February 7, 2025

The Download: DOGE’s tech-enabled destruction, and Meta’s brain AI for typing

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. Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper problem —Dan Hon is principal of Very Little Gravitas, where he helps turn around and modernize large and complex government services and products. In trying to…

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Ex-Autodesk execs snag $46M to build the next gen of architecture design

January 30, 2025

Talk to many architects, and they’ll likely tell you that Autodesk’s software, including AutoCAD and Revit, has been indispensable to their work for decades. But despite their widespread use, Autodesk’s former co-CEO and chief product officer Amar Hanspal says that the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is using 20th century tools to design 21st […]

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Amazon hikes prices for its Music Unlimited subscriptions

January 30, 2025

Amazon is the latest company to announce a price hike for its music streaming subscriptions. The company revealed this week that the price of an Amazon Music Unlimited Individual plan for Prime members is going from $9.99 per month to $10.99. As for subscribers without a Prime membership, the price of their subscription is going […]

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OpenAI will offer its tech to US national labs for nuclear weapons research

January 30, 2025

OpenAI says it plans to let U.S. National Laboratories, the Department of Energy’s network of R&D labs, use its AI models for nuclear weapons security and other scientific projects. Per CNBC, OpenAI will work with Microsoft, its lead investor, to deploy a model on the supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The model will be a […]

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Little Umbrella’s next Jackbox-style game pits you and your friends against an AI game show host 

January 30, 2025

Web-based party games are making a comeback, now with the infusion of generative AI. Among the startups joining the trend, the current forecast looks good for one startup, Little Umbrella, which leverages AI for its social party games.  The company announced on Thursday its $2 million seed funding round. Little Umbrella plans to use the […]

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Microsoft’s Copilot-focused Surface Pro and Laptop PCs ship with Snapdragon and Intel options

January 30, 2025

At an event in New York City on Thursday, Microsoft unveiled two additions to the Surface line of PCs. The new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop both arrive with Copilot+ PC certification. Announced in May 2024, the program aims to identify business-focused devices that are designed specifically for the company’s AI platform, Copilot. It’s a […]

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Mexican president pushes back against Google’s renaming of Gulf of Mexico

January 30, 2025

Google Maps is planning to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename several American landmarks, including the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. However, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a press conference on Wednesday that Mexico will send a letter to Google questioning its choice to update the body of water’s name. […]

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AI creations edited by humans can likely be copyrighted in US, agency says

January 30, 2025

In the U.S., AI-generated creations — books, movies, and so forth— that have been edited by a human can likely be copyrighted, but those without any human modifications or additions cannot. That’s according to a report published by the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) on Wednesday, which outlined scenarios in which AI-generated content might be eligible […]

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