As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like "eyebrows" and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

Sprout's charm is the point. A 5-year-old child could comfortably talk at eye level with this humanoid, which stands 3.5 feet (1 meter) tall and wears a soft, padded exterior of sage-green foam.

French lawmakers approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to enter into force at the start of the next school year in September, as the idea of setting a minimum age for use of the platforms gains momentum across Europe.

The bill, which also bans the use of mobile phones in high schools, was adopted by a 130-21 vote late Monday. French President Emmanuel Macron has requested that the legislation be fast-tracked and it will now be discussed by the Senate in the coming weeks.

Three of the world's biggest tech companies face a landmark trial in Los Angeles starting this week over claims that their platforms — Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's TikTok and Google's YouTube — deliberately addict and harm children.

Jury selection starts this week in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. It's the first time the companies will argue their case before a jury, and the outcome could have profound effects on their businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms. The selection process is expected to take at least a few days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day through at least Thursday. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

Europe "will not tolerate" online abuses against women and children, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned Monday, as the bloc opened a probe into sexualized deepfakes created by Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok.

"The harm caused by illegal images is very real. In Europe, we will not tolerate unthinkable behaviour, such as digital undressing of women and children," the European Commission chief said in a statement sent to AFP.

TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years on the platform now used by more than 200 million Americans.

The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX to form the new TikTok U.S. joint venture. The new version will operate under "defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users," the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.

It's simple to accidentally become entranced by an endless loop of videos on Instagram or TikTok. But sometimes, that mindless scroll is interrupted by a reminder that what you thought was a 10-minute break spent on your phone was closer to 30 minutes.

Olivia Yokubonis, armed with a kind voice and scientific research, often pops up in feeds on social platforms, gently reminding viewers that they might not remember the video they saw two videos before she appeared on the screen.

Social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children in Australia since the country banned use of the platforms by those under 16, officials said.

"We stared down everybody who said it couldn't be done, some of the most powerful and rich companies in the world and their supporters," communications minister Anika Wells told reporters on Friday. "Now Australian parents can be confident that their kids can have their childhoods back."

Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok won't be able to edit photos to portray real people in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal, according to a statement posted on X.

The announcement late Wednesday followed a global backlash over sexualized images of women and children, including bans and warnings by some governments.

Iranians have found themselves without email, texts and foreign apps for days, with even landline phone calls unreliable under a digital blackout imposed by authorities in the face of widespread protests.

UK media regulator Ofcom on Monday launched a formal investigation into Elon Musk's X over its AI chatbot Grok's image creation feature that has been used to produce sexualized deepfakes.