Tech News
Nvidia Details New AI Chips and Autonomous Car Project With Mercedes
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 19:15:00 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: On Monday, [Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chip-making giant Nvidia] said the company would begin shipping a new A.I. chip later this year, one that can do more computing with less power than previous generations of chips could. Known as the Vera Rubin, the chip has been in development for three years and is designed to fulfill A.I. requests more quickly and cheaply than its predecessors. Mr. Huang, who spoke during CES, an annual tech conference in Las Vegas, also discussed Nvidia's surprisingly ambitious work around autonomous vehicles. This year, Mercedes-Benz will begin shipping cars equipped with Nvidia self-driving technology comparable to Tesla's Autopilot. Nvidia's new Rubin chips are being manufactured and will be shipped to customers, including Microsoft and Amazon, in the second half of the year, fulfilling a promise Mr. Huang made last March when he first described the chip at the company's annual conference in San Jose, Calif. Companies will be able to train A.I. models with one-quarter as many Rubin chips as its predecessor, the Blackwell. It can provide information for chatbots and other A.I. products for one-tenth of the cost. They will also be able to install the chips in data centers more quickly, courtesy of redesigned supercomputers that feature fewer cables. If the new chips live up to their promise, they could allow companies to develop A.I. at a lower cost and at least begin to respond to the soaring electrical demands of data centers being built around the world. [...] On Monday, he said Nvidia had developed new A.I. software that would allow customers like Uber and Lucid to develop cars that navigate roads autonomously. It will share the system, called Alpamayo, to spread its influence and the appeal of Nvidia's chip technology. Since 2020, Nvidia has been working with Mercedes to develop a class of self-driving cars. They will begin shipping an early example of their collaboration when Mercedes CLA cars become available in the first half of the year in Europe and the United States. Mr. Huang said the company started working on self-driving technology eight years ago. It has more than a thousand people working on the project. "Our vision is that someday, every single car, every single truck, will be autonomous," Mr. Huang said. The Rubin chips are named for the astronomer Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who helped find powerful evidence of dark matter. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Will Now Only Release Android Source Code Twice a Year
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 18:30:00 Source: slashdot
Google will begin releasing Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source code only twice a year starting in 2026. "In the past, Google would release the source code for every quarterly Android release, of which there are four each year," notes Android Authority. From the report: Google told Android Authority that, effective 2026, Google will publish new source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4. The reason is to ensure platform stability for the Android ecosystem and better align with Android's trunk-stable development model. Developers navigating to source.android.com today will see a banner confirming the change that reads as follows: "Effective in 2026, to align with our trunk-stable development model and ensure platform stability for the ecosystem, we will publish source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4. For building and contributing to AOSP, we recommend utilizing android-latest-release instead of aosp-main. The aosp-latest-release manifest branch will always reference the most recent release pushed to AOSP. For more information, see Changes to AOSP." A spokesperson for Google offered some additional context on this decision, stating that it helps simplify development, eliminates the complexity of managing multiple code branches, and allows them to deliver more stable and secure code to Android platform developers. The spokesperson also reiterated that Google's commitment to AOSP is unchanged and that this new release schedule helps the company build a more robust and secure foundation for the Android ecosystem. Finally, Google told us that its process for security patch releases will not change and that the company will keep publishing security patches each month on a dedicated security-only branch for relevant OS releases just as it does today. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Nvidia's New G-Sync Pulsar Monitors Target Motion Blur at the Human Retina Level
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 16:00:00 Source: slashdot
Nvidia's G-Sync Pulsar technology, first announced nearly two years ago as a solution to display motion blur caused by old images persisting on the viewer's retina, is finally arriving in consumer monitors this week. The first four Pulsar-equipped displays -- from Acer, AOC, Asus and MSI -- hit select retailers on Wednesday, all sharing the same core specs: 27-inch IPS panels running at 1440p resolution and up to 360 Hz refresh rates. Nvidia claims the technology delivers the "effective motion clarity of a theoretical 1,000 Hz monitor." The system uses a rolling scan scheme that pulses the backlight for one-quarter of a frame just before pixels are overwritten, giving them time to fully transition between colors before illumination. The approach also reduces how long old pixels persist on the viewer's retina. Previous "Ultra Low Motion Blur" features on other monitors worked only at fixed refresh rates, but Pulsar syncs its pulses to G-Sync's variable refresh rate. Early reviews are mixed. The Monitors Unboxed YouTube channel called it "clearly the best solution currently available" for limiting motion blur, while PC Magazine described the improvements as "minor in the grand scheme of things" and potentially hard for casual viewers to notice. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Lego Unveils Smart Bricks, Its 'Most Significant Evolution' in 50 years
