AI is still something most people have to consciously engage with. You open an app, type a prompt, take a photo, or ask a question. Apple’s next major AirPods upgrade could change that. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company is in late-stage development on camera-equipped earbuds that could put visual AI into a device that many people already use every day.

How close are these AI AirPods to launch?

Bloomberg reports that the earbuds have reached design validation testing, one of the final hardware stages before early mass-production testing. That means the hardware may be close, but the launch appears tied to Apple’s delayed Siri overhaul.

Gurman says Apple had planned to release the earbuds as early as the first half of this year, but the launch was pushed back after delays to a revamped Siri. That overhaul is reportedly on track for September after Apple upgraded its underlying models using Alphabet’s Gemini technology.

What would cameras in AirPods actually do?

The cameras are reportedly not meant for regular photos or videos. They would feed low-resolution visual information to Siri, helping it answer questions about what the user is looking at.

That could make visual AI more practical. You could look at ingredients and ask what to cook, get walking directions based on landmarks, or receive reminders connected to something the earbuds see.

Privacy will be the hard part. Bloomberg says Apple has built a small LED light into the earbuds that notifies users when visual data is being sent to the cloud. Apple will need to make that signal clear, because camera-equipped earbuds will only work if people trust when and how they are being used.

Battery life is still unclear. These are earbuds at the end of the day, and the addition of cameras is likely to use more power. AirPods Pro 3 currently offer up to 8 hours of listening time with Active Noise Cancellation on, and up to 24 hours with the charging case. Apple will likely have to decide whether it is willing to take a hit on battery life for visual AI, or find a smarter way to keep battery life respectable.

If you use Google’s Chrome browser for desktop, there’s probably a Gemini Nano AI model running on your computer right now and taking up about 4 GB of space. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you didn’t know about it and don’t want it, there’s a way to turn it off.

The file started auto-downloading for Chrome users in 2024 after Google built Gemini Nano into the browser. But a report by That Privacy Guy this week and the ensuing reception it received highlighted how unaware many users were—perhaps a result of a flood of AI services and features across the tech industry that have been difficult for users to keep up with.

To uninstall the Gemini Nano file, open Chrome on your computer, in the top right corner click the “More” menu represented by three vertical dots, then go to Settings, System, and then toggle “On-device AI” to be off. The Privacy Guy article noted that if you directly uninstall the Gemini Nano file in the directory, Chrome will silently, automatically redownload it the next time the browser reboots.

A Google spokesperson tells WIRED that the company started rolling out the On-device AI toggle in February so users can turn off the features if they choose and remove the model. “Once disabled, the model will no longer download or update,” the spokesperson says in a statement. The company added, too, that the system is designed so Gemini Nano “will automatically uninstall if the device is low on resources.”

Google built the model into Chrome to enabled on-device AI scam-detection features. It was also aimed at providing a way for developers to integrate AI-related application programming interfaces while keeping data on users’ devices when possible and out of the cloud. These features are separate from Chrome’s AI Mode, which does not use the local Gemini Nano model.

Parisa Tabriz, Chrome’s general manager, emphasized in a post on X on Wednesday that integrating Gemini Nano “powers important security capabilities like on-device scam detection and developer APIs without sending your data to the cloud.”

Google certainly did announce the Gemini Nano integration into Chrome and discussed it publicly, but for users who simply use Chrome because it is the world’s biggest, most recognizable browser and don’t necessarily follow every granular update, the lack of an in-your-face notification about a large AI model file sitting and running on your computer may be upsetting.

Longtime security and compliance consultant Davi Ottenheimer says that he follows Chrome updates closely but could have easily missed the Gemini Nano integration. “An on-device model could be a hidden minefield,” he says. And the fact that Google launched the integration in 2024 but didn’t start rolling out a settings control for users to turn it off until February shows that, at least initially, the feature wasn’t conceived as something that users would interact with.

Just because you can remove Gemini Nano from Chrome doesn’t mean you necessarily should—or that doing so is better for your privacy.

Local processing is a more private way to utilize AI capabilities. If you remove the model, the features Google uses it for—including the AI-enabled scam detection—will cease to function. But since Gemini Nano is also used by Chrome to enable local AI processing for third-party developers, blocking this route could have a range of outcomes when interacting with non-Google web services in the browser. A Google spokesperson tells WIRED that if you turn off On-device AI, “certain security features will not be available, and sites that use the on device APIs will behave differently.”

