California became just the third state in the nation to pass a "right to repair" consumer protection law on Tuesday, following Minnesota and New York, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 244. The California Right to Repair bill had originally been introduced in 2019. It passed, nearly unanimously, through the state legislature in September. 

“This is a victory for consumers and the planet, and it just makes sense,” Jenn Engstrom, state director of CALPIRG, told iFixit (which was also one of SB244's co-sponsors). “Right now, we mine the planet’s precious minerals, use them to make amazing phones and other electronics, ship these products across the world, and then toss them away after just a few years’ use ... We should make stuff that lasts and be able to fix our stuff when it breaks, and now thanks to years of advocacy, Californians will finally be able to, with the Right to Repair.”

Turns out Google isn't offering seven years of replacement parts and software updates to the Pixel 8 out of the goodness of its un-beating corporate heart. The new law directly stipulates that all electronics and appliances costing $50 or more, and sold within the state after July 1, 2021 (yup, two years ago), will be covered under the legislation once it goes into effect next year, on July 1, 2024. 

For gear and gadgets that cost between $50 and $99, device makers will have to stock replacement parts and tools, and maintain documentation for three years. Anything over $100 in value gets covered for the full seven-year term. Companies that fail to do so will be fined $1,000 per day on the first violation, $2,000 a day for the second and $5,000 per day per violation thereafter.

There are, of course, carve outs and exceptions to the rules. No, your PS5 is not covered. Not even that new skinny one. None of the game consoles are, neither are alarm systems or heavy industrial equipment that "vitally affects the general economy of the state, the public interest, and the public welfare." 

“I’m thrilled that the Governor has signed the Right to Repair Act into law," State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, one of the bill's co-sponsors, said. "As I’ve said all along, I’m so grateful to the advocates fueling this movement with us for the past six years, and the manufacturers that have come along to support Californians’ Right to Repair. This is a common sense bill that will help small repair shops, give choice to consumers, and protect the environment.”

The bill even received support from Apple, of all companies. The tech giant famous for its "walled garden" product ecosystem had railed against the idea when it was previously proposed in Nebraska, claiming the state would become "a mecca for hackers." However, the company changed its tune when SB 244 was being debated, writing a letter of support reportedly stating, "We support 'SB 244' because it includes requirements that protect individual users' safety and security as well as product manufacturers' intellectual property."

On Friday, the US Supreme Court agreed to take on two landmark social media cases with enormous implications for online speech, as reported by The Washington Post. The conservative-dominated court will determine if laws passed by Texas and Florida are violating First Amendment rights by requiring social platforms to host content they would otherwise block.

Tech industry groups, including Meta, X (formerly Twitter) and Google, say the laws are unconstitutional and violate private companies’ First Amendment rights. “Telling private websites they must give equal treatment to extremist hate isn’t just unwise, it is unconstitutional, and we look forward to demonstrating that to the Court,” Matt Schruers of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), one of the trade associations challenging the legislation, told The Washington Post. The CCIA called the order “encouraging.”

The groups representing the tech companies contesting the laws say platforms would be at legal risk for removing violent or hateful content, propaganda from hostile governments and spam. However, leaving the content online could be bad for their bottom lines as they would risk advertiser and user boycotts.

Supporters of the Republican-sponsored state laws claim that social media companies are biased against conservatives and are illegally censoring their views. “These massive corporate entities cannot continue to go unchecked as they silence the voices of millions of Americans,” said TX Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who recently survived an impeachment trial accusing him of abuses of office, bribery and corruption. Appeals courts (all with Republican-appointed judges) have issued conflicting rulings on the laws.

The US Supreme Court voted five to four in 2022 to put the Texas law on hold while the legal sparring continued. Justices John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted to prevent the law from taking effect. Meanwhile, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the temporary hold. Alito (joined by Thomas and Gorsuch) said he hadn’t decided on the law’s constitutionality but would have let it stand in the interim. The dissenting Kagan didn’t sign off on Alito’s statement or provide separate reasoning.

The Biden administration is against the laws. “The act of culling and curating the content that users see is inherently expressive, even if the speech that is collected is almost wholly provided by users,” Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar said to the justices. “And especially because the covered platforms’ only products are displays of expressive content, a government requirement that they display different content — for example, by including content they wish to exclude or organizing content in a different way — plainly implicates the First Amendment.”

The US Department of Justice sued eBay on Wednesday for its role in the sale of products that harm the environment. It accused the online retailer of selling or distributing hundreds of thousands of products that violated the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The complaint was filed in a federal court in Brooklyn, NY.