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 15:15:00 Source: slashdot
The Lego Group today unveiled Smart Bricks, a tiny computer that fits entirely inside a classic 2x4 brick and which the company is calling the most significant evolution in its building system since the introduction of the minifigure in 1978. The Smart Brick contains a custom ASIC smaller than a single Lego stud and includes light and sound output, light sensors, inertial sensors for detecting movement and tilt, and a microphone that functions as a virtual button rather than a recording device. The bricks detect NFC-equipped smart tags embedded in new tiles and minifigures, and they form a Bluetooth mesh network to sense each other's position and orientation. They charge wirelessly on a pad that can handle multiple bricks simultaneously. The first Smart Brick sets ship March 1 and are all Star Wars themed, ranging from a $70 Darth Vader's TIE Fighter at 473 pieces to a $160 Darth Vader's Throne Room Duel at 962 pieces. Lego confirmed there is no AI or camera in the product. The company quietly piloted the technology in a 2024 Lego City set and says Smart Play will continue to expand through new updates and launches. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
UK Urged To Unplug From US Tech Giants as Digital Sovereignty Fears Grow
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 12:30:00 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Open Rights Group is warning politicians that the UK is leaning far too heavily on US tech companies to run critical systems, and wants the Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill to force a rethink. The digital rights outfit says the bill, which is due to receive its second reading in the House of Commons today, represents a rare opportunity to force the government to confront what it sees as a strategic blind spot: the UK's reliance on companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and data analytics biz Palantir for everything from cloud hosting to sensitive public sector systems. "Just as relying on one country for the UK's energy needs would be risky and irresponsible, so is overreliance on US companies to supply the bulk of our digital infrastructure," said James Baker, platform power programme manager at Open Rights Group. He argued that digital infrastructure has become an extension of geopolitical power, and the UK is increasingly vulnerable to decisions taken far beyond Westminster's control. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
'NY Orders Apps To Lie About Social Media Addiction, Will Lose In Court'
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 11:15:00 Source: slashdot
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed S4505, a law that requires websites to display warnings claiming that features like algorithmic feeds, push notifications, infinite scroll, like counts, and autoplay cause addiction -- despite, as TechDirt argues, the absence of scientific consensus supporting such claims. State Senator Andrew Gounardes sponsored the legislation. The law's constitutional footing appears precarious. Courts have already rejected nearly identical compelled-speech schemes, most notably in the Texas pornography age-verification case that reached the Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit, in that case, refused to uphold mandatory health warnings about pornography, ruling that such public health claims were "too contentious and controversial to receive Zauderer scrutiny" -- the legal standard that sometimes permits government-mandated disclosures. The science around social media's purported addictiveness is even more disputed than the pornography research the Fifth Circuit rejected. Hochul's signing statement asserts that studies link increased social media use to anxiety and depression, but researchers in the field note these studies demonstrate correlation rather than causation. Some experts have suggested the causal relationship may run in the opposite direction: teenagers struggling with mental health issues turn to social media for community and coping mechanisms. The law's broad definitions could sweep in far more than major platforms like Facebook and TikTok. News sites, recipe apps, fitness trackers, and email clients could theoretically face enforcement if they employ the targeted features. New York's Attorney General holds sole authority to grant exemptions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Razer Thinks You'd Rather Have AI Headphones Instead of Glasses
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 10:30:00 Source: slashdot
Razer today unveiled Project Motoko, a concept pair of over-ear headphones equipped with dual cameras that the gaming peripherals company believes could serve as an alternative to the smart glasses that have proliferated across the wearable AI market. The headphones feature two 4K cameras positioned on the earcups along with near and far field microphones, all powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. Users can point the cameras at objects and ask questions to AI assistants including those from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Microsoft. Basic queries run locally on the device while more complex requests require a phone or PC connection. Razer's pitch centers on battery life: the wireless headset has achieved up to 36 hours on a charge during testing, according to the company, compared to the eight hours rated for Meta's second-generation Ray-Ban AI glasses. The company also argues that over-ear headphones offer more privacy since audio responses aren't audible to bystanders. The concept remains unfinished, Bloomberg News cautioned. During a product demonstration, the headset's dual cameras failed occasionally to recognize objects even in a moderately lit room. Razer has not committed to final pricing but indicated the headphones would command a "slight premium" over other high-end headphones and would be available later this year. The company's most expensive current headset costs $400. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Stratechery Pushes Back on AI Capital Dystopia Predictions
