Alphabet asked a question: “Could we harness the speed of light to deliver data without the need for cables?” The answer, compiled over 7 years, is that it can deliver fast, affordable Internet connectivity by transmitting high-speed data using beams of light through the air using the company’s new Taara chip. Whereas the first-generation technology, the Taara Lightbridge, relied on a system of mirrors, sensors and hardware to steer light physically, the Taara chip uses software to steer, track, and correct the beam of light without bulky moving parts — or a fiber optic wire. Read more

DirecTV is competing in the budget streaming service space with new Genre Packs available now via streamtv.directv.com and, in the coming months, through device partners. The three new Genre Packs — MyEntertainment, MyNews and MiEspañol — are available starting at $35 a month. They join other new streaming offerings, MyFree DirecTV and DirecTV’s MySports, released in November and January, respectively. Subscribers to any Genre Pack gain access to 100+ channels available through MyFree DirecTV. Only MySports customers can also bundle two new Mini-Packs — MyCinema for $10 a month or MySports Extra for $13 monthly. Read more

Amazon has unveiled a prototype quantum chip called Ocelot. The first-generation processor has what is being called “rudimentary computing capability” but is progress on a path toward a more sophisticated machine. Ocelot represents what the company says is its “effort to develop, from the ground up, a hardware implementation of quantum error correction that is both resource efficient and scalable” with an aim of reducing error correction by up to 90 percent. Developed at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing at the California Institute of Technology, Ocelot can be manufactured using microelectronics techniques, Amazon says. Read more

In an expansion of their existing strategic partnership, Salesforce and Google have entered into a seven-year, $2.5 billion deal that will allow Salesforce customers to build Agentforce agents using Gemini and to deploy Salesforce on Google Cloud. The companies plan to more tightly integrate connections between platforms like Salesforce Service Cloud and Google Cloud’s Customer Engagement Suite, as well as Slack and Google Workspace, “empowering AI agents and service representatives with unified data access, streamlined workflows, and advanced AI capabilities, regardless of platform,” the companies said. Read more

Nvidia delivered stellar earnings again, with profit up 80 percent to $22.09 billion for fiscal Q4, the period that ended January 26, 2025. Record quarterly revenue hit $39.3 billion, a 12 percent uptick from Q3 and a 78 percent increase year-over-year, driven in part by sales of the company’s Blackwell AI chips. The results rebut predictions that the leading-edge chipmaker would suffer due to a recent wave of Chinese AI models created using fewer and largely older chips. That trend rocked Nvidia stock over the past quarter, but the Silicon Valley-based company managed to maintain momentum. Read more