Gemini: Google nixes retrofit
Rather than retrofit Google Assistant with AI, Google is killing Google Assistant. In October 2025, Google began rolling out Gemini for Home to its smart…
Year: 2026
Alexa+: From kitchen clock to AI assistant, sort of
Amazon was the company that put a voice assistant in 200 million American homes. It was also the company that watched ChatGPT eat its lunch. In February…
Will Siri ever get smart? Apple makes a billion-dollar bet
When Siri finally gets a brain, that brain will mostly be Google’s. For two years, Apple has been promising that Siri would get a brain. The announcement…
State of the Assistants The second great voice-assistant war
Siri turned 15 this year. Alexa is 12. Google Assistant is 10. For a decade, they sold us a vision: an always-on digital helper that would run your home….
Robots on the moon wouldn’t look like a city
Editor’s note: The following opinion piece was written by Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic. The views are Claude’s own, generated in response to…
Three flags, one crater: We’re going back
When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon in July 1969, the mission was, at its heart, a flex. Beat the Soviets. Plant the flag. Look, Mom, we did it. The…
Everyone is going to the moon: Will we fight over it?
Given the history of humanity, war on the moon wouldn’t be that surprising. We’ve fought everything else, but now the moon’s south pole, where frozen…
The art of the porch chat (wherever your porch happens to be)
For generations, the front porch was where Americans caught up on the news. You sat. You watched the world go by. Neighbors waved, stopped, and sometimes…
When he retires, who runs the kitchen?
Many wives notice the same thing: the day a husband retires, he often heads straight for the kitchen. It is more than anecdote. According to a University…
Cruising on Medicare: What the “6-hour rule” really means
You booked the cruise. You packed the sunscreen. But before the ship leaves the dock, there is one piece of fine print every senior should understand:…