President Obama Dines With Steve Jobs, Other Tech Ceos

A former executive at Outcome Health – who was the star witness against his bosses in a trial last year – was sentenced to seven months in prison on Thursday for his role in what prosecutors have called a $1 billion fraud at the company. Before sentencing, former Outcome executive Ashik Desai stood before the judge and apologized for his role in the fraud and pledged to do better. “What I did was wrong and illegal,” Desai told the court.

Australia is rolling out new changes to how video games are classified to crack down on gambling-like content within games. From Sunday (September 22), the new government rules will come into effect which could see games such as Pokémon, Zelda, and Animal Crossing given a minimum classification of M (Mature). The Australian game industry trade body IGEA stated that the updated guidelines define purchases with an “element of chance” as “mystery items players can use real money to buy without knowing what they’ll receive, such as loot boxes.” This means any game with loot boxes that can be bought using real money may receive an M rating, which is recommended for players aged 15 and older, though this is not legally enforced.

Some users were able to access X in Brazil on Wednesday despite a ban imposed on the social media platform by the country’s supreme court last month. A number of users returned to the site, owned by Elon Musk after the network updated how its servers within the country are accessed. X and Starlink were fined this week after they failed to comply with Brazil’s judiciary, as the tech billionaire engages in a dispute with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes regarding content on the social media platform previously known as Twitter. Justice de Moraes also ordered the platform to be blocked nationwide after months of tension with Musk regarding free speech, far-right accounts, and misinformation. How have X users been able to access the platform in Brazil? According to Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers, the X update used cloud services provided by third parties, including the security firm Cloudflare.

Video-sharing platform YouTube is honing in on the use of artificial intelligence, with new AI tools announced on Wednesday (Sep. 18) at the Made on YouTube event. In a news blog, Johanna Voolich, the chief product officer, said they are now “bringing the transformative power of AI” to creators and communities. In what has been dubbed ‘a new creative partner,’ the Inspiration Tab in YouTube Studio has now had a generative AI makeover.

Solana Mobile — a subsidiary of the Solana (SOL) blockchain developer Solana Labs — announced its upcoming Seeker crypto-centric smartphone. On Wednesday (Sep, 18) it was announced the Solana Seeker — a follow-up to the previous Solana Saga smartphone — already has presales for over 140,000 units across 57 countries. Solana Co-Founder and Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said: “We founded Solana Mobile with the mission of taking crypto mobile.