Powerful AI models that can take down governments ‘months away’, Nex Playground launches

Powerful AI models capable of taking down governments and businesses are mere months away, cyber intelligence agencies for the Five Eyes have warned in a rare joint statement, urging leaders to “act now”. The surprising public intervention by signals agencies for Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada comes after the Trump administration earlier this month decided to block “foreign nationals” from using a much-hyped AI model built by tech company Anthropic, called Fable. The statement, issued late Monday night Sydney time, said while AI “would help us improve cyber defence over time, it also accelerates the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyber threats”. The Guardian

Backtracking on the UK’s electric vehicle plans would blow the government’s much feted climate target by 13% in a worst-case scenario, according to new analysis shared exclusively with Sky News. It comes as 20 environmental and electric vehicle organisations today write to the embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer, urging him to stay the course. “Electric vehicles are one of our most important tools for energy security and are set to almost halve the UK’s reliance on oil imports between 2024 and 2040,” wrote groups including Greenpeace, WWF, and Mums For Lungs. Sky News 

Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop 8 and Surface Pro 12 this week, but thanks to a confusing naming scheme and the lack of an event or stream, the new PCs have not drawn the attention they deserves. Those who paid attention and saw the announcements may have experienced sticker shock, since the new Surface devices are at least $500 more expensive than their predecessors. Microsoft will include a free keyboard to ease the pain, but still. This week marked the third time this year that Microsoft announced new Surface PCs, and I feel cheated. This isn’t how Surface week is supposed to feel. Windows Central

The company behind the UK’s newest video game console is not concerned with the latest state-of-the-art graphics. Instead David Lee, the chief executive of American technology firm Nex, tells me its cube-shaped machine, the Nex Playground, is all about getting kids active. Launching in the UK and Ireland toda (22nd June), the Playground ditches controllers for body movements, tracking players using AI and a built-in camera.  The relatively little-known device surprised the games industry when research firm Circana revealed,  it was the third best-selling console in the US over Black Friday 2025, outselling the Xbox Series S and X. BBC 

Britain’s largest data centre will be powered by gas because of delays connecting to the grid. The £9bn development in Bedfordshire, which is three times the size of the UK’s existing biggest data centre, will be entirely fuelled by a gas generation station until 2034 to ensure a “reliable” supply, planning documents show. Steve Reed, the Housing Secretary, last week gave permission for the data centre to count as a nationally significant project, meaning it can bypass the council when seeking planning permission. Telegraph 

Social media companies and authorities are failing women by focusing on nudity rather than consent when dealing with image-based abuse, according to a new report by gender justice organisation Chayn. Its criticisms are backed by Pakistani actress Ayesha Omar, whose experiences, along with those of other women, are described in the findings. One of the women at the centre of the report, whose name has been changed to Mahnoor to protect her privacy, explains that the images that changed her life were not nude. They were not sexually explicit. They showed a woman exposing her bare shoulders and wearing Western clothing. BBC