Mozilla is the latest entry in the AI browser space with AI Window, an opt-in feature within Firefox that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse. The company is currently taking sign-up requests for those who want to try it out and provide feedback. “Browsers made by AI companies ask you to make a hard choice — either use AI all the time or don’t use it at all,” Mozilla says, emphasizing a more fluid approach that lets users switch from the classic Firefox to a more “personalized experience” with AI Window. Continue reading Mozilla Adds AI Opt-In for Firefox, Emphasizing User Choice

Google is investing $40 billion to build new data centers in Texas through 2027. Google describes the project as focused on “new cloud and AI infrastructure, including new data center campuses in Armstrong and Haskell Counties,” emphasizing their energy efficiency. The investment includes the creation of a $30 million Google-backed Energy Impact Fund, and one of the Haskell County facilities will be built housed adjacent to a new solar and battery storage plant. At a Dallas-area launch event announcing the project, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the initiative will create thousands of new jobs. Continue reading Google Commits $40 Billion for New AI Data Centers in Texas

OpenAI is piloting a new group chat experience designed for socialization and work collaboration with ChatGPT, taking aim at Slack and Microsoft Teams. “Whether you’re organizing a group dinner or drafting an outline with coworkers,” OpenAI wants to make ChatGPT the place you do it. Group chats are beginning to roll out on mobile and web for logged-in users on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan. OpenAI says the pilot is “a small first step toward shared experiences in ChatGPT.” The company plans to collect early user feedback to inform further development. Continue reading OpenAI Pilots ChatGPT Group Chat in Select Foreign Markets

Tech entrepreneur Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, is reviving Vine in an AI-free iteration that welcomes back 100,000 archived clips while barring generative AI content. The new app, diVine, maintains the concept of six-second continually looped videos, letting past users reclaim their old accounts while inviting new members — though there’s already a waitlist. In order to manage “AI slop,” diVine will identify suspected generative AI videos and prevent them from being uploaded. The refreshed app will draw on the decentralized elements Dorsey deployed in his other social media platform, Bluesky, including customizable content moderation controls and choice of feed algorithms. Continue reading Dorsey’s Vine Relaunch, diVine, Embraces Nostalgia, Shuns AI

San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic, founded in 2021, announced plans to invest $50 billion in U.S. computing infrastructure, starting with the creation of data centers with Fluidstack in Texas and New York (with additional plans for future sites). Fluidstack builds and operates high-performance GPU clusters for researchers and AI teams. The new project with Anthropic is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and about 2,400 construction jobs. Sites are scheduled to come online throughout next year. “These facilities are custom built for Anthropic with a focus on maximizing efficiency for our workloads, enabling continued research and development at the frontier,” according to Anthropic. Continue reading Anthropic Plans to Invest $50 Billion in AI Data Centers in U.S.

In 2026, Valve will release a trio of new hardware products to complement its popular Steam Deck portable gaming device. They are the Steam Frame VR headset, Steam Machine game cube designed to port the Steam library to TV screens, and the wireless Steam Controller. The three devices are made to work together and are optimized for SteamOS but can run different software as part of Valve’s “open PC ecosystem.” Prices are yet to be announced. The Steam Frame, Valve’s first device to run SteamOS on an Arm processor, has experimental display support for 144Hz and can connect accessories like sensors and tracking devices via a high-speed nose port. Continue reading Valve Unveils Frame VR Headset and Steam Machine Console

Swedish audio streaming and music service Spotify plans to add music videos to its content lineup in the United States and Canada in the coming weeks. The popular streamer had since March 2024 been beta testing music videos in Europe, Asia, South America and other foreign territories and was satisfied with the results, calling the visual clips “a powerful way to build connections between artists and fans.” On average, “songs discovered with music videos are 24 percent more likely to be saved or shared in the following week by those who watched,” Spotify said of the beta test. The move seems to indicate Spotify wants to give its paid subscribers a reason not to switch to YouTube Music. Continue reading Spotify Targets 1B Subs, Adds Music Videos in North America

Microsoft’s new Azure AI data center in Atlanta, Georgia — the second in its Fairwater series — is ushering in a new era of connected AI super clusters that will power what The Register calls “the 100 trillion-parameter models of the near future.” Fairwater Atlanta, which became operative in October, is part of “a new class of data center – one that doesn’t stand alone but joins a dedicated network of sites functioning as an AI superfactory to accelerate AI,” training models “on a scale that has previously been impossible,” according to Microsoft. The new purpose-built data center is connected to the tech giant’s first Fairwater site, located in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. Continue reading Microsoft Introduces New Era of Connected AI Super Clusters

