After Neuralink, Max Hodak is building something stranger
“You could really, in a very fundamental sense, talk about redrawing the border around a brain,” Hodak says, “possibly to include four hemispheres, or a device, or a whole group of people.”
The Download: China’s dying EV batteries, and why AI doomers are doubling down
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. China figured out how to sell EVs. Now it has to bury their batteries. In the past decade, China has seen an EV boom, thanks in part to government support. Buying an electric…
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Selling the sizzle of trait discrimination
One day this fall, I watched an electronic sign outside the Broadway-Lafayette subway station in Manhattan switch seamlessly between an ad for makeup and one promoting the website Pickyourbaby.com, which promises a way for potential parents to use genetic tests to influence their baby’s traits, including eye color, hair color, and IQ. Inside the station,…
Walmart-backed PhonePe winds down its Pincode app in yet another e-commerce step back
PhonePe has shut down its Pincode app over two years after its debut.
The era of AI persuasion in elections is about to begin
In January 2024, the phone rang in homes all around New Hampshire. On the other end was Joe Biden’s voice, urging Democrats to “save your vote” by skipping the primary. It sounded authentic, but it wasn’t. The call was a fake, generated by artificial intelligence. Today, the technology behind that hoax looks quaint. Tools like…
Chicago Tribune sues Perplexity
The newspaper is alleging copyright infringement and calling out Perplexity’s Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) as a culprit.
Feds ask Waymo about robotaxis repeatedly passing school buses in Austin
The agency already opened an investigation in October over Waymo’s performance around school buses.
Micro1, a Scale AI competitor, touts crossing $100M ARR
Micro1 started the year with roughly $7 million ARR. Now, it claims to have surpassed $100 million in ARR, double what it reported in September.
Apple’s executive shakeup continues with departures of general counsel and policy head
Apple loses two more top senior executives with exits of longtime general counsel Kate Adams and environmental VP Lisa Jackson. Meta’s Jennifer Newstead is set to join as new general counsel in 2026.
AI chatbots can sway voters better than political advertisements
In 2024, a Democratic congressional candidate in Pennsylvania, Shamaine Daniels, used an AI chatbot named Ashley to call voters and carry on conversations with them. “Hello. My name is Ashley, and I’m an artificial intelligence volunteer for Shamaine Daniels’s run for Congress,” the calls began. Daniels didn’t ultimately win. But maybe those calls helped her…
Anthropic CEO weighs in on AI bubble talk and risk-taking among competitors
Anthropic’s CEO shared his thoughts on the economics of AI and the risk-taking of competitors, saying some were “YOLO-ing” with regard to spending.