The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a revised proposal of an attempt made a year ago with federal Judge Amit Mehta, urging the breakup of Google by forcing it to divest its Chrome browser and potentially change its Android practices. The proposal cites Google's monopoly control as the main problem, as the DOJ argues it "denies users of a basic American value - the ability to choose in the marketplace." However, the revised document would allow Google to pay Apple for unrelated services and requires notification before any new AI investments, a notable shift from previous demands.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has rolled out a custom, safe-for-government-use AI chatbot called GSAi to around 1,500 government workers as it continues to slash the federal headcount, according to Wired. An internal memo regarding GSAi, a chatbot that has been in the works for months, suggests employees use it for general tasks like drafting emails, summarizing text, and writing code, though plans to have it analyze contracts and procure data are underway. However, for now, GSAi remains "about as good as an intern" with "generic and guessable" responses, according to some employees.
Starting this fall, China's capital, Beijing, will require all of its schools, from elementary to high schools, to provide at least eight hours of AI instruction per academic year, according to a report by Business Insider. Announced by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, the mandate's goal is to foster a "teacher-student-machine" learning model and integrate AI ethics - and China isn't alone on this. California passed a law last year requiring education boards to at least consider AI literacy in school curricula, while Italy began testing AI tools in 15 classrooms to boost students' digital skills.
After company insider fears surfaced not long ago, Apple itself confirmed the bad news for Siri, announcing the delay of its "more personalized Siri." Originally unveiled at WWDC last year together with Apple Intelligence, the upgrade was marketed as the "next big step for Apple," aiming to give Siri the ability to understand personal context as a "conversational" chatbot. This delay comes amid growing criticism that Apple, and Siri by extension, is lagging behind modern AI assistants, with some believing that even augmenting it with ChatGPT may not be enough.
The developer behind Cursor, Anysphere, is reportedly in talks with venture capitalists to raise funding at an updated valuation of nearly $10 billion, expected to be led by the returning Thrive Capital. This follows a previous round that valued the company at $2.5 billion based on $100 million annualized recurring revenue (ARR), which may now have grown to $150 million, as investors seem more than willing to bet big on AI coding - 66 times ARR by the looks of it. Other AI coding startups, such as Codeium and Poolside, have also been garnering plenty of investor attention.