Shares in Allbirds surge after maker of wool sneakers announces pivot to AI

Oracle’s abrupt termination of an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 employees via email on March 31 has sparked significant employee pushback over what many regarded as inadequate severance. The company offered four weeks of base pay plus one additional week per year of service, capped at 26 weeks, but crucially did not accelerate unvested stock grants — meaning […]

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a Silicon Valley debate: it’s becoming part of Africa’s creative revolution. In Nigeria, filmmakers and digital artists are experimenting with AI tools to create films, archive disappearing oral histories and imagine new African futures. Obinna Okere-keocha, founder of  Naija Artificial Intelligence Film Festival, and  filmmaker Malik Afegbua, use AI to preserve fading oral traditions by creating digital archives.

Claims of nimbyism are a misunderstanding: the movement is about whether regular people have a say in fundamental decisions Since the surreal scene at the 2024 presidential inauguration, when a row of big tech titans took their VIP seats and signaled their new alliance with Maga, the Trump administration has rolled out the red carpet for Silicon Valley’s AI ambitions and shareholder priorities. Washington has doled out billions in lucrative federal subsidies and contracts to the cash-rich sector, bloating an AI bubble that experts warn may imperil the entire economy while prohibiting any guardrails on the fast-moving technology. Continue reading...

Samsung reached a $1 trillion market valuation on Wednesday after shares surged more than 10%, making it only the second Asian company to cross the threshold after TSMC. The milestone follows a first-quarter earnings report showing profits eight times higher than a year earlier, driven overwhelmingly by AI-related chip demand. At the centre of the […]

The US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase posted a significant first-quarter loss and revenue that fell short of Wall Street projections, sending its shares tumbling on Thursday. After posting a $667 million loss in Q4 2025, Coinbase had a net loss of $394.1 million in Q1, marking its second consecutive quarter of

Silicon Valley oligarchs worried about the risks their technology posed to the world. They forgot about people.

AI is capable of mimicking a real person. It’s clear this capability exists, and the ethics of using AI for this purpose are often very clear. But increasingly, new applications are leading to ethically murky results.  The good For example, the CEO of a company, or a politician, could choose to create a clone using AI tools, creating a chatbot plus an avatar — a digital twin — that can interact with people on their behalf. Silicon Valley is big on the idea: Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman are working on, or have already created, digital twins of themselves.  Cloned politicians include Pakistan’s Imran Khan, who used an authorized voice clone to campaign from prison, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who used voice-cloned robocalls to speak with constituents in languages like Mandarin and Yiddish. This kind of use case is probably ethical — as long as the people interacting know that they’re dealing with a digital clone and not a real person.  The bad The f

Silicon Valley giants have transformed from asset-light cash machines to huge infrastructure investors