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By Renju Jose SYDNEY (Reuters) -A bill to restrict social media for children under 16 will be introduced in the New Zealand parliament, officials said on Thursday, building momentum for parliament's efforts to prevent young people from being harmed while online. The proposed legislation will require social media platforms to conduct an age verification process, similar to Australia's world-first teen social media ban law passed in 2024. A member's bill submitted in May by ruling National Party lawmaker Catherine Wedd to restrict children using social media was selected on Thursday to be introduced in the parliament. The bill has received support from National Party members but its coalition partners have not confirmed whether they will support the bill. Members' bills can be introduced by any lawmaker not in the cabinet and are selected after a ceremonial lottery. It is not immediately clear when the bill will be introduced in the parliament. A New Zealand parliamentary committee has been looking at the impact of social media harm on young people and the roles that government, business, and society should play in addressing those harms. A report is due in early 2026, according to a statement from the committee last week. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been raising concerns about harms to mental health from the overuse of social media among young teens, including misinformation, bullying and harmful depictions of body image. Civil-liberties organisation PILLAR said the bill would not protect children online, and instead would create serious privacy risks and restrict online freedom for New Zealanders. "Aligning with international efforts may sound responsible, but it is lazy policymaking," PILLAR Executive Director Nathan Seiuli said in a statement. (Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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By Tim Hepher and Giulia Segreti PARIS/ROME (Reuters) -Europe's aerospace giants kept investors waiting an extra day for details of a new space champion on Wednesday as lawyers and advisers pored over the smallprint, but merger plans remained intact, people familiar with the talks said. Reuters reported this week that Airbus, Thales and Leonardo had reached a framework deal to pool their satellite making activities to chip away at the dominance of Elon Musk's Starlink. Initial plans for a Wednesday announcement slipped but there was no major new obstacle and a deal appeared to have been pushed back by no more than 24 or 48 hours, barring an unforeseen and more substantive problem, the people said. "The announcement is ready; that doesn't mean you don't have some last-minute details. It is industrially, technically and financially complicated," one of the people said. Thales, Airbus and Leonardo all declined comment. The talks mark the latest attempt to tie together Europe's fragmented and struggling satellite industry. Europe's top players – Airbus and a pair of ventures controlled by Italy's Leonardo and France's Thales – have been dwarfed by rivals led by Musk's SpaceX. They plan to combine satellite assets into a new holding company with about one-third each after a series of balancing payments, but the new structure will take up to two years to put in place pending regulatory approvals, sources have said. A previous attempt to combine hit EU antitrust obstacles. SHIFT TO LOW EARTH ORBIT Insiders say the trio have realised they cannot prosper alone in a space market in the midst of dramatic transformation. The merger will create the largest manufacturer of commercial geostationary satellites, leapfrogging Maxar, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin with a third of the market, according to 2010-25 global data from specialist advisory firm Quilty Space. But that corner of the space market is in decline due to the spread of small satellites in low Earth orbit, such as Starlink. "Europe did have a commanding lead in a lot of geostationary satellite manufacturing, and arguably never lost it," said Caleb Henry, Quilty's research director. "It's just that this market has shrunk considerably in the face of these new titans of industry: the low-Earth-orbit broadband constellations." The companies are expected to set out the broad structure and objectives of the merger plan, code-named Projet Bromo, without dwelling on details of corporate governance that would be decided at a later stage, after a period of standalone operations. The balance of power and question of who appoints chairperson, CEO and CFO have caused friction in past European aerospace mergers, including at Airbus itself. But sources said there was a strong commitment between the parties to co-operate on satellites, in part driven by losses and falling market share. (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Alexander Smith, Aidan Lewis)

