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 Tim Cook today told employees he plans to be at Apple "for a long time" in his new role as executive chairman. Cook shared the information in an all-hands meeting detailed by Bloomberg.
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The soon-to-exit Apple CEO went all in on services. Now, the incoming CEO, John Ternus, will need to embrace the AI era.
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Commentary: Apple is seriously at risk of missing the foldables boat if it doesn't act soon.
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Google announced today that it is upgrading the Gemini for Home service with a "continued conversations" feature. Continued conversation allows a user to have a natural discussion with the Gemini platform without prefacing every follow-up request with the "Hey Google" prompt. The microphone will remain active on a smart device for a few seconds after the Gemini AI assistant provides its reply. During that window, the lights on the hardware will pulse or glow, indicating that you can keep chatting normally with the chatbot without needing a wake word. Gemini should retain the context as the conversation progresses, which should allow it to provide the desired information faster without the need for a user to repeat key details.
The feature is rolling out today for all Gemini for Home voice assistant languages and in all supported regions. Continued conversations have to be manually enabled in the Google Home app through the settings menu under "Gemini for Home voice assistant." Google said that Gemini should be able to distinguish between follow-up questions addressed to the chatbot and other conversations happening in a room, but it should be interesting to track how successful that is given the past history of voice assistants unintentionally eavesdropping.
Continued conversation was an option under the Google Assistant platform, but it had more limited availability. Google has been preparing Gemini for Home as a
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Xbox is cutting the prices of both Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, effective immediately, but there's one big caveat. First, the good news: Game Pass Ultimate now costs $23 per month, down from $30. PC Game Pass will now run you $14 a month instead of $16.50. The Xbox team noted in a blog post that prices may vary by region.
That's a smart, much-needed decision. In a memo that leaked last week, new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma expressed concern over the high price of Game Pass, stating that it "has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around." Sharma reiterated that publicly in a post on X.
Future Call of Duty titles will no longer join Game Pass Ultimate on day one. They will join this tier the following holiday after launch (about…
— Asha (@asha_shar) April 21, 2026
In October, Microsoft
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Amazon and Anthropic are strengthening their ties once again, with steep financial commitments made on both sides. Today, Amazon announced that it will invest $5 billion in the AI company, along with as much as $20 billion in additional payments if certain milestones are met. This news follows the initial $4 billion investment Amazon made in Anthropic in 2023 and a second $4 billion round from 2024.
On Anthropic's side, it has committed to continued use of Amazon's custom Trainium silicon for its AI models. The latest agreement will see Anthropic promising to spend more than $100 billion on AWS technologies over the coming decade. It will secure up to 5 gigawatts of current and future chip capacity for training and powering its models. Their partnership is also bringing Anthropic's Claude platform to Amazon Web Services customers within the AWS portal, removing the need for additional credentials.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-will-invest-up-to-25-billion-in-anthropic-in-a-broad-deal-225239302.html?src=rss
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 Buying an updated iPhone is like getting a new Ferrari -- you'll find a faster engine, a new coat of paint, and a few new bells and whistles, but beneath all that it's still basically the same car you could have bought last year.
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