The reintroduction of neutrality rules for network providers is looking increasingly unlikely, at least for the next five years, after a US appeals court blocked efforts by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reinstate them.The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit court upheld its earlier stay on the FCCs May 2024 Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet Order, effectively pausing the policys return.The net neutrality rules require that providers of telecommunications services treat all traffic equally, but give providers of information services more freedom to filter or prioritize what they transmit. The FCCs view on whether internet service providers (ISPs) provide telecommunications or information services has flip-flopped over the years.Originally, the FCC classified ISPs as information services, exempt from the most stringent rules, but under the Obama administration it shifted position to treat them as telecommunications services. During President Trumps first term of office his appointee as FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, reversed that shift only for President Bidens appointee, Jessica Rosenworcel, to attempt to bring ISPs once again under the net neutrality provisions.That move foundered on January 2 with the appeals courts ruling.We hold that Broadband Internet Service Providers offer only an information service [], and therefore, the FCC lacks the statutory authority to impose its desired net-neutrality policies through the telecommunications service provision of the Communications Act, the court order read. Nor does the Act permit the FCC to classify mobile broadband a subset of broadband Internet services as a commercial mobile service [] and then similarly impose net-neutrality restrictions on those services, the order stated. We therefore grant the petitions for review and set aside the FCCs Safeguarding Order.The appeals court based its argument, in part, on the ending of the so-called Chevron deference principle. This principle, which once required courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws, was ended by a US Supreme Court ruling in June 2024, and has widespread regulatory consequences for IT departments.With Rosenworcels term of office drawing to a close, it seems unlikely that the FCC will continue to pursue the reinstatement of net neutrality rules for ISPs. Trumps pick as her replacement, Brendan Carr, favors market-led innovation over federal oversight.Implications for enterprisesWith net neutrality off the table for now, enterprises face an unregulated internet landscape that could favor large ISPs. ISPs can legally prioritize or throttle specific traffic, forcing businesses to pay premiums for reliable, high-speed access to cloud services, SaaS applications, or online collaboration tools. Without rules preventing practices like throttling or prioritizing traffic, companies reliant on stable, fast internet connections may face increased operational costs.The absence of net neutrality is particularly concerning for smaller businesses. These businesses may struggle to compete if ISPs offer premium services to larger firms at higher prices. The lack of affordable, equitable access also risks disrupting digital transformation plans across industries.For enterprises, the Sixth Circuits ruling is a clarion call to adapt to an increasingly market-driven internet landscape. It underscores the growing importance of proactively securing reliable and cost-effective internet services, as policy uncertainty looms over digital commerce and operations.A longer timeline for reinstatementThe courts ruling suggests net neutrality rules return will remain stalled for at least the duration of the Trump administration. As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, his administration is expected to maintain the deregulatory trajectory set under the Biden administration. Trump has aligned with Carrs market-driven vision, opposing federal oversight of ISP practices.Analysts predict that with Trumps re-election priorities, policies like the suspended FCC ruling will take a backseat to broader economic goals. The absence of net neutrality for another five years is all but assured.Broader implications: a geopolitical lensThe absence of net neutrality also carries global implications. The US decision sets a precedent for other nations grappling with the balance between regulatory oversight and market freedom. In regions where state-controlled internet infrastructure dominates, the delay in net neutrality restoration in the US may limit policy inspiration for protecting smaller stakeholders in the internet economy.This context places additional pressure on US enterprises that compete globally. Their ability to innovate, streamline operations, and scale may be hampered without equitable internet access.

