According to a New York Times report, on Thursday, the U.S. government’s General Services Administration (GSA) removed the spoon emoji as an option that users of its videoconferencing platform can select to express themselves. The move comes a day after workers embraced the digital cutlery to protest the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” resignation … Read more
Intro The Asus Zenfone used to be the only “compact flagship” among Androids. But that ended with the Zenfone 10. Since the Zenfone 11, Asus slapped the Ultra moniker to the phones and start making them huge. Galaxy Ultra level huge. Now, the Zenfone 12 Ultra follows suit, housed in the same chassis — quite … Read more
A clearer picture of Bench’s downfall is emerging thanks to newly-released bankruptcy filings. The records show that the Canada-based startup, which ironically enough offered cloud accounting software for small businesses, consistently struggled to reach profitability. It burned through $135 million from its founding in 2012 to September 2024. By the time of its collapse, Bench … Read more
Scout Motors’ plan to eschew traditional dealerships and sell EVs directly to consumers is running into legal trouble. A group of Volkswagen and Audi dealers filed a lawsuit this week against Scout Motors, the EV that spun out of Volkswagen. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Automotive News, seeks to block Scout’s direct-to-consumer sales … Read more
Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi … Read more
Intro The Pixel “a” series is a fan favorite since its first iteration. How can it not be, when it offers so much of the flagship Pixel experience for a price that is a few hundred bucks lower than the high-end Pixels Google sells. This year we are expecting the Pixel 9a to continue building … Read more
Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions confirmed to TechCrunch that it sells its products to the U.S. government and other unspecified allied countries. Paragon’s executive chairman John Fleming said in a statement to TechCrunch on Tuesday that “Paragon licenses its technology to a select group of global democracies — principally, the United States and its allies.” … Read more
Google removed a pledge to not build AI for weapons or surveillance from its website this week. The change was first spotted by Bloomberg. The company appears to have updated its public AI principles page, erasing a section titled “applications we will not pursue,” which was still included as recently as last week. Asked for … Read more
As a university student, Dalton Signor was troubled by how many people around him smoked or vaped, including his grandmother and 14-year-old sister. Signor (pictured center) felt that existing smoking cessation medicines, whether patches, gums, or lozenges, are not very effective because they take too long to start working. “They take about 30 minutes to … Read more
Intro Google has the habit of releasing a sort-of-budget version of its Pixel phones midway through the latest model’s lifecycle. The Pixel “a” series typically come with a cheaper build maybe a different camera sensor, but all the Google brains inside, including the same Tensor chip that powers the big boys. This year, it should … Read more