Of course, if neither option seems right, there’s always an alternative: Use a different browser.

OpenAI has launched three new audio models in its Realtime API, and they are a big deal for anyone building voice-powered apps. The three models are GPT-Realtime-2, GPT-Realtime-Translate, and GPT-Realtime-Whisper. 

Together, they move voice AI beyond simple back-and-forth responses toward something that can understand you, take action, and keep up with a real conversation.

If their demo is anything to go by, we have just seen the next evolution in how voice AI models work. 

So what can these models actually do?

GPT-Realtime-2 is the headline act. It brings GPT-5-class reasoning to live voice interactions, meaning it can handle harder requests without dropping the thread of the conversation. 

It can call multiple tools simultaneously and even narrate what it’s doing with phrases like “checking your calendar” or “let me look into that.” It also has a larger context window of 128K tokens, which means longer, more coherent sessions. Developers can even adjust the reasoning effort based on the complexity of the request.

GPT-Realtime-Translate is probably my favorite. It’s the closest we have come to having Star Trek’s Universal Translator in real life. It supports live speech translation across 70+ input languages and 13 output languages. 

The best part of the demo was that even when a new person joined and spoke a different language, GPT-Realtime-Translate had no issues in translating both speakers into English in real time. 

Finally, there’s the GPT-Realtime-Whisper. Most speech-to-text models wait for the speaker to finish before providing the full translation. This one is a streaming transcription model that converts speech to text as the speaker talks. It is useful for live captions, meeting notes, and any voice-powered workflow where waiting for a transcription is not an option.

Can anyone use these new voice AI models?

Currently, OpenAI has released these models for developers. But the apps they build will affect everyone. For example, a developer can build a real-time translator app, allowing users to converse with people in different languages. 

Many companies are already testing these new models. Zillow is building a voice assistant that can search homes and schedule tours from a single spoken request. Priceline can check your flights and hotels, cancel them, and book new ones. Vimeo is using it for real-time transcription, and so on. 

Pricing starts at $0.017 per minute for Whisper, $0.034 per minute for Translate, and $32 per 1M audio input tokens for GPT-Realtime-2.

The first invoices arrive in September. Meta wants the basis changed before they do.

Meta has filed a judicial review against Ofcom over the way the regulator calculates fees and penalties under the UK’s Online Safety Act, the High Court was told on Thursday.

The dispute is narrow on its surface and substantial underneath. Ofcom’s methodology bills platforms based on what it calls qualifying worldwide revenue, the global income tied to a regulated service rather than just the UK slice.

Fines work the same way and can reach 10% of that worldwide figure. Meta’s position, restated outside court, is that any levy should reflect the country in which the service is regulated.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

“We and others in the tech industry believe (Ofcom’s) decisions on the methodology to calculate fees and potential fines are disproportionate,” a Meta spokesperson told reporters. “

We believe fees and penalties should be based on the services being regulated in the countries they’re being regulated in. This would still allow Ofcom to impose the largest fines in UK corporate history.”

Ofcom said the framework was set out in the legislation Parliament passed and that it had consulted at length on how to apply it. “Disappointingly, Meta is objecting to the payment of fees, and any penalties that could be levied on companies in the future, that are calculated on this basis,” the regulator said.

What is actually at stake

The fees themselves are not large in Meta’s terms. Ofcom has signalled the levy will fall between 0.02% and 0.03% of qualifying worldwide revenue, with a £250m revenue threshold for liability and a £10m UK-revenue floor below which providers are exempt. For Meta, that translates to a few tens of millions of pounds a year on a roughly $165bn revenue base.

The penalty exposure is the larger number. The Online Safety Act lets Ofcom fine in-scope services up to 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, the same multiplier the GDPR uses. On Meta’s 2025 figures, the theoretical ceiling sits in the $16bn range. Whether the calculation starts from worldwide or UK-only revenue makes the difference between a remedy that hurts and one that does not.

Ofcom’s lawyer, Javan Herberg, told the court the regulator intends to issue the first round of invoices in the third quarter of this year, most likely September. If Meta wins, refunds may follow. That timetable explains the urgency: a methodology fight after invoicing would mean clawing back money already paid.

Meta’s challenge is procedural rather than constitutional. The company is not arguing the Online Safety Act itself is unlawful. It is arguing that Ofcom’s interpretation of “qualifying worldwide revenue” reaches further than Parliament intended and that the resulting calculation is disproportionate within the meaning of public-law principles.

