The Trump administration yesterday sued Minnesota in an attempt to block the first state law that prohibits prediction markets.

While other states imposed restrictions on prediction markets, Minnesota banned them outright in a law signed by Gov. Tim Walz on Monday. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced a lawsuit against the state, saying that Minnesota's "new legislation represents the most aggressive move by a state to shut down CFTC-regulated markets and undermine the federal regulatory regime set up by Congress more than 50 years ago."

“This Minnesota law turns lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said. “Minnesota farmers have relied on critical hedging products on weather and crop-related events for decades to mitigate their risks. Governor Walz chose to put special interests first and American farmers and innovators last.”

Read full article

Comments

Last year marked the beginning of Google's explicit focus on AI search, and this year's I/O solidified that shift . As Google's search VP Liz Reid said during the keynote, "Google search is AI search." This change is well underway, and the very reasonable objections to this path will not dissuade the company. All the metrics that matter to Google say this is the right move. But at the end of the day, Google can get whatever outcome it wants because it's just that big and influential.

Google started testing AI Mode for search just over a year ago, making the shift official at I/O 2025. You hear a lot of complaints around the Internet about how AI is changing Google's search products, but Google is getting what it wants: more searches. Reid revealed at I/O 2026 that AI Mode usage has been doubling every quarter. There are now more than 1 billion people using AI Mode every month.

It's not hard to see how that could be true. AI Mode invites a conversational experience—it asks you questions—and each of those follow-up queries counts as searches. Google has also pushed AI Mode very hard, including prominent links and nudges to get people to use its search chatbot instead of the traditional product. And unlike many of Google's other AI experiences, you don't have to pay anything to AI search. Everyone who uses Google search gets the full AI experience.

Read full article

Comments

Larry Bushart, a retired Tennessee cop who was jailed for 37 days for posting a Trump meme on Facebook , won an $835,000 settlement Wednesday after suing the county and sheriff that he said jailed him in order to censor him.

In a press release , Bushart's legal team at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) confirmed that Bushart agreed to dismiss his lawsuit in exchange for the "substantial settlement."

"I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated," Bushart said. "The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family."

Read full article

Comments

It's difficult to know the true state of the Russian economy, both because the country's financial reporting is sparse and because official figures are unreliable. But things probably aren't great.

This week, Sweden's minister of foreign affairs, Maria Malmer Stenergard, shared her country's assessment that the Russian economy has likely contracted over the last five years amid the war in Ukraine. Inflation is also high, and international sanctions have cost Russia $450 billion since the onset of the war in February 2022. Russia's economy is currently smaller than that of Texas, Stenergard said.

By most measures, then, the economy is not in tip-top shape. Moreover, the war is draining a large amount of the country's financial resources, with defense spending reaching a post-Soviet record of about 7 percent of government spending.

Read full article

Comments

For years, owners of Vizio smart TVs have had little control over the software running on their sets—software that can track viewing habits, push ads, and generally shape the experience of using the device.

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a US nonprofit that promotes and provides legal support for free and open source software projects, isn't happy about that—so much so that it has spent eight years trying to force the release of the complete source code for Vizio's Linux-based smart TV operating system.

Now, after numerous delays since the SFC filed suit in 2021, a California jury will decide in August whether Vizio must provide that code in executable form to SFC and any Vizio TV owner who wants it.

Read full article

Comments

Beijing banned an Nvidia gaming chip while the company’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, was visiting China with Donald Trump last week, the latest salvo in the superpowers’ battle to dominate AI.

The chip was added to a list of banned goods at China’s customs checkpoints last Friday, according to a copy of the document seen by the FT and two people with knowledge of the matter.

The move highlights Beijing’s determination to keep out Nvidia’s chips, especially the degraded versions made to comply with US export controls. The Chinese government wants to support domestic chipmakers such as Huawei and Cambricon as they catch up to their US rivals.

Read full article

Comments

The robotics startup Figure AI has been livestreaming humanoid robots placing thousands of packages onto a conveyor belt for nearly a week—a spectacle that included a robot competing against a human intern at one point.

The promotional robot demo has become a viral sensation among tech enthusiasts, spurring YouTube commenters to name the robots and the company rapidly rolling out related robot merchandise in response. Users on X have described the livestream in glowing terms such as “the greatest product demo since Steve Jobs’ ‘one more thing.’” But despite such sentiments, it’s worth bearing in mind that even the most impressive robot demos represent narrow windows for understanding real-world robot capabilities.

Figure’s event began on May 13 as a planned eight-hour robot demonstration featuring the company’s latest Figure 03 robots. The chosen robotic task involved inspecting the barcodes on various small packages—including cardboard boxes and soft padded envelopes or bags—and then placing the packages on a conveyor belt with the barcodes facing downward. The demo would feature the robots performing the task autonomously without any human intervention, according to Figure CEO Brett Adcock.

Read full article

Comments

BARCELONA, Spain—Volvo unveiled its new all-electric EX60 in January with a slew of distinctions. The EX60 is the first model on the company's all-EV SPA3 platform, a scalable base upon which Volvo plans to build a range of other vehicles.

With up to 400 miles (643 km) of range and faster charging than any other Volvo vehicle, this EV carries a lot of hopes and dreams. Volvo says it completely changed how it builds cars for the EX60, refining every stage of production. Part of the building process is called megacasting, a technique that converts molten aluminum into one lightweight piece. The model also boasts 800 V charging and cell-to-body integration, a structural load-bearing battery design that integrates battery cells directly into the vehicle’s floor and walls.

While the market may seem wishy-washy on EVs right now, at least in the United States, most automakers with EVs already in the works are plowing forward. Volvo launched the compact EX30 at the end of 2023 and discontinued it this year due to shifting conditions and tariffs, but the three-row EX90 continues the lineup alongside the new EX60. Priced at $59,795 for the entry-level P6 Plus, the 2027 EX60 ranges up to $68,745 for the P10 AWD Ultra, which is more powerful and has a longer range. Volvo says the P12, which will have even more power and range, is on the horizon.

Read full article

Comments

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced plans to buy nationwide access to a network of license plate readers, saying it will award contracts to one or more vendors that can offer "near real time" information from cameras across the US. The proposed contract is for the FBI Directorate of Intelligence.

"To evaluate and manage threats to personal safety, property, and law enforcement, the FBI requires professional service firms that can provide License Plate Readers (LPRs) for tracking subjects on roads and highways over the US and its territories," the FBI said in a Request for Proposals (RFP) published on May 14. The FBI said the winning bidder or bidders "must provide law enforcement and/or commercial license plate reader data provided through the Contractor’s existing platform." The system must cover 75 percent of locations, the FBI said.

The system must offer the ability to search for license plate information "and other descriptive data such as vehicle description information, time/date criteria, and geo-location criteria," the FBI said. "Additionally, the system must provide search result notifications. The Contractor system must have the ability to access and/or query cameras across the United States and its territories. The Contractor system must be capable of providing this data in near real time."

Read full article

Comments