 Toyota BZ offers up to 314 miles of driving range, a 25% improvement from the 2025 bZ4X... Toyota's new electric SUV also features a built-in NACS charge port, allowing for recharging at Tesla Superchargers. It also features a new thermal management system and battery preconditioning, which improves charge times from 10% to 80% in about 30 minutes...

It's not just the US that Toyota's EV sales crashed last month, either. In its home market of Japan, Toyota (including Lexus) sold just 18 EVs in September.

The Japanese auto giant is betting on new models to drive growth.

"A small number of researchers are making real progress trying to create computers out of living cells," reports the BBC: Among those leading the way are a group of scientists in Switzerland, who I went to meet. One day, they hope we could see data centres full of "living" servers which replicate aspects of how artificial intelligence (AI) learns — and could use a fraction of the energy of current methods.

That is the vision of Dr Fred Jordan, co-founder of the FinalSpark lab I visited. We are all used to the ideas of hardware and software in the computers we currently use. The somewhat eyebrow-raising term Dr Jordan and others in the field use to refer to what they are creating is "wetware". In simple terms, it involves creating neurons which are developed into clusters called organoids, which in turn can be attached to electrodes — at which point the process of trying to use them like mini-computers can begin...

For FinalSpark, the process begins with stem cells derived from human skin cells, which they buy from a clinic in Japan. The actual donors are anonymous... In the lab, FinalSpark's cellular biologist Dr Flora Brozzi handed me a dish containing several small white orbs. Each little sphere is essentially a tiny, lab-grown mini-brain, made out of living stem cells which have been cultured to become clusters of neurons and supporting cells — these are the "organoids"... After undergoing a process which can last several months, the organoids are ready to be attached to an electrode and then prompted to respond to simple keyboard commands... Electrical stimulations are important first steps towards the team's bigger goal of triggering learning in the biocomputer's neurons so they can eventually adapt to perform tasks...

FinalSpark are not the only scientists working in the biocomputing space. Australian firm Cortical Labs announced in 2022 that it had managed to get artificial neurons to play the early computer game Pong. In the US, researchers at Johns Hopkins University are also building "mini-brains" to study how they process information — but in the context of drug development for neurological conditions like Alzheimer's and autism.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the news.

Japan is just a few days away from running out of Asahi Super Dry as the producer of the nation's most popular beer wrestles with a devastating cyber attack that has shut down its domestic breweries. From a report: The vast majority of Asahi Group's 30 factories in Japan have not operated since Monday after the attack disabled its ordering and delivery system, the company said. Retailers are already expecting empty shelves as the outage stretches into its fourth day with no clear timeline for factories recommencing operations. Super Dry could also run out at izakaya pubs, which rely on draught and bottles.

Lawson, one of Japan's big convenience stores, said in a statement that it stocks many Asahi Group products and "it is possible that some of these products may become increasingly out of stock from tomorrow onwards." "This is having an impact on everyone," said an executive at another of Japan's major retailers. "I think we will run out of products soon. When it comes to Super Dry, I think we'll run out in two or three days at supermarkets and Asahi's food products within a week or so."

More than 100,000 people were sent to hospitals due to heatstroke in Japan between May 1 and Sunday, according to preliminary data from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Bloomberg, via Japan Times: The number is the most on record, according to NHK. Transport to hospitals of patients linked to heatstroke over the period rose almost 3% to 100,143 from a year earlier as Japan saw its national temperature record broken twice in a matter of days. The country's average temperature during this summer was the highest since the statistic began being compiled in 1898, the nation's weather agency said last month.

Heat waves around the world are being made stronger and more deadly due to human-caused climate change. Government officials in August pledged to boost public health protections and encouraged the installation of more air conditioners in school gymnasiums and the use of cooling centers in communal spaces like libraries. New rules came into effect this summer that require employers to take adequate measures to protect workers from extreme temperatures.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In a preprint titled "Can LIGO Detect Daylight Savings Time?," Reed Essick, former LIGO member and now a physicist at the University of Toronto, gives a simple answer to the paper's title: "Yes, it can." The paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, was recently uploaded to arXiv. That might seem like an odd connection. It's true that observational astronomy must contend with noise from light pollution, satellites, and communication signals. But these are tangible sources of noise that scientists can sink their teeth into, whereas daylight savings time is considerably more nebulous and abstract as a potential problem.