That framing rhymes with the proportionality fight Meta is also running with Brussels, where Meta has argued the Commission’s interpretation of the Digital Markets Act exceeds what the text supports.

The High Court will not rule on the merits at this stage. Thursday’s hearing covered timing, refund mechanics and the procedural shape of the review. A substantive judgment is unlikely before the autumn, by which time Ofcom will already have issued the first invoices.

If Ofcom prevails, the methodology stands and the UK regime joins the EU’s GDPR and DSA in calibrating penalties to global revenue. If Meta prevails, Ofcom will have to recalibrate; the implications would also extend to TikTok, X, Snap, Pinterest and the other large platforms in scope, none of which has yet joined Meta’s filing publicly but most of which are believed to share the underlying objection.

Meta’s relationship with British and European regulators has been litigious for some time. Meta has now amassed more than €2.5bn in EU fines, more than half the cumulative GDPR penalties levied across the bloc, and the company has appealed most of them. Ofcom’s Telegram CSAM probe is one of several ongoing Online Safety Act investigations into large platforms, alongside Ofcom’s letters in March demanding evidence of further child-safety improvements from Facebook, Instagram, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

The judicial review lands in a moment when the Online Safety Act regime is moving from set-up to enforcement. Ofcom fined 4chan £520,000 in March and AVS Group £1.05m in December for age-check failings. The questions Meta is raising about how the meter is read are exactly the ones the next round of cases will turn on, and they sit alongside longstanding critique of the Online Safety Act from civil-society groups who argue the law’s scope is already too wide.

September will tell whether the company has bought itself a refund mechanism, a methodology change or simply a footnote in the first OSA bill of its life.

Off-Prem

Around 20 percent of staff get an ‘In one hour, you might not work here anymore’ email

Cloudflare
has revealed it will farewell 1,100 staff, due to its current and future use of
AI.

In a blog post that oozes
Orwellian “doublespeak,” CEO Matthew Prince and President/COO Michelle
Zatlyn used the headline “Building for the future” to share the email they sent
to all employees.

That mail opens: “We are writing to let you know directly
that we’ve made the decision to reduce Cloudflare’s workforce by more than
1,100 employees globally.”

The post explains, “Cloudflare’s usage of AI has increased
by more than 600% in the last three months alone. Employees across the company
from engineering to HR to finance to marketing run thousands of AI agent
sessions each day to get their work done.”

All that AI means “we have to be intentional in how we
architect our company for the agentic AI era in order to supercharge the value
we deliver to our customers and to honor our mission to help build a better
Internet for everyone, everywhere.”

Sackings are therefore needed, and are “about defining how a
world-class, high-growth company operates and creates value in the agentic AI
era.”

To rub salt into the wounds of sacked staff, the email went
out not long before Cloudflare announced quarterly results that included 34 percent
year-over-year revenue growth and guidance for 30 percent future growth.

Prince opened the company’s earnings call by stating “We had
a very strong start to 2026.”

Analysts on the earnings call asked Prince to explain the
layoffs and whether they will make Cloudflare stronger.

“We have seen that there are roles at Cloudflare that
are not the roles we need for the future,” Prince responded. “Just because you
are fit does not mean you cannot get fitter. Over the last six months
especially, the productivity gains from the people directly talking to
customers and directly creating code have been incredible, and a lot of the
support roles behind them are not going to be the roles that drive companies
going forward.”

The CEO said Cloudflare has “always lived a little bit in
the future” and said the company is an early beneficiary of AI.

And he said the company will keep hiring.

“The people embracing these tools are so much more
productive than we have ever seen before,” he said. “I would guess that in 2027
we will have more employees than we did at any point in 2026, but the roles are
changing dramatically, and you have to do something dramatic to make that
shift.”

“This is not about downsizing or saving costs,” Prince said.
“This is about having the right people in the right roles to build the future.”

As is often
the case these days, the email to staff warned them of a brief doomsday
countdown.

“Within
the next hour, every member of our global team will receive an email from both
of us clarifying how this change affects them,” the message states. “For those
departing today, we will send this update to both their personal and Cloudflare
addresses to ensure they receive the information immediately.”

The
Register imagines that went down well for workers in time zones where
employees might avoid their work email outside 9-5, but sneak an early-morning-or-late-night-glance
at their personal inboxes. 

