Dominic Preston is The Verge’s UK-based News Editor, and puts together the newsletter The Daily. He’s a Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future food systems and public health fellow for his food writing. He’s been in journalism since 2013, after picking up two degrees in philosophy that he still hasn’t figured out what to do with. His career in journalism started out with covering movies and games before moving onto the tech beat. He was previously the deputy editor at Tech Advisor and a managing editor at Android Police, and will jump at any excuse to review an Android phone. When he’s not writing about tech he’s usually writing about food instead, on his Substack newsletter Braise. Contact him on Signal for tips: @dompreston.01
He spent a few hours using OpenAI’s new prosumer agent, which he’s set up as a blue cloud with googly eyes. On day one it saved him a couple hours of work and hasn’t hacked any government websites (yet), enough to make it the most impressive agent he’s tried.
[Platformer]
An issue in Firebase’s analytics led some iOS apps that use the Google service to crash on launch, a problem which persisted for hours even after Google’s fix. That’s one more thing to worry about after internet outages and rogue AI attacks.
[Android Authority]
The July Digital Markets Act ruling required Google to share search data with rival search engines by January 2027, and give third-party AI assistants equal access to Android by that July. Google’s Oliver Bethell told Bloomberg that sharing user search data “would cause irreversible harm to user privacy.”
In the works since earlier this year, plans to go public were only announced a week ago, but are already on the rocks. The smart ring company blames the postponement on “uncertainty in the IPO market,” and CEO Tom Hale suggests it will still go ahead eventually:
“We aim to deliver an extraordinary IPO for our employees and investors and we have the luxury of choosing our moment.”
The box office success of Avengers: Endgame’s re-release has apparently emboldened Sony, which is considering turning Spider-Man: Brand New Day around for a second run at cinema screens (and box office records) with new footage, The Wrap reports. It’s not clear if that means teases for future movies, or just deleted scenes.
The Pixel 11 Pro light is so far underwhelming, only working for calls from favorite contacts or Gemini interactions. Google always said message support is on the way, but a report from Android Authority suggests new colors are coming too, expanding on the five available now. That’s still behind what other devs have done with it.
We’d been told the 15-inch laptop would start at $1,299, but preorders just opened for a much friendlier $1,149.99. It’s the biggest of the first five Googlebooks, with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor inside, 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage, and an HDMI port. It ships from October 4th.
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