To be clear, and as the paper points out, daylight savings time does not influence actual signals from merging black holes billions of light-years away -- which, as far as we know, don't operate on daylight savings time. The "detection" here refers to the "non-trivial" changes in human activity having to do with the researchers involved in this kind of work, among other work- and process-related factors tied to the sudden shift in time. The presence of individuals -- whether through operational workflows or even their physical activity at the observatories -- has a measurable impact on the data collected by LIGO and its sister institutions, Virgo in Italy and KAGRA in Japan, the new paper argues.

To see why this might be the case, consider again the definition of gravitational waves: ripples in space-time. A very broad interpretation of this definition implies that any object in space-time affected by gravity can cause ripples, like a researcher opening a door or the rumble of a car moving across the LIGO parking lot. Of course, these ripples are so tiny and insignificant that LIGO doesn't register them as gravitational waves. But continued exposure to various seismic and human vibrations does have some effect on the detector -- which, again, engineers and physicists have attempted to account for. What they forgot to consider, however, were the irregular shifts in daily activity as researchers moved back and forth from daylight savings time. The bi-annual time adjustment shifted LIGO's expected sensitivity pattern by roughly 75 minutes, the paper noted. Weekends, and even the time of day, also influenced the integrity of the collected data, but these factors had been raised by the community in the past.

The Japanese city of Toyoake has passed (PDF) a symbolic ordinance limiting recreational smartphone use to two hours a day, aiming to improve citizens' sleep -- especially for students after summer vacation. The Register reports: "The primary purpose of this ordinance is to ensure that all citizens receive adequate sleep," states a Council information page, which explains that many Japanese people ignore Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare recommendations to spend six to eight hours a day dozing. An accompanying FAQ [PDF] explains that Council passed the ordinance because students who return to school after summer vacations sometimes need a nudge the re-establish an appropriate daily regime.

The ordinance also points out "Excessive phone users and their families are facing difficulties in their daily and social lives," and suggests the two-hours-a-day guidance might help. Council's documents point out that smartphones have myriad uses beyond recreation, and that the ordinance should not be taken as a suggestion to reduce overall use of the devices. Toyoake is part of the Nagoya megalopolis and is home to around 70,000 people. The town's government plans to survey residents about the ordinance, and the FAQ also mentions it wants to tackle other digital menaces, among them harmful effects of using smartphones while walking.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank on Tuesday announced plans for five new artificial intelligence data centers in the United States to build out their ambitious Stargate project. [...] ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said on Tuesday it will open three new sites with Oracle in Shackelford County, Texas, Dona Ana County, New Mexico and an undisclosed site in the Midwest. Two more data center sites will be built in Lordstown, Ohio and Milam County, Texas by OpenAI, Japan's SoftBank and a SoftBank affiliate.

The new sites, the Oracle-OpenAI site expansion in Abilene, Texas, and the ongoing projects with CoreWeave will bring Stargate's total data center capacity to nearly 7 gigawatts and more than $400 billion in investment over the next three years, OpenAI said. The $500 billion project was intended to generate 10 gigawatts in total data center capacity. "AI can only fulfill its promise if we build the compute to power it," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. The Tuesday's announcement, expected to create 25,000 onsite jobs, follows Nvidia saying on Monday that it will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI and supply data center chips. OpenAI and partners plan to use debt financing to lease chips for the Stargate project, people familiar with the matter said.

