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Google says its Willow quantum chip has cut errors on so-called magic states by forty times — a resource quantum computers burn through at a punishing rate. That's a meaningful step toward machines that are both smaller and practical, though it also edges closer to hardware that could crack the encryption protecting your data today.
Shifting gears, the tech backlash has officially made it to the multiplex. Two thousand twenty six has brought a wave of films taking a genuinely critical look at Silicon Valley, including Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning, which frames Mark Zuckerberg as a destabilizing force. Hollywood has always loved a founder story — the difference now is the verdict seems to have changed.
And across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom is weighing a significant expansion of the BBC license fee that could require residents to pay for watching streaming services — including YouTube. If it passes, that's roughly two hundred forty dollars a year just to keep the algorithm running in your living room. A reminder that the open internet has always had a price — it just keeps changing.
Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