The DOJ’s complaint accuses eBay of selling, offering for sale or causing the sale of over 343,000 aftermarket “defeat devices,” which bypass vehicle emission controls. The devices, familiar to many from Volkswagen’s “Dieselgate” scandal, allow vehicles to cheat emissions tests, making them appear up to par on EPA standards when they aren’t — all in the name of a little performance boost.

“Aftermarket defeat devices significantly increase pollution emissions – including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and nonmethane hydrocarbons – that harm public health and impede efforts by the EPA, states, Tribes and local agencies to plan for and attain air quality standards,” the DOJ wrote today.

The complaint says eBay also unlawfully distributed or sold at least 23,000 pesticide products that were unregistered, misbranded or restricted-use. The DOJ says the EPA issued a “stop sale” order in 2020 (amended in 2021), after which eBay continued to violate it. “Examples include a high toxicity insecticide banned in the United States, restricted use pesticides that only certified applicators may apply and products fraudulently claiming to protect users against the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” the DOJ wrote.

The filing adds that eBay distributed over 5,600 products violating the TSCA Methylene Chloride Rule, a banned (potentially deadly) chemical used in paint and coating removers.

In a statement, eBay said it blocks and removes more than 99.9% of listings for products cited by the DOJ. “And eBay has partnered closely with law enforcement, including the DOJ, for over two decades on identifying emerging risks and assisting with prevention and enforcement,” the online retailer wrote. “The Government’s actions are entirely unprecedented and eBay intends to vigorously defend itself.”

The DOJ asserted that EPA standards will be enforced. “Our nation’s environmental laws protect public health and the environment by prohibiting the unlawful sale of defeat devices; unregistered, misbranded and restricted use pesticides; and unsafe products containing toxic chemicals such as methylene chloride,” said David M. Uhlmann from the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “The complaint filed today demonstrates that EPA will hold online retailers responsible for the unlawful sale of products on their websites that can harm consumers and the environment.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has blocked a bill that would have required autonomous trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds (4,536kg) to have human safety drivers on board while operating on public roads. The governor said in a statement that the legislation, which California Senate members passed in a 36-2 vote, was unnecessary. Newsom believes existing laws are sufficient to ensure there's an "appropriate regulatory framework."

The governor noted that, under a 2012 law, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles collaborates with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, California Highway Patrol and other relevant bodies "to determine the regulations necessary for the safe operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads.” Newsom added that the DMV is committed to making sure rules keep up with the pace of evolving autonomous vehicle tech. "DMV continuously monitors the testing and operations of autonomous vehicles on California roads and has the authority to suspend or revoke permits as necessary to protect the public's safety," his veto message reads.

Newsom, who has a reputation for being friendly to the tech industry, reportedly faced pressure within his administration not to sign the bill. The state's Office of Business and Economic Development warned that the proposed law would lead to companies that are working on self-driving tech to move out of California.

On the other hand, as the Associated Press notes, California Labor Federation head Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher estimates that not requiring human drivers in trucks would cost around 250,000 jobs. “We will not sit by as bureaucrats side with tech companies, trading our safety and jobs for increased corporate profits," Fletcher, who called autonomous trucks dangerous, said in a statement. "We will continue to fight to make sure that robots do not replace human drivers and that technology is not used to destroy good jobs.”

The US Senate Armed Services Committee is investigating Elon Musk's decision to not extend Starlink satellite internet coverage to enable a Ukraine attack on Russian warship near Crimea, Bloomberg has reported. "The committee is aggressively probing this issue from every angle," said chairman Jack Reed in a statement, adding that the incident exposed "serious national-security liability issues." The panel is still gathering information, and has not yet launched a formal investigation. 

The Ukraine Starlink incident was revealed in an Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson, via a disputed excerpt stating that Musk deactivated Starlink access close to the Crimean coast to prevent a Ukrainian attack on the fleet. 

However, Musk said that Starlink was not active in those areas because of US sanctions on Russia, so SpaceX had nothing to disable. In a recent podcast, he said would have extended Starlink to Crimea if President Biden had ordered him to do so — but he didn't receive any such order.

Rather, Musk said he denied Ukraine's request to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. "If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation," Musk wrote on X. (The disputed excerpt will be changed in future copies of the book.)

Nevertheless, senators questioned why the decision was made by Musk, rather than government officials. "Neither Elon Musk, nor any private citizen, can have the last word when it comes to US national security," Reed said. At the time of Ukraine's request, SpaceX received no US payments for its Ukraine Starlink operations, but it now has Pentagon funding. 

The probe was announced just ahead of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the US and meeting with President Biden, set for next week. On top of Starlink, SpaceX is a major US contractor, launching spy satellites for the Defense Department . 