A large U.S.-made bomb left over from World War II was discovered at a construction site, reports the Associated Press: Police said the bomb was 1.5 meters (nearly 5 feet) in length and weighed about 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms). It was discovered by construction workers in Quarry Bay, a bustling residential and business district on the west side of Hong Kong island... [A police official] said that because of "the exceptionally high risks associated with its disposal," approximately 1,900 households involving 6,000 individuals were "urged to evacuate swiftly." The operation to deactivate the bomb began late Friday and lasted until around 11:30 a.m. Saturday. No one was injured in the operation.

Bombs left over from World War II are discovered from time to time in Hong Kong. The city was occupied by Japanese forces during the war, when it became a base for the Japanese military and shipping. The United States, along with other Allied forces, targeted Hong Kong in air raids to disrupt Japanese supply lines and infrastructure.
"Bombs from the war have triggered evacuations and emergency measures around the globe in recent months," reports CBS News: Earlier this month, a 500-pound bomb was discovered in Slovakia's capital during construction work, prompting evacuations. In August, large parts of Dresden, Germany, were evacuated so experts could defuse an unexploded World War II bomb found during clearance work for a collapsed bridge. In June, over 20,000 people were evacuated from Cologne after three unexploded U.S. bombs from the war were found... In March, a World War II bomb was found near the tracks of Paris' Gare du Nord station. In February, more than 170 bombs were found near a children's playground in northern England. And in October 2024, a World War II bomb exploded at a Japanese airport.

Governments worldwide are implementing heat protection laws as 2.4 billion workers face extreme temperature exposure and 19,000 die annually from heat-related workplace injuries, according to a World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization report.

Japan imposed $3,400 fines for employers failing to provide cooling measures when wet-bulb temperatures reach 28C. Singapore mandated hourly temperature sensors at large outdoor sites and requires 15-minute breaks every hour at 33C wet-bulb readings. Southern European nations ordered afternoon work stoppages this summer when temperatures exceeded 115F across Greece, Italy and Spain.

The United States lacks federal heat standards; only California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have state-level protections. Boston passed requirements for heat illness prevention plans on city projects. Enforcement remains inconsistent -- Singapore inspectors found nearly one-third of 70 sites violated the 2023 law. Texas and Florida prohibit local governments from mandating rest and water breaks.

The oldest person living in Japan is 114 years old, reports the BBC. But "The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has risen to a record high of nearly 100,000, its government has announced." Setting a new record for the 55th year in a row, the number of centenarians in Japan was 99,763 as of September, the health ministry said on Friday. Of that total, women accounted for an overwhelming 88%... Health minister Takamaro Fukoka congratulated the 87,784 female and 11,979 male centenarians on their longevity and expressed his "gratitude for their many years of contributions to the development of society"....

The higher life expectancy is mainly attributed to fewer deaths from heart disease and common forms of cancer, in particular breast and prostate cancer. Japan has low rates of obesity, a major contributing factor to both diseases, thanks to diets low in red meat and high in fish and vegetables. The obesity rate is particularly low for women, which could go some way to explaining why Japanese women have a much higher life expectancy than their male counterparts... But it's not just diet. Japanese people tend to stay active into later life, walking and using public transport more than elderly people in the US and Europe...

However, several studies have cast doubt on the validity of global centenarian numbers, suggesting data errors, unreliable public records and missing birth certificates may account for elevated figures. A government audit of family registries in Japan in 2010 uncovered more than 230,000 people listed as being aged 100 or older who were unaccounted for, some having in fact died decades previously. The miscounting was attributed to patchy record-keeping and suspicions that some families may have tried to hide the deaths of elderly relatives in order to claim their pensions.

Physicists have confirmed Stephen Hawking's 1971 black hole area theorem with near-absolute certainty, thanks to gravitational waves from an exceptionally loud black hole collision detected by upgraded LIGO instruments. New Scientist reports: Hawking proposed his black hole area theorem in 1971, which states that when two black holes merge, the resulting black hole's event horizon -- the boundary beyond which not even light can escape the clutches of a black hole -- cannot have an area smaller than the sum of the two original black holes. The theorem echoes the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy, or disorder within an object, never decreases.

