An otherwise-healthy 52-year-old office worker showed up to a hospital emergency department in Buenos Aires with an unshakable fever he developed the week before. Besides the high temperature, he seemed fine. So, after testing negative for COVID-19, doctors sent him home with supportive care. But the fever didn't go away.

In the week that followed, things got worse. He developed nausea, stomach pain, and diarrhea. He also started having trouble breathing. He then went back to the hospital.

This time, doctors found he needed supplemental oxygen. And an X-ray of his chest was worrisome—there were diffuse ground-glass opacities in his lungs. Doctors wondered if he had an unusual case of pneumonia. The man kept getting worse; in fact, he seemed to deteriorate before their eyes. Initially, he received supplemental oxygen through a simple face mask; subsequently, doctors switched to a mask that delivers continuous oxygen. However, his blood oxygen saturation continued to fall.

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Automaker Stellantis and retail and web services behemoth Amazon have decided to put an end to a collaboration on new in-car software. The partnership dates back to 2022, part of a wide-ranging agreement that also saw Stellantis pick Amazon Web Services as its cloud platform for new vehicles and Amazon sign on as the first customer for Ram's fully electric ProMaster EV van.

A key aspect of the Amazon-Stellantis partnership was to be a software platform for new Stellantis vehicles called STLA SmartCockpit. Meant to debut last year, SmartCockpit was supposed to "seamlessly integrate with customers’ digital lives to create personalized, intuitive in-vehicle experiences," using Alexa and other AI agents to provide better in-car entertainment but also navigation, vehicle maintenance, and in-car payments as well.

But 2024 came and went without the launch of SmartCockpit, and now the joint work has wound down, according to Reuters , although not for any particular reason the news organization could discern. Rather, the companies said in a statement that they "will allow each team to focus on solutions that provide value to our shared customers and better align with our evolving strategies."

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In some ways, Getty Images has emerged as one of the most steadfast defenders of artists' rights in AI copyright fights. Starting in 2022, when some of the most sophisticated image generators today first started testing new models offering better compositions , Getty banned AI-generated uploads to its service . And by the next year, Getty released a "socially responsible" image generator to prove it was possible to build a tool while rewarding artists, while suing an AI firm that refused to pay artists.

But in the years since, Getty Images CEO Craig Peters recently told CNBC that the media company has discovered that it's simply way too expensive to fight every AI copyright battle.

According to Peters, Getty has dumped millions into just one copyright fight against Stability AI.

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The Trump administration is backing cable company Cox in a battle that could determine whether Internet service providers are forced to disconnect users accused of piracy.

Cox, which says ISPs shouldn't have to terminate customers based on unproven allegations of copyright infringement, has been seeking Supreme Court review of Sony's victory in the underlying lawsuit. The court asked the US solicitor general to file a brief expressing the views of the United States government. Solicitor General John Sauer, a Trump nominee, filed a brief yesterday.

The Supreme Court "should grant certiorari to address the first question presented in Cox's petition: whether an ISP materially contributes to copyright infringement by continuing to provide Internet access to particular subscribers after receiving notice that copyright infringement has occurred on their accounts," Sauer wrote.

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The next version of Android is expected to hit Pixel phones in June, but it'll take longer for devices from other manufacturers to see the new OS. However, Samsung is making unusually good time this cycle. Owners of the company's Galaxy S25 phones can get an early look at One UI 8 (based on Android 16) in the new open beta program. Samsung promises a lot of upgrades, but it may not feel that way.

Signing up for the beta is a snap—just open the Samsung Members app, and the beta signup should be right on the main landing page. From there, the OTA update should appear on your device within a few minutes. It's pretty hefty at 3.4GB, but the installation is quick, and none of your data should be affected. That said, backups are always advisable when using beta software.

You must be in the US, Germany, Korea, or the UK to join the beta, and US phones must be unlocked or the T-Mobile variants. The software is compatible with the Galaxy S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra—the new S25 Edge need not apply (for now).

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A federal judge has given Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees access to US Treasury payment systems as long as they meet training and vetting requirements but denied the Trump administration's motion to completely dissolve a preliminary injunction.

US District Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York is overseeing a case filed against President Trump by 19 states led by New York. In February, Vargas issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Treasury Department from granting DOGE access to systems containing personally identifiable information or confidential financial information.

In April, Vargas allowed DOGE employee Ryan Wunderly to access the Treasury Department's Bureau of Fiscal Services (BFS) system, after government declarations said "that Wunderly has undergone the same vetting and security clearance process that applies to any other Treasury Department employee provided with access to BFS payment systems." In an order yesterday , Vargas ruled that four more employees can access the system.

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The current incarnation of Google Photos was not Google's first image management platform, but it's been a big success. Ten years on, Google Photos remains one of Google's most popular products, and it's getting a couple of new features to celebrate its 10th year in operation. You'll be able to share albums a bit more easily, and editing tools are getting a boost with, you guessed it, AI.

Google Photos made a splash in 2015 when it broke free of the spiraling Google+ social network, offering people supposedly unlimited free storage for compressed images. Of course, that was too good to last. In 2021, Google began limiting photo uploads to 15GB for free users, sharing the default account level storage with other services like Gmail and Drive. Today, Google encourages everyone to pay for a Google One subscription to get more space, which is a bit of a bummer. Regardless, people still use Google Photos extensively.

According to the company, Photos has more than 1.5 billion monthly users, and it stores more than 9 trillion photos and videos. When using the Photos app on a phone, you are prompted to automatically upload your camera roll, which makes it easy to keep all your memories backed up (and edge ever closer to the free storage limit). Photos has also long offered almost magical search capabilities, allowing you to search for the content of images to find them. That may seem less impressive now, but it was revolutionary a decade ago. Google says users perform over 370 million searches in Photos each month.

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Late on Friday, Amazon announced that it was canceling its TV adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, after several uncomfortable weeks of silence that followed the show’s third season finale .

Fans of the series can take some cold comfort in the fact that it apparently wasn’t an easy decision to make . But as we speculated in our write-up of what ended up being the show’s series finale, an expensive show with a huge cast, tons of complicated costuming and effects, and extensive location shooting only makes mathematical sense if it’s a megahit, and The Wheel of Time was never a megahit.

Adapting the unadaptable

I was sad about the cancellation announcement because I believe this season was the one where the show found its footing, both as an adaptation of a complex book series and as a fun TV show in its own right. But I wasn't surprised by it. The only thing I found surprising was that it took this long to happen.

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After weeks of arguments in the Federal Trade Commission's monopoly trial, Meta is done defending its decade-plus-old acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp—at least for now.

The seven-week trial ended Tuesday, with the FTC urging Judge James Boasberg to rule that a breakup is necessary to end Meta's alleged monopoly in the "personal social networking services" market, where Meta currently faces sparse competition among other apps connecting friends and family. As alleged by the FTC, Meta's internal emails laid bare that Meta's motive in acquiring both Instagram and WhatsApp was to pay whatever it took to snuff out dominant rivals threatening to lure users away from Facebook—Mark Zuckerberg's jewel.

Talking to Bloomberg , Meta has maintained that the FTC's case is weak, seeking to undo deals that the FTC approved long ago while ignoring the competition Meta faces from rivals in the broader social media market, like TikTok. But Meta's attempt to shut down the case mid-trial was rebuffed by Boasberg, who has signaled he will take months to weigh his decision.

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