AI audio firm ElevenLabs has secured deals with actors Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine, who will use the company’s tech to generate AI versions of their iconic voices. The announcements, made at the inaugural ElevenLabs Summit, came as the company revealed plans to aggregate AI availability of more than 25 famous voices — including Maya Angelou, Alan Turing and Liza Minnelli — in its new Iconic Marketplace, a platform focused on “ethical sourcing and licensing of some of the world’s most recognizable voices.” ElevenLabs said McConaughey is signing on as an investor in the company. Continue reading ElevenLabs Adds Well-Known Voices to Its Iconic Marketplace

A year after launching its ultra-low-price digital shopping destination Haul as a tab on its website and app, e-commerce giant Amazon is launching a standalone app called Amazon Bazaar that sells the same inventory. The Amazon Bazaar standalone will initially bow in 14 additional territories, bringing the total availability of the company’s ultra-low-priced inventory to 25. Haul sells a wide range of fashion, home goods, and lifestyle products, most priced under $10, and some as low as $2. The app has helped Amazon compete with Chinese bargain sites Shein, Temu and TikTok Shop. Continue reading Low-Price Retail App Amazon Bazaar Launches in 14 Regions

Samsung has begun rolling out conversational AI in several languages for its 2025 TVs using Vision AI Companion, a generative AI-based version of the company’s smartphone virtual assistant Bixby. The move, announced in September, lets viewers ask questions about what’s onscreen — or any topic — and receive customized recommendations or help managing tasks using natural two-way dialogue. Samsung describes the experience as interactive viewing that brings a visual element to query sessions and says it turns the TV into a connected community hub for the household powered by models from Perplexity and Microsoft. Continue reading Samsung Debuts Conversational Vision AI Companion on TVs

Microsoft and Google are making big investments in European AI infrastructure, with the Seattle-based software giant spending more than $10 billion to build a data hub in Portugal, and Alphabet investing $6.35 billion on new construction and expansion of an existing complex in Germany. The moves are the latest in U.S. tech’s push for a global AI footprint. Microsoft is working with Nvidia, the UK startup Nscale and data center building specialist Start Campus. Google is bringing green initiatives to its project in Deutschland, which it estimates will bring 9,000 jobs and nearly $1.2 billion to German GDP. Continue reading Microsoft, Google Spending Heavily on European Data Hubs

Two years after launching in the U.S., TikTok Shop has a reported $19 billion in quarterly sales, rivaling the sales performance of eBay, which still leads by about a billion dollars, according to third-part TikTok analytics tool EchoTik. After getting off to what seemed to be a rocky start, the fact that it took only 24 months for TikTok Shop to became competitive with the 30-year-old eBay is drawing notice. A TikTok representative said TikTok Shop’s live-stream shopping segments were up 72 percent year-over-year as of September, with sales up by 120 percent as of June. Live-stream shopping is only one aspect of TikTok Shop. Others include shoppable videos, a marketplace and creator storefronts.  Continue reading TikTok Shop Reports $19 Billion Sales Quarter, Rivaling eBay

Google Cloud is rolling out its seventh-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), Ironwood, and new Arm-based computing options that aim to meet exploding demand for AI model deployment in what the Alphabet company describes as a business shift from training models to serving end users. “Constantly shifting model architectures, the rise of agentic workflows, plus near-exponential growth in demand for compute, define this new age of inference,” explains Google Cloud. The company said that Anthropic — known for its Claude family of large language models — “plans to access up to 1 million” of the new TPUs. The deal is reportedly “worth billions.” Continue reading Google Unveils New AI Chips, Announces Deal with Anthropic

SoftBank has cashed out of Nvidia, liquidating its stock holdings for $5.83 billion that it will reportedly use to fund what CNBC describes as “its ‘all in’ bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.” The sell-off was disclosed in SoftBank’s most recent earnings statement, which indicated 32.1 million Nvidia shares were sold in October. The Japanese conglomerate also said it sold part of its T-Mobile holdings for $9.17 billion. “Through those options and tools we make sure that we are ready for funding in a very safe manner,” SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said at an investor presentation. SoftBank announced a four-to-one stock split yesterday, while Nvidia shares were down 1.7 percent on the sell-off news. Continue reading SoftBank Sells Off Nvidia Shares to Pursue OpenAI, Robotics