Latest news with #SiliconValley
Digital Trends
an hour ago
- Digital Trends
Google confirms merging Chrome OS and Android into one platform
Why it matters: Google's push to blend Chrome OS and Android could supercharge affordable laptops like Chromebooks, making them more versatile for work and play. This move echoes Apple's seamless ecosystem across iPadOS and macOS, potentially shaking up the PC market where Windows dominates but innovation lags. What's happening: In a bombshell interview, Google's Android ecosystem president Sameer Samat outright confirmed the company is 'combining Chrome OS and Android into a single platform. This follows months of rumors and aligns with Android 16's new desktop-friendly features, like proper windowing and external display support. But then Samat later clarified on X that it's not a full-on merger killing Chrome OS; instead, it's about weaving Android's tech stack deeper into Chrome for better app compatibility and hardware efficiency. Recommended Videos The big picture: Chrome OS has long borrowed from Android, starting with Google Play Store integration back in 2016, allowing millions of apps on Chromebooks. We've seen hints of this evolution for years—remember when Android apps first hit Chrome OS? Now, with AI taking off and foldables rising, a unified OS could mean Chromebooks evolve into hybrid beasts: lightweight for browsing, robust for productivity. It might boost Google's Pixel lineup too, turning tablets into laptop rivals. Critics worry about bloat or higher hardware demands, but fans see it as Google's smartest play in ages. The details: Timeline unclear: No firm dates yet, but Android 16's desktop tweaks suggest progress by 2026. No firm dates yet, but Android 16's desktop tweaks suggest progress by 2026. Key changes: Expect enhanced multitasking, better keyboard/mouse support, and seamless app scaling across phones, tablets, and laptops. Expect enhanced multitasking, better keyboard/mouse support, and seamless app scaling across phones, tablets, and laptops. Impacts: Chromebooks could get longer updates like Android devices, but older models might struggle. Google's eyeing how people use laptops today to refine it—think more touch-friendly interfaces without losing desktop power (and yes, those horrible fingerprints on the screen). Chromebooks could get longer updates like Android devices, but older models might struggle. Google's eyeing how people use laptops today to refine it—think more touch-friendly interfaces without losing desktop power (and yes, those horrible fingerprints on the screen). Competition angle: This pits Google directly against Microsoft's Windows on ARM and Apple's M-series chips, aiming for energy-efficient, app-rich computing. What's next: Google's keeping details under wraps, but watch for beta tests in upcoming Android updates. If executed right, this could redefine budget computing—stay tuned as we test the first merged devices. For now, it's a bold step toward a truly connected Google world.
WIRED
an hour ago
- Business
- WIRED
Another High-Profile OpenAI Researcher Departs for Meta
Jul 15, 2025 10:56 PM Jason Wei, who worked on OpenAI's o3 and deep research models, will be joining Meta's superintelligence lab. His colleague Hyung Won Chung is also joining Meta, a source tells WIRED. ILLUSTRATION: WIRED STAFF; GETTY IMAGES OpenAI researcher Jason Wei is joining Meta's new superintelligence lab, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Wei worked on OpenAI's o3 and deep research models, according to his personal website. He joined OpenAI in 2023 after a stint at Google, where he worked on chain-of-thought research, which involves training an AI model to process complex queries step-by-step. At OpenAI, Wei became a self-described 'diehard' for reinforcement learning, a method of training or refining an AI model with positive or negative feedback. It's become a promising area of AI research—one that several of the researchers Meta has hired for its superintelligence team specialize in. One source tells WIRED that another OpenAI researcher, Hyung Won Chung, will also be joining Meta. Multiple sources confirm that both Wei and Chung's internal OpenAI Slack profiles are currently deactivated. OpenAI, Meta, Wei, and Chung did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WIRED. Chung worked on some of the same projects at OpenAI as Wei, including deep research and OpenAI's o1 model, according to Chung's personal website. His research is primarily focused on reasoning and agents, the website says. Chung overlapped with Wei at Google as well, and joined OpenAI at the same time as Wei, per their LinkedIn profiles. Multiple sources tell WIRED that Wei and Chung have a close working relationship. Meta has previously poached groups of researchers that have experience working together for its new superintelligence lab, including a trio from OpenAI's Switzerland office that joined the ChatGPT maker from Google. Meta has been going on a poaching spree over the past month, offering up to $300 million over four years to top AI talent. WIRED reported late last month that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent an internal memo to staff that laid out a fresh plan for the company's AI efforts. It included a list of new staffers for the superintelligence team, most of whom had been recruited from OpenAI. The hiring frenzy shows no signs of slowing down, and OpenAI has been fighting back. Just last week, WIRED reported that OpenAI had recruited four high-ranking engineers from Tesla, xAI, and Meta. On Tuesday, Wei shared a post on social media reflecting on what he called 'an important lesson' that reinforcement learning taught him 'about how to live my own life.' In life, (and when building AI models), imitation is good and you have to do it at first, Wei wrote. But 'beating the teacher requires walking your own path and taking risks and rewards from the environment.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Employment woes are coming for startup talent
As doomsday predictions loom for what AI means for jobs, some AI employees find themselves on a shaky limb. Big tech companies are increasingly paying huge sums to pull away top talent — but avoiding the kind of acquisitions that reward those further down the org chart. The latest acqui-hire comes from Google, which paid $2.4 billion to license technology from startup Windsurf, hire its CEO, and cash out some of its venture backers. The search giant cut a similar deal for last year, buying out early investors to hire a key researcher. Silicon Valley is mad: 'This, in the long run, is very bad for startups,' threatening 'the social contracts between employees, startups, and investors,' Stratechery's Ben Thompson writes. 'The world needs little tech to win,' Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas told CNBC. (The rest of Windsurf is being acqui-hired by another AI coding startup, Cognition.) Venture capitalists, too, should be nervous. For now, Big Tech is cashing them out to keep the peace; Kleiner Perkins, which backed Windsurf, will reportedly get enough of Google's cash to triple its investments. But VCs are betting on young AI startups hoping they can replace Google, not be subsumed into it, and are swinging for bigger than 3x returns. — Rohan Goswami
