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Gemini Spark is the most impressive and terrifying AI experience I’ve had yet

Spark is Google’s new agentic answer for everything. According to every product demo from the last four years, planning a trip is a killer use case for AI. Just tell it where you're going, they all promise, and your chatbot / agent / other buzzword will exhaustively search travel options, read up on all the fun things to do, check all the local hotspots, and offer you a fully fledged itinerary. So far, I've found this to work only in the most generic ways: If you want to do the six most obvious things in any city on planet Earth, AI has you covered, but that's about as far as it goes. I had a very different experience using Spark, Google's new always-on AI agent . Spark is a hugely ambitious … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/G6lvh5Z
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People are leaving a lot of weird stuff in their robotaxis

A unicorn Beanie Baby. A 15-pound green bowling ball. A pair of dentures. These are just some of the items left behind in robotaxis in the past year, according to Uber's annual Lost and Found Index . For the first time, the company is expanding its annual of accounting of things forgotten in Uber vehicles to include self-driving cars because, for the first time, Uber has enough self-driving cars on its platform to matter. Uber doesn't deploy its own robotaxis, but in the last few years it's become a clearinghouse for driverless car companies that want access to Uber's millions of customers. Here in the US, that includes Waymo (in Austin a … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/ROlngYz

How to watch Microsoft’s Build 2026 conference

Build 2026 is looking to be another AI-heavy affair. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is kicking off its yearly Build developer conference in San Francisco today, sandwiched between the recent Google I/O and Apple's upcoming WWDC event. While tickets to attend Build in person are sold out, the conference is being streamed for free online, with CEO Satya Nadella opening with a keynote at 12:30PM ET / 9:30AM PT. A cursory glance at the featured speakers and virtual sessions suggests that Build will predominantly focus on AI, which isn't surprising given this is a developer event in 2026. The keynote description also says that Nadella and Microsoft leaders will be sharing "how Microsoft is creating new opportunity for … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/x8zUdCX

Xbox and PlayStation have a lot to prove

Things are bad out there. Despite 2026 shaping up to be a great year when it comes to actual games , it couldn't really be worse for the people that make them or the industry as a whole. Hardware prices keep going up , layoffs have shown no signs of stopping , and even big-budget titles backed by large corporations can feel precarious . That all makes it a somewhat awkward time for Summer Game Fest, a weeklong spectacle of events that kicks off on Tuesday. Splashy announcements won't do much to stem the negative sentiment around the industry. But given the challenging state of console gaming in particular , both Microsoft and Sony have an oppo … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/Sp6g0Cr

Microsoft could be the next Big Tech antitrust target

Over the past several years, Microsoft has largely managed to withstand populist calls to break up Big Tech while peers faced sweeping lawsuits. But a probe by the Federal Trade Commission suggests that grace period could be nearing an end. Earlier this year, Bloomberg outlined the contents of civil investigative demands (CIDs) - similar to a subpoena - the FTC sent to at least half a dozen companies that compete with Microsoft. New details obtained by The Verge further reveal the FTC's interests, suggesting the agency is particularly concerned with potentially exclusionary behavior around Microsoft's Azure cloud services, as well as its ro … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/U5hpYCD

These are the first Nvidia RTX Spark laptops

A lot of details are still under wraps, but at least we know what the new Nvidia Spark laptops look like. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia has officially entered the world of consumer laptop chips with the RTX Spark, and several device makers already have hardware lined up for it. Microsoft, Asus, HP, MSI, Lenovo, and Dell are expected to launch RTX Spark laptops sometime this fall, and some of those partner companies have shared details about what we can expect. The common feature shared by all of the upcoming launches is that Arm-based Nvidia RTX Spark superchip , though several variations are in the pipeline. The flagship version unveiled by Nvidia at Computex includes 20 CPU cores, 6,144 GPU cores and 128GB of LPDDR5X memory - making it near identical to the GB10 chi … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/5odxpDF

Asus just announced the OLED Xbox Ally X of my dreams

The Xbox Ally X20, and the glasses you’ll have to buy with it. | Image: Asus If you asked me what I'd change about the Xbox Ally X handheld - aside from fixing Windows , I mean - I'd tell you two key things. First, give me a bigger, better screen. Even a little bit bigger, so games feel less claustrophobic and with less ugly bezel. Second, get rid of the "Library" button. I am so tired of an accidental press booting me out of my game and into the Xbox library without a simple way to get back. With the just-announced ROG Xbox Ally X20, Asus did both - and then some. It's now a slick translucent handheld with drift-resistant GuliKit TMR joysticks, a transforming D-pad that goes from 8-way to 4-way by dropping its cor … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/H6BdEqu