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Singer Lorde made headlines this week with a pointed critique of AI-powered smart glasses, telling an audience that the devices are, in her words, not sexy. Her deeper concern was more serious than aesthetics — she spoke about how it becomes increasingly difficult to know what is real in a world saturated with AI-generated content. It's a cultural pushback that the tech industry would be wise to take seriously.
Shifting south to New Zealand, plans for the country's first dedicated AI data centre are drawing resistance from locals near Makarewa, outside Invercargill. Residents and community groups are raising concerns about land use, water consumption, and energy demands — the familiar friction that emerges whenever the infrastructure behind AI moves from the cloud into someone's backyard. The debate is a reminder that every AI query has a physical footprint.
And in a story that sits at the intersection of technology and national security, Japan is formally standing up a new intelligence agency, developed with input from allied nations. As geopolitical tensions reshape how governments think about information and cyber capability, Tokyo's move signals that intelligence infrastructure is increasingly being treated as critical technology in its own right.
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