Global AI Picks — Top Tech Media Coverage

The Gemini-Powered Google Home Speaker Is Finally Here

Arriving six years after Google’s last smart speaker, the new HomePod-style device was redesigned to play host to Gemini’s chatbot.

AIN

Google Cloud generative AI automates council planning operations

Government ministries are deploying Google Cloud generative AI across municipal agencies to automate council planning operations. Public sector administration handles vast volumes of unstructured data that delay infrastructure development. The UK central government established a target to construct 1.5 million new homes by 2029. Local planning authorities encounter administrative backlogs caused by dense paperwork, delaying […] The post Google Cloud generative AI automates council planning

TC

Pinterest launches an experimental AI shopping app called ‘Ask Pinterest’

Pinterest has launched 'Ask Pinterest,' an experimental AI-powered shopping app that lets users seek recommendations and inspiration through a conversational interface.

TC

DeepL acquires Mixhalo for live-event audio streaming and translation

With this acquisition, DeepL is opening an office in San Francisco to expand its U.S. business.

MIT

Hacking the atmosphere: Geoengineering gets a reality check

Jim Franke pulls away the cover page of a presentation on the wraparound desk in his office, revealing an illustration of an odd-looking aircraft with massive wings stretching out from a stubby fuselage. The uncrewed plane is soaring thousands of meters higher than commercial jets fly—so high you can see the curvature of the Earth.…

MIT

Entrepreneurs in Nairobi make the case for going solar

Most of Kenya’s power grid runs on renewables. But with 25% of communities lacking centralized electricity, the nation is looking to off-grid solar to hit its goal of delivering universal electricity access by 2030 without driving up emissions. The ever-improving economics of solar technology have helped. A couple of years ago, a panel cost about…

ARS

Trump admin tries to block Clean Air Act lawsuit over xAI's gas turbines

NAACP lawsuit says xAI uses gas turbines without permits for Grok data center.

TC

Anthropic’s latest feud with the Trump admin may actually help it, sales data suggests

Anthropic's popularity with business users is growing so well that the latest beef with the government might actually boost it, data from Ramp suggests.

MIT

Exclusive eBook: How AI is becoming the next military advisor

A collection of stories about how militaries are using AI models to make decisions. This subscriber-only eBook is a package of six stories that were originally published in MIT Technology Review between April 11, 2025, and April 21, 2026, and have been updated to reflect recent developments. by James O’Donnell Choose which file format to…

ARS

Anthropic "pauses" token-based billing for its Claude Agent SDK

Move originally planned for Monday would have heavily increased power users' costs.

TC

SpaceX valuation balloons to $2.6T, briefly passes Amazon

SpaceX's valuation has increased by $1 trillion since its shares started trading on Friday.

ARS

Leaked financial docs show OpenAI is losing billions of dollars a year

Audited accounting shows growing revenues being dwarfed by R&D, other expenses.

ARS

SpaceX to acquire AI coding platform Cursor for $60 billion

Separately, neither could compete. Now they hope they can.

TC

Sixty percent of US consumers say ‘AI’ in brand messaging is a turnoff, survey finds

WordPress VIP’s latest survey suggests consumers are wary of AI-generated answers even as companies increasingly view AI search as an important referral channel.

WD

‘Dangerous’ AI Models Are Coming No Matter What

The US government crackdown on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 hides a glaring truth: AI models with advanced hacking capabilities will soon be the norm.

TC

Android 17 launches with new multitasking tools as Google expands Gemini features

Google has released Android 17 and Wear OS 7, introducing new multitasking features, parental controls, security tools, and smartwatch upgrades. The launch is also accompanied by a Pixel Drop that brings Google’s latest AI models to its devices.

ARS

Pentagon boasts of using AI to write reports mandated by Congress

Pentagon also claims 1.5 million personnel are using generative AI tools.

TC

Robinhood’s note on 10% layoffs shows blaming AI isn’t cutting it

Unlike many of his tech industry peers who have cut thousands of jobs citing the need to restructure to make the most of AI, Robinhood's CEO Vlad Tenev conspicuously made no mention of AI in his note about layoffs.

TC