"[Wrapper] just sort of means that it feels less thoughtful. It feels like you're giving this little package around what was built. As opposed to what it really means is, 'I'm going to understand the customer's problem,' " said Andreessen Horowitz partner Bryan Kim. "I'm going to marry this and deliver a solution to what you're trying to achieve."

Wrappers have even changed the way Silicon Valley builds, ushering in the era of vibe-coding. With an app like Cursor, one of the fastest-growing startups ever, anyone can develop an app without a degree or years of coding expertise.

"I love the phrase vibe-coding because, actually, I think it points to ... this new way that we're going to interact with these systems where we're not necessarily going to interrogate all of what they do in process," said E14 Fund Managing Partner Calvin Chin. "Over time as the models improve and these products built on top of them improve, we're going to get other kinds of vibe-activities in the economy. So maybe it's vibe-lawyering, vibe-accounting, and we're going to trust the models more and more."

!summarize #robotaxi #tesla

China smartphone revival
An acceleration in Huawei's consumer business also aided its revenue figures. The consumer business raked in sales of 339 billion yuan, a 38.3% rise and a sharp acceleration from the growth seen last year.

Huawei, once the world's biggest smartphone player, saw its smartphone business in particular crushed by U.S. sanctions that restricted its access to key chips and Google software.

From the end of 2023, however, a semiconductor breakthrough in China allowed Huawei to regroup and release high-end phones that have sold very well domestically.

Margaret Hu, professor of law and director of the Digital Democracy Lab at William & Mary Law School, thinks Americans made the right move. "This development is a disaster for data privacy," said Hu. In her view, the 23andMe bankruptcy should serve as a warning as to why the federal government needs strong data protection laws.

In some states, Hu noted, the government is taking an active role in counseling consumers. The California Attorney General's Office is urging Californians to delete their data and have 23andMe destroy saliva samples. But Hu says that is not enough, and such guidance should be provided to all U.S. citizens.

The potential national security implications of 23andMe's data falling into the wrong hands are not new. In fact, the Pentagon had previously warned military personnel that these DNA kits could pose a risk to national security.

Hu is among the experts concerned these practices could change under 23andMe or any new buyer. "In a time of financial vulnerability, companies such as pharmaceutical companies might see an opportunity to exploit the research benefits of the genetic data," Hu said, adding that they might try to renegotiate prior contracts to extract more data from the company. "Will the next company that buys 23andMe do that?," Hu said of its privacy policies.

In recent days, 23andMe has said it will try to find a buyer who shares its privacy values.

Over the years since 23andMe's founding in 2006, many customers were willing to send in a swab to learn more about their family history. Lansing, Michigan resident Elaine Brockhaus, 70, and her family were excited to learn more about their lineage when they submitted samples of their DNA to 23andMe. But with the company now teetering in bankruptcy and privacy experts concerned about what happens to the millions of people with DNA samples stored, Brockhaus says the whole thing has "caused a bit of a ruckus in my family."

"We enjoyed some aspects of 23&Me," Brockhaus said. "They continually refined and updated our heritage as more people joined, and they were better able to pinpoint genetically related groups," Brockhaus said. She was able to learn more about health risk factors that were present or not present in her past.

"Cybercriminals can use it to target consumers with convincing scams and social engineering tactics, such as fraudulently claiming someone is a blood relative to another person or to send deceptive messages about their potential health risks," Clay said. "Organizations who go bankrupt should ensure the security and privacy of their customer's data is critical, and any sharing or selling of data to others should not be done," he added.

But other experts say the lesson of 23andMe is less about the company's collapse and the threat to privacy that created than serving as a reminder about the everyday cyber hazards related to personal information.

While DEI started as an umbrella acronym to even the playing field, it's become a loaded term.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against Harvard University's affirmative action admission policies – a decision that had implications for how corporations hire. In one of his first acts of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to end the government's DEI programs and put federal officials overseeing those initiatives on leave.

The order directs "all departments and agencies to take strong action to end private sector DEI discrimination, including civil compliance investigations." The administration has targeted nearly 50 companies that it's deemed to be in violation of its anti-DEI rules, Bloomberg reported in February.

