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Silicon Valley's water cooler podcast. A tech news summary every day... 15 minutes and you're up to date. From Tech Brew, Morning Brew's tech hub.
Filtered episodes(20)
- Intelligent ReportIs Gemini 4 Argon Just Benchmaxxing?
Published Oct 1, 2026
Google unveiled Gemini 4 Argon, which you and I can't use yet, and insiders say it's weaker in practice than on benchmarks. Amazon refreshed the Kindle, Samsung quietly hiked Galaxy S26 prices, and McDonald's AI-priced your Big Mac, location by location. Google rolls out Gemini 4 Argon to trusted cyber defenders through Fairwind and says it is participating in the US government's voluntary pre-release process (Axios) Google announces Gemini 4 Argon, claiming industry-leading coding, knowledge wo
- StandardSummaries onlyTrump Says: No Slowdown!
Published Sep 15, 2026
Trump SaysPresident Trump dismissed AI-safety warnings as a "hoax" on a live call with Jensen Huang, a Google DeepMind researcher resigned warning AI "could kill us all," cybersecurity stocks led the S&P 500, and Apple rolled out iOS 27. Jensen Huang took a surprise call from Trump onstage at the All-In Summit on Monday in Los Angeles, where the two agreed that AI safety worries are overblown (The New York Times) Bloomberg quotes Trump calling AI-safety fears a "SICK conspiracy" benefiting only China, and
- Intelligent ReportHey, Want Some Models?
Published Sep 2, 2026
Anthropic shipped Claude Fable and Mythos 5.1 with a 75% cache-price cut, Google countered with Gemini 3.8 Flash, OpenAI teased Astra's public release, a judge spared Google's ad exchange from a sale, and the FBI probed a 153M-license leak. Anthropic releases Claude Fable 5.1, which is generally available, and Mythos 5.1, for trusted partners and with cybersecurity and life sciences safeguards (Anthropic) Fable 5.1 cuts cache-read pricing 75% to $0.25/1M tokens, lowering effective costs ~25% for
- Intelligent ReportAI 50% Off!
Published Aug 13, 2026
Anthropic's investors talked up a $2T+ October IPO, even as data showed Fable 5 barely selling. Google cut prices on Gemini 3.7 Flash, OpenAI previewed a 14× faster tier, Trump enlisted private hackers, and Twitch fed Amazon's AI. Links Google's Gemini 3.7 Flash targets coding and agents with a 50% introductory price cut (VentureBeat) OpenAI previews Ultrafast, an API tier powered by Cerebras that runs GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14× faster and generates up to 750 output tokens per second (9to5Mac) Presid
- Intelligent ReportNew Pixels
Published Aug 12, 2026
Google's Pixel event dominated, with the Pixel 11 line, a $1,899 Pro Fold, and a $399 Watch 5 packed with Gemini and health trends. SpaceXAI closed the day out by dropping Grok 4.6, which it says matches GPT-5.6 Sol. Links Google unveils the $899+ Pixel 11, $1,099+ 11 Pro, and $1,299+ 11 Pro XL, with a Tensor G6, new Gemini features, Magic Capture to pick the best frames, and more (TechCrunch) Google unveils the $1,899+ Pixel 11 Pro Fold, with a stronger hinge, inner and outer displays that are
- Intelligent ReportBig Google AI Shakeup
Published Aug 5, 2026
Google shook up its AI leadership, kicking Demis Hassabis upstairs while Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat left to found Discovery Loop. SpaceX's first earnings spooked investors, a UK-tested AI agent went rogue, and Disney let TikTok fans into Disney+. Links Google just announced a major shakeup of its top AI leadership (The Verge) SpaceX reports Q2 revenue up 92% YoY to $7.8B, vs. $6.81B est., AI operating loss of $1.26B, vs. $2.39B est., says capex in Q3 and Q4 will remain similar to Q2 (Bloomber
- Intelligent ReportNew Gemini
Published Jul 21, 2026