Prince and Zatlyn
told employees they hope “to do this only once” and then contradict themselves by
saying they “don’t want to do it again for the foreseeable future.” 

“By taking decisive action now, we provide immediate clarity
to those departing and protect the stability of the team that remains,” they
wrote, before adding their view that one deep cut because “dragging a
reorganization out over multiple quarters creates prolonged emotional
uncertainty for employees and stalls our ability to build.”

 Firing 1,100 people is therefore “the right thing to do;
it’s the honest thing to do; and it reflects the values of the company we are
continuing to build.” ®

What can I say about DoorDash to truly encapsulate what this company means to me? I could say it’s the father I never had; it’s the mother I’ve always wanted; the warm embrace of a friend you haven’t seen in a while; the sound of rain as you fall asleep… One of the greatest inventions of the 21st century has been the ability to get virtually any type of food you crave delivered to your front door without having to get up or even speak to another human. We’ve rounded up the best verified DoorDash promo codes, special offers, and free delivery deals.

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DoorDash is also launching DoorDash Dot, a robot that delivers food to you rather than humans. Which seems like a great idea. (Note the thick layer of sarcasm, reader.) The scary glimpse into our future continues as creators are rewarded. Short-form videos from local creators and foodies are now live in the DoorDash app; DoorDash hopes that consumers will be able preview dishes before they order, to more accurately see things like preparation style and portion size. This is starting in Atlanta, Austin, Miami and San Francisco, with more rolling out through the end of the year.

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Higher education has long been a target of ransomware gangs and data extortion attacks. But never before, perhaps, has a cyberattack against a single software platform so thoroughly disrupted the daily operations of thousands of schools across the United States.

The widely used digital learning platform Canvas was put into “maintenance mode” on Thursday after its maker, the education tech giant Instructure, suffered a data breach and faced an extortion attempt by attackers using the recognizable moniker “ShinyHunters.” Though the hackers have been advertising the breach and attempting to extract a ransom payment from Instructure since May 1, the situation took on additional immediacy for regular people across the US and beyond on Thursday because the Canvas downtime caused chaos at schools, including those in the midst of finals and end-of-year assignments.

Universities like Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, and Georgetown sent alerts to students about the situation in recent days; other institutions, including school districts in at least a dozen states, also appear to have been affected. In a list published by the hackers behind the attack on their ransom-focused dark web site, they claim the breach affected more than 8,800 schools. The exact scale and reach of the breach is currently unclear, though. And the fact that Canvas was down throughout Thursday afternoon and evening further complicated the picture.

In a running incident update log that began on May 1, Steve Proud, Instructure’s chief information security officer, said that the company had “recently experienced a cybersecurity incident perpetrated by a criminal threat actor.” He added on May 2 that “the information involved” for “users at affected institutions” included names, email addresses, student ID numbers, and messages exchanged by users on the platform.

The situation was ultimately marked as “Resolved” on Wednesday, with Proud writing that “Canvas is fully operational, and we are not seeing any ongoing unauthorized activity.” At midday on Thursday, though, the Instructure status page registered an “issue” where “some users are having difficulties logging into Student ePortfolios.” Within a few hours, the company had added another status update: “Instructure has placed Canvas, Canvas Beta and Canvas Test in maintenance mode.” Late Thursday evening, the company said that Canvas was available again “for most users.”

TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the hackers launched a secondary wave of attacks, defacing some schools’ Canvas portals by injecting an HTML file to display their own message on the schools’ Canvas login pages. According to The Harvard Crimson, attackers modified the Harvard Canvas login page to show a message that included a list of schools that the hackers claim were impacted by the breach.

The message from attackers “urged schools included on the affected list to consult with a cyber advisory firm and contact the group privately to negotiate a settlement before the end of the day on May 12—or else risk their data being leaked,” The Crimson reported. “It is unclear what information tied to Harvard affiliates was included in the alleged breach.”

Instructure did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Thursday’s outages and how they fit into the bigger picture of the breach. But the situation is significant given that a massive trove of student information has potentially been exposed, and the visibility of the incident across the country makes it a key example of a longstanding, yet endlessly escalating problem of data extortion and ransomware attacks.

The ShinyHunters name is associated with massive data dumps and has been linked to the infamous hacker collective known as the Com. But as the constellation of actors has shifted over the years, numerous attackers have taken up the most prominent Com-related monikers. A number of recent attacks have invoked other names, such as Lapsus$, with little or no connection to the original group that operated under the name.