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By Greg Bensinger MILPITAS, California (Reuters) -In its relentless drive to bring everyday items to customers faster, Amazon has shifted expectations from two-day delivery to same-day and even within an hour. Now, with robots, artificial intelligence and even eyewear, it is working to pare seconds off each delivery. On Wednesday, Seattle-based Amazon showed off advanced eyeglasses for delivery workers for the first time publicly after Reuters exclusively reported the company was developing them last year. Known internally as Amelia, the glasses have a small screen that gives turn-by-turn directions, scans package codes and takes photos for proof of delivery. The glasses could replace the bulky handheld Global Positioning System devices drivers use today and give helpful navigation tips like which way to turn when leaving an apartment elevator or how to avoid an aggressive dog at a customer’s home. The glasses rely on a paired controller placed in a driver’s vest and Amazon solved the challenge of battery life by having swappable battery packs, the company said. The announcements made at Amazon’s annual “Delivering the Future” logistics event are part of the firm’s particular focus on the "last 100 yards," which contribute to the expensive final steps in a delivery’s journey to customers. Last year, it unveiled a delivery van scanner to direct drivers to packages for each stop by shining a green spotlight on them, shaving seconds off time usually spent reading labels. And in June, it showed reporters new digital maps that gave far more detail about neighborhoods, building shapes and obstacles, than, say, Google Maps. Beryl Tomay, Amazon transportation vice president, said hundreds of delivery drivers had already tested the glasses along their routes. "It reduces the need to manage a phone and a package," Tomay said at the event. "It helps them stay at attention, which enhances their safety." She said later that Amazon had seen time savings for some drivers of 30 minutes for a given shift. Tomay said it would be optional for drivers and their contracted companies to use the smartglasses and that they planned to distribute them for free to those that do. The glasses are experimental, she cautioned, and Amazon's plans for them were still in flux. Also on Wednesday, the online retailer showed off a robotic arm that it says can work in concert with warehouse employees picking items off shelves and sorting them for faster and more accurate order fulfillment. Amazon claimed the robot, dubbed Blue Jay, could reduce injury rates and work in a smaller space than equivalent robots that previously required three separate stations. The robot is in use already at a warehouse in South Carolina, Amazon said, and it plans to roll it out to more facilities in the coming months, particularly what are known as sub-same-day sites focused on delivery in a few hours or less. Additionally, Amazon said it plans to deploy an artificial intelligence system at warehouses, starting at one in Tennessee, that can help manage operations at a high level, to prevent gridlock and other challenges that can slow operations. It was not immediately clear how Amazon planned to institute the software or who would have access to it. "We now have a tool to analyze all the site data as it happens," said Tye Brady, chief technologist of Amazon robotics, at the event on Wednesday. "When it's fully implemented, we will be able to help operators with their daily planning." He said the company planned to offer the software across its warehouse network, but did not provide details on how it would be rolled out. The company's expansion of warehouse robots is expected to reduce its U.S. hiring by 160,000 workers over the next two years, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Amazon said it planned to hire 250,000 temporary workers for the holiday season. Amazon shares declined 1.8% to $217.95 on Wednesday. It is the only one among the so-called Magnificent Seven technology stocks to record a year-to-date decline.  (Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Nia Williams)

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(Reuters) -German software maker SAP on Wednesday reported third-quarter revenue below analysts' estimates and forecast full-year cloud revenue at the lower end of its outlook range, sending its U.S.-listed shares down 3% in extended trading. Walldorf, Germany-based SAP said revenue for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 rose 7% to 9.08 billion euros ($10.59 billion), missing analysts' expectations of 9.17 billion euros, according to LSEG IBES data. Revenue from SAP's lucrative cloud business rose 22%, its slowest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 2023. "We've maintained forward momentum despite an uncertain macroeconomic backdrop," CFO Dominik Asam said. The company has focused on cloud operations for the last few years, adopting a subscription-based service model that generates predictable revenue over time rather than the lumpy up-front cash flows from software licences. Operating profit, on a non-IFRS basis, rose 14% to 2.57 billion euros, slightly above estimates of 2.55 billion euros, while free cash flow, used to determine dividends to investors, grew 5% to 1.27 billion euros. The company also said it was expecting cloud revenue for 2025 to be at the lower end of its forecast of 21.6 billion to 21.9 billion euros. However, operating profit was seen at the upper end of the its outlook range of 10.3 billion to 10.6 billion euros and free cash flow is expected at 8 billion to 8.2 billion euros, compared wth 8 billion euros earlier. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm and Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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(Reuters) -Wireless tower operator Crown Castle on Wednesday raised its annual site rental revenue forecast for the second time, helped by steady demand for wireless infrastructure services. Crown Castle derives majority of its revenue from leasing out tower infrastructure to U.S. wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile US, and Verizon Communications on a long-term basis. With about 40,000 cellular towers across the U.S., Crown Castle is looking to focus on growing its tower business, which is expected to benefit from the largest U.S. carriers upgrading their networks to 5G and increasing capacity to meet booming data demand. The real estate investment trust now sees annual site rental revenue in the range of $4.01 billion to $4.05 billion, compared with its earlier projection of between $4 billion and $4.04 billion. Analysts expect earnings growth of real estate investment trusts to improve going into 2026, as pressures from supply, tenant churn, and high development capex ease. Crown Castle posted site rental revenue of $1.01 billion for the third quarter ended September 30, compared with an average estimate of $1 billion. Its adjusted funds from operations came in at $1.12 per share, compared with $1.20 a year earlier. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is in talks with several quantum-computing companies to take equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Companies including IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum are discussing the government becoming a shareholder as part of the agreements, the report said, adding that the discussions include minimum funding awards from Washington of $10 million each. Other companies such as Quantum Computing and Atom Computing are considering similar arrangements, the Journal added. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Earlier this year, Trump said the U.S. would take a 10% stake in Intel that converts government grants into an equity share, the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America. Other deals include an agreement for the Pentagon to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company, MP Materials to boost output of rare earth magnets and the U.S. government's winning a "golden share" with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Japan's Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel. Ion declined to comment while the White House, U.S. Commerce Department, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Atom Computing and Quantum Computing did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Paul Dabbar, a former quantum-computing executive and Energy Department official, is leading the funding discussions with companies in the industry, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. In February, Microsoft unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is "years, not decades" away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed. (Reporting by Devika Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Lincoln Feast.)