Google launched Gemini 3.6 Flash and started pretraining Gemini 4. China weighed tightening AI export controls, Bessent said the US would probe Chinese model distillation, Apple prepped a Klarna-backed leasing program, and OpenAI passed 10M Codex and Work users. Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber (9to5Google) Google launches Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber, and says it has started its "most ambitious pre-training run yet" for Gemini 4 (CNB
- Intelligent ReportIt's All China AI All The Time
Published Jul 20, 2026
Alibaba launched Qwen3.8 Max as Moonshot paused Kimi K3 signups amid demand. The Trump administration weighed a slow squeeze on Chinese AI, Hugging Face used China's GLM-5.2 after US guardrails blocked its breach forensics, and Google built a Gemini chip. Alibaba launches a 2.4T parameter Qwen3.8 Max preview that it says rivals frontier AI models and is second only to Fable 5, plans to make it "open-weight soon" (Bloomberg) The Trump administration has reportedly explored sanctions, security war
- Intelligent ReportKimi K3
Published Jul 17, 2026
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter model it says rivals Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5. Google fell months behind on Gemini 3.5 Pro, MLB banned dugout iPads from accessing GenAI for in-game calls, and The Verge tested Siri AI. Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3, a 2.8T-parameter AI model that it says rivals Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5, and plans to release its full model weights by July 27 (VentureBeat) Sources: Google is months behind schedule on delivering Gemini 3.5 Pro as it tries to improve its
- Intelligent ReportComcast Spins Out
Published Jun 30, 2026
Comcast moved to spin off NBCUniversal and Sky into a new public company. The Supreme Court limited geofence warrants, Australia sued Amazon over Prime Video ads, Chamath returned to lead his AI coding startup, and Gemini's image generation went free. Comcast plans to spin off its media and entertainment assets, including NBCUniversal and Sky, into a new publicly traded entity, set to close by mid-2027 (Variety) SCOTUS limits the law enforcement use of "geofence" warrants, saying people have "a
- Intelligent ReportThe Chip-pocalypse Comes For Apple
Published Jun 18, 2026
Tim Cook warned Apple price hikes are unavoidable as AI gobbles up memory chips. Noam Shazeer bolted from Google to OpenAI. Midjourney unveiled a bizarre full-body ultrasound scanner, and businesses piled into Kalshi to hedge real-world risk. In an interview, Tim Cook says Apple price hikes are "unavoidable" to offset surging memory and storage chip costs, and "the situation has become unsustainable" (The Wall Street Journal) Star Google AI Researcher Shazeer Joins OpenAI (The Information) Midjo
- Intelligent ReportSnap Specs
Published Jun 17, 2026
Snap unveiled its $2,195 standalone Specs AR glasses. Google rolled out Android 17 and Wear OS 7. Trump officials mulled equity stakes in AI firms, Apple's camera AirPods slipped to 2027, and TikTok was drowning in AI slop. Snap is finally about to ship AR glasses — and they cost a fortune (The Verge) Android 17 launches with new multitasking tools as Google expands Gemini features (TechCrunch) Trump advisers weigh structure of potential AI stakes (Semafor) Apple Plans Camera AirPods, iPhone Fol
- Intelligent ReportClaude Fable 5
Published Jun 9, 2026
Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a guardrailed Mythos-class model, to the public and Mythos 5 to trusted partners. OpenAI confidentially filed for an IPO. Hackers injected credential-stealing malware into 70+ Microsoft GitHub repos, and Apple details its new Gemini-based foundation models. Anthropic releases Claude Fable 5, a "safe" Mythos-class model it says can't be used for cyberattacks, to the public, and Claude Mythos 5 to trusted orgs (Wired) OpenAI confidentially files for an IPO, says
- Intelligent ReportWWD-See... Anything?