When it comes toartificial intelligence development, Apple seems more interested than usual in seeking out good acquisition targets, potentially building on the small acquisitions it makesmost months. The company has, in fact, led the industry when it comes to strategic AI acquisitions since 2023.Why? Because it must.And the reason is pretty straightforward: the company is putting huge resources intoApple Intelligencedevelopment, but it cant get the staff it needs for the big push.It takes a villageA quick glance at Apples recruitment website today revealed that it currently has 399 open roles in its machine learning and AI teams. Thats almost enough people to form a small village.Apples search for villages of AI professionals isnt unique; everybodys doing it.OpenAI lists 149 jobs. Google has 277 machine learning jobs. One year ago, AI accounted for 27% ofall open UK tech roles. Given that the hype and expectations in the sector have only grown since then, its hard to believe theres been any decline in demand.Whats driving this is that as the number of potential AI implementations grows, so does the demand for workers to build them. Large, small, and medium-sized players across enterprise tech share the need.They arent just being greedy.They understand the huge strategic imperative behind the AI evolution.Nations, technology companies, a growing number of enterprises, government organizations, and start-ups are all competing to recruit the best staff. They know that, we are at a tipping point in business and society where AI will revolutionize how we work, live and interact at scale, Mohamed Kande, global chair for PricewaterhouseCoopers International,explained last year.More jobs, few people Yet they recognize that as ever more processes get digitized, the demand for people with experience will become a hindrance to AI industry development because that demand is not being met.AsMcKinsey explained last year: Our survey of 3.5 million job postings in these tech trends found that many of the skills in greatest demand have less than half as many qualified practitioners per posting as the global average.And yet the World Economic Forum predicts AI will create 97 million new jobs by the end of the year.Like everything else, the global race for brains to build AI is, of course, made a whole lot harder by trade embargoes, and ever-increasing international tensions. The ever-evolving regulatory landscape forms another barrier to industry growth. The same skills shortfall exists across other critical tech areas, too: edge, cloud, quantum computing, data process management, analytics, CSR. As these sectors grow exponentially, the skills gap continues to widen.So, if you cant recruit the talent, what do you do?If you cant hire it, buy itGlobally, there were 245 AI-related industry acquisitions in Q1 2024 alone, said McKinsey. Apple, then, is right in the thick of it all with the acquisition of numerous AI startups in 2023 and its famous purchase ofDarwin AI and at leastthree other AI-related firms last year (including Drishti, Mayday Labs, and Datakalab).The company tends to be tight-lipped when making acquisitions, so it might well have secured even more companies we just dont know about. We only know of the IP purchase from Mayday Labs as a result of an EU filing.The thing is, this is all about scale. That means that even if Apple does recruit that village of AI experts, the acceleration in demand for AI is going to continue, and it will probably need to recruit a second village full a few weeks later. Again, it wont be alone. That need for skill is an imperative forcing tech firms (most likely including OpenAI, and certainly including Apple) to focus their efforts on specific goals when building new generative AI (genAI) services. While effective management within scarcity has always been par for the course Apple is really good at this those companies who best approach development within those constraints will be best placed to make it all the way to that looming AI mountain and climb to the top.All the same, to outsiders focused on AI-related hype, the reality is that the challenges facing industry evolution mean innovation will soon begin to seem incremental, rather than revolutionary, as the move fast, break things, approach is replaced by a more business-like, objective, and slow strategic resource allocation-driven approach. Those who break through the noise to deliver the highest value tools and services will be those that win this AI space race. As long as they can get the staff.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

WHOApple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity WHENNowGoogles introduction of AI Overviews, powered by its Gemini language model, will alter how billions of people search the internet. And generative search may be the first step toward an AI agent that handles any question you have or task you need done.Rather than returning a list of links, AI Overviews offer concise answers to your queries. This makes it easier to get quick insights without scrolling and clicking through to multiple sources. After a rocky start with high-profile nonsense results following its US release in May 2024, Google limited its use of answers that draw on user-generated content or satire and humor sites. Explore the full 2025 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. The rise of generative search isnt limited to Google. Microsoft and OpenAI both rolled out versions in 2024 as well. Meanwhile, in more places, on our computers and other gadgets, AI-assisted searches are now analyzing images, audio, and video to return custom answers to our queries.But Googles global search dominance makes it the most important player, and the company has already rolled out AI Overviews to more than a billion people worldwide. The result is searches that feel more like conversations. Google and OpenAI both report that people interact differently with generative searchthey ask longer questions and pose more follow-ups. This new application of AI has serious implications for online advertising and (gulp) media. Because these search products often summarize information from online news stories and articles in their responses, concerns abound that generative search results will leave little reason for people to click through to the original sources, depriving those websites of potential ad revenue. A number of publishers and artists have sued over the use of their content to train AI models; now, generative search will be another battleground between media and Big Tech.

WHOGilead Sciences, GSK, ViiV Healthcare WHEN1 to 3 yearsIn June 2024, results from a trial of a new medicine to prevent HIV were announcedand they were jaw-dropping. Lenacapavir, a treatment injected once every six months, protected over 5,000 girls and women in Uganda and South Africa from getting HIV. And it was 100% effective.Explore the full 2025 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. The drug, which is produced by Gilead, has other advantages. Weve had effective pre-exposure prophylactic (PrEP) drugs for HIV since 2012, but these must be taken either daily or in advance of each time a person is exposed to the virus. Thats a big ask for healthy people. And because these medicines also treat infections, theres stigma attached to taking them. For some, the drugs are expensive or hard to access. In the lenacapavir trial,researchers found that injections of the new drug were more effective than a daily PrEP pill, probably because participants didnt manage to take the pills every day.In 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration approved another long-acting injectable drug that protects against HIV. That drug, cabotegravir, is manufactured by ViiV Healthcare (which is largely owned by GSK) and needs to be injected every two months. But despite huge demand, rollout has been slow. Scientists and activists hope that the story will be different for lenacapavir. So far, the FDA has approved the drug only for people who already have HIV thats resistant to other treatments. But Gilead has signed licensing agreements with manufacturers to produce generic versions for HIV prevention in 120 low-income countries.In October, Gilead announced more trial results for lenacapavir, finding it 96% effective at preventing HIV infection in just over 3,200 cisgender gay, bisexual, and other men, as well as transgender men, transgender women, and nonbinary people who have sex with people assigned male at birth.The United Nations has set a goal of ending AIDS by 2030. Its ambitious, to say the least: We still see over 1 million new HIV infections globally every year. But we now have the medicines to get us there. What we need is access.