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 09:15:00 Source: slashdot
Stratechery's Ben Thompson has published a lengthy rebuttal to Dwarkesh Patel and Philip Trammell's widely discussed winter break essay "Capital in the 22nd Century," arguing that even in a world where AI can perform all human jobs, people will still prefer human-created content and human connection. Patel and Trammell's thesis draws on Thomas Piketty's work to argue that once AI renders capital a true substitute for labor, wealth will concentrate among those richest at the moment of transition, making a global progressive capital tax the only solution to prevent extreme inequality. The logic is sound, writes Thompson, but he remains skeptical on several fronts. His first objection: if AI can truly do everything, then everyone can have everything they need, making the question of who owns the robots somewhat moot. His second: a world where AI is capable enough to replace all human labor yet still obeys human property law seems implausible. He finds the AI doomsday scenario -- where such powerful AI becomes uncontrollable -- more realistic than a stable capital-hoarding dystopia. Thompson points to agricultural employment in the U.S., which dropped from 81% in 1810 to 1% today, as evidence that humans consistently create new valuable work after technological displacement. He argues that human preferences for human connection -- from podcasting audiences to romantic partners -- will sustain an economy for human labor simply because it is human. Sora currently ranks 59th in the App Store behind double-digit human-focused social apps, for instance. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
VW Brings Back Physical Buttons
technology - Posted On:2026-01-06 08:15:01 Source: slashdot
sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: Volkswagen is making a drastic change to its interiors, or at least the interiors of its electric vehicles. The automaker recently unveiled a new cockpit generation with the refreshed ID. Polo -- the diminutive electric hatchback that the brand sells in Europe -- that now comes with physical buttons. [...] The steering wheel gets new clusters of buttons for cruise control and interacting with music playback, while switches for the temperature and fan speed now live in a row along the dashboard. The move back to buttons doesn't come out of nowhere. Volkswagen already started the shift with the new versions of the Golf and Tiguan models in the United States. Unfortunately, some climate controls, such as those for the rear defrost and the heated seats, are still accessed through the touchscreen. Thankfully, they look to retain their dedicated spot at the bottom of the display. Volkswagen hasn't announced which models will receive the new cockpit design. The redesigned interior also may be limited to the brand's electric vehicles, which would limit it to the upcoming refresh for the ID.4 SUV (and potentially the ID.Buzz), as the only VW EV models currently sold in America. "Unfortunately, the glued-on-dash tablet look is still there," adds sinij. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GNOME and Firefox Consider Disabling Middle Click Paste By Default
technology - Posted On:2026-01-05 18:30:00 Source: slashdot
Both GNOME and Firefox are considering disabling middle-click paste by default, arguing it's a confusing, accident-prone X11 relic that dumps clipboard contents without warning. Phoronix reports: A merge request for GNOME's gsettings-desktop-schemas was opened this weekend to disable the primary-paste functionality by default that allows using the middle mouse button for pasting. Jordan Petridis argued in that GNOME pull request that middle-click paste is an "X11'ism" and that the setting could remain for those wanting to opt-in to enabling the functionality [...]. The gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-enable-primary-paste true command would be a way of restoring the primary paste (middle click paste) for those desiring the functionality. The decision over the default has been tasked to GNOME's design team for consideration. Separately, Mozilla is also considering disabling middle mouse button paste by default too. [...] Another option being considered is having the option to enable/disable it at either the GTK toolkit level or Wayland compositor level. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Viral Reddit Post About Food Delivery Apps Was an AI Scam
technology - Posted On:2026-01-05 18:00:01 Source: slashdot
A viral Reddit "whistleblower" post accusing a major food delivery app of systemic exploitation is "most likely AI-generated," reports the Verge. From the report: The original post by user Trowaway_whistleblow alleged that an unnamed food delivery company regularly delays customer orders, calls couriers "human assets," and exploits their "desperation" for cash, among other indefensible actions. Nearly 90,000 upvotes and four days later, it's become increasingly clear that the post's text is probably AI-generated. Considering the delivery app industry track record of exploitation of its drivers, it's easy to see why so many people believed this was the real thing. The Verge put the original 586-word Reddit post through several free online AI detectors, in addition to Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. The results were mixed: Copyleaks, GPTZero, Pangram, Gemini, and Claude all pegged it as likely AI-generated, but ZeroGPT and QuillBot both reported it as human-written. ChatGPT played it down the middle. Reached by The Verge on Signal, Trowaway_whistleblow provided an image of an Uber Eats