The Tech Brief

Sep 05 2024 190 ep. 19 mins 79
The Tech Brief Podcast artwork

Euractiv's Tech Team gives a breakdown of the week’s biggest European tech news in the world of politics and policy.

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Brussels boots on the ground in San Francisco

Sep 05 2024 27 mins  
The European Commission is currently engaged in "direct" and "intensive" collaboration with California legislators, who have just approved a new AI bill that could "strengthen" and "complement" the EU’s AI regulation.In today's episode, we learn how the Commission works in California and explore whether the US state could prove an important ally in the EU’s efforts to enforce i

Elon Musk's Brat Summer

Aug 22 2024 25 mins  
English singer Charli XCX’s new album, "Brat," is making waves, and Elon Musk, with his legal battles, clashes with the EU, and endorsement of Donald Trump, seems to embody the “brat” vibe. Did you miss the summer drama? Euractiv’s tech team has you covered.

Dissecting Apple's compliance with EU digital competition rules from a civil society perspective

Jul 26 2024 21 mins  
A group of digital rights organisation said that Apple’s plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are ineffective in a submission to the European Commission. The EU executive has opened three non-compliance investigations into Apple’s plans to conform to the DMA, the bloc’s landmark digital competition law. In one of these investigations, the Commission said in prel

Europe’s quest for critical raw materials

Jul 05 2024 21 mins  
The EU has set ambitious goals for securing its supply of critical raw materials, which are key to the digital and green transitions. Today we talk to Chad Blewitt, managing director of the Jadar Project, a highly-anticipated and highly-delayed lithium mining site in Serbia. Jadar is operated by Rio Tinto, the world’s second largest mining company. Can the goals set by the Critic

The preamble to Meta’s decision to halt AI launch in EU

Jun 20 2024 22 mins  
On Friday afternoon, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced it is pausing plans to roll out artificial intelligence (AI) features that would use users’ public posts to train its AI models. The company cited a request from the Irish Data Protection Commission.Digital rights NGO Noyb filed 11 complaints against Meta’s AI plans in Europe earlier that week, a

How consumer protections can be enhanced in e-commerce

Jun 06 2024 17 mins  
This week, together with Marco Scialdone, a lawyer and adjunct professor of law and management of digital content and services at the European University of Rome, we delve into the impact of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) on consumer protection in e-commerce, focusing on the responsibilities of online marketplaces and the role of consumer organisations like Euroconsumers in

The Commission’s coordination failures in AI investment

May 30 2024 19 mins  
The European Commission kicked off plans to boost investments in its AI sector back in 2018. But they were neither clearly defined, nor well coordinated, argued the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in a report released this week. The gap of investments and innovation has only grown with the US since these plans were put in motion, research has found.This week we talk to Mihails Koz

The AI Convention on Human Rights: Worth the hype?

May 24 2024 18 mins  
The Council of Europe, the bloc's human rights body, adopted its first framework convention on artificial intelligence (AI_, democracy and the rule of law on 17 May. It's heralded as the world's first binding international treaty to ensure the technology doesn't interfere with human rights. But the negotiations were riddled with criticism, particularly around the treatment of the p

The Pertsev case: A tornado for decentralized and open-source software in the Netherlands?

May 16 2024 20 mins  
Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to a little over five months in jail this week by a Dutch court, for helping to create a tool that obfuscates the trail of cryptocurrencies. The tool, built and run on Ethereum blockchain, was used by hackers to launder their illicitly obtained funds.The defense argued that this was a decentralized, open-source tool, and that the

APT28: The EU’s battle against Russian cyberattacks

May 09 2024 18 mins  
Following the EU and NATO condemning Russian cyber espionage group APT28 last week, we talked to independent cyber policy expert Pavlina Pavlova about APT28’s methods, the EU’s response, and what the possible next steps are.