Bloomberg
6 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Elon, Inc: Remembering Musk's Political Rise
On this week's episode of Elon, Inc., host Max Chafkin and Bloomberg News reporters Dana Hull and Kurt Wagner chat about Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI. The endeavor just debuted its new Grok 4 model on the heels of an antisemitism controversy, but Musk sees a brighter future for his creation, claiming it might discover 'new physics' one day. Before that happens, though, the buzziest feature of the model is its AI companions—including a pigtailed and corseted anime character. Musk introduced Grok 4 as news dropped that one of his other companies, SpaceX, would invest in xAI, and that another company he happens to run, Tesla, might follow suit (pending a shareholder vote). Our guests discuss what exactly it means when a rocket company and a car company invest in another company that's making AI girlfriends, especially when all those companies happen to be run by the richest man in the world. Then Wagner takes over the hosting chair to interview New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer about the role Musk and his Silicon Valley billionaire pals have played in building the Trump administration, starting before the Republican took office. The conversation is the first in a summer series in which our Elon, Inc. panelists interview Musk reporters about the stories we're jealous we didn't write first. Schleifer recounts the weeks following Election Day last year, when Musk embedded himself at Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago in an effort to influence the future president's plans. As candidates for top cabinet positions began swinging by the Florida club, they found themselves seated across from Musk's loyal aides. Wagner and Schleifer also discuss the constantly evolving relationship between Musk and Trump, and whether Musk will still be involved in politics when the year comes to a close.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
A former OpenAI engineer describes what it's really like to work there
Three weeks ago, an engineer named Calvin French-Owen, who worked on one of OpenAI's most promising new products, resigned from the company. He just published a fascinating blog post on what it was like to work there for a year, including the sleepless sprint to build Codex. That's OpenAI's new coding agent that competes with tools like Cursor and Anthropic's Claude Code. French-Owen said he didn't leave because of any 'drama,' but because he wants to get back to being a startup founder. He was a co-founder of customer data startup Segment, which was bought by Twilio in 2020 for $3.2 billion. Some of what he revealed about the OpenAI culture would surprise no one, but other observations combat some misconceptions about the company. (He could not be immediately reached for comment.) Fast growth: OpenAI grew from 1,000 to 3,000 people in the year he was there, he wrote. The LLM model maker certainly has reasons for such hiring. It is the fastest-growing consumer product ever, and its competitors are also growing fast. In March, it said that ChatGPT had over 500 million active users and climbing quickly. Chaos: 'Everything breaks when you scale that quickly: how to communicate as a company, the reporting structures, how to ship product, how to manage and organize people, the hiring processes, etc.,' French-Owen wrote. Like a small startup, people there are still empowered to act on their ideas with little-to-no red tape. But that also means that multiple teams are duplicating efforts. 'I must've seen half a dozen libraries for things like queue management or agent loops,' he offered as examples. Coding skill varies, too, from seasoned Google engineers who write code that can handle a billion users, to newly minted PhDs who do not. This, coupled with the flexible Python language, means that the central code repository, aka 'the back-end monolith,' is 'a bit of a dumping ground,' he described. Stuff frequently breaks or can take excessive time to run. But top engineering managers are aware of this and are working on improvements, he wrote. 'Launching spirit': OpenAI doesn't seem to know yet that it's a giant company, right down to running entirely on Slack. It feel very much like move-fast-and-break-things Meta in its early Facebook years, he observed. The company is also full of hires from Meta. French-Owen described how his senior team of around eight engineers, four researchers, two designers, two go-to-market staff and a product manager built and launched Codex in only seven weeks, start to finish, with almost no sleep. But launching it was magic. Just by turning it on, they got users. 'I've never seen a product get so much immediate uptick just from appearing in a left-hand sidebar, but that's the power of ChatGPT.' Secretive fishbowl: ChatGPT is a highly scrutinized company. This had led to a culture of secrecy in an attempt to clamp down on leaks to the public. At the same time, the company watches X. If a post goes viral there, OpenAI will see it and, possibly, respond to it. 'A friend of mine joked, 'this company runs on twitter vibes,'' he wrote. Biggest misconception: French-Owen implied that the biggest misconception about OpenAI is that it isn't as concerned about safety as it should be. Certainly a lot of AI safety folks, including former OpenAI employees, have criticized its processes. While there are doomsayers worrying about theoretic risks to humanity, internally there's more focus on practical safety like 'hate speech, abuse, manipulating political biases, crafting bio-weapons, self-harm, prompt injection,' he wrote. OpenAI isn't ignoring the long-term potential impacts, he wrote. There are researchers looking at them, and it's aware that hundreds of millions of people are using its LLMs today for everything from medical advice to therapy. Governments are watching. Competitors are watching (and OpenAI is watching competitors in return). 'The stakes feel really high.' Sign in to access your portfolio