employee badge. That image was generated or edited with Google AI, according to Gemini. The image shows an Uber Eats logo above two black boxes, presumably covering an employee name and photo, and the words "senior software engineer." It's odd that an engineer's badge would have the Uber Eats logo, and not the Uber logo, according to Gemini. That, in addition to slightly misaligned words and warped coloration at the edge of the green border, are reasons Gemini thinks it's inauthentic. (Uber later confirmed that Uber Eats-branded employee badges do not exist.) "Not only are the claims fake, but they're also dead wrong," Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen told The Verge. Uber Eats' Andrew Macdonald wrote on X, "This post is definitively not about us. I suspect it is completely made up. Don't trust everything you read on the internet." DoorDash CEO Tony Xu also denied the redditor's "appalling" allegations. "This is not DoorDash, and I would fire anyone who promoted or tolerated the kind of culture described in this Reddit post," Xu said in a post on X. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
VSCode IDE Forks Expose Users To 'Recommended Extension' Attacks
it - Posted On:2026-01-05 16:00:00 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader shares a report: Popular AI-powered integrated development environment solutions, such as Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity, and Trae, recommend extensions that are non-existent in the OpenVSX registry, allowing threat actors to claim the namespace and upload malicious extensions. These AI-assisted IDEs are forked from Microsoft VSCode, but cannot use the extensions in the official store due to licensing restrictions. Instead, they are supported by OpenVSX, an open-source marketplace alternative for VSCode-compatible extensions. As a result of forking, the IDEs inherit the list of officially recommended extensions, hardcoded in the configuration files, which point to Microsoft's Visual Studio Marketplace. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
UK Government's New Pension Portal Operator Tells Users To Wait for AI Before Complaining
it - Posted On:2026-01-05 15:30:00 Source: slashdot
Capita, the UK outsourcer that won a $323 million contract to administer the nation's Civil Service Pension Scheme for 1.7 million members, has responded to a disastrous portal launch by asking users to hold off on complaints until its new AI chatbots go live. The service launched on December 1 and immediately ran into problems including unrecognized passwords, broken links and placeholder text scattered across unfinished pages. In a December 17 email to members, The Register reports today, managing director Chris Clements said Capita was "working tirelessly" and promised "one of the biggest services in the United Kingdom with AI at its core" by March. He asked users whose enquiries were not urgent to wait until the new year before contacting support again. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google To Kill Gmail's POP3 Mail Fetching
it - Posted On:2026-01-05 14:45:01 Source: slashdot
Google is quietly killing Gmail's ability to fetch mail from third-party email accounts using POP3, a long-standing feature that has allowed users to consolidate multiple inboxes into a single Gmail interface. The change takes effect this month and also ends Gmailify, the companion feature that applied Gmail's spam filtering and inbox organization to linked third-party accounts. Google buried the decision in a support note rather than making any formal announcement. The company's suggested workaround -- switching to IMAP -- doesn't work for all affected users. Users can still access third-party accounts through the Gmail mobile app, but the Gmail service itself will no longer retrieve messages from external providers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Influencers and OnlyFans Models Dominate US 'Extraordinary' Artist Visas
technology - Posted On:2026-01-05 11:45:00 Source: slashdot
The O-1B visa, a work permit reserved for individuals deemed to possess "extraordinary ability" in the arts, has become the pathway of choice for social media influencers and OnlyFans models seeking to build careers in the United States. Immigration attorneys told the Financial Times that influencers now make up more than half their clientele for O-1B applications, a shift that has accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic as lawyers and talent managers have adapted the visa's criteria -- originally designed for traditional artists -- to fit the metrics of online fame. High follower counts and substantial earnings can establish commercial success under the visa's requirements, landing a brand promotion contract can qualify as an endorsement of talent, and appearing at a store opening can count as performing in a "distinguished production." The total number of O-1 visas granted annually increased by more than 50% between 2014 and 2024, even as overall non-immigrant visa issuance grew by just 10%. Fewer than 20,000 O-1 visas were granted in 2024. Some attorneys said they worry the fixation on algorithm-driven metrics could disadvantage traditionally trained artists whose work doesn't generate viral attention. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Workstation Owner Sadly Marks the End-of-Life for HP-UX
technology - Posted On:2026-01-05 00:45:00 Source: slashdot
