US judge rules in favour of Anthropic, Skoda EV sales overtake Tesla in Europe

A US judge has ruled that using books to train artificial intelligence (AI) software is not a violation of US copyright law. The decision came out of a lawsuit brought last year against AI firm Anthropic by three authors, including best-selling mystery thriller writer Andrea Bartz, who accused it of stealing her work to train its Claude AI model and build a multi-billion dollar business. In his ruling, Judge William Alsup said Anthropic’s use of the authors’ books was “exceedingly transformative” and therefore allowed under US law. BBC

A second major academic institution has accused Uber of using opaque computer code to dramatically increase its profits at the expense of the ride-hailing app’s drivers and passengers. Research by academics at New York’s Columbia Business School concluded that the Silicon Valley company had implemented “algorithmic price discrimination” that had raised “rider fares and cut driver pay on billions of … trips, systematically, selectively, and opaquely”. The Ivy League business school research follows a similar academic paper based on 1.5m UK trips that was published last week by the University of Oxford. Guardian

Skoda has overtaken Tesla for electric vehicle (EV) sales in Europe as motorists continue to shun Elon Musk’s carmaker in protest against his support for Donald Trump. Tesla’s total sales across the Continent fell by 28pc to 14,055 in May, according to market research firm DataForce, which were lower than Skoda’s EV monthly tally of 14,920. The shift was fuelled largely by the ongoing boycott against Tesla in Europe, although Skoda’s popularity also surged after the launch of its electric Elroq SUV model. Telegraph

Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices. Android Authority

It was a busy day for Samsung news yesterday. The company revealed the official date for its next Unpacked event, which will take place on 9 July in New York, but there were also a few leaks worth taking note of. Evan Blass, who is notorious for leaking devices before they are released, dropped full renders of all the Samsung Galaxy Watch models expected to be announced at the next Unpacked event, along with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, leaving very little to the imagination. Now the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has had the same treatment. T3.com

Regulators are looking into suspected problems with Elon Musk’s self-driving “robotaxis” after videos showed a few braking suddenly and driving on the wrong side of the road. The tests began on Sunday in Austin, Texas, and it’s the first time Tesla cars without a human driver have carried paying passengers. Musk sees the concept as a major part of the company’s financial future and envisages thousands of the cars operating across the US. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday it was looking into the apparent errors. Sky News