As part of that overhaul, Amazon's Candi Castleberry changed her vice president title from "VP of Global Diversity Equity and Inclusion" to "VP of Inclusive Experiences & Technology."

Tech's DEI rollback has accelerated in 2025.

Google, which has cloud-computing contracts with federal agencies, announced in February that it would retire its aspirational hiring targets following Trump's executive orders. Google's commitments for 2025 had included increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups in leadership by 30% and more than doubling the number of Black workers at non-senior levels.

The sensitivity of the term DEI came to the forefront earlier this month at Austin's annual South by Southwest conference. There, Google and Oracle had been slated to participate in a panel, originally titled "Successful Workplaces: Balancing Growth and Well-Being."

"Attendees will leave with actionable insights to align business success with a thriving workplace culture," an early description of the panel noted.

Oracle dropped out from the panel in February. That month, panel organizers informed participating companies that they were considering changing the focus of the conversation to the state of DEI in the workplace.

Google was not informed of the change until late February, the company spokesperson told CNBC, adding that the panel's new topic was outside of the employee's role and experience.

"We had a couple different panelists back out because this conversation, which is so important, has become kind of nuclear at this point, which is wild," said Diana Ransom, Inc. Magazine executive editor and the panel's moderator, at the event.

Gramajo said he doesn't begrudge any of the panelists or companies that pulled out of the panel.

"They are, as we all are, navigating an incredibly complex and uncertain time, where the rules are not clear," he said.

Around the world, plastics find their way into farm fields. Climate change makes agricultural plastic, already a necessity for many crops, even more unavoidable for some farmers. Meanwhile, research continues to show that itty-bitty microplastics alter ecosystems and end up in human bodies. Scientists, farmers and consumers all worry about how that's affecting human health, and many seek solutions. But industry experts say it’s difficult to know where plastic ends up or get rid of it completely, even with the best intentions of reuse and recycling programs.

According to a 2021 report on plastics in agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics. Some studies have estimated that soils are more polluted by microplastics than the oceans.

Farmers hardest hit by climate change are least able to reduce the presence of cheap plastic waste in soils. That frustrates Innocent Piloya, an agroecology entrepreneur who grows coffee in rural Uganda with her company Ribbo Coffee.

"It's like little farmers fighting plastic manufacturers,” she said.

U.S. law defines a machine gun as a weapon that automatically fires more than one shot with a single pull of a trigger. The definition also includes any parts designed to convert a weapon into a machine gun.

Federal law prohibits possessing machine guns made after 1986, with some exceptions for law enforcement, the military and certain licensed dealers. Nearly all conversion devices are illegal because they were made more recently.

People convicted of possessing machine guns and conversion devices can face up to 10 years in prison.

A Glock switch is one type of a machine gun conversion device. It's a metal or plastic piece, about the size of a coin, that attaches to the back of Glock pistol, a brand that is popular with both police and criminals. The switch interferes with a gun's internal trigger components so that it fires continuously when the trigger is pulled back and held.

Five states including Florida, Illinois, Texas, Montana and North Dakota accounted for nearly half that total.

Alabama is the latest state to outlaw Glock switches. A law signed this month by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey makes possessing parts designed to convert pistols into machine guns a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The bipartisan push in Alabama came after police said they believed conversion devices had been used in fatal shootings, including one in September that killed four and injured 17 people outside a Birmingham lounge.

Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a law in February making possession of a weapon conversion device a felony punishable by up to three years in prison.

“That really puts the pressure where it belongs — on the manufactures that are making money off of guns that they know can be readily turned into machine guns,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety.

Several cities and states including Baltimore, Chicago, Minnesota and New Jersey have sued Glock for making pistols that can be converted by others to automatic weapons.

The National Rifle Association notes U.S. attorneys already can prosecute people for misusing gun conversion devices without the need for state laws.

Gun Owners of America, another gun-rights group, contends people should have a Second Amendment right to own machine guns. State laws against machine gun conversation devices are “duplicative” and “pure virtue signaling,” said Aidan Johnston, federal affairs director for Gun Owners of America.