Wednesday marked the end of support for the last and final version of HP-UX, writes OSNews. They call it "the end of another vestige of the heyday of the commercial UNIX variants, a reign ended by cheap x86 hardware and the increasing popularisation of Linux." I have two HP-UX 11i v1 PA-RISC workstations, one of them being my pride and joy: an HP c8000, the last and fastest PA-RISC workstation HP ever made, back in 2005. It's a behemoth of a machine with two dual-core PA-8900 processors running at 1Ghz, 8 GB of RAM, a FireGL X3 graphics card, and a few other fun upgrades like an internal LTO3 tape drive that I use for keeping a bootable recovery backup of the entire system. It runs HP-UX 11i v1, fully updated and patched as best one can do considering how many patches have either vanished from the web or have never "leaked" from HPE (most patches from 2009 onwards are not available anywhere without an expensive enterprise support contract)... Over the past few years, I've been trying to get into contact with HPE about the state of HP-UX' patches, software, and drivers, which are slowly but surely disappearing from the web. A decent chunk is archived on various websites, but a lot of it isn't, which is a real shame. Most patches from 2009 onwards are unavailable, various software packages and programs for HP-UX are lost to time, HP-UX installation discs and ISOs later than 2006-2009 are not available anywhere, and everything that is available is only available via non-sanctioned means, if you know what I mean. Sadly, I never managed to get into contact with anyone at HPE, and my concerns about HP-UX preservation seem to have fallen on deaf ears. With the end-of-life date now here, I'm deeply concerned even more will go missing, and the odds of making the already missing stuff available are only decreasing. I've come to accept that very few people seem to hold any love for or special attachment to HP-UX, and that very few people care as much about its preservation as I do. HP-UX doesn't carry the movie star status of IRIX, nor the benefits of being available as both open source and on commodity hardware as Solaris, so far fewer people have any experience with it or have developed a fondness for it. As the clocks chimed midnight on New Year's Eve, he advised everyone to "spare a thought for the UNIX everyone forgot still exists." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Microsoft's Risky Bet That Windows Can Become The Platform for AI Agents
technology - Posted On:2026-01-04 13:45:00 Source: slashdot
"Microsoft is hoping that Windows can once again serve as the platform where it all takes off," reports GeekWire: A new framework called Agent Launchers, introduced in December as a preview in the latest Windows Insider build, lets developers register agents directly with the operating system. They can describe an agent through what's known as a manifest, which then lets the agent show up in the Windows taskbar, inside Microsoft Copilot, and across other apps... "We are now entering a phase where we build rich scaffolds that orchestrate multiple models and agents; account for memory and entitlements; enable rich and safe tools use," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a blog post this week looking ahead to 2026. "This is the engineering sophistication we must continue to build to get value out of AI in the real world...." [The article notes Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude will also offer desktop-style agentsthrough browsers and native apps, while Amazon is developing "frontier agents" for automating business processes in the cloud.] But Microsoft's Windows team is betting that agents tightly linked to the operating system will win out over ones that merely run on top of it, just as a new class of Windows apps replaced a patchwork of DOS programs in the early days of the graphical operating system. Microsoft 365 Copilot is using the Agent Launchers framework for first-party agents like Analyst, which helps users dig into data, and Researcher, which builds detailed reports. Software developers will be able to register their own agents when an app is installed, or on the fly based on things like whether a user is signed in or paying for a subscription... Agents are meant to maintain this context across apps, ask follow-up questions, and take actions on a user's behalf. That requires a different level of trust than Windows has ever had to manage, which is already raising difficult questions for the company. Microsoft acknowledges that agents introduce unique security risks. In a support document, the company warned that malicious content embedded in files or interface elements could override an agent's instructions — potentially leading to stolen data or malware installation. To address this, Microsoft says it has built a security framework that runs agents in their own contained workspace, with a dedicated user account that has limited access to user folders. The idea is to create a boundary between the agent and what the rest of the system can access. The agentic features are off by default, and Microsoft is advising users to "understand the security implications of enabling an agent on your computer" before turning them on... There is a business reality driving all of this. In Microsoft's most recent fiscal year, Windows and Devices generated $17.3 billion in revenue — essentially flat for the past three years. That's less than Gaming ($23.5 billion) and LinkedIn ($17.8 billion), and a fraction of the $98 billion in revenue from Azure and cloud services or the nearly $88 billion from Microsoft 365 commercial. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Archboot Adds COSMIC Desktop as a New Install and Rescue Option
technology - Posted On:2026-01-04 11:45:00 Source: slashdot
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Linux news site Linuxiac: Archboot, a guided, user-friendly, menu-driven installer for Arch Linux that automates much of the traditional manual installation process (while still allowing advanced users to intervene when needed), has added the COSMIC desktop environment as a new selectable option. The change is part of Archboot's development cycle leading up to the 2026.01 release and is already available in the latest tagged builds. With COSMIC now integrated, users can boot an Archboot ISO and choose the desktop to either perform a full Arch Linux installation or start a live session for testing and recovery. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Reddit Surges in Popularity to Overtake TikTok in the UK - Thanks to Google's Algorithm?
