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Today’s Storystream

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Google teases fast multimodal AI.

First, who holds their phone like this? Second, the Gemini AI Google teased after OpenAI’s announcements sure seems fast and natural and accurate, as canned demos are prone to do.

We’ll learn more when Google I/O kicks off proper starting at 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 7PM CET.


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Anthropic’s Claude AI now available across Europe.

Both Claude.ai and the Claude iOS app are available for free and claim “strong levels of comprehension and fluency in French, German, Spanish, Italian, and other European languages.” A Pro version of Amazon’s favorite chatbot unlocks all models and is available for €18 plus tax per month.


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Youtube
Mark Zuckerberg turns 40 aboard his new megayacht.

Silicon Valley’s favorite Harvard dropout (sorry, Gates) has arrived in Panama at the same time as the “Launchpad” vessel he apparently purchased for around $300 million, after the Russian-commissioned megayacht was seized. Longer than an NFL football field, it’s still slightly smaller than Jeff Bezos’ own midlife crisis. 

The super-secretive yachting community makes all this difficult to confirm but the video below from March gives an expert account of Zuck’s fancy birthday boat.


We’ll sell 25 million PS5 consoles, no 21M, actually 20.8M.

It’s no secret that the PS5 has entered the “latter stage of its life cycle” with Sony resetting sales expectations in February. Today’s earnings report shows it just missing that revised 21M target by selling 20.8 million consoles for the fiscal year.

We’ll see if the rumored PS5 Pro helps change the trajectory before the year is done.


A downward trend.
A downward trend.
Image: Sony
The US doesn’t have enough power lines.

AI, EVs, and Joe Biden’s push for domestic manufacturing are putting more pressure on aging power grids. The nation also needs double the transmission capacity to meet Biden’s goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity.

To get more transmission lines up, FERC just overhauled rules for new projects — including a mandate that grid operators start anticipating energy needs at least 20 years in advance.


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The case against iPadOS.

Instead of reviewing the iPad, Federico Viticci over at MacStories decided to take iPadOS to task. He runs down what’s missing, what’s broken, and what Apple needs to do to make the iPad the do-everything device it could be. Federico gets it!


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Youtube
Lofi beats to battle royale to.

The iconic Lofi Girl is now in Fortnite — or, at least, her room is. A new Fortnite map lets you run around the bedroom as if you were in Honey I Shrunk the Kids, collecting music notes and sneaking a look at what’s under the bed. It’s unsurprisingly pretty chill, except for some of the platforming sequences.


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“Why are they making us the dumping ground for the rest of the country?”

More residents across the US are asking that question about carbon dioxide, The Washington Post reports, as technologies that capture CO2 from smokestacks become more popular with companies that want to claim they’re fighting climate change. All that captured carbon dioxide has to go somewhere, and concerns are growing about the safety of new CO2 pipelines and underground storage wells.


The Verge’s 2024 graduation gift guide

We found all sorts of gadgets and goodies to celebrate the class of 2024, from the practical to the poignant.

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Youtube
Sony teaches a new (robot) dog old tricks.

Aibo — Sony’s “Four-Legged Entertainment Robot” — hit the shelves in 1999, to the utter horror of parents (like my own) who had barely recovered from Furbies launching the year prior.

Happy 25th birthday you old dog! My inner child is heartbroken to have never owned you, but my now 30-year-old self will happily skip the current model’s near $3,000 price tag.


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OpenAI’s “ChatGPT and GPT-4” Spring Update stream starts in 20 minutes.

What is the company announcing one day ahead of Google’s presumably AI-heavy I/O 2024 event tomorrow? According to Sam Altman, what OpenAI has in store is not the rumored search engine or GPT-5 updates, but we’ll find out what it really is at 1PM ET / 10AM PT.


The Garmin Lily 2 was the tracker I needed on vacation

Its limitations made it fall short in daily life but ended up being a plus while trying to disconnect from the world.

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Apple could update the iPad Mini by the end of this year.

It’ll be its first update since the 2021 model, but don’t expect much — it’ll come with a processor bump, Mark Gurman wrote to subscribers of his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg yesterday. But as he also wrote in April, it won’t get much else.


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Assassin’s Creed Red is stepping into the Shadows.

Ubisoft has announced that the project formerly titled Assassin’s Creed Red now has an official name: Assassin’s Creed Shadows. But wait, there’s more. In addition to announcing the name change, Ubisoft has also announced that it’ll be sharing the game’s first official reveal trailer this week, Wednesday May 15th at 12 PM ET.