Google adds AI features to Chromebook Plus devices
Google’s adding a slew of AI features to the Chromebook Plus line, including a search and text capture tool, NotebookLM, and a tool for simplifying text.
The Download: the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s first pictures, and reframing privacy
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. See the stunning first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory The first spectacular images taken by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have been released for the world to peruse: a panoply of…
Book review: Surveillance & privacy
Privacy only matters to those with something to hide. So goes one of the more inane and disingenuous justifications for mass government and corporate surveillance. There are others, of course, but the “nothing to hide” argument remains a popular way to rationalize or excuse what’s become standard practice in our digital age: the widespread and…
SMB-focused Finom closes €115M as European fintech heats up
Finom, an Amsterdam-based challenger bank for SMBs that claims to have doubled its revenue in 2024, closed a €115 million Series C equity round (around $133 million).
See stunning first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
The first spectacular images taken by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have been released for the world to peruse: a panoply of iridescent galaxies and shimmering nebulas. “This is the dawn of the Rubin Observatory,” says Meg Schwamb, a planetary scientist and astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Much has been written about…
OpenAI pulls promotional materials around Jony Ive deal
OpenAI appears to have pulled a much-discussed video promoting the friendship between CEO Sam Altman and legendary Apple designer Jony Ive (plus, incidentally, OpenAI’s $6.5 billion deal to acquire Ive and Altman’s device startup io) from its website and YouTube page.
Tesla launches robotaxi rides in Austin with big promises and unanswered questions
Tesla has started giving rides in driverless Model Y SUVs in Austin. Details are still sparse, but limited service is open to vetted and invited riders.
Why Danny Boyle shot ‘28 Years Later’ on iPhones
Director Danny Boyle famously shot his post-apocalyptic classic “28 Days Later” on Canon digital cameras, making it easier for him to capture eerie scenes of an abandoned London, and giving the movie’s fast-moving zombies a terrifying immediacy. To make his decades-later sequel “28 Years Later” (which opened this weekend), Boyle turned to a different piece […]
The stablecoin evangelist: Katie Haun’s fight for digital dollars
In 2018, when Bitcoin was trading around $4,000 and most Americans, at least, thought cryptocurrency was a fad, Katie Haun found herself on a debate stage in Mexico City opposite Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who had dismissed digital assets as near worthless. As Krugman focused on Bitcoin’s wild price swings, Haun steered the conversation toward something else — stablecoins.
Moratorium on state AI regulation clears Senate hurdle
A Republican effort to prevent states from enforcing their own AI regulations cleared a key procedural hurdle on Saturday.
This Windows 11 Pro Upgrade Is a No-Brainer at $15
Security, multitasking, and Copilot AI built in.