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(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is in talks with several quantum-computing companies to take equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Companies including IonQ, Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum are discussing the government becoming a shareholder as part of the agreements, the report said, adding that the discussions include minimum funding awards from Washington of $10 million each. Other companies such as Quantum Computing and Atom Computing are considering similar arrangements, the Journal added. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Earlier this year, Trump said the U.S. would take a 10% stake in Intel that converts government grants into an equity share, the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America. Other deals include an agreement for the Pentagon to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company, MP Materials to boost output of rare earth magnets and the U.S. government's winning a "golden share" with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Japan's Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel. Ion declined to comment while the White House, U.S. Commerce Department, Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, Atom Computing and Quantum Computing did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Paul Dabbar, a former quantum-computing executive and Energy Department official, is leading the funding discussions with companies in the industry, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. In February, Microsoft unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is "years, not decades" away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed. (Reporting by Devika Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Lincoln Feast.)

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(Reuters) -Social media platform Reddit sued artificial intelligence startup Perplexity in New York federal court on Wednesday, accusing it and three other companies of unlawfully scraping its data to train Perplexity's AI-based search engine. Reddit said in the complaint that the data-scraping companies circumvented its data protection measures in order to steal data that Perplexity "desperately needs" to power its "answer engine" system. The case is one of many filed by content owners against tech companies over the alleged misuse of their copyrighted material to train AI systems. Reddit filed a similar lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic in June that is still ongoing.  "Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest," Perplexity said in a statement. "AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content – and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale 'data laundering' economy," Reddit chief legal officer Ben Lee said in a statement.  Reddit, which features thousands of interest-based "subreddit" web communities, said in the lawsuit that it is the most commonly cited source for AI-generated answers to user questions. It has licensed its content to Google, OpenAI and others for their AI training.  Reddit said that Lithuania-based Oxylabs, Russia-based AWMProxy and Texas-based SerpApi scraped Reddit data from billions of search results without permission and that Perplexity, which does not have a license to use Reddit content, worked with at least one of the data-scraping companies to obtain Reddit material. "We strongly disagree with Reddit's allegations and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court," a SerpApi spokesperson said. Oxylabs said in a statement that it was "shocked and disappointed by this news, as Reddit has made no attempt to speak with us directly," and that it would also defend itself against the allegations. AWMProxy could not be reached for comment. Reddit said it sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter last year, after which it "increased the volume of citations to Reddit forty-fold." Reddit asked the court for unspecified monetary damages and an order blocking Perplexity from using its data. (Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Stephen Coates)

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By Blake Brittain (Reuters) -Conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Google on Wednesday, alleging the tech giant's artificial intelligence systems generated "outrageously false" information about him. Starbuck said in the lawsuit, filed in Delaware state court, that Google's AI systems falsely called him a "child rapist," "serial sexual abuser" and "shooter" in response to user queries and delivered defamatory statements to millions of users. Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said most of the claims were related to mistaken "hallucinations" from Google's Bard large language model that the company worked to address in 2023.  "Hallucinations are a well-known issue for all LLMs, which we disclose and work hard to minimize," Castaneda said. "But as everyone knows, if you’re creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading." Starbuck is best known for opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. "No one — regardless of political beliefs — should ever experience this," he said in a statement about the lawsuit. "Now is the time for all of us to demand transparent, unbiased AI that cannot be weaponized to harm people." Starbuck made similar allegations against Meta Platforms in a separate lawsuit in April. Starbuck and Meta settled their dispute in August, and Starbuck advised the company on AI issues under the settlement. According to Wednesday's complaint, Starbuck learned in December 2023 that Bard had falsely connected him with white nationalist Richard Spencer. The lawsuit said that Bard cited fabricated sources and that Google failed to address the statements after Starbuck contacted the company. Starbuck's lawsuit also said that Google's Gemma chatbot disseminated false sexual assault allegations against him in August based on fictitious sources. Starbuck also alleged the chatbot said that he committed spousal abuse, attended the January 6 Capitol riots and appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, among other things. Starbuck said he has been approached by people who believed some of the false accusations and that they could lead to increased threats on his life, noting the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.  Starbuck asked the court for at least $15 million in damages. (Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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