"There was an impression that the only way to compete in AI would be to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to pre-train these web-scale models that could solve every problem underneath the sun, and that was the only game in town for AI," said Shiv Rao, founder and CEO of the healthcare AI startup Abridge. "Very quickly, people figured out that actually, value moves up the stack."

Megacaps like Microsoft poured billions into the first stage of the AI arms race, focusing on the infrastructure and model layer. But models are now increasingly looking commoditized, narrowing the advantage that any model-builder had. While they focused on delivering raw capability and intelligence, app companies looked at real-world uses and solutions.

"In 2024, the entire team at Huawei banded together to tackle a wide range of external challenges, while further improving product quality, operations quality, and operational efficiency," Huawei's rotating chairwoman Meng Wanzhou said in the company's annual report.

Huawei spent 179.7 billion yuan on research and development, equating to 20.8% of its revenue. That's higher than 2023's 164.7 billion R&D figure. Huawei has been diversifying its business in areas including data centers for AI, cloud computing and automotive technology.

"Over the next three years, despite an economic downturn, we will increase investment in strategic depth, particularly in building foundational technologies, and seek growth opportunities through differentiation," Meng said.

Essa flexibilidade é ideal para aqueles que não precisam de uma conexão constante, mas desejam ter a opção disponível quando necessário. Isso torna o plano especialmente vantajoso para quem vive em áreas remotas ou viaja com frequência.

• Planos tradicionais da Starlink variam de US$ 50 a US$ 165 por mês, o que pode ser um investimento significativo para usuários que não utilizam a internet regularmente.

• O novo plano se destaca por seu custo reduzido, mantendo a qualidade do serviço.
  A assinatura pode ser mantida ativa sem a necessidade de uso contínuo, garantindo que a conexão esteja disponível sempre que necessário.

• A possibilidade de pagar apenas pelo uso efetivo é uma vantagem significativa, tornando o plano atraente para diversos perfis de consumidores.

O custo do Starlink Standard Kit permanece em US$ 349, mas o Starlink Mini Kit teve seu preço reduzido, tornando-se uma opção mais acessível para novos usuários. Para aqueles que já possuem o equipamento da Starlink, a transição para o novo plano pode ser feita sem custos adicionais, mantendo a confiabilidade da conexão.

Para usuários que necessitam de internet de forma ocasional, seja para viagens, trabalho remoto ou como uma solução de backup, o novo plano da Starlink é uma excelente opção. A flexibilidade de pagamento e a ausência de contratos de longo prazo tornam essa oferta ainda mais atraente.

Para quem já utiliza os serviços da Starlink, essa modalidade pode reduzir significativamente os custos mensais sem comprometer a qualidade da conexão. Assim, é possível aproveitar os benefícios da internet via satélite sem incorrer em despesas elevadas.

O Chinese Institute for Brain Research (CIBR) e a NeuCyber NeuroTech, sediados em Pequim, inseriram o Beinao No.1, um chip cerebral sem fio semi-invasivo, em três pacientes no mês passado e têm mais 10 pacientes programados para este ano, disse Luo Minmin, diretor do CIBR e cientista-chefe da NeuCyber.

"No próximo ano, depois de obtermos a aprovação regulatória, faremos testes clínicos formais que incluirão cerca de 50 pacientes", disse Luo aos repórteres, à margem do Fórum Zhongguancun, voltado para a tecnologia, em Pequim. Ele não entrou em detalhes sobre o financiamento ou a duração dos testes.

A aceleração dos testes em humanos pela CIBR e pela NeuCyber pode fazer do Beinao No.1 o chip cerebral com o maior número de pacientes do mundo, destacando a determinação da China em alcançar os principais desenvolvedores estrangeiros do setor.

A empresa norte-americana Synchron, cujos investidores incluem os bilionários Jeff Bezos e Bill Gates, é atualmente a líder global em termos de testes em humanos, com 10 pacientes, seis nos Estados Unidos e quatro na Austrália. A Neuralink, de Musk, tem atualmente três pessoas com seu implante.