The Supreme Court has temporarily halted a lower court ruling that prohibited White House officials from communicating with social media companies. The temporary stay, from Justice Samuel Alito, is the latest twist in a controversial attempt by two states to challenge content moderation policies at social media platforms.

The case stems from a lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, that claimed federal officials overreached in their dealings with social media companies — namely Meta, Google and Twitter — as they shaped moderation policies to handle election and COVID-19 misinformation.

A lower court had previously issued an injunction that barred White House and other federal officials from communicating with social media companies. An Appeals Court decision last week eased many of the initial restrictions, but left in place a provision that banned the surgeon general, CDC and White House officials from “pressuring” social media companies into making decisions. That order, as CNN reports, was set to take effect September 18.

That ruling is now on hold, thanks to Alito’s temporary stay, as the two sides continue to argue the case. As Bloomberg points out, the stay will be in effect until September 22, though it could be extended. 

In a filing ahead of the stay, the Solicitor General argued that “the injunction would impose grave harms on the government and the public” and that that government officials had committed no wrongdoing in their interactions with social media companies. “Rather than any pattern of coercive threats backed by sanctions, the record reflects a back-and-forth in which the government and platforms often shared goals and worked together, sometimes disagreed, and occasionally became frustrated with one another, as all parties articulated and pursued their own goals and interests during an unprecedented pandemic.”

While the current hold from Alito is another temporary measure, the case seems to be headed for a longer legal battle. The Justice Department is now laying the groundwork for a Supreme Court appeal, which could drag the case out even more.

The CEOs of leading AI companies — including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, Tesla's Elon Musk and Open AI's Sam Altman — appeared before Congress once again on Wednesday. But instead of the normal bombast and soapboxing we see during public hearings about the dangers of unfettered AI development, this conversation reportedly took on far more muted tones. 

In all, more than 20 tech and civil society leaders spoke with lawmakers at Wednesday's meeting, organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to discuss how AI development should be regulated moving forward. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Todd Young (R-IN) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) who were also in attendance and reportedly working with the majority leader to draft additional proposals. 

The word of the day: consensus. “First, I asked everyone in the room, ‘Is government needed to play a role in regulating AI?’ and every single person raised their hands even though they had diverse views,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday. 

But as Bloomberg reports, "areas of disagreement were apparent throughout the morning session" with Zuckerberg, Altman and Bill Gates all differing on the risks posed by open-source AI (three guesses as to where old Monopoly Bill came down on that issue). True to form, Elon Musk got into it with "Berkeley researcher Deb Raji for appearing to downplay concerns about AI-powered self-driving cars, according to one of the people in the room," Bloomberg reports.

“Some people mentioned licensing and testing and other ways of regulation … there were various suggestions as to how to do it, but no consensus emerged yet,” Schumer said following the event.

“That’s probably the worst wedding to try to do seating for,” Humane Intelligence CEO Rumman Chowdhury said of the event as an attendee. She also noted that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg did not interact and sat at opposite ends of the room-width table — presumably to keep the two bloodthirsty cagefighting CEOs from throwing down and Royal Rumbling the esteemed proceedings.

The meeting participants generally agreed that the federal government needs to “help to deal with what we call transformational innovation,” one unnamed participant suggested. That could entail creating a $32 billion fund that would assist with “the kind of stuff that maximizes the benefits of AI,” Schumer told reporters.

Following the seven-hour event, Facebook released Mark Zuckerberg's official remarks. They cover the company's long-standing talking points about developing and rolling out the technology "in a responsible manner," coordinating its efforts with civil society leaders (instead of say, allegedly fomenting genocide like that one time in Myanmar) and ensuring "that America continue to lead in this area and define the technical standard that the world uses." 

In a departure from his rhetoric in recent years warning of perceived growing threats from China, Zuckerberg pointed to a new boogieman: "the next leading open source model ... out of Abu Dhabi."  This appears to have been a thinly-veiled reference to the UAE's recent entrance into AI development. 

Elon Musk, famed libertarian and bloodsworn enemy of the FTC, warned reporters corralled outside of the hearing about the "civilizational risk" posed by AI. He wants a Federal Department of AI to help regulate the industry. He reportedly envisions it operating similarly to the FAA or SEC (two more agencies Musk has been variously scolded by) but did not elaborate beyond that. “I think this meeting could go down in history as important to the future of civilization,” he told reporters.

