Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Richard LawlerJul 14, 2025

California hit a new record with 67 percent of its energy coming from carbon-free sources.

Stats released Monday showed that in 2023, the state’s estimated annual clean energy percentage (energy produced from nuclear, large hydro, and renewable sources like solar or wind) crossed the two-thirds mark, exceeding the previous record of 64 percent in 2019 and 61 percent in 2022.

The state has also been on a record pace of adding more clean energy capacity over the last few years, although Trump’s recently passed budget bill is adding some hurdles for future projects.

Bar graph showing perent of energy from carbon-free sources in California.

California Energy Commission Estimated Clean Energy Goal Progress.

Image: California Energy Commission 2025

Richard LawlerJul 13, 2025

Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event in 11 minutes.

If you missed anything from Samsung’s big event earlier this week, we’ve got the highlights for you to watch right here, along with our first impressions of the new Fold / Flip and Galaxy Watch 8 series.

Victoria Song and Allison Johnson also joined Jake on this week’s episode of The Vergecast to give more of their opinions on everything we saw this week, plus some other tech news.

Richard LawlerJul 13, 2025

Apple’s next iPhone, iPad, Mac, monitor, and... CEO.

Mark Gurman’s newsletter runs the gamut of Apple nexts this weekend, starting with rumors of the “iPhone 17e” kicking off an annual refresh cycle for cheaper iPhones, more iterative chip-bump updates for the Mac and iPad starting this fall, and Apple’s first new Mac external monitor since 2022’s Studio Display.

There’s also some succession plan musing around (secretly swole?) CEO Tim Cook detailing why hardware chief John Ternus is most likely, and how the design team that will be reporting to Cook might do so via Alan Dye and Molly Anderson.

Power On Newsletter: Tim Cook Isn’t Going Anywhere Soon, But an Apple Shake-Up Looms

[bloomberg.com]

Richard LawlerJul 13, 2025

“Now that he’s back into his businesses, he was never going to put her to be the head of an AI company at all.”

The Financial Times has this quote from an anonymous source who worked with both Elon Musk and ex-X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

It’s explaining the executive’s departure despite getting some advertisers back on X “with a gun,” and developing the X Money digital wallet and payments project that is reportedly still set for release later this year. A CFO who reported directly to Musk, the return of his focus after leaving the Trump administration, and xAI’s $33 billion acquisition all apparently played a role.

Linda Yaccarino: Elon Musk’s X deputy who ‘tried to ride the tiger’

[ft.com]

xAI explains the Grok Nazi meltdown, as Tesla puts Elon’s bot in its cars

Richard LawlerJul 13, 2025

Richard LawlerJul 9, 2025

Nvidia briefly became the first $4 trillion company today.

When Nvidia’s share price rose beyond $164 on Wednesday morning, it was the first company to have a market cap of over $4 trillion. It closed the day up 1.8 percent at $162.88, leaving its current total at $3.97 trillion, leading Microsoft ($3.7 trillion) and Apple ($3.1 trillion).

The AI boom and demand for its chips have quickly increased the company’s value in the last few years, which only passed $1 trillion two years ago.

Image: CNBC

Richard LawlerJul 8, 2025

Meta’s ‘superintelligence’ hiring spree adds an AI leader from Apple.

Bloomberg reports that Mark Zuckerberg’s latest high-priced AI hire is Apple’s foundation AI model leader, Ruoming Pang, based on an offer worth “tens of millions of dollars per year,” plus Yuanzhi Li from OpenAI and Anton Bakhtin from Anthropic.

Last week, former Apple AI lead Daniel Gross confirmed his departure from the startup Safe Superintelligence Inc., reportedly also to join Meta’s team. Bloomberg’s sources said Pang’s departure “...could be the start of a string of exits.”

Apple Loses Top AI Models Executive to Meta’s Hiring Spree

[bloomberg.com]

Bluesky can really keep up with the news now that it has activity notifications

Richard LawlerJul 7, 2025

Richard LawlerJul 6, 2025

Check out GoPro’s next 360-degree camera.

CEO and founder Nick Woodman told fans years ago that the company’s next GoPro Max camera would be “worth the wait,” and it has been a long wait since the first model launched in 2019. Now, it has posted a few promo images of the GoPro Max 2 on Instagram, backing up the claim that this camera will launch in 2025.

We don’t have any other details, but it’s a good time to post something before DJI’s first 360-degree camera is fully revealed.