California Passes Sweeping Laws to Protect Minors from Addictive Tech and AI - DTH

These are the daily tech headlines for Friday, September 11th, 2026. I'm Rob Dunwood. California Governor Gavin Newsome signed a comprehensive package of 13 bills aimed at protecting minors from harmful technology, including restrictions on behaviorally addictive social media features for children under 16, mandatory parental controls on AI chatbots, and a 4-year ban on AI companion toys. Known as Assembly Bill 1709, the legislation targets features like infinite scrolling and autoplay to curb compulsive use, joining a broader movement across US states and internationally to regulate tech platforms and enhance online safety for young users. New York City public schools announced a one-year ban on generative artificial intelligence tools for students from 2K through 8th grade, affecting nearly 600,000 students across the district. Mayor Zorhan Mandamni and Chancellor Kamar Samuels stated the policy aims to safeguard critical thinking skills, protect student teacher relationships and set broader limits on screen time by disabling AI features across 38 software programs and blocking platforms like chat GBT and Claude. High school students will retain access to a limited selection of AI tools alongside critical thinking instruction while teachers may still use AI for lesson planning as a new coalation evaluation of moratorium's impact throughout the school year. Open AAI is considering pacing its artificial intelligence development amid growing concerns from top researchers, former employees, and staff warning of existential risk associated with advanced AI systems driven by public resignations, petitions signed by over 10,000 industry workers, and recent security incidents. Key figures across leading AI labs are calling for voluntary slowdowns, shared safety benchmarks, and greater transparency in future model development. The US president however dismissed concerns that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity prioritizing American AI dominance over China despite growing warnings and resignations from researchers. In a recent threat intelligence report, Anthropic detailed widespread malicious attempts to misuse its clawed AI models, including efforts to assist in biological weapons development, design software for conventional weapons, execute Russia linked cyber attacks against Ukrainian government targets, and conduct large-scale model distillation attacks by Chinese tech firms attempting to extract Claude's capabilities. Google Wallet is rolling out a full screen redesign for loyalty cards and boarding passes on Android, featuring brand colored backgrounds, easier access to key actions and settings, and an option to toggle back the previous view using a rewind icon. The redesign covers all boarding passes and loyalty cards, including those added manually. Commercially, transit cards continue to utilize the previous interface. Google has launched a native lightweight Gemini app for Windows 10 and 11 following its earlier Mac release. Accessible via a keyboard shortcut, the app integrates with Google services like Gmail and Drive, supports image and video generation through Nano Banana and Gemini Omni, and connects with Gemini Spark with further desktop capabilities planned in the future. Android has introduced a native credential transfer feature for Android 8 and newer, allowing users to securely copy passwords and pass keys directly between supported password managers such as One Password, Bitwarton, Dashlane, and Google Password Manager without needing plain text file exports or additional tools. High demand for OpenAI's newly launched Astra model has forced the company to temporarily pause new subscriptions for its $200 per month pro plan to prevent infrastructure strain. Product leader Theobalt Sootial explained that the POS prioritizes service quality for existing users while keeping API access and lower tier plans available. Launched on September 3rd, Astra offers advanced reasoning, coding, and computer use capabilities that have driven unprecedented interest, though OpenAI has not stated when pro signups will resume. Meta is updating its AI chatbot prompt suggestion after an Instagram user demonstrated that the tool asks invasive questions about her children and gather personal information from past posts. Meta acknowledged the issue, admitting it missed the mark and stated that it has fixed the system to prevent Meta AI from suggesting prompts on personal topics. And finally, at IFA 2026, Acer announced the relaunch of the iconic 1990s Packard Bell brand with a colorful lineup of affordable consumer technology aimed exclusively at Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Under the Tech It Easy slogan, the new collection includes the €499book laptop alongside an array of accessories like a suitcase, turntable, audio glasses, and a feature phone. Although Packer Bell was once a staple in American homes, Acer currently has no plans for a US comeback. For more analysis of the tech news of the day, subscribe to daily techneow.com. You can find show notes and links to all the headlines there as well. 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