Every smartphone maker is racing to find a way to put AI in your pocket, but no one has cracked the code yet. Samsung was an early supporter of Google's Gemini AI, which has largely supplanted its little-used Bixby assistant. However, a new report claims Samsung is planning a big AI shakeup by partnering with Perplexity on the Galaxy S26.

Perplexity pitches itself as an AI-powered search service, running on the same generative AI technology behind ChatGPT, Gemini, and all the others. However, it cites its sources around the web more prominently than a pure chatbot. Perplexity made waves during the Google search antitrust trial when executive Dmitry Shevelenko testified that Google blocked Motorola from using Perplexity on its 2024 phones. The company got its wish this year, though, with Perplexity finding a place on 2025 Razr phones.

A report from Bloomberg says Samsung will be the next to leverage Perplexity's AI. The companies are apparently close to signing a deal that will make this AI model a core part of the Galaxy S26 lineup. Motorola uses Perplexity for search functionality inside its Moto AI system, but the Samsung deal would be more comprehensive.

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College students who have reportedly grown too dependent on ChatGPT are starting to face consequences after graduating and joining the workforce for placing too much trust in chatbots.

Last month, a recent law school graduate lost his job after using ChatGPT to help draft a court filing that ended up being riddled with errors.

The consequences arrived after a court in Utah ordered sanctions after the filing included the first fake citation ever discovered in the state hallucinated by artificial intelligence.

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Internet service provider Frontier Communications agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by major record labels that demanded mass disconnections of broadband users accused of piracy.

Universal, Sony, and Warner sued Frontier in 2021 . In a notice of settlement filed last week in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the parties agreed to dismiss the case with prejudice, with each side to pay its own fees and costs.

The record labels and Frontier simultaneously announced a settlement of similar claims in a Bankruptcy Court case in the same district. Frontier also settled with movie companies in April of this year, just before a trial was scheduled to begin. (Frontier exited bankruptcy in 2021.)

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With the federal hiring freeze lifting in mid-July, the Trump administration has rolled out a controversial federal hiring plan that critics warn will politicize and likely slow down the process rather than increase government efficiency.

De-emphasizing degree requirements and banning DEI initiatives—as well as any census tracking of gender, race, ethnicity, or religion to assess the composition of government—the plan requires every new hire to submit essays explaining which executive orders or policy initiatives they will help advance.

These essays must be limited to 200 words and cannot be generated by a chatbot, the guidance noted. While some applicants may point to policies enacted by prior presidents under their guidance, the president appears to be seeking to ensure that only Trump supporters are hired and that anyone who becomes disillusioned with Trump is weeded out over time. In addition to asking for a show of loyalty during the interview process, all federal workers will also be continuously vetted and must agree to submit to "checks for post-appointment conduct that may impact their continued trustworthiness," the guidance noted, referencing required patriotism repeatedly.

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GILA RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz.—About 33 miles south of Phoenix, Interstate 10 bisects a line of solar panels traversing the desert like an iridescent snake. The solar farm’s shape follows the path of a canal, with panels serving as awnings to shade the gently flowing water from the unforgiving heat and wind of the Sonoran Desert.

The panels began generating power last November for the Akimel O’otham and Pee Posh tribes—known together as the Gila River Indian Community, or GRIC—on their reservation in south-central Arizona, and they are the first of their kind in the US. The community is studying the effects of these panels on the water in the canal, hopeful that they will protect a precious resource from the desert’s unflinching sun and wind.

In September, GRIC is planning to break ground on another experimental effort to conserve water while generating electricity: floating solar. Between its canal canopies and the new project that would float photovoltaic panels on a reservoir it is building, GRIC hopes to one day power all of its canal and irrigation operations with solar electricity, transforming itself into one of the most innovative and closely watched water users in the West in the process.

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Formula 1 held its annual Spanish Grand Prix this past weekend at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona. It's a good place to test a modern F1 car, as you need great aerodynamics to be fast around here, especially now that the awkward chicanes are gone. You also need good mechanical grip. Races used to be processional here, but the re-profiled turn 10 and the flat-out nature of the last turn have changed all that.

This was to be the weekend of new front wings, the result of a "technical directive" meant to stop excessive flexing as part of the sport's ongoing antipathy toward creatively movable aerodynamics outside a tightly described domain . The competitive order would be reset, some hoped, as their rivals would be forced to give up unfair advantages. In fact, the new wings turned out to be a nothingburger. McLaren's advantage remains, and that was clear on a circuit that tests every aspect of a racing car.

But there's only one story that anyone really cares about after Spain, and it's the one about Red Bull's Max Verstappen. For much of the race, Verstappen held onto third place, behind the too-fast McLarens. This required using one more set of tires than they did, and for his last stint, all that was left for the Red Bull driver was a set of the too-hard compound, giving him little in the way of grip.

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Netflix held its Tudum Global Fan Event in Los Angeles this weekend to showcase its upcoming slate of programming. Among the highlights: the official trailer for the third and final season of Squid Game , the first six minutes of Wednesday S2, a teaser for Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein , and date announcements for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, as well as Wake Up Dead Man: a Knives Out Mystery .

(Some spoilers below.)

Squid Game S3

As previously reported , S quid Game 's first season followed Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae), a down-on-his-luck gambler who has little left to lose when he agrees to play children's playground games against 455 other players for money. The twist? If you lose a game, you die. If you cheat, you die. And if you win, you might also die. In the S1 finale, Gi-hun faced off against fellow finalist and childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) in the titular "squid game." He won their fight but refused to kill his friend. Sang-woo instead stabbed himself in the neck, leaving Gi-hun the guilt-ridden winner.

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Every time I write an article about the escalating advertising and tracking on today's TVs , someone brings up Apple TV boxes. Among smart TVs, streaming sticks, and other streaming devices, Apple TVs are largely viewed as a safe haven.

"Just disconnect your TV from the Internet and use an Apple TV box."

That's the common guidance you'll hear from Ars readers for those seeking the joys of streaming without giving up too much privacy. Based on our research and the experts we've consulted, that advice is pretty solid, as Apple TVs offer significantly more privacy than other streaming hardware providers.

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It's a regrettable reality that there is never time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we've featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we're experimenting with a monthly collection. May's list includes a nifty experiment to make a predicted effect of special relativity visible; a ping-pong playing robot that can return hits with 88 percent accuracy; and the discovery of the rare genetic mutation that makes orange cats orange, among other highlights.

Special relativity made visible

Credit: TU Wien

Perhaps the most well-known feature of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity is time dilation and length contraction. In 1959, two physicists predicted another feature of relativistic motion: an object moving near the speed of light should also appear to be rotated. It's not been possible to demonstrate this experimentally, however—until now. Physicists at the Vienna University of Technology figured out how to reproduce this rotational effect in the lab using laser pulses and precision cameras, according to a paper published in the journal Communications Physics.

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