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Google ordered to open Android and Search to rivals in Europe

16 July 2026 at 13:06

Google must give rival AI assistants and search engines greater access to key parts of Android and Google Search after the European Union ordered the company to comply with the bloc's digital antitrust rules.

The two decisions, handed down Thursday, could weaken Google's control over two of the tech industry's most important platforms and have far-reaching consequences for the company, shape the future of its AI tool Gemini, and open up new opportunities for rivals to gain ground. Google has until January 2027 to begin sharing search data and July 2027 to implement changes to Android.

The rulings stem from technical regulatory proceedings …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Anthropic got hit by export rules nobody understands

17 June 2026 at 19:28

Anthropic has spent much of this week fighting to get its newest AI models back online after the Trump administration abruptly ordered the company to cut access for all foreign nationals, including users inside the US and its own employees, forcing Anthropic to block access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for everyone.

"To my knowledge, this is the first time US export controls have been used to control access to an AI model in this way."

The Trump administration has not publicly explained the legal basis for the order, but in a statement on its website, Anthropic said the government cited "national security authorities" to justify "an export con …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The next humanoid robot might not look human at all

17 June 2026 at 10:46

The next humanoid robot might not have a head. It might not have legs. It might even sit on a wheeled base and fold down like a deck chair. But, as Genesis AI puts it, "humanoid robots don't need to look human."

That explains the look of Eno, the new robot from the French startup backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Genesis says Eno is designed "around human capability" rather than human appearance and is intended as a fully "general-purpose" robot rather than a machine built around a single task, like folding laundry. One part is still very human though: its hands, which the company says are designed to "exactly match the form and fu …

Read the full story at The Verge.

SpaceX is officially buying Cursor for $60 billion

16 June 2026 at 12:41
Elon Musk with big green arrow pointing up and money falling from the sky.

Days after its massive IPO, SpaceX says it is spending $60 billion to buy Cursor - a bet designed to help Elon Musk's sprawling rocket / AI / social media behemoth win over lucrative enterprise customers and close the gap with AI rivals like Anthropic and OpenAI.

The takeover was not entirely unexpected: SpaceX announced a peculiar arrangement in April in which it agreed to either acquire the programming platform for $60 billion or pay a $10 billion breakup fee. The company had been holding off completing the deal while going public.

In an SEC filing, SpaceX said it expects the deal to close during the third quarter of 2026.

Musk has pr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Trump’s Anthropic shutdown just made the case for non-American AI

15 June 2026 at 19:10
An image showing Donald Trump on a red and green background

At Washington's request, Anthropic suddenly took its newest and most powerful AI models offline over the weekend. The American company said it had little choice after the White House demanded it block access for all foreign nationals, including its own employees. Abroad, the incident offered a sobering reminder that the US not only dominates frontier AI - its government also wields power over who gets to use it.

The Trump administration's action was swift, sweeping, and imposed with little warning or explanation. The unprecedented shutdown of the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models - which were already subject to safeguards limiting their use in " …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Anthropic apologizes for invisible Claude Fable guardrails

11 June 2026 at 12:40

Anthropic has apologized for stealthily throttling its new AI model, Claude Fable 5, with hidden guardrails that undermine both researchers and rivals using it to develop competing systems. The company says it is reversing course and will be more transparent about when the restrictions kick in, even if that means Fable refuses more queries.

Fable is the first widely available model in Anthropic's Mythos class of AI systems, a group the company has spent months warning are too dangerous for public release. Anthropic says it has addressed some of those risks by launching Fable with safeguards that prevent it from responding to certain "high-r …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Claude Fable won’t answer basic biology questions

10 June 2026 at 19:43

Anthropic just released Claude Fable 5, calling it the most powerful AI model it has ever made widely available and praising its skills in biology, among others. But the model won't answer basic biology questions - the kind you'd expect a high schooler to handle. Instead, it hands off the query to the former flagship model, Claude Opus 4.8.

It isn't because Fable doesn't know the answers. It's because Anthropic won't let it, by design.

Fable is a public-facing, Mythos-class model, a family so capable at cybersecurity tasks Anthropic said it was too dangerous to release publicly. But while Anthropic has spent much of the extended Mythos rol …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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