Author: Nick Gold

SoftBank isn’t just part of the group investing $500 billion into Project Stargate to build American AI infrastructure capacity for OpenAI. It’s also making a Japanese joint venture with OpenAI, will spend $3 billion deploying OpenAI tech across SoftBank companies, and claims it will revolutionize business with AI agents through a new AI system called “Cristal intelligence.”SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who also invested billions in WeWork, claimed at an announcement event in Tokyo that artificial general intelligence, or AGI will come “much earlier” than his previous two- to three-year prediction, The Wall Street Journal reports. That could be helped, of…

US District Court Judge Amit Mehta denied Apple’s emergency request to halt the Google Search monopoly trial that could dismantle their lucrative search that’s reportedly worth as much as $18 billion a year. The order came in late Sunday, with Judge Mehta saying Apple hasn’t demonstrated satisfactory reasons for its emergency motion to stay that was filed on January 30th.Apple said last week that it needs to be involved in the Google trial because it does not want to lose “the ability to defend its right to reach other arrangements with Google that could benefit millions of users and Apple’s…

Kobo has increased the price of three of its e-readers following a similar price increase by the company in January 2023. The seven-inch Kobo Libra Colour, as well as the six-inch Kobo Clara Colour and Kobo Clara BW, are all now $10 more expensive, as spotted by TheeBookReader. The prices of the larger (and aging) Kobo Elipsa 2E and Kobo Sage were not affected.The price increase doesn’t appear to be related to recently announced tariffs or any effects they may have on the cost of Kobo’s e-readers in the US and Canada.With the increase, the Kobo Libra Colour is now…

Netflix announced today that The Sandman will conclude with its upcoming second season. In a statement about the show coming to an end, Sandman showrunner Allan Heinberg said that the series “has always been focused exclusively on Dream’s story, and back in 2022, when we looked at the remaining Dream material from the comics, we knew we only had enough story for one more season.”

OpenAI has revealed another new agentic feature for ChatGPT called deep research, which it says can operate autonomously to “plan and execute a multi-step trajectory to find the data it needs, backtracking and reacting to real-time information where necessary.”Instead of simply generating text, it shows a summary of its process in a sidebar, with citations and a summary showing the process used for reference.Users can ask questions using text, images, and additional files like PDFs or spreadsheets to add context, and then it will take “anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes” to develop a response provided in the chat window,…

Windows Insiders will soon see a Copilot icon in one more place: Paint. Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels will see the new button thanks to an update rolling out now, putting AI tools in one location. Clicking the Copilot button in the task bar will reveal a dropdown menu with generative features like Cocreator, Image Creator, and Generative Erase. Microsoft has been on a mission to put a Copilot icon everywhere it can — from your keyboard to the taskbar — and Paint is just the latest place for it to pop up.With today’s update, Windows 11 Insiders…

President Donald Trump has fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In a letter posted to X, Chopra confirmed his “term as CFPB Director has concluded.” Chopra was notified of his removal via an email from the White House, according to a report from the Associated Press.Trump was widely expected to fire Chopra before the director’s term came to an end in October 2026. “With so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, agencies like the CFPB have never been more critical,” Chopra wrote in his letter. “We’ve led efforts across the government…

The US is officially imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. President Donald Trump announced that goods imported from Mexico and Canada will face a 25 percent tariff, while goods from China will face a 10 percent tariff. There will also be a lower 10 percent tariff on energy resources from Canada. In a series of posts on X announcing the tariffs, the administration claimed they were happening to “hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States” while repeatedly referencing fentanyl.The tariffs are set to go into effect…

The National Transportation Safety Board will only update the press about the plane crashes in Washington, DC and Philadelphia on X — not over email, as reported earlier by The Desk. The agency announced on Saturday that it will use its @NTSB_Newsroom account to share ”news conferences or other investigative information.“The NTSB later said, “Reporters should email mediarelations@ntsb.gov for all other inquiries,” claiming that it was meant to “better manage the volume of” emails about the two incidents n. “The NTSB media relations team has always used Twitter/X to inform the media and public on the time and location of…

Google just debuted a series of Super Bowl ads showing how small businesses use Gemini AI across all 50 states, but the cheese lovers out there might notice something a little off about its Wisconsin one. As spotted by @natejhake on X, the ad shows Gemini AI generating text that says Gouda accounts for “50 to 60 percent of the world’s cheese consumption” — a stat that isn’t quite accurate.The cheese is undoubtedly popular in Europe, but the same can’t be said for the rest of the world. “While Gouda is likely the most common single variety in world trade,…