Google Home and Nest users report declining reliability, with devices frequently misunderstanding commands or failing to respond.

Google DeepMind CEO said it's because Meta is behind in the AI race. The AI talent war is raising concerns about increasing costs and competition among top tech firms. Google DeepMind's CEO says there is a simple reason Meta is spending millions of dollars to attract AI talent.

This week, I take a look at the surprisingly strong state of Google, Meta gets a new chief AI researcher, and more. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out this week’s Decoder episode about deepfakes and where they are headed.

From September, Google will be removing a feature where you can follow other contributors on the popular navigation app.

Mahjong is having a moment, with the popularity of the tile game surging this year. Generally, people play at each other’s homes or in libraries, but this summer, there has been a growing demand for floating mahjong tables. The Mahjong Line sells one for $245 that currently has a waiting list.

Alphabet reported second-quarter results on Wednesday that beat on revenue and earnings, but the company said it would raise its capital investments by $10 billion in 2025. Shares of the company were up as much as 3% in after-hours trading. The company’s overall revenue grew 14% year over year, higher than the 10.9% Wall Street expected.

Google leaked the entire Pixel 10 series through Play Store.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google inked a deal worth more than $1 billion to provide cloud-computing services to software firm ServiceNow Inc., a win for Google Cloud’s efforts to get major enterprises onto its platform.