An FDA medical advisory panel ruled that phenylephrine (PE), a key ingredient in many over-the-counter cold medications, does not actually work to treat nasal congestion when taken orally at the recommended 10 mg dose every 4 hours. Phenylephrine was last evaluated for over-the-counter use as an oral and intranasal decongestant in 1976, according to the panel. If you're keeping score at home, that means many of the OTC decongestants consumers in the US have been buying for nearly the last 50 years were, according to the FDA, "failed to provide any benefit over [a] placebo."

This determination will impact drug makers that use PE as an active ingredient, which can be found in Sudafed, Vicks Sinex, and Benadryl Allergy Plus Congestion, for example.

As part of the panel’s review, the FDA reported that in 2022, an estimated 242 million packages of OTC cough and allergy oral products containing PE were sold in retail stores, which raked in about $1.8 billion in sales. It even notes that the true extent of use of PE-containing cold products is likely underestimated because retail sales data does not “capture sales activity from Costco, convenience stores, specialty stores, internet sales, phone sales, or kiosks.”

The FDA will now need to determine if it will revoke PE’s oral OTC designation as “safe and effective.” Without that designation, drug makers may see their products removed from stores.

For the first time in Joe Biden's presidency, Democrats will have a majority at the Federal Communications Commission and the ability to undo a wave of Trump-era deregulation in the internet and communications industries. The Senate has confirmed Anna Gomez as the agency's third Democratic commissioner, bringing an end to a long-standing partisan split on the panel.

Biden nominated Gomez, who is currently a State Department communications policy adviser, to the FCC in May. The president's previous pick for the FCC's open chair was Gigi Sohn, who withdrew from consideration in March after enduring attacks from politicians and industry lobbyists. Republicans and certain Democrats such as Sen. Joe Manchin refused to confirm Sohn, who is an advocate for affordable broadband.

However, senators found Gomez a more palatable choice and confirmed her to the panel on Thursday with a 55-43 vote. Gomez worked for the FCC in several positions over a 12-year period before moving into the private sector then onto the State Department earlier this year. She will be the FCC's first Latina commissioner since Gloria Tristani stepped down in 2001.

Industry bodies and figures such as the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association and former FCC chair and Broadland campaign co-chair Mignon Clyburn have welcomed Gomez's appointment. “At long last, at this critical time for the US telecommunications and media industries, we have a full roster of FCC commissioners,” Communications Workers of America President Claude Cummings Jr. told Engadget in a statement. “Anna Gomez is a dedicated public servant who is highly qualified to serve on the FCC. We are looking forward to working with her to realize the potential of the bipartisan infrastructure bill to bring affordable internet service to all Americans and to reverse the decline of local news that threatens the foundations of our democracy.“

After Gomez is sworn in, the Biden administration will be able to fulfill some of its major communications policy goals after a years-long partisan deadlock at the FCC. The agency has long had two Democratic and two Republican senators, who have often been unable to agree on policy votes since former chair Ajit Pai left the panel in January 2021.

The FCC is now expected to reverse some telecommunications sector deregulation efforts that the agency carried out under Donald Trump. Those include the potential restoration of Obama-era net neutrality rules, which the agency scrapped in 2017. In recent years, Democratic commissioners have had their hands largely tied, preventing them from taking meaningful action on issues such as internet data caps. However, the agency has still taken action on some fronts, including tackling problems such as robocallers and banning telecom equipment made by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE.

The Democratic commissioners may need to act quickly to carry out agenda items on behalf of the Biden administration, however. Biden has nominated Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks for a second term. His initial term expired last year, but he has remained on the panel in an acting capacity. Unless the Senate re-confirms Starks, the FCC may be back in a deadlock scenario in the not-too-distant future.

The home state of some of the most influential AI companies has a new plan to confront the potential regulation of generative AI. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order instructing agencies in the state to study potential risks and use cases for the technology.

Under the order, state agencies are tasked with identifying “the most significant and beneficial uses of GenAI in the state” and creating frameworks to train state employees on how to use “state-approved” generative AI tools in their work. Likewise, it directs the same agencies to analyze potential negative impacts of the technology, including its effect on vulnerable communities and threats to “critical energy infrastructure” in the state.

The order also lays the groundwork for new partnerships with University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, which will help study how generative AI is affecting the state’s workers. “This is a potentially transformative technology – comparable to the advent of the internet – and we’re only scratching the surface of understanding what GenAI is capable of,” Newsom said in a statement. “We recognize both the potential benefits and risks these tools enable.”

As Bloombergpoints out, the California order comes ahead of a White House executive order on generative AI expected in the coming months. Leaders of several top AI companies have been meeting with White House officials over the last severalmonths as the administration weighs potential regulations for AI. More than half a dozen companies have already agreed to some safeguards, including new investments in cybersecurity, following those meetings.