Technology

Google Launches Pixel 11 Lineup With Tensor G6, Starting at $899

Google announced the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL on August 12 at its Made by Google event in New York. Prices start at $899, all three run the new Tensor G6 chip, base storage doubles to 256GB, and the phones ship August 20.

Technology

Anthropic Builds In-House Custom Silicon Team to Design Chips for Claude

Anthropic confirmed on August 5 that it is assembling a custom silicon team to design its own AI chips, posting chip-design roles at $320,000 to $485,000 while keeping its AWS, Google, Nvidia and AMD hardware.

Technology

Google's Gemini 3.5 Pro Misses Its June Target With No New Release Date

Google promised Gemini 3.5 Pro in June at I/O 2026, and a widely reported July 17 date has passed too. Bloomberg reports the flagship model fell short of internal targets on coding; Google says it is testing with partners and has named no new date.

Culture

Google and Idris Elba to Fund AI Tool Access for African Creators

Alphabet's Google and actor Idris Elba are partnering to fund African creators' access to AI production tools, part of Elba's broader push to build creative infrastructure across the continent.

Technology

SpaceX's AI Compute Deals With Anthropic, Google, and Reflection Top $76 Billion

SpaceX has signed compute-rental deals with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection worth more than $76 billion through 2029, becoming the AI compute landlord to the very rivals it competes with.

Technology

Google Publishes Agentic Resource Discovery Spec Backed by Microsoft, Nvidia, and GitHub

Google published Agentic Resource Discovery, an open specification that lets AI agents locate and verify tools and other agents across the web, with launch backing from Microsoft, Nvidia, GitHub, Hugging Face, and Salesforce.

Technology

Alphabet Joins Dow Jones Industrial Average, Replacing Verizon

S&P Dow Jones Indices will add Alphabet to the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 29, replacing Verizon and putting the five most valuable US tech companies all in the index.

Technology

Google Invests $75 Million in A24 in First Movie-Studio Stake

Google is investing about $75 million in A24 — its first stake in a movie studio — in an AI research partnership with DeepMind to build filmmaking tools.

Technology

Apple Will Run Private Cloud Compute on Google Cloud With Nvidia Blackwell GPUs

Apple's Private Cloud Compute, built to run only on Apple silicon, is expanding to Google Cloud on Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs to power the new Gemini-based Siri — with Nvidia confidential computing meant to preserve the privacy promise.

Technology

Google Engineer Charged With Using Internal Search Data to Net $1.2M on Polymarket

SDNY prosecutors charged Michele Spagnuolo, a 12-year Google staff infosec engineer, with using internal Year-in-Search data to bet $2.7M across 25 Polymarket outcomes and net $1.2M — including the winning pick that d4vd would be 2025's most-searched person. CFTC filed parallel civil case.

Technology

Google Launches Gemini Spark Personal Agent for Ultra Subscribers

Google introduced Gemini Spark, a 24/7 personal AI agent that runs on Cloud VMs and integrates with Gmail, Docs, and third-party tools via MCP. Beta rolls out to Google AI Ultra subscribers next week.

Technology

Google Previews Android 17 'Gemini Intelligence' Ahead of Apple's WWDC

Google previewed Android 17 with a "Gemini Intelligence" branding on May 12, four weeks before Apple's WWDC keynote. The agentic features Google demoed are the gap Apple has to close on June 8.