55 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Tech Archive

Archives for May 2026

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are back from a break.

Greg Brockman is explaining that Musk put conditions on his continuing donations at OpenAI, which he did not accept. Then Musk said they should merge OAI into Tesla. They’d get the money, a billion-dollar-per-year budget, and it’d grow from there. The work would have to be secret — that would be a requirement to make it happen.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Chrome on Android is increasing privacy with approximate location sharing.

For times when you don’t need a website to know exactly where you are (like when checking the weather versus finding the closest ATM) Google is introducing the option to only share your approximate location. It will launch for Chrome on Android first, but expand to the desktop browser in the coming months.

An Android smartphone displaying a screenshot of Google Chrome’s location tracking options.
Android phones will have the option to share your exact location with websites in Chrome, or only the neighborhood you’re in.
Image: Google
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Android Show is back ahead of Google I/O.

The next edition will take place on May 12th at 1PM ET. The link for the livestream is already up, and Google is promising that “This is going to be one of the biggest years for Android yet.”

Google I/O kicks off a week later, on May 19th.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Amazon tests AI chatbot responses in its search.

As The Information reports, Amazon is considering offering a “hybrid” mode that includes responses from its Rufus chatbot in search results for some products. Rufus can suggest and compare products like shopping modes in ChatGPT and Gemini, but Amazon says it’s more helpful for some products than others, and won’t entirely replace regular search.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
“I thought he was going to hit me,” Brockman says of Musk.

“I truly thought he was going to physically attack me.” Musk was angry that no one wanted to agree for him to have majority equity. As he was storming out of the meeting, Musk asked Brockman and Sutskever when they planned to leave OpenAI. They were confused. Then Musk said, “I will withhold funding until you decide what you are going to do.” He then stopped his promised quarterly donations to OpenAI.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elon Musk doesn’t love anything he can’t control.

Brockman is discussing an intense period of negotiations between him, Ilya Sutskever, Sam Altman, and Musk. Musk wanted unilateral control. He also wanted a lot of equity because “he needed the money for Mars, he needed $80 billion to create a city there,” Brockman says. During the negotiations, Musk stopped his quarterly donations.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Sam Altman discussed an equal equity split…

between Altman, Musk, Brockman, and Sutskever in August 2017. It was the first proposal for a for-profit. Musk rejected this. “At the end of the meeting he said, ‘You guys are great but I could start another AI company tomorrow. One tweet is all it takes,” Brockman said.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are now discussing Brockman’s journal.

He started keeping it in 2010. He describes it as stream-of-thought, jotted notes, and disorganized thoughts that sometimes contradicted each other. “It’s very painful” to see the journal in this case, Brockman says. These were “very deeply personal writings that were never meant for the world to see but there’s nothing there I’m ashamed of.”

John Higgins
John Higgins
Bose has the first third-party speakers with Alexa Plus.

In addition to the new Lifestyle Collection speakers announced today, users of existing Bose speakers and soundbars can opt in to add generative AI-powered Alexa Plus functionality starting on May 15th.

You can use Alexa Plus to play songs, add reminders to your schedule, or ask questions, and it will respond more conversationally like other AI chatbots.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elon Musk tried to get Bill Gates to donate to OpenAI.

Musk told Brockman he tried to get Gates to donate four times, and Gates didn’t so much as come by the office. One wonders whether Musk’s persistent shit-talking of Gates had anything to do with Gates’ reluctance.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Satechi’s DIY Thunderbolt 5 SSD drive keeps cool with a tiny fan during long transfers.

The $199.99 DotDisk enclosure, available now for $199.99 through Amazon or Satechi’s online store, supports transfer speeds up to 80Gbps and is compatible with Thunderbolt 5 using an included 12-inch USB cable. Its built-in bus-powered fan helps maintain performance, but you’ll need to provide your own M.2 2280 NVMe SSD up to 8TB.

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<em>The DotDisk enclosure draws all the power it needs from a single USB cable.</em>
<em>Satechi includes the screwriver you’ll need to open the DotDisk, as well as a thermal pad for the SSD you provide.</em>
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The DotDisk enclosure draws all the power it needs from a single USB cable.
Image: Satechi
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
First sidebar of the trial.

I love a sidebar. We have static. There’s some evidence OpenAI is trying to introduce that Musk’s team apparently doesn’t want, about Brockman’s investment in Cerebras.