If you want to satiate AI’s hunger for power, Google suggests going to space

Google engineers think they already have all the pieces needed to build a data center in orbit.

It was probably always when, not if, Google would add its name to the list of companies intrigued by the potential of orbiting data centers.

Google announced Tuesday a new initiative, named Project Suncatcher, to examine the feasibility of bringing artificial intelligence to space. The idea is to deploy swarms of satellites in low-Earth orbit, each carrying Google’s AI accelerator chips designed for training, content generation, synthetic speech and vision, and predictive modeling. Google calls these chips Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs.

“Project Suncatcher is a moonshot exploring a new frontier: equipping solar-powered satellite constellations with TPUs and free-space optical links to one day scale machine learning compute in space,” Google wrote in a blog post.

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Google settlement with Epic caps Play Store fees, boosts other Android app stores

Google will make several changes to Android app support globally, supported through at least 2032.

Google has spent the last few years waging a losing battle against Epic Games, which accused the Android maker of illegally stifling competition in mobile apps. Losses in court left Google to make sweeping changes to the Play Store, but Google appeared poised to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. That is unlikely now that Epic and Google have reached a settlement in the case. It still needs to be approved by the judge, but the agreement provides a framework for long-term changes to Android app distribution that would apply globally.

Late last month, Google was forced to make the first round of mandated changes to the Play Store to comply with the court’s ruling. It grudgingly began allowing developers to direct users to alternative payment options and app downloads outside of Google’s ecosystem. By next summer, Google was supposed to open up Android to third-party app stores in a big way.

These changes were only mandated for three years and in the United States. The new agreement includes a different vision for third-party stores on Android—one that Google finds more palatable and that still gives Epic what it wants. If approved, the settlement will lower Google’s standard fee for developers. There will also be new support in Android for third-party app stores that will reduce the friction of leaving the Google bubble. Under the terms of the settlement, Google will support these changes through at least June 2032.

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Speedport 7: Telekom setzt auf Software von Airties für Wi-Fi 7

Die Deutsche Telekom nutzt in ihrem neuen Router Speedport 7 mit Wi-Fi 7 eine spezielle Software. Doch ein wichtiger Frequenzbereich fehlt dem Gerät von Arcadyan. (Speedport, Telekom)

Die Deutsche Telekom nutzt in ihrem neuen Router Speedport 7 mit Wi-Fi 7 eine spezielle Software. Doch ein wichtiger Frequenzbereich fehlt dem Gerät von Arcadyan. (Speedport, Telekom)

How to declutter, quiet down, and take the AI out of Windows 11 25H2

A new major Windows 11 release means a new guide for cleaning up the OS.

It’s that time of year again—temperatures are dropping, leaves are changing color, and Microsoft is gradually rolling out another major yearly update to Windows 11.

The Windows 11 25H2 update is relatively minor compared to last year’s 24H2 update (the “25” here is a reference to the year the update was released, while the “H2” denotes that it was released in the second half of the year, a vestigial suffix from when Microsoft would release two major Windows updates per year). The 24H2 update came with some major under-the-hood overhauls of core Windows components and significant performance improvements for the Arm version; 25H2 is largely 24H2, but with a rolled-over version number to keep it in line with Microsoft’s timeline for security updates and tech support.

But Microsoft’s continuous update cadence for Windows 11 means that even the 24H2 version as it currently exists isn’t the same one Microsoft released a year ago.

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Tesla’s European and Chinese customers are staying away in droves

Sales tank as investors get ready to decide whether to make Musk a trillionaire.

Tesla’s shareholders are ready to vote tomorrow on whether to give Elon Musk an even more vast slice of the company in an effort to keep him focused on selling electric vehicles. Currently, the trolling tycoon appears a little obsessed with the UK, a place he appears to conflate with Middle Earth, which investors may or may not take into account when making their decision. What they ought to take into account is how many cars Tesla sold last month.

Although Tesla only publishes quarterly sales figures and does not divide those up by region, slightly more granular data is available from some countries via monthly new car registrations. And the numbers for October, when compared year on year to the same month in 2024, should be alarming.

Sales fell by double-digit margins in Sweden (89 percent), Denmark (86 percent), Belgium (69 percent), Finland (68 percent), Austria (65 percent), Switzerland (60 percent), Portugal (59 percent), Germany (54 percent), Norway (50 percent), the Netherlands (48 percent), the UK (47 percent), Italy (47 percent), and Spain (31 percent).

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