Before you start a company, answer these questions

GUEST: A few months ago, a friend called me excitedly to share a startup idea. He was an investor’s dream entrepreneur: engineering undergrad with an MBA from MIT, worked at Google, and literally wrote a book on the core tech behind his startup. He launched a product, was getting a little attention, and was at an inflection point. He probably could have raised funding based on this traction and asked me, “Should I take the plunge and do this full time? I think I’m ready.”

Illustration: The Verge Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist who helped lead the infamous failed coup against Sam Altman and then later changed his mind, is officially leaving the company.Both Altman and Sutskever have farewell posts on X:
Ilya and OpenAI are going to part ways. This is very sad to me; Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation, a guiding light of our field, and a dear friend. His brilliance and vision are well known; his warmth and compassio

Illustration: The Verge Google has announced that the code for Project Gameface, its hands-free gaming ‘mouse’ that you control by making faces, is now available open-source to Android developers on Tuesday.
Developers can now integrate the accessibility feature into their apps, allowing users to control the cursor with facial gestures or by moving their heads. For example, they can open their mouth to move the cursor or raise their eyebrows to click and drag.Announced during last ye

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is throwing in the towel on Workplace, its Facebook-based alternative to office communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams alternative, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. Meta spokesperson Ashley Zandy confirmed to The Verge that it will be available to customers for use through August 31st, 2025. Formerly known as Facebook @ Work, it was used internally for two years before its public launch in 2016, and according to Zandy, there won&rsqu

Marvel You can never be sure what to expect out of Disney’s upfront presentation, but this year’s showcase of the studio’s new projects brought a slew of news about Disney Plus’ upcoming WandaVision spinoff series.
While there’s been a bit of confusion about what the Agatha Harkness-focused series would ultimately be called, Kathryn Hahn, Patti Lupone, and Joe Locke revealed today that it will, in fact, be titled Agatha All Along, and its first two episodes will pre

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The just-released iPad Pro and iPad Air have a new Battery Health menu option that includes an optimized charging option and provides more data about the battery. As reported by MacRumors, the new menu matches the settings introduced on iPhone 15, which lets users set their device to not charge past 80 percent, which can help extend the usable life of the battery.
You can get to the new menu on iPad by going to Settings > Battery > Battery Health

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images Eight TikTok creators are suing to stop a law that would ban the app unless its Chinese parent company divests it, arguing that the measure would strip them of their livelihoods and creative outlets.
The suit is similar to the company’s own challenge to the law in that it leans on First Amendment arguments, calls lawmakers’ concerns around the app speculative, and recalls that courts have blocked other methods of banning TikTok, in

Photo: Sonos A week after introducing a redesigned, sleeker app that omitted many core features, Sonos held an Ask Me Anything event on its forums today. The purpose was partly to make it clear that customer frustrations are being heard. But as has been the case since last week, the feedback skewed overwhelmingly negative. This company’s community remains pretty damn angry over losing software capabilities like local music search, sleep timers, and more with no warning.
Many participants a

Illustration: The Verge Google says its new AI model, LearnLM, will help students with their homework.
LearnLM, a family of AI models based on Google’s other large language mode, Gemini, was built to be an expert in subjects, find and present examples in different ways like a photo or video, coach students while studying, and, in Google’s words, “inspire engagement.”Google has already integrated LearnLM into its products, bundling it with other services like Google Search

The billboard ads contained messages that seemingly mocked celibate women. | Image: The Verge Dating app company Bumble has issued an apology for running an ad campaign that seemingly shamed women for not being sexually active and mocked people for choosing celibacy instead of dating.
After updating its app and brand design in April to try to attract new users who are “exhausted from the dating scene,” Bumble ran a series of billboard ads containing messages like “You know full

Google made a lot of noise about its Gemini AI taking over search at its I/O conference today, but one of its flashiest demos was once again marked by the ever-present fatal flaw of every large language model to date: confidently making up the wrong answer.During a sizzle reel for “Search in the Gemini era,” Google demoed video search, which allows you to search by speaking over a video clip. The example is a video of a stuck film advance lever on a film camera with the query &ldquo

I thought Google killed its augmented reality glasses after they couldn’t live up to the promise of real-time translation. I thought Project Iris was vaporware after the company shed its AR leaders and downsized the division that was reportedly facing internal turmoil.
But we may have written off Google’s Glasses too soon — because Google just revealed a new prototype pair in a blink-and-you-missed-it moment at Google I/O.In the heat of the moment, I thought the Googler simply

