Towards the end of Mark Zuckerbergâs testimony in a Washington, DC courthouse, a smile flashed across his face.
Metaâs lead attorney, Mark Hansen, had asked the CEO if he was âhappyâ about paying $19 billion for WhatsApp in 2014.
Zuckerberg flashed a grin, took a brief pause, and responded, âIâd do it again.â
Over the last decade, the growing scale of Instagram and WhatsApp cemented Meta as one of the most powerful companies on earth. Now, the US government, via a Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit, is trying to unwind those acquisitions through a trial that began on April 14th. Zuckerberg spent roughly 13 hours across three days answering questions from the FTC and Meta lawyers. Much of that time on Wednesday was devoted to attempting to refute one core argument: that he bought both apps to take them out and not to make them better.
The FTC contends that WhatsApp was acquired because Zuckerberg and his executives were worried at the time that private messaging apps would grow into fully-fledged social media businesses. From the witness stand, Zuckerberg acknowledged that it was âsomething I thought about,â but that he thought it would be âextremel …
Apple Intelligence was announced with iOS 18 and has been available since last October, when Apple released iOS 18.1 to the public. Although most apps provide support for Apple Intelligence features by default, developers can choose not to have them in their apps – and it seems that Meta has decided to do so.
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Gemini Live’s feature that lets it see and respond to what’s on your camera and your screen will now be free for all Android users via the Gemini app, Google announced today.
The AI-powered feature officially launched earlier this month for everyone on Pixel 9 and Samsung Galaxy S25 using the Gemini app. At the time, Google said the feature would launch “soon” for all Android users though would only be available with a Gemini Advanced subscription. But the company has changed its mind and is now making it available for free.
“We’ve been hearing great feedback on Gemini Live with camera and screen share, so we decided to bring it to more people,” Google said on X.
The feature will roll out to all Android users with the Gemini app starting today, and the rollout will take place “over the coming weeks.” If you want to get an idea of how the feature works, check out this video from Google. In it, a person holds their phone with the camera open at an aquarium so that Gemini can see the animals and share information.
Today, Microsoft announced that its similar AI tool, called Copilot Vision, is available now for free in the Edge browser.
OpenAI is reportedly in discussions to acquire Windsurf, the AI coding startup formerly known as Codeium, for around $3 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the deal. If the deal goes through, it would be the company’s biggest acquisition […]
The post OpenAI in talks to acquire AI coding assistant startup Windsurf for $3 billion first appeared on Tech Startups.
Google is rolling out an update to Pixel Camera 9.8 that presumably addresses some bugs. This is the first patch for the Pixel 9a following last week’s launch.
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On Wednesday, OpenAI announced the release of two new models—o3 and o4-mini—that combine simulated reasoning capabilities with access to functions like web browsing and coding. These models mark the first time OpenAI's reasoning-focused models can use every ChatGPT tool simultaneously, including visual analysis and image generation.
OpenAI announced o3 in December, and until now, only less capable derivative models named "o3-mini" and "03-mini-high" have been available. However, the new models replace their predecessors—o1 and o3-mini.
OpenAI is rolling out access today for ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team users, with Enterprise and Edu customers gaining access next week. Free users can try o4-mini by selecting the "Think" option before submitting queries. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted that "we expect to release o3-pro to the pro tier in a few weeks."
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