Apple and Google have confirmed that Gemini's models power the new version of Siri and other generative AI features. Here's part of it: "Apple determined that Google's Al technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models Apple Intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards." In June, it was reported that Apple was considering partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic for Siri (the voice assistant can currently tap ChatGPT for certain queries as part of Apple Intelligence). Two months later, Google emerged as a contender. Another report suggested Apple might build the new Siri using a custom version of Gemini -- and that it would pay Google around $1 billion a year for the privilege.

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Reid Hoffman Wants Silicon Valley to'Stand Up' Against the Trump Administration The LinkedIn cofounder and frequent Trump target has a simple message for his peers: "Just speak up about the things that you think are true." Reid Hoffman doesn't do much in half measures. He cofounded LinkedIn, of course, and helped bankroll companies including Meta and Airbnb in their startup days. He has also fashioned himself, via books, podcasts, and other public appearances, as something of a public intellectual--a pro-capitalist philosopher who still insists that tech can be a force for good. Most recently, Hoffman has emerged as one of Silicon Valley's most prominent defenders of artificial intelligence . His newest book, 2025's, makes the case that AI won't diminish human capacity but will instead amplify it. Hoffman even relied on AI to make one of the most unconventional--and perhaps uncomfortable, depending on your view of AI-generated creativity--Christmas gifts I've heard of lately. Whatever you think of Hoffman's utopian views on AI, credit where due: He's also a very outspoken critic of President Trump--a rare trait in a tech world that's grown increasingly quiet, or cozy, when it comes to the cruelties of the US administration. Hoffman's overt political views haven't been without consequence: Trump has twice threatened to launch investigations into him, most recently calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to dig into Hoffman's ties to Jeffrey Epstein . He has subsequently called for the government to release the Epstein files in full.) Despite those threats, Hoffman isn't pulling punches: When we sat down to tape this episode in mid-December, he readily called out the administration for degrading American government, criticized his peers for keeping their heads down, and urged Silicon Valley to stop pretending that neutrality is a virtue. If only more billionaires were saying it. So glad to have you here. I'm glad to be here. We like to start these conversations with some very fast questions. What's the hardest lesson you've ever had to learn? Probably when to give up.

If you want to put people back on the moon, don't gut the agency in charge of getting them there. The senator wanted a promise. For the last six years--or maybe the last decade or quarter century, depending on how you count it--the United States and China had been locked in a space race, a contest to see which nation could put its people on the moon . Senator Ted Cruz wanted President Donald Trump's nominee to run NASA, Jared Isaacman, to pledge that the US would not lose. Cruz brought a little surprise to Isaacman's confirmation hearing last April. It was a poster of the moon. On one side stood three astronauts and a giant Chinese flag. On the other were two more figures in space suits, with the tiniest Stars and Stripes planted in the lunar soil . Cruz apologized for the imbalance. "My team used ChatGPT," explained the senator, who chairs the committee that oversees NASA. Then Cruz, with a bit more seriousness, asked Isaacman, "Do we have your commitment that you will not allow the scenario on the right of this poster to happen? That China will not beat us to the moon?" Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who had paid for his own missions to space, replied, "Senator, I only see the left-hand portion of that poster."

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. New LAFD chief won't look into who watered down Palisades fire report Deputy Chief Jaime Moore fields questions from city council members before being confirmed as the new LAFD chief after a unanimous vote by the L.A. City Council on Nov. 14. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . LAFD Chief Jaime Moore said he is taking a forward-looking approach and not seeking to assign blame for changes to the report.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed 27 people in a reported drone attack on a Sudanese army base in the southeastern city of Sinja, a military source told Al Jazeera. Monday's attack coincided with an announcement a day prior that the government, aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), would be returning to the capital, Khartoum, three years after it had shifted its base of operations to Port Sudan. The military source, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said Monday's drone attack targeted not only leaders in the government forces but also the security teams and civilians accompanying them. It was unclear how many people were wounded in the attack. Al Jazeera received reports that 13 people were injured, while some estimates have put the number much higher.

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Russian drone attack kills 4 in Ukraine's Kharkiv as peace remains elusive A Russian drone attack on Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv has killed at least four people and wounded six, officials have said, just hours after Washington accused Moscow of "dangerous and inexplicable escalation" of the war and as a peace deal remains distant. Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Tuesday that the death toll from the attack on the outskirts of the frequently targeted city, just 30km (19 miles) from the border, had risen to four.

The sociology professor is suitably comfortable with AI helpers that he creates his own - it's their inventors' motives and unregulated environment he argues we should be concerned about I f much of the discussion of AI risk conjures doomsday scenarios of hyper-intelligent bots brandishing nuclear codes, perhaps we should be thinking closer to home. In his urgent, humane book, sociologist James Muldoon urges us to pay more attention to our deepening emotional entanglements with AI, and how profit-hungry tech companies might exploit them. A research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute who has previously written about the exploited workers whose labour makes AI possible, Muldoon now takes us into the uncanny terrain of human-AI relationships, meeting the people for whom chatbots aren't merely assistants, but friends, romantic partners, therapists, even avatars of the dead. To some, the idea of falling in love with an AI chatbot, or confiding your deepest secrets to one, might seem mystifying and more than a little creepy. But Muldoon refuses to belittle those seeking intimacy in "synthetic personas".

'Genius' chimpanzee Ai dies in Japan at 49 Studies involving Ai, a genius chimpanzee who has died at the age of 49, are said to have revealed various aspects of the chimpanzee mind. Ai, a genius chimpanzee that could recognize more than 100 Chinese characters and the English alphabet, has died at the age of 49, Japanese researchers have said. Ai, whose name meant love in Japanese, took part in studies on perception, learning and memory that advanced our understanding of primate intelligence, the Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior at Kyoto University said in a statement. She died Friday from multiple organ failure and ailments related to old age, the school said. Aside from mastering Chinese characters and the alphabet, Ai could also identify the Arabic numerals from zero to nine and 11 colors, primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa said in 2014.

New York governor Kathy Hochul says she will propose a new law allowing limited autonomous vehicle pilots in smaller cities. Full-blown services could be next. As self-driving car services from Alphabet's Waymo, Amazon's Zoox, and Tesla have slowly, quietly expanded across the US, one big, important state has mostly stayed mum: New York . The union's fourth most populous state has some of the tightest laws governing autonomous vehicles, requiring companies approved to test in the state to only do so with a driver behind the wheel. There's no current path for companies to operate the sort of commercial robotaxi services like the sort seen in San Francisco or Las Vegas.