‘Anticompetitive Policies’: Google Partially Loses Antitrust Case
On Thursday, a judge ruled Google illegally monopolized online advertising technology in some markets.
What you may have missed about Trump’s AI Action Plan
A number of the executive orders and announcements coming from the White House since Donald Trump returned to office have painted an ambitious vision for America’s AI future—crushing competition with China, abolishing “woke” AI models that suppress conservative speech, jump-starting power-hungry AI data centers. But the details have been sparse. The White House’s AI Action…
Technology
Judge rules Google illegally monopolized ad tech, opening door to potential breakup
A federal judge has found that Google has violated antitrust laws by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in the advertising technology market, rounding out a two-year saga after the U.S. and eight states filed its initial complaints against the Alphabet-owned company. The court will set a briefing schedule and hearing date to determine appropriate […]
The Download: the US office that tracks foreign disinformation is being eliminated, and explaining vibe coding
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. US office that counters foreign disinformation is being eliminated The only office within the US State Department that monitors foreign disinformation is to be eliminated, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio,…
How a 1980s toy robot arm inspired modern robotics
As a child of an electronic engineer, I spent a lot of time in our local Radio Shack as a kid. While my dad was locating capacitors and resistors, I was in the toy section. It was there, in 1984, that I discovered the best toy of my childhood: the Armatron robotic arm. Described as…
These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy
While it’s rare to look at the news without finding some headline related to AI and energy, a lot of us are stuck waving our hands when it comes to what it all means. Sure, you’ve probably read that AI will drive an increase in electricity demand. But how that fits into the context of…
We need targeted policies, not blunt tariffs, to drive “American energy dominance”
President Trump and his appointees have repeatedly stressed the need to establish “American energy dominance.” But the White House’s profusion of executive orders and aggressive tariffs, along with its determined effort to roll back clean-energy policies, are moving the industry in the wrong direction, creating market chaos and economic uncertainty that are making it harder…
Digital frame maker Aura introduces the Aspen, a $299 frame with more intelligent features
Aura, a digital photo frames company founded by early Twitter employees, is introducing its latest model, Aspen, which adds new technology to the device and its accompanying mobile app. In addition to hosting your digital photos in its 12-inch HD display, the device now also allows you to add captions to your photos when they […]
US office that counters foreign disinformation is being eliminated, say officials
The only office within the US State Department that monitors foreign disinformation is about to be eliminated, two State Department officials have told MIT Technology Review. The Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub is a small office in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy that tracks and counters foreign disinformation campaigns. In…
Adapting for AI’s reasoning era
Anyone who crammed for exams in college knows that an impressive ability to regurgitate information is not synonymous with critical thinking. The large language models (LLMs) first publicly released in 2022 were impressive but limited—like talented students who excel at multiple-choice exams but stumble when asked to defend their logic. Today’s advanced reasoning models are…
The Download: how AI is changing music, and a US city’s AI experiment
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. AI is coming for music, too While large language models that generate text have exploded in the last three years, a different type of AI, based on what are called diffusion models, is…