Tech Gets Real

European lawmakers are worried that Ireland will favour US Big Tech as it takes a major role in legal negotiations over the second half of 2026. The country, which largely relies on Big Tech for its tax revenues, has assumed the Presidency of the EU Council and will steer the Council’s work on bills like the Tech Sovereignty Package, the revisions to the Cybersecurity Act, and the Digital Omnibus,...

The US Supreme Court’s Slaughter ruling on Monday, which overturned longstanding precedent called Humphrey’s Executor, is seriously bad news for American companies who handle Europeans’ personal data. That’s because the ruling destroyed the independence of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is an essential part of a deal that enables transatlantic data flows. And now Max Schrems, who blew u...

US AI leader Anthropic has accused China’s Alibaba of “illicitly” copying the knowledge from its Claude model in a process called distillation. Here’s what that means – and why companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have so much to fear from the practice . Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change, presented from a European perspective. I'm veteran tech...

In this extended episode of Tech Gets Real, veteran digital policy expert Heather Burns joins the show to chat about the UK’s plans to ban social media for under-16s, and to force Apple and Google to conduct surveillance on the photos people take on their phones. It’s a fascinating conversation about how safety tech vendors may have defeated digital rights advocates in the battle for the attention...

The Trump administration has placed export controls on Anthropic’s industry-leading Mythos and Fable models, prompting the company to disable access to both for everyone in the world. Europe’s reaction show how dangerous this is for the US – having been shown the danger of relying on US tech, countries such as France and the UK are now more likely to fund their own alternatives. Welcome to tech so...

Apple is blaming a competition law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for its refusal to roll out the new Siri AI virtual assistant in Europe. Here’s what that’s all about – and this is no clear-cut argument. You have no idea how many times my recorded “Siri” triggered my iPhone during editing. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change, presented f...

Europe’s push for technological sovereignty just stepped up, with the European Commission proposing a new law that would probably shut US Big Tech firms out of the lucrative public sector cloud market, thanks to US surveillance law. Cloud Act, meet the Cloud and AI Development Act. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change, presented from a European...

Europe has fined Temu for selling illegally dangerous stuff on its platform. This is a reminder that the Digital Services Act isn’t all about online speech, nor is it all about punishing US companies. But that doesn’t mean this €200 million DSA fine isn’t geopolitical – after all, the EU has big problems with China too these days. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapi...

Google is overhauling its search experience to expand the role of AI – and make it even less likely that you will look at the list of web links that used to define Google Search. This will further erode investment in the web, and create new opportunities for propagandists. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change. I'm veteran tech journalist David M...

Harvard Kennedy School fellow Krystian Łukasik joins Tech Gets Real to discuss his new project, the Techno-Optimism Archive. It’s a valuable reminder of how new technologies have been hyped since the nineteenth century – and a lot of these claims will sound very familiar to those tracking the hype around AI. Here’s the site: https://technooptimism.org/ Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in con...

The latest AI models, which have serious cybersecurity capabilities, are having a rapid impact on policy in the US, where the Trump administration has suddenly realised it’s not a great idea to maintain its hands-off policy to AI development. But in Europe, which lacks early access to models like Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, the situation presents a threat to which the European Commiss...

The European Commission is forcing age verification on the EU internet to protect kids from the ills of social media, without creating a new law – and without admitting that it’s forcing social platforms to adopt the technology. My article on this for Information Security Media Group: https://www.govinfosecurity.com/europe-gliding-toward-mandatory-online-age-verification-a-31547 Including a detail...

This week’s TGR is a grab-bag of the latest interesting AI news, starting with SpaceX warning potential IPO investors about the risk posed by xAI and its Grok chatbot. Also included: Grok plays along with user delusions, Meta tracks its workers, the US accuses China of “industrial scale” AI intellectual property theft, and Mythos’s exclusive access program isn’t so exclusive after all. Tech Gets R...

TGR spoke to Sebastian Vogelsang, co-lead of the now-fully-launched Eurosky social media infrastructure project, at the European Data Summit in Berlin. Eurosky is part of “the Atmosphere” – the frenzy of experimentation happening around the AT Protocol, best known for powering the Bluesky social network. Sebastian has much to say about providing an alternative to US tech infrastructure, embracing...

AI is killing journalism in multiple ways – from inaccurate AI summaries slashing traffic, to newsrooms that think the technology can replace real journalists. That doesn’t just hurt people in the media – it’s bad for democracy. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change. I'm veteran tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering topics like onli...

As new AI models promise unprecedented abilities to find vulnerabilities in software – a task that could benefit both attackers and defenders – journalist Iain Thomson joins TGR this week to chat about the technology’s potentially enormous impact on cybersecurity. We also talked about Iran’s surprising lack of offensive capabilities in the cyber domain, the likelihood of Trump changing his mind ab...

Spare a thought for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been having a very tough week. Meta has suffered two unprecedented court losses over child safety and addictive design – potentially opening the floodgates for many more such cases. Its massive AI expenditure continues to be a problem, and its takeover of Chinese AI agent company Manus may be in trouble. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying i...

Trying a new feature/format here, called Yay-I (?) It’s a run-down of five AI-related stories that caught my eye in the last week. Here I discuss the British government changing its mind on copyright and AI, new research on AI-triggered delusions, Benjamin Netanyahu’s “proof of life” video, AI’s targeting role in Iran, and Grammarly’s U-turn on fake expert advice. Tech Gets Real is a show about st...

Lawmakers in Europe are pushing back against the idea that AI companies can freely use artists’ creative works. That makes this a good time to meditate on AI and art, copyright and digital rights, and what creativity really means. (And yeah, I need to remember to lock my white balance.) Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change. I'm veteran tech jour...

Anthropic’s dispute with Pete Hegseth’s “Department of War” is about AI being used in war – the debate over autonomous weapons or killer robots – but also about mass surveillance. This shows how we are reaching an inflection point where many theoretical digital rights concerns become all too real. Dark times are looming, especially in the context of the Iran war, but we should start thinking about...

The European Commission’s proposal to water down the General Data Protection Regulation by redefining “personal data” is already stumbling. Privacy watchdogs are outraged and the Council of the EU wants that part struck out of the Digital Omnibus bill. The architect of the GDPR is cautiously happy… but still sees problems with the EU’s big streamlining of tech rules. Tech Gets Real is a show about...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has proposed forcing people to post online using their real names. I can see what he’s trying to achieve but it won’t work, and it will just open Germans up to a new level of danger – especially as the far right comes closer to taking power. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change. I'm veteran tech journalist David...

As YouTube and Meta defend themselves over addictiveness in US courts, Europe is throwing the spotlight on TikTok, making the Chinese-owned company its big test case for this form of Digital Services Act enforcement. But the DSA won’t be the last legislation used to tackle apps’ addictive nature – an issue that is still the subject of much debate. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control...

The OpenClaw AI agent and Moltbook “social network” for AI bots are kind of interesting, but not anywhere near as meaningful as some – like Elon Musk – are making out. So why are people hyping this so much? Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change. I'm veteran tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering topics like online privacy and freedom...

Elon Musk’s Tesla is shifting from a car company to a robot company. Its Optimus humanoid robot has plenty of company, with everyone from Unitree and Agibot to LG and Hyundai showing off new concepts and products at CES 2026. But without successful “world” AI models, the humanoid robot may not be ready for ubiquity. Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological...