Google faces mounting evidence of its search monopoly. A federal judge recently ruled – for the second time in a year – that Google illegally maintains a monopoly in ad tech. Google's response?
The United States set out to win a trade war with China. It failed. Years of tariffs, tech restrictions, and tough rhetoric have backfired, leaving America in a weaker position while China charges ahead with innovation and global influence.
Good Morning from San Francisco, Meta just kicked Apple's AI tools to the curb. All of them. 🥾 No
Good Morning from San Francisco,
Meta just kicked Apple's AI tools to the curb. All of them. 🥾 No more AI writing or Genmoji across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.
The move reeks of power play. While most developers embrace Apple Intelligence, Meta chose the nuclear option - cutting features that worked fine since October. 💣
Behind closed doors, there's more drama. Apple apparently snubbed Meta's Llama AI over privacy worries. Now Meta returns the favor, forcing iPhone users to either use Meta's AI or none at all. 🤖
The tech playground just got messier. And users? They're stuck watching the giants duke it out. 🥊
Stay curious,
Marcus Schuler
Meta has removed Apple Intelligence features from all its apps. Users can no longer access Apple's AI writing tools or Genmoji in Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Threads.
The timing is telling. Meta cut the features months after they launched with iOS 18.1 in October. Most developers embrace Apple Intelligence by default - Meta deliberately opted out.
Money and control drive this decision. Meta wants users stuck with its own AI tools instead of Apple's alternatives. The companies clashed before - Apple reportedly rejected using Meta's Llama AI model over privacy concerns.
The impact hits iPhone users hard. They lose AI features in some of the world's most popular apps. Meta shows no signs of reversing course, and keeps quiet about its reasons.
Why this matters:
Read on, my dear:
Prompt:
A stunning halftones-style artistic photo of a
half-portrait of a captivating woman with a blue-gray piercing gaze. She has delicate features and wears minimal makeup, with rosy pink lips contrasting against her fair skin. Her expression is serene yet intense, and she is positioned slightly to the side, gazing toward the camera. In the foreground, a window with a glass pane is visible, and on the other side, a poppy flower radiates its otherworldly beauty. Light dances across the glass, creating a captivating interplay of water droplets that add depth and intrigue to the foreground.
Trump's trade war threatens America's AI future. His tariffs could derail massive computing projects that Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI need to compete with China.
The math is brutal. Google plans $75 billion for AI data centers this year. Microsoft wants $80 billion. OpenAI's Stargate project aims for $500 billion. But Trump's 145% tariff on Chinese goods puts it all at risk.
Hardware costs will soar. While software escapes the tariffs, everything else gets hit - AI chips, cooling systems, backup generators. OpenAI's Sam Altman says his team works "around-the-clock" to assess the damage.
Companies may build elsewhere. "When rules change overnight by tweet, planning becomes impossible," says AI expert Andrew Ng. Malaysia and Singapore look more attractive. Even US construction faces 15-20% cost jumps, with parts already backordered for three years.
Why this matters:
OpenAI's latest AI models can spot cities and landmarks from random photos - down to specific bars and restaurants. While the company touts these visual skills for emergency response and research, privacy experts worry: nothing stops someone from using ChatGPT to track down locations from Instagram stories or other personal photos.
Google just launched Gemini 2.5 Flash with an interesting twist - developers can now pay more for deeper thinking or save money with quick responses. Basic outputs cost $0.60 per million tokens, but throw in some extra thinking power and that jumps to $3.50 - though Google claims the smarter responses are worth every penny.
Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos took a subtle swipe at James Cameron's vision of AI slashing movie budgets by 50%. Instead of chasing savings, Sarandos wants to use AI to boost quality by 10% - pointing to their latest film where AI de-aging effects cost a fraction of what they spent on 'The Irishman' just five years ago.
San Jose startup Exaforce just landed $75 million to deploy AI agents in security operations, with backers including Khosla Ventures betting big on the vision of computers handling the grunt work. The pitch is straightforward: let AI bots tackle the tedious security alerts while humans sip coffee and handle the interesting stuff - though one has to wonder if those humans might want to update their resumes.
Data centers running AI will double their energy use by 2030, mostly powered by fossil fuels - but the same technology might just help us spot wildfires, breed climate-proof veggies, and drive trains more efficiently. While tech companies rarely track whether their AI models save more carbon than they burn, some promising examples are emerging - like Waymo's self-driving cars, which could cut more emissions than all Teslas on the road if they capture just 10% of US and European rides.
Chinese shopping apps are climbing the US charts after TikTok videos revealed a poorly-kept secret: many luxury brands make their goods in China before slapping on labels in Europe. Taobao just hit #5 in the App Store rankings, while DHgate sits at #2 - though buyers hoping to dodge Trump's tariffs may be disappointed.
China's smartphone market grew 3.3% in early 2025, shipping 71.6 million phones as government subsidies boosted sales. Xiaomi grabbed the top spot for the first time in a decade while Apple slipped, hurt by premium prices that put its phones outside subsidy range - though looming US-China tensions may soon test the market's strength.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that Google illegally monopolized online advertising. The decision strikes at the core of Google's $31 billion ad tech business.
Judge Leonie Brinkema found Google broke the law by controlling two critical systems: the tools publishers use to sell ads and the software running these sales. Google dominates 87% of the publisher ad market.
The company's defense fell flat. Google claimed TikTok and streaming platforms provided real competition. The judge saw through this, pointing out how Google forced publishers to use its products and hurt competition.
This marks Google's second major court loss in months. Another judge already ruled its search business a monopoly. Both courts could now force Google to restructure. The company's reaction? Appeal what it lost, celebrate the one piece it won (advertiser tools).
Publishers testified to Google's stranglehold: higher fees, fewer choices. The ruling could reshape how ads work across the internet.
Why this matters:
Read on, my dear:
Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has revamped the company's leadership, Reuters reports. He's cutting management layers and putting key chip teams directly under his watch.
The shakeup brings major changes, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. Networking chip leader Sachin Katti steps up to chief technology and AI officer. PC and data center teams now report straight to Tan instead of through other executives.
Tan spotted a clear problem: bureaucracy kills innovation. "It takes too long to make decisions," he wrote in the memo. "New ideas don't get room to grow." His fix? Put executives closer to engineers.
The timing matters. Intel struggles against Nvidia in AI chips. Its latest attempt, Falcon Shores, died in January. Now Katti must build a new strategy to catch up, Reuters reports.
Why this matters:
Read on, my dear:
Trump swings the tariff club at China. His goal: Break Beijing's economic might. But top economists warn - this plan will backfire. Instead, the US faces a full-blown economic crisis. The President squandered the world's trust in mere days.
European allies? Trump drove them away long ago. Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, and London won't rush to help.
Two riveting podcasts tackle the burning questions:
👉 How does China really view the US?
👉 Which strategies could actually work in dealing with the rising superpower?
Must Watch:
Chatbot Arena began as a scrappy academic experiment at UC Berkeley that evolved into the industry's most trusted AI model battleground. Founded by PhD students who wanted a better way to evaluate chatbots, it's now stepping into the startup arena as Arena Intelligence Inc.
• THE FOUNDERS 🧠 Founded 2023 by Berkeley PhD students Wei-Lin Chiang and Anastasios Angelopoulos. Started at UC Berkeley's Sky Computing Lab with a handful of students. Now serves over 1 million monthly users while maintaining lean operations.
• THE PRODUCT 🥊 Runs head-to-head blind comparisons between AI models using real user prompts. Creates unbiased Elo rankings through crowd-sourced battles. Offers unique human-in-the-loop evaluation that mirrors real-world usage. New beta interface adds user accounts, persistent chat histories, and specialized arenas for targeted testing.
• THE COMPETITION 🏆 Traditional benchmarks like Stanford's HELM rely on static tests. Hugging Face's automated leaderboards risk gaming the system. None match Arena's community-driven, real-time model competitions. Even Tesla's former AI director Andrej Karpathy endorsed Arena as one of only two trustworthy evaluation platforms.
• FINANCING 💰 Backed by non-traditional funding: Andreessen Horowitz open-source grants and Sequoia Capital's $100,000 equity-free fellowship. No traditional venture rounds announced yet, though formal funding appears imminent. Valuation remains undisclosed as company emerges from academic roots.
• THE FUTURE ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Arena Intelligence faces a delicate balancing act: monetize without compromising neutrality. Early signs look promising. The team's commitment to impartiality while exploring premium services positions them perfectly as AI's trusted referee. With major labs already submitting models for testing, they've carved a unique niche in an industry desperate for objective standards.
Good Morning from San Francisco, OpenAI's AI just learned to think in pictures. Their new o3 model doesn&
Good Morning from San Francisco, OpenAI wants to play social media kingmaker. Sam Altman's crew is quietly testing
Good Morning from San Francisco, OpenAI just fired another shot in the AI race 🎯. Their new GPT-4.1 devours text
☀️ Good Morning from San Francisco, 🔥 OpenAI's Sam Altman just threw GPT-4 under the bus. He labeled their $100
Fuel your morning with AI insights. Lands in your inbox 6 a.m. PST daily. Grab it free now! 🚀
