TikTok said on 11 May 2026 it will offer a paid, ad-free tier to UK users aged 18 and over, charging £3.99 a month as it notifies accounts over the coming months. The TikTok Ad‑Free option will remove ads delivered by the company from areas such as the For You feed and, TikTok says, will not use subscribers' data for advertising purposes. However, users who pay may still see creator-paid or sponsored posts labelled as ads. Those who remain on the free service will continue to receive personalised advertising and, under the new model, will no longer be able to opt out of personalised ads while using the app for free, TikTok said. The roll‑out follows tests of an ad‑free subscription in 2023 and mirrors similar moves by Facebook, Instagram and other platforms. TikTok framed the change as offering users more choice while supporting businesses that use the platform for advertising growth.

SHANGHAI, May 25 (Reuters) - Huawei on Monday unveiled a new chip-design principle it calls the Tau Scaling Law and an accompanying architecture named LogicFolding, saying the approach can sustain performance gains as traditional transistor scaling slows. He Tingbo, president of Huawei’s semiconductor unit and chair of its Scientist Committee, introduced the idea at the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems in Shanghai, saying Huawei has used the principle to design and mass-produce 381 chips over the past six years. The company said LogicFolding will shorten on-chip wiring and signal delays and that its next Kirin smartphone chips due in autumn 2026 will be the first to adopt the approach. Huawei also projected it could achieve transistor-density performance equivalent to 1.4-nanometre-class chips by 2031, a target that would approach the global frontier. The company did not provide independent benchmark data. Analysts note the move comes as U.S.-led export controls restrict Chinese access to extreme ultraviolet lithography and other advanced tools, complicating conventional paths to sub-5nm manufacturing.

Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) have urged the government to block under-16s from social media, gaming and AI apps that retain so-called “high-risk” features, in statements issued on May 24-25, 2026. The agencies want platforms to disable or remove features they say enable harm: direct contact with strangers, private or encrypted messaging, recommendation algorithms that surface harmful content, sharing of nude images, weak age verification and ease of discovery of children by other users. They cited sharply rising online child sexual abuse referrals in 2025 (around 92,000–100,000) and agency estimates that about 840,000 adults in the UK pose a sexual risk to children online. Police said they prefer platforms to make services child-safe through mandatory age verification and device-level nudity controls but said government should ban access for under-16s where companies fail to act. The calls come amid an ongoing government consultation on age limits and wider powers for Ofcom to enforce the Online Safety Act. Agencies acknowledged technical and privacy trade-offs, but said industry action has been too slow to protect children.

Schneider Electric expects its India data‑centre business to outpace its broader operations over the next four to five years as demand for AI‑ready infrastructure surges, company executives told Reuters and other outlets on May 25, 2026. Data centres currently account for roughly 15–20% of Schneider’s India business and are growing at a double‑digit pace. India’s installed data‑centre capacity is about 1.5 gigawatts now and could rise to around 6–7 GW by 2030, while market research firm Astute Analytica projects the sector to reach about $31.36 billion by 2035 (CAGR ~13.4%). Schneider supplies uninterruptible power systems, switchgear, precision cooling, power distribution and energy‑management software and is manufacturing locally. The company has repositioned its India operations, including buying the remainder of its local subsidiary stake to speed decision‑making, to capture orders from hyperscalers, colocation operators and enterprises building capacity beyond Mumbai and Chennai into states such as Gujarat and Rajasthan. Analysts and executives say edge sites and grid modernisation will be key themes as hyperscaler and domestic AI capex drive long‑dated demand for grid‑to‑rack equipment.

Meta Platforms this week began a global restructuring that will cut roughly 8,000 roles. Among those affected, Julie Bone, a Los Angeles-based content designer who spent six years at Facebook, said in a LinkedIn post that she asked to be included in the layoffs and left the company on May 20, 2026. Bone said her professional priorities had diverged from Meta’s growing “AI-first” direction, noting she learned prompt design and automation tools but does not believe upskilling alone guarantees job security. She framed her decision as deliberate—partly timed for personal reasons and partly in hopes her voluntary exit might spare another employee—while praising colleagues and highlighting work on brand voice and localisation. Her account, widely shared on social media and covered by outlets between May 24–25, has entered broader debate over workplace culture, worker protections and the pace of AI-driven change across tech firms.

Apple is preparing a major redesign of the AirPods settings interface in iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports, with similar accounts from other outlets. The update will reorganize the existing AirPods panel in Settings to be more functional, better organized and easier to navigate, rather than introducing a standalone AirPods app. The move responds to years of incremental feature additions — including head gesture recognition, adaptive audio, hearing-aid functionality and sleep detection — that have left the current control surface cluttered and fragmented across Bluetooth, accessibility and device-specific menus. The revamped layout is expected to surface key functionality and improve information hierarchy for connected AirPods and AirPods Pro. Apple is set to unveil the new operating systems at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on June 8, where iOS 27’s broader changes, including a Siri redesign, will also be shown. While the reported changes aim to streamline device management, they stop short of promising a dedicated companion app for AirPods at this stage.