Skip to content

Tech News

Google Home’s Gemini AI can handle more complicated requests

An image of a Google Nest Hub.

Google Home users can now ask Gemini to complete more complex, multi-step tasks and combine multiple tasks in a single command. Google has updated Gemini for Home to Gemini 3.1, which it says will improve the smart home assistant's ability to interpret and act on requests. The upgrade will also make Gemini for Home better at handling recurring and all-day events and allow users to "move around" upcoming events.

Last month, Google also updated Gemini for Home with improvements for understanding natural language and identifying devices correctly. The upgrades follow reports of bugs in Google's new smart home assistant, like confusing differe …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple agrees to pay iPhone owners $250 million for not delivering AI Siri

Vector illustration of the Apple logo.

Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accused it of misleading customers about the availability of its Apple Intelligence features. The proposed settlement would apply to people in the US who purchased all models of the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 15 Pro between June 10th, 2024 and March 29th, 2025.

People who submit qualifying claims can receive $25 for each eligible device, "which may decrease or increase up to $95 per device, depending on claim volume and other factors," according to Clarkson Law Firm, the legal team behind the class action lawsuit.

The settlement will resolve a 2025 lawsuit, alleging …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft gives up on Xbox Copilot AI

Promo image showing Xbox Copilot AI on mobile screens around a TV

Xbox is "winding down Copilot on mobile" and "will stop development of Copilot on console," new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced on Tuesday. The move follows Sharma's reorganization of the Xbox platform team earlier on Tuesday, which added executives from Microsoft's CoreAI team - where Sharma worked before taking over Xbox - to the Xbox side of the company.

Sharma, on X:

Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers.

Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward. This balance is important as we get th …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple could let you pick a favorite AI model in iOS 27

A hands-on photo of Apple’s iPhone 16E.

The next update to Apple's operating systems could allow users to choose their preferred AI model for running Apple Intelligence. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to allow third-party chatbots to power its AI features system-wide in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, all expected for this fall. In addition to running Siri, compatible third-party AI models, called "Extensions," will also now be able to run other Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools and Image Playground.

According to Gurman, Apple will also allow users to choose different Siri voices for different AI models - Siri responses from one of Apple's …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Threads is finally getting DMs on the web

Nearly a year after rolling out Threads direct messaging to everyone on mobile, Meta is finally bringing the feature to the web. Meta says it's "testing" DMs on the web now, but plans to make the feature "available to more people soon."

In your DM page on the web, you can see your inbox and message requests. Like on mobile, you can also choose to let anyone DM you or just people you follow. The company is also planning to test group chats on the web - group chats are currently available on mobile - and is also working on "more controls."

"While there's nothing better than a good conversation in the replies, we know you all like to sidebar …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Live updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAI

Graphic photo collage of Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of OpenAI and its most well-known product, ChatGPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and shifting focus to boosting profits instead. Elon Musk took the stand on April 28th as the first witness called, portraying his interest in founding OpenAI as an effort to help save humanity across three days of testimony, before his financial manager and Neuralink CEO, Jared Birchall, took the stand.

Week two of the trial is underway, with professor Stuart Russell and OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman taking the stand on Monday, as the proceedings also added a live audio stream on YouTube.

On Tuesday, Brockman’s testimony continued, with Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member who shares four children with Musk, up next. It’s possible that audio of her testimony will not be available on the stream, with lawyers citing threats against her and her children. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is scheduled to appear on Monday, with OpenAI cofounder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever lined up to testify after that.

Musk was a cofounder of OpenAI and claims that Altman and Brockman tricked him into giving the company money, only to turn their backs on their original goal. However, OpenAI says that “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor” in a bid to boost Musk’s own SpaceX / xAI / X companies that have launched Grok as a competitor to ChatGPT.

In his lawsuit, Musk is asking for the removal of Altman and Brockman, and for OpenAI to stop operating as a public benefit corporation. Musk has also demanded that OpenAI’s nonprofit receive up to $150 billion in damages he’s asking for if he wins the case.

People to Know

Plaintiff

Elon Musk — plaintiff, OpenAI cofounder and now CEO of rival xAI

Steven Molo — lead counsel for plaintiff

Jared Birchall — manager of Musk’s family office

Shivon Zilis — former OpenAI board member who shares multiple children with Musk

Defendant

Sam Altman — defendant, CEO of OpenAI 

William Savitt — lead counsel for defendant

Greg Brockman — president of OpenAI as well as a cofounder 

Ilya Sutskever — former chief scientist at OpenAI and a cofounder

Judge

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers — aka YGR, trial judge

Here’s all the latest on the trial between Musk and Altman:

OpenAI claims ChatGPT’s new default model hallucinates way less

OpenAI's newest default model for ChatGPT might not make stuff up as much. Hallucinations have been an ongoing problem for AI models, but OpenAI says its new GPT-5.5 Instant model has "significant improvements in factuality across the board."

The company claims that, based on "internal evaluations," GPT-5.5 Instant produced "52.5% fewer hallucinated claims" than its Instant model for GPT-5.3 "on high-stakes prompts covering areas like medicine, law, and finance." GPT-5.5 Instant also "reduced inaccurate claims by 37.3% on especially challenging conversations users had flagged for factual errors." (OpenAI has some information about how it ev …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Book publishers sue Meta over AI’s ‘word-for-word’ copying

Vector illustration of the Meta logo.

Meta is facing a class action lawsuit filed by five major book publishers and one author over claims the company "engaged in one of the most massive infringements of copyrighted materials in history" when training its Llama AI models, as reported earlier by The New York Times. In their suit, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier, Hachette, Cengage, and author Scott Turow allege that Meta "repeatedly copied" their books and journal articles without permission.

The lawsuit accuses Meta of knowingly ripping copyrighted work from "notorious pirate sites," such as LibGen, Anna's Archive, Sci-Hub, Sci-Mag, and others, and then feeding that material in …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft’s new Xbox shake-up is all about platform changes

Vector illustration of the Xbox logo.

Microsoft's new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, has spent the past couple of months making her mark on the Xbox organization. After focusing on highly requested Xbox console features, reducing the price of Game Pass, and moving Microsoft Gaming back to Xbox, Sharma is reorganizing the Xbox platform team at Microsoft today.

The changes will see some veterans depart, promotions, and new faces with more technical expertise to help the Xbox platform team. Jared Palmer, who used to work with Sharma in Microsoft's CoreAI division, is joining Xbox as VP of engineering and a technical adviser to Sharma. In a memo to Xbox employees, seen by The Verge, Shar …

Read the full story at The Verge.

From Alan Shepard to Artemis, celebrating 65 years of Americans in space

photo of Alan Shepard
Astronaut Alan Shepard, May 5th, 1961. | Photo: Photo12 / UIG / Getty Images

On the morning of May 5th, 1961, 37-year-old Alan Shepard woke up, ate a breakfast (consisting of a filet mignon wrapped in bacon, scrambled eggs, and orange juice), strapped into the Freedom 7 rocket, and blasted off into space, becoming the first American astronaut to do so.

Shepard's historic flight - and the first crewed flight of Project Mercury - did two things. It demonstrated that after getting beat to space by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, America was still in the race. And it proved the United States could safely send a human into space and back, helping to restore national confidence during the Cold War. Shepard's flight only l …

Read the full story at The Verge.