The Federal Communications Commission voted to reinstate net neutrality rules on Thursday, returning to the Obama-era approach of establishing a level playing field for online platforms, regardless of size. The commissioners voted 3-2 along party lines to reclassify broadband as a Title II telecommunications service, the equivalent of a public utility, which means it can be regulated like power and water. However, the FCC qualified that while it would be treating the Internet as an essential service, it will exercise its authority “in a narrowly tailored fashion.” Read more

The trend toward small language models that can efficiently run on a single device instead of requiring cloud connectivity has emerged as a focus for Big Tech companies involved in artificial intelligence. Apple has released the OpenELM family of open-source models as its entry in that field. OpenELM uses “a layer-wise scaling strategy” to efficiently allocate parameters within each layer of the transformer model, resulting in what Apple claims is “enhanced accuracy.” The “ELM” stands for “Efficient Language Models,” and one media outlet couches it as “the future of AI on the iPhone.” Read more

Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is preparing to launch a streaming video app for smart TVs. Though still in development, with no formal launch date announced, X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a “sneak peek” that indicates the app will have a “trending” algorithm that pushes popular content and will be AI-powered to deliver a “personalized experience.” Yaccarino said the X video app will also have “effortless casting” so content can be easily sent to a larger screen from a mobile device. Availability is billed as “coming soon to most smart TVs.” Read more

Congress rapidly passed and President Biden signed into law a bill intended to sideline the short-form video service TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance. The process played out over the course of a week — the result of the proposal being tied to a foreign aid package with support for Ukraine and Israel. The nation now readies for the aftermath of the new U.S. law, which gives ByteDance nine months to find a new, U.S.-approved owner. Absent that, the app will essentially be banned from app stores and ISPs, which will face fines for distributing or supporting the social platform. Read more

Meta Platforms has rebranded its Quest VR operating system Horizon OS and is opening the platform to third parties. While licensing terms have not been publicly disclosed, Asus and Lenovo have said they’re going to be designing hardware using the system. Microsoft and Qualcomm are also in round one of the companies on the inside track as Meta positions Horizon OS along the lines of a universal VR standard, not unlike Microsoft’s Windows OS for computers. All four companies have already been working with Meta on VR for Quest or its predecessor, Oculus. Read more