Google has set the date for its next I/O developer conference. This year, the annual event will take place over two days starting on May 20, the company announced on Tuesday. As in previous years, the conference will feature an in-person component at the Shoreline Amphitheatre right on the company's doorstep in Mountain View, California. "We'll start day one with keynotes, followed by breakout sessions, workshops, demos, networking opportunities and more continuing on day two," Google said. In a separate email the company sent to Engadget, it promised to share updates on Gemini and Android, alongside new innovations related to web and cloud development.

This week in tech: Elon Musk and Donald Trump flood the zone and deploy brinkmanship as a negotiating tactic; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement learns search engine optimization amid arrests and deportations; and Spotify tries to soften its algorithmic image with human-centric public relations. Donald Trump has issued a record number of executive orders since his presidency began: ending birthright citizenship, banning gender transitions for anyone under 19, pardoning the rioters of the January 6 attack, and more. Elon Musk, the world's richest man in charge of the "department of government efficiency", has raided an equally dizzying swath of federal agencies with the stated goal of "slashing waste, fraud, and abuse". Among the half-dozen bureaus are the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, Department of Labor and, most viciously, the US Agency for International Development (USAid). Trump and Musk are doing their utmost to "flood the zone" – a tactic that the former Trump administration strategist Steve Bannon has touted as one that will purposefully overwhelm the opposition and the media.

SoftBank Group will spend 3 billion a year to adopt and deploy OpenAI technology throughout its operations, while the two companies have agreed to form a joint venture to market the artificial intelligence as an enterprise solution. "This initiative will not only transform the way SoftBank Group operates but also revolutionize the way companies work in Japan and around the globe," SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said in a statement Monday. The technology, which the company describes as an advanced enterprise AI called Cristal intelligence, will be used at all companies under the SoftBank group, including Arm, Line and PayPay, to improve productivity and drive innovation. For instance, SoftBank's telecom unit plans to make more than 100 million workflows automated, the company said in the press release.

Coca-Cola's new futuristic flavor was co-created using artificial intelligence. Some Americans said it tasted better than the original recipe, but others couldn't stomach a whole can. Coca-Cola is debuting a new flavor – and it's got a hint of citrus in it. Coca-Cola Orange Cream will be available nationwide starting Feb. 10, the Atlanta-based soda company announced on Monday morning. Described as "the delicious taste of Coca-Cola infused with refreshing orange and smooth, creamy vanilla flavors," Coca-Cola Orange Cream will also be available in a Zero Sugar version.

The 2025 Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday, and two New Yorker films are among the contenders. "Incident," which uses body-camera and surveillance footage to examine a police shooting in Chicago, is nominated in the Documentary Short Film category, while "I'm Not a Robot," a darkly humorous Dutch film about a woman taking a series of CAPTCHA tests, is nominated for best Live Action Short. Seventeen previous New Yorker films have been nominated for Academy Awards; a victory at this year's ceremony, scheduled for March 2nd in Los Angeles, would be the magazine's first win. "Incident," directed by Bill Morrison, who produced with Jamie Kalven, chronicles a police killing and its aftermath. On a Chicago sidewalk, an African American man named Harith (Snoop) Augustus is questioned and then pursued by a foot patrol after leaving the barbershop where he works; after a brief scuffle, he is fatally wounded.

DJI has lifted its geofence that prevents users in the US from flying over restricted areas like nuclear power plants, airports and wildfires, the company wrote in a blog post on Monday. As of January 13th, areas previously called "restricted zones" or no-fly zones will be shown as "enhanced warning zones" that correspond to designated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) areas. DJI's Fly app will display a warning about those areas but will no longer stop users from flying inside them, the company said. In the article, DJI wrote that the "in-app alerts will notify operators flying near FAA designated controlled airspace, placing control back in the hands of the drone operators, in line with regulatory principles of the operator bearing final responsibility." It added that technologies like Remote ID [introduced after DJI implemented geofencing] gives authorities "the tools needed to enforce existing rules," DJI's global policy chief Adam Welsh told The Verge.

At CES last year, Sony teased an AR/VR headset prototype focused on "spatial content creation." And at the same time, Siemens announced it was working with Sony to use that same hardware, including the two new controllers it developed, for something it was calling the "industrial metaverse." That's a lot of buzzwords, but at CES 2025 both Siemens and Sony showed the headsets and associated software in action which helped clear up a lot of what the companies are trying to do here. During Sony's CES press conference, it announced its XYN brand of software and hardware solutions, with the headset being a key part of the equation. The XYN "spatial capture solution" uses mirrorless cameras to scan and make photorealistic 3D objects. Using the XYN headset, you can see those objects in 3D production software for animation, video games and other potential uses.

The world's first'city of the future' is nearly ready to welcome its first residents. Developed by car maker Toyota, 'Woven City' sits at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan and features at least 11 'smart' homes powered by hydrogen, AI and other technologies. CEO Akio Toyoda said the 10 billion utopia would serve as a'lab' for innovators to develop the technologies of tomorrow. The city is poised to welcome its first 100 residents, which will be employees, this fall, who will live there for free -- though they'll need to already be Toyota employees and work on developing experimental tech for the company. The program will then expand to 2,200 more people, who will include innovators and their families, parents and pets.

The Sony CES 2025 keynote will begin soon and you can watch it, and follow our coverage live, right here. The Afeela electric vehicle dominated Sony's 2023 and 2024 CES press conferences and it appears that trend will continue this year, with an appearance at the Sony event (and a followup press conference) already confirmed. This represents a change for Sony, a CES mainstay company, as it's better known for its decades in the consumer electronics space with its Walkman portables and Trinitron TVs of old along with next-gen PlayStation consoles and Alpha cameras. The Afeela is the first product from Sony Honda Mobility, a joint venture between the Japanese electronics and transportation giants. After a surprise rollout at CES 2023, the Sony CES presser teed up additional details on the EV's LiDAR-heavy sensor array and AI-enhanced cabin tech (the latter coming with an assist from Microsoft) at CES 2024.

If you grew up wishing you could taste Bruce Bogtrotter's chocolate cake, you'll be happy to hear that your dream may soon be a reality. Samsung's new televisions will be able to teach you to cook any dish you see at the press of a button. As revealed today at CES in Las Vegas, this is possible thanks to a new AI that'recognizes the food on your screen and provides recipes for bringing it to life'. That means you'll soon be able to bake along with the Great British Bake Off or recreate all the delicious food from movies like Chef. Dubbed'Samsung Food', the tech giant revealed that this futuristic feature would be coming to TVs released this year.