Published Jun 8, 2026
Apple unveiled Siri AI at WWDC, built on Google's Gemini, launching in beta with no firm date. Google signed a $920M/month SpaceX compute deal, Trump floats government equity stakes in AI labs, and OpenAI plans to turn ChatGPT into a superapp. Apple announces Siri AI, with on-screen awareness, personal context understanding, a Dynamic Island-based interface, and more, along with a new Siri app (9to5Mac) Filing: Google has agreed to pay SpaceX $920M per month for access to Nvidia chips as part of
- StandardSummaries onlyGoogle I/O
Published May 20, 2026
Google dominated I/O with Gemini 3.5 Flash, its fastest agentic model yet, plus Gemini Spark as a 24/7 personal agent. It also launched Gemini Omni for video generation, overhauled its search box, shipped Antigravity 2.0, and added Street View to Project Genie. Google rolls out Gemini 3.5 Flash, its "strongest agentic and coding model yet", for tackling long-horizon agentic tasks, in the Gemini app and Search's AI Mode (Google) Google announces Gemini Spark, a "24/7 personal AI agent" that is po
- StandardSummaries onlyGooglebooks
Published May 13, 2026
Google unveiled Googlebook, merging ChromeOS and Android into a unified laptop OS shipping this fall. WhatsApp launches Incognito Chat for private AI conversations. Anthropic's revenue run-rate is on track to hit $50B by end of June, and Anduril raised $5B at a $61B valuation. Google unveils Googlebook, its new laptop lineup featuring a unified OS merging ChromeOS and Android, with devices from Dell, HP, and others coming this fall (ZDNet) Google also unveiled Gemini Intelligence, bundling exist
- StandardSummaries onlyAI Makes Google Maps Sound Much Better
Published Mar 12, 2026
More AI inspired job cuts. I gotta say, adding AI to Google Maps makes it sound like it might work much, much better. A new entrant into the AI health space. An Iran-war-related hacking takes down a company. And Mark Gurman tells us what to expect from a foldable iPhone. Atlassian slashes 10% of workforce to ‘self-fund’ investments in AI and enterprise sales (CNBC) You can now ask Google Maps ‘complex, real-world questions’ — and Gemini will answer (The Verge) Anthropic’s Claude AI can respond w
- StandardSummaries onlyGalaxy Unpacked
Published Feb 25, 2026
The new Galaxy S26 lineup is here. Remote control for Claude is here. But is Anthropic about to wash its hands when it comes to working with the Pentagon? Could Stripe buy PayPal. Oh, and speaking of AI and war, you might not want to hear how often AI chose thermonuclear war when it was asked to play a wargame. I tried the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and need the Privacy Display feature on my iPhone ASAP (ZDNet) Gemini is getting its first agentic capabilities (The Verge) Exclusive: Hegseth gives A
- StandardSummaries onlyA Canticle For Leibowitz
Published Feb 19, 2026
Gemini is getting with the increased cadence of AI releases. Honestly, can we even keep up at this point? A dispatch from the social media trial as Zuck takes the stand. At long last, Amazon dethrones Walmart. Apple seems poised to unleash a slew of AI wearables. And the new storage system to preserve data, Canticle for Leibowitz-style. Google announces Gemini 3.1 Pro for ‘complex problem-solving’ (9to5Google) Mark Zuckerberg said he reached out to Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss ‘wellbeing of tee
- StandardSummaries onlyNew Pixel
Published Feb 18, 2026
New pixel phone. A bunch of new AI models including Gemini’s entry into the music AI space. Everybody is trying to make AI fetch happen in India. And Matthew Ball’s state of the gaming industry report doesn’t paint as gloomy a picture as our own headlines might have suggested this year. The Pixel 10A is a little too much like last year’s phone (The Verge) Anthropic releases Sonnet 4.6 (TechCrunch) Google’s AI music maker is coming to the Gemini app (The Verge) Adani bets $100 billion on data cen