Black hole mergers warp the fabric of the universe, producing tiny fluctuations in space-time known as gravitational waves, which cross the universe at the speed of light. Five gravitational wave observatories on Earth hunt for waves 10,000 times smaller than the nucleus of an atom. They include the two US-based detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) plus the Virgo detector in Italy, KAGRA in Japan and GEO600 in Germany, operated by an international collaboration known as LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK).

The recent collision, named GW250114, was almost identical to the one that created the first gravitational waves ever observed in 2015. Both involved black holes with masses between 30 and 40 times the mass of our sun and took place about 1.3 billion light years away. This time, the upgraded LIGO detectors had three times the sensitivity they had in 2015, so they were able to capture waves emanating from the collision in unprecedented detail. This allowed researchers to verify Hawking's theorem by calculating that the area of the event horizon was indeed larger after the merger. The findings have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: The United States has emerged as the largest investor in commercial spyware -- a global industry that has enabled the covert surveillance of journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, diplomats, and others, posing grave threats to human rights and national security. In 2024, 20 new US-based spyware investors were identified, bringing the total number of American backers of this technology to 31. This growth has largely outpaced other major investing countries such as Israel, Italy, and the United Kingdom, according to a new report published today by the Atlantic Council.

The study surveyed 561 entities across 46 countries between 1992 and 2024, identifying 34 new investors. This brings the total to 128, up from 94 in the dataset published last year. The number of identified investors in the EU Single Market, plus Switzerland, stands at 31, with Italy -- a key spyware hub -- accounting for the largest share at 12. Investors based in Israel number 26. US-based investors include major hedge funds D.E. Shaw & Co. and Millennium Management, prominent trading firm Jane Street, and mainstream financial-services company Ameriprise Financial -- all of which, according to the Atlantic Council, have channeled funds to Israeli lawful-interception software provider Cognyte, a company allegedly linked to human rights abuses in Azerbaijan and Indonesia, among others. [...]

Apart from focusing on investment, the Atlantic Council notes that the global spyware market is "growing and evolving," with its dataset expanded to include four new vendors, seven new resellers or brokers, 10 new suppliers, and 55 new individuals linked to the industry. Newly identified vendors include Israel's Bindecy and Italy's SIO. [...] The study reveals the addition of three new countries linked to spyware activity -- Japan, Malaysia, and Panama. Japan in particular is a signatory to international efforts to curb spyware abuse, including the Joint Statement on Efforts to Counter the Proliferation and Misuse of Commercial Spyware and the Pall Mall Process Code of Practice for States. The Atlantic Council's Jen Roberts, who also worked on the report, urged expanding Executive Order 14105 to also include spyware. He also emphasized preserving Executive Order 14093, noting that U.S. purchasing power is a key lever in shaping and constraining the global spyware market. "US purchasing power is a significant tool in shaping and constraining the global market for spyware," said Roberts.

"A U.S.-based nuclear fusion developer wants to deploy a reactor in Japan in the late 2030s or early 2040s," reports Bloomberg, "in line with the Asian country's broader plans to adopt the potent, low-carbon energy source." Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which last week announced it raised $863 million from investors including Nvidia, has been in dialogue with Japanese government officials on the use of its technology, CEO Bob Mumgaard said in an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday... Several countries are eyeing the technology for its climate and energy security benefits but only some, like China, the U.S., Russia and South Korea have managed to crack the basics. Japan revised its national strategy in June to support fusion deployment and build a demonstration plant in the 2030s.
The article notes that Commonwealth "does not currently have any reactors in operation" — but that Mitsubishi this week invested in the company, in collaboration with a consortium of 12 Japanese companies. From Mitsubishi's announcement: The Japanese Consortium will acquire technical and commercial expertise in policy, regulatory, and the development, construction, operation, and maintenance of ARC [power plant] from CFS's commercialization projects in the United States. In addition, each consortium company will bring together its know-how and expertise and aspire to expedite the commercialization and industrialization of fusion energy power generation in Japan.