Well, that’s one way to kick off a developer-focused tech event.| Image: Google Developer conferences aren’t exactly known for having an energetic, party-like atmosphere, but thankfully, that didn’t stop Google’s latest hype man. The company’s I/O event this year was kicked off by Marc Rebillet — an artist known in online spaces for pairing improvised electronic tracks with amusing (and typically loud) vocals. He also wears a lot of robes.
“If you have n

Barrels stored at the Energy Fuels White Mesa Mill uranium production facility in Blanding, Utah, US, on Monday, June 12, 2023.  | Photo: Getty Images President Joe Biden signed a new law that bars the US from importing uranium from Russia, in the hopes of jumpstarting domestic mining to fuel nuclear reactors. The law also unlocks $2.7 billion in federal funding to shore up that domestic supply chain, which Congress previously approved pending limits on imports from Russia.
Russia has histo

Image: Google Google I/O just ended — and it was packed with AI announcements. As expected, the event focused heavily on Google’s Gemini AI models, along with the ways they’re being integrated into apps like Workspace and Chrome.
If you didn’t get to tune in to the event live, you can catch up with all the latest from Google in the roundup below.
Google Lens now lets you search by recording a video
Google Lens already lets you search for something based on images, but now

The new Blink Mini 2 adds weather resistance so you can use it indoors and outdoors. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge If you’ve got vacation plans for Memorial Day weekend, a security camera can help you keep an eye on valuables back home so you can really relax during your time off. And right now, one of the least expensive options on the market is even more affordable, with the new Blink Mini 2 selling for just $29.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and The Home Depot. If yo

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge Among Google’s swath of new AI models and tools announced today, the company is also expanding its AI content watermarking and detection technology to work across two new mediums.
Google’s DeepMind CEO, Demis Hassabis, took the stage for the first time at the Google I/O developer conference on Tuesday to talk not only about the team’s new AI tools, like the Veo video generator, but also about the new upgraded SynthID watermark imprinting

Image: The Verge Google is adding a bunch of new features to its Gemini AI, and one of the most powerful is a personalization option called “Gems” that allows users to create custom versions of the Gemini assistant with varying personalties.
Gems lets you create iterations of chatbots that can help you with certain tasks and retain specific characteristics, kind of like making your own bot in Character.AI, the service that lets you talk to virtualized versions of popular characters a

The dream of contextual search is alive. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is updating Gemini on Android to let its AI better tap into what’s on your screen. The update should allow Gemini to lean into one of its best use cases, helping you make sense of a limited set of data as you go about your day.
If you set Gemini as the default assist on your Android phone, it can already summarize or answer questions about a webpage or a screenshot. Soon, it’ll also be able

Google might tell you f = ma, or something. I haven’t been to school for a long time. | Image: Google Google is enhancing Android’s Circle to Search — the feature that lets you literally circle something on your Android phone’s screen to search it on Google — with a new ability to generate instructions on how to solve school math and physics problems.
Using an Android phone or tablet, students can now use Circle to Search to get AI assistance on mathematical word pr

Image: The Verge Google is building its Gemini AI into Chrome on desktop. During its I/O event on Tuesday, Google announced that Chrome 126 will use Gemini Nano to power on-device AI features, such as text generation.
Gemini Nano is the lightweight large language model Google introduced to the Pixel 8 Pro last year — and, later, the Pixel 8. To get Gemini Nano on Chrome, Google says it tweaked the model and optimized the browser to “load the model quickly.”
The integration will

Illustration: The Verge Gemini, Google’s ChatGPT competitor, is getting new trip planning capabilities, the company announced today at its I/O developer conference.Based on the user’s prompt, the AI model will now research publicly available information as well as tap into specific details like flight times and hotel bookings to work up a custom, multiday vacation itinerary “in a matter of seconds.”
In a briefing with reporters, Google VP and general manager of Gemini, Si

Veo demos show that Google’s AI-generated video capabilities have come a long way. | Image: Google It’s been three months since OpenAI demoed its captivating text-to-video AI, Sora, and now Google is trying to steal some of that spotlight. Announced during its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google says Veo — its latest generative AI video model — can generate “high-quality” 1080p resolution videos over a minute in length in a wide variety of visual and c

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is working on new protections to help prevent Android users from falling victim to phone scams. During its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google announced that it’s testing a new call monitoring feature that will warn users if the person they’re talking to is likely attempting to scam them and encourage them to end such calls.
Google says the feature utilizes Gemini Nano — a reduced version of the company’s Gemini large

Searching with Lens is now as simple as pointing and shooting. | Image: Google Google’s adding a nifty new feature to Lens, its visual search tool: you can now search by shooting a video. Previously, Lens only captured still images, but now you can use both video and audio to ask your question. Google imagines you might use it to ask about a problem you’re having with your car or to get more information about a product you see. It’s also yet another way AI is making its way int