On Tuesday, Google’s employees gathered for an all-hands meeting named T.G.I.F. These companywide meetings are rarely held on Fridays these days, but the name has stuck. Executives shared highlights from a recent earnings report and cloud-computing conference, and warned workers against taking disruptive actions in the wake of internal protests against a cloud-computing contract with … Read more
The U.S. government’s landmark antitrust trial against Google’s search business is nearing its conclusion. But the parade of major federal cases challenging Big Tech’s power is just getting going. Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission started investigating Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, the parent company of Instagram and WhatsApp, … Read more
Listen to and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube We asked listeners to tell us about the wildest ways they have been using artificial intelligence at work. This week, we bring you their stories. Then, Hank Green, a legendary YouTuber, stops by to talk about how creators are reacting to the prospect … Read more
Difficulties have been piling up for Apple. In recent months, it has been sued by the Justice Department, fined by European regulators and challenged by the resurgence of a Chinese smartphone competitor. On Thursday, the company added to its list of problems, reporting that its business was in a slump. Apple said sales fell 4 … Read more
One of Amit P. Mehta’s first cases after becoming a federal judge in late 2014 proved to be a crash course in antitrust. Sysco, the nation’s largest distributor of food to restaurants and cafeterias, was trying to buy the rival US Foods, and the Federal Trade Commission had sued to block the $3.5 billion deal, … Read more
An article on a fake online news outlet that Meta has linked to Russia’s information operations attributed the clashes unfolding on American college campuses to the failures of the Biden administration. A newspaper controlled by the Communist Party of China said the police crackdowns exposed the “double standards and hypocrisy” in the United States when … Read more
The judge overseeing a landmark U.S. antitrust challenge to Google tried to poke holes in both sides’ cases during closing arguments Thursday, as he weighs a ruling that could reshape the technology industry. Judge Amit P. Mehta was presiding over the first day of closing arguments in the most consequential tech antitrust case since the … Read more
The biggest U.S. challenge so far to the vast power of today’s tech giants has reached its climax. On Thursday and Friday, lawyers for the Justice Department, state attorneys general and Google will deliver their final arguments in a yearslong case — U.S. et al. v. Google — over whether the tech giant broke federal … Read more
A pair of glasses from Meta shoots a picture when you say, “Hey, Meta, take a photo.” A miniature computer that clips to your shirt, the Ai Pin, translates foreign languages into your native tongue. An artificially intelligent screen features a virtual assistant that you talk to through a microphone. Last year, OpenAI updated its … Read more
Amazon reported its highest first-quarter profit on Tuesday as it continued to wring efficiencies out of its retail business and recharge growth in its cloud computing operations. The company was also for the first time on track to have $100 billion in annual cloud computing sales. The company had $143.3 billion in revenue in the … Read more