technology - Posted On:2026-01-04 03:45:00 Source: slashdot
Reddit "has overtaken TikTok as Britain's fourth most-visited social media service," reports the Guardian: The platform has undergone huge growth over the last two years, with an 88% increase in the proportion of UK internet users it reaches. Three in five Brits online now encounter the site, up from a third in 2023, according to Ofcom. Its popularity is rising fastest with younger internet users. It is now the sixth most visited organisation of any kind by UK users aged between 18 and 24, up from 10th a year earlier. More than three-quarters of that cohort now visit it.... The UK is a boom market for the platform, with the second largest user base behind the US, according to company records. A series of factors are behind its rise. However, a change in Google's search algorithms last year to prioritise helpful content from discussion forums appears to have been a significant driver. A recent deal with Google that allows the company to train its AI model on Reddit's content also appears to have provided a boost. Reddit is the most-cited source for Google AI overviews, which is likely to see more people directed to its forums. It has a similar deal with OpenAI, which owns the most popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT. According to the article, Reddit "believes it is also benefiting from shifting internet habits, as younger users seek out human-generated reviews and opinions." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google's $250M Deal with California to Fund Newsrooms May Be Stalled
technology - Posted On:2026-01-03 19:00:00 Source: slashdot
Remember how California's government negotiated a 2024 deal where Google contributed millions to California's local newsrooms to offset advertisers moving to the search engine? "A year after it was cemented — and billed as a model that could succeed where entire countries and continents had fallen short — the agreement is tangled in budget cuts, bureaucratic infighting and unresolved questions about who controls the money," reports Politico, "leaving journalists empty-handed and casting doubt on whether the lofty experiment will ever live up to its promise." The program, initially framed as a nearly $250 million commitment over five years, has secured just $20 million in new money for journalists in its first year, with no guarantee the funding will continue. It's changed hands twice since the University of California, Berkeley withdrew its support [with school officials "worried they wouldn't have enough of a say in how the money was distributed"]. Suggestions that other big tech players like ChatGPT-maker OpenAI could front more resources haven't materialized. A $62.5 million "AI accelerator" tied to the deal hasn't been set up yet. Not a single newsroom has seen a dollar of funding, and there's no definitive timeline spelling out when they will... [The article adds later that state officials "have yet to draft precise rules for how California will decide which newsrooms get cash..."] Conversations with at least 20 people involved in the deal's rollout reveal how California's budget shortfalls and intraparty spats among Democrats scrambled it... California's struggle to launch its program has dampened hopes of replicating its model in other states such as Oregon, Illinois and New York, where lawmakers have tried but failed to make Big Tech pay for news... When [California governor] Newsom unveiled his final state budget plan in May 2025 after a $12 billion deficit suddenly scrambled the state's finances, California's first-year commitment was reduced from $30 million to $10 million. Google followed suit within days and cut its first-year contribution from $15 million to $10 million... Whether the program even continues past 2026 is also unclear. Newsom's office declined to confirm whether the state will provide its $10 million commitment to the fund in the coming 2026-27 state budget. Newsom will also be termed out in 2027, and there's no requirement for his successor to honor the state's agreement with Google. Read more of this story at Slashdot.