Eurobites: Vodafone claims UK first with 5G SA launch

Vodafone is also extending its telematics partnership with Admiral, the UK car insurance company. Telematics-enabled, usage-based car insurance provides drivers with discounted premiums if the installed telematics box in their car concludes that they are safe drivers rather than accidents waiting to happen. If an accident does happen, Vodafone also provides Admiral with detailed information on "crash situations," helping the insurer to in theory render the claims process a little less painful than it might be.

"Assertiveness is not protectionism," EU bigwig Thierry Breton declared at the opening of an EU office in San Francisco, in a riposte to grumblings about the implications of draft EU Data Act. The Act, long in gestation but now close to ratification, is intended to prevent non-EU governments from illegally gaining access to EU citizens' data. As Reuters reports, the proposed regulation is just the latest in a long line of rearguard EU actions intended to curb the ever-increasing power of (mainly US-based) Big Tech.

Elsewhere on the EU/Big Tech fight card, Twitter has apparently agreed to comply with imminent EU laws on the dissemination of fake news and other nasty stuff, despite, as the Guardian reports, earlier suggestions that it intended to pay no heed to them whatsoever. EU officials marched into Twitter HQ this week for an exercise with the company's staff intended to see how its controls worked when exposed to Russian propaganda and the like.

Ericsson is helping Middle East operator Mobily prepare for the Hajj pilgrimage season by deploying new sites and adding analytics and AI to network monitoring mix. Service coverage has also been extended in Mina, the massive tented city near Mecca that is the temporary home of many pilgrims during the Hajj.

Would you trust your life savings to ChatGPT? Millions might, according to a new study published by the UK-based Investor Index. The study found that 73% of those asked believed that the generative chatbot thingummy – which already seems soooo last month – could give reliable financial advice in the future, while 42% of younger investors (aged 18-34) stated that they had already used ChatGPT for such advice.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading