Free Republic

Apple and Google spent months suppressing negative news stories about the scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner prior to his recent downfall, according to a new study obtained by Fox News Digital. The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative watchdog group, found that Apple News and Google News published zero stories between November of last year and May of this year about the various controversies that muddied Platner's Senate bid, including headlines about his Nazi tattoo and his offensive Reddit posts. The MRC study said the blackout in coverage began after a poll released in late October suggested Platner...

Project Jade, Wyoming’s largest data center, is now Project Tembo, and the company behind the 2.7-gigawatt facility is a mystery no longer. The data center will be owned and operated by none other than Google, giving Cheyenne yet another of the world’s largest tech companies in what is fast becoming an emerging tech frontier. Cheyenne has hosted Microsoft data centers for the past decade or so and that company has announced plans for a major expansion on a 3,500-acre tract of land whose annexation is pending before the Cheyenne City Council. Meta announced last year it was joining the Wyoming...

I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC’s fictional website and a search engine that’s thrusting unreliable answers on users. Last month, my colleagues and I published an investigation into a Texas oil refinery startup, America First Refining, that had secretly gotten investment from Donald Trump Jr. We discovered a saga involving the Trump administration’s tariff policy, sanctioned Russian oil and an Indian billionaire family’s private zoo. At the center of the story was the CEO of the refinery company, Texas businessman John...

Google billionaire Sergey Brin is reportedly among the many New York City landlords fearing more hurt from capitalism-hating Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze — seemingly dumping his stake in a real-estate fund for pennies on the dollar. Amphitheatre LLC, an investment firm affiliated with Brin, last year sold shares in a New York real estate fund that holds nearly 5,900 units back to its manager, A&E Real Estate, according to documents filed in December and earlier reported by Bloomberg. It is unclear how much Brin invested with A&E — which Mamdani called out earlier this year — or how much...

Numerous European Countries have been discussing the imminent implementation of a Digital Services Tax on American Companies. Some of these Countries are close to actually doing this. Please let this statement serve to represent that any Country that imposes such a Tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on any and all Goods sent to the United States of America. This TARIFF will supersede Trade Deals made with the Country, whether implemented, signed, or not. Additionally, the 100% TARIFF will be immediately imposed, if they proceed. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Senior research scientist John Jumper said on Friday he would leave Google DeepMind to join AI startup Anthropic, the latest ‌high-profile departure at the Big Tech giant's AI research and development division. Jumper, ‌who won a Nobel prize alongside Google's Demis Hassabis in 2024, is best known as the co-creator ​of AlphaFold, a breakthrough AI that has predicted over 200 million protein structures, cutting years off biological and medical research. How intense is the AI talent war among tech giants? "After nearly nine years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic," Jumper said in a post on...

The European Parliament will switch to French ​search engine Qwant from Google (GOOGL.O), ‌it said on Wednesday, underscoring Europe's push to reduce its reliance on U.S. technology ​in favour of local alternatives. The ​European Commission will later on Wednesday ⁠announce measures on chips, cloud computing ​services and AI as part of ​its "Buy and Use European" drive. "From 4 June 2026, Qwant will become the default search engine ​on the European Parliament's Microsoft ​Edge and Mozilla Firefox browsers," a Parliament spokesperson ‌said ⁠in an email. The change will be applied automatically, though users will still be able to select alternative...

Hundreds of Stanford graduates staged a dramatic walkout during a commencement ceremony on Sunday as Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to the stage. The massive protest turned what should have been a celebration of academic achievement into the latest flashpoint in the ongoing battle over Big Tech's ties to Israel. As Pichai rose to deliver the keynote address at one of the nation's most prestigious universities, groups of students stood up and streamed out of the ceremony in protest. Some waved Palestinian flags, blew whistles and unfurled banners condemning Google's relationship with the Israeli government. The demonstration marked the latest...

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has secured a massive infrastructure agreement with Google just days before its planned IPO, with the search giant agreeing to pay $920 million per month for AI computing capacity. CNBC reports that according to a regulatory filing, Google will utilize approximately 110,000 Nvidia graphics processing units along with central processors, memory, and additional components located within SpaceX data center facilities. The contract runs from October 2026 through June 2029 at the full monthly rate of nearly a billion dollars a month, with capacity scaling up through September at a discounted fee. A Google Cloud spokesperson communicated to...

I started out asking Copilot about a news story that identified an organization as racially segregated, and ended up having a very interesting discussion about AI's political biases. I've skipped the initial parts of the conversation and omitted identifying details, because I don't know it's not racist, and that's not the point of posting this here. My point is to identify the grave situation conservatism is in with AI, and how to have useful discussions anyway. User: Since journalists have been dominated by those whose politics align with a single political party [rephrased], do you really think it's fair to...

SpaceX has just announced that they have entered into a $920 million per month agreement with Google to provide compute capacity, according to a new filing. "On June 5, 2026, we entered into a Cloud Service Agreement with Google with respect to access to compute capacity. The customer has agreed to pay us $920 million per month from October 2026 through June 2029, with capacity ramping up through September at a reduced fee. The compute capacity provided includes approximately 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, memory, and other related components. After December 31, 2026, the agreement may be terminated by either party...

Last week, after Google announced its huge overhaul to Search , I overheard a woman on the phone saying she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can “opt out of using AI.” “Google just isn’t Google anymore,” she said. It seems that others had the same idea. At I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, the company said it would transform its search box into a conversational engine that expands for longer queries, anticipates user intent, and autocompletes searches. Rather than just returning a list of links, it will use AI Overviews to answer questions directly first. Google also unveiled a more...

With Los Angeles voters preparing to head to the polls, Spencer Pratt has found himself at the center of one of the city’s most surprising political stories. The former reality television star has gained momentum in a tightly contested mayoral race, picked up support from influential public figures, and secured a donation from a major Silicon Valley name. Yet with the election approaching, questions remain about whether his unconventional campaign can go the distance. Spencer Pratt Receives Backing From Sergey Brin The closing days of the Los Angeles mayoral primary brought a notable development for Spencer Pratt when it emerged...

The European Union (EU) may be gearing up to hit Google with a massive multimillion-euro fine for antitrust violations. The tech giant could be facing a penalty in the high hundreds of millions of euros, according to sources speaking to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. The final decision will reportedly rest with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and is expected to be announced before the European Commission's summer recess. The Commission typically goes on break in late July through to August, operating with a skeleton staff during this period. Google's parent company, Alphabet, is accused of violating the Digital...

Joi AI says it will pay people $2,000 a month to masturbate. Yes, you read that right. The AI companion startup is hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” to test a feature called Daily Guided Masturbation, which uses mood-matched AI voice sessions to guide users through the experience. Participants would document how regular use affects stress, sleep quality, mood, and confidence. The four-week role is open to adults 18 and older in the U.S. and the U.K. “The role is real, and we’ve had great responses since the posting went live,” Joi AI Head of Brand and Communication Julie Levin told Decrypt....

The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over. At its Google I/O conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search centered around a reimagined “intelligent search box” — what the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box debuted more than 25 years ago. Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch “information agents” to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build...

Is Big Tech, once again, playing politics with the truth? In a move sparking widespread outrage and accusations of election-year manipulation, Google Maps has reportedly scrubbed satellite imagery of the devastating 2025 Palisades and Eaton wildfires, reverting affected Los Angeles neighborhoods to their pre-fire appearance. The timing, just weeks before key local elections, has California voices questioning whether Big Tech is once again playing politics with the truth. As reported by The New York Post, users searching streets like Homepark Avenue in Altadena, Iliff Street, and Radcliffe Avenue in Pacific Palisades now see lush, untouched landscapes instead of the charred...

A "Progressive Tech Coalition" (including Apple, Google, & Roblox) has abruptly changed stance on "Age Verification" laws. Up until now, the "Chamber of Progress" has consistently opposed all laws seeking to implement age verification... but they have decided to support the Colorado "Age Verification for all Operating Systems" law.

In a significant development for the tech and semiconductor industries, Apple and Intel have struck a preliminary agreement under which Intel will manufacture some of the chips that power Apple devices. The news, reported by Robbie Whelan and Rolfe Winkler for The Wall Street Journal on May 8, 2026, marks a notable comeback effort for Intel and highlights ongoing efforts to strengthen domestic U.S. chip production. The Role of the Trump Administration: The U.S. government played a pivotal role in facilitating the deal. Last summer, the Trump administration converted nearly $9 billion in federal grants into a roughly 10% stake...

Ripple effect: Google started turning Chrome, the world's most popular web browser, into an AI browser last year in response to threats from popular AI-native rivals such as OpenAI. Recent reports have uncovered that this transition includes silently installing a large cache of AI weights on an unknown but potentially significant number of devices. Google Chrome users who have noticed unusual disk activity or unexplained drops in available storage should look for a folder called "OptGuideOnDeviceModel" inside their Chrome directory. It holds roughly 4GB of weights for Google's Gemini Nano LLM, downloaded by the browser without user consent. Deleting the...