WHOUS Department of Energys SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, US National Science Foundation WHEN6 monthsThe next time you glance up at the night sky, consider: The particles inside everything you can see make up only about 5% of whats out there in the universe. Dark energy and dark matter constitute the rest, astronomers believebut what exactly is this mysterious stuff?A massive new telescope erected in Chile will explore this question and other cosmic unknowns. Its named for Vera Rubin, an American astronomer who in the 1970s and 1980s observed stars moving faster than expected in the outer reaches of dozens of spiral galaxies. Her calculations made a strong case for the existence of dark mattermass we cant directly observe but that appears to shape everything from the paths of stars to the structure of the universe itself.Explore the full 2025 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Soon, her namesake observatory will carry on that work in much higher definition. The facility, run by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the US National Science Foundation, will house the largest digital camera ever made for astronomy. And its first mission will be to complete whats called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Astronomers will focus its giant lens on the sky over the Southern Hemisphere and snap photo after photo, passing over the same patches of sky repeatedly for a decade.By the end of the survey, this 3.2-gigapixel camera will have catalogued 20 billion galaxies and collected up to 60 petabytes of dataroughly three times the amount currently stored by the US Library of Congress. Compiling all these images together, with help from specialized algorithms and a supercomputer, will give astronomers a time-lapse view of the sky. Seeing how so many galaxies are dispersed and shaped will enable them to study dark matters gravitational effect. They also plan to create the most detailed three-dimensional map of our Milky Way galaxy ever made.If all goes well, the telescope will snap its first science-quality imagesa special moment known as first lightin mid-2025. The public could see the first photo released from Rubin soon after.

Apple is selling a special limited edition version of AirPods 4 to mark the Year of the Snake, with a specially engraved charging case available in China and select regions.Year of the Snake edition AirPods 4 Apple often marks the Chinese New Year with customized regional accessories, such as the Year of the Dragon AirPods Pro sold at the start of 2024. For 2025, Apple's doing it again.This year's special edition release is the AirPods 4, which are customized for the Year of the Snake. They're functionally the same as the usual AirPods 4, except the charging case has an engraving of two snakes and fireworks. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Take a look at what Apple is going to bring us in 2025 and while you're doing that, take a look at everything Apple TV+ has for you right now as it launches its first-ever free weekend.An original Apple TV+ in-store promotion from 2010 image credit: William GallagherApple TV+ has never gone completely free before. There have been so many different free trials when you bought various devices, but this is the very first time that anyone can watch anything on Apple TV+, as long as they watch from Friday to Sunday, January 3 to 5, 2025. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Sara Bronin, the Biden Administration's appointee as Chair of the U.S. FederalAdvisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), recently announced her departure from the agency effective this month. Bronin, who is one of only a few licensed architects to hold the position, mentioned her optimism about forward movement in thepreservationfield in a LinkedIn post, along with a note about strides made in terms of outreach to Indigenous communities, housing, accessibility, and energy independence.The most recent AIA Firm Survey Report noted that 45% of all U.S. billings were from renovations, rehabilitations, and retrofits; additions to existing structures; and/or historic preservation activitiesin 2023.Related on Archinect: White House ACHP debuts draft alternatives for National Historic Preservation Act complianceI think architects are among those best positioned to help lead this dialogue, working with clients and communities to build a knowledge base and collective will to cha...

The best sports and racing games achieve one thing: they replicate what you expect the feel of being a sport or racing star is in real life but in video game form. Achieving this feeling isnt exclusive to simulations either, arcade style sports games as numerous on this list are can give you that same sense of achievement which makes this genre of video games so perennially popular.Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Developer KT Racings most ambitious title to date has landed Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown a place on this rundown despite an onslaught of issues resulting predominantly from its always-online requirement. First, the good: Solar Crowns Hong Kong open world is consistently complex and interesting, and the car feel whilst not perfect is a step up from Test Drive Unlimited 2. The bad however outweighs the good: time wasting bugs, server issues even when racing solely against AI, and inconsistent, non-adjustable difficulty settings makes Solar Crown a racer steeped in promise but with much to fix.

Arrowhead Games creative chief Johan Pilestedt has taken to social media platform X to ask fans about the future of the studio behind Helldivers 2. In the post, Pilestedt also mentions that he is working on his own concept, and asks fans to speculate as well.With 10 minutes to 2025. What are your expectations and desires for what the next Arrowhead game will be? asked Pilestedt on X. I am working on the high concept, but I would love to hear your speculation.While far from an official announcement, this post would indicate that Arrowhead Games is already looking to figure out what its follow-up to Helldivers 2 would look like. Among the suggestions provided by fans are a Star Fox-inspired sci-fi game where players take on the role of the various EAGLE pilots in the Helldivers universe, and even a comedic idea of a game based on The Sims in the world of Helldivers.Helldivers 2 itself was an incredibly successful game for Arrowhead Games, with the PC version scoring a spot in the top 10 list of most-sold games on Steam. The title has also been seeing a steady stream of updates with new content, the most recent of which was a Killzone 2 crossover, which brought in new weapons and armours for players to try.For more details on Helldivers 2, check out our review.With 10 minutes to 2025. What are your expectations and desires for what the next Arrowhead game will be?I am working on the high concept, but I would love to hear your speculation. Pilestedt (@Pilestedt) December 31, 2024