Gemini is winning

If you want to win in AI - and I mean win in the biggest, most lucrative, most shape-the-world-in-your-image kind of way - you have to do a bunch of hard things simultaneously. You need to have a model that is unquestionably one of the best on the market. You need the nearly infinite resources […]

The Atlantic, Penske, and Vox Media have all sued Google for antitrust violations

Lawsuits seeking damages from Google's illegal ad tech monopoly are piling up following the Justice Department's successful antitrust case. Vox Media, The Verge's parent company, is the latest in a wave of media companies that have filed suit against Google, seeking to be reimbursed for the monopoly profits the tech company allegedly made at publishers' […]

X hasn’t really stopped Grok AI from undressing women in the UK

Elon Musk's X is trying to stop people using its AI chatbot Grok to undress women amid intensifying outrage and legal scrutiny over the deluge of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes flooding the site. It's not trying very hard: it took us less than a minute to get around its latest attempt to rein in the chatbot. […]

UK digital ID plans will no longer be mandatory

The United Kingdom has walked back plans to make its upcoming digital ID scheme a mandatory requirement for working adults. While the UK government remains "committed to mandatory digital right-to-work checks," an unspecified government spokesperson told The Times, digital ID will now be optional when the initiative is introduced sometime in 2029. The national digital […]

Civilization VII is coming to Apple Arcade

Sid Meier's Civilization VII is headed to the Apple Arcade on February 5th, allowing you to play the strategy game across your iPhone, iPad, or Mac through the company's $6.99 / month subscription. The game has the same premise as the original PC title, where you're tasked with expanding your empire as historic leaders from […]

Parents can put a time limit on YouTube Shorts scrolling

Parents can now manually set a time limit on their kids' YouTube Shorts feed, ranging from fifteen minutes to two hours (with an option for zero minutes coming soon). The update, announced on Wednesday, takes the Shorts time limit feature YouTube introduced in October and adapts it for under-18 accounts. Kids and teens can't change […]

Google’s Gemini AI will use what it knows about you from Gmail, Search, and YouTube

Google's Gemini AI is getting what could prove to be a very big upgrade: To help answers from Gemini be more personalized, the company is going to let you connect the chatbot to Gmail, Google Photos, Search, and your YouTube history to provide what Google is calling "Personal Intelligence." This isn't the first time Google […]

Bandcamp becomes the first major music platform to ban AI content

Bandcamp has built its entire brand around serving artists. And, with the artist furor over AI growing every day, it's no surprise that the company has decided to take a stand against it. In a Reddit post, Bandcamp announced that AI-generated content would not be permitted on the platform and would be subject to removal. […]

DJI Neo 2 review: I guess I’m a drone guy now

I'm not a drone guy. In fact, I've always been a bit nervous to play around with them too much. They're big, fragile, and expensive, which is a dangerous combination for someone with my hand-eye coordination. But I've always sort of wanted one, mostly because I've been jealous of the mid-air photos and videos I've […]

Animal Crossing’s big 3.0 update has fans itching to return to the cozy life

Animal Crossing, like Kirby, has come back when it seems like the world needs it most. In 2020, Animal Crossing: New Horizons released on the Nintendo Switch. The game instantly became a smash hit, providing a much-needed place to safely gather with friends amidst the global shutdown of the covid-19 pandemic. In the almost six […]